- June 1899 -
When the green flame subsided Albus stepped out of a short fireplace into a dimly lit hallway. An identical fireplace stood opposite him and another at the end of hall to his left. To his right, the hallway opened into a lobby, dotted with seating around a reception desk in the middle. Behind the reception desk, a wide staircase led up to the second floor. An ornate fireplace stood across the lobby from him. The bright orange flames that lapped at its mahogany surround were almost as tall as he was. Their roar was unruly, like a wild beast trapped in a cage, snapping its carnivorous teeth with each sharp pop at the patrons and staff walking in and out of the swinging double doors on either side of the mantle.
A woosh swept from behind him and the walls of the small hallway glowed green. Two women walked past him, one slumped and clutching the other's arm for support. They walked towards the reception desk. Albus followed.
"Albus!" Mrs. Bagshot snapped her book close around a quill and page of notes and shoved it into her bag. She stood and ushered him over. Aberforth stayed seated on the chair beside her, his head down, his arms wrapped around his chest. He looked small and young and like he needed a hug. "Oh Albus. I'm sorry. This is so terrible."
Albus nodded.
"Here, get in line here. They took Ariana back as soon as we arrived and wouldn't let us go with her or tell us anything because I'm not family and Aberforth isn't of age. I tried to explain but it didn't help."
Albus let Mrs. Bagshot mutter away. That was usually best. She was an unusual woman, young, in her late thirties maybe, but she acted much older and wiser. She had been motherly to his own mother. When they first moved to Godric's Hollow, his mother had tried to shut everyone out and cocoon the family within the house. Albus was surprised she let him and Aberforth go to school. Mrs. Bagshot had been persistent, baked goods, hand knit scarfs, and invitations to tea. She even reached out to him, wrote to him, praising an article he published in Transfiguration Today. "We need each other," he overheard her telling his mother once. "We all do. Isolation breads destruction. We need community."
"Oh wait, here's the nurse." Mrs. Bagshot pushed past him and rushed across the waiting room to a nurse who had just come through the door on the right the fireplace and appeared to be trying to go back through the door on the left. Mrs. Bagshot redirected her to Albus with practised ease. "This is Albus, Ariana's brother. Albus is seventeen and just finished his final year at Hogwarts. He is her only living relative of age. Would you mind fetching the healer. We would like to know how she is doing."
The implication of her words was clear. He was of age. He was finished school. There was no one else. He would become legal guardian of his siblings. Aberforth was one thing. He would be away at school most of the year and after three years he'd be finished and out on his own. Ariana was different. Ariana might require care until the day she died.
They did not have to wait long for the healer. "It's hard to say at this point. Ariana's brain appears to be suffering from the affects of magic in the blast. This is causing her own magic to burst from her uncontrollably. We don't know the permanency of the situation. It's very case, by case dependant. We haven't stabilized her yet so I'm afraid only one of you may come back and see her."
Albus nodded. Mrs. Bagshot patted him on the back before he followed the healer around the reception desk, past the grand fireplace and its biting flames, and up the stairs.
The children's ward was busy, busier than the lobby downstairs. There were only ten beds but there must have been thirty people in the ward – nurses, parents, siblings. They walked quickly through the crowd to the curtain that was drawn across the end of the ward. There were two addition beds behind the curtain. One was empty. Ariana lay in the other. She looked thin and pale. Her eyes were closed, and her breathing was deep and even, but her body looked too stiff to simply be sleeping. A pearlescent film surrounded her, suspended several feet out from her body. A translucent silver fox glowed from where it was curled at her feet.
The healer pulled the curtain closed behind them and suddenly it was quiet. "Dampening charm," she said. "We find patients with these maladies tend to cope better when it's quiet." She pointed to what looked like a brass gramophone on the bedside table. "And that ensures we can still hear her if she needs us."
"Is that a shield charm?" said Albus.
"Yes."
"Is it necessary?"
"Yes. Look." The healer pointed to a bright white flash that shot like lightening from Ariana's body. Upon hitting the shield, the pearlescent film pulsed and vibrated. The flash of light fractured on the surface into dozens of branches that radiated out from the point of contact until the light dissipated. Another white flash shot from her body. And another. "That's uncontrolled magic. It can cause great destruction. It can kill."
The insinuation was clear. Albus ignored it.
"Anyways, it's gone down significantly since she's been here which is a good sign. The Patronus is mine. They help calm the patients. A Patronus she is more familiar with might work better."
Albus took his wand out of his back pocket and quietly uttered the incantation, whirled his wand in a counter clockwise circle, rewinding time to a day long ago when Ariana was just a toddler and his parents were alive and the five of them raced around the back garden, howling with laughter, in a futile attempt to rid it of gnomes.
The small silver orb at the tip of his wand grew into a phoenix which took flight around the sectioned off corner of the ward before gliding through the shield and settling on Ariana's shoulder. It nuzzled her hollow cheek with its beak and then took a tall, watchful guard.
The fox stirred at this, twitched its ear, and bounded from the bed. It disappeared before its paws hit the floor.
"Why don't you go speak with your family. Get something to eat. She'll be fine."
Albus nodded and walked back down to the lobby. Mrs. Bagshot led them to the cafeteria on the fifth floor and loaded their trays with too much food. Albus updated them on Ariana's condition and then pushed his fork aimlessly around his plate while Mrs. Bagshot chattered away. He didn't listen but he didn't mind either. It was better than silence. Outside the window, the sun, dimmed and obscured by smog, dropped lower and lower. A black sheet crept overhead and washed downwards across the gritty grey sky, chasing the sun until it disappeared behind the city skyline.
"Well I think it may be best to get you boys home," Mrs. Bagshot said after they had finished. No one had eaten much but they weren't going to.
Albus snaped his head away from the window. "What?"
"You can check on Ariana again if you like and we'll come back tomorrow but you boys have had a long day."
"I'm staying."
"You don't need to, dear. She's in good hands."
"I know but I'm staying."
She smiled, lips tight, brows furrowed, sad and resigned. "Ok."
Mrs. Bagshot hugged him before she and Aberforth took the floo network back to Grodric's Hollow. He should have hugged his brother. He hoped Mrs. Bagshot would allow Aberforth the spend the night in her guest room instead of returning alone to the empty Dumbledore house.
Most of the other visitors were gone when Albus returned to the children's ward and the patients had taken to their beds. He slipped through the curtain in the back. Ariana laid in the same position as if he had never left. He pulled a rickety wooden chair to her bedside and it creaked when he sat.
"Hi Ari," he whispered. "I'm home now. I'm here. Ab will come see you tomorrow. Hopefully we can go home then. I'll get you out of here as soon as I can. And guess what? I'm not leaving again. We'll get to spend the whole summer together."
Outside the small window beside her bed the sun had set and the night sky offered no relief. No moon. No stars. Nothing could break through the thick layer of smog overhead. A lamplighter rounded the street corner. He wore a top hat and carried ladder under one arm and a long pole in the other hand. He stopped at the first lamppost, hooked his pole into a ring near the top, pulled, and a warm orange glow flooded the small section of street below. He walked to the next post and then the next. Albus counted the lamplighter's paces between each post. It was always fifteen. The rhythm hypnotized and he watched the street light up, one small section at a time. Man-made stars and their maker guiding the city through the night.
Albus stayed in the chair beside Ariana until his head started to nod and then he moved to the second bed in the sectioned off corner. His feet hung off the end but he was too tired to care.
"Mum? Mum?"
Albus startled awake. It was still dark. Ariana had sat up. Her wide eyes darted frantically around the room. Albus jumped out of bed and rushed to her. "Ariana, it's me. It's ok."
Her eyes fixed on him and blinked. "Albus?"
"Yes. Yes. It's me. I'm here. You're alright. Everything's alright."
Her body shook. Albus took out his wand and removed the shield charm. He climbed in bed next to her and hugged her close. Her skin was cold. She fell asleep again and he followed soon after.
The healer woke them the next morning to check on Ariana. "That was dangerous to remove the shield," she said to Albus when they stepped to the other side of the curtain to speak.
"It was dangerous to leave her alone in a dark, unfamiliar place. She was scared."
"Well she's certainly improved. Now that she's stabilized, we can move her to a psychiatric care ward. A colleague has recommended long term care. He's seen this before."
Albus shook his head. "No. I'm taking her home."
"Mr. Dumbledore, I highly recommend against such actions. This could happen again. Around anyone. She poses a risk to others."
"She's fourteen. Being at home with family and familiar things is the best way to keep her content. Can you fetch the release paperwork?"
The healer left and Albus returned to Ariana. She was looking out the window. The lamplighter was back. He walked the same route only this time he put the lights out. Albus sat with her on the bed and braided her tangled hair. He began near her forehead and weaved each unruly piece together until it flowed over her shoulder in a neat and orderly fashion.
"Well don't you look pretty," Mrs. Bagshot said when she and Aberforth arrived. They brought fresh sticky buns and coffee from the cafeteria.
Ariana smiled and took an enormous bite. She finished her breakfast before Albus had even started his. Her magical outburst must have drained her of energy.
A new healer poked his head through the curtain. "Mr. Dumbledore, can I have a word?"
Albus sighed. He stepped around the curtain ready to fight to bring Ariana home.
"I'm a diener down in the morgue. I wish to express my condolences for your loss. Your mother's body has been prepared and is ready for collection. We can hold her for another day if you wish."
Albus blinked and reran the words through his head. He had forgotten, not that his mother was dead, but about everything else that came with death, the coffin, the burial plot, the funeral, the eulogy. The body. He looked away and pressed his wrists into his eye sockets.
Mrs. Bagshot pulled back the curtain. "What do you need, dear?"
"I have to claim the body."
"Right. I'll send an owl to the vicar. I'm sure he already knows."
"We have a floo network," the diener said. "If the chapel is connected, we can send her directly."
"Send who?" Ariana asked.
Albus turned. The curtain had been left open which broke the muffle charm. Ariana had heard but worse, she did not know. Everyone silent. Aberforth had closed his eyes and hung his head in his hands.
"Send who? Whose body?"
Albus stepped back to his sister, his stomach sinking further, down to the depths of the morgue. "Ari, it's Mum. Mum died."