- August 1899 -
The sun returned for Ariana's funeral. Albus hadn't slept and watched it rise over the low hill in the east, up from the pits Hell. Magma dripped from it and rained down on him as he walked along the dirt road towards the chapel. His black suit jacket trapped the heat and he roasted. His shoes melted into the ground and each step was heavier and slower. He fell further and further behind Aberforth and Mrs. Bagshot. The dust kicked up by their steps hung in the stagnant air and he walked through the grey cloud. It swirled around his ankles and wrists like shackles – arrested for his crime. It coated his throat and lungs. He couldn't breathe – sentenced to death by drowning in the North Sea. He coughed.
Aberforth stopped and turned. He scowled at Albus. How dare he make noise? How dare he try to breath? How dare he not suffocate in silence? How dare he fight the shackles and not allow them to hold him in the middle of the road until his corps was baked dry and brittle? How dare he lay his sister to rest in peace when he was the one who violently took her life?
The vicar had recruited a muggle from the village to help carry the coffin. It was lighter than his mother's but dug deeper into Albus' shoulder. Maybe he hadn't positioned it correctly. Ariana's grave was dug next to their mother's. The wooden chairs were lined up in the same place as they had been in June. Mrs. Bagshot sat alone. In June she had clutched Ariana's hand tightly. Now, she clutched her handbag.
The vicar read from the bible and then asked if anyone would like to speak.
Albus stood, Ariana's grass crown in his hand. He stepped forward but before he could speak Aberforth snatched the crown from his hand. The grass blades unraveled. "You broke it," Aberforth said.
Aberforth placed the broken crown at the head of the coffin. It splayed open. He rested his hand on the light-coloured pine. No one spoke. The leaves rustled in the canopy overhead. Their shadows warped the wood grain and shook Aberforth's shoulders. His hand curled into a fist against the wood. He bowed his head.
Albus placed a hand on Aberforth's shoulder to steady him, to comfort him. Aberforth whipped around. His cheeks were wet. Tears blurred his eyes. "You did this." His voice was quiet so only Albus could hear.
"No, I didn't. I don't know happened. It was chaos. I would never hurt her. I couldn't have. You know this."
"I don't. You killed her."
"Ab. Stop."
Aberforth blinked the tears away and the hate and fear beamed red from his eyes. "You and everyone else think you're so smart but you're not. You were too stupid to see what he was doing. You let him in our house. You resented her and he saw that immediately." Aberforth's voice grew louder as he spoke. The magma that had boiled inside him had been unleashed and spewed unhindered at Albus, to burn and mar his flesh, to tear it from his body, to leave him to stumble forwards from this point nothing but a skeleton whose bones were black and charred. "You spent all summer plotting perverted ideas, with him, to be rid of her. Where's your boyfriend now? Where is she?"
"Stop!" Albus put his hands on Aberforth's cheeks. He thumbed at the tears. He squeezed – a warning. They would hear, Mrs Bagshot, the Vicar, the muggle who helped them carry the coffin.
Aberforth scowled. "You going to kill me next?"
"Boys!" Mrs. Bagshot said.
The Vicar stared at them, eyes wide. His bible slipped from his hands and it bounced on the loose dirt piled next to Ariana's grave. Aberforth wretched back out of Albus' grip. He swung and his fist cracked against Albus' nose.
- March 1945 -
Snow crushed against his nose and twisted the tip to his cheek. His flesh was numb. His bones ached, his ankles, shins, ribs, shoulders. They teetered on the point of snapping. The pressure was not unlike apparation where a person's body was propelled though billions upon billions of air molecules in a single second. There was only one place Albus wanted to go. He wiggled his wrist against the pact snow until he could twist it. Then he twisted it until he could free his wand.
"Acsendio."
His wand pulled him from the bottom of the avalanche. The snow parted, followed by the sky, and he flew up and up. Dark spots pierced the white out and the murder of dementors swarmed. They swooped and circled their prey. A black mouth gaped in front of him. He slowed. The grey clouds fell into neat rows of tome stones. The tattered black cloaks that flew past him, now Aberforth's suit, Mrs Bagshot's dress, the Vicar's robes. The gaping mouth gasped a hollow breath and the black hood pulled back to reveal Ariana, her skin yellow and grey, her eyes white. She screamed for him. He could hear her but her blue lips were still. "Ariana," he yelled back, frantic. His stomach clenched. His throat closed. "No. No." Her neck snapped violently. Albus recoiled and fell. Her grass crown slipped from her head and fell after him. He reached for it but the blades fluttered apart and disintegrated.
Albus slammed into the ground. Ariana gave chase. She descended on him. He screwed his eyes shut. When he opened them, she had retreated into the black hood. The dementor hovered above him. Laughter brewed sinisterly behind it.
"Are you going to kill me, Albus? You killed her. I should be easy."
The dementor ascended back into the swarm. Grindelwald stood before Albus, at the center of the murder.
"Should. But perhaps not? Remember our little secret? Remember the night at the creek? The afternoon in your bedroom. They way you trembled against me. Maybe she's not the only one with a piece of your heart? Maybe that's why you sacrificed her that day?"
Albus did not speak but he met Grindelwald's stare.
"Maybe that's all in the past? It's no matter though because I have the wand, Albus. You should have stayed in your classroom. You can't defeat me."
Maybe Albus couldn't defeat Grindelwald but he was the only one that stood a chance. He had to. Grindelwald had manipulated half of Europe. Albus knew too well of the death and destruction to come. It would haunt the continent for generations.
Albus cast his Patronus and the silver phoenix burst forth, through Grindelwald, and then gave chase to the dementors. Grindelwald stumbled back and Albus stood to meet him. He cast the first spell but Grindelwald was quick to respond. Coloured light glowed off the white snow crystals, red and gold. They were bathed in it. Skeletal arms broke through the snow around their feet. The infiri horde began to claw out of the avalanche. There was no escape. There was no help.
There was nothing in his way.
In the end, it was simple. Focus, stamina, a well-timed flick of the wrist. "Expelliarmus."
The Elder Wand proved itself fickle. It sprung from Grindelwald's grip and spun across the snow scape. Albus let the wand fall at his feet. It sizzled in the snow. He used his own wand to bind Grindelwald's hands and feet. His right hand was still curled in a grip around the void of betrayal. He fell to his knees and looked up at Albus. "I was right to like you, Albus Dumbledore. We could have changed the world. We still can."
"No. We can't," Albus said.
"Are you going to kill me, Albus?"
"No. I'm going to lock you in your own prison."
Grindelwald laughed, hoarse and joyless as the coloured light faded from the mountain.
- August 1899 –
The pain seared behind Albus' eyes. Stars throbbed in his vision. He stumbled back and a trail of blood followed. Hot and red, it flowed from his nose, over his lips and chin, and down his white shirt like a tie.
Mrs. Bagshot gasped. "Aberforth."
Aberforth didn't look at her. His glare didn't turn away from Albus. Albus was no longer welcome here, at their sister's funeral, in their home, in Godric's Hollow.
Albus turned and walked through the little white gate, out of the cemetery, out from the shaded tree canopy and into the relentless rays of the sun. The rays dried the long streak of blood on his shirt, stained it into the fibers. The flow from his nose stopped, as if the wound cauterized, and its new crooked form was baked onto his face like pottery in a kiln.
He walked to the monument and stepped close enough that the plague cross turned into the witch burning stake. He took out his wand and lit it. Flames climbed the faggots and engulfed the statue. It was stone. It shouldn't burn. But it did. The heat and light from the fire reached up to meet the sun and scorched the blue sky with Gellert and Ariana, lost to the vast, endless, emptiness. The pain, bright and vibrant.
Albus walked backed down the dusty road. He paused outside the Potter house. Laughter floated out the front window, a boy's and his father's. The front window of the Dumbledore house was silent. He blasted off the top of the front gate post and the Deathly Hallows symbol that was carved into it. He walked to the creek and then over the bridge and out of Godric's Hollow.
- March 1945 -
Grindelwald's storm clouds dispersed to reveal an icy sky awash with the past forty-six years. Cold could burn as severe as heat, blacken skin, devour limbs. The snow reflected the sky back at Albus from all angles. He was scorched in blue.
People rushed past him. Aurors. They surrounded Grindelwald and read him into custody. Albus picked the Elder Wand out of the snow and slipped it into his pocket. He turned and walked down the mountain. He passed Aurors that stood over various men in their capture. Eyes turned to him as he walked. Someone called his name. Albus did not respond. The snow melted to dirt and rock. The remnants of the scorched forest grew up around him. Grey ash floated off the black, scraggly tree trucks as if it were autumn leaves or spring cherry blossoms – death or re-birth? Or both? He was alone.
A water droplet ran down his forehead and between his eyes as the snow in his hair melted. The drop stopped when it reached the jagged crook halfway down the bridge of his nose and redirected down his left cheek and into his beard.
Albus stopped and gripped his wand in both hands. He twisted his wrists and the wood flexed.
This was the wand that had chosen him in Diagon Alley. This was the wand that he studied with and graduated with and was going to build a future with. This was the wand that made him a great wizard. This was the wand that bound the man he once loved in chains. This was the wand that killed his little sister.
Albus screamed until tears poured from his eyes. He broke the wand in two and hurled the splintered halves into the forest.
Aurors stood guard at the old muggle check point at the base of the mountain. They lifted the yellow arm as he approached. Albus walked through the check point and through the town, his hand curled around the Elder Wand.