A/N: Phew! Well, I'm sorry for the wait, folks; I was in Menorca, and the computer wouldn't fit in my suitcase, LOL. However, I DID take a notebook with me and filled it up with more chapters. It's all mainly a transcription job at the mo. See notes at the end for what's coming.
Dark Angel's Blue Fire - Yes, the ending of book 6... I was very traumatised, I assure you. I had to go paintballing straight after finishing it and my friends ended up thinking I was ill, I was so depressed. And yes, because of the reasons we both know, I shall make a solid effort to continue. Thanks for reviewing, I'm glad you like it.
Gypz - Thanks! As for the future, I'm not sure, I haven't looked forward that far. Thanks again!
Greenfly - Thank you! Although this is less than immediately.
Lirulin - Thanks and yes - I think that after book 6, everyone needs counselling.
TicTacTurtle - Thanks for your continued reviews! But I shalleth doeth as you sayeth!
Opal Grimstone - Wow! Thanks! I say we light a candle for him.
Here we go!
The letter arrived on Albus's eleventh birthday. When he finally grasped it in white-knuckled hands, the burst of excitement that had appeared with it faded away into the heavy thudding of his heart. What little celebration his birthday had been marked with was on hold, as the significance of being eleven paled beside this letter, this message from a world that had so far - to Albus - seemed entirely imaginary.
Alone, in more ways than one, he read it through again. The words were already engraved on his mind and, as he read, his fingers tightened on the paper as though someone was about to snatch all opportunity away.
HOGWARTS SCHOOL OF WITCHCRAFT AND WIZARDRY
Headmaster: Cassius Lestrange
(Order of Merlin, Second Class, Chf. Warlock)
Dear Mr Dumbledore,
We are delighted to inform you that you have been accepted for a place at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. A list of books and equipment is enclosed.
Term begins on 2 September. Please inform us if you are unable to attend.
Yours sincerely,
Eilis McKinnon
Deputy Headmistress
Hogwarts… He was going to Hogwarts… That meant that he couldn't possibly be a Squib…
Somehow that thought failed to crush the fear sitting like a spider in his gullet.
For the past three years, Albus had remained as devoid of magic as ever. When he was eight, Mother had talked encouragingly of Hogwarts, her days spent there, her teachers, her lessons, how good a school it was meant to be, how wonderful a headmaster she'd heard Professor Lestrange was and so on and so forth… Yet, as the years passed, she'd mentioned it less and less, until there was no whisper of it at all, no word of what was absent, although the truth of it hung over the family like a silent guillotine.
Albus hated the way everyone tiptoed around the issue. Mother took a lot of care not to speak about it and whenever Father made to say anything about Hogwarts or Albus's magic, she'd hush him and glance pointedly at her son. Nurse, who followed Aberforth around like a very large, plump dog, eyed Albus strangely on occasions and he'd overheard her talking to the butler about that "odd Squib boy." The only person who was careless of this unspoken law was Aberforth, who had already displayed signs of magic despite his tender age and would often tactlessly ask about whether Albus was ever going to do any - and whenever he was bored, which was often, he would taunt his older brother about it. Although these insults were primitive at best due to Aberforth's lack of sufficient vocabulary, the inescapable truth of them made Albus go out of his way to avoid his brother. He was not the only one Albus avoided; Father's sideways glances and the slight frown that appeared on his face whenever he looked at his first-born son were unbearable.
If asked about her eldest child, Maria Dumbledore would have probably expressed a good deal of worry. She would have said that Albus was a reclusive, withdrawn boy who never went to any parties or engaged in any social activities at all.
Over time, Ulfin had relented and allowed him back to the park after extracting many promises from Albus that he would not mix with any mudbloods. However, Albus rarely went and when he did, he found no joy in it - he never saw Samuel Lupin there and, being naturally rather shy, would not approach others by himself and those other boys he met always ended up thinking he was rather odd and reserved. As for his cousins and those he had met at the Walpurgis gathering, Albus had never displayed any interest in them and when Maria had suggested that Septimus Malfoy attend his ninth birthday celebration, he had been so adamant that Septimus was not to come that she'd never suggested it again.
Maria would say all this and more - yet as she was not aware of the continued existence of Albus's invisible friends - due to the fact that Albus, anticipating the reaction, had wisely not informed her - Albus was not quite as lonely as she perceived.
As Albus stood, immobile, clutching his letter, Lightning arrived at his left shoulder, simply appearing without a sound. Lightning's thin, sharp face was softened in a grin and his emerald eyes sparkled, but there was an air of deep unhappiness about him that always seemed to bubble beneath the surface. Albus had begun to sense this over time and the pair had sought, in an agreement which transcended words, to keep this hidden misery at bay with play and laughter.
"Happy Birthday!" cried Lightning, seemingly more delighted by the event than Albus was himself. "What presents did you get? Sorry I didn't come earlier but Thom was being a prat so-" He stopped, noticing Albus's silence.
"My letter came," said Albus hoarsely in explanation.
There was a pause in which Albus knew Lightning was realising all the implications of this. This knowledge weighed him down even more and eventually his darkest thoughts were forced into words.
"I cannot go. What use is there of me going if a wand is just a stick of wood to me? What good is there of me learning spells when I won't ever be able to use them? I may as well have been born a Muggle!"
Lightning, who had always been oddly silent on the subject of magic, was biting his lip. Albus felt sorry for him - his friend clearly didn't know what to say. He was about to tell him not to bother when Lightning suddenly spoke.
"Show your parents. I mean, can't the letter be proof that you can go?"
Albus blinked but shook his head. "No," he sighed. "It's just more reason for Father to detest me," he muttered, more to himself than to Lightning. "This letter is a bitter reminder of everything I have failed in."
"What letter?"
Fawkes had flown in, to see his charge frozen, not by a spell, but by a piece of parchment. Albus did not answer so Fawkes flew over to perch on the windowsill, at a distance so that he could see what the letter was.
"Isn't that good news?" he asked, once he had read it.
"Fawkes!" Albus exclaimed hopelessly. "I think you really should fly away and find someone else to stay with. How can I go to Hogwarts when I'm about as magical as a pair of socks?"
"That old problem again, is it?" Fawkes said in an irritated voice. "You either are a Squib or you aren't and getting all worked up about it won't make any difference."
"No, I don't suppose it will," agreed Albus sadly, thinking that Fawkes must have got fed up with the whole idea over the years.
"What's so great about this Hogwarts anyway? Sounds a real swizz to me."
"Hogwarts is the best and only magical school in Britain," said Albus quietly, wondering what 'swizz' meant.
"'The best and only?'" repeated the phoenix. "You've just contradicted yourself. How can it be the best when there's nothing to compare it to?"
"I meant that it was the best magical school anywhere… I wouldn't want to go to Durmstrang."
"Does Durmstrang accept Squibs then?"
Albus hunched his shoulders at that.
"I don't think so," he replied in a small voice.
"Can't Squibs be caretakers in such schools?"
Albus had a sudden mental vision of himself creeping around a network of stone corridors with a cat at his heels, moaning about cobwebs and getting upset over things like mud. It was a sombre image.
"If I'm a Squib, you should fly away."
Fawkes drew himself up. "'Should?' 'Should?' Don't tell me what I should and should not do, Albus! I will do whatever I want!"
Albus, however, caught the subtle message behind the empty words, and smiled at the phoenix in gratitude. It was a gesture that he felt he didn't deserve.
It was halfway through the month of August and still Albus had not displayed any magic. The fear of disappointment was now so thick upon him that the days went by in a blur of nervousness and prolonged worry. He found his eyes passing beyond the text of his books and focussing on some awful point in the future, when Father would finally have to write a letter to the headmaster saying that he could not go. Mother talked about going to Diagon Alley only to be hushed by Father, who said something about not counting dragons before they've hatched. The whole atmosphere of the house was one of urgency and tension.
So it was, one day, that Albus climbed the highest tree in the Dumbledore estate, with intention of leaping off to kick-start his magic. He looked down from a truly dizzying height made all the worse by the angry wind to see Mother sobbing with horror, Aberforth wondering aloud whether Albus had gone mad and thought he was a bird and Father's face, white and furious, as he yelled loudly, "don't be a fool!"
Sadly, as Fawkes noted many times later on, Albus was a fool and, despite nearly being sick with fear, did the deed. The only thing that stopped Albus from finding an early grave was Fawkes, who caught the boy a mere few seconds before he would have become a splodge on the ground. Once Mother had stopped hugging him, Father had shouted himself hoarse and beaten him soundly for 'worrying his mother' and Albus had given up on the idea of forcing any magic out.
Three days after that disaster and a mere three weeks before Albus was due to go to Hogwarts, Aberforth came under the amused gaze of destiny. Professor Wood, in a desperate attempt to garner enough interest from Aberforth to actually teach him something, had been granted permission from Ulfin to take him to a local farm. Aberforth enjoyed the trip immensely and returned from the outing babbling on about some 'wonderful' animal - which turned out to be a goat.
"Father!" he cried, jumping up and down. Albus watched with a carefully neutral face. "I want one! I want a goat!"
"Aberforth, my son," said Ulfin, fondly but firmly, using that smile that was especially reserved for Abe forth - one that was never wasted on Albus. "You may have a Crup when you're older but not a goat. What in Merlin's name would you do with one?"
"But Father!" whined Aberforth, who was thin like Albus but had shorter, straighter and slightly more cooperative hair. "I like goats the best!"
Albus watched as Aberforth's dismay grew and grew. A smug feeling of satisfaction swept through him at the angry, upset expression on Aberforth's face and he felt the corners of his mouth twitch. Disturbed, he looked away, trying to crush the feeling unsuccessfully. He caught his reflection in the mirror in the hallway and saw the shadow of a smirk on his face. The image was so unpleasant that he felt quite ashamed and the urge to grin faded.
Having never been refused anything by Father at all, Aberforth grew more and more frustrated until it finally culminated in one of Aberforth's Special Tantrums. Anybody unlucky enough to be in the area at the time would witness a sight that was as spectacular as it was shocking. Albus always regarded his brother's tantrums with some fascination.
First, Aberforth's eyes would darken. His small lips would put. A flush would grow in his cheeks and anybody who knew the danger signs would attempt to flee. Then the boy would stand rigid, limbs shaking slightly, putting one in the mind of a horse about to bolt. Aberforth would draw the anticipation of the horror out until the subject of it was transfixed. This happened now and Albus saw one of his brother's lower eyelids twitch.
Then it happened. Aberforth released his pent up rage in a cry of fury and a surge of magic that smashed all the nearby windows. Then he flung himself down on the floor with some force and started screaming in earnest whilst beating the wood beneath him with small fists. Not being at home with words, Aberforth's last resort was always to scream until he made himself sick if necessary. Albus's little brother had made throwing a tantrum an art-form.
"Now really, stop this nonsense!" snapped Ulfin.
Aberforth paused in his screaming and regarded his father with dark, fierce eyes. "It's not nonsense!" he protested and then continued in his screaming. (1)
Ulfin cast a Silencing Charm and the surrounding portraits sagged in relief against their frames. Aberforth got up and stamped off, mouthing the word 'Squib' at Albus as he passed.
It was only when Aberforth failed to come to dinner and Nurse admitted that she had not seen him since the morning before Professor Wood took him away that anybody noticed something was amiss. Albus was sent to look for his brother in the garden but he wasn't there and he wasn't anywhere in the house - and that was when Maria and Ulfin began to be extremely worried.
"Don't fret, Mother, he's probably just-" Albus began hopelessly, patting Mother on the shoulder as she sat, pale, shaking and tearful, as another lost child played with Gobstones in her mind, in the drawing room whilst Father Flooed the Aurors. "Just - he'll probably be-"
He failed to come up with an explanation as to where Aberforth was and Mother dissolved into sobs of anticipated grief as Father stormed into the room with such a look of anxiety that Albus didn't recognise him for a moment. Lines that Albus had not noticed before had deepened in his father's face and his mouth seemed to have disappeared.
"I'm going around town by carriage to look for him," he said shortly. "Albus, go to the park and search for him there."
With the sight of the invulnerable made vulnerable, Albus's heart began to race too. Suddenly, he found that he very much wanted to see Aberforth having a tantrum again. He dashed outside without a travelling cloak.
Just as Albus left the manor, Fawkes flew up to him, looking irritated and worn out.
"Why's everyone rushing about like headless chickens? And what in Merlin's name is your blasted brother doing on his own, petting a goat of all things?"
"WHAT!" screeched Albus. "The little idiot-"
He changed direction and sprinted out into the countryside, towards the farm he knew Aberforth had visited earlier. He leapt over a style and promptly slipped in a puddle of mud. Muttering words he'd only ever seen in books, Albus got up to see Abe forth - as Fawkes had said - petting a small black goat.
"Aberforth!" yelled Albus angrily.
Aberforth jumped and then pouted and glared at his brother, folding his small arms. "I'm not going back," he said stubbornly. "It's not fair! You have a phoenix but I can't have a goat!"
"Aberforth, you fool," snapped Albus, feeling even more resentful of his brother than ever. "You couldn't keep a goat in the house! Mother's been worried sick!"
"I don't care!"
Albus made a grab for his brother but he darted away. He jumped forward and snatched at his arm but again Aberforth danced away, poking his tongue out.
Anger rose up within Albus and suddenly, Aberforth symbolised everything that was troubling him. Father liked Aberforth, Aberforth had magic, Aberforth would go to Hogwarts whilst Albus went to live like a Muggle… Then, without any warning whatsoever, a circle of fire suddenly sprang up around Aberforth, so that he screamed and stood shaking in the middle.
The flames roared and the smell of burning grass met Albus's nostrils. Stunned, he gazed at the glow of his own wizardry uncomprehendingly. Then he realised and let out a laugh of pure delight.
"Don't laugh!" shrieked Aberforth, terrified. "Get me out of here!"
"Fawkes, could you please-?" Albus tried and failed to suppress a grin.
Fawkes swooped down and lifted the boy from the centre of the flames, which then died down to glowing embers as if they had never been so fierce. The phoenix then turned to Albus and told to stop smiling in that "frankly maniacal and hysterical manner."
So it was that Aberforth returned to the parental bosom wailing about goats, how nasty a boy Albus was and moaning about those "horrid flames." Albus returned beaming and after the fuss over Aberforth had died down like the flames, Mother was as delighted as he was - and when Albus looked over at Father he thought he saw him smile.
(1) - Sorry, a bit of self-insertion here. Let's just say I told my nan the same thing when I was little. Don't worry, I won't do it again.
A/N: WARNING TO ALL READERS. THIS STORY MAY INCLUDE SPOILERS FROM THIS POINT ONWARDS, IN CHARACTER ANCESTRY, ETC. MAKE SURE YOU HAVE READ BOOK SIX BEFORE CONTINUING.
SPOILERS BELOW
I've suddenly realised that I haven't explained something that I should. Readers of book 6 will point out the mistake I have made with the Snape family. The truth is, I began this story before book 6 and despite the temptation to do so, I do not plan to write Sileas Snape out of it. I am now justifying his presence by saying, basically, "insert Squibs." Say that the Snape wizarding family ends with Sileas's generation. Assuming that if a Squib marries a Muggle, then the child is a Muggle, it can all be - ahem - explained. Yeah. That's my attempt, anyway.