Disclaimer: The Dumbledore belong to JK Rowling.
Parts of this story are quoted from Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald.
A/N: I've had this idea kicking around for a while, but after Chapter 31 of Animagus at War went so well, and in honour of Secrets of Dumbledore coming out this week, I decided it was finally time I put in a serious effort. This is a What If? story based on that chapter, although it would work equally with for the canon version.
Also, no Blood Pact. It just overcomplicates things.
My headcanon is that Aberforth was just as talented as Albus (he could cast a Patronus, for starters), but his studies were hampered by severe dyslexia and a consequent lack of motivation. Meanwhile, I envision Ariana being like River Tam; she's actually the most brilliant of the three, but only when she's lucid. Most of the time, she struggles with basic household charms, but rarely, she shows a savant-like ability to do off-the-charts magic with no formal training. (Compare Credence blasting off the side of a mountain in Crimes of Grindelwald the first time he ever picks up a wand.)
For the Greater Good
Godric's Hollow, England, 1899
Horrible sounds of screaming, splinting wood, and cracking stone shook Godric's Hollow. Some of the neighbours rushed to help, but Bathilda Bagshot, standing nearly petrified outside the Dumbledore house, warned them to stay back. As much as she loved her nephew, he truly scared her sometimes.
Inside the house, things were much worse.
"Gellert, please stop!" Albus shouted, jumping between his best friend and his family. "We can come up with something else! Please! Don't hurt them!"
Gellert's normally handsome face was twisted into a snarl as he tried to cast around Albus. He was reluctant to hurt Albus directly, but that didn't stop him from trying to cut down Aberforth. "I am not going to let that goat-loving imbecile stand in my way!" he said.
Aberforth threw a spell to knock Albus aside to get a clear shot of his own. "And I'm not going to let that degenerate psychopath take our sister away on some mad crusade!" he didn't hold back. Gellert would never admit it, but Aberforth knew that he saw him as a threat. Though his repertoire was limited, his wordless casting was the best of all of them, to the point where he was able to keep up a stream of invective throughout the duel.
"Abe! Gellert! Please! Stop fighting!" cried a scared voice. That was Ariana, trying to get out from behind Aberforth, but he wasn't in a mood to listen to her right now. He'd just have to hope that he'd notice the warning signs if she had an episode.
"Stop it!" Albus repeated. He tried to jump in the middle of them again, throwing whatever spells he could think of to stop the duel, but neither of the others were having it. "It doesn't have to be this way. When Aberforth finishes school—"
"Aberforth can't even read!" Gellert sneered. "Do you really expect him to graduate?"
"Come over here and say that!" Aberforth yelled. "I'll take that wand of yours and shove it—"
"Stop it! I said stop!" Ariana cried, somewhere off to the left, now. "Please, I don't know—Expelliarmus!"
But she seemed to go unnoticed by any of them. Gellert deflected the spell with a casual backhand without even looking her way. Even when she tried a whole string of spells, the boys were too intent on the fight, and her voice was lost in the din.
Albus pushed back into the middle of the duel, his hair flying in his face. "No! Don't hurt them!" he pleaded. "It's my fault! Mine!"
"ENOUGH!" Gellert roared. He swung his wand with a curse even Albus didn't know. It must have been one of those dark spells they taught at Durmstrang. All he knew was that it was so powerful that it made his hair stand on end before it left Gellert's wand. Desperately, Albus poured power into his own wand to reinforce his Shield Charm, but a moment later, the curse ripped through it like paper. His shield disintegrated with a sound like a gong, and he was thrown back against the wall before collapsing to his knees. He tried to recover, but his whole body felt like lead—literally like he weighed ten times what he should.
And then, something happened that none of the participants fully understood afterwards. All Albus remembered was Ariana screaming, "DON'T!" and a flash of her golden hair, and then the room exploded.
Aberforth could only shout "No!" when he saw Ariana—inexplicably—jump straight in between Albus and Gellert, and far too close to where he was aiming, himself. Light met dark, and with a shriek, her body erupted with a cloud of blackness that slammed against everything in the room.
This was very bad. That only good part was that Gellert wasn't trying to kill them anymore, but that was only because Ariana was. She'd stopped the duel, but she couldn't control it. The black tendrils lashed the room, scouring wood, stone, and flesh alike. Aberforth knew them well, but this was her worst episode since before Mother died. He cast a wandless shield with his off hand to ward off the bulk of the damage. "Ari!" he called through the noise. "Ari, please!" He needed to reach her, but she wasn't even fully solid right now. For the first time in a long time, he wasn't sure he could do it. "Come back to me, Ari! They've stopped. It'll be okay." It was a temporary cease-fire, and she probably knew it, but he had to do something. He looked over at the other two. Albus was also shielding with his off hand, but Gellert was holding her back with his wand, and somehow managing to project anger, fear, and triumph all at the same time.
Aberforth reached Ariana and put his hand on her arm, but she wasn't solid enough to pull her to him. "For God's sake, man, lower your wand!" he shouted at Gellert.
Gellert didn't move.
"Gellert, you're scaring her!" Albus called in a voice that was about as scare as he ever sounded, himself. "Let Abe help."
"He tried to—"
"He's the only one who knows how to calm her!" Albus cut him off.
Gellert continued to glare, but he lowered his wand.
Aberforth pulled on his sister's arm harder. "Ari, please calm down. It's over," he said, and at that, the storm of darkness subsided. Her body grew more solid as she drew the Obscurus back into herself, and when it was gone, both of them collapsed to their knees.
No one spoke, thankfully. He was quite sure he would have cursed either of them if they had. They sat there for several minutes, Ariana crying, Aberforth cradling her head to his chest. He knew from experience that she would be weak and sore all over after that, as her own body was wracked by the Obscurus's power. Once he was sure she was stable—as sure as he could be without a Healer, anyway—he glared up at his brother and That Maniac. "You see what you did?" he demanded. "Do you really think you're going to take her on this—this grand adventure of yours?"
Gellert was having none of it. "Don't you see?" he shot back, somehow as smug as ever. "This power she has? She's so much stronger than other Obscurials—and she already has better control, or else she wouldn't still be alive now. You could see it in her spellcasting, too. You're brilliant, Ariana."
"No!" he spat. "You do not get to talk to her! You listen here, Gellert Grindelwald. I don't care if you want Ariana for a weapon or if you've fallen madly in love with her. You have no right! And you, Albus. You have to be blind to see she's not well enough to travel. You'll only get yourselves killed like Mother. If you two think you're so smart, why don't you put your bloody heads together and figure out a way to help her instead of just using her?"
Finally, Albus looked properly chastised at that, but what came out of his mouth as he stared at Ariana was not at all what Aberforth expected: "…Spellcasting?"
Aberforth's eyes widened when the word hit him. He looked down and gently opened their sister's hand. She was holding Mother's wand. He hadn't fully registered until now that his sister was using a wand during that fight. Ariana had never been able to hold a wand properly in her life, but as he thought back, he remembered her casting spells in the duel as smoothly as if she'd been doing it for years.
When he saw what she was holding, Ariana looked up at him, and amazingly, she smiled. "I did it, Abe," she said. "I made Mum's wand work. I can do magic."
Aberforth and Albus stared at each other in shock, but of course, Gellert had to ruin the moment. "Perhaps you give your sister too little credit, Abe," he said.
Suddenly, Albus rounded on him, finally showing some proper backbone to the boy: "No, Aberforth's right, Gellert."
"What?" Gellert said in surprise. "Albus, you saw what she did."
Aberforth covered Ariana's ears and growled, "Nearly killed us, you mean?"
"I mean it. If she can do magic now, there's no problem with her coming along."
Albus shook his head: "Abe is right. This is a miraculous improvement, but Ari isn't going to be up to travelling for a while."
"We can handle it," Gellert said dismissively. "We can train her on the go."
"No, listen," Albus stepped closer to him—distractingly close—and gazed straight into those eyes that looked far harder than they had all summer. "You didn't grow up with an Obscurus. We did. Abe knows her better than I do, but I've seen enough of her episodes to know she's going to need time—more time to become confident with a wand and not just pick one up when she's barely holding on already."
Gellert snarled, his anger rising again. He pushed Albus back—not quite a shove, but enough to show his dominance. "If you want to wait for her to be in perfect health, you'll never get out of this third-rate village," he said. "We can't afford the time for that. Our great work lies waiting—"
"Damn it all! You think I don't want to go?" Albus snapped, to the surprise of everyone. "I've been wanting to get away all summer; there, I said it! But I have family to be responsible for, here. Taking Ariana away now won't be good for her, and she probably won't help you as much as you think, either. Give it a year, though, it'll be different."
"A year? Really? And what happens when it's not? What happens when you need another? And another—?"
"Please Gellert," Albus begged, pushing closer to him again. "One year. One. That's all I'm asking of you. The visions you showed me won't come about for…ten years? Twenty? Aberforth needs one more year to finish his O.W.L.s. I'd prefer to see him finish all of his studies, but he needs at least those. And Ariana will need someone to take care of her in the meantime. That's what we need to wait for…And you know what? He's right. If anyone in the world can find a treatment for her illness, it's the two of us, isn't it? Give me one year, and the three of us…" He looked back at Aberforth. "All four of us will be ready to take on the world." He forced a smile and found it was halfway genuine. "They won't know what hit them, right?"
The tension hung in the air as Gellert and Albus stared each other down. Aberforth could only guess what they were thinking. Slowly, quietly, he pulled himself and Ariana to their feet and pulled her back a few steps, all the while keeping a tight grip on his wand. But slowly, Gellert's face softened, and his manic grin began to return. "You make it so hard to say no to those sapphire eyes, you know that, Albus?" he said.
"Pfft, idiot," Aberforth mumbled. "We've all got the same eyes, don't we?"
Gellert looked back at him: "Well, there's no accounting for your personality, Abe, but, and I'm amazed I'm saying this, you're right. If there's a problem to be solved, who better to solve it than the two most brilliant wizards in the world?" He turned to Ariana. "Ari, I apologise for hurting you and your brothers. I know that I sometimes let my anger get the better of me. The wall in the Entrance Hall of Durmstrang can attest to that. And I have been known to get over-excited about my plans and refuse to change them…But my work can wait for a year. If you will accept my help, Albus and I…and Aberforth will do our best to teach you proper wand handling—and to help you keep better control of your condition."
Ariana eyed him nervously, still rightfully wary of the wild boy who had whirled into her brother's life this summer. And yet, the promise of being able to learn real magic at last was too great to pass up. And, after all this, she still trusted Al.
"Yes. Please."
Königsberg, East Prussia, 1905
Gellert returned to the hostel under cover of Disillusionment, slipping in unseen by hosts or guests. He entered the room where the Dumbledores were waiting for him with a smile on his face.
Albus shot to his feet at once. "Well, did you find anything?" he asked eagerly.
Gellert's smile widened. "See for yourself." He held out a wand, and not his usual one. This one was unusually long, with an oddly knobby shape, and was well worn, though it looked in good condition. Albus's eyes widened comically, as did Ariana's, and even Aberforth's in spite of himself.
"You found it?" Albus whispered reverently. He reached out to run his fingers along the wood, though Gellert made sure to keep a firm grip on the handle. "Definitely elder wood," he said, "and…yes, it must be thestral tail hair. This must be it!"
"You're sure you weren't followed?" Aberforth cut in practically.
"Gregorovitch didn't know what hit him," Gellert answered with a grin. "Dumb kid; Merlin knows how he found this thing. And even if he did see my face, we'll be gone tomorrow. He'll never find us."
Suddenly overcome, Albus grabbed him in a hug. "Brilliant, Gellert! Brilliant!" he exclaimed. Their hard work was finally paying off. The Deathly Hallows were real, and now they had one of them.
The past few years hadn't been easy. First was their year in Godric's Hollow. Albus had used his cachet with the teachers at Hogwarts to convince Professor Black to let him visit Aberforth at school that year for tutoring, and later even to bring Ariana. (There was a fair bit of gossip about her being seen outside the house at all, which made her uncomfortable, but it died down before long.)
The reason for the visits was to try to catch Aberforth up in his written work, which took some doing (and to give Ariana an opportunity to see him). Though Albus had learnt Legilimency in order to help Ariana, it had born unexpected fruit with Aberforth. A peek into his mind had quickly revealed why he couldn't read despite years of trying: he just plain couldn't see straight when he looked at a printed page. It didn't seem to be a problem with his eyes; he could see normally otherwise. But that didn't account for why letters appeared scrambled and distorted to the point of gibberish through them.
In any case, Aberforth needed extra help to catch up, and that had been a lot of work. Still, after Albus successfully taught him the Patronus Charm, even Gellert had to admit he was actually quite gifted—just that he couldn't keep up with lore mastery. In the end, they made sure he did pass his O.W.L.s.
Ariana, on the other hand, was a much harder case. She still struggled with anything more than basic spells most of the time, but on rare occasions, she showed flashes of brilliance that none of them could match. Albus still had misgivings (and Aberforth far more) about her travelling when they finally set out, but she had only had a few incidents since then—nothing they couldn't handle.
"Get your own room, you two," Aberforth grumbled, breaking the pair up, though there wasn't the venom in it that there used to be. They returned to the more immediate conversation.
"I still can't believe the Deathly Hallows are real," Ariana said in awe.
"We're still not sure they are," Aberforth insisted. "Didn't you say plenty of the stories only mention the Wand? Do you really think you can find the others?"
"I have some ideas on that," Gellert said. "I heard a rumour about St. Petersburg while I was out, and now that we have the Wand, the others should be that much easier."
"Now that you have the Wand, you mean," he shot back.
Gellert gave him a withering look, but it quickly passed. That was the trouble: only one of them could actually possess the Elder Wand. Aberforth had expressed misgivings before about Gellert holding such a powerful weapon, but Albus was characteristically unconcerned. He was highly sceptical that the wand was truly unbeatable, and for all Gellert's power and lore, Albus was quicker on the draw. And even it if was unbeatable, though no one said it, Ariana was more powerful than all of them even without a wand.
However, he didn't want to admit it to Gellert, but he was no longer so sure about the other Hallows. The Elder Wand was the easiest to track, as it had literally left a trail of bodies down the centuries. The Cloak of Invisibility was a more difficult case. If it had continued to be passed down from parent to child, borne by wizards who had perhaps experienced prosperity and certainly long life, but not notoriety, it would be very hard to find. Tracing six hundred years' worth of family trees to the present was nearly a fool's errand.
The Resurrection Stone was even worse. If it had additional powers, as Gellert suspected, it might be traceable, but its trail was still the murkiest. Sources differed as to whether Cadmus Peverell had died childless as Beedle claimed. If he had, and if Ignotus Peverell had refused it, then it most likely would have gone to a cousin or some other distant relation. Gellert was always scouring the lore for necromancers and wizards who had cheated death, but Albus was beginning to wonder if, like the Cloak, they needed to look for a different profile: a trail of the unhappy and unfortunate who died young and often childless, or else who took a sudden and unexplained turn later in life. And if the Stone had been sold, or worse, cast away in frustration, it could simply be lost. Their only chance in that case would be Gellert's skill with divination.
On the other hand, Albus's own mind had calmed about it with the passage of time. While he still very much wanted to see his parents again, his desperate need to possess the Stone had waned as Ariana's health had improved. He had never been able to take that Grand Tour with Elphias, but he had found Gellert, and his responsibilities were both eased and shared now. He was beginning to turn his mind more to their true Great Work: the threat from the muggles that still loomed on the horizon.
Paris, France, 1918
A crowd of witches and wizards filed into the crypt—an amphitheatre owned by the powerful (though now largely defunct) Lestrange family. They were a mixed group. Many were purebloods who still valued that above all else. Many others were muggle-borns who had suffered the most through the current war. There was a tense atmosphere as they passed each other. Most of them separated to opposite sides of the chamber and barely acknowledged each other's existence. But all of them were here for the same reason: to see the two wizards speaking at the center of the room—famous to some, infamous to others—a duo whom some said were the most powerful wizards since Merlin, and who claimed they could bring a new order to the Wizarding World. For those who had suffered under the war, it was a tempting offer indeed.
The knew the two men from the photos. One was blond, very handsome, albeit with oddly-coloured eyes, and wore a winning, carefree smile. The other was a shade taller, and simultaneously more reserved and more colourful, with long, red hair piercing blue eyes, and brightly-coloured robes. Albus Dumbledore's eccentricities were well known, but he, at least, had the public reputation to back him up. The pair held hands, raising them high in a triumphant gesture, to the cheers of the crowd.
Gellert Grindelwald seemed to be the leader of the pair. Once everyone was settled in, he stepped forward to speak:
"Our brothers, our sisters, our friends—for all those who come here tonight are our friends, sharing common cause with us, no matter their background. The great gift of your applause is not for us. No. It is for yourselves. You came today because of a craving and a knowledge that the old ways serve us no longer…You came today because you crave something new, something different. You have seen the war raging around you. You have heard the muggle flying machines overhead and the shells falling, even here, in the heart of Paris, until just a few weeks ago. You know that things…must…change."
At that, Dumbledore took his cue to step forward. "All of you know who we are," he said. His cadence was slower than Grindelwald's, and it sounded kinder—more personal. "You know that there are many who claim we hate muggles—Les Non-Magiques. I assure you that we do not. We do not fight out hatred. No. We have undertaken this campaign for the Greater Good. This war of the muggles has ended, but there will be others. It is for this reason that the muggles must be reigned in." He nodded to his partner. "Gellert?"
Grindelwald raise his skull totem: "The moment has come to share our vision of the future that awaits if we do not rise up and take our rightful place in the world." Soon, the images appeared above the crowd. Dumbledore and his siblings had seen them many times, but they never failed to chill them: another war, far worse than this one, fought with more powerful ironclad machines, deadlier guns, far more aeroplanes, bombs falling like rain, a monstrous explosion that they still didn't understand, but from the way it filled the sky seemed to be on the scale of an entire city.
"You may find these visions incredible," Dumbledore said. "The truth is that there are other arcane powers in the world than magic. Powers to which the muggles will have access. If left unchecked, they will destroy themselves, and us with them."
"The muggles are war-weary," Grindelwald said. "Exhausted by death and crippled plague. Their government in Russia has fallen into chaos. Austria shattered. Germany poised to be humiliated. And your own France, though victorious, is so battered that it now stands on a knife's edge. Just a little pressure will cause them to fall, leaving us room to act…"
He would have gone on, but at that moment, one of the other two members of their group stepped forward. They had stayed back from the crowd, seemingly in waiting. One of them was obviously Dumbledore's brother, though he wore his hair short and his clothes plain and was far grumpier-looking, scanning the room with watchful eyes. He conversed for a few moments with a women whose face was half-hidden by long, blond hair. Then, he came forward and tapped Grindelwald on the shoulder. He muttered something the audience couldn't hear, but Grindelwald just answered with, "I know this, Aberforth." Then he turned to the crowd.
"Do nothing when I speak of this. You must remain calm and contain your emotions…There are Aurors here among us." The crowd gasped and spun around, looking and soon finding the lines of Aurors proceeding down the rows. There were dozens of them, but the leaders of the rally were unfazed. Grindelwald simply spoke to them: "Come closer brother wizards! Join us. They have killed many of my followers, it is true. There are many who do not understand our cause—who fear it. But tonight, you have seen my visions. You have seen what is at stake. For all those who would join our cause tonight, we will welcome them with open arms."
The Aurors kept coming down the aisles. They didn't look happy. Nor did they look about to break ranks. The crowd bristled, some of them going for their wands.
"Peace, brothers and sisters," Grindelwald insisted. "We will initiate no violence tonight…But for those of you do will not join us, we will not allow you to disrupt this meeting. Our own sister, Ariana, will ensure that."
He turned and motioned to the women who remained in the back. She stepped forward now, coming to the front of the group. Dumbledore's brother bristled and moved close by her side, but she kept going, coming to a stop just in front of the advancing line. She must have been in her thirties like the rest of them, but her slight build and timid manner made her look younger. She raised a wand, awkwardly, almost like a child. That only made it seem more absurd for her to stand in front of so many Aurors, but the Aurors stopped and hesitated when her eyes changed from blue to a glowing white.
"Please don't come any closer," she said in a quiet voice. "I don't want to hurt you."
A/N: Yes, that's the end. Sorry, not sorry. If you want more, you can write a sequel of your own.
