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A/N: Thanks to all reviewers. I'd forgotten how much I love getting these.

And now…

Chapter 2 – The Beginning

"The day Myrtle Young died had left me unsettled. I have never been convinced of the headmaster's findings. As I have stated on many occasions, I feel the Ministry was remiss in not delving further into the events of that time," Albus started. Elijah snorted; it was his only show of disagreement. Perhaps he feared that Albus would stop his story. Albus could have turned, made eye contact and used legilimency to confirm his suspicions; he knew from experience that Elijah was not an adept occlumens. But Albus didn't turn. Instead he fingered his glass of ale, examining the surface as if it were the pensieve bowl he'd recently purchased, allowing his memory to play like a picture show in his mind's eye. Elijah cleared his throat loudly, probably to urge Albus to pick up his story. Stubbornly, Albus continued to pause and collect his thoughts – a show of power in a way, though hardly necessary. But then, this was as much Lorelei's story as his own -- if only she could tell it herself...

"After Rubeus Hagrid was expelled," he started at last, "I was feeling low. I sent a message to Aberforth, asking him to meet me here, and I came to drown my sorrows, as it were. When I arrived at the Hog's Head that evening, it was a very different scene than what we found tonight." Within his reminiscing, Albus could almost hear the echo of the music rattling from the doorways. Every so often the wizarding world picked up the fashions of the muggle world. In the height of the war, big band music had taken the popular imagination of most of Europe, adopting its most successful acts from across the Atlantic in America. The Wizarding Wireless was suddenly as likely to run muggle music as wizard bands, and, at first, Albus had thought it was the WWN he had heard that night. He could remember being surprised by the live band imitating the Andrews Sisters' "Don't Sit Under the Apple Tree". The music had been magically magnified to an almost uncomfortable volume, and the barroom had been spelled to expand nearly three times its size, allowing room for jitterbug dancing. Despite the enlargement, the inn appeared wall to wall with people.

"If my brother ever found his way to Hogsmeade that evening, I never saw him," Albus said. "I found an empty seat at the bar and ordered a tall glass of mulled mead. It was so packed within the bar that moving was difficult. That I should have my elbow knocked just as I lifted my glass to my lips is not surprising; that I should be so captivated by the one who did the knocking is surprising. I looked up into the livliest pair of hazel eyes I'd ever encountered."

Elijah snorted again, this time in amusement at Albus' description of the girl.

"Lorelei," Nicholas supplied unnecessarily.

Albus merely nodded and rolled his glass between both palms. "She was singing at the top of her lungs, off-key of course. Even when she practically landed in my lap, she never missed a phrase, much to the displeasure of my ears." He felt himself smile slightly and allowed his mind to regress in time, going back two full years, before Grindelwald had killed her, before Grindelwald had used her, before Albus Dumbledore had loved her.

"Excuse me," the Albus of the past had said, slightly annoyed as the girl continued to sing.

She merely smiled, poking his nose playfully, singing slightly louder, "Don't hold anyone on your knee, or you're getting the third degree, when you come marching home." The dissonance of her poor pitch seemed to melt into the background as a dimple creased her left cheek. She let her right hand drag across his collar and back to his shoulder, "You're on your own, where there is no phone, and I can't keep tabs on you." She spun, pressing her back to his and shimmying her shoulders against him. "Be fair to me, I guarantee, this is one thing that I'll do." She behaved the way a live lounge singer might, moving herself to the next person at the bar and continuing her suggestive dance, "I won't sit under the apple tree with anyone else but you, till you come marching home." Lounge singer was one career Albus was certain she would never have, such was her lack of vocal talent. Thankfully, the song ended shortly after that and her antics ceased, though she stepped back toward him a little breathless and promptly apologized.

He should have graciously accepted her apology and left it at that, but he found himself flustered, a description Albus could not remember having suffered for decades. He couldn't utter a sound.

"I know you," Lorelei observed in an altogether musical voice he hadn't thought possible just a moment before. "Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore – did I get them all?" She grinned broadly. "You're deputy headmaster at Hogwarts and one of the most promising wizards in the northern hemisphere. She brushed back a large, blond pincurl and winked.

Albus felt his cheeks flush, he wasn't quite sure why. He was hardly new to flirting, though somehow he'd never mastered it as she had. He stared at her, still unable to come up with anything intelligent to say. Her brow furrowed as she waited. "Somehow I had imagined you better spoken," she remarked. He burst into laughter at the irony and she joined him.

That was Lorelei's way. In seventy years, he had never encountered anyone as full of life as that woman had been. Despite his state of melancholy prior to meeting her, she had pulled him from his introspection, urging him onto the dance floor, where he had made a tremendous fool of himself. He was so enraptured by her laughing eyes, that it had not even occurred to him to mind his two left feet and lack of rhythm. Before long he was winded and feeling the effects of the exertion on a body that had become accustomed to a mostly sedentary existence. He nursed a stitch in his side as he followed Lorelei to a table where her younger sister, Arabella awaited her.

Arabella had been nursing a drink and looked up at him with a shy air. She smiled bashfully at her glowing sister, but when Lorelei had introduced them, Arabella's smiled faded. She turned her expression downward and folded her arms around her chest almost as if she desired to melt into oblivion. "Arabella is a squib," Lorelei whispered, as if that explained everything. Albus supposed that it did, though he was sure that it shouldn't; far too many wizards had become full of themselves and their power, treating muggles and squibs as subhuman. Lorelei seemed to be watching for his reaction, though he wasn't sure why at the time.

Albus smiled, inclining his head politely toward the red-head. "I'm pleased to make your acquaintance, Arabella," he'd told her. Lorelei had beamed at him.

Albus had then taken a seat next to Lorelei, wondering idly who the fourth seat might belong to. A short tumbler of a burgundy spirit was neatly centered in a square linen napkin, waiting for its owner to return and finish it.

The three began to chat. Albus made a valiant attempt at avoiding all things magical, instead asking first where Lorelei had learned to dance so well, and then inviting Arabella into the conversation by inquiring if she were also a dancer and wanna-be Andrews Sister. Arabella had laughed merrily at the notion, admitting her hobbies were of a homelier nature. She liked to crochet and had an affinity for discarded familiars, particularly of the feline variety. Arabella was the more classic beauty of the two sisters, and possessed more of the qualities that a muggle might desire in a wife. She wore her auburn hair in the quad-twist style that muggles called a queue curl, and was dressed in lovely blue robes that seemed to set off her green eyes very well. Nevertheless, it was Lorelei who held Albus spellbound – her bubbly nature becoming an additional attribute as enticing as her exquisite hazel eyes.

He had wondered at the time if it was Arabella's wifely qualities that had drawn her companion's attention, or if she were nothing more than a fragile means to earning the graces of her father, a powerful and influential wizard. Unfortunately, the wizard who accompanied her that evening was such a talented occlumens that Albus was unable to gleen the truth; and he could not expect a straight answer even if he asked the man directly. When Wilhelm Grindelwald returned to his seat, Albus had been very taken aback. He'd heard rumors of the older man's exploits. At the time, he merely hoped they were exaggerated.

"If I had known then where that acquaintance would lead," the present day Albus told Elijah and Nicholas, "perhaps I would have made better choices; but then one's foresight is always dimmed by the knowledge at hand, leaving one's hindsight regretful." He took a long sip of ale as his mind drifted back to Lorelei's lifeless body as he'd held it to himself a short time before. He inhaled sharply and struggled against tears that stung the corners of each eye. So many would never know the sparkle Lorelei possessed, and she would never know how much he wished not to be the survivor.

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