A/N:
This is my attempt at writing out Albus Dumbledore's full life story. This platform has had a serious uptick in ads recently, so if you want to download this fic, you can check out my AO3 account (under the same name) here: /works/36858853
I'd really, really love to hear your thoughts on this piece. All comments welcome :)
I hope you enjoy!
He is ten years old when he sees his sister come home sobbing as she limps through the front door, soft auburn hair strewn into tangles as she falls into their mother's arms. There is something queer about her stance, as if it pains her to move, as if every breath comes with the price of agony. Her trousers are muddy, scrunched and torn, slick with brown dirt and something red. Blood, perhaps it is, little flecks of rubies that scrawl their way down her inner thighs.
He wishes to ask what happened. He wishes to know.
But Father pushes him away with a stern look to his face and Albus understands he must take charge as the eldest sibling. He leads Aberforth to his bedroom, trying to be brave and strong like Father always is.
It is only later he learns what happens, hears the whispers of furtive conversations, of arguments held in the dead of night with nothing but candles to keep the voices company. He creeps to the top of the stairs, not even daring to breathe as he listens.
It is wrong, he knows. There is nothing more wrong than this - an invasion of their privacy, of his mother's, of his father's, of his sister's - but Albus cannot help it. The curiosity claws at his throat, and Ariana, Ariana is so very young, only six years of age. He tries to ask her what happened, but little Ariana does not know. What her lips cannot say, her mind remembers aplenty.
Sometimes, Albus hears her screaming in her sleep.
Tonight she is silent in her slumber as he slides against the wall, dancing across the creaky tiles to press his ear against the door and hear the whispers of words. It has become routine.
The story pieces itself together over late-night arguments and tear-stricken confessions, as his mother and father trade soliloquies with only the black sky above to keep them company.
Bruises. Accidental magic. Muggle boys. Horrible, horrible things…
"A stick," Albus hears his mother whisper one night. "A stick shoved all - all the way -"
"Hush, now, Kendra. It's alright. Everything will be alright."
But the next morning, nothing is right. At breakfast, Albus swirls his porridge and watches Ariana from across the table, listening as Aberforth babbles about the new spell book he received for his birthday.
"And - and - there are these cool things, like fire magic -"
"NO!"
Aberforth jerks, no older than seven, frozen in his speech. From afar, Albus can hear his mother rushing over, can almost envision his father's panic.
"No magic," Ariana says. Her hands are shaking; the spoon has clattered into the bowl of porridge. "No magic."
"But -"
"I said no magic."
Mother is quick to wrap her in an embrace. "It's okay, Ariana, my sweet… hush, child…"
But Ariana forces her away and slams her pudgy hands onto the wooden table. "Magic bad," she says softly, brokenly. "Magic hurts people. Magic - magic -"
There is a flicker in the room, the brisk breeze of a midsummer's gale flushing parchments into a frenzy, knocking the curtains until they seem like banners rippling in the wind, propelled by the invisible hands of Merlin. Ariana has not moved. She sits, her knuckles white as they grapple with the edge of the table, caught in a trance she cannot feel.
"Magic is bad," his sister says.
And then it happens. The splintering of glass, the echo of a scream - and something large knocks against Albus' forehead.
Blackness waits for him.
When he can see once more, his head lies on the cold stone floor and he tastes the coppery tang of blood. The wind is gone. The room is a mess. Albus finds his way back to his feet, leaning against the table as he tries to make sense of his surroundings.
He hears Ariana before she sees her. They are screams: a thousand and one, hollers born from agony and horror and suffering, the sound of a burning man as he dances in a halo of fire. But there is no flame, and there is no blaze.
His sister rolls on the floor, a child, kicking and writhing. Through his blurred vision, Albus spots their father. Percival Dumbledore meets his gaze for the barest of moments. His eyes are hard and cold.
The hangings have been pulled from the walls, the family portrait a ruin of canvas - statues lie shattered, little bits of marble and porcelain littering the floor like shards of a fallen star. His bowl of porridge sweetened with honey is a mess over the table. Aberforth has begun to cry.
Distantly, Mother cajoles his brother into peace of mind, as she rubs his back and mutters sweet nothings that only make Albus' head pound louder than before.
He does not remember what happens next. Only that Ariana quiets sometime before noon, that Mother gives him a cup of warm milk and tells him to go play with Aberforth, that Father will not speak. When the door shuts behind him, when he is left in the hallway with his little brother and silence in the kitchen, Albus does not know what to do. He clutches his mug and pretends to be brave.
"Will Ariana be alright?" Aberforth asks him.
Mother always said to never lie. But Albus cannot tell his little brother of the muggle boys, of the stick, of the little flecks of blood that stained her trousers. He cannot tell her of the accidental magic, of the horrific things he himself does not understand. So Albus lies.
"Yes," he tell little Aberforth, seven years of age and dreaming of being a master duelist. "Yes, Ariana will be alright."
And Aberforth nods and takes his hand with the naivety of a little boy so blissfully unaware, for Albus is his all-knowing brother; he would never lie to him, would he? He leads him up the stairs and into his room, and for the rest of the afternoon, they play Auror and fiend as Mother and Father try to console Ariana.
The next time Albus sees his parents is at dinnertime. His little sister is not there.
"Where's Ariana?" Aberforth asks.
"Resting," Mother tells him. Her voice is hoarse.
"May I bring her a bowl of stew?"
"She will eat later, Aberforth dear."
Aberforth bites his lip and looks to the kitchen door, as if he can gage Ariana's health from half a house away. He looks back to Mother and Father and then to his big brother Albus. When no one says anything more, Aberforth shrugs and begins devouring his lamb stew.
There is peace in ignorance, Albus thinks.
He stands his vigil that night, with the night sky peering through the heavy drapes, his sleeping robes rippling against his ankles. Father had not spoken at dinner. Now he speaks all the words he dare not utter before his children.
"I will kill them," Percival Dumbledore swears. Albus can hear his footsteps, echoing and clacking against the stone floor, beating with pounds of anger. "I will kill them and splay their innards against the dirt… but first I will make them suffer and they will know of every last horror they did to my little girl -"
There is silence. Albus presses his ear against the door, pressing until he is like to apparate to the other side -
And he hears it; the whisper of a sob.
At first he thinks it is Mother. It is not often, but he has seen her shed tears, the silver rivulets flowing down her cheeks like beads of ivory. But then he hears her speak, and her voice is calm and compassionate.
No, it is not Mother who is sobbing.
Albus does not want to think about what that means.
He leaves before his fears can be confirmed, racing up the stairs on the pads of his feet, slipping into bed and closing his eyes and trying to pretend that he had not heard. From two rooms away, his little sister has begun to scream.
"Ariana?" Aberforth calls. Albus can hear his whisper above her hollers. There are footsteps, heavy, a pair, racing up the stairs. It has become almost a nightly occurrence. He lies in his bed with his cotton spread wrapped tight around him, eyes staring into the darkness as he listens to Mother whisper words of comfort. Later, he knows, when she is quiet and Aberforth has been put to bed with a mouthful of empty words, Mother and Father will come to his room and check if he is still asleep.
The next morning, they will all pretend it never happened.
All but Aberforth who is so blissful in his ignorance, who latches onto Albus' lies with starving hands. Who will ask his innocent questions as Mother and Father try to pretend that everything is fine.
He hears the door to his bedroom creak. Albus closes his eyes and tries to deepen his breath. Some part of him knows Mother and Father are not fooled.
Father is not there at breakfast.
Neither is Ariana.
It has been a week since their little sister came stumbling home, and even Aberforth, with stars in his blue eyes and lies bumping in his head, knows something is wrong. He does not touch his food this morning.
"Where is Father?"
"Out," Mother says.
"Last night - with Ariana -"
The effect is immediate. Mother's face goes carefully blank, her hand trembling for the shortest of seconds before it is gone. She turns away from them. "Your sister is resting."
"Can I see her?"
"Soon," Mother tell him, and if she sounds seconds away from tears, Albus will pretend he never heard at all.
But Aberforth does not posses the tact. He opens his mouth to ask - but Albus gives a firm shake of his head and tries to look as calm and purposeful as Father always did. Reluctantly, Aberforth closes his mouth.
Father is gone from breakfast till lunch, and then longer until dinner. Mother answers Aberforth's innocent queries by pursing her lips and uttering feeble deflection that are less than satisfactory. It falls to Albus to lie.
Somewhere at the back of his mind, he can still hear Mother's words.
"Lies taint truth, Albus my sweet. If you lie, then the words that come from your mouth will forever be soiled by untruths."
But surely, there must be some moral justification for lying? Albus hopes so. He prays, even though there is no god his family worships. He prays all the same, that he will be forgiven for his filthy lies, for his falsehoods uttered with a tarnished tongue.
He has told so many lies that sometimes as he holds Aberforth's hand that Albus has begun to believe him.
"Where is Father?"
"Busy at work," he tells his little brother.
"At work? But it's the weekend."
"It is important work," Albus says, and dares a glance to Mother. Her back is to them, face hidden as it has been all day. She has paused in her dinner preparation, her knife floating as she cranes her head just the slightest bit.
We both know I'm lying.
Father comes home late into the night, long after Mother tucks Aberforth into bed, giving them a mug of warm milk and kissing her sons on the forehead. Albus watches as she disappears behind the closed door.
A silencing charm has been placed on Ariana's room. He knows this because he heard Mother say the whispered words; she has never been the best at non-verbal spells, and in the stillness of night, murmurs echo like claps of thunder. Albus does not sleep. He should. But he has started taking long naps in the afternoon to make up for the hours he spends crouched by the kitchen door.
Instead, Albus lies awake. He listens to the stillness of night, to the rustle of wind against leaves, and when it happens, the soft pop of diapparation.
Father is home.
"Percival," Mother whispers when the door opens. "I - you - did -?"
"They're alive, like you begged."
There are no more words exchanged that night.
In the darkness of his bedroom, with the window showing a moonless sky, Albus Dumbledore listens as his parents weep for their six-year-old daughter, raped by three muggle boys.
The Aurors come a week later.
They are two men in dark blue robes, with faces carved from pale marble. It is as Albus plays with Aberforth, trying his very best to be the brave, strong older brother that he is supposed to be.
When Mother sees them, he can hear the dread in her voice, the panic as she makes polite conversation. For a moment, he forgets about Aberforth. Her words are too important.
"An arrest?" Mother says. "For my husband? For what?"
But even as she says those words, Albus knows they are lies.
You know why they're here. You know, I know, and Father most of all.
And for some reason, it is those words that hurt him the most.
You always said to never lie.
When it is all said and done, Albus expects a fight. A duel between the Aurors and Father, a battle of flashes of light, of charms and spells and curses, of jinxes and complex patterns weaved with the flicker of the wrist.
That never happens.
Perceival Dumbledore is almost resigned as he walks to the Aurors, as he lets them cuff him with shackles of black metal. Mother is crying. Father is dignified, even in defeat. Aberforth does not understand.
And Albus… Albus says another lie.
"It will be fine," he tells Aberforth, as the Aurors confiscate Father's wand. One of the men look up. His eyes are black and filled with pity. In that moment, Albus has never hated a man more than this Auror, who wears these dark blue robes of justice and dares make his prejudiced assumptions about a father doing his duty.
When they are gone, Mother goes to Ariana's room.
"What did the Aurors mean?" Aberforth asks him. He has a hand on Albus' arm. "When - when they said Father attacked some muggle boys… they were lying weren't they? Father would never - he wouldn't ever -
"Albus?" Aberforth says. "I'm scared. What happened to Ariana? Why - why is Father being taken by the Aurors? Did I do something bad? I, I should never have mentioned fire magic. This is all my fault, isn't it? I'm sorry, Albus. Please don't hate me. Do you - do you think Mother hates me? And Father? And oh, what about Ariana? I - I -"
"You did nothing wrong," Albus tells him. He wants to tell Aberforth everything. Of the attack three weeks ago, of their Father's tears shed in the dead of night, of Ariana's crazed magic. Albus wants to tell Aberforth so he will no longer be alone in his burden of truth. He wants to tell Aberforth because he is a selfish creature, wishing to ease the agony of knowing. He wants to tell Aberforth. And he almost does.
Almost.
"We'll visit Father," he says at last. "And when that time comes, he'll want, he'll want a card, I think, to keep him company -"
"Will Father go to Azkaban?"
Albus cannot bring himself to speak. He knows the rules, as any wizarding child does, and he knows the stories of Azkaban, of the great fortress in the middle of a ravenous sea, of Dementors that float like gray wreaths of curled smoke. He knows it all.
The silence speaks for itself. Aberforth runs to his room.
Later, later, later, after a painful dinner spent in the sole company of Mother, Albus lies in his bed and stares at the ceiling. The spell around Ariana's room have begun to weaken; that night, he hears her screams. But they are muffled, as if she has been bound and gagged and trussed like a pig for slaughter.
The news of Father's arrest is all the Daily Prophet has to speak of on the morrow. Mother takes one look at the paper and then leaves the dining room, muttering about the laundry. Her eyes are pointed to the floor.
Liar, liar. The laundry was done yesterday.
There is a blank space on the table where the Daily Prophet once was. Aberforth looks at Albus. Reluctantly, his brother has come from his room to eat breakfast in the kitchen, the stars and tinted glass stripped from his eyes.
"Do you think we should help Mother?"
She will be in Ariana's room, combing her hair or reading from a book. Albus has not seen his sister in days. At last he says, "Eat your breakfast, Aberforth."
He tries to be brave and strong like Father, but Father is not there.
Mother receives a flurry of letter that day. They come in a barrage of feathers and parchment, as owls from all across Britain make their way through an open window, or perch on the fence, bearing a scroll at the talon. She has become a celebrity in mere hours.
Aberforth has never seen anything funnier; for a moment, if a minute no longer, he forgets about Father, lying somewhere in a Ministry holding cell. He chases after the owls and compares feathers with a wide smile upon his face, whoops and cheers and twirls in the front yard, surrounded by a whirlwind of tawny owls. Mother watches him from the window when she is not with Ariana.
"At least there is some good to make of this," she says to herself, quietly.
Albus pretends he does not hear.
With a thousand owls at the door and only one woman, it is impossible that she collect them all before him. When his mother is upstairs, Albus takes some fallen letters and tucks them into the folds of his robes; most are soggy with morning dew, others stained with flecks of mud and bits of grass. He takes it all, until he has enough letters to make a book or three.
In the confines of his room, Albus filches through them, peeling off wax seals, untying coils of string. He reads it all. The ones written with an elegant flourish of the wrist, the sentences so delicate and verbose that he scarce understands a word; the ones scrawled messily with a scripture that makes even Aberforth's letters seem ethereal; the ones that are average and bland, as boring as porridge without honey.
Some send support. Others ask questions. Most send staggeringly polarized opinions.
Muggle-hater, up-stuck pureblood, in-bred half-wit -
A true believe of Wizarding ideology, a supporter of the Old Ways, a true wizard, daring, brave, genius…
There are a million opinion on Father, each as disparate as the next. But none touch on the truth.
He didn't hate muggles. He wasn't daring. He wasn't brave. He was just doing his duty as a father.
Albus reads on the Wizarding justice system. He scours every text he can find, pours over the words at the dead night with a single tallow candle to keep him company. When he is not practicing his words or entertaining little Aberforth, Albus retreats to his room and reads until his vision goes blurry. By the time a fortnight passes, he can recite all there is to know about trial proceedings.
And for what? he asks himself sometimes. Father will be sent to Azkaban no matter what. He cursed those muggle boys. He broke the law.
"Will Father get an attorney?" he asks mother one night. Aberforth has been put to bed half an hour's past, and with only Mother in the room, he dares ask his query.
"An attorney?"
"Legal representation," Albus says. "Someone to argue for him."
His mother has been writing letters with quill and ink, sending them off through their family owl and refusing to speak of its contents. There are nights when he will hear the soft crackle of fire, a knife as it slices through brittle roots and dried leaves. Sometimes he thinks about sneaking into her study while she sleeps.
"Legal representation - ? Albus - where did you -?"
He stays silent. Mother does not need to know that he has been borrowing Darren's owl, sending Orthon to and from Flourish and Blotts with orders for every single book they have on legal proceedings. It has cost all his savings, but Albus does not care.
Some part inside of him, foolish, young and terribly naive, hopes he can help Father. Hopes he can help him squirm his way from a sentence in Azkaban, hopes he can have him home, and have Ariana be fine and have the world go back to what it was only a moon's past.
"What sort of mother am I, if I don't even know the things my children are doing?"
Those words are not meant for his ears. Those words, like thousands of others, traded in the kitchen near dusk, are not meant for him to hear. Albus wants to tell her about them.
I eavesdrop on all your conversations. I know what happened to Ariana. I know what Father did.
"He cursed those muggle boys," Albus hears himself say. "He broke the law."
Mother will not look at him. Her features are pale and gaunt, purple bags clinging to her under-eyes. There are charms to fix a man's appearance, but Mother has been using magic less and less after Father was arrested by the Aurors. She will not look him in the face.
"There are times, times when the law doesn't always dictate what is right, Albus."
But Albus knows how the trial will work, knows what standards the Chief Justice will hold their arguments to. And so he says to Mother, "Do you think the court will care?"
"Albus!"
He looks into Mother's eyes, even though she is doing her best to stare anywhere but at him. Her eyes are blue, like his, like Ariana's, like Aberforth's, like Father's. They are queerly reflective. Albus knows she is about to cry.
And though he knows he should stop talking, and though he knows his words will do nothing more but wound a fallen foe, Albus opens his mouth. The information comes to him: objective facts and cold numbers, rational arguments born from unfeeling logic.
"Father broke the law," he tells his mother. "Irrelevant of the morality of his actions, the evidence is there, and six months from now, once the trial has been held, Percival Dumbledore will be sentenced to three years in Azkaban, as his crime dictates. The average wizard lasts a month."
The first tear comes from Mother's left eye. It is strangely silver-gold in the light of the fireplace, slithering like a trail of silk across pale flesh.
Guilt is the first thing he feels. No child should ever bring tears of sadness to their mother's eyes. Yet Albus has spoken naught but the truth. Isn't that she'd always told him to do?
Shame is the second thing he feels: a tingle at his chest, a sadness in his heart. Shame, then horror at his callous words, sadness that he is not able to comfort her -
And as his mother tries to wipe away her tears, some part of Albus, some tiny, tiny part of him feels disgust. But not towards himself. It is to the woman sitting beside him, for being so very weak.
Mother does not dare leave the house anymore. She works from home, and whenever they need anything, it is forever through owl-order. For a week after, Albus still continues attending his primary school; it is a small building at the end of Sommerset Street, with two hundred students from first to eighth grade. Most Wizarding children do not attend muggle schools; Albus insists upon it, and Father is mystified but gives his consent. It is not required of Aberforth, but he wishes to be like his big brother and attends as well.
On the fifth day since Father's arrest, they are accosted by Lerris. Words are traded, and it is Aberforth that tries to claw him to death, seven-year-old fingers scratching jagged lines of blood across his face. But Lerris is twice his age and twice as tall.
After that, Albus does not attend primary school. He spends his days at home, reading, writing, playing with Aberforth, and sometimes, looking upstairs to Ariana's bedroom, to the sister he has not seen… he has not seen in over six weeks.
"When can we see her again?" Albus asks Mother that night at dinner.
Aberforth has grown restless and wild, taking to the backyard and refusing to talk to anyone. All the same, he sits through the meal, silent, where once he might have rambled about a new action figure.
"She's resting."
"Is she dangerous?" Albus asks.
"Don't be silly, Albus," Aberforth says. It is the first time his brother has spoken all day. "Ariana wouldn't hurt us."
Mother gives no answer. She brings trays up to Ariana's room, laden with plates and bowls and always a small glass vial shimmering with dark liquid.
"I want to see her," Aberforth continues, with the grand self-importance of a seven-year-old. "She's our sister. And - and you're not telling me something. You never told me why those Aurors came, or why there were so many letters for you, or why the Ministry thinks Father did something bad. And - and you and Albus are always talking without me. I'm seven. You can tell me anything, Mother. I can be brave. I can be strong."
Their mother smiles gently. Smiles have become harder and harder for her; her face looks queer with her lips curled upwards, wrinkles marbling pale flesh where there lay once smooth skin. "Ariana misses you, but it's necessary, Abe."
"Why?"
"She's resting -"
"I promise I won't be loud. And Albus can come too. He's always quiet, anyways. Please, Mother? I'll, I'll read to her or something - I can even do a funny dance to make her happy -"
"No."
And Aberforth flees the table without another word, mounting the stairs in loud thumps, slamming the door shut as he enters his room. Mother only lets her eyes flicker to the door for the barest of moments; Ariana's room is warded; Aberforth cannot enter. Albus knows this because he has tried to force the door half a thousand times.
It is him and Mother now, alone at the dining table, alone in a room as they have been prone to be. Where there were five, only two remain.
"The Ministry allows family members to visit those in holding cells," Albus says after a minute of silence.
Mother gives no response.
"If not Ariana, then please… let it be Father." He will be dead in half a year's time.
He is kept on the tenth floor of the Ministry, in long rows of cells guarded by silver-gold grills. Albus has read descriptions of the place. The halls are tiled in the black of death, the walls, the ceiling, the floor so dark and polished it is forever the hour of the wolf in the Ministry Detention Area.
Sometimes, Albus lies awake in bed, wondering if Father knows when is night and when is day. There are stories of muggles who go mad in the dark, clawing at their face and screaming until their throat goes hoarse; there are studies conducted on their cases and Albus has spent long hours in the library reading through them. He wonders if Father will go insane waiting in the holding cells. He wonders if Ariana will go insane, alone in her bedroom.
It would not be fitting to allow family to meet their beloved in a dark hallway with all the other inmates to see; for that reason Father is brought to them, separated by a plane of glass. He wears plain gray: a jumper and standard black shoes, his orange-red hair going limp in captivity.
Aberforth is the first to speak. "Is the food okay?"
Father laughs. Albus has not heard laughter in so long the sound is alien. "They feed me well, Abe. Top notch, but your mother's cooking is better."
There is a message there: don't end up like me, and even Aberforth hears it. He nods his head solemnly.
"Where's Ariana?" Father asks.
Mother stirs. "Sleeping."
Their eyes meet, and a thousand messages pass between their gaze; Albus does not understand all of them, but the grief is unmistakable.
They talk a little after that, but conversation is forced, as it has been for a long, long time. In a strange way, Albus wishes he had never come in the first place. Father asks about their health; it is good, of course; he asks about Aberforth's studies; going terribly, but that is as usual; he asks about Mother's plants; alive and thriving; and then he asks about Albus' books.
"Read anything good, Albus?"
I have read thirteen books about the Wizarding Justice System, and each lead to the same conclusion: you will be tried and sentenced to three years in Azkaban. I have read four books about Dementors and insanity and all tell me the same thing: you will go insane within three months, and you will die a painful, lonely death within half a year. It takes half a year for a man to be charged, incarcerated and tried. Based on these number, you will not be there when I start at Hogwarts in seven months. When I come back for summer break, you will be dead.
"Nothing interesting," he says instead.
Father nods, and then places his hand on the clear panel, as if he wishes to touch his children. Albus watches the palm. It is more wrinkled than he remembers, splayed flat. He should meet it; it is what a good son would have done, fulfilling their father's wishes, but Albus cannot bring himself to move. He is not sure why.
Mother does it instead.
Father gives a jerky nod and then stands back from the clear panel. "Albus, Abe, give your mother and I a moment, yes?"
Albus knows what he wishes to speak of: Ariana, of course. Aberforth opens his mouth to protest, but Albus leads him away, giving one last look behind him. The door shuts, and they are left alone in the room, with a warded door that does not let sound pass through.
"I don't think Father will go to Azkaban," Aberforth tells him bravely.
They stand in the reception room, with a kindly witch manning the desk; upon hearing his brother's words, she smiles a sad smile Albus does not miss.
"Father isn't a criminal," Aberforth continues blithely, "and Azkaban is a place for co-rrupt people. He's a good person, right Albus? No one would sentence a good person to Azkaban."
"Of course," Albus says.
Two months after Ariana's outburst of magic, Albus sees her again.
It is a week after they go visit Father in his holding cell, too long after he last saw his baby sister. There is no grandeur to it. A simple opening of the door, the whisper of a voice and then -
Ariana appears before Albus and Aberforth and Mother, wearing a pink dress with a stuffed doll in her hand, a sweet smile upon innocent lips.
"Albus," she giggles, "Aberforth! I missed you both so, so, so much."
His brother smiles for the first time in a fortnight, lighting his face and making him finally look like his seven years. For the rest of the afternoon they play tea party, Aberforth even allowing Ariana to tie ribbons in his short auburn hair.
Mother smiles sadly, and Albus finds himself looking at his sister warily, expecting her to start screaming, to start crying, to summon winds and wreak havoc upon her room.
Since when have I been scared of mine own sister?
Albus does not want to know.
Father's trial is set for the sixth of June.
That is three moons hence, in the final month of a school year he no longer attends. It is strange just how easily a person may fall into a routine.
He does not see any of his school friends anymore: not Jake or Marthos or Porlan, not his wizard friends who talk about Quidditch or magic or, or Hogwarts. It occurs to Albus suddenly that he will be leaving Mother and Aberforth and Ariana.
His birthday is in July, and by then -
No, he will not think about it.
Albus becomes a master at not thinking about things: not thinking about Father, the trial, how his little sister screams in her sleep, how Aberforth's smiles no longer reach his eyes. His every waking hour is spent reading.
Mother has always jested that he was a voracious reader, but now his supposed thirst for knowledge is a thousand times what it was before. He borrows stacks of books from the library, reading on fantasies and mysteries and historical texts, learning about the queens and kings of Europe, of the Wars of the Roses and the French Revolution, of all these muggles and their foolish squabbles. It grows from that.
He reads about demonic sacrifices, pagan gods and dark deities who live off the worship of mad men. When Mother learns about his choice in books, she confiscates all his texts and sits him down for a conversation.
"They're not appropriate, Albus," she tells him. "This - this has been very… very difficult, I know, but your brother has been learning from you and - and do you want to go play with your friends? I heard Darren received his letter a fortnight's past -"
"Hogwarts," he hears himself say.
"Yes, Hogwarts. I think a trip can be arranged to Diagon Alley - I heard a new broomstick has been released -"
"Father will never see me go to Hogwarts."
He has promised he will not think of Father or Hogwarts, but his resolve is shattered just like that and suddenly he wants to do nothing better but cry. Mother sheds the tears for him instead, looking away hastily and blinking and blinking and blinking. Albus slips off the couch and mutters a pitiful excuse.
After that, she seems to forget she ever confiscated those books, and that night they are back on his desk, leather-bound covers and papers of thin parchment, his stories of pagan sacrifices and demonic beasts. Albus lights a candle and reads until his eyes see black.
Sometime during the night, he wakes and finds himself lying in bed with a coverlet drawn to his chin, the candle blown out, the room dark. When he closes his eyes once more, he dreams of a burning pit with crimson flames, golden fingers darting up to lick the feet of its victims. Tied above the fire are three boys with no names and no faces but Albus has never hated three people more in his life.
The second time Ariana loses control of her magic occurs on a quiet afternoon. Albus sits at the dining table without his books. Parchment lies before him: sums and numbers, the names of algebra and mathematics that make his head hurt and help him forget that Father will be incarcerated in Azkaban by the end of the year.
To his side are Ariana and Aberforth; Mother is off in her study, working, writing, worrying about the trial. Jokingly, she has named him the supervisor of her children, but Albus has never felt older than now, surveying his siblings that seem so identical in their youthful entrapment. Aberforth has learned to avoid the topic of magic. He speaks to Ariana about his newest set of toys, gesturing wildly and making silly jokes.
"- and - and, here's Mister Meglorom who can eat people, and - and he can hit other people too, with a stick -"
Aberforth mimes a jabbing motion, and something happens then, and Albus does not know what it is but he lifts his head from his calculations and sees it moments before it happens.
Ariana leaps over the table and there is the clatter of a chair, someone's scream, a cry, a shout and Mother is in the room with her wand out.
NO, Albus wishes to yell, but his throat has been sealed tight.
When Ariana sees the wand she lets out a soft exhale and runs from the room. In her wake comes the crackle of lightning and her harrowed sobs. Mother's plant on the shelf wilts, its leaves turning a mottled yellow-brown, the shelf -
The shelf splinters, and something is tugging against Albus, screaming his name, cursing him with filthy, filthy words he has no way of knowing. Aberforth, his mind supplies. His hands are wrapped around his arms, tearing, and there are nails in his fingers, someone scratching, clawing at his flesh. In the chaos, Albus cannot remember what happens after.
Only later he registers the marks along his hand: short red lines, dried blood on the wounds. Aberforth's eyes are pink. Mother does not cry at all. She stands stoically straight and prepares them dinner as if nothing at all has happened, speaking as if her throat were made of cold, cold stone.
"I'm sorry," Aberforth will not stop saying. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, oh, it's all my fault -"
Not yours; the three muggle boys.
His hands burn to move. The cuts bleed at the slightest provocation, but when Mother offers to heal it all with magic, Albus refuses.
"Why -?"
I deserve them. "Please."
Halfway across the room, he catches Aberforth's eye.
That night, after Mother kisses them on the forehead and puts them to bed, rambling about how Ariana will be alright; she just needs a little milk, a good night's rest; yes, yes of course you may see her in the morning… And when she is gone, disappeared down the stairs and into Father's study where she will be working, Albus and Aberforth rise with unspoken agreement and sit by the door of Ariana's room.
It is warded.
An Imperturbable Charm; the name from a Charm's textbook that Albus has read. The name comes to him belatedly.
"Can't - can't Mother take Ariana to St. Mungo's?"
The childish hope in Aberforth's words is almost too much bear.
"Maybe," Albus says at last. He wonders, for all the great achievements of magic, if it can cure trauma-induced maladies.
"Why hasn't Mother taken Arian to see a Healer?"
Albus doesn't know. He shrugs. In the darkness, it is impossible to make out his brother's face, but when something silver-bright trickles down Aberforth's cheek, Albus reaches out a hand.
"She'll get better," Aberforth tells him. His fingers grasp Albus' scarred hands painfully tight, squeezing until it feels as if his palm is afire. "She has to." Silence lingers for a minute, an hour, a night. Aberforth wipes at his face. "I'm sorry about your hands. I shouldn't have -"
"It's okay," Albus says. And it is. If only for this quiet moment. The world is a swirl of black and silver moonlight, whorls of darkness and light with his brother's face swimming before his eyes. It takes him a moment to realize that he is crying.
Ariana leaves her room the next morning, shame-faced, horrified and infinitely apologetic. "I'm sorry," she wont stop saying. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry -"
The words, her voice, her tone - everything about it reminds him of his little brother. When she sees Albus' scarred hands her eyes grow wide and she runs from the kitchen in tears. Aberforth goes after her. With only Mother in the kitchen, shame blossoms across his cheeks and makes him stare at the tiled floor.
"Can you heal them?"
Mother does it without a word, tapping her wand against the palm of his hand. She has not slept; and if she has, it was fitful. There are purple bags under her eyes and - and, yes, Albus can see it now, so close to her. Mother has lost weight. Her hair is a rich auburn, silvery with gray hairs, and her complexion has grown so wan that she seems a slip of parchment in her pallor.
"Can - can we take Ariana to a Healer?" Albus asks. Mother freezes in her movements, and though she has yet to blink hastily, purse her lips and look away, Albus knows that this is the wrong thing to say. "Nevermind," he mumbles, and prays she will forget he ever said anything.
Only, Mother answers. Her voice is softer than whisper. "This isn't fair to you."
"The secret to change is to focus all of your energy not on fighting the old, but on building the new."
"Where did you -?"
"Socrates," Albus tells her solemnly. "In his book, translated to English."
Mother looks surprised, then weary. "My son is reading about philosophy and dark monsters." She strokes his cheeks, warm fingers brushing at the corner of his lips. "This isn't fair. To you, to Ariana, to Aberforth."
"Take her to St. Mungo's," Albus hears himself say. His voice comes out in a tumble of desperate pleas, his hand shaking as he clutches Mother's arm. "They'll know how to help. The Healers at St. Mungo's are the best in all of Great Britain -"
"Do you know what they will do with Ariana?"
"Help her. Care for her. She'll be - she'll be fine within a fortnight I am sure of it. Mother -"
"They'll lock her up, you see, and name her mentally unstable and strip me of my daughter. Of your sister. By your little books, Father will be gone. Do you want to lose your sister too?"
It is not fair. Not fair at all.
Mother bites her lip then, and looks away. Albus cannot tell if she is blinking and blinking and blinking, but something tell him she is. When she speaks again, it is in a tremulous voice, teeming on the edge of collapse, strung together by willpower alone. "It's not too bad," Mother says. To him, to the wall, to herself, Albus cannot tell. "It's - it's not too bad. Accidental magic happens. This is nothing. She'll be fine, Albus. You'll see. Fine. She doesn't need St. Mungo's or anyone else."
Albus listens without truly hearing.
"Ariana'll be alright, Albus," she tells him.
Ariana breaks down twice in the next month.
Everytime is different. Once happened when Mother refused to let her have her bread before broccoli; another when Albus told her to leave him to his books. She scares him. She scares herself. She scares everyone, everyone but Aberforth who still reads with her and plays with her even though her outbursts have the power to break stone and shatter tables.
Mother has removed the Silencing Charm from Ariana's room, but only because Aberforth refuses to come down if she does not. It lulls Albus to sleep during the night, though most days he does not rest. Sometimes he lights a candle and reads to the sound of Ariana's nightmares, or other days he stares out the window and tries to pretend that Father is in his study, that those three muggle boys had each died before they were born, and that the screaming coming from half a house away is nothing more than a loud cicada.
It never works.
Aberforth spends his nights in Ariana's room, keeping her company through the nightmares. As for Albus… he does all he can to be Father. He helps Mother in the kitchen, writes the owl-orders for the groceries, sees to the laundry, does everything that needs to be done. And he reads. Some are about demons and dark gods, others on Nietzsche. Most are about accidental magic and mental trauma. He does not always understand the words or the hidden meanings, but at least when he is trying to decipher the texts, he can't think of home.
Sometimes Albus will fall asleep with a book splayed open before him and he will wake in his bed with the candle snuffed out. On those days, half-delirious with grief, fatigue and a thousand other emotions he cannot put to name, Albus will raise his eyes to the ceiling and cry himself to sleep.
Father's birthday is in May.
There is nothing crueler than that, Albus thinks, before remembering that he has been trying to repress all thoughts of Percival Dumbledore. And yet he thinks of him all the same, locked in his dark cell, awaiting trial, knowing that it is his birthday, knowing that he may never see his children again.
There is no cake. There is no celebration.
When Ariana tries to ask, Albus is quick to purse his lips and shake his head and at once his little sister stops mid-speech. Only later, later at night with silver stars and a cloak of darkness at his side, does Albus hear it. Soft sobs, a woman's pained tears.
Mother has remembered.
Of course she has.
When Albus reads his books on pagan rituals with nothing but his candle to keep him company, he looks into the flame and pretends it is Father's birthday candle. Father always has one; Aberforth insists on everyone having a birthday candle even if it means getting wax everywhere.
Albus closes his eyes and tries to remember that day, exactly one year ago.
It had been a chocolate cake, with pale frosting and crimson strawberries, a single candle on top: lithe and thin where this one before him is squat and fat, but both were white and for some reason Albus wants to cry all over again. If he closes his eyes, he can almost hear Father's chuckles and Ariana's giggles.
Only a year ago there had been a cake.
Now there is only a candle, and only Albus there to see the deed done. He closes his eyes and tries to pretend that Percival Dumbledore is sitting by his side, a warm smile on his lips, auburn hair shimmering gold in the light of the flame.
"Make a wish,"Mother would always say.
It is not his place to make the birthday wish but…
Albus closes his eyes.
I wish that it will all go back to normal. I wish that Father will be released from Ministry custody, that - that Ariana will get better, that Mother will stop worrying, that Aberforth will never have to comfort his screaming sister once more. I wish that my family is whole again.
He blows out the candle and sits at his desk until the black sky turns from deep blue to purple to gold.
He cannot watch the trial.
Mother leaves that morning with food pre-prepared for dinner and lunch, with a kiss on their respective cheeks and a stern talking-to about doing their homework. Aberforth is only half listening; Ariana plays with her porridge and Albus knows the outcome, knows the evidence that the Ministry will provide, knows that Father stands to spend at least three years in Azkaban. He knows it all.
Aberforth spends the day restless, trying to play tea party with Ariana, trying to play Auror and fiend, trying to do all these things with his little sister, but every few minutes he will rise from the ground and go over to the window. And pace. And pace.
"Why does the Ministry hold Father?" Ariana asks him once.
Aberforth bites his lips. Opens his mouth. Once, twice, thrice, but no sound ever comes through. Albus says what he cannot.
"He did something bad." For you.
"Father?"
"Yes. Father."
"Oh," says Ariana, and puts away her dolls and joins Aberforth in staring out the window. They sit there together, with less than a year apart between their ages, nearly twins in their resemblance: thick auburn hair and frail frames, fingers pressed tight against the window, hoping with childish innocence that it will all go right.
It occurs to Albus, then, that it is not Aberforth nor Ariana who is the outsider of the family.
He wishes to join them, perched on the windowsill, staring into the street, but instead he collects his books on pagan rituals and goes upstairs.
Lunch is silent. They are children, six, seven and ten years old, but Albus cannot remember the last time he truly felt like a little boy. Too long ago, he thinks.
Later, he drowns himself in thick novels and papery texts, fingers tracing along the leather-bound spine as his mind - his devious mind wanders and twirls and flounders between forbidden thoughts. How is the trial going? Will Father divulge the reason he did it?
Albus knows the answer as soon as that.
You've known this would happen for nearly four months now.
Somehow, that doesn't make it hurt any less.
When Mother comes home with pink eyes and puffed lids, Albus does not need to ask to know what happens. Neither does Aberforth or Ariana. They stand together, twins in both stature and quiet grief, apathetic yet slowly crumbling to dust.
And what do I feel?
He does not want to know.
If he sheds a tear that night, it is during his dream, as he floats above a prison in a choppy gray sea, black waves hurling against a fortress, a thousand silver wreaths drifting through the wind. There is no sound, but one: the anguished cries of a father, as he is chained behind metal bars.
Albus wakes to a golden dawn and a bloody sky. As he reads by the light of the rising sun, he thinks: if there ever was a chance that their family might be repaired, it is long-gone. He brushes away the tears and closes his book. Mother will need help with preparing breakfast.
End of Part 1.1