Disclaimer: Okay, this time, I honestly need one. Yes, everything belongs to JKR. Yes.....all that, fine, lovely. The last line is not mine either. It really is from A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens. It's an incredible book and it seemed to fit so.....

Anyway. Hope You enjoy.

Albus Dumbledore's Greatest Secrets

During the first years of his life, he was the sole focus of his parents' attention. And he loved their little family, just him and them, the way it was meant to be. But then……his mother got pregnant again. And no matter how many times she explained to him that he was going to love having a little brother or sister, that it was going to be his job to take care of the new baby, he still couldn't get over the fact that he was no longer the sole focus of his parents' attention, that his mother loved another as much as she loved him. But….he loved Aberforth, in the way all brothers love each other, and he always wanted the best for Aberforth. He always wanted to protect his brother, but he wanted him to be tough, to follow him in greatness. And he was always disappointed that Aberforth refused to follow in his footsteps.

And when Ariana was born….everything changed. She was his little sister, his little baby sister that he would protect forever. She was his. She wouldn't disappoint him, and she was everything to him. For the first years of her life, he spent every moment that he could spare with her, training her, trying to pull magic out of her and train her to be as powerful as he knew that he would become. And he loved her more than he loved anyone else, more than he loved his brother, more than he loved his parents, he loved Ariana, and he wanted everything for her. But then…..then, everything changed. His beautiful Ari was attacked and it was all he could do to stop himself from chasing down those…….who'd done this to her. It was all he could do to keep himself calm as he watched his father leave the house, wand out. It was all he could do to keep from joining his father as he cursed those boys for what they did to his little girl. So when his father was arrested, he was furious. He wanted to go, attack, to fight until he'd killed everyone in his path, or till he was killed himself.

Hogwarts was his release. Hogwarts was where he could go to relax, to get away from everything and dive into his work. Hogwarts……Hogwarts was his home away from home as he fought to control his emotions, fought to regain his family's status, and fought to live with Ariana, her eyes painfully dull when she looked at him. And, the more he learned, the more he loved it, loved the thrill of learning and understand, loved the feeling of performing a complex spell correctly the first time he tried it, loved every minute of his life in school. So, every summer, when he had to go home again, it was like returning to a prison cell after months of freedom and he avoided it as much as he could. But he was sustained by his dream of a life after school, where he would be famous and proud, and search the world over to find the power he wanted.

But then….the year he left Hogwarts, top of his class, powerful and fantastic, his mother died, and he was forced to return to his prison cell, forced to go home and take care of Ariana, forced to bear the pain of what had happened, of what he saw as his fault. Because he was the one who taught Ariana what she'd done and told her to practice outside. He made her what she was, and was forever haunted by that guilt. So returning home was like torture for him, because he was forced to reconcile with what he'd done. But he met Grindelwald that year, and suddenly, everything seemed to fall into place. It was a feeling unlike anything he'd ever felt before, a feeling like he was flying and running, and casting a spell for the first time. And Albus Dumbledore had fallen in love for the first time.

But Grindelwald's plans frightened him as much as they exhilarated him. He loved the idea of a new society, invented to protect wizards and bring them into the light, bring them into the power they so desperately desired. He imagined being hailed as the liberator of all wizardkind. He imagined the power and fame he would get, the greatness, the wonder. He would be the most powerful wizard in the world. His sister wouldn't have to hide anymore. His brother wouldn't be able to resist the power and love that he was offering. And he would be albe to reawaken the dead, bring his father back, bring his mother back, and finally, they would be proud of him, they would love him again. But……the power frightened him and finally….that fateful day, when his brother challenged him and they began fighting and……he started to fear the power Grindelwald promised. Because Gellert's power had killed his sister. Gellert's power had murdered his sweet, innocent Ari. He knew he deserved that blow dealt him by his borther. He knew he deserved it, but finally…….finally knew what he had to do.

He avoided going after Grindelwald because….because he was ashamed. He was terrified that Grindelwald would tell him he had killed Ariana, terrified that he would be forever labeled a murderer. So he avoided confronting Grindelwald. But when things got too bad, and he knew he was the only one who could stop him. And, when he saw Grindelwald again for the first time in so many years, he knew that, no matter how he felt once about his old friend, that he had to stop him. Because when he looked into Grindelwald's eyes again, he knew who had killed his sister, he knew that he had to bring in his old friend, if only to protect his brother from his friend's rage, if only because he had killed Ari, and Ari's murderer should never walk free.

So…..after he brought Grindelwald in, when he was offered the post of Minister of Magic, he turned down the post. It was too much power for him. It was too much power, too much fame, and he knew that he could never handle that power. He knew that he would abuse it. So he felt safe as a teacher. As a teacher, he held power but wasn't forced into the public eye. And he loved Hogwarts. It became the only home he needed, the only home he wanted, as he watched generations of students come and go. There were so many successes, so many children that he saw grow. He loved his children, loved his castle, and becoming headmaster seemed so natural. He offered Hagrid another chance because he knew he was a good man, he loved Lily and James as his own children; he adored Harry as a son because he saw so much of his parents in him; he trusted Snape, because he knew that he would do anything to protect the one he loved. There was only one failure that he was ashamed of, only one student that he wished had never entered Hogwarts' halls…Voldemort.

People asked him how he could be so sympathetic, so gentle to people who were so frustrating, he could only smile. He was sympathetic because he saw so much of himself in them. He was kind to Petunia Evans because the love she felt for her sister so closely mirrored the love he had felt for Ariana and Aberforth, because her desire to protect Lily, to ensure that nothing happened to her was just like his feelings for Ari. He was sympathetic because he knew the pain of losing a loved one, both to death and madness. He understood Lily's sorrow when Petunia stopped speaking to her because Aberforth did the same to him. He understood the pain Neville Longbottom felt when he met his parents because he'd felt the same pain, whenever he saw Ariana. He understood Ron's desire to be the best, because he'd always felt overshadowed by Ariana's condition, always felt that his parents were too busy to care about his accomplishments. So when people asked how he could be so damn calm, all he could do was smile, smile and remember.

But when Voldemort surfaced for the first time, he knew he had to fight back, fight back or Ariana would never rest in peace, fight back or he would be forever haunted by the guilt of standing by and doing nothing while hundreds lost their lives. So he organized, lobbied, and pushed until the Order of the Phoenix was formed, worked until it was strong and powerful, fought until it had a chance to win. But when Voldemort vanished, he couldn't let himself relax. He couldn't stop working, because Voldemort would be back, Voldemort would return and Harry Potter was the only one that could bring him down. So he strengthened the school, made it stronger and more efficient, improved the teachers and the curriculum until he knew that everything they would need was here, in his stronghold, in his castle, that he would defend till death.

And when Harry finally came, he fell in love with the boy that was so much like his parents. He pushed Harry beyond his limits and Harry succeeded. So in Harry's sixth year, after the curse and the destruction of the ring, he knew that Harry was ready. Harry was ready to fight alone, ready to become the true master of death and destroy Voldemort once and for all. So he taught Harry everything, told him everything except his true plan and hoped, hoped and waited until he knew the time had come. And when he traveled to that island and drank the potion, he saw Ariana again, her eyes shining as she ran to him, laughing, a bouquet of flowers in her hand, and he saw her screaming, then being lowered into the ground and he knew that he was ready to die. So, when he saw Snape hesitating as he raised his wand, all he could do was plead, plead Severus to remember their deal. And when he saw that brilliant beam of green light speed towards him, he was ready. This was his redemption, this was his rest. And the last thing he thought of was a line he'd read a long time ago, in a book by a muggle author, the Tale of Two Cities. "It is a far, far better thing that I do, that I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to, than I have ever known."

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