Chapter 51
Whatever Ariana had been prepared for, it was not what she saw next. She had been transported it seemed back in time. Albus she could see standing by the door frame of her old bedroom which she had had when they had lived at home with their parents. She was on the bed, crying out in agony. She knew where she was, when this was.
The night of her attack.
"Oh, what have they done to you my beautiful Ariana?" her father wept over her body. He was there and in that moment he was so real to her again.
Ariana felt her eyes fill with tears as Aberforth entered the room. There they were all five of them together. So they had been once. She had been beginning to doubt they had ever been a family.
But the one she was focusing on was, of course, her mother who she had longed for since she had arrived at Hogwarts. The expression she wore was that of a woman broken by her loss
"Talk to me baby, tell me what has happened? Angel please..." Percival begged her.
"Boys I don't want you to see this, can you leave me and father with your sister for a moment please," asked Kendra but as she could have predicted neither of them moved, they just stood there waiting for a sign that she was ok.
"I know you're scared but Papa isn't angry with you."
Oh her papa... Ariana let a tear slide down her cheek. All memories of that blissful night she had just had with Harry left her. The only people who mattered in the whole world were the people who had been with her in that moment. She was there but she did not remember this awful scene. She couldn't remember her father and mother being so destroyed by what had happened to her.
After a while with her being so unresponsive though her father seemed to give up on trying to talk to her. He let his face set and he kissed her forehead.
That was the last time he had ever kissed her - she knew it in her heart. She had watched herself say goodbye to him. Forever...
"I don't want you to go," she whispered. "Papa stay!" But her younger self continued to cry and did nothing to stop him.
She watched as he ruffled the boy's hair and kissed her mother. "I love you, my cherished and wonderful family." He said as he left the room. He wasn't coming back.
The memory changed.
She was downstairs in the kitchen but she could not see her younger self. Only her mother with her two brothers.
"Boys I am so sorry to do this to you. To you both. But you know we cannot stay here. If she is found in the state she is in they are going to take her away from us and I have already lost your father. I cannot lose your little sister too."
Her hands which had been on the table were grabbed by Aberforth who looked up her and nodded with a clear understanding of the situation.
"We know mother and it doesn't matter. As long as the four of us are together and Ariana is kept calm then we are going to get through this." He said to her with the resistance to the situation that only Aberforth could ever muster. It hit her in that moment how brave he had been when he had been so young. He had been a boy. A child. And yet he had always fought for her.
"Al? What about you sweetheart?"
She had always known that out of the three siblings he had been the one who had found the brake up of their family the hardest to deal with.
At that moment it did not seem he could even speak. The loss he was feeling was probably too great and Ariana genuinely felt that she understood what he was going through. As she watched the destruction of the Dumbledore's she felt it too. She did not know how she would have coped if she had been able to understand what had happened to all of them. They had always been together. They had always been such a loving family. She didn't know why her father had had to walk out of that door. If he had only stayed with his wife and children then things could have been so different for all of them.
"I have studying to do," he said and excused himself from the table. She supposed she should seen that coming. From what Aberforth had said to her about Albus when they were young whenever he had found something difficult he had retreated to the safety of his text books. Theories weren't going to go mad and they were not going to cause his heart to break. If there was a logical answer then he could deal with it. When there was emotion involved he was had to run as fast as he could away from it.
The memory changed once more.
"You are so selfish!" Aberforth berated Albus. He had obviously just followed him up to his room. He he had tears of grief rolling down his cheeks.
"Dad is gone and Ariana might never get better. Mamma needs us now! You can't run away forever Albus!" he said to him.
And he hadn't thought Ariana. In the end he had been there for her when it had counted. He had been a good brother. The past didn't matter. Not now.
The memory turned again and she was following Albus up the stair case. They were in there second 'family' home.
"Mamma what is it? Is she ok?" she heard him call but there was someone shouting louder at the top of the stairs. To her shame it was herself. She was having one of her fits. She watched as the colours came out of her that she had only seen so vaguely before. She had never wanted to see this from an outsiders perspective but to her shock she found it not so distressing as strangely fascinating to see what her body was doing and what she was going through. It did not look as bad as it felt she thought to herself. It felt much worse.
"My darling, calm down!" said her mother to her and Kendra tried to approach her.
"I can't," she wept on the floor but there was an almighty flash and it did scare her sixteen year old self. As she watched the events she had been filled with a sense of dread. When she looked back, she looked at her mother's body lying in the ground.
"Mother!" cried Albus as he knelt by her.
"Wake up!" Ariana wept. "Wake up!" She had to wake up, she couldn't be...
"MOTHER!" cried Albus as he find to find a pulse. They were both ignoring her fourteen year old self. All that mattered was that Kendra woke up!
"Come on!" said Albus as his voice broke. After two minutes though his face conveyed to his sister what she had done. Cradling their mothers corpse, he cried. "She's gone – she's dead..."
-
"Well Minerva are you looking forward to the Christmas holiday?" the headmaster asked his deputy.
"Very much Albus, though I do not know how much rest any of us are going to get in the break we deserve." She said to him and he had to say he quite agreed. It was going to be another Christmas where he divided his time between his duty to the Order and his love for his family. He would see his siblings though he was sure of it. He would make the time to go and see them.
"Quite though I fancy the feel of the season is going to be enough to give me a rest this year." He had always loved the festive season since he had been head master. The student s who stayed for the holidays seemed it give the feast a family like atmosphere as they all gathered about one table and told each other what they had been given.
No, he loved Christmas.
It was at that moment though he heard an almighty bang.
"God heavens, what was that?" he heard McGonagall say beside him.
"It sounds as if a bomb has been set off in the school!" offered one of the muggle born students close to the staff table.
But it wasn't that. He was sure of it – oh god, please let him be wrong. But in the past year he had built up a sixth sense when it came to her. Please let him be wrong!
Everyone was sitting there trying to figure out what it was when Sirius Black came running in to the room, went straight through the middle of the two tables and went to the headmaster. "Someone is in your office. I was just passing and you need to get in there now. It could be a death eater." He reminded him and for the first time ever Albus actually hoped it was a death eater. That a servant of Voldemort had broken his defences there at Hogwarts and got into his school. That was an easier conclusion to handle than the one he had come to.
For such an old man, Albus run surprisingly at to his office. Passing the tables he stopped for none of the students and told the professors who were listening to him, not Umbridge, to keep the students in the great hall until he was sure of what had happened and that it was safe for the children.
Upon going up the stair case to his office though, he knew something was wrong and that it was not a Death Eater who had done this. He simply innately knew it was her.
His office was destroyed, but the attack was over by the time he found her. It was normally too sorter time, but this one from the sound it had made alone was almighty. Something had been different about this attack. Whether it was the cause or the ferocity he just didn't know, but what he did know without having to ask was she was not going to recover in a hurry.
"Ariana?" he said as he raced over to her. Her eyes were wide and unresponsive. The only thing he could think of to compare it to was how the students who had been petrified when the Chamber of Secrets had been opened looked. He looked at his desk and his heart sunk. There was no prizes for guessing what had set her off. How had he been so careless as to leave memories like those out? He had thought they were not seeing one another that weekend. As far as he had been concerned she had been at the pub. But more than once she had just walked into his office. He should have thought. Why hadn't he thought?
"Shall I get Poppy?" asked Minerva.
"I think that might be a good idea," nodded the headmaster. He turned his attention to his sister. This was not the norm for an attack. She didn't shut down like this, she could talk to the them, tell her what had happened to her.
"Come on lovely, talk to me." Picking her body up he carried her thought to her room and set her on the bed. "Ariana please, come on darling," he muttered to her as he tried to warm her up...she was freezing. Why had she been here and how hadn't he known? He felt panic rise within him. Why wasn't she responding to him? She had too...
The Gryffindor head of house and nurse returned quickly but there was no sign of life. Ariana was breathing, that was all. Apart from that ... nothing.
"Minerva, can you call Aberforth and fetch Severus?" Albus pleaded." I can't leave her right now but they both have to come. I need to know why she is here." He told her. Minerva nodded and left the room.
The potions master arrived first. "I need you to look into her thoughts, why this had happened. I'd do it myself, but if I am being honest with you dear boy... I can't face it."
Severus nodded and entered the room, passing Poppy on the way out. Albus sat on the sofa and looked into her room. She had left him with a cold feeling for the first time... his Ariana was warm and a vibrant young women who he was so proud of. And now it was as if same just was not there. Nothing. She had been so vacant when he had seen her.
"Albus, I am so sorry but it is a lot more serious than when she came to us for the first time." said Poppy. It was as if the girl was in a coma. She had had very little experiencing in this field and she was not yet sure how to handle the situation. As ever when it came to the headmasters' sister, she had to do her research before she was going to be able to help her.
"Will you be able to bring her round?" he begged to know. His voice was on the edge of braking with all the emotion.
"I can't say for sure yet. We are simply going to have to wait and see."
Albus nodded. There was nothing else he could do. It was at that moment that Aberforth, still in his apron, run into the room.
"Where is she?" he begged.
"Brother mine please-"
"No. No, don't you dare 'brother mine' me!" He said in a slightly menacing way. "She has been fine ever since she has come home. I kept her safe, happy and calm. And now, you watch her for one night and I am told she has had an attack? ONE BLOODY NIGHT! Albus, what the hell has happened? Where is she? Where is my girl?" he asked furiously. He had to get her home; he had to get her safe.
It was at that moment Snape walked back into the room. He didn't know quite how to tell the two brothers what he had just witnessed but he knew he had to find a way to tell them. The three others in the room turned to him. "It seems your sister saw some memories this morning. She knows she killed your mother." Aberforth eyes went wide with fear. That was the one thing he had never ever wanted her to find out. That could destroy her forever!
"Go on Severus. Why was she here in the first place?" Albus questioned. He had to know.
"Last night, your sister slept in the Room of Requirement with Potter. It does seem that they consummated there relationship."
The tension could be felt within the room. They were all silent. Whatever Poppy had been expecting him to say, it was not that. She knew what a shock this had to be for the Dumbledore's. How the two of them doted on their precious baby sister! Any one would think the girl was a princess.
Aberforth sat down and put his head in his hands. He felt his eyes well up with tears and he let one from. He didn't even care that they could all see how he was feeling. It didn't matter anymore.
"No," he whispered. "You're wrong. She wouldn't do that. Ariana wouldn't do that. She's a good girl. Our mother - there is no way she would have approved of that and Ariana would not go against her wishes. And – she can't have! She is a baby, nothing more. Besides that she said to me she had come up to see Albus for the night. She wouldn't have lied to me, not my Ari." He said suddenly standing up and walking in to the room where she lay so still.
"It's me," he said to her trying to bring her round. "Come on, its Aba, I have come to take you home now." he said as the tears flowed freely down his face. This wasn't happening, this was not real! She couldn't have been taken from him all over again.
-
Harry, who had been up in the tower by the time she had had the attack, had no idea what had just happened. Even though he had heard the bang, he made no connection to what he had heard to Ariana.
Ariana. He smiled. His wonderful life. Nothing mattered apart from the fact that he got to see her that evening and the fact they were one another's whole existences.
Sirius forced his way through the portrait door when a first year said the password. He had raced to the tower.
Hermione, Ron, Harry and Ginny turned to see the flying professor. He had tears running down his face. He had seen Ariana in her brother's office and just as the headmaster did he knew that there was something seriously wrong with Ariana this time. There was not going to be a two or three week recovery this time.
"Harry..." he said. Rushing to his godfather's side, Harry felt his heart begun to race. What had happened to upset Sirius this badly?
"It's Ariana. Harry she had an attack this morning. She's in a really bad way," he told him.
Harry shook his head. "I saw her an hour ago," he told him, not thinking that there was no rule abiding way that would have been possible. But he didn't care. Not when he got news such as this. "I mean, she was fine, she was perfect."
Only Hermione so far knew what had gone on the previous night. The others looked at him confused, especially Ron who had thought he had slept in his godfather's apartment the night before.
But as godfather and godson locked eyes, Harry knew. He knew it in his heart. She was gone, and for how long this time was what he didn't know.
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