Chapter 48
AN: Thank you all for the support. I really hope you like this chapter. Please let me know what you think.
As Albus walks into the back of his brother's bar and sees the sight that greats him a feeling of horror overtakes him as he has been in this position before, and he never wanted to be again.
"What on earth is going on?" Albus asks angrily, shocked by the sight that is before him. "Annemie, move away," Albus tells his daughter, as he doesn't want her to be hurt because she put herself in the middle as he knows that if Gellert and Aberforth are angry enough to point their wands at each other then neither of them would be thinking about collateral danger.
"Dad, it's okay," Mie tells her father, as she looks between her uncle and Gellert, it being clear that neither of want to be the first one to lower their wand.
"No, it's not," Albus says, taking several steps forward, but not getting too close, and while his instinct is to pull his own wand, he made that mistake once and he will not do that again. "Aberforth, Gellert, please lower your wands," Albus pleads, looking between people he loves, people her doesn't want to be hurt.
"I will when he does," Aberforth says and it is clear that Gellert doesn't want to hurt Albus, but he also knows that Aberforth would curse him, so he doesn't want to leave himself vulnerable.
"If you're not going to lower your wands then how about you listen instead," Mie says, making no effort to move her position which is clearly what Albus wants most as she knows that in this moment she may be the one thing that is preventing Gellert and Aberforth from curing each other. "I can't imagine the pain you all feel, but what I do know is that you both love Dad," Mie says, looking between Gellert and Albus, keeping her eye on their wands in case they decide to use them. "If you don't want to lower your wands right now then that's fine, but you're going to listen to me, and I'm not going to move," Mie tells them, feeling brave even though she knows how much of a dangerous position she is in.
"Annemie…" Albus starts to say, clearly worried about her, and wanting to figure out a way to get her from between them without escalating the situation further.
"It's okay, I know what I'm doing," Mie tells her father, sounding more confident than she feels, who is terrified for her, terrified that history is going to repeat itself. "I know there is so much pain and anger between you, that's understandable, but this isn't the answer," Mie says, looking between her uncle and Gellert, looking at their faces rather than their wands.
"Annemie, move," Albus once again pleads, and Mie ignores her father.
"You two aren't so different, you both love Dad that bounds you together even though you hate it," Mie says to her uncle and Gellert, and as neither look like they are going to lower their wands Mie decides that it is time to pull the big guns, which also has the possibility of making things so much worse, but considering what is already going on Mie is sure that it is the only option, as she knows that the longer Gellert and Aberforth have their wands pointed at each other the worse things are going to get. "There is an object called the resurrection stone, it has the ability to temporarily bring someone back from the other side, it's destroyed now, but before it was Dad and I used it. We saw Aunt Ariana, talked to her," Mie says, looking at her uncle, and Albus tenses at that, dreading how this is going and ever instruct of his tells him to run forward and push Mie out the way, but he isn't sure if that is going to make everything worse and that is what prevents him from doing so.
"What?" Aberforth asks, his hand shaking so much that it causes his wand to shake, but he still doesn't lower it.
"She was at peace, she told Dad that he needed to forgive himself that he needs to stop punishing himself and let himself be happy, but there is something she wanted more than that," Mie tells her uncle. "She wanted Dad to try harder with you, she wanted you to be bothers," Mie tells her uncle. "I wish I got the chance to know her, and I know she wishes I did to," Mie tells her uncle.
"You didn't get to know her because of him," Aberforth says angrily.
"None of us know who's spell it was," Gellert says, giving the answer that Albus has always been dreading. "And she was already dying, she had been for years," Gellert says, even though it may make things worse.
"She could have lived! She could have…" Aberforth starts to say before trailing off, tears coming to his eyes as it is clear that he is affected by Ariana's death, effected by everything that happened to her.
"Uncle Ab, I think you know that she couldn't," Mie tells him in a gentle voice. "Aunt Ariana was sick, she was dying, I think you know that," Mie tells her uncle. "Uncle Ab I know you blame yourself; I know you blame Dad and Gellert and Dad blames himself too, but that's not what she wants," Mie tells her uncle. "You can keep blaming Dad and Gellert, but you'll never blame them as much as Dad does," Mie tells her uncle. "I know it's easy to blame Gellert for everything, but this isn't the answer," Mie tells her uncle. "This is just going to hurt Dad, and I know you don't want that," Mie tells her uncle.
"Gellert, Aberforth, please lower your wands," Albus, who has tears in his eyes thanks to Mie talking about Aberforth. "I don't want either of you to be hurt, and I don't want Annemie to be either. I love you all, please, don't do this, don't let history repeat itself," Albus begs, knowing that history repeating is what he cannot handle.
"Mie, move out of the way," Aberforth tells his niece.
"I'm not going to do that, I'm not going to let you destroy each other, destroy dad, because that's what's going to happen if I move," Mie says. "I know you both love Dad, that you don't want to hurt him, but that's what you're doing right now," Mie tells them. "You're more similar than you realise, I know there is so much history here, but please, lower your wands," Mie says, looking between them.
"I'm sorry," Gellert says, clearly speaking to Aberforth.
"What did you just say?" Aberforth grows, as everyone looks at Gellert in surprise, it being clear that no one were expecting that.
"I'm sorry," Gellert repeats. "I know I caused a lot of pain; I cared about Ariana too I loved talking to her about the books she was reading, I loved listening to her stories, hearing how she saw the world," Gellert reveals. "I don't know exactly what happened that night, but I know I carry it with me, just like I know you both do," Gellert says. "I mentioned Ariana loving your cooking because I thought it would help, I did not mean to cause pain," Gellert admits.
"That's all you've ever done," Aberforth says. "You hurt Albus, you hurt Ariana, you hurt everyone around you, everyone who cares about you, and I hate that Albus has allowed you back in his life to hurt him, and Mie, again," Aberforth says. "I'll never trust you, but I'm not going to hurt Albus and Mie," Aberforth says before lowering his wand and as soon as he lowers his Gellert lowers his as well.
The second he sees the wands are lowered Albus hurries forward and pulls Mie out the way, as he needs to know that she is safe.
"I'm fine Dad," Mie assures him as Albus hugs her tightly.
"Never do that again," Albus tells his daughter as he hugs her, and after a few moments the two of them break apart.
"Maybe we should go," Mie says, as she isn't sure dinner is the best idea after everything that happened.
"We might as well finish diner," Aberforth says, and with tension clear they all continue to eat together, but as they eat there it almost like a wall between them have broken, that while there is still tension it is clear that something is different.
As the rest of the diner goes pretty well, despite the tension, Mie, Albus and Gellert return to Hogwarts. Once they return to the school Albus and Gellert head up to their quarters while Mie briefly stops there to grab her bag, and then returns back to the study nock in the library where Lily, Remus, Amelia, Severus, Frank, Edgar, Mary, Emmaline, and Alora are.
"Hey, I was wondering if you'd be coming back," Amelia says, noticing her.
"I always planed to," Mie says as she sits down with her friends, feeling touched when she realises that they left the seat she was sitting in empty. "We went to have diner in the village with Uncle Ab," Mie explains as she starts to get everything out of her bag, and those who know about Gellert realise that there is a story there but because others who don't know the truth are around they don't ask for the story.
"How'd you go with the walk?" Remus asks as he knows that Mie still struggles a little with a lot of physical exercise due to her previous injury.
"Huh, It was fine," Mie realises. "I didn't even realise," Mie admits, as she was more focused on the diner and what happened, rather than anything else, so she didn't even realise that she was able to walk easily.
"That's good," Lily tells her. "Seems like you're healing," Lily comments, feeling very glad about that fact.
"Yeah, guess it does," Mie responds, feeling pretty amazed about that. "So, what are we doing?" Mie asks.
"Defence," Edgar answers, and together the group tend to study together.
For about ten minutes after Mie joined the others the group tend to study together in almost silence, silence that is only broken when they ask questions about what they are studying. As they study the group hear footsteps and they look up to see Sirius, James, Alice, Dorcus, and Marlene walking towards them, all looking to be carrying things which are clearly not study materials.
"What's going on?" Lily asks, seeing them.
"We figured you hadn't eaten," James reveals.
"And the best thing to help with studying is snacks," Marlene explains.
"So, you brought us food?" Amelia asks, a level of suspicion to her voice.
"We did," Alice confirms with a smile.
"And we're supposed to trust that you didn't' do anything to it?" Alora asks, giving them suspicious look as it is something they have done many times before.
"Full disclosure?" Sirius asks.
"Sure," Mie answers.
"We considered it, but it was pointed out that you'd never forgive us for that, so we decided to be nice instead," James explains, and it is clear that the others are still suspicious.
"Who made you see the light?" Edgar asks curious.
"You're welcome," Mary and Emmaline say together.
"If you have done anything to the food I will never forgive you," Lily says as she takes one of the pasties and after she has a few bites it is clear that nothing has been done to the food. "Thank you," Lily says sincerely and together the group of seventh years eat the snacks that were brought to them as they quiz each other on various topics.
While Mie is downstairs with her friends Albus and Gellert are up in the quarters that they share with Mie sitting on the couch together, both of them reading books, and due to how well he knows Albus Gellert knows that he is angry.
"Albus," Gellert says and Albus puts his book down to look at him. "Would you like to talk about what happened with Aberforth?" Gellert asks as he knows that is something Albus would want to talk about and he doesn't want their to be the tension that is clearly between them at the moment.
"You pointed your wand at my brother, again, and let Annemie get in between you," Albus says, a level of anger to his voice, but Gellert knows that if you didn't know Albus well enough you wouldn't be able to hear the anger.
"I know," Gellert says. "Albus I am sorry for causing you pain, I didn't think I just wanted to defend myself," Gellert tells him. "I know it would have been painful for you to see, and I am sorry for that,"
"It was bad enough that you and Aberforth pointed your wands at each other, but Annemie got between you, and that did nothing," Albus tells him. "That's not okay," Albus tells him, his voice breaking as everything he felt when he saw Mie between Aberforth and Gellert becomes clear.
"I know," Gellert admits. "I will defend myself If needed but I promise that I won't be the first one to raise my wand at Aberforth," Gellert tells Albus. "And I promise I will never raise it at Annemie," Gellert tells him, making a promise he will do everything he can to keep, needing Albus to know that.
"It means a lot to me to hear you say that," Albus admits. "Gellert I cannot handle history repeating itself," Albus says, his voice full of vulnerability, vulnerability he rarely shows.
"I know," Gellert says, leaning forward and kissing Albus, knowing that he is going to try harder with Aberforth he just hopes that Aberforth doesn't make that an impossible mission.
A while after James, Sirius, Alice, Dorcus and Marlene brought snacks for those who are obsessed with studying everyone has returned to their common rooms as it got to curfew. Rather than immediately returning to her father's quarters, knowing that no one will give her detention for breaking curfew if she is caught as none of the other teachers want to give the headmasters daughter detention, Mie is sitting in the Gryffindor common room reading a book on how magic and time are connected. As she reads her book, making notes on it, Mie hears footsteps and sees Sirius coming towards her and so she closes the book, making her page.
"Hey, I thought you would have gone back to your dad by now," Sirius comments.
"Diner with Uncle Ab was intense; I'm giving them some time to deal with it," Mie tells Sirius.
"Fair enough," Sirius says, having a lot of questions but as there is something he wants to talk about more he pulls his wand and casts several privacy spells around them.
"I think I know what this is about," Mie admits.
"I would be shocked if you didn't," Sirius admits. "Mie, he's going to do what he's going to do with or without your support, but I know he wants it," Sirius tells Mie. "And he certainly needs that,"
"I know that, and I know why it is so important than he does this," Mie admits. "I'm just struggling with it," Mie admits.
"I know, me too," Sirius admits. "I want him to be safe, but I also know that I can't stop him, that he'll resent me if I try, but I still want him to be safe," Sirius tells Mie.
"Me too," Mie responds and the two of them drift into silence.
"So, what happened at diner?" Sirius asks curious and Mie starts to explain what happened during diner with her father, Uncle and Gellert.
For a while Mie stays in the Gryffindor common room but then because she knows that her father would be worrying Mie heads back to the family quarters and when she gets back she isn't surprised to find Albus still sitting up.
"Hi Dad, where's Gellert?" Mie asks curious.
"He's gone to bed," Albus says as Mie walks over. "We should talk," Albus tells his daughter, stopping her from heading straight to bed.
"I figured that was coming," Mie tells her father as she walks over to him.
"Annemie, what you did was incredibly dangerous," Albus tells her once Mie is sitting down.
"I know," Mie tells him. "Dad, all I wanted was to defuse the tension, I didn't want them to hurt each other," Mie tells him.
"I know you want to see the best in both of them, but they are both incredibly dangerous, you could have been seriously hurt," Albus tells her, clearly concerned.
"I know," Mie tells him. "I know it was risky, but I thought that if I stood between them then maybe I could stop them from hurting each other, and I was right," Mie explains.
"It could have easily gone another way," Albus tells him.
"I know," Mie admits. "But it didn't, Dad, I'm okay, and I don't know about you, but I think this was a good step forward for Uncle Ab and Gellert," Mie tells Albus.
"I think it was too," Albus responds. "I am proud of what you did, but I was terrified every second about the danger you put yourself in," Albus tells his daughter.
"I know, I knew you would be afraid, but I didn't see any other way to defuse things that didn't involve Uncle Ab and Gellert cursing each other, and I wasn't going to let that happen," Mie tells her father.
"Like I said I'm proud of you, but don't do that again," Albus tells his daughter.
"That's not a promise I can make," Mie responds, and the two of them drift into silence as they sit together, after a while Mie heads to bed, leaving Albus alone.
After a night of not much sleep Mie knows what she has to do and so she uses the one secure method she has, the secure coin, to send a message to Regulus. Even though it is so early that the castle is mainly deserted Mie is incredibly careful as she makes her way to the room of requirements. After getting to the room Mie waits a few minutes until Regulus walks in.
"Hi," Mie greats, feeling nervous about how this is going to go.