FIRST FIC POST?!
ARIANA DUMBLEDORE
Albus thinks sometimes that he, too, is going mad. In the corners of his eyes, he sees flashes of movement, glimpses of long blonde hair, always gone by the time he whips his head around to get a better look. He hears echoes of her voice in the wind and he wonders if he can ever forget, if she will ever stop haunting him. He tells himself that it isn’t his fault that she is dead. He has been telling himself this for fifty-two long years, and yet he cannot quite bring himself to believe it. If only he had been less worried about the greater good and more worried about what was happening right in front of him, if only he had never befriended Grindelwald, if only he had been a better brother, a better son… He knows that these thoughts are futile, but in the dark hours of the early morning there is nobody to correspond with, no teachers or students to deal with, nothing to keep his thoughts from creeping into long-forgotten memories.
He wishes that the Mirror of Erised was not in the castle. The pull of it is almost unbearable sometimes, the temptation to see her sane and happy, the feeling that if he can see it in the mirror it is somehow real.
He tried keeping his memories of her in the Pensieve for a while, diving into memories of times and situations that he could never get back. It was not worth the pain of watching her smile and knowing what would happen and knowing that he could not change anything. No matter how many times he watched the battle that killed her, he could not see who it was that cast the fatal spell.
He has devoted his life to making the world a better place for wizards and Muggles both, the sort of place where nobody is feared or attacked for who they cannot help being. Somehow none of it ever seems to atone for the sin he cannot help but think of as his.
He sees death as an adventure, but a small part of him hopes that after he dies he will find himself in a small and cozy kitchen, with his family at the table, that he might see her smiling and whole.
Albus thinks sometimes that he, too, is going mad. In the corners of his eyes, he sees flashes of movement, glimpses of long blonde hair, always gone by the time he whips his head around to get a better look. He hears echoes of her voice in the wind and he wonders if he can ever forget, if she will ever stop haunting him. He tells himself that it isn’t his fault that she is dead. He has been telling himself this for fifty-two long years, and yet he cannot quite bring himself to believe it. If only he had been less worried about the greater good and more worried about what was happening right in front of him, if only he had never befriended Grindelwald, if only he had been a better brother, a better son… He knows that these thoughts are futile, but in the dark hours of the early morning there is nobody to correspond with, no teachers or students to deal with, nothing to keep his thoughts from creeping into long-forgotten memories.
He wishes that the Mirror of Erised was not in the castle. The pull of it is almost unbearable sometimes, the temptation to see her sane and happy, the feeling that if he can see it in the mirror it is somehow real.
He tried keeping his memories of her in the Pensieve for a while, diving into memories of times and situations that he could never get back. It was not worth the pain of watching her smile and knowing what would happen and knowing that he could not change anything. No matter how many times he watched the battle that killed her, he could not see who it was that cast the fatal spell.
He has devoted his life to making the world a better place for wizards and Muggles both, the sort of place where nobody is feared or attacked for who they cannot help being. Somehow none of it ever seems to atone for the sin he cannot help but think of as his.
He sees death as an adventure, but a small part of him hopes that after he dies he will find himself in a small and cozy kitchen, with his family at the table, that he might see her smiling and whole.