Confession

I have always professed that there is no power in this world greater than that of love.

It is the greatest lesson that I could ever teach, and one that was the highest pain to learn myself.

But I must confess that there is not much to tell.

Not much more than you already know.


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There we were, just Elphias and me, at the Leaky Cauldron. It was to be the first step in our year-long venture into the world, two seventeen year old wizards against whatever fate had in store.

We could hardly sleep at all that night, excited as we were, so I kept repeating our itinerary, which I had meticulously planned out over the past few months. We’d rise the next morning and catch an eight a.m. portkey to Greece, to spend two weeks there. We’d make our way over to Italy, where Elphi had family, and then wind through the Arabian countries, India, and the Orient. Following that, we’d pose as Muggles and take a boat from Japan to the Americas, where my mother’s family lived, and then cross the Atlantic back home.

Such great designs we had; dreams of uncovering great magical secrets and treasures in some wild rainforest or sand-swept desert.

What I discovered instead…well, it was much greater than anything one would find in all the corners of the earth…

As an aside, it is slightly odd, looking back now, that our journey would not have taken us through Germany at all.

However, blissfully oblivious as I was, I woke early the next morning and dressed while Elphi still snored in the next bed.

I made my way down to the pub for some coffee and a scone or two, as well as unfolding a copy of the morning’s Daily Prophet for my last bit of local news for a year. I was deeply engrossed in what must have been an extremely interesting article when the young barman tapped me on the shoulder.

“You’re Albus Dumbledore?” he said, and handed me an envelope when I nodded, “Owl for you, just a few minutes ago.”

I thanked him as he walked off, but my attention was drawn to the letter in my hands. It was from Aberforth, though his writing, while never having been what one would call excellent, was an almost illegible scrawl. I was halfway through before I had to go back and start over, but it was what was written, not how it was written, that made me hope that what I had read was somehow wrong.

Albus -

That last night before I got back, Mum tried to get Ariana to eat. She didn’t want to. That’s what she said.

Bathilda picked me up from the station. She said she’d come over that morning and found Mum dead by the stairs. Bathilda thinks Mum fell.

Ariana said she didn’t want to eat. Ariana said that Mum wouldn’t listen, so she made Mum go away.

Ariana killed Mum. I know it.

The Ministry is here. They want to talk to Ariana. I need your help. They want to talk to her, and they can’t. I need your help.

- Aberforth

My body felt like it was made of ice. All I could hear was my heart beating in my ears. I read the letter again and again, hoping that I’d somehow misunderstood, but my brother, my literal, no-nonsense brother had written there, plain as day, “Ariana killed Mum.”

I felt someone plop down beside me unceremoniously, and I looked around, somewhat surprised that anything as normal and natural as Elphias next to me, stealing my uneaten half of scone could happen in the same world where my sister killed my mother. It was the sort of thing that had happened a thousand times at school.

“What time’re we leaving again?” muffled Elphi, his mouth full of scone as he scanned the Prophet.

I could barely digest his words, but after a moment, I haltingly answered, “I…I’m not going…”

“What?” he exclaimed, hurriedly swallowing his mouthful, “Why?”

“My mother…she had…there was accident…I have to go home…” as I spoke, my mind was racing, a plan forming.

I left a bewildered Elphias with my explicit itinerary and apparated straight into Ariana’s bedroom.

Her room was comfortable enough, with lush carpet and soft blue paint, and was extremely clean. The overall air was almost of a guest room, as though it was only sparingly lived in.

It was, however, occupied by Ariana, who sat in a stiff-backed wooden chair in a corner, staring at nothing. She herself was a beautiful girl, thirteen years old, with the auburn hair we’d all inherited from our father and our mother’s high cheekbones, which emphasized her large blue eyes. She would have been turning every boy’s head at Hogwarts, if only…

I wished virulently that I could have my brother there as I knelt in front of her. He was really the only one who Ariana responded to, but it was too dangerous; I could hear voices from downstairs and knew I would not be able to get Aberforth alone to talk to him.

“Ariana,” I said softly, and she slowly began to turn her attention to me, her eyes focusing a bit more on my face.

“Albus,” she said airily. This was a good sign; there had been times when she hadn’t recognized me at all.

I took a deep breath, and focused on keeping my voice calm and even, although every fiber of my being was bursting at the seams, “Ariana,” I repeated, “Tell me what happened to Mother.”

She looked at me vaguely. I sighed. I would have to be more abstract. To her lapsed sense of time, our mother would always be there.

“When was the last time you saw Mum?

“When she wanted me to eat,” Ariana said clearly and succinctly. No matter how much I knew my sister, it always surprised me how much intelligence was underneath a layer of fear and scar tissue.

“Good,” I said eagerly, “And then…you didn’t want to eat?”

“No,” she said.

“What did you…what happened…when Mum tried to make you eat?”

“I made her go away.”

I felt a sharp jab in my stomach, but kept going. I could grieve later. Instead, I went on with Ariana, whose concentration I could already feel slipping away.
“Ariana, this is very important. You have to pay attention and understand,” I wasn’t sure exactly how to go about this, “When anyone asks you what happened to Mum, anyone, you must tell them that she fell down the stairs.”

She blinked at me.

“What happened to Mother?” I asked.

“I made her go away.”

I sighed in frustration, but another idea had formed.

“Ariana,” I said, “Look at me.”

She did so, and I pulled out my wand.

“Legilimens!”

Let me explain for a moment. I had only begun to study this skill. It isn’t something that is taught at Hogwarts. (I never asked Severus how he learned, and I’m not quite sure I want to know the answer) It was my Defense Against the Dark Arts professor who had shown me how to go about it, late into my seventh year, and at this point I’d only ever practiced with my Defense professor and Elphias. My professor was skilled enough to choose what he did not want me to see in his mind, and the experience with Elphias was more amusing than anything else.

Ariana was an entirely different matter. Her mind appeared almost like a series charcoal drawings, seen through a dark glass. Where Elphias’ memories had been embarrassingly easy to sift and look through, with Ariana it felt like I was moving through mud. Her perceptions of reality were terrifyingly skewed, and several times I came across great expanses of time comprised of a single moment. Finally, I found it, steeling myself to witness my mother’s death.

It was late evening. Ariana was in the loft sitting room, and my mother was bringing a tray of something warm and steaming from downstairs. I watched my mother, tired and worn, try to get Ariana to eat, and Ariana continually push her away, and then, with no warning, she let loose an uncontrollable wave of force, which threw my mother across the room and over the banister. And Ariana just sat there, as unconcerned and peaceful as ever.

I snapped out of her mind as fast as I could, and I sat there, trying to compose myself. If I had felt as though I were made of ice before, in the pub, then I felt as though the ice had melted and I was now simply encased in freezing water. Then, with trembling hands, I pulled that memory from my sister’s head, and created one to replace it.

The memory I gave her was not my best work. It was the same as the old one had been, but where the two had begun to argue, I replaced it with my mother leaving and slipping down the stairs.

“Ariana,” I said again, my voice not nearly as strong as it had been, “What happened to Mother?”

She tilted her head to the side a bit, but after a moment, she answered slowly “Mother fell down the stairs.”

I stood and hoped it would be enough, then apparated directly to the front room.

“Albus,” I heard my brother say as I materialized, with his normally steady voice bordering on panic.

“I’m so sorry,” I said to him, and I was, “I only just got your owl…”

“Mr. Dumbledore,” said a strange and entirely unremarkable wizard who stood from where he had been uncomfortably sitting in an armchair, “I’m very sorry for your loss.”

I did not answer as I shook his hand.

“Your brother and Mrs. Bagshot have told me that your sister was present when your mother died,” he said.

“Yes,” I said, my voice hollow, “My sister Ariana is terminally ill. She…she has a mental condition…”

The man nodded, “I understand that this is a terrible time for you and your family, but I’m afraid I must speak to your sister.”

Aberforth made a small noise of derision and dissent from where he sat in the corner, kicking his leg.

The man went on, “I have Mrs. Bagshot’s testimony of having found your mother as though she fell down the stairs, which is how her body was, indeed recovered. But you must understand, Mr. Dumbledore, that I cannot go back to the Ministry and write out my report of this being an accident without speaking to someone who witnessed it.”

“Yes, of course,” I said calmly.

“Albus!” Aberforth jumped from his seat. He was nearly as tall as I was, though he was several years younger.

I looked him steadily in his fiery eyes, “It will be alright. Ariana will be alright. I promise,” before I lead the man to the stairs.

“I apologize for any trouble my brother may have given you,” I said, though I was not sorry in the least, “He is very protective of our sister.”

“It’s no trouble, Mr. Dumbledore,” it was quite strange to be called that so many times in a row, “I am, after all, legally bound to speak have her legal guardian present before questioning her.”

I almost stopped in my tracks. Her legal guardian....was me…

I was lost in my musings of suddenly being the head of my household that I barely noticed opening Ariana’s door and quietly ushering the investigator in.

In hindsight, I am frankly shocked that we, to put it bluntly, ‘got away with it’. The Ministry investigator merely asked her for her name, then asked what happened to our mother, which she perfectly and succinctly answered with “She fell down the stairs.”

I walked him out of the house before breathing a sigh of relief and all collapsing against the wall, sliding to the floor.

The house, which was always rather quiet, seemed eerily so. The only sound was the old grandfather clock in the sitting room, ticking away.

“What did she tell him?” came Aberforth’s gruff voice from the sitting room. I imagined him sitting stiffly in his favorite chair by the fireplace, gripping the armrests.

A moment passed while I shuffled my thoughts. Just an hour ago, I had been eating a scone, ready to take a portkey to Athens.

“I told her to say that Mother fell down the stairs,” I said, and with what seemed like every ounce of strength I possessed, pushed myself onto my feet again, “I apparated into her room before I came down here.”

Silence. I still leaned against the wall. It seemed beyond me to move from that position. I knew that once I stopped leaning on the wall, I would not be able to stop moving for a very long time.

But I did move.

There was much to be done.