Sympathetic Character Challenge
Title: No More Chances
Author: satinvalkyrie
Rating: PG13 for thematic elements and self-flagellation
Author's Notes: 750 words. Written for the Sympathetic Character challenge. In attempting to redeem and humanize Dumbledore, I struck upon the idea of Dumbledore wronging Sirius out of an unrequited love. This echoes JKR's assertion that Dumbledore is often her narrative mouthpiece and that she loves Sirius Black. I combined the concepts and came up with this.
Gnarled hands like birch branches, pale and dry, tenderly stroked the silver picture frame. A young man within stared into an invisible distance, his clear grey eyes filled with a joie de vivre that made Albus' old heart pound. So well he remembered that passion and youth, so deftly manipulated and artfully channeled. He once watched passively as that young man's smile had charmed his peers, and he'd looked on with an empty soul, secretly jealous of their connection to him, jealous of the youth he'd long since left behind. Now that youth was gone from this man, too, and only photos remained to remind an old man of the young man who had once enthralled him from a barely-maintained distance. He had favored this youth, had coddled and adored him. He had failed him.
The swollen-knuckled hands went next to a frame of dark wood that cradled the photograph of a middle-aged man with gaunt cheeks and cloudy grey eyes. Black hair fell around that sculpted face with a strangely artful ease, as though even dishevelment and Azkaban could not truly strip the beauty from this person. The old fingers traced the outlines, the old eyes closing to remember how madness lurked in the shadows of cheekbones and behind sweeping eyelashes, how despite it all humor and hope still radiated from within him. This man had been more resilient than any of the other pawns Albus used during the wars. This man had been impossible to break and, given over to the most desperate of circumstances, never ceased to regain his fire and zeal. So easy to abuse this one because no matter what was thrown at him, he came back fighting.
Albus' hands wanted to reach for another photograph, a photograph of this magnificent individual as an older man, with grandchildren on his knee. This man would have smiled from that photo with a face full of hard-earned satisfaction, eyes filled with a new and unexpected peace. There was no such picture, however, and there never would be. The soul that couldn't be broken had been lost altogether. No more chances to regain the fire, no more chances to drive away the darkness, no more chances to stop taking advantage of the buoyancy and unfailing loyalty.
There would never be a moment for Albus to say "I'm so cruel because I love you, Sirius." No absolution could be found in saying at last "I've always wanted you, your beauty and your passion and the strength of your soul. I didn't mean to crush your spirit, I only wanted to protect you." There was nothing left for Albus now. There was only the pain that twisted and swelled in his heart, a cancerous growth of guilty torment.
He pulled a studded leather whip from his desk drawer, running his fingers through the many thin strips, unknotting them before raising his wand and speaking the words that would make things better. He stood slowly then, arthritic joints creaking as he shed his robes and bent over his own desk in the drafty office with a hundred portraits of his predecessors looking on in hushed fascination. Albus carefully placed the photos of Sirius, wanting to let him take part in this penance, wanting Sirius to be comforted by this belated acceptance of culpability.
With a gesture that took all his will to make, the whip fell onto the old, bared back, angry scarlet marks lining the feeble flesh, the skin beginning to split after the first tremendous blow. Piteous wails flowed from Albus' mouth, but they were not so much cries of pain as vocalized relief from so deep within him that it was abject subjugation to the moment, to the sensations of leather and metal slicing his body to ribbons. It was no less than he deserved.
So much love filled his heart as he looked at the photos, so much love that had never had a proper outlet and had instead inspired a million wrong decisions. The young face and the older face both watched quietly as Albus screamed into the sound-proofed office, the blows falling becoming more than he could bear. But Sirius must be watching this, understanding in death what had been hidden in life; Sirius would see and forgive. There were only nineteen more blows to go.
Author: satinvalkyrie
Rating: PG13 for thematic elements and self-flagellation
Author's Notes: 750 words. Written for the Sympathetic Character challenge. In attempting to redeem and humanize Dumbledore, I struck upon the idea of Dumbledore wronging Sirius out of an unrequited love. This echoes JKR's assertion that Dumbledore is often her narrative mouthpiece and that she loves Sirius Black. I combined the concepts and came up with this.
Gnarled hands like birch branches, pale and dry, tenderly stroked the silver picture frame. A young man within stared into an invisible distance, his clear grey eyes filled with a joie de vivre that made Albus' old heart pound. So well he remembered that passion and youth, so deftly manipulated and artfully channeled. He once watched passively as that young man's smile had charmed his peers, and he'd looked on with an empty soul, secretly jealous of their connection to him, jealous of the youth he'd long since left behind. Now that youth was gone from this man, too, and only photos remained to remind an old man of the young man who had once enthralled him from a barely-maintained distance. He had favored this youth, had coddled and adored him. He had failed him.
The swollen-knuckled hands went next to a frame of dark wood that cradled the photograph of a middle-aged man with gaunt cheeks and cloudy grey eyes. Black hair fell around that sculpted face with a strangely artful ease, as though even dishevelment and Azkaban could not truly strip the beauty from this person. The old fingers traced the outlines, the old eyes closing to remember how madness lurked in the shadows of cheekbones and behind sweeping eyelashes, how despite it all humor and hope still radiated from within him. This man had been more resilient than any of the other pawns Albus used during the wars. This man had been impossible to break and, given over to the most desperate of circumstances, never ceased to regain his fire and zeal. So easy to abuse this one because no matter what was thrown at him, he came back fighting.
Albus' hands wanted to reach for another photograph, a photograph of this magnificent individual as an older man, with grandchildren on his knee. This man would have smiled from that photo with a face full of hard-earned satisfaction, eyes filled with a new and unexpected peace. There was no such picture, however, and there never would be. The soul that couldn't be broken had been lost altogether. No more chances to regain the fire, no more chances to drive away the darkness, no more chances to stop taking advantage of the buoyancy and unfailing loyalty.
There would never be a moment for Albus to say "I'm so cruel because I love you, Sirius." No absolution could be found in saying at last "I've always wanted you, your beauty and your passion and the strength of your soul. I didn't mean to crush your spirit, I only wanted to protect you." There was nothing left for Albus now. There was only the pain that twisted and swelled in his heart, a cancerous growth of guilty torment.
He pulled a studded leather whip from his desk drawer, running his fingers through the many thin strips, unknotting them before raising his wand and speaking the words that would make things better. He stood slowly then, arthritic joints creaking as he shed his robes and bent over his own desk in the drafty office with a hundred portraits of his predecessors looking on in hushed fascination. Albus carefully placed the photos of Sirius, wanting to let him take part in this penance, wanting Sirius to be comforted by this belated acceptance of culpability.
With a gesture that took all his will to make, the whip fell onto the old, bared back, angry scarlet marks lining the feeble flesh, the skin beginning to split after the first tremendous blow. Piteous wails flowed from Albus' mouth, but they were not so much cries of pain as vocalized relief from so deep within him that it was abject subjugation to the moment, to the sensations of leather and metal slicing his body to ribbons. It was no less than he deserved.
So much love filled his heart as he looked at the photos, so much love that had never had a proper outlet and had instead inspired a million wrong decisions. The young face and the older face both watched quietly as Albus screamed into the sound-proofed office, the blows falling becoming more than he could bear. But Sirius must be watching this, understanding in death what had been hidden in life; Sirius would see and forgive. There were only nineteen more blows to go.