100quills #39
Title: What if?
Fandom: Harry Potter
Characters: Ariana D, Albus D
Prompt: #39 Never
Word Count: 570
Rating: G
Summary: Ariana asks Albus her fourth question, one which queries her very existence. Sequel to Shadow-Ghost
Table link: http://airelement.livejournal.com/72127.html
One thing I have always wondered, is ‘what if?’ An immature question, maybe; one which should always be made specific to meet the critical standards that determine whom or what can be considered worthy of your respect. Not considered an equal, for you never truly saw anyone as quite as wise, experienced or intelligent as you. not since Gellert.
It must be a Dumbledore family trait, this habit of getting sidetracked. You made good use of it, turning it from a problematic habit to an artfully manipulative skill, but only your spectators from the grave ever discovered that it wasn’t always intentional; that sometimes even mighty Albus Dumbledore lost his focus. It’s a pity that you yourself sent some of those souls to this next great adventure, because maybe they could have helped you. As it is, you could beg their forgiveness for eternity and never turn a soul to your cause. Me? I don’t know, Albus. I suppose that’s why I’m asking you these questions, really. I cannot simply make a decision… not based on sisterly loyalty. Not alone. I need the assurance from the answers to these questions that I can depend on you in a way that I never could in life; depend on you to lead me into eternal rest. I don’t know what will happen, not yet.
What if. I do wonder that. What if you’d never met Gellert? What if we’d been born as muggles, never dreaming of the magical world that hides behind a filmy veneer of pretence and arrogance? Or what if you or I had been born a squib?
But no, there’s a more important ‘what if’ that I am about to ask you. I always knew in my most lucid times, Albus, that my madness was tearing our family apart, each of you suffering daily because I lived. I have always wondered if your life would have been less painful if my presence had not diverted the attentions of our parents. Should they have let me die, allowed me to pass on into a world where we would all one day have been reunited? I cannot believe that your life would have been any more difficult without me, certainly.
Oh, I am sure that Aberforth and Mother and Father would have been sad for a while if I had died, maybe for two weeks of abject misery, maybe even for a month. Maybe you would have been too. But it would have passed. I am sure it would have. How could any of you have truly mourned me, when my very life destroyed all of yours to the point of chronic depression?
You and Aberforth would have been happier without the burden of me; your lives would have been less painful if my presence had not diverted the attentions of our parents. Though brilliant, you were never rewarded with as much time as I, the baby girl of the family, and Aberforth faded into the background even more to make room for the care my madness demanded. Our parents would have been more joyful with just two healthy sons, than with a third child who made them suffer for the last years of their lives.
Would your life have taken a different path without that early sense of competition for attention, Albus? Would you never have made such drastic mistakes without that influence? What if I had never been born?
And the finale: Breakable
Fandom: Harry Potter
Characters: Ariana D, Albus D
Prompt: #39 Never
Word Count: 570
Rating: G
Summary: Ariana asks Albus her fourth question, one which queries her very existence. Sequel to Shadow-Ghost
Table link: http://airelement.livejournal.com/72127.html
One thing I have always wondered, is ‘what if?’ An immature question, maybe; one which should always be made specific to meet the critical standards that determine whom or what can be considered worthy of your respect. Not considered an equal, for you never truly saw anyone as quite as wise, experienced or intelligent as you. not since Gellert.
It must be a Dumbledore family trait, this habit of getting sidetracked. You made good use of it, turning it from a problematic habit to an artfully manipulative skill, but only your spectators from the grave ever discovered that it wasn’t always intentional; that sometimes even mighty Albus Dumbledore lost his focus. It’s a pity that you yourself sent some of those souls to this next great adventure, because maybe they could have helped you. As it is, you could beg their forgiveness for eternity and never turn a soul to your cause. Me? I don’t know, Albus. I suppose that’s why I’m asking you these questions, really. I cannot simply make a decision… not based on sisterly loyalty. Not alone. I need the assurance from the answers to these questions that I can depend on you in a way that I never could in life; depend on you to lead me into eternal rest. I don’t know what will happen, not yet.
What if. I do wonder that. What if you’d never met Gellert? What if we’d been born as muggles, never dreaming of the magical world that hides behind a filmy veneer of pretence and arrogance? Or what if you or I had been born a squib?
But no, there’s a more important ‘what if’ that I am about to ask you. I always knew in my most lucid times, Albus, that my madness was tearing our family apart, each of you suffering daily because I lived. I have always wondered if your life would have been less painful if my presence had not diverted the attentions of our parents. Should they have let me die, allowed me to pass on into a world where we would all one day have been reunited? I cannot believe that your life would have been any more difficult without me, certainly.
Oh, I am sure that Aberforth and Mother and Father would have been sad for a while if I had died, maybe for two weeks of abject misery, maybe even for a month. Maybe you would have been too. But it would have passed. I am sure it would have. How could any of you have truly mourned me, when my very life destroyed all of yours to the point of chronic depression?
You and Aberforth would have been happier without the burden of me; your lives would have been less painful if my presence had not diverted the attentions of our parents. Though brilliant, you were never rewarded with as much time as I, the baby girl of the family, and Aberforth faded into the background even more to make room for the care my madness demanded. Our parents would have been more joyful with just two healthy sons, than with a third child who made them suffer for the last years of their lives.
Would your life have taken a different path without that early sense of competition for attention, Albus? Would you never have made such drastic mistakes without that influence? What if I had never been born?
And the finale: Breakable