Fic Update: Absolution (Dumbledore)

[reverdybrune]

Title: Absolution
Characters: Albus Dumbledore, cameos by Aberforth, Snape, and Harry
Rating: PG
Length: 2,200 words
Summary: You don’t expect forgiveness. You do the best you can, always, but you of all people know that it will never be enough.
Warnings: DH spoilers, angst

A/N: Everything belongs to JK Rowling, of course. Quotes from canon are

Comments

[aerama]

You know, I think I never really realized until this moment what it means to be Albus Dumbledore.
It's a staggering, endless, awesome burden, and we needed to see it from his eyes even more than from Harry's, that cracked mirror of his soul, the self-condemnation, the weariness, the inability to lay down the load - or to take comfort in carrying it on.
And above all how brilliant and astonishing and marvelous he really was.
Thank you for that.

Everyone else in there, all the peripheral characters to which Harry is Dumbledore's center, are spot-on and equally fabulous. I especially liked this:
"Sirius apologizes the next morning, of course, but you can tell that he is apologizing not because he didn't mean the words, but because he did." How brilliant is that!?

Bravo.

[reverdybrune]

Thank you so much

[nekocat17]

Maybe I'm just stupid to not know, but I'm curious why it was going to be a mess for both of them?

[reverdybrune]

Well, that part is more my particular reading of the characters than anything. It's just that Dumbledore and Harry are both people who consider the big picture, and that doesn't exactly make for an easy relationship. I think in some ways it might have been easier for both of them if they hadn't been so close; Harry wouldn't have been so upset in DH if he hadn't expected more from Dumbledore. The same is true in OotP. But then, I don't blame Dumbledore for it either; once he started involving himself in Harry's life, of course both of them got more attached than was probably wise. It seems to me that Dumbledore always expected Harry to be more angry with him than Harry actually was. On Dumbledore's side there's this immense guilt, and on Harry's there's abandonment, and through mutual misunderstanding we have lots of angst in OotP and DH. And I think that it was always going to be that way (messy, angsty, etc.) unless Dumbledore actually had turned out to be a manipulative jerk who didn't give a damn about Harry, or something

[fairy_tale_echo]

Here from snapenews and I just have to say I really loved this. I love the use of second person when it's done right and this was quiet brilliant. And it's not just your awesome Snape and Harry but the section about Sirius is pretty much EXACTLY perfect...it's everything that gets forgotten about his character sometimes, I think, and you just nailed the really amazing kind of guy he was, to make the choices that he made. And, OH, the end! :) In all, really lovely. Thanks for writing this!!

[reverdybrune]

Thank you! This fic sort of fell into second person. I started it in third person, but it just didn't work, and after I switched to second the writing got a lot easier.

I'm glad you liked the Sirius part. I don't think it had really struck me until DH what a horrible loss Sirius really was, because after he's gone Harry's main source of guidance is Dumbledore, and of course Dumbledore was never going to be able to fullfill the same role Sirius did. I had had hopes for Remus, but he had too many of his own issues to sort out, it seems.

Thanks again for your review. :D

[alena_hu]

This is wonderful. Especially the bit with Horcrux!Harry and Ariana: brilliant.

[reverdybrune]

Thank you!

I had fun with the horcrux part. I'm glad you liked it. At first it was going to be a boggart, but the horcrux scene in DH gave us such wonderful canon to play with that I had to use it. Plus, the boggart wouldn't let me have the two of them interacting, which was what I really wanted. Ariana getting Harry to turn on Dumbledore. *sniffle*

Thanks again. ;)

[esoterica1693]

This is most excellent--it shows just how haunted Dumbledore was. Which was the part of his character in DH which struck me, and bothered me, the most. I thought he could have come to terms w/ his guilt over Ariana in 130 yrs. But of course the wound was kept open and bleeding constantly by what he found himself having to do with/to Harry. What he understood to be his penance--to try to make something good of his brilliance, to have it serve the truly greater good--led him to have to sacrifice another person he loved, quite deliberately, and feel like he was just repeating the earlier sin--he was truly in a damned position.

Thanks for giving me that insight into him--I think it is very believable.

[reverdybrune]

Thank you!

I know exactly what you mean about how this was the most troubling part about Dumbledore. I agree. Half the time I just wanted to jump in the book and shake him, and shout "You think Harry is angry at you for that?!? Something you did over a hundred years ago?" It was like, didn't we go through this once already? Harry was angry with him in OotP too, and it had nothing to do with Ariana and everything to do with Harry feeling abandoned. *sigh* It's just... depressing, because there really wasn't anything he could've done, but that didn't appear to lessen the misery it caused everyone. :-\

Thanks again. :D

[dizilla]

That was fantastic, and it definitely felt like Dumbledore. Brilliantly done. ^_^

[reverdybrune]

Thank you! I had fun with my foray into Dumbledore's head. :D