Of Life and Lies

by Emerald Olive

A/N: This is the story of the Dumbledore Family: Albus, Aberforth, Ariana, Kendra and Percival. A family that was ripped apart by vengeance, ambition, love, life, and lies. Obviously there will be major Deathly Hallows Spoilers, so read at your own risk. Happy reading, and please review!

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I do not own the characters, the story, or the world. It all belongs to J.K.Rowling.

Prologue: He Was Never Free

Those three kids, he had never seen anyone look so downtrodden yet determined at the same time. They were crazy, what did they think they were playing at, trying to sneak into Hogwarts? They had told him that they had been given a job. Something important, no doubt. Some unreachable aim that had been shoved, cleverly and carefully, into their inexperienced heads by his almighty, all-knowing brother.

As he watched them climb through the portrait on top of the mantelpiece he couldn't help but feel as if he was watching them walk to their deaths. It was a morbid thought, it was true. But they were so young. His brother had expected so much from them. How could anyone place the weight of the world on the shoulders of three children? What had Albus been thinking? They were just kids. Hadn't he realized that? Hadn't he taken that into account? Hadn't he understood that the loss of three lives for the greater good was the loss of three innocent lives? No. His brother was always looking ahead, sacrificing the life of today for the life of tomorrow. His brother had never taken innocent lives into account, he thought bitterly.

But had it been only Albus who had risked an innocent life before? No, he answered himself truthfully, with the great familiar twang of guilt. He glanced anxiously at the portrait of Ariana. She had returned to her customary position and was eyeing him knowingly, expectantly.

He walked over to her for what seemed like the thousandth time. His old, wrinkled, veined hands that had once been young and swift gripped the mantel, turning his aged knuckles white. His blue eyes, the same as hers, the same as his brother's, locked with those in the portrait, separated by canvas, but so much more as well.

"Was it I who killed you?" he asked her oil painted face vehemently, earnestly, dying to know the answer which he had always been denied. He waited with bated breath for the consolation which he knew would never come.

She gazed at him with interest through her piercing blue eyes, her young, sweet face displaying the ghost of a smile he had once known so well.

She shook her head slightly, but confidently, her eyes glinting playfully.

But whether her response meant that he had not been the one to cast the fatal blow, or that she was simply refusing to tell him the truth, he would never know.

He sat down, frustrated, on the nearest chair, lost in his labyrinth of thoughts, always colliding with the same memories that had been revisited and relived so many times, traveling in circles, never finding the way out. Would he ever find the exit? Would he ever come to terms with the possibility that it might have been himself who had murdered his own younger sister? Would he ever be free of this guilt that he alone knew? For so long he had been certain that he was the only one that knew this feeling. He had been so sure that he was the solitary man living with this terrible, never ending guilt. But was he?

What was it that the Potter boy had said?

He was never free.

Was that true?

Could that be true?

Had his brother truly and honestly been trapped in the same maze of memories that he himself was imprisoned in?

There had been so many lies. A life of lies, his brother had led. But could this, one pure golden thread in the colossal collection of falsities, be a true and honest reality?

Had the boy spoken the truth?

Had the brothers, who had never shared anything throughout their lives, shared the same guilt, the guilt that ate away your insides, that threatened to burst out of you in spurts of uncontrollable magic or that leaked out slowly through tears?

He would never know.

Never.

He was never free.

This statement, seemingly simple, benign, this statement…this statement changed everything.

Had his brother, his power-hungry, brilliant, forever planning brother really been locked away in the same cell as his own without his knowledge?

Had he been too biased to see the similarity in their conditions? Maybe.

He regretted it now.

Just another thing to regret.

Just another thing to ponder in this prison without a key that he had built for himself.

He was never free.