She's floating.

The world is dark and shaded, and the air feels muffled. It's too dark to see anything, but she dreams of Harry and Ron. Faded remnants of the past, a pastfuture that's so far away she can't do anything but dream.

Flashes of her life as Hermione blink past her, moving quickly like the flutter of a hummingbird's wings. It aches, that sweet life she'd once had. Even if she'd been a girl turned fighter, too early, too young. There was nothing that could replace the feeling of having two best friends. Two people who know you even better than you do yourself; who know when you needed a hug or a laugh.

Her memories tear away at her, eating at the things she thought she'd known. She's ripping apart at the seams, her heart being yanked in two different directions.

Who am I?

Is she Hermione? Is she Ariana? Her years as a Dumbledore pull at her mind and she feels herself spiraling down, deeper into an abyss that holds the depths of her heart.

An identity. That's all she wants. HermioneAriana thought she could live as Ariana Dumbledore. She thought she could accept the disappearance of her old life, and the birth of a new. But she can't remember if she has two brothers. She can't remember if she's the child of dentists. She can't remember if she's a Muggleborn or a Halfblood. Memories mix and swirl, bleeding into each other.

One moment, she's holding a lock of long blonde hair, and the next she's clutching a curl of brown.

She sees shining emerald eyes that fade into a brilliant, piercing blue.

Who— She chokes on the darkness, and a pressure crushes her chest, pressing down harder and harder until she's almost nothing.

A feral, primal part of her lashes out in her confusion, and distantly, she hears shrieking. The sounds cut her to the bone, reaching down into the deepest parts of her.

It hurts.

Everything hurts, and inside of her, there's a tiny swirl of madness that roots itself into her heart. It's barely a fleck, but it sears into her, hotter than fire.

It's dark, dark, dark, and she needs some light, she needs something to give her relief, but there's shouting and bangs and sharp explosions and she can't see anything.

She feels herself slipping away, darker and deeper into herself.

Who am I?

{ }

When HermioneAriana opens her eyes, the world is hazy and dim. She struggles to focus and blinks rapidly. Her arms sting, and she glances down at them.

Did I do that? Her arms are littered with dark bruises and raw, red scratches. There's a persistent throbbing in her head, and a sparking, untamed firework in her chest.

"Ariana?" A soft, almost fearful voice enters her ears, and she turns to see her mum (her mum?) sitting at her bedside.

Kendra Dumbledore reaches with a hesitant hand to stroke her daughter's hair, but ArianaHermione flinches away. It shocks and hurts Kendra, but she bites her lip and says nothing.

"What happened?" ArianaHermione's voice is hoarse, and it stings with overuse. She looks to her mum—or was it Kendra Dumbledore?—who looks away with pained eyes.

It's silent. ArianaDumbledore contemplates herself. She can't get rid of her feelings, her confusion on who she is. She's lived as Ariana, but she's also lived as Hermione. She's known people who don't even exist yet, but she's knows people who Hermione could've never become close to.

There's nothing she can do. The love she has for the people she's known and knows fills her to the brim, and it's like holding a warm cup of hot cocoa on a quiet winter day. It's peaceful, and it battles with the indecision that sleeps inside of her.

No matter what she tries or what she thinks, she'll always have two lives inside of her, battling for recognition. And she has to accept this. For now, she'll be Ariana.

Even if she misses Harry and Ron the most (though her old age has tempered some of the ache). Even if she misses her two best friends and the way they seemed to know how she was feeling and thinking; how Harry always knew the right thing to say and how Ron always managed to cheer her up.

Ariana knows that her two lives will always be warring inside of her, but she pushes it down, deep, deep inside of her, where she will leave it to one day resurface. She doesn't have time for this right now, not when the same insanity that caught the old Ariana could catch her.

Because even now, she's still the same person, even if she has two names and two lifetimes. And she just has to keep living, to keep learning, to change the future for those she cares about. Because she now has two lifetimes of family to protect, and she'll do whatever she can to make sure they live as happily as they possibly can. No one deserves the ever-present ache of never knowing their parents, or the empty hollowness of losing a sibling.

But she's here now, and she has to make sure that those terrible tragedies will never happen.

Ariana closes her eyes and rubs her temples. She can still feel her magic frothing inside of her like a geyser about to erupt. It's a wonder that the old Ariana even survived for so long without accidentally killing someone with her magic.

But she's not only Ariana, she's Hermione, so she has the steeled mind of a battle-hardened woman. She's already been traumatized by the war; she's been tortured and seen death falling all around her. A few cruel children won't be able to top that. Her magic feeds on her unstable emotions, so she'll just have to learn to temper herself. It won't be difficult. She's a logical person; and though she can get emotional, it's her cool, quick reasoning that's at the center of her character.

"Dear, are you alright?" Her mum's eyes are worried she looks like she wants to reach out to touch Ariana. It'd been a long, contemplative silence that her mum could have easily mistaken for withdrawal and fear.

"Yes, mum, I'm alright." It's when Ariana says this that she finally takes in her surroundings and sees how much of it is lying in disarray.

"Did I do that?" She asks her mum, almost tonelessly.

Kendra hesitates but nods. "Yes. But don't worry, no one was hurt. It's nothing that magic can't easily fix, dear."

"I'm sorry. I was scared." Ariana tells her mum honestly. Her mum leans forward and hugs her gently, but Ariana can tell that her mum is almost reserved in the hug. Like she's afraid of her.

Well, Ariana doesn't blame her. With magic as volatile as hers, she wouldn't be surprised if no one really wanted to go near her.

"Mum," she says slowly, "I won't hurt you. Or at least, I'll try my best not to."

And with this, her usually calm and composed mum bursts into tears. Kendra's sobbing, and she throws arms around her daughter tightly.

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry." Kendra blubbers out fractured statements with variations between "I know" and "I'm sorry".

Ariana pats her mum's back gently. "Mum, there's nothing to be sorry for. You didn't do anything."

"No," wails her mum, "That's the problem. I should've been watching you. I should've never let that happen. I'm so sorry, Ariana. I'm sorry."

Ariana clutches her mum tightly in a way she's never done, even when she was a child.

When her dad comes into the room to investigate the noise her mum was making, he sees the two of them in an almost immovable embrace. It's painful and touching, and it makes his heart ache with anger at the Muggles who had hurt his daughter.

He sits by them and holds his wife's hand and says nothing. He's too busy thinking about righteous vengeance on those who dared to hurt his daughter so badly she'd been traumatized to the point where she couldn't control her magic.

They'll never get away with this. He vows, looking at the small, vulnerable forms of his wife and daughter.

{ }

The floorboards creak as Albus and Aberforth peer into their sister's room. Their mum is holding Ariana tightly as the two get much-needed sleep. It would almost be peaceful, if not for the events that'd occurred.

"I should've stayed with her instead of playing with my broom." Aberforth comments sadly, feeling a stir of grief for his sister's mental state and the pain she had to endure. "I hate those Muggles."

There's a bloom of anger in his chest, and he feels so much hate that it's hard to keep it in. "I hate them!"

Albus touches his brother's arm softly. "It's not our fault. And I hate them for doing that to Ariana too."

For the first time in years, the brothers feel a spark of amicability and shared agreement.

But good things never last in the Dumbledore household.

{ }

The next thing Aberforth knows, his dad is in Azkaban and there are three dead Muggle boys. He's horrified and he doesn't know what's going to happen. His dad is gone. Gone, rotting in a jail where he'll never see his family again.

Albus is terrified. His mum is almost at her breaking point. Ariana's struggling with her magic and the guilt that she had a part in landing their dad in Azkaban. Aberforth is silent and only stays by Ariana's side.

Everything he thought he knew is falling apart too quickly for him to comprehend. His father is a murderer.

His carefully structured and planned life is shifting and moving directions that fade into the unknown.

What's going to happen?

He's terrified.

Ariana now only sleeps fitfully. Her dreams are battered with death and shaded images. Her dad is in Azkaban, where he will die. All because of her. Because he killed the Muggle boys that attacked her.

The guilt eats away at her, and it feeds into her magic. Ariana may have been a battle-hardened woman (she'd never been a child), but she's never felt this kind of crushing guilt before.

Her dad. Her wonderful, loving dad is gone. Gone where will suffer in misery for the rest of his life. She wasn't able to save him.

It's all her fault.

Aberforth does all he can to support his family. His mum is unresponsive and doesn't talk. She breaks out into crazed fits, where she paces the room and mutters to herself until she collapses on the sofa. Albus shuts himself in his room and just reads all day. Ariana keeps her door shut in the fear that she will hurt someone with her magic.

But he's not afraid of her. Not really. Because he knows that Ariana could never hurt him. She would never willingly hurt her family, and he's the only one she has left because his mum is too busy trying to keep their family going, and his brother is too busy holing himself up in denial.

So he stays with Ariana, trying not to drown in grief, and supports her as best he can.

{ }

A few weeks later, they're in Godric's Hollow. It's a wizarding village, with a few exceptions. However, it's the perfect place for Kendra Dumbledore, who just wants to live with her family in peace.

No one can ever know about Ariana.

Aberforth can tell his mum his treating his sister like some porcelain doll. His mum never lets Ariana go into the yard alone, and treats her like her magic is going to explode any minute.

He's nine now, and he knows Ariana the best. They're only a year apart, and as a result, they spent most of their time together as playmates. And he knows that this treatment isn't what Ariana needs. She needs to be treated normally, exposed to the world where she can learn to control her emotions. Her magic may be damaged, but Ariana's smart enough to find a way around it. He knows it.

But even as he voices his protests to his mum, nothing changes. Their family stays isolated, and Kendra rebuffs any form of neighborly contact. Because every time they go out, there are eyes and whispers. People blatantly pointing at them, staring at them with judging eyes like they know the whole story. It bothers Aberforth, but it infuriates Albus. Everywhere they go, there are whispers and stares, and they'll never be free from it.

Ariana doesn't know how much time has passed because all she does is stay in her room all day and read. Of course, under normal circumstances, she would have loved to read all day, but this is no normal circumstance. She's still battling with her inner guilt and the stifling feeling that comes with being treated as a secret. She knows that her mum is doing it for her own good—she doesn't want her daughter to be trapped in an asylum—but Ariana feels fine. She doesn't feel insane. And while it may seem like she's unstable to her mum, she really isn't. Or at least, she doesn't feel that she is. Which is alright with her. Whoever said that the world was sane, anyway?

She hates the way the Dumbledores have to close themselves up. Bathilda Bagshot came knocking on their door the first day they moved in and tried to befriend Kendra, who promptly slammed the door in her face. Ariana just wants a normal life. She doesn't want her brothers to feel burdened. It just adds to her guilt, the guilt that makes her feel like she's ruined everything. The timeline is moving along just like it did in the original one, and the only thing that's changed is that Ariana is slightly less insane this time around. And that doesn't help at all. She can't believe that she's been able to change nothing, even with knowledge of the future.

Still, even as some days get particularly bad, when she's overcome with her guilt, she's grateful for Aberforth, who treats her normally, and is always gentle with her. He doesn't treat her like she's made of glass, but he isn't rough and inconsiderate of her feelings.

This both comforts her and eats away at her. She knows that Aberforth is struggling with the changes and his feelings, but he still makes time for her. In fact, he's always helping her. And Ariana doesn't want to feel useless anymore. She needs to do something for herself.

Even if she's still riddled with guilt, she has to learn to control her magic so her family won't have to live with secrecy. She knows that secrets hurt, and it's harder to hide a secret than to live with it exposed.

Ariana's emotionally damaged, but it's nothing she can't live with. After all, she's lived through a war, and she lived the rest of her life after that.

The rest of her days are filled with books and research, of practicing her magic and trying to pull her family back together again. She won't let her family suffer anymore.

Albus is engrossed in his studies (he'll be attending Hogwarts soon) and she knows that the family secret is dragging him down. So Ariana does her best to live as calmly as she can. Sometimes, she even helps Albus with his studies—she's already studied his subjects—but most of the time, she talks with Aberforth and does more research.

She's thirsty for more knowledge; she needs to change the future, and she needs to be well enough to attend Hogwarts. If she can't control her magic, she'll never be able to go. The original Ariana accidentally killed her mum when she was fourteen, and Ariana doesn't think she'll be able to live with that. Even if her mum is getting more and more distant as the months pass.

Controlling her magic is now something tedious and difficult—she makes slow progress, and she can't bring back the feeling of perfecting her magic to a sharp point. With a jolt of shock and horror, Ariana realizes that she doesn't even know what intentionally using her magic even feels like anymore. All of her toil and practice during her younger years were all for naught.

Suddenly, anger and frustration fills her. She's done nothing but practice and research for the past few months. Albus is going to Hogwarts in one week, and she's improved nothing since the incident. All of her feelings come crashing down into her—guilt, uselessness, frustration; the whole lot of them.

She gets up and leaves her room, going downstairs to where her brothers and her mum are eating lunch. Most of the time, Ariana forgets to eat, and Aberforth always has to remind her or bring her up some food.

But right now, she's irritated and furious with herself, she just needs to get out. She's been confined for months without feeling fresh air or the warm sun on her skin for so long. There's almost a feeling of hate buried under her negative emotions; a feeling of hate for her mum who refuses to let her live openly. She hates it. Hermione Granger had never been able to be held down, and Ariana Dumbledore isn't going to take it either. She's a free, independent soul, and she can't stand this anymore.

Without saying a word, she quietly walks to the back door and opens it. There's a calm expression on her face that contradicts the emotions boiling inside of her.

"Where are you going?" Asks her mum sharply. Ariana doesn't bother turning around.

"Out." She answers shortly, and thrusts the door open, ready to step outside for a taste of freedom.

"You can't!" Her mum's voice is bordering hysterical as she steps onto the soft, lush green grass of the backyard.

Ariana takes a deep breath and sighs contently. This freshness, this soothing wind; she's really really missed it. The grass tickles her bare toes, and she begins to wander over to a tall oak tree to sit down under.

"Stop!" A rough hand grabs Ariana's arm, and she harshly tugged back by her mum. "I told you that you can't go outside alone."

Anger overwhelms Ariana, smothering the fear of disobeying her mum.

Who is she to stop her? Hermione has lived decades longer than Kendra has, and she's lived through a fucking war. So who is she to stop her?

Hermione rips her arm away. "I'm going outside." She says calmly, though the rage simmering beneath her voice is evident for all to hear.

Her mum looks terrified and furious. "I said no."

"I'm going outside and that's that. I haven't been outside for months, and I've been living like a prisoner! You never let me do anything, and I want to stop living like the shameful family secret!"

Her mum nearly recoils—this is the first time Hermione's raised her voice intentionally—but quickly darts forward to forcibly drag her back inside.

Kendra is terrified. Utterly terrified. She's been living with the stares and the whispers, and she's lost her husband to Azkaban. She has a mentally unstable daughter and two sons to take care of. She can't let Ariana be discovered. She won't. And she won't let Ariana be taken away to an asylum. She can't afford to lose any more of her family, and it's pushing her to her limits.

"Get inside!" She shrieks, and seizes her daughter by the arm and starts dragging her into the house.

Aberforth and Albus have gathered to the back door and are watching with rising horror.

The air twists and writhes, and the magic that had been suppressed by Hermione explodes violently. Kendra flies backwards into the house, and the back door slams so hard it nearly falls off its hinges. The oak tree moans as another wave of magic blasts into it, and the roots creak ominously. The house has been slightly singed, and there's so much chaos that everyone is stunned and unable to move.

Immediately, guilt and shame fills Hermione as she stands, panting harshly. She'd lost control of her magic and hurt someone. Again.

And this time, it was her mum.

Ariana grimaces as she closes her eyes tiredly.

I can't believe I hurt someone again. And mum, of all people.

Her magic is already twisted and broken in ways that can't be repaired. It's something that she can feel inside of her, writhing and contorting like a snake that's just struck its prey. She can't fix it.

It's frustrating, and the thought echoes around her.

My magic is broken.

It's frustrating and painful and fills her with grief. She'd always had pride in her magical abilities, her precise control. But now, it's all gone. Everything she thought she had just disappeared with one incident.

And it's not fair. She hates it, hates what she's become.

"Ari?" asks Aberforth hesitantly. He steps forward like one might do to an injured animal.

She looks up at him, and her eyes are brimming with hot, angry, and shameful tears.

"Hey, it's okay." Aberforth soothes, coming closer to her, "It's not your fault. It'll be okay." He takes her hand with the utmost tenderness, and Ariana can feel her heart ache with the love she has for her brother. The only family member that's treated her like a person, not a burden.

"Sorry." She sniffs. Though she has the mindset of an adult, she has the body of a child. And she's so, so tired. Tired of everything.

Aberforth pulls her into a gentle hug and the two stand there for what seems like an eternity as Albus tends to their mum.

Ariana now knows that she must learn to control her magic. It isn't an option. And she doesn't even want to think about what might have happened if the outburst had been more lethal, and if her mum hadn't flown into the couch.

I might've killed her. And it's a thought that chills her to the bone. She is not a killer, nor does she want to be.

{ }

Albus takes off for Hogwarts, glad to be away from his family. He can't deal with this, not now, when he has such a vast future in front of him. All he can see are the possibilities, and he doesn't need anything or anyone tying him down. Sure, he loves his family, but he also loves knowledge and power. And Hogwarts is the perfect place to gain what he's looking for.

He leaves behind a broken but slowly healing sister, an angry brother, and a changed mum.

Seven more years to go. Seven more years until he's finally an adult.

A/N: So the whole Hermione Ariana thing might be confusing but here it is in a nutshell: Whichever name is in the narrative reflects her state of mind. So when she becomes more like "Hermione", she's more detached to the Dumbledores, and has attributes that she gained from her past life (like how the war affected her, ect.). But when she's "Ariana", she feels the familial bonds strongly, and looks towards the present rather than what she once had.

And yes, she's kind of insane. I mean, how can you not be? Hermione holds two lives inside of her, and she doesn't know which people she values more, ect. So I hope I'm portraying her struggle with reality in a way that's understandable.

Thanks to all the people who favorited, followed, and reviewed!

This chapter was seriously hard to write, for some reason, so the quality isn't that great (I'm ashamed to say). Anyway, I just wanted to get this out of the way and move on to bigger plot points. Hopefully Grindelwald can make his appearance in a few chapters (though I highly doubt it will be that soon). As usual, thanks for reading, and please point out any concerns or issues you see in this chapter!