Bright Blue, Teal Blue

Albus walked up High Street in Hogsmeade, listening to the sound of his boots crushing the snow. He stopped for a moment, looking down a narrow street, then let the air leave his lungs, watching a small cloud form just before his nose. It was late at night, and the wind blew the snow against windows and walls. No one was out and about anymore, but he knew his brother would still be up.

It was perhaps the only thing they had in common, other than their surname and their blue eyes. The night brought them a certain measure of comfort, a certain quiet that couldn't be found under during the hours of the day, and they both sought it. He held a small container closer to his cloak. It wouldn't like his body heat, and he had forgotten to cast a cooling spell on it, but the night was freezing so he should be alright.

They hadn't met in decades, he and Aberforth. After the death of their little sister, they had fallen completely out of touch, but now Aberforth lived here, in Hogsmeade, just next to Hogwarts, and it could not be helped.

He found himself standing before a dingy looking inn. The Hog's Head, read the wooden sign, where a boar's head dripped blood. At least it wasn't a goat, he thought, petting his silver beard. The auburn had given way to white and grey at first, but Albus now had a proper silvery beard, the result of his worries sublimed into a physical feature. There was a broken sled by the door, undoubtedly used to carry something too heavy for the frail looking boards. He pushed his glasses up his nose bridge and pushed the door.

It was much warmer inside, and just as dirty as the outside made you think. There was a certain stench to the place, as if it were being used to store cattle. There were cobwebs under the tables and up in the ceiling, in between chairs' legs and in the corners of windows, which were remarkably opaque. He stood there, fighting the wind in his efforts to close the door first, then getting rid of the snow that clung to his clothes. He could hear his brother singing somewhere upstairs, a rowdy song about a duel between two witches. The notes came to a halt at the sound of the door shutting.

"We're closed! The door isn't locked, but that does not mean you should come inside, you idiot!"

Aberforth's voice had changed over the years. It was rougher now, hoarser, deeper. His bellow was enough to keep most students out of here, he was sure. Albus also found something else in there, something he shared as well, the tell-tale notes of grief unresolved. He heard his steps come crashing down the steps, the rickety looking staircase groaning and cracking and whining under his weight. He marched towards the door and then he was frozen in place, looking utterly flabbergasted.

He turned away from him, without saying a single word. Only when he was already heading back upstairs did he deliver his blow.

"I must be hearing things, now. There's no one down here. Must have been the wind."

"Please, don't do this," Albus pleaded, "Aberforth, I've come to make amends." He sighed, letting his shoulders collapse into his chest. He placed the small container on the nearest table, and removed his heavy woollen cloak from his shoulders, setting it on the back of a chair nearby.

But he had come to make amends, and he couldn't leave now. Leaving now would mean never talking to each other, he knew. Aberforth had an unwavering ability to carry a grudge, and he would do it to his grave. So he steeled himself against the harsh words that he knew were coming, flung like curses. He picked up the container again and followed his brother up the stairs, his wand pocketed, yet fully aware that there was a very good chance of being attacked the second Aberforth set eyes on him again.

He didn't do anything. He simply ignored Albus. After all these years, his little brother still knew how to best hurt him. He was sitting on an armchair, before the fire, and Albus felt his eyes water at the sight of Ariana, smiling at her favourite brother from over the mantelpiece. She turned her eyes to him, then, the vacant sweetness in her eyes just as he remembered, adjusting a stray blonde curl.

"Ariana…" He couldn't keep her name from escaping his lips. She looked so happy in that portrait, he never saw her that happy anymore, not unless he was looking into the Mirror of the Erised. His dreams were filled with her rage, and her tears, and her very last moment.

"Ari, go away for a little while," his little brother asked of her, "there's something weird going about this place tonight."

Ariana nodded at Aberforth, gave Albus a sad smile and walked away from them both, down the path beyond the arch of greenery behind her. Aberforth lowered his head from the portrait to the flames.

Albus wasn't quite sure about how to start their conversation, and his brain seemed to choose to stupidest way possible.

"I got you some ice-cream..." He wanted to kick himself and hurl his head into a wall the moment he heard himself say it, but it worked.

Aberforth laughed, a bitter laugh filled with rage. Then he roared from his seat.

"Is that what you think of me, Albus, hmm? Do you still think of me as a five-year-old boy that could be bought with ice-cream?"

He fell silent after that, apparently uninterested in carrying their conversation.

"You do realize it's Christmas, don't you?" Again an obtuse way to engage in conversation, but again it prompted a reaction.

"Bah humbug," was all his brother had to say to that, but it was something.

Albus pointed his wand at the mantle and Conjured a Christmas stocking before he could stop himself. His tact seemed to have abandoned him completely tonight. Aberforth hated Christmas ever since their father had been arrested and the occasion had become a reminder of what they could not have.

The stocking was nearly ripped off the mantle by Aberforth's wand and tossed into the flames, where the cheerful thing of red and green burned away to cinder. And still, Aberforth did not stand to face him. Albus figured he would have to force him, and he resented his brother for it. He levitated the ice-cream to a table and forced his body to calm down. He couldn't let this descend into madness and hexing each other over what had happened decades ago. He had come to make amends, he had, but Aberforth seemed hell-bent on keeping them as estranged has they had been.

"It's been over forty years, Aberforth…"

"And it still hurts like it was yesterday," his brother said in a growl, turning his head over his shoulder.

Aberforth looked him in the eye, and there was something akin to hatred in his bright blue eyes. He rose from his seat, facing him for the first time since he had entered the Hog's Head.

"I was the only one that could help her, she would do things for me when I asked even after Mother had done everything she knew," he took a large breath, his left hand clamping on the back of the chair, "and you were never there for that! You were too busy being brilliant and trying to make everyone forget that there were other Dumbledores on this earth!"

"I wanted a better world for her! I wanted to make sure that what those boys did to her would never happen again!"

"No, Albus do not lie to yourself. Don't dare lie to me, brother. Your greater good was a sorry excuse to exert your brilliancy over others," Aberforth was back to bellowing, his wand in his hand, "you wanted power as much as he did."

There it was again. A blow so precise only one other person could have delivered it.

"Yes, Aberforth, I wanted more. I still do. But I wanted it for good reasons-"

And Aberforth laughed, loud and long, exaggerating his mirth, tossing his head back. Albus found himself relieved that his brother had asked Ariana to leave. This was not something he wanted her to see, after all.

"Oh, Albus, you may have been one of the brightest students Hogwarts ever knew, and proficient in all of your subjects, but stop trying to fool me," he scorned, "sadly, you do not have proficiency in buckets of goblin shit."

"There's no need for that, Aberforth."

But his brother was right. He had always seen right through him, right through his motives. Aberforth was never an accomplished student, but he had a keen eye when it came to people's souls. He had never liked Gellert, Albus thought, feeling that particular wound twist and burn in his chest. He had never liked their cause, their hunger for more.

Albus still hadn't found it in his heart a way to forgive him. He hadn't even let himself feel it properly. Deep down, he had never come to grasp the notion that his brother knew, well before he realized, just how bad Gellert would turn out to be for all of them. He resented Aberforth for his ability to read souls, for his ability to read Ariana's so much better than he ever could, for his ability to see the darkness in Gellert's far before he ever did.

"There is every need for it! You go about Hogwarts as one of the greatest wizards ever, and what do you do about Grindelwald? He is using the Muggle War to hide his atrocities from them, but we all see what he's been doing! And you do nothing! You tell a sad little tale about not being able to move against him because of your youth together!"

"We have a Blood Pact! I cannot move against him, yet" he had to raise his voice well above what he deemed proper, but then tact had left the premises well before this moment, "but I think I've found a way, now… It's why I wanted to talk to you today."

"You're going to fight Grindelwald?" Aberforth looked shocked, his mouth left agape at the end of the question.

"I've never been this close before. And I fear it, Aberforth, he is incredibly powerful, he has a wand…"

"Oh, here we go. The great Albus Dumbledore yet again making excuses to not do what he's supposed to. You left us. You left us alone to pursuit your glory, your greater good. You left Ariana alone with Mother when you should have been home, and Mother died for it! Then you packed me off to school once more instead of letting me help and watched as she grew more and more incontrollable! She was turning into something dark and dangerous and you let her!"

"How was I supposed to stop it? Father never told us what happened, neither did Mother, and I didn't know what to do to calm her."

"But I did, Albus, I did," Aberforth's voice broke, bellowing no more, "and you didn't let me help. I was helping her that summer, she was getting better… she was. And then he came and you didn't stop him. Just like you won't stop him now."

"I want to, Aberforth. I'm trying. I've wanted nothing more than avenge what Gellert did to you that day, what happened to Ariana because of him," his voice didn't break, but it grew quieter, "I think I have a way, now. I'll stop Gellert Grindelwald, I'll make him pay."

"You'll stop him? You should kill him for what he did to Ariana!"

And though he did not know it, that blow was the most powerful of them all. Because what Aberforth did not realize was that Ariana could have died because of Albus curse, not Gellert's. His brother's wand might have been the one to send Ariana's unstable magic over the edge.

He wanted to assure his brother that he would make Gellert pay. If not for killing Ariana, for they could not be sure that his wand had truly been at fault, then for disturbing the tiny world Albus had been trying to build for himself and his family. He had hated that small existence, but he had lost his family, and he had come to realize that one day, not yet, he would be willing to trade all his glory for another chance at that small, yet happy, life.

But Aberforth was not in the room anymore. Albus could hear his steps move away, and he thought that his attempt at a reunion was over. Then Aberforth's steps were louder once more, making the floorboards groan, and he stormed into the room, his blue eyes alight, fuelled by fury. He carried something Albus could not discern until it was flying through the air, physically tossed at his face.

He failed to catch it, and he heard a button hit the lenses of his half-moon shaped glasses. It fell from his face to his awaiting hands, caressing his face on its downward movement, flowing like water.

In his hands lay a dress, a teal blue dress. Teal like the one Ariana wore in her portrait, a favourite colour of hers. Albus felt his tears run down his face, unable to stop them. The dress in his hands had burn marks in it, dark scars to the beautiful shade of blue, a few drops of blood just under the collar. His little sister had died in this dress, and his little brother had kept it. Only he kept nothing of hers, nothing of theirs.

"I'll make him pay, Aberforth, I have a way now. I know better now."

"You kill him, Albus," he said, almost an order, walking up to him and taking the dress from his hands, clutching it in his large hands, "you make him pay with his life. For Ariana, Albus. Kill him, and I'll consider your amends made." He folded the dress with care, with reverence, handling it like he did nothing else in this place. That dress was his treasure.

Albus took a step back, drying his tears with a handkerchief. He could not bring himself to try and hug Aberforth, and he didn't believe him to allow it, so he waved goodbye and walked downstairs. As he picked up his cloak from the chair where he had left it, he suddenly thought of the ice-cream upstairs. It would have melted by now, certainly. He opened the door without looking back, perfectly aware that Aberforth hadn't even followed him downstairs, and he faced the wind and the snow again.

His mind wandered as his steps instinctively led him to Hogwarts, and he found himself in his quarters at school, standing before his desk, looking at the palpable link between him and Gellert. He pointed his wand at the silvery vial that held the mixed drop of his and Gellert's blood.

"For the greater good," he whispered, "for Ariana."

Author's Notes: Prompts and Challenges

Assignment 10 Muggle Music Task #4: Write about a family reunion.

December Writing Club – Character Appreciation 16. [Trait] Power Hungry; Disney Challenge Characters 3. The Enchantress - Write about wanting vengeance; Cookie's Cooking Corner 10. Heroes Alt, Write about a rival; Book Club Mrs Owens: (action) singing, (object) dress, (word) cobwebs; Showtime 14. Out Tonight: (trait) night owl; Amber's Attic Famous Feuds 1. Write about someone being upset that someone else left them; Count your Buttons Objects 5. Sled, Dialogues 3. "Bah humbug", Words 3. Freezing; Em's Emporium 7. (word) bought; Angel's Arcade 12. Jane Valderamma: (dialogue) "I've never been this close before." (colour) teal, (emotion) resentment; Lo's Lowdown Dialogue 1. "Sadly, you do not have proficiency in buckets of goblin shit.";

Winter Funfair- Eastern: The Polar Express 1st stop Plot point – receiving a cold shoulder; Northern: Building an Igloo 1st layer (dialogue) "Please, don't do this"; Southern: Christmas Raffle Item: Christmas Stocking, Colour: Silver, Food: Ice-Cream

Winter Bucket List: 1. (word) bright

Choc Frogs (Gold) Albus Dumbledore

Advent Calendar Day 6 – Families: Dumbledore

365 Prompts Challenge 346. Word – Flabbergasted

Word Count – 2 539