This choice: It was the best of times, it was the worst of times... • Go Back...Chapter #4A tale of two brothers (and the occasional sister) by: theskin   I
Flashes and bangs do not a wizard make
II
But that didn't stop the three teenage boys from making the biggest fireworks display ever seen in Scotland in the privacy of a rather posh summery garden.
Among them, the youngest was a boy of sixteen, who looked as if he'd spent the day diving in a mud pool, his dirty blonde hair a mess, his clothes torn, his mouth twitching more every second. Eyes peaceful. Blue. Piercing. Almost twinkling from happiness, if it weren't for the stinging hex he'd received in the crotch two minutes earlier.
The one who cast the dreadful spell was the oldest of the three, Tall, handsome, face hard and pointy, as if carved with a knife his dark hair a lovely mess, his green eyes the stuff fanfic writers love to write about, dressed in what passed as the cleanest outfit in all of northern scotland, weren't it for the slugs dripping from the pants pocket, compliments of the younger boy. He was currently dodging a torrent of teal lights emerging from the nearby flowers (lovely petunias), at the same time, he was giving grass knot a more literal meaning, while creating a cloud made of fire in his back.
Quite a busy man, you must understand.
The last boy was a lanky, awkward, bespectacled redhead, with the faintest hint of stubble on his terrified face, he was trying, really trying, with all his strength, to make them understand. He'd been casting mostly harmless spells on the two boys for a moment, mostly trying to stop them from hurting each other, if only they listened to him, but his cries were mostly unheard by the two boys, who had spent the whole summer waiting to lash out at each other freely. So, he was trying to make them stop, mostly by creating huge distractions, aiming cannonballs at them and making them levitate, it was horribly frustrating.
Oh so horribly.
Taking advantage of a moment of inattention, he cast a binding spell on aberforth, while shouting at gellert to stop.
III
How. Had. Ne. Not. Noticed. a huge cloud of fire? It was huge, it was on fire, it was relatively slow, it had pink thunderbolts.
He'd notice the next one.
IV
GoatinthefacegoAAatgoatnotIiinthefaceeiestopthatabenotthecrooootch.
V
He sees the red light of a cruciatus coming from gellert's wand, and he cannot believe it, and for a moment he stops and he's stupefixed by abe but he doesn't care and now he won't stop at stopping them and he gets into the fight with passion.
VI
Abe had told her not to go in the garden, nor downstairs, nor anywhere at all, really, for the next hour, if he wasn't back then, she'd have to run to Henry potter's house down the street, but she was so tense and couldn't breathe and she needed to let it out and...
And perhaps the fact that the paint in the room was starting to crack and smell of burnt toast was a sign. Maybe she should at least move. Calm. Think about petting a cat, like abe said, or a goat.
Okay, an explosion, maybe abe was finally pulling off that big prank of his on albus and his weird nerd friend.
The grass on the lawn shining bright blue? Normal tuesday amirite?
Eh. Okay, just checking couldn't hurt, maybe they had messed up a ritual and were now wearing each other's clothes or something and they were quarreling over abe dirtying Gellert's "Ô so precious slavic cotton shirt" Right. Got to be that. Right. ... Just checking though.
She made her way downstairs on the balls of her feet, maybe too discreetly for someone hearing a dozen bangs per second in her garden, but old habits did die hard. Almost tripping up in front of the mirror, she barely avoids tripping in that stupid green dress albus gave her, stupid dress, when she's old and she lives by herself, she'll wear pants everyday and have at least 8 different animals, and she'll use that dress for manure.
She looks just like her brothers, blue eyes, long hair no matter how often it's cut, limbs all flakey and pale skin. She avoids thinking she looks like her dad.
She's at the bottom of the stairs, feeling sudden changes of temperature now. She wants to run but she knows she can't run without her breath coming short and the air charging with electricity.
So she comes closer to the back of the house.
Of course she does.
And she opens the door.
Of course she opens it, slowly, just to check if everything is okay.
But a ray of green light hits three feet above her head and now something in her screams. Something in her stops petting the cat and the dog and the rooster and the goat. Something in her smells the blood of animals and she wants to puke, scream, cry at the same time.
Abe watches her, from the corner of the corner of his eye, that place where you're supposed to see without actually seeing. Where you have to concentrate to spot the brightest colored lights. There's the slightest pause from abe, and albus looks, and they both lose it.
VII
His wand burns with sheer power, spells half overheard in class, stuff he thought sounded cool, things ariana did in her sleep, sometimes. It's all his. And with all the fury of the world, he unleashes it on the two of them. More stupid than stupidity. He will cave their faces in, break their wands, and them show the pictures to their fellows "greatest wizards of their generation" as a warning.
VIII
They WILL stop fighting. Then, he will give abe the sternest talking to in the history of humanity. And when he's over, he will slap gellert so hard no amount of transfiguration could ever fix he's face. He will transfigure him into a mosquito and let him figure out life in new orleans. He feels ready to abandon him for life in winsconsin.
IX
NONE SHALL DEFEAT ME.
X
She'd just wanted to help. And she did. She doesn't know how, but she stopped their wands, and when gellert tried to do wandless magic at her, while albus and aberforth were telling her to stop, she just felt so angry, and she did that thing where she made all the air around him smell of burnt toast until it exploded. Then, the leaves from the nearby (half burning/half freezing) maple flew all over him, hitting with all the strength of canada.
But something wasn't right, why was the grass turning red? Was that some dark magic complex spell or something?
Oh yeh, it wasn't that, she could be such a klutz sometimes, like albus had told her, she was just pouring blood from every possible place she could.
And then, she thinks albus somehow caught her? and abe kicking gellert's face in? Maybe? It's all pretty fuzzy when you lose a gallon and a half of blood.
XI
He cries as he catches her in his arms, she saved them, she saved them all, and he stutters through all the medical spells he knows of to make sure she'll be fine and he feels so guilty and he doesn't know why and he doesn't even care his best friend is more pulp now than a fallen down truck of oranges could be. He manages to tell gellert to get the hell out of europe in the next 2 minutes if he doesn't want to see what he'll do to him.
Her skin is warm to the touch and he can't stop crying and suddenly he realizes abe was right, all along. And he blames himself for being so foolish. Foolish. Foolish. He thinks of his mom and cries more water than the human body could be made of.
Abe says nothing as he checks for ariana's pulse, and holds her hands. His head is so close. Their heads are so close. They do not notice gellert transplaning and leaving his dragonleather boots and his notebook behind, as well as some teeth. They do not notice each other. They watch ariana for a blessed minute, where she moans in pain and they fumble to make her comfortable, until he breaks the silence.
"I'm so sorry" he says, his nose running, his voice higher than he thought it could be.
Aberforth says nothing and he watches just ariana more intently, and he holds her hands so tight, they will be as violet as blueberries. but he's not sure he can do otherwise.
"I'm sorry" he says as albus puts his head inside his elbow, sniffing, wiping down his nose.
Suddenly, abe grabs him by his collar, he's always been the more muscular of the two. He is more so now, and albus isn't even angry at him and will gladly have all the bones of his body broken for ariana is alive and he feels more than ever how fragile it is, all of this. He cries a bit more.
Abe pulls him against his shoulder, then, he puts his right arm around him, and hugs him with all his strength, which right now is not as much as what he has after 48 hours awake.
"You okay?"
Albus can only nod, because if he opens his mouth, he'll cry a goddamn river and yell at hs brother for being the most blood brilliant person ever. And if he does, he'll wake up ariana: he doesn't want that.
Abe loosens his grip, and now, they are face to face, over ariana's fragile body. Abe looks at al with all the love i the world. He holds his brother's shoulders and smiles.
Then he headbutts him.
XII
"Do i help you move her inside?", he says after a minute, in the nasal voice of someone who had broken it-the nose, not the voice- . Abe nods.
It's august 29, 1888.
They carry her inside.  indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
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