Ariana: A Harry Potter FanFiction

Chapter Fourteen

Aberforth lay in bed, staring at the ceiling in astonishment. Tomorrow, I’ll be on my way to Hogwarts.

            Albus was awake, too. “Are you excited, Ab?”

            “Yeah,” he replied quietly. “You?”

            “Of course,” Albus said, as if it should’ve been obvious. “Hogwarts is the best place in the world.”

            “Even better than home?”

            “Hogwarts is home.”

            Aberforth sat up and looked at his brother. “Do you think they’ll like me there?”

            Albus rolled over in his bed to face Aberforth. “What’s not to like? You’re a miniature me.”

            Aberforth snorted. “Then I’m certainly in trouble.”

            Albus flung his pillow at Aberforth, but they were both laughing, which brought a comfort to Aberforth that he couldn’t quite explain.

            “What are you two still doing up?”

            It was Ariana. She stood in the doorway, her white nightgown nearly reaching the floor. She rubbed her eyes, saying, “It’s late.”

            “I should ask you the same,” Albus said.

            “I couldn’t sleep,” she said, “I kept thinking about what it’s going to be like without you two.”

            Albus sat up. “We won’t be far, Ariana. And we’ll write every day.”

            “It still won’t be the same.”

            The boys looked at each other for a moment, and when Albus said “I want to show you something, Ariana” Aberforth smiled.

            Albus stood and moved to the window, pulling back the curtains and opening it outward. Aberforth and Ariana joined him. He pointed to the sky and said, “Do you see those?”

            Ariana squinted. “You mean the stars?”

            “The stars, the moon—the sky in general.”

            “Of course I see it.”

            “Aberforth and I are going to be looking at the same sky from Hogwarts. No matter where we are, we’ll always be looking at that sky, the same sky as you.”

            “How do you know?” Ariana asked, “How can you be sure?”

            “Father once told us,” Albus said, “When we lived in Mould-on-the-Wold, remember? We would lie out in the fields at midnight and watch the stars, and sometimes we’d see falling stars and make silly wishes. Don’t you remember?”

            “I remember,” Aberforth said softly. It wasn’t often they talked about their father, or their former life. He couldn’t remember the last time they’d brought up the subject.

            “I don’t,” Ariana said.

            The boys looked at her. “You were still really young,” Albus said, “That’s understandable.”

            “I don’t remember Father, either,” she said, “Should I remember him?”

            Aberforth looked to Albus, but he was standing perfectly still, his lips forming a straight line. Slowly, he said, “I suppose you wouldn’t remember him either.”

            “Children.”

            The three turned and found Kendra standing in the doorway, her dark hair for once allowed to fall over her shoulders.

            Albus jumped away from the window. “We couldn’t sleep.”

            “Standing by the window and chatting all night isn’t going to help,” she said, smiling slightly. “Ariana, back to your room; boys, get in bed. It’s past midnight and you’ll need to be up early to catch the train.”

            The brothers returned sluggishly to their beds while Ariana stepped out of the room silently. Albus had already thrown himself down onto the pillow when Aberforth said, “Mum, do you think I’ll be sorted into Gryffindor, too?”

            “Who knows?” Kendra replied, “You’re brilliant enough to be in Ravenclaw, noble enough to be in Hufflepuff—”

            “What about Slytherin?” Aberforth asked, suddenly horrified.

            “Well, I suppose even Slytherin is possible,” she said slowly, “But there’s nothing wrong with being in Slytherin. They may have a reputation for being bad, but there are traits that every Slytherin shares, and they are not purely evil.”

            “What is it?”

            “Cunning,” Kendra explained, “Resourcefulness. Ambition. You know that not all Slytherins are bad. In fact, the great wizard Merlin was a Slytherin.”

            “Really?”

            Kendra nodded. “You have nothing to worry about.”

            “But if I do get sorted into Slytherin, Albus and I will have to be rivals—”

            “You’ll be a first, then,” she said. “Now, go to sleep, darling.”

            “Oh, alright.” He fell backward onto the bed, crossing his arms and pouting at the ceiling.

            Kendra smiled and shook her head, shutting the window and closing the curtains. “Good night, boys.”

            “’Night, Mum,” they said in unison.

            It was after what felt like hours of his mind shifting from thoughts of good Slytherins to the stars in the sky to the great wizard Merlin that Aberforth finally drifted off into a deep, dreamless sleep.