Ariana's death

[muscatel1988]

No: HPFGUIDX 177175

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Carol" <justcarol67 at ...> wrote:
>
> I'm curious as to what others think regarding Ariana's death.
> Dumbledore himself isn't sure what happened <snip>

Mus: 

But he was arguably in a position later to find out if it was 
Grindelwald.  We don't know how far back Priori Incantatem can go, 
since we've only seen it go back as far as the plot at the time 
demanded, but after winning mastery of the Elder Wand, was Albus in a 
position to find out if it had cast the spell that killed her?  

There's an odd lacuna when he speaks of her death:  "And Ariana ... 
after all my mother's care and caution ... lay dead upon the floor."  
[DH UK pb: 456]  Why only "all my mother's care and caution"?  Why no 
mention of Aberforth, whose refusal to let her welfare take second 
place to the revolution Albus and Grindelwald were planning led to 
the fight in the first place?  Why no acknowledgement of Aberforth's 
care and love for her?  There's something big that Dumbledore isn't 
talking about here. 

" 'Not Albus, he was always up in his bedroom when he was home, 
reading his books and counting his prizes, keeping up with his 
correspondence with "the most notable magical names of the day",' 
Aberforth sneered, *he* didn't want to be bothered with her.  She 
liked me best.  I could get her to eat when she wouldn't do it for my 
mother, I could get her to calm down when she was in one of her 
rages, and when she was quiet, she used to help me feed the goats.' " 
[DH, UK pb: 455]  

I believe Aberforth here, because there's something oddly touching 
and true about "she used to help me feed the goats".   At the same 
time, Albus implicitly absolves Aberforth of any role in her death – 
the information that the fight was three-cornered comes from the 
younger brother, and all that Albus reports him doing is shouting.

He's downplaying Aberforth's relationship with Ariana, and there's 
something else he downplays as well.  " 'The argument became a 
fight.  Grindelwald lost control.  That which I had always sensed in 
him, though I pretended not to, sprang into terrible being.  And 
Ariana ... after all my mother's care and caution ... lay dead upon 
the floor.' "  [....] " 'Well, Grindelwald fled, as anyone but I 
could have predicted.  He vanished, with his plans for seizing power, 
and his plans for Muggle torture, and his dreams of the Deathly 
Hallows, dreams in which I had encouraged him and helped him.  He 
ran, while I was left to bury my sister and learn to live with my 
guilt, and my terrible grief, the price of my shame' " [DH, UK pb: 
574-5]

The blame is put on Grindelwald by the context – it's the "something 
terrible" that results in her death.  Suddenly, the plans for seizing 
power, the dreams of the Deathly Hallows are Grindelwald's, less than 
a page after Albus has told Harry of "Grindelwald and I, the glorious 
young leaders of the revolution", of "the plans we were making", 
of "at the heart of our schemes, the Deathly Hallows! How they 
fascinated him, how they fascinated both of us".  Albus is 
airbrushing out his own responsibility here.  Why?  

We know that when Albus came across the Cloak, he "could not resist, 
could not help taking a closer look" [DH, UK pb: 572],  long after he 
had abandoned plans to master all three Hallows.  It would have been 
awfully out of character, once he had the Elder Wand, if he had not 
been driven to poke around in its past.  I strongly suspect that he 
knows whose spell killed Ariana.   In his version, Aberforth hasn't 
even drawn his wand, and blame is, rather skilfully, deflected onto 
Grindelwald.  

And poor Albus tells us that he was "left to bury his sister".  
Except that of course he wasn't, because Aberforth was there, having 
seen the sister he loved and cared for die.  But you see, this is 
about the construction of a narrative by Albus, so naturally it's all 
about him.  

Mus, who notes that even Harry's story ends up being about Albus.