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"As well as anyone," said Doge, dabbing his eyes with a napkin"Certainly I knew him longest, if you don't count Aberforth - and somehow, people never \ido\i seem to count Aberforth
"Speaking of the \iDaily Prophet\i\a133 I don't know whether you saw, MrDoge -?"
"Oh, please call me Elphias, dear boy
"Elphias, I don't know whether you saw the interview Rita Skeeter gave about Dumbledore?"
Doge's face flooded with angry color
"Oh yes, Harry, I saw itThat woman, or vulture might be a more accurate term, positively pestered me to talk to her, I am ashamed to say that I became rather rude, called her an interfering trout, which resulted, as you my have seen, in aspersions cast upon my sanity
"Well, in that interview," Harry went on, "Rita Skeeter hinted that Professor Dumbledore was involved in the Dark Arts when he was young
"Don't believe a word of it!" said Doge at once"Not a word, Harry! Let nothing tarnish your memories of Albus Dumbledore!"
Harry looked into Doge's earnest, pained face, and felt, not reassured, but frustratedDid Doge really think it was that easy, that Harry could simply \ichoose\i not to believe? Didn't Doge understand Harry's need to be sure, to know \ieverything\i?"
Perhaps Doge suspected Harry's feelings, for he looked concerned and hurried on, "Harry, Rita Skeeter is a dreadful -"
But he was interrupted by a shrill cackle
"Rita Skeeter? Oh, I love her, always read her!"
Harry and Doge looked up to see Auntie Muriel standing louis vuitton beverly bag there, the plumes dancing on her hair, a goblet of champagne in her hand"She's written a book about Dumbledore, you know!"
"Hello, Muriel," said Doge, "Yes, we were just discussing -"
"You there! Give me your chair, I'm a hundred and seven!"
Another redheaded Weasley cousin jumped off his seat, looking alarmed, and Auntie Muriel swung it around with surprising strength and plopped herself down upon it between Doge and Harry
"Hello again, Barry or whatever your name is," she said to Harry, "Now what were you saying about Rita Skeeter, Elphias? You know, she's written a biography of Dumbledore? I can't wait to read itI must remember to place an order at Flourish and Blotts!"
Doge looked stiff and solemn at this but Auntie Muriel drained her goblet and clicked her bony fingers at a passing waiter for a replacementShe took another large gulp of champagne, belched and then said, "There's no need to look like a pair of stuffed frogs! Before he became so respected and respectable and all that tosh, there were some mighty funny rumors about Albus!"
"Ill-informed sniping," said Doge, turning radish-colored again
"You would say that, Elphias," cackled Auntie Muriel"I noticed how you skated over the sticky patches in that obituary of yours!"
"I'm sorry you think so," said Doge, more coldly still"I assure you I was writing from the heart
"Oh, we all know you worshipped Dumbledore; I daresay you'll still think he was a saint even if it does turn out that he did chanel bag black and white away with his Squib sister!"
"\iMuriel!\i" exclaimed Doge
A chill that had nothing to do with the iced champagne was stealing through Harry's chest
"What do you mean?" he asked Muriel"Who said his sister was a Squib? I thought she was ill?"
"Thought wrong, then, didn't you, Barry!" said Auntie Muriel, looking delighted at the effect she had produced"Anyway, how could you expect to know anything about it! IT all happened years and years before you were even thought of, my dear, and the truth is that those of us who were alive then never knew what really happenedThat's why I can't wait to find out what Skeeter's unearthed! Dumbledore kept that sister of his quiet for a long time!"
"Untrue!" wheezed Doge, "Absolutely untrue!"
"He never told me his sister as a Squib," said Harry, without thinking, still cold inside
"And why on earth would he tell you?" screeched Muriel, swaying a little in her seat as she attempted to focus upon Harry
"The reason Albus never spoke about Ariana," began Elphias in a voice stiff with emotion, "is, I should have thought, quite clearHe was so devastated by her death -"
"Why did nobody ever see her, Elphias?" squawked Muriel, "Why did half of us never even know she existed, until they carried the coffin out of the house and held a funeral for her? Where was saintly Albus while Ariana was locked in the cellar? Off being brilliant at Hogwarts, and never mind what was going on in his own house!"
"What d'you mean, locked in the cellar?" chanel bag small asked Harry"What is this?"
Doge looked wretchedAuntie Muriel cackled again and answered Harry
"Dumbledore's mother was a terrifying woman, simply terrifyingMuggle-born, though I heard she pretended otherwise-"
"She never pretended anything of the sort! Kendra was a fine woman," whispered Doge miserably, but Auntie Muriel ignored him
"- proud and very domineering, the sort of witch who would have been mortified to produce a Squib-"
"Ariana was not a Squib!" wheezed Doge
"So you say, Elphias, but explain, then, why she never attended Hogwarts!" said Auntie MurielShe turned back to Harry"In our day, Squibs were often hushed up, thought to take it to the extreme of actually imprisoning a little girl in the house and pretending she didn't exist -"
"I tell you, that's not what happened!" said Doge, but Auntie Muriel steamrollered on, still addressing Harry
Squibs were usually shipped off to Muggle schools and encouraged to integrate into the Muggle community\a133 much kinder than trying to find them a place in the Wizarding world, where they must always be second class, but naturally Kendra Dumbledore wouldn't have dreamed of letting her daughter go to a Muggle school -"
"Ariana was delicate!" said Doge desperately"Her health was always too poor to permit her -"
"- to permit her to leave the house?" cackled Muriel"And yet she was never taken to StMungo's and no Healer was ever summoned to see her!"
"Really, Muriel, how can you possibly know whether -"
"For watch ballon de cartier your information, Elphias, my cousin Lancelot was a Healer at StMungo's at the time, and he told my family in strictest confidence that Ariana had never been seen thereAll most suspicious, Lancelot thought!"
Doge looked to be on the verge of tearsAuntie Muriel, who seemed to be enjoying herself hugely, snapped her fingers for more champagneNumbly Harry
thought of how the Dursleys had once shut him up, locked him away, kept him out of sight, all for the crime of being a wizardHad Dumbledore's sister suffered the same fate in reverse: imprisoned for her lack of magic? And had Dumbledore truly left her to her fate while he went off to Hogwarts to prove himself brilliant and talented?
"Now, if Kendra hadn't died first," Muriel resumed, "I'd have said that it was she who finished off Ariana -"
"How can you, Muriel!" groaned Doge"A mother kill her own daughter? Think what you're saying!"
"If the mother in question was capable of imprisoning her daughter for years on end, why not?" shrugged Auntie Muriel"But as I say, it doesn't fit, because Kendra died before Ariana - of what, nobody ever seemed sure-"
"Yes, Ariana might have made a desperate bid for freedom and killed Kendra in the struggle," said Auntie Muriel thoughtfully"Shake your head all you like, ElphiasYou were at Ariana's funeral, were you not?"
"Yes I was," said Doge, through trembling lips," and a more desperately sad occasion I cannot rememberAlbus was heartbroken-"
"His heart wasn't the only omega de ville men's watches t |
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