Albus and Gellert were seated at the Dumbledore's kitchen table, scribbling furiously on the sheaves of parchment which were strewn across the tabletop. Both had lines of concentration etched on their young faces, and their quills were flying a mile a minute.

"I think," Albus said, momentarily stopping his quill, "the key lies in us using minimal violence. We want people to see us as the kind of rulers they'd like to follow, not cruel heathens."

Gellert, too, paused. "You have a point," he agreed, "but we can't be soft, either." Albus nodded, and the two went back to their furious writing without another word.

Neither had moved from this position, or ceased writing, when Aberforth slammed the door shut ten minutes later.

"Where have you been?" Albus asked him, not bothering to cease his writing or even look up. "It's already dark out."

"Nowhere," Aberforth muttered, throwing his coat to the side. "Around."

"Ariana needs to be fed," Albus told him. "She wouldn't eat the soup I gave her."

"Well, what kind was it?" Aberforth asked testily. Albus, in his opinion, was not nearly as good with Ariana as he was.

"Tomato," Albus responded.

"She hates tomato," Aberforth shot back, his tone bordering on venomous. "Why didn't you give her broccoli soup like I said?"

"What's the difference," Albus shrugged, "she won't eat anything I give her, anyways." Gellert smirked at some distant memory of Ariana being fed.

"That's because you feed her too quickly!" Aberforth shouted. "You need to have patience with her! You're never patient!"

Albus sighed wearily and finally put down his quill. "Look, Gellert and I are working here, and if our plans work out we can hire a whole staff to feed Ariana, alright? But that'll only happen if we can get our work done."

"Work?" Aberforth scoffed. "You call plotting the demise of Muggles work?" Gellert's smirk became more pronounced. "You two are foul," Aberforth spit, turning his back to head for the basement, where he planned to spend the rest of the night reading to Ariana. She loved the tale of Babbity Rabbity, and Aberforth planned on telling her the tale yet again.

"How dare you?" Gellert thundered, getting to his feet. Aberforth stopped, but did not turn around. "Your brother is brilliant, and he's trying to make our world better! What are you doing, reading children's stories to your sister?"

Aberforth's blood boiled. Gellert had no right. He turned on his heel and whipped out his wand, screaming the first hex that came to mind. Gellert turned an unpleasant shade of red and fired one right back.

"Stop fighting!" Albus shouted, but the duel was out of his control. Both Gellert and Aberforth were ready to kill, Gellert for his cause and Aberforth for his beloved sister.

Gellert raised his wand to Aberforth and, with a menacing glint in his eye, began the incantation for the Killing Curse, but could not finish due to the hex Albus sent his way. And so it was that Albus was engaged in the fight, too.

The three boys were enraged, screaming every hex and curse they knew, trying desperately to injure (or even kill) the others. So loud was the racket that none of them noticed when the basement door opened, a slim girl with dark hair slipped out, and slammed it shut.

"Babbity Rabbity was always getting into trouble," she whimpered, her terrified blue eyes taking in the scene. She put her hands protectively in front of her face, as if they alone could keep her safe.

Ariana was very frightened. She did not understand what was being said, or what was causing the pretty streaks of light to come out of those funny sticks, but she knew to be scared. She glanced at Aberforth's face and saw the pure, unadulterated fear there, and let out another whimper. "Babbity Rabbity was always getting into trouble!"

The three duelling boys were still oblivious to Ariana's presence, just as they were oblivious to the destruction they were causing to the house. They were totally absorbed in their battle, and as both Albus and Gellert shot simultaneous hexes at Aberforth, something in Ariana told her that her brother Aberforth, her protector and her best friend, was in trouble.

"Babbity Rabbity was always getting into trouble!" she said again, louder than before, but to no avail. "Babbity Rabbity was always getting into trouble!" Ariana was getting progressively louder as she repeated this mantra, until her voice was a high- pitched scream which only added to the defeaning din of the three boys' voices.

Gellert shot another well- aimed hex at Aberforth, and Ariana could take it no longer. "Babbity Rabbity was always getting into trouble!" she screamed, running into the middle of the battle.

Now, Ariana did not know what she was doing. She did not know that she was too weak to survive any of these curses, she did not know that she was running into certain death, and she did not know that it was lethal spells that were causing the pretty beams of light. What she did know was that Aberforth- her Aberforth- was in trouble, and she wanted to protect him like he protected her. And so she sprinted into the middle of the melee.

None of the boys saw it happen, it was too fast. One minute Ariana was running at them, the next minute her lifeless body was lying in the floor. The shouting stopped, and a loaded silence replaced it. The three boys stared wildly at each other, their accusing eyes all asking the same question; "who did it?"

Gellert was the first to move. He grabbed his wand from where he had dropped it when Ariana had fallen and ran for the door, not bothering to look back at the scene of destruction he was leaving.

Albus was the next to move. His startlingly blue eyes, now wet with tears, glanced wildly about. He wiped his face on his sleeve, cast a few silent "reparos" to fix the destruction, and stumbled from the room, feeling distinctly nauseous.

Only Aberforth remained. He stared at the figure of his dead sister on the floor, numb. Nothing else mattered, or even existed, to him except her. He had vowed to protect her, to keep her from harm. Now she lay before him on the ground, her broken body twisted at an odd angle, the life gone from her once laughing eyes. It was his fault, he thought. It was all his fault. She was gone.

With this Aberforth fell to his knees beside Ariana's body and allowed himself to be consumed with body- wracking sobs.