How very, very sorry...

[sunnyskywalker]

I was re-reading some old DTCL posts, and a quote jumped out at me. Kings Cross Dumbledore, in his (muddled, probably incomplete) explanation for why he put on a cursed ring, says,

"I picked it up, and I put it on, and for a second I imagined that I was about to see Ariana, and my mother, and my father, and to tell them how very, very sorry I was…"

Hang on a minute. He wants to tell his father how sorry he is?

Ariana, sure. He thinks he might have killed her, and even if he didn't, he was partly responsible for the fight in which she got killed. That definitely calls for an apology. His mother, okay, maybe he was sorry he left to go on a Grand Tour instead of staying home to help her care for Ariana, and wonders if he could have saved her if he'd been there. Or he wants to apologize for failing so badly in the responsibility she passed to him. I'm sure Kendra would have been upset about Albus getting Ariana killed after a mere two months because he was plotting to conquer the world.

But his father? What was he sorry for there--that he didn't, at the age of ten, stop his dad from torturing Muggle kids and going to prison? That he didn't break him out of prison? Maybe he just generally wanted to express sorrow that his dad was psychologically tortured to death in Azkaban, because that's awful... but it seems a little odd to lump general sympathy in with apologizing to two other people he felt he wronged. Not impossible, but odd.

Years ago, Terri wrote a fic where little Albus was the one who really hurt the boys (in a panic, without intending to hurt them as badly as he did), and his father took the fall for it. This quote isn't proof, but it might tilt the odds more favorably in that direction.

Comments

[chantaldormand]

While I think this is an interesting interpretation allow me to present you an alternative:

Albus feels responsible for his family falling apart because he is the oldest sibling. Parents often expect the oldest sibling to at least keep the rest of the kids out of the trouble. Perhaps his parents expected to keep an eye Arianna and Abeforth, only Albus got distracted by something or was snotty rebellious 10-year-old and Arianna managed to sneak away?

Kind of would explain why he refuses to let people get too close- he feels responsible for what happened to his family and whom Gellert became.

[sunnyskywalker]

That could be the case, yes. (Come to think of it, that was in Terri's story too.)

Like I said, it isn't proof that he feels sorry about only one possible thing... but it does sound like he feels responsible in some way for what happened to his father. Which is interesting.

Probably the most we can say is that it's unlikely he was, for example, being tutored by his dad at the time, or away from home because his parents had sent him to do something, or some other scenario where he couldn't possibly have been responsible for watching the younger kids or been otherwise involved. He was at least around, and something happened that he feels at least a smidge responsible for the way things turned out.

[chantaldormand]

Knowing Rowling, one of these days we could hear that in fact, it was Albus who leashed out on those muggles and was fully in right! Only the corrupt government forced his father to take the blame :P

Hmm, I wonder if we can go other way about the idea...
As I mentioned already I'm not too familiar with HBP and DH having read it only once, neither I watched FB movies, but perhaps we can deduce Albus' family stance on muggles basing on how both brothers talk about/act around muggles?
If we knew general sentiment in the family about this subject we could deduce if Dumbledores, in general, had dismissive/disgusted reaction towards muggles or if Albus wanted to join the dark side due to this event? That could help us out in the discussion.

[nx74defiant.livejournal.com]

Knowing Rowling, one of these days we could hear that in fact, it was Albus who leashed out on those muggles and was fully in right! Only the corrupt government forced his father to take the blame :P

Ouch, unfortunately I can see her doing that.

[sunnyskywalker]

Well, Aberforth doesn't sound terribly fond of Muggles now--I think he refers to the boys as "little bastards" or something like that. But that might be after (at least as far as he knows) his sister was permanently damaged by Muggles, his father died in prison because of Muggles (as he might see it), and a century living in a Muggle-free village and serving Death Eaters in his bar. We don't know how he or the family might have felt before that.

Other than Kendra maybe hiding her Muggle-born heritage, but that doesn't mean she disliked Muggles either. She might just not wanted to be discriminated against, quite understandably.

[jana-ch.livejournal.com]

We don't see any wizards--good guys or bad guys--who think well of muggles. Arthur Weasley's ignorance and condescension are blatant enough to be played for laughs, but Albus isn't much better; he's just more tactful about it, and Albus is supposed to be the ultimate Good Guy. Since one of the main differences between the Dumbledore Brothers is that Albus is big on subtlety and Aberforth doesn't waste his time on it, I don't think we can say Abe is any more or less an anti-muggle bigot than Albus or any of Albus's supposedly enlightened followers. Abe is just saying out loud what Albus still believes deep down.

[with-rainfall.livejournal.com]

Ugh, man, I can see that happening with Rowling!

[mywitch.livejournal.com]

interesting theory!