Some nights, while he slept, the darkness that surrounded him was tinged with blue.
Blue like the summer sky, like the color of his eyes.
He hoped that his son had his own eyes, the only thing he liked about him.
It reminded him of his father Percival.
Aberforth had few memories of him, she hadn't seen him since he was seven years old.
But from what little he could remember, he had been a good father.
A father who had fought and protected his family, his daughter.
Not like him.
Except for the eyes, he hadn't given Aurelius a precise face.
It was hard to imagine someone you didn't know.
He just hoped she looked more like his mother than him.
That young girl who with a smile had managed to destroy everything inside her that was killing him.
And his son was like that too.
The thought of him was enough to ease the pain, at least for a while.
Aberforth had not had the opportunity to see his son born and raised.
He hadn't seen him take his first steps, he hadn't heard his first word.
But in their dreams they had spoken of him many times.
His son had asked him about him, about his family.
Perhaps it was the first time that Aberforth told of his family and shared all the pain of him.
He wasn't used to talking about himself to others.
Maybe because he didn't have any friends, maybe because he didn't want to make his pain become that of others.
He didn't trust people.
The only person he should have trusted, he had let him down.
And if he couldn't trust his brother, how could he do it with others?!
But with his son it was different, it was part of him.
It was like talking to himself, maybe because it was like that.
For many weeks strange rumors had spread in Godric's Hollow.
There was no talk of anything else now.
It seemed that the whole village depended on this gossip, it was the only source of entertainment.
The most important news had faded into the background.
What happened outside that place surrounded by greenery no longer interested anyone.
All that chatter filled Aberforth's mind.
Whispers dwelled in his thoughts.
Those thoughts assumed the face of passers-by who scrutinized the boy from head to toe.
Many of them were women shaking their heads, their eyes filled with disappointment.
Aberforth knew why they looked at him that way.
He usually he would have dealt with the situation by dueling, but not this time.
This time it was different.
Deep down he knew those people were right.
He kept walking with his head held high but his guilt was gnawing at him.
When he learned that the girl had become pregnant, Aberforth was only a boy of fifteen.
The baby was born the following year, in the spring.
Aberforth was sixteen.
He was certainly too young but that didn't mean he would have backed down if he had had the choice.
He had cared for his sister Ariana since he was seven years old.
He had proved more capable than Albus, more responsible.
After his sister's death he had felt alone, lost.
And after he had learned of that distant son, the pain had become stronger and stronger.
Within a year he had lost his entire family.
Ariana and her mother were dead, Albus buried by hatred and resentment and his son scattered who knows where.
Some days Aberforth cleaned his reflection in the mirror, tried to erase what he saw.
He wanted to clean up his guilt, his mistakes of him.
If he had been less selfish, less stubborn and less resentful perhaps things would have gone differently.
Perhaps out of pride or perhaps out of fear he had made a wrong decision and others were paying the painful consequences.
If he had confessed everything to Albus that summer, things would be different now.
Aberforth wished to right his mistakes.
And he knew it wasn't enough to write 'Forgive me' on a mirror to forget all the pain.
After many years Aberforth had managed to find his son and find out what had happened to him.
Blood flowed in his knuckles, his drops fell to the ground staining pieces of glass.
Aberforth was reflected in the mirror or rather in what was left of it.
His face was not whole but broken, just as he felt inside him.
There had to be a curse on his family, there was no other explanation.
That curse had a face, a name and a surname: Gellert Grindelwald.
It was with him that it all began and with him it all ended.
He had driven Albus away from him, he had killed Ariana and, in part, he was responsible for what had happened to his son.
If it hadn't been for him, things would be different now.
Credence or rather Aurelius would talk to him every day and not just at night, in his dreams.
Aberforth had never been lazy, he didn't much like to sleep.
But it was only in his dreams that he could see his family again and imagine a different life.
He saw his mother and father together.
Credence was with them. He was happy, free and loved.
And with them was also little Ariana.
After years Aberforth saw her healthy.
He soon he would join them and they could be together as a family.
He would tell so many stories to Ariana again to make her sleep like he did every night, years ago.
In the meantime, her son would take care of it, he would take care of her and she of him.
He knew they weren't alone after all and after years Aberforth fell asleep more lightly.