The sun shone upon this peaceful and tranquil village.
The freckled little girl's face was originally brimming with a happy smile.
However.
"Albus!"
As she held a dirt-covered dandelion towards the young Dumbledore.
"Look what I found!"
This was clearly an attempt to share her joy with young Dumbledore, but young Dumbledore simply knocked the dandelion out of Ariana's hand.
"Don't bother me."
He even raised his wand in threat.
Young Dumbledore's face was sullen, his lips tightly pressed. Standing opposite him was his sister—Ariana, a girl unable to control her magic due to childhood trauma.
She trembled, her eyes full of fear and dread, as if she felt estranged by her brother's attitude. Seeing this scene, old Dumbledore's heart could not help but tighten.
"No, this is not me."
Old Dumbledore murmured to himself.
At the same time.
The little girl Ariana, trembling, was surrounded by dark magic energy.
It seemed about to erupt at any moment.
Old Dumbledore's heart raced; he tried to lift the Elder Wand in his hand, but magic could not touch that distant memory. He could only watch, eyes wide open, as that anticipated scene took place.
"You've lost control again!" Young Dumbledore roared, "You know this will destroy us! You monster!"
"I...I didn't mean to..." Ariana sobbed softly, the magic energy around her becoming restless, the intrusion from Mormon causing her great pain.
Yet.
Young Dumbledore showed no mercy.
"Shut up!" Young Dumbledore raised his wand, eyes burning with anger and smoke. Ariana's small hand clutched tightly at the hem of Dumbledore's robe, her knuckles white, tears brimming in her eyes. "Albus, don't..." Her voice was as feeble as a mosquito's buzz, yet like a blunt knife.
Slowly tearing apart old Dumbledore's heart.
The expression of young Dumbledore was completely opposite, his reddish-brown curls glinting with a cold sheen in the sunlight. On his face was Dumbledore's all-too-familiar impatience—the arrogance of a genius disturbed by commoners.
"Shut up!"
Young Dumbledore harshly rebuked, the wand already pointed at his sister's chest.
"You only know how to whimper all day!"
His wand began to glow.
"No!"
Old Dumbledore suddenly raised the Elder Wand, but the spell vanished into thin air like mud into the sea. He watched with eyes wide open as a blinding red light burst from the tip of the young wand, precisely piercing through Ariana's thin chest. The girl fell like a puppet with snapped strings, the daisies she had just picked scattering all over the ground.
The sound of Abeforth crashing through the door was much like.
Startling the nesting birds nearby.
"Ariana!"
"How dare you? She's our sister!" Abeforth's face was etched with incredulous horror, his burly arms brandishing a wand that seemed not very potent.
Young Albus didn't even turn around, just casually swung his hand backwards.
"Avada Kedavra!"
He used Soul Seeking.
A flash of green light, and Abeforth's brawny form fell with a thud, those blue eyes matching Ariana's forever frozen in a moment of shock and anger.
"It's quiet now."
Young Albus nonchalantly dusted off his robes.
He bent over to pick up the fallen "Magic Theory," resuming his reading against the apple tree, as if nothing had happened, sunlight filtering through the leaves casting dappled shadows on his face.
As if the slaughter just now was nothing more than brushing away a fallen leaf.
This scene.
Was terrifying to the extreme.
Yet happened as if incredibly real.
All fell into the eyes of old Dumbledore. The young one's words were like a dagger, piercing through old Dumbledore's heart. He fell to his knees, chest heaving violently, tears nearly spilling from his eyes.
"What is this place! Damn it! Where am I!" Old Dumbledore's fingers dug deep into his palm, blood seeping through his fingers, dripping onto the faded cobblestones.
His breathing became heavy.
The blue eyes behind the half-moon glasses rippled.
The surrounding scenes began to distort, Ariana's corpse disintegrated like sand, the remnants of houses sank into the ground, replaced by the dome of the Hogwarts Great Hall emerging in the mist.
This scene.
Forced old Dumbledore to begin calming himself down.
"My soul hasn't passed the test..." The old man whispered to himself, his voice hoarse as if not his own, "So, must I be submerged in eternal regret? Or is it..." He looked up at the forming frescoes on the dome, depicting the glorious deeds of the four founders, "Is this the test itself?"
With this thought.
Old Dumbledore began to feel something affecting his mind.
Making him somewhat muddled.
"Don't think you'll succeed." Old Dumbledore tried to use magic to safeguard himself, however, even being in legendary realms, he still couldn't manage to cast a spell on himself in time.
"I am..."
The old headmaster's eyes began to cloud.
As if an unknown force had entirely invaded his mind.
The surroundings began to distort.
The sky turned to chaos.
Everything was changing.
In the air lingered only the sadness from Dumbledore himself.
When everything cleared again.
Dumbledore found himself in a spacious, bright office, its walls filled with honors and photographs. A golden nameplate read.