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sisididis · 5 months

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The parallels between Anne Sallow - Ariana Dumbledore, Sebastian Sallow - Albus Dumbledore and Solomon Sallow - Aberforth Dumbledore

I’ll preface this deep dive into the Sallow family’s tragic fate by asking if anyone else found it oddly…familiar? I’ll admit that re-reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows right before becoming invested in Hogwarts Legacy made uncovering the “strange likenesses” between the Sallow family and the Dumbledore family considerably easier.

The fate of the Sallows is reminiscent of the Dumbledores’ in more ways than I can articulate — from the untimely deaths of Mr. and Mrs. Sallow, and Percival and Kendra Dumbledore, to the tensions between the new and reluctant patres familias, Solomon and Albus, and their resentful charges, Sebastian and Aberforth, and the tragic killing of their family members.

Let’s start with the history of the families, whose first common element is their short-lived wholeness. Albus, Aberforth and Ariana became orphaned in the aftermath of two tragic events — first, their father’s imprisonment and later death in Azkaban, due to his assault on the Muggles who had tortured his daughter, and, second, the killing of their mother during one of Ariana’s fits of uncontrollable magic.

According to Ominis, Mr. and Mrs. Sallow too had untimely deaths, caused by an undetectable toxin emitted by their faulty cellar lamp. At that time, Sebastian and Anne “had no magic yet." We suspect that means the children were younger than 11 years old, the age when signs of magical ability should already manifest.

Another common element is the reluctant take-over of the two new patres familias, Albus and Uncle Solomon, after the deaths of Mr. and Mrs. Dumbledore, and Mr. and Mrs. Sallow. Fans of the books will remember the reason why Albus was reluctant to assume his new role in the first place — the long-awaited Grand Tour. Albus and his close friend, Elphias Doge, were planning on going on a Grand Tour after their graduation, but the sudden death of his mother right before he was meant to leave forced Albus to stay behind and provide for his siblings. In Chapter 35, King’s Cross, Albus claims that he loved his family, but upon his return to Godric’s Hollow, he felt “trapped and wasted.”

Aberforth recalled that moment, too:

“So that put paid to Albus's trip round the world with little Doge. The pair of 'em came home for my mother's funeral and then Doge went off on his own, and Albus settled down as head of the family. Ha!” (P. 435, Chapter 28, The Missing Mirror, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows)

We are not sure where Uncle Solomon’s reluctance to care for his nephew and niece comes from, aside from the obvious disruption of his quiet retirement, but while his anger at this unexpected responsibility is justified and should be directed towards his late brother, it backfires on Sebastian instead:

“I know what's best for Anne – and Sebastian. They are my stubborn brother's children. Especially Sebastian.”

Sebastian himself comments that his uncle often compares him to his father:

“After Anne was hurt, he only grew worse. It's as though he blames me somehow. Always calling me 'my father's son.' As if that's an insult.”

Here’s where the interesting switch happens. The new guardians’ resentment at these unexpected burdens does not go unnoticed. Both Aberforth and Sebastian saw the new patres familias’ reluctance to assume their new role and thought that they would have been a better fit for it. Much like Aberforth and Ariana, Sebastian and Anne were infinitely closer to each other than to the rest of their family:

“Anne won’t survive this. She’s withering away - inside and out. Solomon’s never been there for us. Not really. He gave up on Anne. I’ll never give up on her."

Aberforth echoed this sentiment:

"He didn't want to be bothered with her. She liked me best. I could get her to eat when she wouldn't do it for my mother, I could calm her down, when she was in one of her rages, and when she was quiet, she used to help me feed the goats.” (P. 434, Chapter 28, The Missing Mirror, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows) "I'd have looked after her, I told him so, I didn't care about school, I'd have stayed home and done it." (P. 435, Chapter 28, The Missing Mirror, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows)

The way I see it, both Albus / Sebastian and Aberforth / Solomon thought that they had Ariana’s / Anne’s best interest at heart. While Solomon thought that making Anne “comfortable” was the best path of action, Sebastian saw this as resigning themselves to Anne’s sure death. “There is no cure! When will you accept that?” asks Uncle Solomon, to which Sebastian replies adamantly, “Never! I can never accept it.” The same stubborn conviction is exhibited by Aberforth after he uncovers Albus and Gellert’s plans.

"I told him, you'd better give it up now. You can't move her, she's in no fit state, you can't take her with you, wherever it is you're planning to go, when you're making your clever speeches, trying to whip yourselves up a following. He didn't like that.” (P. 435, Chapter 28, The Missing Mirror, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows) “You may mean well, but I know what's best for Anne – and Sebastian. They are my stubborn brother's children. Especially Sebastian.”

The pairs’ irreconcilable differences did not stop there. In Sebastian’s efforts to heal Anne and Albus’ efforts to create a better world for wizard kind, the pair aspired to leave no depth of magic unplumbed, dark or otherwise, an issue which often sparked conflict with their family. Aberforth did not agree with teenage Albus’ plans “for the greater good”, because he did not prioritize their sister’s safety.

Sebastian’s own stance on using Dark magic to save his sister is in perfect antithesis with his uncle’s aversion to the Dark Arts. Unfortunately, in both cases, the tensions between the brothers and nephew and uncle culminated in the death of their family:

“And then . . . you know what happened. Reality returned in the form of my rough, unlettered, and infinitely more admirable brother. I did not want to hear the truths he shouted at me. I did not want to hear that I could not set forth and seek Hallows with a fragile and unstable sister in tow. (…) The argument became a fight. Grindelwald lost control. That which I had always sensed in him, though I pretended not to, now sprang into terrible being. And Ariana . . . after all my mother’s care and caution . . . lay dead upon the floor.” (P. 549, Chapter 35, King’s Cross, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows)

Sounds awfully familiar to the scene in the catacomb, doesn’t it? Not only did uncle and nephew turn their wands against each other, but Anne had to bury their uncle alone, much like Albus had to bury Ariana alone after Gellert fled Godric’s Hollow. After Solomon and Ariana’s deaths, all that the Dumbledore and Sallow siblings had were each other. Unfortunately, the death of their family did not inspire a renewed sense of closeness. On the contrary, Solomon and Ariana’s deaths caused an irreparable rift between the siblings.

“To add to his misery, the loss of Ariana had led, not to a renewed closeness between Albus and Aberforth, but to an estrangement.” (P. 20, Chapter 2, In Memorandum, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows)

The breakdown of the Sallow twins’ relationship is reflected in Anne’s letter to Sebastian:

“Sebastian, Too much has happened. I needed to get away from here for a while. I miss Uncle Solomon. I need time. I will always love you, but I don't know if I can ever forgive you. Anne”

What do you think?

#i know i’m nitpicking #but this is the only kind of mental maths that i’ve excelled at since 8th grade #i love the twins i love them so much #please let me know what you think!#sebastian sallow #anne sallow #solomon sallow #albus dumbledore #ariana dumbledore #aberforth dumbledore #harry potter and the deathly hallows #hogwarts legacy #my entries

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meear · 11 months

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The state of siblings in HP&the Deathly Hallows

Deathly Hallows is the book that shines a (new) light on every sibling in the story.

This is where we see Lily and Petunia's childhood, we learn about Aberforth and Albus' story, we read about Regulus' death, Percy's return (and even, to some extent, Harry and Dudley's goodbye, though of course they were never raised as siblings nor did they ever consider each other as such, but they did grow up under the same roof). This is the book where Ron finally confronts his insecurities, by destroying the locket who was throwing all of his family issues back into his face.

We finally meet Andromeda, the last Black sister, and we have Bellatrix mention her ("We—Narcissa and I—have never set eyes on our sister since she married the Mudblood"). In HP7, Molly even tells Harry that Fabian was her brother, which is something the reader never knew

I often see people drawing parallels between Sirius&Regulus and Lily&Petunia, both of these pairs being estranged siblings, but... They really don't have that much in common.

I've never seen anyone commenting on the Blacks' similarities to the Weasleys (by which I mean Percy) and the Dumbledores, when these three families have SO much more to offer. I think about them so often you do not understand. I don't even know where to begin. I've ended up putting a bunch of dialogue from the book, so it's a bit lengthy, but long story short:

Albus, Aberforth, Sirius, Regulus and Percy make me feel insane

Percy and Albus, two brillant, ambitious and arrogant young men, who felt trapped, who thought they were destined for more than the condition their family had condemned them to, who were desperate to leave their home and get their chance to shine despite their father's awful reputation, even by supporting corrupt ideals. Read what Dumbledore tells Harry at the end of HP7, and tell me it couldn't have come out straight of Percy's mouth:

"I resented it, Harry. I was gifted, I was brilliant. I wanted to escape. I wanted to shine. I wanted glory [...] So that, when my mother died, and I was left the responsibility of a damaged sister and a wayward brother, I returned to my village in anger and bitterness. Trapped and wasted, I thought!"

"[Percy] said he’s been having to struggle against Dad’s lousy reputation ever since he joined the Ministry and that Dad’s got no ambition and that’s why we’ve always been — you know — not had a lot of money"

Mind you, there's a bit of Sirius in it too, Sirius who also left. We learn about Percy and Sirius at around the same time (the beginning of Ootp, chapters 4 and 6) and I don't think it's a coincidence (edit: forgot to mention it but there's even a chapter named "Percy and Padfoot" in that book). Here's what Ron says:

"And if Mum and Dad were going to become traitors to the Ministry [Percy] was going to make sure everyone knew he didn’t belong to our family anymore. And he packed his bags the same night and left."

" 'You ran away from home?' 'When I was about sixteen,' said Sirius. 'I’d had enough.' "

"As far as I’m concerned, they’re not my family. She’s certainly not my family. [...] D’you think I’m proud of having relatives like her?”

Fred and George were angry at their older brother for putting his ambitions above his family and morals (I'm Percy's #1 fan and defender btw), and Aberforth was furious with Albus for the same reason. Again, this reads like something that Ron could've said about Percy, the pompous little snob (i love him):

Sirius and Percy are also not present on the family pictures:

"A photograph of the Weasley family stood beside the in-tray. Harry noticed that Percy appeared to have walked out of it."

" “I used to be there,” said Sirius, pointing at a small, round, charred hole in the tapestry, rather like a cigarette burn."

"Not Albus, he was always up in his bedroom when he was home, reading his books and counting his prizes, keeping up with his correspondence with ‘the most notable magical names of the day’ "

It's just that Percy and Albus betrayed their family by supporting wrong causes and Sirius betrayed his family by supporting the right one. but Regulus' support was an act of loyalty to his family. Aberforth and Kreacher tell Harry about Albus and Regulus' former goals:

"Didn’t I understand, my poor sister wouldn’t have to be hidden once they’d changed the world, and led the wizards out of hiding, and taught the Muggles their place?"

"For years [Master Regulus] talked of the Dark Lord, who was going to bring the wizards out of hiding to rule the Muggles and the Muggle-borns...."

I know I've been comparing Albus to Sirius, both of them being the oldest brother, but really Albus' ideological progression and death most resemble Regulus'. (both Black brothers share traits with both Dumbledores really). though of course, Harry didn't let Ron and Hermione make excuses for Dumbledore just because he was young:

" 'it’s an awful thought that Dumbledore’s ideas helped Grindelwald rise to power. But on the other hand, even Rita can’t pretend that they knew each other for more than a few months one summer when they were both really young, and— '

'I thought you’d say that,' said Harry."

" 'Dumbledore being pals with Grindelwald, but now it’s just something to laugh about for people who didn’t like Dumbledore, and a bit of a slap in the face for everyone who though he was such a good bloke. I don’t know that it’s such a big deal, though. He was really young when they— '

'Our age,' said Harry"

" 'He was a Death Eater,' said Harry. 'Sirius told me about him, he joined up when he was really young and then got cold feet and tried to leave' "

(i would like it on record that the exact expression "really young" is found thrice in HP7, two of them being about Albus, the last one about Regulus. i'm so incredibly normal about this)

"and when he was sixteen years old, Master Regulus joined the Dark Lord"

"[Dumbledore] changed, Harry, he changed! It’s as simple as that! Maybe he did believe those things when he was seventeen"

"I know what you’re going to say, she went on as Harry began to protest, that Regulus changed his mind . . ."

Albus and Regulus were two misguided brothers who both drank the drink of despair in the Inferi cave before dying, the only two wizards to have done so. Not only that, both of them had actually planned their own death; though it was a secret only known by the one who had assisted them (the chapters revealing the truth about Regulus and Albus are literally called "Kreacher's tale" and "the Prince's tale", like they're referencing each other, I'm in my incredibly delusional era right now). They started something (the same thing, in fact) they could not see through to the end, and "faced death in the hope" someone else would finish it:

"We want to finish the work Master Regulus started, we want to—er—ensure that he didn’t die in vain"

"he left me a job [...] Your brother knew how to finish You-Know-Who and he passed the knowledge on to me"

Both Sirius and Aberforth hated their brother's choices, but actually (as Harry told Aberforth) neither of them fully understood their brother's last moments. and because they didn't have that knowledge, neither of them ever gained a complete understanding of their brother:

"And Albus was free, wasn’t he? Free of the burden of his sister, free to become the greatest wizard of the— '

'He was never free,' said Harry."

"From what I found out after he died, he got in so far, then panicked about what he was being asked to do and tried to back out."

"And he drank— all the potion— and Kreacher swapped the lockets"

"The night that your brother died, he drank a potion that drove him out of his mind."

"He thought he was watching Grindelwald hurting you and Ariana... It was torture to him, if you’d seen him then, you wouldn’t say he was free."

"Kreacher and Regulus’s family were all safest if they kept to the old pure-blood line. Regulus was trying to protect them all."

You know who ELSE "was never free" though??

I ask, but you already know.

" 'I don’t like being back here,” [Sirius] said, staring across the drawing room. 'I never thought I’d be stuck in this house again.' "

"I returned to my village in anger and bitterness. Trapped and wasted, I thought!"

Albus was never free. Sirius was never free either.

But wait! there's more!

"But Harry, his mother had just died, he was stuck alone in the house— '

'Alone? He wasn’t alone! He had his brother and sister for company, his Squib sister he was keeping locked up— ' "

Of course, knowing this about Albus Dumbledore, this scene at the end of OotP might hit a bit different:

“ 'I was trying to keep Sirius alive,' said Dumbledore quietly.

'People don’t like being locked up!' Harry said furiously, rounding on him. 'You did it to me all last summer —'

Dumbledore closed his eyes and buried his face in his long-fingered hands. "

Now do I think there's a link between Albus&Sirius being stuck in the house and Dumbledore keeping his sister locked up to protect her life and keeping Sirius locked up to protect his life... maybe it wasn't intentional, or maybe it was; either way, it's very juicy to think about, and Dumbledore's reaction after what Harry says? if there's even the slightest possibility he might have been thinking about Ariana...I'm EATING this up.

Let us not forget about Percy Weasley though. In the end, both Percy and Albus came to their senses, though not without losing a younger sibling, Fred and Ariana. Is it possible that Albus saw a bit of himself in Percy at the time? Maybe, maybe not, but he did try to comfort Molly about Percy:

" 'Dumbledore says people find it far easier to forgive others for being wrong than being right,' said Hermione. 'I heard him telling your mum, Ron.' "

"Reality returned in the form of my rough, unlettered, and infinitely more admirable brother. I did not want to hear the truths he shouted at me."

So yeah, they made wrong choices, but again, that doesn't mean they can't change:

" 'I was an idiot, I was a pompous prat, I was a— a— '

'Ministry-loving, family-disowning, power-hungry moron, said Fred. "

"Stupid idiot . . . he joined the Death Eaters."

" 'Don’t worry about Percy,' said Sirius abruptly. 'He’ll come round.' "

Remember the previous comparison between Albus and Percy, about both of them being the stuck-up pretentious brother?

"It was a porapous little sign, neatly lettered by hand - the sort of thing that Percy Weasley might have stuck on his bedroom door: Do Not Enter Without the Express Permission of Regulus Arcturus Black"

I think about this description a normal amount, the exact amount of thought warranted for such a short, inconsequential description, in fact

Another thing Deathly Hallows did was challenging our perception of Sirius and Albus (granted, mostly Albus) by developing a younger brother who, against all odds, might have been more admirable than them in certain aspects. when Regulus and Aberforth are first mentioned, one is a cowardly Death Eater and the other is implied to be a goat-fucker. alright. and yet, if you only read the last book, you end up having a more positive impression of Aberforth and Regulus than of their older brothers, to the point where Albus and Sirius even get compared to Voldemort. Interestingly, I feel like Albus makes an indirect reference to Kreacher here:

"That which Voldemort does not value, he takes no trouble to comprehend. Of house-elves and children’s tales, of love, loyalty, and innocence, Voldemort knows and understands nothing."

of course Regulus was not brought up in his last conversation with Harry, but there really isn't anyone else this comment could refer to, and it does echo "Kreacher's tale" nicely:

"Of course, Voldemort would have considered the ways of house-elves far beneath his notice . . . It would never have occurred to him that they might have magic that he didn’t."

"I’ve said all along that wizards would pay for how they treat house-elves. Well, Voldemort did . . . and so did Sirius."

"Sirius was horrible to Kreacher, Harry, and it’s no good looking like that, you know it’s true"

"He’s loyal to people who are kind to him, and Mrs. Black must have been, and Regulus certainly was"

"my rough, unlettered, and infinitely more admirable brother"

"Was I better, ultimately, than Voldemort?"

"Master Regulus always liked Kreacher."

"The barman face was impassive. After a few moments he said,

'I’m sorry to hear it, I liked that elf.' "

Sirius and Albus really wanted to distance themselves from the reminders of their home, and as a result, they weren't always decent people. Of course I don't believe for a second Sirius and Albus were actually as bad as Riddle. they both did fucked up things, so did Regulus who joined the Death Eaters and Aberforth who suggested using Slytherin students as hostages (tf), so I'm not saying one amongst these four is obviously better than the others, but. this reversal is still really interesting.

The fact that Aberforth was helping Harry through Sirius' mirror. The fact that one of Albus' names is Percival. Hell, let's reach even further, Albus meaning "white" and Sirius&Regulus' last name being "black".

Like I'm sorry, but to me this is cinema.

#harry potter #albus dumbledore #aberforth dumbledore #deathly hallows #regulus black #sirius black #percy weasley #the weasleys #hp #hp meta #black brothers

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