So Ill Ask You Again Aberforth

Thank you for your thoughts on the aberforth headcanons I've seen floating around. I didn't have the energy to refute them but there is nothing in canon to confirm them and plenty to offer an alternative explanation for his behaviour.

Aberforth confronting albus and gellert is entirely explained by their idea to run away and take ariana. Gellert fleeing after Ariana's death makes complete sense because of that death alone (we know he had done something bad enough to get expelledand allegedly had had encounters with the law too. A girl dieing a violent death in his presence wouldn't have looked good). There is no homophobia needed to explain either of these occurrences. Do I think Aberforth was entirely free of homophobic biases? Maybe not. He grew up in the countryside in the late 19th century. Even if the wizarding world is slightly more permissable, he probably held some ingrained prejudices. But I don't believe for a second that that's the reason he grew apart from albus

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I don't know if he would have. Newt and Theseus do not seem weirded out by Albus being in love with a man; just by who the man is. I'm not saying that there isn't a chance that Aberforth would have picked up biases from the society, but there's no actual evidence or even a hint of that in the books. The casual use of 'sod' in FB is not homophobic as much as some people try to make it so, which is exactly why Albus does not feel offended. It's not used in its original context and it's not used to discriminate a gay person. If you look at words that have become slang, people shouldn't swear at all because most of them have meaning that was targetted to specific groups, beliefs, actions or mental and pshychological states in the original context. When something has become slang it has reached the point of being taken out of that context. Looking at how a word still carries its negative connotations and cannot be completely separated from its initial meaning has been brought to attention by social sciences in much more recent years. These are characters who have not been raised in the climate of social justice and political correctness that we have, neither have they been raised at a time when 'sod' stood for sodomite. So the idea that one has to apologize for using it in the presense of a gay person would not have occured to anyone. Projecting our own education to that time is just anachronistic.

Also, Aberforth did not try to rip away Albus' happiness when he could let him have it. In FB mentions that he saw everything that went on in the house.This probably refers to many things: Ariana's confition, Kendra's lies, Albus' developing plans with Gellert during that summer. I doubt that there is a chance that Albus's plans came into Aberforth's attention so late, but he let him have his dreams for a while. Still, he didn't speak until two months had passed and he was about do go back to Hogwarts.

In the beginning of that summer Aberforth had told Albus that he would leave school and take care of Ariana. Albus insisted to take on as the carer of the family and for Aberforth to continue school. He was given an out but he made his choice. He did not even have his brains in his head enough to admit that he was going back on his word and to tell Aberforth that he should drop out to take care of Ariana. He was selfish. It wasn't done in an ill-intended way. He just wanted everything. He wanted to be able to use his intellect, he wanted power, he wanted to make up for what his family had gone through by controlling the muggles, he wanted love and he still deluded himself that he could do all that without letting down his siblings because he loved them and he did not want to make himself choose.

So, what should Aberforth have done, held his tongue? Would Ariana have survived being moved across Europe? Would she have survived the hunt for the hallows? If they had rallies like the one in Paris would she have been able to remain stable? I won't go into Gellert potentially weaponizing her, because that's not something that either brother would or could have thought at the time. At the end of the day, Aberforth did not ask Albus to choose between family and love. Even if I don't think for a second that he liked Gellert as a person, when he confronted Albus he did not even argue against the relationship; just against their departure. He just pointed out in his unsophisticated way that Albus could not be a carer for the family AND pursue politics. Ultimately, if Albus and Gellert were content to do so (Albus might have settled with a heavy heart and Gellert would never, but that's another discussion), they could have stayed at the Hollow. It wasn't Aberforth's fault that Albus couldn't have the cake and eat it too.

Also, as you said, Gellert's departure had everything to do with Ariana's death. Again, there is nothing in any part of the canon suggesting that Gellert left because Aberforth was homophobic. In fact it's ludicrous how out of character this sounds. if Aberforth was homophobic (which he wasn't) Grindelwald would have barely cared –certainly not enough to leave- and that would have been only for Albus' sake. Instead, let's notice how Albus describes Grindelwald's departure: "He vanished, with his plans for seizing power, and his schemes for Muggle torture, and his dreams of the Deathly Hallows…". And Bathilda mentions that after Ariana's death Gellert returned home agitated and wanted to leave the very next day. It's repercussions he feared. Not seeing any chance that Albus would follow him now, he didn't see a point in sticking around and risking himself or in not pursuing his plans.

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Source: https://dumbledore-and-grindelwald.tumblr.com/post/682473234413797376/thank-you-for-your-thoughts-on-the-aberforth

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