Slight correction - Ariana was six, Albus was eleven, and Aberforth about eight. (To make the numbers match up, Ariana's birthday is either at the very end of the spring or the very start of summer, since she was six when attacked then seven when the Dumbledores moved house that summer, Albus's is sometime midsummer, and Aberforth's birthday is during the Hogwarts school year.) So seven years of misery for the whole family, not ten... But still.
Aside from that, I strongly agree with this post. One thing, though - Aberforth DID state that Ariana was "never right again" after the attack, but "[her magic] turned inward and drove her mad" (implying she wasn't "mad" before) when she wouldn't use it, so it's not so much that she never recovered from the initial trauma while having an otherwise healthy mind, but that she didn't recover from it in time - and once the insanity set in, I take it, she was a lost cause. So underlying instability wasn't what made things go straight to hell, the induced instability was. *nitpick, nitpick
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Aside from that, I strongly agree with this post. One thing, though - Aberforth DID state that Ariana was "never right again" after the attack, but "[her magic] turned inward and drove her mad" (implying she wasn't "mad" before) when she wouldn't use it, so it's not so much that she never recovered from the initial trauma while having an otherwise healthy mind, but that she didn't recover from it in time - and once the insanity set in, I take it, she was a lost cause. So underlying instability wasn't what made things go straight to hell, the induced instability was. *nitpick, nitpick ( ... )
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