“But that’s a really serious thing to say

“But that’s a really serious thing to say!” said Hermione. “Are you – are you talking about your sister?”

Aberforth glared at her: His lips moved as if he were chewing the words he was holding back. Then he burst into speech.

“When my sister was six years old, she was attacked, by three Muggle boys. They’d seen her doing magic, spying through the back garden hedge: She was a kid, she couldn’t control it, no witch or wizard can at that age. What they saw, scared them, I expect. They forced their way through the hedge, and when she couldn’t show them the trick, they got a bit carried away trying to stop the little freak doing it.”

Hermione’s eyes were huge in the firelight; Ron looked slightly sick. Aberforth stood up, tall as Albus, and suddenly terrible in his anger and the intensity of his pain.

“It destroyed her, what they did: She was never right again. She wouldn’t use magic, but she couldn’t get rid of it; it turned inward and drove her mad, it exploded out of her when she couldn’t control it, and at times she was strange and dangerous. But mostly she was sweet and scared and harmless.”

“And my father went after the bastards that did it,” said Aberforth, “and attacked them. And they locked him up in Azkaban for it. He never said why he’d done it, because the Ministry had known what Ariana had become, she’d have been locked up in St. Mungo’s for good. They’d have seen her as a serious threat to the International Statute of Secrecy, unbalanced like she was, with magic exploding out of her at moments when she couldn’t keep it in any longer.”

“We had to keep her safe and quiet. We moved house, put it about she was ill, and my mother looked after her, and tried to keep her calm and happy.”

“I was her favourite,” he said, and as he said it, a grubby schoolboy seemed to look out through Aberforth’s wrinkles and wrangled beard. “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,”

Aberforth succored. “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.”

“Then, when she was fourteen… See, I wasn’t there.” said Aberforth. “If I’d been there, I could have calmed her down. She had one of her rages, and my mother wasn’t as young as she was, and… it was an accident. Ariana couldn’t control it. But my mother was killed.”

Harry felt a horrible mixture of pity and repulsion; he did not want to hear any more, but Aberforth kept talking, and Harry wondered how long it had been since he had spoken about this; whether, in fact, he had ever spoken about it.

“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!”

Aberforth spat into the fire.

“I’d have looked after her, I told him so, I didn’t care about school, I’d have stayed home and done it.

He told me I had to finish my education and he’d take over from my mother. Bit of a comedown for Mr. Brilliant, there’s no prizes for looking after your half-mad sister, stopping her blowing up the house every other day. But he did all right for a few weeks… till he came.“

And now a positively dangerous look crept over Aberforth’s face.

“What you’ve got to do,”

“What you’ve got to do,” said Aberforth, leaning forward, “is to get as far from here as from here as you can.”

“You don’t understand. There isn’t much time. We’ve got to get into the castle. Dumbledore – I mean, your brother – wanted us – ”

The firelight made the grimy lenses of Aberforth’s glasses momentarily opaque, a bright flat white, and Harry remembered the blind eyes of the giant spider, Aragog.

“My brother Albus wanted a lot of things,” said Aberforth, “and people had a habit of getting hurt while he was carrying out his grand plans. You get away from this school, Potter, and out of the country if you can. Forget my brother and his clever schemes. He’s gone where none of this can hurt him, and you don’t owe him anything.”

“You don’t understand.” said Harry again.

“Oh, don’t I?” said Aberforth quietly. “You don’t think I understood my own brother? Think you know Albus better than I did?”

“I didn’t mean that,” said Harry, whose brain felt sluggish with exhaustion and from the surfeit of food and wine. “It’s… he left me a job.”

“Did he now?” said Aberforth. “Nice job, I hope? Pleasant? Easy? Sort of thing you’d expect an unqualified wizard kid to be able to do without overstretching themselves?”

Ron gave a rather grim laugh. Hermione was looking strained.

“I-it’s not easy, no,” said Harry. “But I’ve got to – ”

“Got to? Why got to? He’s dead, isn’t he?” said Aberforth roughly. “Let it go, boy, before you follow him! Save yourself!”

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“I – ” Harry felt overwhelmed; he could not explain, so he took the offensive instead. “But you’re fighting too, you’re in the Order of the Phoenix – ”

“I was,” said Aberforth. “The Order of the Phoenix is finished. You-Know-Who’s won, it’s over, and anyone who’s pretending different’s kidding themselves. It’ll never be safe for you here, Potter, he wants you too badly. So go abroad, go into hiding, save yourself. Best take these two with you.” He jerked a thumb at Ron and Hermione.

“They’ll be in danger long as they live now everyone knows they’ve been working with you.”

“I can’t leave,” said Harry. “I’ve got a job – ”

“Give it to someone else!”

“I can’t. It’s got to be me, Dumbledore explained it all – ”

“Oh, did he now? And did he tell you everything, was he honest with you?”

Harry wanted him with all his heart to say “Yes,” but somehow the simple word would not rise to his lips, Aberforth seemed to know what he was thinking.

“I knew my brother, Potter. He learned secrecy at our mother’s knee. Secrets and lies, that’s how we grew up, and Albus… he was a natural.”

The old man’s eyes traveled to the painting of the girl over the mantelpiece. It was, now Harry looked around properly, the only picture in the room. There was no photograph of Albus Dumbledore, nor of anyone else.

“Mr. Dumbledore” said Hermione rather timidly. “Is that your sister? Ariana?”

“Yes.” said Aberforth tersely. “Been reading Rita Skeeter, have you, missy?”

Even by the rosy light of the fire it was clear that Hermione had turned red.

“Elphias Doge mentioned her to us,” said Harry, trying to spare Hermione.

“That old berk,” muttered Aberforth, taking another swig of mead. “Thought the sun shone out of my brother’s every ocrifice, he did. Well, so did plenty of people, you three included, by the looks of it.”

Harry kept quiet. He did not want to express the doubts and uncertainties about Dumbledore that had riddled him for months now. He had made his choice while he dug Dobby’s grave, he had decided to continue along the winding, dangerous path indicated for him by Albus Dumbledore, to accept that he had not been told everything that he wanted to know, but simply to trust. He had no desire to doubt again; he did not want o hear anything that would deflect him from his purpose. He met Aberforth’s gaze, which was so strikingly like his brothers’: The bright blue eyes gave the same impression that they were X-raying the object of their scrutiny, and Harry thought that Aberforth knew what he was thinking and despised him for it.

“Professor Dumbledore cared about Harry, very much,” said Hermione in a low voice.

“Did he now?” said Aberforth. “Funny thing how many of the people my brother cared about very much ended up in a worse state than if he’d left ‘em well alone.”

“What do you mean?” asked Hermione breathlessly.

“Never you mind,” said Aberforth.

“All right, we made a mistake,

“All right, we made a mistake,” said the second Death Eater. “Break curfew again and we won’t be so lenient!”

The Death Eaters strode back towards the High Street. Hermione moaned with relief, wove out from under the Cloak, and sat down on a wobble-legged chair. Harry drew the curtains then pulled the Cloak off himself and Ron. They could hear the barman down below, rebolting the door of the bar, then climbing the stairs.

Harry’s attention was caught by something on the mantelpiece: a small, rectangular mirror, propped on top of it, right beneath the portrait of the girl.

The barman entered the room.

“You bloody fools,” he said gruffly, looking from one to the other of them. “What were you thinking, coming here?”

“Thank you,” said Harry. “You can’t thank you enough. You saved our lives!”

The barman grunted. Harry approached him looking up into the face: trying to see past the long, stringy, wire-gray hair beard. He wore spectacles. Behind the dirty lenses, the eyes were a piercing, brilliant blue.

“It’s your eye I’ve been seeing in the mirror.”

There was a silence in the room. Harry and the barman looked at each other.

“You sent Dobby.”

The barman nodded and looked around for the elf.

“Thought he’d be with you. Where’ve you left him?”

“He’s dead,” said Harry, “Bellatrix Lestrange killed him.”

The barman face was impassive. After a few moments he said, “I’m sorry to hear it, I liked that elf.”

He turned away, lightning lamps with prods of his wand, not looking at any of them.

“You’re Aberforth,” said Harry to the man’s back.

He neither confirmed or denied it, but bent to light the fire.

“How did you get this?” Harry asked, walking across to Sirius’s mirror, the twin of the one he had broken nearly two years before.

“Bought it from Dung ‘bout a year ago,” said Aberforth. “Albus told me what it was. Been trying to keep an eye out for you.”

Ron gasped.

“The silver doe,” he said excitedly, “Was that you too?”

“What are you talking about?” asked Aberforth.

“Someone sent a doe Patronus to us!”

“Brains like that, you could be a Death Eater, son. Haven’t I just prove my Patronus is a goat?”

“Oh,” said Ron, “Yeah… well, I’m hungry!” he added defensively as his stomach gave an enormous rumble.

“I got food,” said Aberforth, and he sloped out of the room, reappearing moments later with a large loaf of bread, some cheese, and a pewter jug of mead, which he set upon a small table in front of the fire.

Ravenous, they ate and drank, and for a while there was sound of chewing.

“Right then,” said Aberforth when the had eaten their fill and Harry and Ron sat slumped dozily in their chairs. “We need to think of the best way to get you out of here. Can’t be done by night, you heard what happens if anyone moves outdoors during darkness: Caterwauling Charm’s set off, they’ll be onto you like bowtruckles on doxy eggs. I don’t reckon I’ll be able to pass of a stag as a goat a second time. Wait for daybreak when curfew lifts, then you can put your Cloak back on and set out on foot. Get right out of Hogsmeade, up into the mountains, and you’ll be able to Disapparate there. Might see Hagrid. He’s been hiding in a cave up there with Grawp ever since they tried to arrest him.”

“We’re not leaving,” said Harry. “We need to get into Hogwarts.”

“Don’t be stupid, boy,” said Aberforth.

“We’ve got to,” said Harry.

Contemplating the task ahead would

Contemplating the task ahead would not make it easier or the water warmer. He stepped to the pool’s edge and placed Hermione’s wand on the ground still lit. Then, trying not to imagine how much colder he was about to become or how violently he would soon be shivering, he jumped.

Every pore of his body screamed in protest. The very air in his lungs seemed to freeze solid as he was submerged to his shoulders in the frozen water. He could hardly breathe: trembling so violently the water lapped over the edges of the pool, he felt for the blade with his numb feet. He only wanted to dive once.

Harry put off the moment of total submersion from second to second, gasping and shaking, until he told himself that it must be done, gathered all his courage, and dived.

The cold was agony: It attacked him like fire. His brain itself seemed to have frozen as he pushed through the dark water to the bottom and reached out, groping for the sword. His fingers closed around the hilt; he pulled it upward.

Then something closed tight around his neck. He thought of water weeds, though nothing had brushed him as he dived, and raised his hand to free himself. It was not weed: The chain of the Horcrux had tightened and was slowly constricting his windpipe.

Harry kicked out wildly, trying to push himself back to the surface, but merely propelled himself into the rocky side of the pool. Thrashing, suffocating, he scrabbled at the strangling chain, his frozen fingers unable to loosen it, and now little lights were popping inside his head, and he was going to drown, there was nothing left, nothing he could do, and the arms that closed around his chest were surely Death’s….

Choking and retching, soaking and colder than he had ever been in his life, he came to facedown in the snow. Somewhere, close by, another person was panting and coughing and staggering around, as she had come when the snake attacked….Yet it did not sound like her, not with those deep coughs, no judging by the weight of the footsteps….

Harry had no strength to lift his head and see his savior’s identity. All he could do was raise a shaking hand to his throat and feel the place where the locket had cut tightly into his flesh. It was gone. Someone had cut him free. Then a panting voice spoke from over his head.

“Are – you – mental?”

Nothing but the shock of hearing that voice could have given Harry the strength to get up. Shivering violently, he staggered to his feet. There before him stood Ron, fully dressed but drenched to the skin, his hair plastered to his face, the sword of Gryffindor in one hand and the Horcrux dangling from its broken chain in the other.

“Why the hell,” panted Ron, holding up the Horcrux, which swung backward and forward on its shortened chain in some parody of hypnosis, “didn’t you take the thing off before you dived?”

Harry could not answer. The silver doe was nothing, nothing compared with Ron’s reappearance; he could not believe it. Shuddering with cold, he caught up the pile of clothes still lying at the water’s edge and began to pull them on. As he dragged sweater after sweater over his head, Harry stared at Ron, half expecting him to have disappeared every time he lost sight of him, and yet he had to be real: He had just dived into the pool, he had saved Harry’s life.

“It was y-you?” Harry said at last, his teeth chattering, his voice weaker than usual due to his near-strangulation.

“Well, yeah,” said Ron, looking slightly confused.

“Y-you cast that doe?”

“What? No, of course not! I thought it was you doing it!”

“My Patronus is a stag.”

“Oh yeah. I thought it looked different. No antlers.”

Harry put Hagrid’s pouch back around his neck, pulled on a final sweater, stooped to pick up Hermione’s wand, and faced Ron again.

“How come you’re here?”

Apparently Ron had hoped that this point would come up later, if at all.

“Well, I’ve – you know – I’ve come back. If –” He cleared his throat. “You know. You still want me.”

There was a pause, in which the subject of Ron’s departure seemed to rise like a wall between them. Yet he was here. He had returned. He had just saved Harry’s life.

Ron looked down at his hands. He seemed momentarily surprised to see the things he was holding.

“Oh yeah, I got it out,” he said, rather unnecessarily, holding up the sword for Harry’s inspection. “That’s why you jumped in, right?”

“Yeah,” said Harry. “But I don’t understand. How did you get here? How did you find us?”

“Long story,” said Ron. “I’ve been looking for you for hours, it’s a big forest, isn’t it? And I was just thinking I’d have to go kip under a tree and wait for morning when I saw that dear coming and you following.”

“You didn’t see anyone else?”

“No,” said Ron. “I –”

But he hesitated, glancing at two trees growing close together some yards away.

“I did think I saw something move over there, but I was running to the pool at the time, because you’d gone in and you hadn’t come up, so I wasn’t going to make a detour to – hey!”

Harry was already hurrying to the place that Ron had indicated. The two oaks grew close together; there was a gap of only a few inches between the trunks at eye level, an ideal place to see but not be seen. The ground around the roots, however, was free of snow, and Harry could see no sign of footprints. He walked back to where Ron stood waiting, still holding the sword and the Horcrux.

“Anything there?” Ron asked.

“No,” said Harry.

“So how did the sword get in that pool?”

“Whoever cast the Patronus must have put it there.”

They both looked at the ornate silver sword, its rubied hilt glinting a little in the light from Hermione’s wand.

“You reckon this is the real one?” asked Ron.

“One way to find out, isn’t there?” said Harry.

“The official version of Scrimgeour’s

“The official version of Scrimgeour’s murder is that he resigned; he has been replaced by Pius Thicknesse, who is under the Imperius Curse.”

“Why didn’t Voldemort declare himself Minister of Magic?” asked Ron.

Lupin laughed.

“He doesn’t need to, Ron. Effectively, he is the Minister, but why should he sit behind a desk at the Ministry? His puppet, Thicknesse, is taking care of everyday business, leaving Voldemort free to extend his power beyond the Ministry.”

“Naturally many people have deduced what has happened: There has been such a dramatic change in Ministry policy in the last few days, and many are whispering that Voldemort must be behind it. However, that is the point: They whisper. They daren’t confide in each other, not knowing whom to trust; they are scared to speak out, in case their suspicions are true and their families are targeted. Yes, Voldemort is playing a very clever game. Declaring himself might have provoked open rebellion:

Remaining masked has created confusion, uncertainty, and fear.”

“And this dramatic change in Ministry policy,” said Harry, “involves warning the Wizarding world against me instead of Voldemort?”

“That’s certainly a part of it,” said Lupin, “and it is a masterstroke. Now that Dumbledore is dead, you – the Boy Who Lived – were sure to be the symbol and rallying point for any resistance to Voldemort. But by suggesting that you had a hand in the old hat’s death, Voldemort has not only set a price upon your head, but sown doubt and fear amongst many who would have defended you.”

“Meanwhile, the Ministry has started moving against Muggle-borns.”

Lupin pointed at the Daily Prophet.

“Look at page two.”

Hermione turned the pages with much the same expression of distaste she had when handling Secrets of the Darkest Art.

“Muggle-born Register!” she read aloud. “‘The Ministry of Magic is undertaking a survey of so-called ”Muggle-borns“ the better to understand how they came to possess magical secrets.

“‘Recent research undertaken by the Department of Mysteries reveals that magic can only be passed from person to person when Wizards reproduce. Where no proven Wizarding ancestry exists, therefore, the so-called Muggle-born is likely to have obtained magical power by theft or force.

“‘The Ministry is determined to root out such usurpers of magical power, and to this end has issued an invitation to every so-called Muggle-born to present themselves for interview by the newly appointed Muggle-born Registration Commission.’”

“People won’t let this happen,” said Ron.