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𝐆𝐋𝐎𝐑𝐘 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐆𝐎𝐑𝐄

﹙now we're in the ring, and we're coming for blood ﹚

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Here are the women with ancient
anger in their veins and the cruelty
of a goddess in their hearts.

You will beg before her, you
will scream; but Hera never flinched
from the words of a mortal,

so why should she?

Do not stand in her way.

She will burn down your kingdoms,
herself with it, if it meant
your ruin.

·͙*̩̩͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩̥͙　✩　*̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩͙‧͙ 　　.·͙*̩̩͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩̥͙　✩　*̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩͙‧͙ .

𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐄 𝐖𝐀𝐒 𝐍𝐎 means of steering; the dragon could not see where it was going, and Elara knew that if it turned sharply or rolled in midair they would find it impossible to cling onto its broad back. Nevertheless, as they climbed higher and higher, London unfurling below them like a gray-and-green map, Elara's overwhelming feeling was of gratitude for an escape that had seemed impossible. 

Crouching low over the beast's neck, she clung tight to the metallic scales, and the cool breeze was soothing on her burned and blistered skin, the dragon's wings beating the air like the sails of a windmill. Behind her, whether from delight or fear she could not tell, Harry clung to her back, Ron kept swearing at the top of his voice, and Hermione seemed to be sobbing.

To think that in the past that she would have fainted at the idea of riding a dragon. The wind soared through her hair. The weightlessness she experienced with each beat of the beast's brilliant wings thrilled her greatly.

She resisted the urge to raise her arms in the air as Harry's grip on her tightened. His scar was prickling again.

The dragon seemed to crave cooler and fresher air: It climbed steadily until they were flying through wisps of chilly cloud, and Elara could no longer make out the little colored dots which were cars pouring in and out of the capital. On and on they flew, over countryside parceled out in patches of green and brown, over roads and rivers winding through the landscape like strips of matte and glossy ribbon.

"What do you reckon it's looking for?" Ron yelled as they flew farther and farther north.

"No idea," Elara shouted back. 

Her hands were numb with cold but she did not care. When, she wondered, had the beast itself last eaten? Surely it would need sustenance before long?

We need to land soon.

The sun slipped lower in the sky, which was turning indigo; and still the dragon flew, cities and towns gliding out of sight beneath them, its enormous shadow sliding over the earth like a great dark cloud. 

"Is it my imagination," shouted Ron after a considerable stretch of silence, "or are we losing height?"

Elara looked down and saw deep green mountains and lakes, coppery in the sunset. The landscape seemed to grow larger and more detailed as she squinted over the side of the dragon, and she wondered whether it had divined the presence of fresh water by the flashes of reflected sunlight.

Lower and lower the dragon flew, in great spiraling circles, honing in, it seemed, upon one of the smaller lakes.

"We jump when it gets low enough!" Elara called back to the others. "Straight into the water!"

They agreed, Hermione a little faintly, and now Elara could see the dragon's wide yellow underbelly rippling in the surface of the water.

"NOW!"

She slithered over the side of the dragon and plummeted feet first toward the surface of the lake; the drop was greater than she had estimated and she hit the water hard, plunging like a stone into a freezing, green, reed-filled world. 

She kicked toward the surface and emerged, panting, to see enormous ripples emanating in circles from the places where Harry, Ron, and Hermione had fallen. The dragon did not seem to have noticed anything: It was already fifty feet away, swooping low over the lake to scoop up water in its scarred snout. 

It looked back at Elara and she could of sworn it had nodded at her.

As Harry, Ron, and Hermione emerged, spluttering and gasping, from the depths of the lake, the dragon flew on, its wings beating hard, and landed at last on a distant bank.

Elara, Harry, Ron, and Hermione struck out for the opposite shore. The lake did not seem to be deep: Soon it was more a question of fighting their way through reeds and mud than swimming, and at last they flopped, sodden, panting, and exhausted, onto slippery grass.

Hermione collapsed, coughing and shuddering. Though Elara could have happily lain down

and slept, she staggered to her feet, drew out Bellatrix's wand, and started casting the usual protective spells around them.

When she had finished, she joined the others. It was the first time that she had seen them properly since escaping from the vault. All three had angry red burns all over their faces and arms, and their clothing was singed away in places. They were wincing as they dabbed essence of dittany onto their many injuries. 

Hermione handed Elara the bottle, then pulled out four bottles of pumpkin juice she had brought from Shell Cottage and clean, dry robes for all of them. Elara pushed her sopping wet hair out of her face and began to braid it. They changed and then gulped down the juice.

"Well, on the upside," said Ron finally, who was sitting watching the skin on his hands regrow, "we got the Horcrux. On the downside —"

"— no sword," said Harry through gritted teeth, as he dripped dittany through the singed hole in his jeans onto the burn beneath.

"No sword," repeated Ron. "That double-crossing little scab . . ."

Harry pulled the Horcrux from the pocket of the wet jacket he had just taken off and set it down on the grass in front of them. Glinting in the sun, it drew their eyes as they swigged their bottles of juice. 

"At least we can't wear it this time, that'd look a bit weird hanging round our necks," said Ron, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand.

Elara laughed and looked across the lake to the far bank, where the dragon was still drinking.

"What'll happen to it, do you think?" she asked. "Will it be all right?"

"You sound like Hagrid," said Ron. "It's a dragon, Lara, it can look after itself. It's us we need to worry about."

"And — ?"

"Well, I don't know how to break this to you," said Ron, "but I think they might have noticed we broke into Gringotts."

All four of them started to laugh, and once started, it was difficult to stop. Elara's ribs ached, he felt lightheaded with hunger, but he lay back on the grass beneath the reddening sky and laughed until his throat was raw.

"What are we going to do, though?" said Hermione finally, hiccuping herself back to seriousness. "He'll know, won't he? You-Know-Who will know we know about his Horcruxes!"

"Maybe they'll be too scared to tell him?" said Ron hopefully. "Maybe they'll cover up —"

The sky, the smell of lake water, the sound of Ron's voice were extinguished: Pain cleaved Elara's head like a sword stroke. She was standing in a dimly lit room, and a semicircle of wizards faced Voldemort, and on the floor at his feet knelt a small, quaking figure.

"What did you say to me?" 

His voice was high and cold. The goblin was trembling, unable to meet the red eyes high above his.

"Say it again!" murmured Voldemort. "Say it again!"

"M-my Lord," stammered the goblin, its black eyes wide with terror, "m-my Lord . . . we t-tried t-to st-stop them. . . . Im-impostors, my Lord . . . broke — broke into the — into the Lestranges' v-vault. . . ."

"Impostors? What impostors? I thought Gringotts had ways of revealing impostors? Who were they?"

"It was . . . it was . . . the P-Potter b-boy, the Le-Lestrange girl, and t-two accomplices. . . ."

"And they took?" said Voldemort, his voice rising. "Tell me! What did they take?"

"A . . . a s-small golden c-cup, m-my Lord . . ."

The scream of rage left Voldemort. The Elder Wand slashed through the air and green light erupted through the room; the kneeling goblin rolled over, dead; the watching wizards scattered before him, terrified: Bellatrix and Lucius Malfoy threw others behind them in their race for the door, and again and again Voldemort's wand fell, and those who were left were slain.

Alone amongst the dead he stormed up and down, and they passed before him in vision: his treasures, his safeguards, his anchors to immortality. He paced the room, kicking aside the goblin's corpse.

Elara's eyes flew open as she wrenched herself back to the present: She was lying on the bank of the lake in the setting sun next to Harry, and Ron and Hermione were looking down at them. Elara pushed herself up, holding a hand out to Harry, who gratefully took it.

"He knows, whispered Harry. "He knows, and he's going to check where the others are, and the last one is at Hogwarts. I knew it. I knew it."

"What?"

Ron was gaping at him; Hermione sat up, looking worried.

"But what did you see? How do you know?"

"I saw him find out about the cup, I — I was in his head, he's — he's seriously angry, and scared too, he can't understand how we knew, and now he's going to check the others are safe, the ring first. He thinks the Hogwarts one is safest, because Snape's there, because it'll be so hard not to be seen getting in, I think he'll check that one last, but he could still be there within hours —"

"Did either of you see where in Hogwarts it is?" asked Ron, now scrambling to his feet too.

"No, he was concentrating on warning Snape, he didn't think about exactly where it is —"

"Wait, wait!" cried Hermione as Ron caught up the Horcrux and Harry pulled out the Invisibility Cloak again. "We can't just go, we haven't got a plan, we need to —"

"Listen," began Elara, "as a responsible person — "

"You literally blew up half of Gringotts!"

"Yes, and I take responsibility for that!"

"We need to get going," said Harry firmly. 

Elara agreed, although she had been hoping to sleep, looking forward to getting into the new tent, but that was impossible now. 

"Can you imagine what he's going to do once he realizes the ring and the locket are gone? What if he moves the Hogwarts Horcrux, decides it isn't safe enough?"

"So, how will we get in?" asked Elara.

"We'll go to Hogsmeade," said Harry, "and try to work something out once we see what the protection around the school's like. Get under the Cloak, I want to stick together this time."

"Will we fit?"

"It'll be dark, no one's going to notice our feet."

The flapping of enormous wings echoed across the black water: The dragon had drunk its fill and risen into the air. They paused in their preparations to watch it climb higher and higher, now black against the rapidly darkening sky, until it vanished over a nearby mountain. 

Elara pulled the Cloak down as far as it would go, and together they turned on the spot into the crushing darkness.

Her feet touched road. She saw the achingly familiar Hogsmeade High Street: dark shop fronts, and the outline of black mountains beyond the village, and the curve in the road ahead that led off toward Hogwarts, and light spilling from the windows of the Three Broomsticks, and with a lurch of the heart she remembered, with piercing accuracy, how she had landed here nearly a year before, supporting a desperately weak Dumbledore; all this in a second, upon landing — and then, even as she relaxed her grip upon Harry's and Ron's arms, it happened.

The air was rent by a scream that sounded like Voldemort's when he had realized the cup had been stolen: It tore at every nerve in Elara's body, and she knew immediately that their appearance had caused it. 

Even as she looked at the other three beneath the Cloak, the door of the Three Broomsticks burst open and a dozen cloaked and hooded Death Eaters dashed into the street, their wands aloft.

Elara seized Ron's wrist as he raised his wand; there were too many of them to Stun: Even attempting it would give away their position. One of the Death Eaters waved his wand and the scream stopped, still echoing around the distant mountains.

"Accio Cloak!" roared one of the Death Eaters.

Elara seized its folds, but it made no attempt to escape: The Summoning Charm had not worked on it.

"Not under your wrapper, then, you two?" yelled the Death Eater who had tried the charm, and then to his fellows, "Spread out. they're here."

Six of the Death Eaters ran toward them: Elara, Harry, Ron, and Hermione backed as quickly as possible down the nearest side street, and the Death Eaters missed them by inches. They waited in the darkness, listening to the footsteps running up and down, beams of light flying along the street from the Death Eaters' searching wands.

"Let's just leave!" Hermione whispered. "Disapparate now!"

"Great idea," said Ron, but before Elara or Harry could reply a Death Eater shouted, "We know you're here, Potter, and there's no getting away! We'll find you!"

"They were ready for us," whispered Harry. "They set up that spell to tell them we'd come. I reckon they've done something to keep us here, trap us —"

"What about dementors?" called another Death Eater. "Let 'em have free rein, they'd find them quick enough!"

"The Dark Lord wants Tonks and Potter dead by no hand but his —"

"— an' dementors won't kill him! The Dark Lord wants their lives, not their souls. He'll be easier to kill if he's been Kissed first!"

There were noises of agreement. Dread filled Elara: To repel dementors they would have to produce Patronuses, which would give them away immediately.

"We're going to have to try to Disapparate!" Hermione whispered.

Even as she said it, Elara felt the unnatural cold begin to steal over the street. Light was sucked from the environment right up to the stars, which vanished. In the pitch-blackness, she felt Harry take hold of her arm and together, they turned on the spot.

The air through which they needed to move seemed to have become solid: They could not Disapparate; the Death Eaters had cast their charms well. The cold was biting deeper and deeper into Elara's flesh. She, Harry, Ron, and Hermione retreated down the side street, groping their way along the wall, trying not to make a sound. 

Then, around the corner, gliding noiselessly, came dementors, ten or more of them, visible because they were of a denser darkness than their surroundings, with their black cloaks and their scabbed and rotting hands. Could they sense fear in the vicinity? 

Elara was sure of it: They seemed to be coming more quickly now, taking those dragging, rattling breaths she detested, tasting despair on the air, closing in —

She raised her wand: She could not, would not, suffer the Dementor's Kiss, whatever happened afterward. It was of Harry, Ron, and Hermione that he thought as she whispered, "Expecto Patronum!"

The silver doe burst from her wand and charged: The dementors scattered and there was atriumphant yell from somewhere out of sight.

"It's her, down there, down there, I saw her Patronus, it was a doe!"

The dementors had retreated, the stars were popping out again, and the footsteps of the Death Eaters were becoming louder; but before Elara in her panic could decide what to do, there was a grinding of bolts nearby, a door opened on the left-hand side of the narrow street, and a rough voice said, "Tonks, in here, quick!"

She obeyed without hesitation: The four of them hurtled through the open doorway.

"Upstairs, keep the Cloak on, keep quiet!" muttered a tall figure, passing them on his way into the street and slamming the door behind him.

Elara had had no idea where they were, but now she saw, by the stuttering light of a single candle, the grubby, sawdust-strewn bar of the Hog's Head Inn. They ran behind the counter and through a second doorway, which led to a rickety wooden staircase that they climbed as fast as they could. 

The stairs opened onto a sitting room with a threadbare carpet and a small fireplace, above which hung a single large oil painting of a blonde girl who gazed out at the room with a kind of vacant sweetness.

Shouts reached them from the street below. Still wearing the Invisibility Cloak, they crept toward the grimy window and looked down. Their savior, whom Elara now recognized as the Hog's Head's barman, was the only person not wearing a hood.

"So what?" he was bellowing into one of the hooded faces. "So what? You send dementors down my street, I'll send a Patronus back at 'em! I'm not having 'em near me, I've told you that, I'm not having it!"

"That wasn't your Patronus!" said a Death Eater. "That was a doe, it was Tonks's!"

"Doe!" roared the barman, and he pulled out a wand. "Doe! You idiot — Expecto Patronum!"

Something huge and horned erupted from the wand: Head down, it charged toward the High Street and out of sight.

"That's not what I saw —" said the Death Eater, though with less certainty.

"Curfew's been broken, you heard the noise," one of his companions told the barman. "Someone was out in the street against regulations —"

"If I want to put my cat out, I will, and be damned to your curfew!"

"You set off the Caterwauling Charm?"

"What if I did? Going to cart me off to Azkaban? Kill me for sticking my nose out my own front door? Do it, then, if you want to! But I hope for your sakes you haven't pressed your little Dark Marks and summoned him. He's not going to like being called here for me and my old cat, is he, now?"

"Don't you worry about us," said one of the Death Eaters, "worry about yourself, breaking curfew!"

"And where will you lot traffick potions and poisons when my pub's closed down? What'll happen to your little sidelines then?"

"Are you threatening — ?"

"I keep my mouth shut, it's why you come here, isn't it?"

"I still say I saw a doe Patronus!" shouted the first Death Eater.

"Doe?" roared the barman. "It's a goat, idiot!"

"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 toward the High Street. Hermione groaned with relief, wove out from under the Cloak, and sat down on a wobble-legged chair. Elara drew the curtains tight shut, then pulled the Cloak off herself, Harry, and Ron. They could hear the barman down below, rebolting the door of the bar, then climbing the stairs.

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 Elara. "We can't thank you enough. You saved our lives."

The barman grunted. Harry approached him. Elara surveyed the man. He had long, stringy, wire-gray hair and 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," whispered Harry.

There was 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 at Hogwarts," said Harry. 

The barman turned away, lighting lamps with prods of his wand, not looking at any of them.

"You're Aberforth," said Elara to the man's back.

He neither confirmed nor 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?" said Aberforth.

"Someone sent a doe Patronus to us, and it wasn't Lara!"

"Brains like that, you could be a Death Eater, son. Haven't I just proved 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 silence but for the crackle of the fire, the clink of goblets, and the sound of chewing.

"Right then," said Aberforth when they had eaten their fill, and Elara, Harry, Ron, and Hermione 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 off 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 Elara. "We need to get into Hogwarts."

"Don't be stupid, girl," said Aberforth.

"We've got to."

"What you've got to do," said Aberforth, leaning forward, "is to get as far from here as you can."

"Yeah, we're not doing that. We're getting into Hogwarts whether you help us or not. Dumbledore — your brother — wanted us —"

The firelight made the grimy lenses of Aberforth's glasses momentarily opaque, a bright flat white.

"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, Tonks, 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," retorted Elara.

"Oh, don't I?" said Aberforth quietly. "You don't think I understood my own brother? Think you knew Albus better than I did?"

"I didn't mean that. He's left Harry and I 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," spoke up Harry. "But we've got to —"

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

"We can't," insisted Elara.

"Why not?"

"You've heard of Harry and I's prophecies, no? Besides, 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, you two, 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."

"We can't leave," said Harry. "We've got a job —"

"Give it to someone else!"

"We can't. It's got to be us, Dumbledore explained it all —"

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

Elara wanted with all her heart to say "Yes," but somehow the simple word would not rise to her lips. Aberforth seemed to know what she was thinking.

"I knew my brother, Tonks. 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 Elara 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 Ron, trying to spare Hermione.

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

Elara kept quiet. She did not want to express the doubts and uncertainties about Dumbledore that had riddled her for months now. She had made her choice while laying in Malfoy Manor, she had decided to continue along the winding, dangerous path indicated for her by Albus Dumbledore and the Constellations, to accept that she had not been told everything that she wanted to know, but simply trust. She had no desire to doubt again; she did not want to hear anything that would deflect her from her purpose. 

She met Aberforth's gaze, which was so strikingly like his brother's: The bright blue eyes gave the same impression that they were X-raying the object of their scrutiny, and Elara thought that Aberforth knew what she was thinking and despised him for it.

"Professor Dumbledore cared about Lara and 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.

"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, set upon, 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 if 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 favorite," he said, and as he said it, a grubby schoolboy seemed to look out through Aberforth's wrinkles and tangled 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 sneered. "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 get her to calm 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."

Elara felt a horrible mixture of pity and repulsion; she did not want to hear any more, but Aberforth kept talking, and Elara 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.

"Grindelwald. And at last, my brother had an equal to talk to, someone just as bright and talented as he was. And looking after Ariana took a backseat then, while they were hatching all their plans for a new Wizarding order, and looking for Hallows, and whatever else it was they were so interested in. Grand plans for the benefit of all Wizardkind, and if one young girl got neglected, what did that matter, when Albus was working for the greater good?

"But after a few weeks of it, I'd had enough, I had. It was nearly time for me to go back to Hogwarts, so I told 'em, both of 'em, face-to-face, like I am to you, now," and Aberforth looked down at Elara and Harry, and it took little imagination to see him as a teenager, wiry and angry, confronting his elder brother. "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," said Aberforth, and his eyes were briefly occluded by the firelight on the lenses of his glasses: They shone white and blind again. 

"Grindelwald didn't like that at all. He got angry. He told me what a stupid little boy I was, trying to stand in the way of him and my brilliant brother . . . 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?

"And there was an argument . . . and I pulled out my wand, and he pulled out his, and I had the Cruciatus Curse used on me by my brother's best friend — and Albus was trying to stop him, and then all three of us were dueling, and the flashing lights and the bangs set her off, she couldn't stand it —"

The color was draining from Aberforth's face as though he had suffered a mortal wound.

"— and I think she wanted to help, but she didn't really know what she was doing, and I don't know which of us did it, it could have been any of us — and she was dead."

His voice broke on the last word and he dropped down into the nearest chair. Harry's grip was vice upon Elara's hand, Hermione's face was wet with tears, and Ron was almost as pale as Aberforth. Elara felt nothing but revulsion: She wished she had not heard it, wished she could wash her mind clean of it.

"I'm so . . . I'm so sorry," Hermione whispered.

"Gone," croaked Aberforth. "Gone forever."

He wiped his nose on his cuff and cleared his throat.

"'Course, Grindelwald scarpered. He had a bit of a track record already, back in his own country, and he didn't want Ariana set to his account too. 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.

"I beg your pardon?" said Aberforth.

"Never," said Harry. "The night that your brother died, he drank a potion that drove him out of his mind. He started screaming, pleading with someone who wasn't there. 'Don't hurt them, please . . . hurt me instead.'"

Ron and Hermione were staring at Harry. He had never gone into details about what had happened on the island on the lake: The events that had taken place after he, Elara, and Dumbledore had returned to Hogwarts had eclipsed it so thoroughly.

"He thought he was back there with you and Grindelwald, I know he did," said Elara, remembering Dumbledore whimpering, pleading. "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."

Aberforth seemed lost in contemplation of his own knotted and veined hands. After a long pause he said, "How can you be sure, Tonks, that my brother wasn't more interested in the greater good than in you? How can you be sure you and Potter aren't dispensable, just like my little sister?"

Elara's face grew stoney.

"I don't believe it. Dumbledore loved them," said Hermione.

"Why didn't he tell him to hide, then?" shot back Aberforth. "Why didn't he say to him, 'Take care of yourself, here's how to survive'?"

"Because," said Harry before Hermione could answer, "sometimes you've got to think about more than your own safety! Sometimes you've got to think about the greater good! This is war!"

"You're seventeen, boy!"

"I'm of age, and I'm going to keep fighting even if you've given up!" insisted Elara, standing up, Harry alongside her.

"Who says I've given up?"

"'The Order of the Phoenix is finished,'" Elara repeated. "'You-Know-Who's won, it's over, and anyone who's pretending different's kidding themselves.'"

"I don't say I like it, but it's the truth!"

"No, it isn't," said Elara. "Your brother knew how to finish You-Know-Who and he passed the knowledge on to us. I'm going to keep going until I succeed — or I die. Don't think I don't know how this ends.

"I am the judge, the jury, and the executioner. I am the weapon that carries out the sentence. I don't care if you think it's over — because it's only over when I say it's over."

She waited for Aberforth to jeer or to argue, but he did not. He merely scowled.

"We need to get into Hogwarts," said Elara again. "If you can't help us, we'll wait till daybreak, leave you in peace, and try to find a way in ourselves. If you can help us — well, now would be a great time to mention it."

Aberforth remained fixed in his chair, gazing at Elara with the eyes that were so extraordinarily like his brother's. At last he cleared his throat, got to his feet, walked around the little table, and approached the portrait of Ariana.

"You know what to do," he said.

She smiled, turned, and walked away, not as people in portraits usually did, out of the sides of their frames, but along what seemed to be a long tunnel painted behind her. They watched her slight figure retreating until finally she was swallowed by the darkness.

"Er — what — ?" began Ron.

"There's only one way in now," said Aberforth. "You must know they've got all the old secret passageways covered at both ends, dementors all around the boundary walls, regular patrols inside the school from what my sources tell me. The place has never been so heavily guarded. How you expect to do anything once you get inside it, with Snape in charge and the Carrows as his deputies . . . well, that's your lookout, isn't it? You say you're prepared to die."

"But what . . . ?" said Hermione, frowning at Ariana's picture.

A tiny white dot had reappeared at the end of the painted tunnel, and now Ariana was walking back toward them, growing bigger and bigger as she came. But there was somebody else with her now, someone taller than she was, who was limping along, looking excited. His hair was longer than Elara had ever seen it: He appeared to have suffered several gashes to his face and his clothes were ripped and torn. Larger and larger the two figures grew, until only their heads and shoulders filled the portrait. 

Then the whole thing swung forward on the wall like a little door, and the entrance to a real tunnel was revealed. And out of it, his hair overgrown, his face cut, his robes ripped, clambered the real Neville Longbottom, who gave a roar of delight and leapt down from the mantelpiece.

"I knew you two'd come! I knew it!"

·͙*̩̩͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩̥͙　✩　*̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩͙‧͙ 　　.·͙*̩̩͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩̥͙　✩　*̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩͙‧͙ .

AUTHORS NOTE

— I CANNOT BELIEVE IT IS
ALMOST THE END :((((

written: december 16, 2020
published: december 16, 2020