202[@more@]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.
"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.
"Grindelwald. And at last, my brother had an equal to talk to someone just as bright and talented 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 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 hack to Hogwarts, so I told 'em,
both of 'em, face-to-face, like I am to you, now," and Aberforth looked downward Harry, and it took a 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 fireflight on
the lenses of his glasses: They turned 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 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. Hermione's face was wet with tears, and Ron
was almost as pale as Aberforth. Harry felt nothing but revulsion: He wished he had not heard it, wished he could wash is mind clean of it.
"I'm so . . . I'm so sorry," Hermione whispered.
"Gone," croaked Aberforth. "Gone forever."
He wiped his nose on hiss 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 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 Harry, remembering Dumbledore whispering, 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, Potter,
that my brother wasn't more interested in the greater good than in you? How can you be sure you aren't dispensable, just like my little sister?"
A shard of ice seemed to pierce Harry's heart.
"I don't believe it. Dumbledore loved Harry," 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!"
"Who says I've given up?"
"The Order of the Phoenix is finished," Harry 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 Harry. "Your brother knew how to finish You-Know-Who and he passed the knowledge on to me. I'm going to keep going
until I succeed - or I die. Don't think I don't know how this might end. I've known it for years."
He waited for Aberforth to jeer or to argue, but he did not. He merely moved. "We need to get into Hogwarts," said Harry 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 Harry with the eye, 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, one 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 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 Harry had ever seen. He appeared and torn. Larger and larger the two figures grew, until only their heads and shoulders filled the portrait.
Then the whole thing swang forward on the wall like a little door, and the entrance to a real tunnel was revealed. And our of it, his hair overgrown,
his face cut, his robes ripped, clambered the real Neville Longbottom, who gave a roar of delight, leapt down from the mantelpiece and yelled.
"I knew you'd come! I knew it, Harry!"
Chapter Twenty-Nine
The Lost Diadem
“Neville -- what the -- how -- ?”
But Neville had spotted Ron and Hermione, and with yells of delight was hugging them too. The longer Harry looked at Neville, the worse he appeared: One of his eyes was swollen yellow and purple, there were gouge marks on his face, and his general air of unkemptness suggested that he had been living enough. Nevertheless, his battered visage shone with happiness as he let go of Hermione and said again, “I knew you’d come! Kept telling Seamus it was a matter of time!”
“Neville, what’s happened to you?”
“What? This?” Neville dismissed his injuries with a shake of the head. “This is nothing, Seamus is worse. You’ll see. Shall we get going then? Oh,” he turned to Aberforth, “Ab, there might be a couple more people no the way.”
“Couple more?” repeated Aberforth ominously. “What d’you mean, a couple