Evening, Hogsmeade. The March wind still carried a chill, and the shop signs swung above the doorways. Honeydukes had coloured lights in the window. The Three Broomsticks was lit up bright, the door letting out laughter and the clink of glasses each time it swung.
Regulus followed Dumbledore across the main street and into a narrow side lane.
Moss on the stone walls, paving worn smooth, puddles along the base of the walls. At the end sat a squat building in the shadow of two taller ones, decades of grime on the windows, the light coming through a sour yellow. A crooked sign creaked from an iron bracket, the severed head of a wild boar painted on it, one eye missing.
Dumbledore pushed open the warped door. The hinges shrieked.
The stains on the floor had built up in layers, and the bottom one stuck to your shoes. A larger boar's head hung behind the bar, cobwebs on its ears. Not one of the tables was level. The air smelled of goat, cheap sour liquor, and woodsmoke.
A filthy goat stuck its head out of the hay bales in the corner, chewing.
One or two hooded figures sat at the far tables, heads down over their drinks. The Hog's Head wasn't picky about its clientele. If it were, it would have closed years ago.
Regulus pulled at the corner of his mouth.
That place on the moor had been rough. He'd assumed at the time it was the floor for British pubs. Apparently the floor went lower, and it went lower here, ten minutes' walk from Hogwarts.
There was nobody behind the bar. Dumbledore knocked twice on the counter.
A rough voice came from the back. "We're closed!"
Dumbledore knocked again.
Footsteps, heavy and dragging. The curtain pulled aside and a tall old wizard came out.
Half a head taller than Dumbledore and heavier built, grey hair and beard tangled into one wild mess with no line between them, the wrinkles deep and red from years of wind and sun. His apron carried stains thicker than the floor's.
His eyes were the same bright blue as Dumbledore's, without the half-moon spectacles in front of them.
He saw his brother and didn't break stride, his expression going from impatient to more impatient. Then his eyes moved to the stranger beside him.
Silver-white hair, amber slit pupils, heat rolling off him, leaning against the doorframe with his arms crossed and a smile he wasn't bothering to hide.
Aberforth grunted. "You again?"
"Good evening, Aberforth."
Aberforth went behind the bar and picked up a glass to wipe. The glass wasn't clean and the rag was dirtier. It only got cloudier.
"So who've you dragged along this time? That last one, didn't he lose the use of his leg? Still lying in St Mungo's, is he?"
Dumbledore sat down at the bar. "That was a curse. An accident. Not my doing."
"It's never your doing." Aberforth's laugh was cold. "Everyone who follows you around ends up dead, or crippled, or falling out with you, or vanishing for a year at a stretch..."
He glanced over the rim of the glass. "Was I talking about you?"
Dumbledore's eyes narrowed. "You were talking about me."
"Good, you noticed." Aberforth looked straight at him. "So what's this one for? Tracking Death Eaters? Negotiating with the giants?"
"He isn't here to work for me."
"Oh?" Aberforth glanced at Regulus again. "Then what's he for? Following a hundred-year-old man around, making sure he doesn't trip?"
"I'm not yet at the age where I need helping along. Your pub, on the other hand. That door handle was about to fall off the last time I came, and it's still hanging there."
Aberforth's blue eyes flashed. "Mind your own business. My pub is fine."
"Fine?"
Dumbledore's eyes travelled over the boar's head, the cobwebs, the floor. "Your goat is eating in the dining room, Aberforth."
"It eats where it wants! It's cleaner than that phoenix of yours. That bird burns itself up in your office all day, dies and comes back, comes back and dies, ash everywhere. Have you ever said a word to it?"
"Fawkes is very clean."
"Clean?" Aberforth blew air out through his nose. "You mean he sweeps up his own ashes every time he burns?"
Dumbledore opened his mouth and had nothing to say.
Aberforth went back to the glass, wiping harder.
Regulus picked one of the less filthy chairs and sat down with one leg crossed over the other, saying nothing, smiling.
Aberforth Dumbledore. Owner of the Hog's Head, investigated by the Ministry for illegal trading, and one day the man who would bring students up through a secret passage to reinforce the defenders at the last battle for Hogwarts. At that battle a single goat Patronus drove back hundreds of Dementors.
Mention Dumbledore's phoenix and the wizarding world thought of glory. Mention Aberforth's goat and they thought of this pub and the smell that never washed out of his clothes.
In a few years the Wizengamot would prosecute him for practicing inappropriate charms on a goat. The Daily Prophet would cover it heavily and stay vague about which charms, which gave readers room to imagine.
Regulus looked at the goat chewing in the corner, then at the old man behind the bar.
The summer of 1899. Godric's Hollow. Two brilliant boys who clicked immediately, talking about ideals and the greater good and wizards ruling over Muggles. Aberforth thought his brother had lost his mind, abandoning the family for a dangerous foreign wizard.
The argument became a duel between the three of them. A spell flew, and Ariana died. Whose spell, nobody knew.
Aberforth broke Dumbledore's nose at the funeral. It was still crooked.
Behind the bar, the glass squeaked under the rag. Dumbledore watched his brother's hands and said nothing, and neither of them made any move toward the door.
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