When asked why he had done it—as he had been asked, occasionally, by people who actually thought to wonder—Aberforth could never quite explain why he had taken the time to keep the broken fragment of mirror on him, when he had claimed to have given up on the war and seemed to disparage of the idea behind the Chosen One.
And he wasn't lying, either, when he had said that he had given up. Everyone had always argued that Albus was the more intelligent of the two Dumbledore brothers, with all his knowledge and books and research. But where Aberforth lacked book-smarts, he more than made up for it with his knack of common sense and self preservation.
To him, laying low during the war was the most intelligent course of action—it was synonymous, in fact, with staying alive.
Still, there was something to be said for Dumbledore men making stupid decisions when those decisions regarded Harry Potter. Aberforth grunted as he thought about it, a little disgusted, in spite of himself, with any element of similarity that he found between himself and his brother.
If he'd been smart, he would have used the mirror to tell the boy to give up before things had ever reached such a climatic point, would have told him to just run before the boy could end up dead.
But some part of him was just too damn awed by the glimpses of images he saw in the mirror, too amazed by the resilience the boy showed in spite of all he went through. So instead of doing the intelligent thing and staying completely out of the boys life (and harms way) he had found himself checking on the kid.
As he swirled his firewhiskey in its glass and contemplated this, the sound of a goat's bleat, meant to alert him to someone entering his bar, interrupted the silence of the otherwise empty building. Frowning in puzzlement, Aberforth turned his gaze up see the object of his most recent thoughts standing awkwardly just beyond the bar's door, staring at him.
Scowling, Aberforth relented to the look of determination on the young man's face. "Well, don't hang about back there. If you're drinking, come up and order."
The Potter boy did as Aberforth told him to, though he looked somewhat more uncertain than before. "Firewhiskey?" Aberforth offered, wondering why those green eyes were focused on the glass so skeptically.
"I've never tried it, but why not?" Potter responded, causing Aberforth to blink in surprise. He had assumed, with the kid having been of age for almost a year, that alcohol would have been introduced at some point, but he supposed it made sense that Potter hadn't had time to get around to a good stiff drink yet. He poured the kid a small glass, similar to his own, and grinned as the Chosen One's face grimaced in response to the taste.
Able to deal with Dark Lords with a cool aloof expression, but unable to choke down alcohol with a straight face. It was good to know that some things with the Potter child could still go as expected.
"How much do people pay to drink this?" Potter asked curiously, still looking somewhat disgusted. Aberforth chuckled in spite of himself.
"Well, that one's free, at any rate. Considering what you've done, in fact, I doubt you'll ever need to worry about paying for one anywhere," He admitted to the boy, taking another sip of the alcohol himself. Unlike Potter, he savored the burning sensation as the drink trickled down his throat. "What can I do for the Wizarding World's Savior today?" He asked, somewhat dreading the answer.
"Two things," The boy replied, studying the glass in his hand with an intensity that didn't bode well for Aberforth's relaxing evening. "First, I wanted to thank you. What I did do wouldn't have been possible at all if you hadn't stepped in. In fact, I realized afterwards that I would likely have been dead several times over this year had you not done anything."
Well, the thanks wasn't anticipated—Aberforth honestly had expected the boy to forget about him in the grief of those he had lost and the glory that Potter had received following his victory—but it certainly wasn't as thought-provoking a statement as Aberforth had feared. In fact, Aberforth found himself even a little flattered and proud at receiving the gratitude. Proud both of himself, for having earned that thanks, and proud of the strange young man he'd watched grow over the last year, for having taken the time so soon after such a big event to deliver a seemingly trivial message.
"You're welcome," he replied gruffly, refraining from saying anything else. He recalled Potter's previous words and prepared himself for whatever else Potter had to say. It appeared the boy was trying to nerve himself up to it. "You said you had two things to tell me, aye? What was the second?"
Potter visibly collected himself, took in a deep breath, and looked up to meet his eyes. He knew when he saw the boy's own green eyes widen that for a moment, the boy was thinking of the only other pair of peepers he'd ever seen that matched the shade of Aberforth's. Potter quickly downed another sip of firewhiskey, his face more panicked this time than disgusted, and Aberforth felt his own nerves building. Surely the boy had nothing else to surprise him with? After watching the Chosen One for the last year intermittently, and hearing about him for years, and even just the gratitude expressed moments before, Aberforth was positive that there were no more ways in which the boy even could surprise him.
Poor Aberforth was wrong. Harry Potter would always be full of surprises. "I wanted to tell you that your brother said sorry, and actually meant it. That what happened all those years ago didn't just tear you apart—it destroyed him too. It's the reason he spent so much of his life later doing the things he did—to try and atone for it, and even then he never forgave himself. I know because he just told me about it a few days ago."
Shock. Yes, poor Aberforth had made the stupid mistake, (incidentally, a mistake even Voldemort had made) in believing that he knew enough about Harry Potter and the boy's character to no longer be surprised by the boy's actions.
Clearly, he had been terribly, horribly wrong in this assumption.
Had he not been stunned speechless by Potter's initial words, he would likely have thrown the boy savior out of his bar and into the streets, and barred the door behind him. His would have probably become the only business in the world to refuse the kid business. But as it was, he was too properly dazed to really do anything other than sit and listen to the beginning of the boy's story, and by the time Potter had come to the end of that story, Aberforth was beginning to feel emotions other than surprise again.
And again, to his bewilderment, the emotions he felt were not the anger he normally experienced when remembering his brother, nor where they the hurt he felt at his brother's carelessness and conceited ways, the betrayal that had stung him when he'd realized just how far the sibling he had once idolized as a child had eventually fallen.
He felt pity, a little bit, for the man that his brother had revealed to the Potter boy in death. He felt sadness, that he had never bothered to try to bridge the gap between himself and Albus before it was too late to do so, sorrow that their own relationship had been permanently destroyed in Albus's zeal and his own fury. He even felt a little guilty that he had helped condemn his brother to hate himself so much; He felt just a little horrified that Albus hadn't even been able to forgive himself after his death.
He felt remorse that he'd never realized that the sacrifices Albus had made before the war, and during it, had been for more than just to suit Albus's goals. He had put Albus on a pedestal when he was younger, the way the rest of the world had later, not because he was a great wizard, but simply because Albus was his incredible older brother. And when they had grown up, and Albus had made such shortsighted mistakes, Aberforth had never considered that his brother was as much a human as the rest of them.
Potter let him have the quiet moment of deep thought he needed, and then continued. "And I thought about it, and I wanted to explain one more thing, because I think you need to know, even if you don't believe me about any of this. You have the right to know." Aberforth nodded reluctantly to encourage the boy to continue, unsure if he was ready to hear what Potter had to say. Potter swallowed, met his eyes again, and said it anyways. "The Professor didn't need to manipulate me to get me to fight in the war. He didn't want to leave me with the task he did, and he put off telling me about it as long as he could, not to take advantage of me, but because he didn't want to upset me. In his own words, his mistake was caring too much, and personally I don't really find that error to be all that upsetting. I mean, I can relate," Potter said, cheeks a little pink in embarrassment. "I would have done what I had to do anyways."
"For the greater good?" Aberforth asked gruffly, remembering his brother saying it previously, and wishing he could resent Harry Potter a little, or doubt the boy's intentions and words. If he hadn't seen so much of Potter's bravery and terror and innate goodness in the last year, perhaps the association would have worked, and he could have associated Potter with the new Gellert Grindelwald, could have gone back to resenting his brother's memory and living the way he had for the past too many years to count in peace.
But he'd seen way too much of Potter's character to believe any of that, and Potter's response permanently disillusioned him of this attempt to dislike the boy forever.
"No. I mean, it's great that it helped the greater good and all anyways, but I wasn't doing it for that. I have these two best friends you met, Ron and Hermione—they deserve to be able to do what they want without being in danger, and Hermione's a muggleborn, and Ron's in love with her, so that's both of them at risk. And Ron's sister, Ginny, she's… well," Aberforth was amused, somewhere, in the back of his mind, at the flush that covered Potter's cheeks. The things that prompted reactions from the boy would not normally be bemusing and strange, were it not for the fact that he took such stupefying things with such calm. Girls made him flustered—death threats, not as much. "I'm not sure what we are, but yeah, she was in danger because of the family she was in—in fact, her whole family's always been like family to me, and they made it worth it. It's nice that I saved the world, but yeah, I wasn't doing it to save the whole world, just my little part of it."
Aberforth blinked, and took another swallow of the now-warm whiskey in his glass. Potter sipped at his as well, once again looking revolted at the taste. "Well, that was all, really, but I just thought you should know about it," the boy said ludicrously, shrugging and standing up once he had finished his drink. He awkwardly stood there a moment, with the bar still in between the two of them, before the Chosen One acknowledged him once more with a polite nod and turned to walk out the door of the bar. "I think Nev and a few of our friends might be by this week for drinks here, as a heads-up," Potter called out behind him, not bothering to turn as he opened the door.
"Do you think…" Aberforth was surprised to hear how broken his voice sounded, then realized that his eyes felt wetter than normal. He wondered if this change in his composure had been what had prompted the Potter child's abrupt departure. In spite of how quiet his words had sounded to his own ears, Potter stopped in the doorway, letting light into the bar through the open door. He didn't turn around, but he stood there to let Aberforth finish his thought aloud. "Do you think he'll forgive himself easier, now that I bothered to forgive him? Or do you think it was a little late for that?"
"I'm pretty sure it's never too late," Potter answered, equally soft spoken. His words glided through the silence towards Aberforth, just audible above the other noises coming from outside. "I think to someone like your brother, death isn't the end—it's just what happens next. Another adventure." Though he couldn't see the boy's face, Aberforth could hear the smile behind the words and wondered at its cause.
And with those words and that small smile, Potter left. Sure enough, Aberforth's quiet evening was completely and utterly destroyed.
It was a good thing no one else ventured into the bar that night, because if they had, they would have been unable to get Aberforth's attention. His mind was churning with thoughts and memories, his heart choked by emotions that were the strongest he had experienced in decades.
As he closed the bar for the night, he paused to look up at the portrait of a pretty blond girl smiling, the portrait of his sister that he had spent so much time brooding in front of. "What do you think, Ari?" He murmured to the portrait. "I thought that I'd forgiven Albus after I heard about…" He remembered the story the young man that had left his bar earlier had told him previously, about the horrible potion Albus had forced himself to drink and the remorse Albus had demonstrated to Harry Potter before his death. Aberforth shuddered, trying to wipe the image that accompanied the story from his mind. Thinking about how the story had ended led to images of the white tomb he had only visited once, when everyone else had visited, the year before upon his brother's death.
"I'm sure it doesn't make a difference where I say it, but he'd probably appreciate himself being there to actually hear it, all the same," Aberforth muttered to the portrait, then blinked and swallowed as the final surprise of that night happened.
Though he wasn't sure it could happen when even he couldn't remember it having ever happened in real life, his sister's portrait smiled wider than he had realized was possible. Wide, delighted grin still on her lips, Ariana nodded at him, and Aberforth grinned back up at the portrait, tears in his eyes. "Yes, I think it's about time."
Aberforth no longer puzzled over why he had kept the mirror shard and done as he had. It might have been because some infinitely small part of him, the part of him that he and his brother would always share, had known to hold on to hope, even if that hope was a seventeen year old kid. It may have been because he felt obligated to get the boy out of the mess that Aberforth's brother had gotten Potter into. Perhaps it was even just that he had known that the boy was the only way he had to protect his small part of the world, and he had felt the need to keep him safe. Whatever the reason, he couldn't find it in himself to regret it, not when it had brought forward such unexpected but welcome results.
That night, one Dumbledore brother journeyed outside, smiling fully for the first time in too long and crying at the same time, and whispered forgiveness to a white tomb in the darkness. Somewhere, the other Dumbledore brother also cried and smiled. Finally, Albus Dumbledore could rest comfortably, in peace. Both brothers had found forgiveness.