Aberforth Dumbledore took a glass from the stack of newly washed dishes. With a flick of his wrist he conjured the small kitchen towel and straightened it with a snap. Carefully he began to polish the glass, making it shine. His bar, The Hog's Head, was maybe not known to be the cleanest place, neither morally or ecstatically, but it at least has clean glasses. He sighed.
It might seem silly to polish glasses with a towel when you could do it in no time with magic, but Aberforth did not mind. He liked the touch of the smooth surfaces under his fingers and that special squeaking sound that was made by the motion. And it kept his hands busy. He sighed again.
After the death of his brother he was the last Dumbledore alive, there where no others. No children, no relatives – not even distant. Only he was left. All he had to show for his over hundred year-old life was this, his bar and a bunch of glasses. He did not even have his dreams left; he was too old for dreams.
The doorbell chimed and Abe looked up from his task. A few of his regular patrons grunted and pulled away from the light that streamed in from the day outside. There were always more customers on Hogwarts' so called 'Hogsmeade-weekends." Not because students came to the Hog's Head, but because the more seedier elements of town wanted to escape the onslaught of children. There were a lot more of seedy elements now after the war had ended.
The two boys entering the bar were obviously students of Hogwarts. They were young, Abe could see that even though the hid their faces behind heavy cloaks. They were holding hands, their fingers intertwined tenderly and smoothly – another testament of their youth. Abe put down his glass and looked on as the boys approached him.
"A room, please," said the slightly taller of them, a hint of upper class tone in his voice.
"Until curfew?" Aberforh smirked; he was no stranger to renting rooms by the hour, not even to students.
"Yes," said the boy in a whisper, gently raising the other boys hand to his chest, the gesture was almost moving.
"Two Galleons," he muttered and walked over to his key-locker.
There was a cling of gold on the bar desk.
"Follow me," Abe nodded to his bar maid Adrianne too look after the bar and left to show the boys to the second floor.
He opened the door for them. The room was, like all the others, a dump. The wallpaper was yellowing, old and torn. The only furniture in the room was the big double bed. Abe cast a quick cleaning spell on the sheets. As he looked back, the two boys were holding each other like the room was made of mother of pearl and silk and they were the only ones there. The taller leaned in to the other boy's cloak. They giggled quietly (like a smitten girls, Abe thought).
Abe quietly left the room, hearing sounds behind him that did not usually come from the hourly renters. These were sounds of love, not lust. He stood still, listening for a few seconds, lost in memories of younger, happier, days. It was like a ray of light in his chest and it hurt.
Slowly he descended the stairs to take his place behind the bar again, with his towel and glasses. He already knew who his mysterious guests were. He had watched over Harry Potter the entire last year, so he was easy to recognise. The taller boy was probably Lucius Malfoy's son – the father had conducted more than enough under-the-cloak business at this bar in the old days for Abe to never forget that build and stance.
He polished another glass.
About three hours later Abe cast a Tempus and noticed that the Hogwarts' curfew was soon up. The boys had not come down yet. He had to tell them. Again he nodded to Adrianne; she gave him a small nod in return.
Carefully he knocked on the door; there was no answer, not even after the third hard knock. Slowly he opened the door. They were asleep in the rumpled bed. Two young, naked and heartbreakingly scared bodies were clinging desperately to each other like life itself. The gloomy room was still a dump, but the lovers had transformed it to something beautiful only by being there. The descending sun cast a beam through the dirty window, reflecting of Harry's glasses on the floor and creating sun cats on the wall.
Abe stepped back, and closed the door. Again he felt the light inside and the pain that accompanied it. He would let them sleep. He would floo Minerva, she would understand.
Discreetly he spelled a note to the door of the room, telling the boys that they could stay the night and that they could use the secret passage to the castle in the morning.
As he walked over to the floo both Albus and Ariana smiled at him for their portrait. Yes, he was a romantic old fool but he did not care.
He later returned to his glass polishing with a lighter heart than he'd had in years. This was not only a dirty old bar, he had realised. This was a place were sometimes wonderful things could happen, and that was all worth it.
There would always be rooms for letting at the Hog's head.