Aberforth stirs up a memory in the Pensieve. It's Christmastime.
The portrait looks down at him, smiling warmly. A carbon copy of the Ariana he knew.
A memory captured on canvas.
It sleeps - it walks. It talks. It smiles.
But it isn't her.
Lavender orders her something different than her usual - she asks for a butterbeer.
None of his other regulars question the presence of a seemingly innocent, beautiful young girl in the Hog's Head. They all know.
He decides to comment, handing her a mug of the fizzing drink that was so popular with the Hogwarts students.
"Not firewhiskey today, eh?"
She glances up, and the thing that scares the children on the street so, that is conspicuously ignored by the other customers.
Carved into her cheek's flesh. Fenrir.
"No," she says, her high, clear voice at odds with her scars.
The scars stand out against her skin especially at times like this. Her hands are shaky as she reaches for the mug.
"You okay?" he asks gruffly. No matter how battle-scarred Lavender gets, no matter how old the class of 1998 gets, they'll always be the kids who lived in the Room of Requirement to him.
"Full moon last night," she says quietly.
"Yeah," he replies. She falls silent and sips her butterbeer.
He knows why she drinks it. He knows why they all drink it, ignoring the stares of the heavier drinkers.
It is to remind them of the innocent times.
Seamus is a mess.
He mutters gibberish at the bar, several empty bottles of firewhiskey surrounding him. Aberforth should've said no after the fourth, but the kid was looking down.
"I jus' don' get it," he slurred."Why?"
Aberforth had predicted correctly - it was usually around number six that he started talking about Hermione.
"We was in a real nice relationship," he protested to him. "Real nice. Bu' she… bu' she…"
Aberforth forces himself not to look at Seamus's ring finger. The ring there is ornate, goblin-made, mixing gold with silver.
It is a fox and an otter, entwined.
"I promised her!" Seamus whines. "See? Look a'the ring! Look at it! D'you… d'you see it?"
A promise ring. Seamus had never told him that before.
"And then she… she left me," he finished, snapping for a moment out of his drunkenness.
Aberforth says nothing, just gathers up the empty firewhiskeys and dumps them into a trash bag.
The kid had spent all his money on those two rings - he wouldn't charge him tonight.
It doesn't take much to get Cho drunk.
She weeps endlessly over a glass of Hog's Head Brew, only half-finished.
"HE DIED!" she shrieks again and again, pounding the table with her fist. Her tears fall mercilessly from her eyes, ceaselessly. "He… died."
She slumps over in her seat. Aberforth is surprised - he had diluted her drink in an effort to keep her awake enough to Apparate home.
Wherever that was. He didn't leave the Hog's Head much anymore.
Suddenly she looks up. For the first time in many years, Aberforth shivers.
It's her eyes. There are no 'slight' bags around them. They sag, droop, blackened at the bottom. Her eyes are wide and dilated.
"I have nightmares," she whispers, pushing the beer away. It wobbles and falls to the counter. The impact is not enough to break it, but a golden flow of alcohol spills over the edge onto the stone floor.
"He's there. And so is… He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named."
The entire bar quakes as his patrons shiver.
"And He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named kills him," she says, her eyes widening even more. "He kills him. And then…"
She looks at him with those desperate, desperate eyes.
"He kills me too."
Oliver Wood is the calmest drunk Aberforth has met in his time.
He opens the bottle of Simison Steaming Stout, inhaling the musky smoke before downing half of it in a single gulp.
"It's potent, Stout is," Aberforth warns him quietly.
"Yeah," Wood replies indifferently.
"Makes you fall right asleep," he adds.
"Good, I've been having trouble," is all the Keeper says.
Aberforth knows that this is an understatement. Among his regulars, Oliver Wood is the one who comes latest at night. He keeps it open extra-long just for him.
Oliver Wood doesn't sleep.
"They're all dead," he whispers, inhaling the smoke again. "Alicia was killed by the Death Eaters. So was Katie. And Angelina last month."
Aberforth says nothing. His Chasers from the Gryffindor Quidditch Team - Oliver had talked about them often. So Angelina had died.
"I don't sleep," he murmurs to the bottle. "I just blink. Shut my eyes for a second - that's all I need."
Aberforth brushes up the counter, but he hears Wood's words anyway.
"But as soon as I open my eyes, they're gone."
Aberforth knows George's order by heart the fourteenth time he comes.
He places a bottle of Dungbarrel Spiced Mead in front of the man.
Followed by two glasses.
Neville never orders anything.
He has changed from the assertive young wizard Aberforth used to know.
He now just traces a word over and over into the table, writing the same thing in the same place.
It scares Aberforth.
One day he gathers his courage. "What's the word?"
"Crucio," Neville murmurs.
He gets out of the chair and walks out.
Aberforth smiles warmly - his muscles straining with the unfamiliar movement - at Luna's shimmering sun-colored hair.
She smiles faintly back.
He wordlessly places a bottle of butterbeer in front of her - her regular - but she smiles and pushes it away.
"Daisyroot Draught, please," she asks.
He reaches for another bottle and hands it to her. She takes a sip.
"This is my first time drinking alcohol, you know," she tells him.
"Mmm," he responds wordlessly. He's glad to see Luna the same. After all the change.
"I really don't know why they did it," she says suddenly.
"What?" he asks.
"They captured me to get Daddy to stop printing pro-Potter things in The Quibbler," she elaborated, "But no one paid any attention to our magazine anyway. By printing all that good stuff, he made sure everyone canceled their subscription."
He looks down and polishes a few glasses.
"They didn't torture me," she continues. "Just starved me, that's all. I got used to it, I guess - I don't eat as much anymore."
She looks down, her smile fading. Aberforth silently finishes her sentence.
But that's probably not from my capture.
He didn't eat as much anymore either. No one did.
"Ooh, you better watch out for a Stifled Slingerbuoy," she remarked to the man next to her. "They just love White Rat Whisky."
Aberforth smiles again.
Maybe there are some things that never change.
The memory he enters is one from his fifth Christmas.
1889, it was. Albus had learned a christmas carol on the piano and was playing it loudly.
Aberforth had joined in, attempting a made-up harmony. They clashed horribly, piano, boy, and boy.
Percival and Kendra - Mum and Dad - were sitting on the couch, smiling warmly, not caring that the music sounded terrible.
Ariana sat on the couch next to them, mesmerized.
That was all it was. Albus and Aberforth, playing the piano and singing. Ariana, alive and well. Their parents, happy.
Aberforth pulls his face out of the pensieve. He looks at the portrait. She is quietly sleeping, her head on her hands.
He stares at her. Canvas, paint, not really Ariana.
But close.
Close enough.
He looks away.
It's Christmastime, and there'll be more customers then usual.