XXI. The Tale of the Three Sisters

4 May, 1978

"It's time to go, dear," Poppy Pomfrey called softly from the other side of the privacy screen that surrounded his bed. "Are you dressed yet?"

Harry had no idea where Poppy had gotten the somber black and grey clothing that he was wearing. She had brought it this morning and shrunk it a bit to fit him, though he had protested listlessly that Ab wouldn't care if he wore his own regular clothes to the man's funeral. The matron had sighed and reminded Harry that his own clothing was torn and stained with so much blood that any cleaning charm would weaken the fabric to the point of falling apart.

She'd also ended a localized disillusionment charm that she'd place on the holster still strapped to his arm. His apathy was so profound that he hadn't even thought to worry about the Aurors who'd come to the graveyard to rescue them finding his wand. Poppy had smiled without humor and assured him that no one had mentioned rolling up his sleeve and finding it.

Face grim and set, he stepped out from behind the screen and silently walked through the halls of the school with the matron.

After Disapparating together outside the gates – she Side-Alonged him, despite his proficiency – they reappeared in a grassy courtyard surrounded by quaint stone cottages.

"This is the Godric's Hollow Apparition point," Poppy explained to an uncaring Harry. "It's a popular village for wizards, though it's also Muggle, so we must be careful. All these houses," she gestured towards those that squared in the garden, "are wizarding." She kept her hand on his shoulders as she directed him through a stone archway onto a street that led to the church in the middle of the tiny village square.

The spring sun shone down on the chapel, making its stained glass windows sparkle like precious gems. Beyond it, Harry spied a lush green cemetery sprawling out behind a kissing gate. He scowled at the picturesque square, at the idyllic scene. It should be gray and cold and raining.

Entering, they spied a small crowd already seating itself in the white chairs set before a grave and casket. He wanted to ignore the casket, the people, everything, but he couldn't stop himself from frowning at the dimensions of the place. Ab's grave had ample space around it for the attendees, while all the other graves were packed closely together.

Pomfrey noticed his confusion. "There are temporary space-expansion charms set around the grave for the funeral, Harry. This way all can attend and there is no disrespect to the dead by having mourners tromping on their graves."

He nodded vaguely and took a seat in the far corner of the back row even though Poppy seemed to want to lead him to the front seats. She sighed again and sat down next to him.

Looking to his left, he caught sight of the nearest gravestone, which he assumed would be right next to … to where Ab would be, once the charms wore off.

Ariana Honoria Dumbledore
25 April 1885 – 10 August 1899.

He almost smiled when he noticed a flower design graven around the edges of the simple, faded white stone. At least he'll be next to her. He'd like that.

Unwilling to engage in a conversation with Poppy – who wouldn't stop sending him solicitous glances – he surveyed the modest assembling crowd with dispassionate eyes. Nearly everyone in the first several rows shared two attributes: they were old and unfamiliar to him. Many were decked in elegant, expensive mourning robes. These men and women circulated amongst themselves, shaking hands and holding small conversations. Harry glared when he noticed a few groups of people smiling as they made small talk not two meters away from Ab's fucking coffin.

This feels like fucking politics.

A possessive growl sounded low in his throat. These people don't know Ab. None of them were at the Head for Christmas, none of them came to see him, not in the last few years at least.

He breathed a bit less furiously as his eyes traveled back from the front several rows and started alighting on faces he did recognize. Pel and Dalcop were sitting together, an extra seat between them. The old solicitor must have felt Harry's glance because he turned around and motioned the young man to come and take the empty seat.

He saved a place for me between them.

For the first time since returning from the graveyard Harry felt like he might actually cry.

Or punch something.

He shook his head slightly at Pel, who nodded slowly.

Nappy Clank, Martial Sorner, Hippia George, and some of the other regulars were also scattered about, as was a number of shop owners from the village. Doc and Guin Dearborn were craning their necks, apparently searching for someone, while the Prewett brothers sat – Fabian being quiet for once – near the back on the opposite side of Harry.

His heart gave a strange little flutter when he caught sight of familiar long red hair. Lily came? His confusion deepened when he realized James sat next to her.

A stout man in thick velvet black dress robes rose impressively to deliver Aberforth's eulogy. Harry had never seen him before, and the man, he realized in short order, clearly didn't know Ab, not really. He said all sorts of empty things about Ab's "greatness of spirit," and about how he was a "universally beloved member of the Hogsmeade community."

Ever-living-fuck, lad, Ab's voice grumbled in his head. Can't believe they got this steamin' pile a' bastard to give my eulogy!

He bit back a smile.

A few minutes later, Harry snorted very audibly and decided to stop listening when the man claimed that "dear Aberforth would have looked upon all who gathered to mourn his passing with a benevolent smile and heart full of love."

Some in the front rows turned and glared at him, but he caught the sound of several people chuckling. Pel and Dalcop were laughing openly, and– bloody Merlin! – Albus Dumbledore himself was discreetly trying to hide his grinning appreciation for Harry's reaction. The man was dressed somberly, which was probably why he hadn't noticed him yet, and the pallor of his face only seemed to lift momentarily when Harry made known what he thought of the ridiculous eulogist.

It suddenly struck him that lots of people weremissing. Understandably, none of the vampires were in attendance, though the young man almost smiled imagining Mr. Impressive Eulogy-Giver being forced to interact with someone real like Sanguini or Panty Wacco.

But so many of the other denizens of the Head weren't there, he thought, just as Caffrey Burke and Myrtle Cramer plopped themselves down quietly in the seats on his other side. He didn't catch Myrtle's look, but Captain Burke, for once, had no smile on his face or mischievous glint in his eye. The press of the pirate on his left and the school nurse on his right was strangely comforting.

A rustling several meters away drew Harry's attention. Half a dozen of the werewolves who frequented the Head stood in the shadow of a great elm, apparently paying their respects from a distance, given that they would hardly be welcomed by the majority of the attendees. Loch, the young werewolf who'd always been kind enough to Harry, met his eye and slowly inclined his head a bit. The small group then upturned bottles of Muggle beer they were holding, silently spilling libations in tribute to the barman who'd never discriminated against them.

"Thank you for that heartwarming tribute, Mayor Windgat."

Harry jerked his attention back to the front, idly noting that Hogsmeade apparently had a mayor, even as Ab's voice snorted appreciatively in his mind at the mild sarcasm hidden in the new, familiar speaker's warm tone.

Of course he'd have to give a speech, Ab said, his tone half exasperated, half fond. Albus always had to have the last word.

Yeah, Harry thought to himself, that's exactly what Ab would say.

Albus Dumbledore had come to the fore and was looking sadly over the crowd. "There are many things I would like to say about my brother. In truth," he smiled a bit, "I should like to go on at length about him. But Aberforth … anyone who knew Aberforth knows he was always a man who found satisfaction in blunt, honest words rather than the ornate turns of phrases that so delight the hearts of schoolteachers and politicians. Perhaps he had the right of it, after all." He sighed thoughtfully. "So I shall curb myself today in his honor, and say simply that I loved my brother and I truly respect the man he was. Indeed, Aberforth was a good man, a principled man, a man better than most. He …"

Harry sat on the edge of his seat, his face white and eyes bright.

The headmaster closed his eyes as though he needed to steady himself. "He will be missed." His words rustled through the cemetery like fallen leaves on the wind.

And then the speeches were over and the crowd was slowly filing past the open coffin set by the grave, some tossing flowers in front of it, others – folks who actually knew Ab – thinking along the same lines as the werewolves and pouring liberal amounts of liquor onto the ground near it. The front rows' occupants looked scandalized, much to Myrtle and Burke's amusement, if their gasping huffs of breath were any indication. Even Poppy seemed to be holding back a chuckle.

I bet it smells like the Head by now up there.

Harry almost smiled for a moment.

"C'mon, green eyes, lets go on up," the Captain said quietly, taking Harry's arm.

The young man just shook his head.

"Harry, you might regret not go –" Poppy began, but Harry cut her off.

"I regret a lot of things," he said, surprised at the harshness of his own voice. "But I've already seen him dead. I don't want to see him again like that."

He could feel Poppy, Burke, and Myrtle sending significant looks to each other and wanted to deploy some of Ab's favorite expletives, but all he did was sigh. "I'm fine here while you go up. Really."

Although he only wanted to sit there alone, he did not get his wish, for as soon as the three left to make their way up to the front, many who had already paid their respects started filing past Harry on their way out of the cemetery. Some, like Hippia George and old Mrs. Flume, just gave him sympathetic looks or silently clasped his shoulder.

Others wanted to talk. Dalcop, Pel, Doc, Guin, Wig, Martial, Nappy, and others from the Head kept asking him how he was "feeling," how he was "doing."

The best fucking person I've ever had in my life is fucking dead for no good reason. Because in another universe I had an enemy who somehow made it here and killed Ab and the others just to hurt me and to show Voldemort how fucking awesome he is. So I'm feeling great! I'm doing fucking awesome! his mind kept shouting in response.

But he didn't scream. He would nod dumbly if he had to, but otherwise the sea of sympathetic faces crashed against like a wave upon a rock. Everything they said sounded to him like they were speaking in Wigol Palter's incomprehensible voice.

None of them were Ab, so none of them mattered.

At some point Lily approached with James, and he drew himself out of himself just enough to pay her a bit of mind. She's kind of my mum, after all.

"I'm really sorry about what happened to Mr. Dumbledore," Lily said quietly. "I won't forget what he did for …," she gave a nervous glance in James' direction. "I won't forget it."

Harry gave an odd little half-nod, half-shrug when she briefly touched his shoulder and James murmured his own condolences. The scalding irony that his parents were consoling him at the funeral of the man who had been like his parent was not lost on him.

The Prewetts came by, Fabian saying something polite and pointless, Gideon briefly reaching out as though to comfort him but pulling his arm back at the last moment, a strange expression on his face.

At some point he realized Myrtle, Burke, and Poppy had returned. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Dumbledore look at him sadly and move in his direction with the mayor of Hogsmeade in tow.

"I want to go now," he said abruptly, interrupting the conversations around him. "Wh-where am I going though, actually?" he continued in a smaller voice.

Poppy scoffed. "Back to the Hospital Wing, of course! I'm certainly of no mind to release you for at least another day or two, young man."

He might have muttered goodbyes to the people who were still milling in his vicinity, but he wasn't sure. Harry could feel a horrible, suffocating pain welling in his chest, sharp and dull, chilling and burning all at the same time. It was time to go.

5 May, 1978

Harry had gone to bed the moment he arrived back in the Hospital wing, still dressed in the clothes Poppy had given him the day before. He'd heard her murmur that "Mr. Potter isn't expecting the robes back anyway, dear."

So they'd gotten James to donate some robes for him to wear to the funeral. Christ.

Although he had woken early the next morning, he'd simply rolled over and burrowed deeper into his blankets, willing himself not to wake.

Asleep was better.

He repeated the process several times that morning. When he awoke again a bit before noon Harry realized Poppy's monitoring spells probably informed her whenever he roused himself however briefly, but she had apparently resolved not to bother him for the time being. Eventually, he sighed, she'd try to make him eat.

He rolled over and closed his eyes.

7 May, 1978

"I know you're awake, my friend."

The thick downy blanket that was currently covering Harry's face apparently wasn't shield enough to make Peloother go away. He knew that Pel had been in yesterday – or was it the day before? How long have I even been here? – but he had only been half awake when he heard the man conversing quietly with Poppy. Others had come as well. Doc. Guin. Others. Always talking in low tones, their eyes on his blankets feeling like burns.

Talking about me, I bet, he would grouse, before sinking deeper into both sleep and his linens.

"Harry. Please. This isn't me just coming to see how you are. There are things we need to discuss." Pel's voice was heavy and serious.

"Have they decided to kill me or put me in Azkaban, then?" Harry's voice slurred raggedly out from underneath the blanket. Honestly, he hadn't even thought about possible repercussions he might face for being involved in such a mess.

He just wanted to say something hateful.

Pel sputtered in surprise. "What? What are you talking about? Of course not, didn't Dumbledore tell you already? Fawley's an' George's accounts were clear you aren't guilty of anything."

He gave sullen shrug that the old solicitor likely couldn't see. "Then I don't see what I have to talk about with anyone."

"Harry," the old solicitor said with some steel, "we need to talk. The matron is letting us use her office. Now I know you're hurting, an' I get that, I do. But frankly, my friend, there are things I need to tell you, an' things I bloody well deserve to hear. So you best get your arse outta that bed. Now."

The old man's tone momentarily surprised the self-pity out of Harry. "Fine then." He extracted himself from his comfortable nest with obvious reluctance. As he moved, he got a whiff of his clothing and the linens. I stink.

Pel looked pale and tired, but the man's eyes widened a bit when he saw Harry. I guess I look as bad as I smell.

They settled into soft butter yellow armchairs in Poppy's small office after Pel had cast a few charms – Harry presumed they kept the conversation private – and made sure the walls were bare of portraits.

"I won't insult you again by asking how you are," the older man began. "That's bloody obvious. But like I said, some things need to be said." He heaved a sigh. "I dug up more information for you on Cross. But," his voice hardened again, "before I tell you, you're going to tell me who the fuck he really was, and why my friend is dead. And you're going to do it right fucking now."

Guilt niggled at the younger wizard and he found himself nodding and speaking before he'd made the conscious decision to do so. Every word felt like he was spitting out sawdust, but Pel was right. He deserved to know the truth.

"It was Barty Crouch Junior. The one from my world, that is. Or a world so close to mine that the difference wasn't that important. He wanted to get revenge on me, and to get to torture Alice again."

Pel looked like Harry'd punched him in the stomach. "What? What? … But, but he was so old, much older than I am, and our records for him go all the way back to –"

" – to 1912, I'd expect, right?"

The man's mouth dropped open as he nodded.

Harry's ears were ringing oddly. He didn't want to talk about this, he wanted to sleep, but he pushed on so that he could get it over with and return to his blankets. "You remember what else happened in 1912, I bet."

The older man frowned in confusion before raising stricken eyes. "That's the year … that's the last time anyone we know of was Kissed by a Dementor." Pel began to blink rapidly. "And – and your Crouch was Kissed! Just like you were! And … and you both ended up here. Crouch was just like Gudgeon – he showed up on the day that someone in our world was Kissed." He snapped his fingers. "And like both you and Glinda Gudgeon, he showed up exactly where he was when he was Kissed!"

"Wait – Crouch was kissed at Hogwarts," Harry interrupted.

"Exactly." Pel took a small parchment book out of his pocket and flipped through his notes. "Far as I can find, the earliest record of Balthazar Cross is from summer of 1912, same day as the Kiss was administered to a prisoner in Azkaban. Anyway, the then-Charms professor, one Titania Fairward, called Aurors when she discovered an unknown man in his thirties wandering around the school. He apparently refused to explain his purpose for being there and was acting suspiciously. The man, who eventually identified himself as Balthazar Cross, was arrested an' sentenced to a six month prison term for trespassing, resisting arrest, an' attempted assault on the Auror who first detained him at the school."

Harry was suddenly incredibly thankful that he'd not been in Hogwarts when he was Kissed, Merlin, or Gringotts!

"After he got out of prison we have intermittent reports that paint the picture of him as an excessive gambler. He apparently would lay bets on just about anything, from the outcome of Quidditch matches to elections to verdicts handed down by the Wizengamot for higher-profile crimes." Pel snorted. "I guess our worlds are just similar enough that he won about half the time, but different enough that he lost – badly – the rest of the time. From what I can tell, the man could never keep galleons in his pocket for long."

Crouch's hated voice sounded in Harry's head. I got an Outstanding in History of Magic, for fuck's sake! Things were supposed to be different! I knew they were supposed to be different.

The young man nodded slowly. "Yeah, that sounds right. He went on about how it took him awhile to figure out this wasn't his world and that some events didn't play out the same."

"Merlin, a gambler's nightmare," Pel muttered. "Anyhow, by late in 1926 he must have gotten desperate for coin, because the fool attempted to rob Gringotts, of all things. The Crouch family vault to be precise, though now that I know his real name his actions make more sense. He made it in. Probably because he was actually a Crouch, I reckon. But in this case, Charis Crouch – lady was born a Black – was married to the patriarch at the time and had smothered the vault contents in extra Black family protection and alert charms. Bloke left the bank to find two squadrons of Aurors waiting for him."

Late 1926.

Harry's mind paused on that year, and he once again heard the old Crouch's words echoing in his mind.

I missed him in London, didn't mean to, couldn't help it, should have been there.

. . .

Waited for Him, first. Was gonna get him, raise him right, raise him strong.

He closed his eyes and asked the question, the answer to which he suspected he already knew. "Pel, what else important happened around that time?"

Pel frowned and shifted in his seat. "I … I looked into the Dark Lord after hearing your story last year. Tom Riddle was born at the end of 1926. Think that's relevant then?"

I think I'm going to sick up. "Crouch told me he'd wanted to adopt Voldemort and raise him right or something, but that he was too late."

"He sure would have been. Cross – Crouch, that is – got twenty-five years in Azkaban for robbing the bank. He's lucky the goblins didn't just execute him. By the time he got out, Riddle would have long since grown up an' left school."

Pel shrugged as he looked over his remaining research. "Seems to have drifted to the continent for the next two decades, lots of minor arrests for fighting an' whatnot. Looks like he was a vicious dueler when sober, but spent a lot of time drunk. Same story when he came back to Britain in the late '60s. Been living 'round Knockturn most of the time." The solicitor sighed. "Though he moved to Hogsmeade right after the first articles about your arrest an' trial came out in the Prophet."

A horrible, churning cold sank into Harry's stomach. "He came here because of me, didn't he?" His breathing quickened and his muscles felt too loose and too tight at the same time. "He saw my picture or something in the paper and came here. Ab's dead because of me. Oh God. Oh God."

"Are you going to make me slap the stupidity out of you, Harry?," Pel growled. "Yes, he probably came to Hogsmeade because of you, but that does not mean you're responsible for what happened to Aberforth any more than you're responsible for Riddle killing your parents in your world!"

The man sat back, his eyes sad and his head shaking angrily. "You have to stop taking all the blame for every fucking thing that happens. For all you know, Ab didn't even survive this long in your world – you said you'd never heard of him. All you know, something you did prolonged his life here. You keep thinking like this, you'll drive yourself round the twist."

Pel ran his hand through his hair, only to get his fingers stuck in tangles halfway down. He cursed and continued.

"Fact is, I'm pretty sure the bastard had three targets that day. Fawley's report – if anyone asks I did not see it – says that the man was mumbling all sorts of crazy talk about how much he was looking forward to getting even with you an' her, an' how he kept going on about how he'd just had 'vengeance enough' on Dumbledore."

Harry's eyes widened. "So killing Ab was, what, to hurt the headmaster because of what my Albus Dumbledore let happen to him?"

Pel threw up his hands. "I don't know Harry, not really, but it seems right. Fawley said the man claimed to have been watching the Head for months, waiting for you, her, an' Ab to be together. Guess he figured it was finally time when he saw Fawley go in for a meeting with you an' Ab." Shaking his head, Pel could only mutter "Lucky you were late that day, I'm thinking."

"Yeah," he echoed hollowly. "Lucky."

The old man looked like he wanted to say something else, but changed his mind. Pel licked his lips nervously when he finally spoke again. "Look, Harry, you're healed now. You should come back to the Head. Doc and Guin have been keeping the place going, but everyone's worri –"

His stomach felt like it was being eaten by acid. "No!" Harry shouted, making both of them jump. "I can't …" he continued in lower tones. "I mean, I don't – I don't. Please? I –?" The words stuck in his throat.

Pel pursed his lips and looked away. "I know. Okay. Oh Harry …" He clamped his hand gently on Harry's shoulder, but the boy shrinked back. That's what Ab does! Not you! That's Ab's! Pel's face fell. "But you're missed, Harry."

The young wizard couldn't look at him as the old solicitor shuffled out of the office.

Some time later Madame Pomfrey entered, the sound of her footfall like a soft but implacable metronome. She was going to want him to do something.

"Poppy? Thanks so much for taking care of me," he anticipated her, "but I'm healed and I … I really need to get going."

Leaving Hogwarts that afternoon took longer than Harry would have liked. Poppy was a wonderful woman, but he had barely been able to keep from screaming at her as she reminded him to Floo her if he needed anything for the tenth time.

It was with relief that the school's front door had finally closed behind him, though he had swiftly realized as he meandered down the path that he had no idea where he was going.

Not to the Head. That was certain.

For a half second he'd turned his path towards his cave before a wave of revulsion rushed through him and he nearly ended up vomiting in some shrubbery.

Not my cave. It was Crouch's cave. No fucking way am I going back there.

Harry never made a conscious decision to head into the Forbidden Forest, at least not that he remembered, but had only a vague inclination to seek out Colin and find some quiet.

. . . .

I think I've gone kind of mental, he mused some hours later as he watched the evening stars begin to glow through a break in the tree's leaves.

Well, even in the wizarding world, deciding to live in a tree isn't normal, Harry, Hermione's voice helpfully pointed out.

Lass has the right of it, I reckon, Ab agreed. Merlin, boy, a tree? The vision of Ab shaking his head in mild disgust hung before his eyes for a moment, almost as real as the leaves around him.

He had found Colin taking a nap near the base of a giant, gnarled old penduculate oak whose trunk was thicker than several Hagrids and whose branches stretched impossibly wide and tall.

There were no other oaks at all in this part of the Forest, which was filled with all manner of coniferous, but no deciduous, specimens.

This sort of tree shouldn't be here.

Well, neither should I.

What the hell? Why not?

And so Harry found himself climbing high up into the improbable tree.

When he was little he'd become quite proficient at scaling trees to avoid Dudley and his friends, and afternoons spent hiding among the branches of various trees in Little Whinging were some of his only fond childhood memories. In a tree, you're in another world, a world where bad things can't find you, he remembered firmly believing as a five or six year old. He'd eventually tired of climbing the great old oak, and had stopped on a comfortable branch. A quick sticking charm made sure he didn't slip off.

As he watched the evening give way to the night, he fell asleep without meaning to do so, and slept the night without dreams.

8 May, 1978

When he awoke the next day he knew he should climb down and make decisions, but … he simply decided not to. The day passed in birdsong and flashes of greens and golds that eventually gave way to the indigo of evening.

I can't survive on water from Aguamenti spells. Tomorrow I'll climb down.

Probably.

Or not.

9 May, 1978

The spell had struck him and Harry was halfway to the ground before he woke up and realized he was falling through the branches of the oak.

Before he could do much of anything he landed on the hard earth of the forest floor which, after a moment's consideration, actually felt more like a fluffy pillow than anything else. A cushioning charm?

Looking around wildly, he spied … a picnic lunch spread out on a lavender blanket?

"Wha –?" His question was drowned out by the sudden soap and water that covered him from head to foot, scrubbing away several day's worth of sweat and dirt.

"Apologies for the Scourgify, young man, but I can only stand so much a stench."

Whirling around, Harry's mouth dropped open when he saw his guest. The ancient woman's white and purple hair was done up in long braids, and she wore a pale flowered dress under somber gray robes.

"Ms. George? What – what are doing here?"

The old woman regarded him thoughtfully. "Waiting for you to come down. Sit. Eat. I'll explain."

Perhaps he shouldn't trust her, he thought fleetingly, but Ab was always sweet on her…

He sat.

"Do you know what family is, young man?" she asked conversationally as she began filling his plate with cold meats, cheeses, and fruit.

Huh?

"Not the basic definition, of course. Mummies and daddies and so on. Do you know how a real family is formed? Especially family for people who don't have mummies and daddies?"

Harry had no idea what to say to this.

A ghost of a smile played on the old woman's normally expressionless face. "I see you don't. Or you don't know you do. You see," she settled back comfortably, conjuring herself a pillow, "you'll find as you get older that people come in and out of your life like customers in a shop. Sometimes, you'll meet someone – a friend, a lover, whatever – who seems the most important person who ever lived to you. At least for a while. And then you part, for whatever reason, and they become just a memory. This person was never family. No, lad, one day you'll look back and realize that your truest family were those who entered your life, maybe even without you noticing much, and just stayed around as long as they could, long past all the others who entered in a blaze but whose importance to you gradually fizzled away."

She watched the young man flounder, trying to figure out what she talking about, and sighed.

"Last of my family just died, lad."

His brows knit together. "Wait – are you saying you're related to Ab, Ms. George?"

The crone cawed out a laugh. "I guess you aren't really listening. No, we're not related, not the way you're thinking. But he's been my family since I was young. And call me Hippia, please. So few do."

"I – I still don't understand, exactly, M – Hippia. But I'm … I'm sorry you lost Aberforth too."

The woman just hummed neutrally. "I take it Ab never mentioned how he knows me, correct?" She snorted a light little breath of air when Harry nodded. "Figures. The old goat always harped on his brother for keeping secrets, but hardly shared anything of himself either."

Shaking her head, she poured herself a glass of water. "Let me tell you how I met Aberforth Dumbledore, child. Perhaps … perhaps you'll find something worthwhile in the telling."

Part of Harry was grumbling internally that she should to go away and mind her business, but the other part was already munching on cheese and watching her expectantly.

"I was lucky enough to have a wonderful family as a child. My mother and father ran a small wizarding farm, things we can't get from Muggles – not that you see any such farms much these days – far outside of Hogsmeade. I had two sisters. One, the elder, was Capra." She said the name with a soft smile. "Oh, how I idolized her. She was eight years older than I, beautiful and smart, compassionate and wickedly funny. My little sister, Galina, who was a year younger than me, was my best friend. It was a happy, quiet life."

Harry wanted to roll his eyes. I don't care about you. I don't care about your past.

"And then during the Christmas holidays of my sister's last year at Hogwarts she brought home a young man with whom she'd been friends for many years. But now they were in love. Poor boy had had a rough time of it. Father imprisoned, mother dead, younger sister recently killed, and a painful estrangement from his older brother."

Ab, his mind easily supplied, and he perked up.

Hippia nodded. "Yes, Aberforth. The pain rolled off Ab so thick you could almost see it, but he was still kind to Gal and me, and respectful enough to my parents. They were set to be married that September."

Ab … had a girlfriend. A girlfriend!

The mind boggled.

"Aberforth returned with Capra at the end of the school year and set to helping my father run the farm. It was … it was an idyllic summer. Golden and warm, and full of laughter, as I recall. Ab was such a welcome addition. At the time he was considering becoming an animal healer based at the farm, and really, you wouldn't guess it, but he seemed to know how to heal the goats, horses – even the chickens – of any injury or illness." Hippia smiled reminiscently. "For such a gruff man, he can be so tender around animals … and children," she added, with a small nod at Harry.

Harry didn't need to be told this twice. Ab had often tended sick goats, even going so far as to sleep in the stable if he was particularly worried about their health. And his treatment of Harry himself … The young wizard shook his head. No, this wasn't news to him at all.

"But then," Hippia went on, "in early August … Capra fell from the loft in the barn. We … we didn't know, didn't find her for more than an hour." The old woman gingerly dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief. "It was Ab and I who discovered her. She'd fallen, and landed on a rake that someone – I don't know which of us – had left on the floor of the barn. I don't think she was ever conscious after the fall. She never called for help …"

As he listened, Harry realized that this story was not going to have a happy ending. Aberforth had never mentioned a woman named Capra, after all.

"Poor Ab was beside himself. He didn't – he didn't know much about healing humans, only animals, see, and neither of us knew what to do. Papa was out for the day, and mum was sick …" The woman's eyes seemed very far away. "Anyway, Ab did the only thing he could think of. Ridiculous, desperate, amazingly idioticthing it was, we should have just Flooed St. Mungo's, of course. But … You see, he'd never been prodigiously talented at Transfiguration, but I think the blind panic spurred him on, and he did get his NEWT in it." She let out a bitter little laugh. "He turned Capra into a goat so that he could try to heal her in a form he understood."

No way. Harry blinked at the young Aberforth's panicked stupidity. Oh fucking hell, Ab.

"And he was doing fairly well, truth be told. Like I said, he was extremely talented when it came to healing animals. I'm sure he meant to get her stabilized and then turn her back to her human form. But," she sighed. "But it just wasn't enough. The wounds were too severe and they'd gone unattended for too long. Capra died on that barn floor that day in August. And another chunk of Aberforth died with her."

Shite. His stomach rolled.

"When we reported the death, poor Ab was arrested – it's illegal to forcibly change someone into an animal, of course, despite his good intentions. He would have gotten off with a small fine and no one the wiser, except some muckraker for the Prophet was lurking about the DMLE when they brought him in. The next day that wretched rag printed a story that cast Aberforth as illegally charming an actual goat with whom he claimed to be in love."

Harry's jaw dropped.

"A few days later the paper printed a correction – probably Albus' and my father's doing – but the damage was done. It's hard to recover when your lover has died and you're smeared as the sort of man who fucks goats," Hippia cackled in disgust.

A short silence stretched between them, as the old woman studied her hands.

"Aberforth left the farm as soon as he could. And a month later mum died. She'd already been ill, but really I think she just didn't want to live without Capra and let it take her. I went off to Hogwarts. That next summer Papa caught Dragon Pox and died too. So it was just me and Galina. I was twelve, Gal was about to start at school, and we had no one.

"Ministry was just about to place in separate homes of distant relatives we'd never even met when Aberforth Dumbledore strode onto the scene and somehow managed to get custody of us both. No idea how he did that, actually. He moved us all back to the farm and kept it going well enough to support me and Gal through school. Ab became our family, see?"

Harry nodded silently.

"Man just could never let a child be alone if he could help it, not after Ariana's death, I think." Hippia shook her head. "Oh Harry, as a child I noticed but never appreciated just how hard it was for Ab to return to us, to return to the farm. It was a place he'd started making his home, and then it became the setting of his nightmare. I understand now why he ran away in the first year, because how could he walk through the fields, the house, the barn, and not be confronted with the ghost of Capra? But," she smiled, "he did come back, and though I knew it hurt him, he faced it. If I regret anything, I regret never telling him that I understand what he went through, and that I appreciate it more than I can ever say.

"At any rate, once I graduated I moved to the continent to pursue my work. A year later, Gal left Hogwarts with a new husband, Archie Rakefire." Harry's eyes widened. "Archie was interested in farming, so Ab just handed over the whole place, but for his herd of goats, free of charge to the two of them and used his savings to buy a dilapidated pit of a pub in Hogsmeade, where's he been ever since.

"Of course, he never stopped taking care of us. He would even watch Gal's brood of boys if she was desperate, and he always came to my shows, whether they were in Paris, Rome, Prague, or wherever. Always."

"What did you do for a living?" Harry asked, "Were you a singer or something?"

Hippia smiled. "Oh no. I'm a painter. I specialize in creating the best, most authentic wizarding portraits in the world." Her smile grew wider. "I'm quite the real deal, young man. Indeed, if you ever need a laugh, just imagine Aberforth Dumbledore rubbing elbows with the puffed-up intelligentsia of Vienna or Florence. Why, you should have seen him when that wretched Muggle 'modern art' started infecting the wizarding scene!"

Harry snorted, easily envisioning Ab in his pub robes glaring flatly at the champagne-drinking denizens of the European art world. Then a thought hit him. Portrait painter?

Ariana. I bet she painted Ariana. Harry realized he'd never really thought about who might have painted her portrait, or any of the hundreds that populated the Hogwarts walls.

The old woman, however, continued. "At any rate, Ab was our family. He even kept my fool of a great-grand nephew on at the pub because he knew Gal would have wanted someone to watch over him, though the wretched boy always cared more for the Brewster side of his family than the Rakefire one." Hippia sighed. "He was the last of the Rakefires, too. My sister's boys were too brave for their own good. All but one were dead too young in Grindelwald's war."

The old woman stopped and gave Harry a long look as he sat still, mulling over this sad new history of Aberforth Dumbledore.

"And so I'm here, discharging the last of my duties to the last of my family. You and I? We aren't family, young man, and we won't be. Tomorrow I'm leaving Britain, and I doubt I'll ever return …. But," she brought herself up crisply, "but Aberforth loved you. Like he loved me, like he loved Gal. And he sure as hell, child, wouldn't want you to live in a bloody tree."

He was already shaking his head. "I appreciate – I just can't go back to the Head right –"

Hippia nodded. "I know. Just like Ab couldn't go back to his home, not right away. But that doesn't mean you can never go back, and it doesn't mean you have to live here of all places! And, since I'm Ab's family, I've taken care of it. I mailed a letter to a friend of yours after the funeral. You were too wild-eyed not to do something ridiculous, ill-advised, and maudlin like this. He should be arriving some time today, and I've sent him another letter letting him know exactly where you are. So please don't leave this glade, at least without speaking with him."

She stood abruptly and Harry realized the picnic lunch had just vanished into her bag, though she handed him a small sack filled with warm buttered bread and a cask of water. "To hold you over. Anyway, I do believe I'm off." She tipped him a wink and tossed Colin a chunk of the lunch meat from her bag. "Good luck, dear."

With a pop she was gone.

Some time later Harry had resumed his perch in the oak, lost in thought. He'd pondered Ab's sad past for a while, thinking of all the little ways his early life seemed to have molded him into the man Harry knew.

But now … now his mind was on Quisby Rakefire.

A twinging thread of guilt wound through him, as he thought on the fact that he hadn't spared a single thought for Quisby until this afternoon. Harry had seen his body sprawled on the floor of the Head, but all care and concern for anyone else had been completely eclipsed by his grief for Ab. Sure, he wouldn't lie to himself and try to recast the young barman as somebody likeable. No, Quisby had been a whinging jerk for all the time that Harry had known him.

But now he was dead. Dead really young, not all that much older than Cedric had been. He'd never get a chance to become something other than a prat.

It was all so horribly final.

Harry thought on all the secret amusement he had felt at Quisby's dream to inherit the Three Broomsticks, back when he still believed this world to be his home. He had relished knowing that Rosmerta would get the pub, always figuring that Tab Brewster would just pass the young man over.

And now Quisby definitely would never inherit the 'Sticks.

I wonder if he died young in my world. If someone killed him.

If someone killed Ab.

But his world, his old world, really didn't matter anymore. He couldn't go back there. And even if he could, even if there were still an Aberforth Dumbledore there – or a Quisby Rakefire – they wouldn't be his.

His Ab was gone.

The wind rustled in the leaves and the sun shone on.

Far below him, Colin gave a little bark.

Probably found a rabbit to eat.

"'Lo? Ya up there, 'Arry?"

Harry blinked.

"S'me, Hagrid … Lady who wrote ter me said ye'd be here. Harry?"

He sighed. "I'll be down in a few minutes, Hagrid." Without magic the descent was a fair bit trickier, but Harry managed it without breaking his neck.

Hagrid beamed at him, then schooled his expression into something more somber. Then his smile cracked through again, though he tried to smother it.

Watching, Harry almost felt like laughing as the giant man attempted to balance his apparent delight at seeing Harry with his sensitivity to his friend's despair.

"S'good ter see ya, Harry," Hagrid began, watching his friend's face carefully. "I was sorry – real sorry – to hear 'bout ol' Ab. He's good man, damn good man, an' deserved better."

Harry's throat dried up.

"Anyhow, his friend, that Miss George, she wrote ter me the day a' the funeral. Said ye could use me back, if I had the time. I was on that mission fer Dumbledore but, well, twasn't goin' so good anyways … so here I am."

Seeing Hagrid was so much better than seeing Pel had been. Or seeing Dalcop or Doc or Guin or any of the others. Hagrid was … clean. Clean of the association with the Head, with Ab, that all the others carried on them. Sure, Hagrid went there in this world, but Harry had memories of the man that weren't clouded with his home here.

"It's … it's really, really good to see you Hagrid," he choked out sincerely.

Hagrid once again beamed and tried to restrain it. "I, er, well, don't rightly know if Ab ever told ya, but, see, he had me sign some forms last year. Just in case, ya know."

Harry's brow furrowed.

"Just in case somethin' happened ta him, I mean," Hagrid rushed on. "Made me yer godfather, if ye want me, that is, though I think I'm supposed ter be called somethin' like 'secondary custodian' or some such rot."

Hagrid's my godfather? Ab gave me a godfather?

A wild rush of emotions welled inside Harry as he tried to nod and smile at Hagrid. Warmth that Ab had cared that much. Love for Hagrid. Appreciation. A terrible, howling grief that things done 'just in case' now mattered.

He wanted to thank Hagrid, to tell him that of course, I'd love to have you as my godfather – not as a replacement for Sirius or Ab, but as his own person – thank you, Hagrid.

But when he opened his mouth the words didn't come.

Instead a flood of hot, damnable, humiliating tears arrived in their place.

Wrenching, painful sobs tore through him, stealing his breath, his ability to think clearly. At some point he realized that Hagrid was sitting next to him on the forest floor, one of his great arms securely around Harry's shoulders as he soaked the half-giant's shirt with tears. He could distantly hear himself speaking – or shouting or whispering, he wasn't sure – pointless, childish things. It's not fair. I miss him. I want him back. I'll do anything. I'm sorry. Please, please, I want him back were gasped out in a mindless loop. Hagrid seemed to be whispering comforting things, but they weren't able to reach him, not really.

Harry never noticed when he wore himself out and fell asleep.

The half-giant sighed, and positioned Harry in his arms like a young child. "T'all work out in the end, 'Arry," he muttered. "Things'll be alright, ye'll see. But fer now, let's go home."

The sun began to set as the groundskeeper carried the boy out of the Forbidden Forest towards his own little hut on the Hogwarts grounds.

Note: This chapter raises the possibility of a portrait of Ab; such a painting will not be part of this story.