Not being generally in the market for stolen goods or for potions that had happened to fall off the back of a broomstick, Ginny Weasley felt distinctly out of place as she sidled into the Hog's Head Inn. It would have been poor manners to have her wand out and ready, but she fingered it in her sleeve as she edged past a cloaked figure and made her way to the bar.

Bright blue eyes regarded her from a tangle of long hair. "Well, then," the barman said, not pausing his polishing of a dirty glass with a dirty cloth.

"Hello, Mr Dumbledore," Ginny said. She produced her own glass from within her robes. "Could I have a drink?"

"I suppose you're old enough," Aberforth conceded. "But you don't look much like my usual customers, if you don't mind my saying."

Ginny glanced over her shoulder. Apart from the hooded and cloaked individual she'd passed, there were only two other customers: one wearing a hat with a wide brim that cast all except the tip of their nose into impenetrable shadow, and another whose hair was even wilder than Aberforth's. "I suppose I don't," she said.

"You'd better come through to the back," Aberforth said, tossed the cloth over his shoulder, and turned away.

Ginny followed him, side-stepping a goat, and found herself in the familiar back room. From the wall, Ariana regarded them sadly. "I hope you've been well," Ginny said tentatively. "And your goats … all in good health, too?"

Aberforth gave a bark of laughter, and opened a cupboard, taking out a dusty bottle. "As well as can be expected, at my age, and theirs." He took the glass from Ginny and splashed an extremely generous measure of what looked like Firewhisky into it. He took a gulp and offered it to Ginny.

Reasoning that the Firewhisky would doubtless kill anything contagious, Ginny took a belt herself.

"So what is it?" Aberforth asked gruffly. "Children's Crusade to save the world again? More missions for my mad brother?"

"I can't exactly tell you," Ginny said, eyes watering. She took another gulp of Firewhisky and held the glass out. "I mean, it's not for Professor Dumbledore, but I can't exactly tell you what it is."

He scowled at her. "Haven't proved myself trustworthy, is that it? Hiding you lot, feeding you lot, smuggling you in and out under the noses of Death Eaters, for all those months, not enough, eh?"

"I trust you — we trust you — with our lives," Ginny said quickly. "It's … it's complicated, that's all." She fell back on Hermione's phrasing. "It isn't my secret to tell. If it was, I'd tell you in a heartbeat."

Aberforth studied her for several agonising heartbeats, and then refilled the glass. "Well, then, that's another thing, isn't it." He pulled back a chair and sat down. "Why don't you sit down and tell me what sort of mess you've gotten yourself into, girl."

Ginny took the seat opposite him. "It's sort of difficult to explain. But I was wondering — we were wondering, have you heard any odd stories lately?"

He drank, and pushed the glass across the table to her. "Odd stories are the only kind I hear, in here. Who's we, anyway?"

"Harry, and Ron —"

He snorted. "Aurors. Waste of decent magical talent, that."

"Neville —"

"Another Auror."

"No, he's teaching Herbology with Professor Sprout now," Ginny said quickly. "And Hermione —"

"Goody two-shoes," Aberforth said dismissively.

"Not really," Ginny said, thinking of some of the things Hermione had gotten up to in her school years. "And me, of course, and Luna Lovegood."

He brightened noticeably. "Luna Lovegood. Always liked that girl. Got her head screwed on right, she does."

Ginny blinked at him, and then took a belt of the Firewhisky to cover her confusion. "Anyway." She pushed the glass back across the table. "We were wondering if you'd heard any rumours about, possibly, any Death Eaters who hadn't been caught —"

"Would have told the rest of the Order if I had." He paused. "Them that's left, which is precious few."

"Or maybe about something strange up at Hogwarts?"

He refilled the glass again. "Place is crammed to the rafters with little baby witches and wizards, there's always something strange."

"Different strange," Ginny said. The most likely way word of Professor Snape's survival could have gotten out, after the students, was via the Hog's Head. Not that Aberforth would talk, if he knows, but he might have overheard something …

He drank, pushed the glass back to her. "Isn't that what 'strange' is? 'Different'?"

"You know what I mean," Ginny said. She picked up the glass and studied him over the rim of it. "There are stories of a new ghost in the dungeons."

Aberforth snorted. "Number of people died up there five years ago, I'd be surprised if there's just one."

"Fine," Ginny said. She took a gulp and held the glass out to him. "Anything else, though? Strange talk in here? Strange customers?"

"Always."

Ginny snorted. "You know what I'm asking, Mr Dumbledore."

"I do," he said. "And I'm telling you as much as you're telling me, aren't I?"

"I told you, it's not my secret to tell!"

"And my customer's secrets aren't mine to tell, either," he pointed out, bottle poised above the glass. "You Apparating home, girl?"

Ginny shook her head. "Walking."

"That's alright, then." He poured again. "So Harry Potter and your brother Ron sent you out to see what old Aberforth might know, heh? Did you wonder why they sent you, instead of coming themselves?"

"I can hold my liquor," Ginny said.

He gave a grunt of a laugh. "Or they think a pretty face'll loosen my tongue."

"Not one without horns," Ginny shot back, and the grunt turned into a wheezing chuckle.

"Oh, I do like you, girl. I always did. Not as much as the Lovegood lass, mind, but you always did have a way about you." He tossed back the drink and set the glass down with a bang. "Now let me tell you what I think. I think the pack of you, my brother's child soldiers, did as much and more as could ever be asked of you. You all lost a piece of your childhood, some of you more than others, and far too many of you lost your lives. Older and wiser wizards and witches, or those that ought to have been wiser at any rate, who should have been protecting you, let you into the front lines or outright pushed you there." He poured again, and drank again. "And now where are you? You had the right idea, girl, getting on with your real life, but the others? Aurors! I ask you. And you, you're back here, worrying and fretting yourself over something that has no right to be giving you grief." He leaned forward, fixing her with his bright blue gaze. "Let the dead bury the dead, Ginny Weasley. Let us old folk fight our own battles, and you fly that fast broom of yours as far away from the past as you can."

"But what if there's someone who can't fight his own battle?" Ginny asked. "Someone who needs our help? Someone who might die without it?"

"Let him die," Aberforth said harshly. He stood up, chair scraping across the uneven wooden boards, thin and straight and rather terrible in his sudden anger. "That's what the old are supposed to do, isn't it? Fight for the young, and die for them when need be. It's not supposed to be the other way around."

Ginny looked up at him. "I don't think we can," she said. "And I don't think you're right, anyway. It's not about sitting back and enjoying yourself until it's your turn to shoulder the burden. It's about doing what you can, when you can, where you're needed."

"You'll understand, when you're my age," Aberforth said. His hand came down heavy on the table. "You'll understand what an awful thing it is to watch the old shovel the young into the fires of war."

She rose to her feet and faced him. "And when someone young is the only one who can do the job? I suppose Harry should have said 'sure, I'll defeat Voldemort, but not 'till I've had my gap year'?"

"He shouldn't be making it a habit!" the old wizard said. "Nor should you."

"We're not," Ginny said hotly. "We're helping someone who helped us — who helped me, personally, not in some abstract sense but in the very specific sense of very specifically protecting me from being on the receiving end of the Cruciatus curse — someone who gave more than any of us, any of us. So if you won't help me, I'll just go, shall I?"

"Well, well," Aberforth said. "You've met who haunts the Potions classroom, then?"

.

.

.

Author's Note: Ginny's reference to the Cruciatus curse refers to Snape catching Ginny, Neville and Luna trying to steal the Sword of Gryffindor from his office, and sending them to serve detention with Hagrid in the Forbidden Forest instead of handing them over to the Carrows for detention — and the Carrows, we find out later, used students in detention for Dark Arts classes to practice the Cruciatus curse. Which the three might not have realised was protecting them at the time, but once Snape's true loyalties were revealed, I expect they (like the readers) understood that incident in a different light. And in my head-canon, the members of the D.A. in hiding in the Room of Requirement mentioned it to Aberforth on one of the many occasions they came to him for food.

If you're enjoying this, don't forget to leave a review!