Chapter Eight: Dumbledore's Men
Also known as the chapter I spent a week not writing, because it just wasn’t flowing well at all. I think I eventually bent it into manageable shape… The part with Aberforth just refused to work and I finally decided I couldn’t spend any more time procrastinating so I sat down and wrote it, and I hate it with a passion.

... Okay, so I hate the whole chapter. Every last word. Sorry 'bout that. Better updates next time ;)

HARRY

Hermione and Ron hadn’t come up after him, perhaps sensing that he needed his space, and he had fallen asleep with images of his classmates’ affronted faces seared into his mind.

The following morning, Neville, Dean, and Seamus gave him his space, silently standing by as he readied himself for another day – and it’s sure to be another frustrating day, he thought. Even after the others had trooped off to breakfast, Ron remained behind.

“Alright, mate?” he asked.

“Never better,” Harry said testily.

“Look, they mean well—”

“They don’t have any right to ask that of me! Can’t they see I’ve got enough on my plate?”

“That’s the trouble, isn’t it? They’ve got no idea and unless you’d care to enlighten them all, it’s got to stay that way.”

“I know,” Harry said roughly, knowing he had no reason to be so tetchy towards Ron, who had done nothing wrong and just about everything right, to be frank.

“Look, if you don’t want to go down to breakfast, I’ll bring you something up,” Ron offered.

“Nah. I’ll just start researching a little earlier today. The library should be nice and empty this time of day; no one goes to the library at seven in the morning.”

“Well, unless you’re Hermione,” Ron amended, sounding greatly amused. “You might catch Hermione there this time of day, but she’s just odd like that.”

“Yeah,” said Harry fondly. “Yeah, she is.”

* * * * * *

As the warm, summer-like days of early September faded, Harry’s efforts at researching potential Horcruxes had yet to come to fruition and he was growing more and more restless with every passing day. Even the distraction of Quidditch tryouts failed to jolt him from his languorous state. In the first two weeks of school, he had fallen into a routine of sorts: waking late in the morning and eating breakfast only after the crowd in the Great Hall had thinned out, retreating to the library once classes went into session, only to remerge when Ron and Hermione were guaranteed to be in the Common room. 

In the evenings, Ron and Hermione were invariably bogged down with homework, everything from essays about anti-Muggle security to scrolls of parchment detailing the antics of the common Irish banshee. Ron lamented the loss of his leisure time and spent inordinate amounts of time staring out at the Quidditch Pitch (when he wasn’t practicing for the upcoming Match, that is) and humming the tune to “Weasley is our King” under his breath. Hermione spent every spare moment researching alongside Harry, but still they had found precious little. Harry was not sure what his expectations about coming back to Hogwarts had been, but with Ron and Hermione normally off attending class without him and with his days being wiled away in the Restricted Section, he felt that his time was not amounting to much. True, Hogwarts was the only place that had ever felt like “home” to him, but day-by-day, it was becoming more like a gilded cage that a place of refuge.

Over the week leading up to the first Quidditch Match, only a few moments stood out from the humdrum of daily life, and the most memorable of these moments took place during the dinner hour on the night before the game –

In a scene that had grown familiar over the years, Errol – in the course of making a delivery -- made a spectacular crash landing in the middle of the Gryffindor table, spattering the students within a twenty-foot radius with bits of mashed potato and corned beef.  

“Might be time to invest in a new bird,” Ginny said grimly, hurriedly untying the heavy parcel from Errol’s leg so that Hermione could tend to him.

“What do you suppose it is?” Harry asked, seeing that the parcel was addressed to the three of them.

“Three guesses, Ron,” said Ginny with a sideways grin.

“Yeah, I know,” Ron said, lifting the lid off the box while Hermione attempted to revive Errol. “When Mum’s nervous she knits. It’s kind of sad, really. But, you know, as along as she hasn’t knitted me a woolen jock strap or anything, I think we’ll be alright.”

His jaw dropped.

“She didn’t!” Harry roared with laughter.

“What the bloody hell is this?” Ron demanded of no one in particular, unfolding a vibrant-hued, button-up suit.

“It’s a jumpsuit,” Hermione said, looking up from Errol.

“A—what?”

“A jumpsuit. Yes, I’m sure it is. Muggles wear them, to sporting events and such.” 

“A knitted maroon jumpsuit? She’s lost her marbles if she thinks I’m wearing that.” 

“I suppose the good thing about being Captain is that you can throw anyone off the team if they laugh at your clothes!”

Ron scowled. “First manky, lace-ridden dress robes – now this,” he said. “What does she want? For me to be the laughingstock of the entire school?”

“Just be glad Smith isn’t around to rub it in your face,” Ginny said with a laugh, as she began distributing socks, sweaters, and brightly-colored afghans* to Harry and Hermione.

It went without saying, of course, that Ron would not wear his new jumpsuit to the Match the next day. After seeing Ron through a skimpy breakfast and trying to downplay his anxieties about his qualifications as Quidditch Captain, Harry passed him off to his teammates and let them escort him down to the locker rooms.

“Just make sure he doesn’t think too much about it,” he told Ginny before she’d departed, “and he’ll be fine. Come to think of it, this would probably be a good time to tell him any really shocking news you might have on hand. Like, if you’d taken a sudden liking to Draco Malfoy or something, this would be the time to let him know – that might take his mind off things—”

She laughed harshly. “The day I fall in love with Draco Malfoy is the day Blast-Ended Skrewts fly!”

Hermione met Harry on his way down to the Pitch. She had pinned a red Gryffindor rosette in her hair, but gone were the red-and-gold scarves and mittens and any sense of team spirit she might once have possessed. Harry was amused -- though not altogether surprised -- to see that she had a book clamped under her arm.

“Hermione—you can’t bring a book to a Quidditch match!” Harry spluttered, acting as if by doing so she was committing an act of high treason.  

“I don’t care much for Quidditch,” she said coolly.

“You used to.”

“Things have changed, Harry,” by which she meant ‘the team roster has changed,’ though she did not say it.

As they passed Hagrid’s hut, Harry felt a sudden urge to go and visit his oldest friend. “Do you mind, Hermione? I feel like I ought to go see Hagrid, just to see how he’s doing since – you know.”

“Go on, Harry,” she said, and then added, with a sardonic smile, “I’ll cheer on the team for you.”

“You do that.”

Hermione cheering for a Quidditch Match seemed about as likely as Ginny falling in love with Draco. Harry just wasn’t apt to be that lucky.

Five minutes later, Harry was standing on the front stoop of Hagrid’s hut, pounding on the door. “Hagrid? Open up, Hagrid! I know you’re in there!”

The door creaked open on its hinges and Fang bounded out to greet Harry, slobbering his face and barking excitedly.

“Down, Fang,” Harry said sternly, sidestepping the massive boarhound to fully examine the hut.

Badly damaged by fire at the end of the last school year, it had only been patchily repaired. The roof had been re-thatched and the overlarge wooden door restored to its original position, but the hut still bore scars from the devastating blaze. Scorch marks grazed the walls and the scrubbed wooden table had lost two of its massive chairs – reduced to pile of cinders and ash that Hagrid had not even bothered to sweep away.

“Where’s Hagrid, Fang?” Harry asked urgently, fearing the worst. “With Grawp?”

Fang whined piteously, scratching at the back door.

“He’s not—” Harry stopped short, threw open the door, and followed Fang out into the garden. He felt downright idiotic, standing in the middle of a pumpkin patch, vying for information from a dog. The dog that had ever talked back was Sirius, he remembered with a dull pang of sorrow.   

Fang leapt the fence and trotted down the lane towards Hogsmeade, Harry hurrying along behind him. The great boarhound finally let up once they’d reached The Hog’s Head and flopped down on the front stoop as though he visited the grimy pub everyday.

“Attaboy, Fang,” Harry whispered as he stepped over the boarhound and into the pub. It took his eyes a moment to adjust to the dim lighting. A gigantic man thrice as wide as an ordinary person sat slumped over the bar, his wiry hair wilder than ever. As Harry tiptoed nearer, he could smell that the man reeked of stale spirits.

“Hagrid?”

“He’s not in any condition to talk you – or anyone else for that matter,” said a gravelly voice; Aberforth Dumbledore had limped into sight, dusting off a bottle of wine. “Vintage 1872,” he said, unscrewing the cap so that a hiss of air escaped. “A good year – for grapes, that is.” He laughed coarsely. “Not such a good year for Wizardkind, 1872. Not unless you were that sort.”

“I don’t understand—” Harry said, reluctantly accepting the glass Aberforth slid across the counter to him.

“You will see in time.” Aberforth drew a lengthy sip from his drink and lit a cigar. “That year, 1872, marked the first of many wars for our world, Mr. Potter. You could say it fell in the middle of the worst kind of century… after centuries of persecution at the hands of the Muggles, we were taking back our communities, our lives, our lands… but peace and renewed prosperity bring troubles of their own... I’m speaking, of course, about fear. Fear that Muggleborns would upset the fragile balance we’d wrought, fear that Muggleborns would reinstate the old order where we lived in fear of our Salems, our burning days. Never forget, he who wields fear holds the reins of power. It is just the same with every great villain and many a good-intentioned leader. In my time, Grindelwald was that villain and the Knights of Walpurgis, his henchmen.

“His popularity was easy to understand. He promised the Wizarding folk something that no one else could provide -- safety, security, seclusion – but at too high a price.

“They call it the ‘lust of the eye,’ Mr. Potter, the human desire to destroy. Always – always, you must keep watch on those around you. War is a sickness, Mr. Potter, and when you’ve lived as long as I have, you see how it infects. We were at our worst in 1872,” he said, damping his cigar on the tabletop and brushing away the hot ashes with his bare palm. “I was ten,” he said simply, “my sister Arabella, nine, Albus, six. The members of the Ancient and Most Eccentric House of Dumbledore had a reputation for being dyed-in-the-wool supporters of the Muggleborn population. It was all too easy to vilify us, when the Wizarding World stumbled upon hard times again and, well, it was only to be expected that we’d get our comeuppance.”

“Your family was targeted?” Harry stammered, suddenly feeling a little less alone in the world.

Aberforth struck a match and lit a second cigar, which he crammed between his blackened teeth and gnawed on for a moment before speaking. “Didn’t you ever wonder what spurred my brother on to greatness?”

Harry looked up, taken aback. Never in six years under Albus Dumbledore’s careful tutelage had he considered the fount from which his mentor’s boundless energy and limitless dedication sprang.

“One doesn’t come upon such ambitions lightly. No, 1872 brought terrible tidings for our family. My sister and I suffered and I suffered terribly at the hands of the Knights of Walpurgis. Before they were through with us, we were rendered worse than Squibs, you see?” He shook back the sleeves of his robes and held out his weathered, knobbly hands. “My parents paid with their lives. For Albus, though, it was worse still.”

“Did they torture him as well?” Harry interjected, a knot forming in the base of his throat.

“No, no. You of all people should know that there are things far worse than physical pain,” Aberforth said impatiently, dispensing with his second cigar and pulling out a fresh one, rolling and unrolling the stained paper in his weathered hands. “Albus was so young… they only scoffed at him when he stood up to them. Always said the human being can bear scorn and derision, but not indifference, Albus said.

“Funny how a single moment can shape a life, eh, Mr. Potter?” He jerked his head towards Harry’s scar and Harry unconsciously flattened his fringe over it. “From that day onward, he was driven to excel in all he attempted – to avenge. But bitter he was not. There is a difference between vengeance borne of love and that bred by hate. My brother was not the first to seek vengeance on behalf of those he’d loved best and lost, nor was he the last. Severus Snape, for instance—”

Harry stiffened and glowered at the half-empty bottle of wine perched on the bar between them.

Aberforth Dumbledore chuckled and shook his head. “I should have expected this, this dislike, this misunderstanding—”

“It’s not a misunderstanding,” Harry said, fighting to keep his voice level. “If you’d been there – if you’d seen what I saw—”

“But did he act out of hate or of reverence? On whose orders?”

Harry’s jaw clenched in mute fury. He was not about to sit here and be lectured.  

“Fine, fine. Don’t mind me, then, Mr. Potter. I’m merely an old fool who’s had too much to drink, but heed me or discount me, Severus Snape was not the last to go back on vows made to the Dark Lord, when the lives of those he cared for were laid on the line. Another young man, a contemporary of your father’s, would trod the same pathway – would throw away everything for what was right. Perhaps we can entertain the possibility that Snape has done the same. It is amazing, Mr. Potter, what people won’t do for love. What the damned won’t recant.

“…but do I still have your ear, Mr. Potter? I fear I have rambled and gone off my point. We have learned much since 1872. After this first of many wars, we stepped back and took a good, hard look at ourselves. And it wasn’t a pretty sight. War does ugly things.

“You hear that, do you?” Aberforth Dumbledore asked pointedly, gesturing towards a grandfather clock jammed into the corner and covered with scratches and cobwebs.

Tick – tock – tick – tock. Steady as a heartbeat.

“Tick-by-tock. Second-by-second. Minute-by-minute. That is how you live in times of war. That is how you fight back fear. Tick-by-tock. Sometimes fear wins. I’ve seen grown men vomiting into a ditch, not for drunkenness – well, for that too, perhaps – but for fear. Sure, you’ll see them crouched over a seedy bar –” – he spread his weathered hands wide to indicate the Hogs’ Head’s grime-encrusted counter – “boasting of bravery and the glory of war, but glory is a drunkard’s lie and a martyr’s misguided consolation. It’s true, war makes for efficient killers. Primes us that way, war does. Ruins us that way. Don’t be an efficient killer, Mr. Potter.”

“I’m not sure I have many illusions left,” Harry said, the words sounding strangely poetic as they slipped off his tongue; the wine was making him slightly lightheaded.

“’Course you haven’t many illusions left. For one so young, you have seen much, and my brother admired you for your courage and strength of character. Because my brother admired you, I admire you, Mr. Potter. My brother did not bestow his trust lightly, or wrongly, I would say. Perhaps you can see beyond the past and consider what I’ve told you here tonight—”

At that moment, Aberforth and Harry had both jerked around to see two dark outlines pausing outside the door of the dank pub. Twilight had long since descended on the little village and it was impossible to see whether the passersby were friends or foe by the feeble light of the moon.

“Could be anyone,” Aberforth said, his ancient brow furrowed in concern as he hurriedly cleared away their glasses and ushered Harry out the back door and into the alley with but a curt nod of farewell.

* * * * *

By the time Harry returned from Hogsmeade, the Match was over and a wild after-party was underway in the Common room. He sought out Hermione in the quietest corner, where she was (predictably) curled up with a book.

“How was the Match?”

“Excellent,” Hermione said, smiling broadly. “I daresay I finished the first 447 pages, which leaves only 578 to go.”

Harry laughed heartily; he’d expected no less a response from her.

“How did Ron do?”

“Oh, he did reasonably well,” Hermione said with a shrug. “He let a few in, got caught up in Luna Lovegood’s commentary, I expect.”

“Amusing, that girl.”  

“Yes,” said Hermione absently. “I always thought she had a bit of a thing for Ron…”

“Yes’m?”

Ron had escaped the throng and plopped down in a chair beside Harry.

“How’d it go, Captain?” Harry asked.

“To be honest, Slytherin didn’t stand a chance. I hate to say it, but their talent left with Malfoy.” Ron pulled a distasteful face, as several other students around him did moments later when he began tugging off his sweaty socks and shin guards.

“Urgh, Ron, get thee to the showers,” Hermione cried out, burying her nose in the binding of Weird Wizarding Dilemmas and Their Solutions.

“I’m going, I’m going,” he said, and quit the room to much applause from his victory-heady Housemates.

*afghans are crocheted blankets. We’re not referring to the ethnic group here J

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