Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes and Whatnot

As soon as we landed, before I could even take in our surroundings, the air was split by a terrible scream. Our appearance had obviously caused it. Before I could glance at the others, the door to The Three Broomsticks flew open and about a dozen hooded Death Eaters dashed out.

We all had our wands raised, but there were too many to try and Stun and attempting it would give away our position.

“Accio Cloak!” one of them yelled.

Harry grasped at the folds, but luckily the Cloak stayed put.

“Not under your wrapper, then, Potter?” yelled the Death Eater, then to his companions, added, “Spread out. He’s here”

A bunch ran towards us and we backed up as quickly as possible down a side street.

“Let’s just leave!” whispered Hermione. “Disapparate now!”

“Great idea,” said Ron.

“We know you’re here, Potter, and there’s no getting away! We’ll find you!” shouted another Death Eater.

“They were ready for us” whispered Harry. “They set up that spell to tell them we’d come. I reckon they’ve done something to keep us here, trap us – “

“What about dementors?” we heard another Death Eater call. “Let ‘em have free rein, they’d find him quick enough!”

“The Dark Lord wants Potter dead by no hands but his – “

“ – ‘an dementors won’t kill him! The Dark Lord wants Potter’s life, not his soul. He’ll be easier to kill if he’s been Kissed first!”

There were some grunts of agreement. Suddenly, the fear in my gut kicked up a notch. There’d be no way to elude the dementors without using a Patronus, and that would give us away.

“We’re going to have to try to Disapparate, Harry!” Hermione whispered.

Before she even finished her sentence, I felt the strange cold seeping through the street. All light was extinguished, even the stars. I felt Ron grab my arm, and I figured Hermione was trying to Apparate us, but nothing was happening. The air seemed to have turned solid. There was no way out now. We fled down the back street as quietly as possible, feeling along the wall as we went.

As soon as we turned the corner, we saw them. A denser darkness than the one surrounding us, a hord of rotting hands and their open, searching mouths. I was almost certain they could sense our fear, they seemed to relish in it, coming closer and closer.

Harry raised his wand. I saw it out of the corner of my eye, and before any of us could stop him, he whispered, “Expecto Patronum!”

A bright silver stag burst forth and scattered the dementors.

There was a yell from somewhere nearby, “It’s him, down there, down there, I saw his Patronus, it was a stag!”

The stars were reappearing now that the dementors were gone, and we could hear the footsteps of Death Eaters running towards us.

Thinking quickly, I looked around for a hiding place and at that moment, we heard a creaking, grinding noise close to us.

A door opened and a rough voice spoke from inside, “Potter, in here, quick!”

We flew through the open doorway without question.

“Upstairs, keep the Cloak on, keep quiet!” muttered a tall figure, who passed us on his way into the street, slamming the door behind him.

Looking around, I now realized we were in the Hog’s Head Inn. We went behind the counter and ran up a rickety staircase, which led to a small sitting room complete with worn carpet and small fireplace. Above the fireplace was a single oil painting of a young, blonde girl who stared out at us with an expression I’d more commonly seen on Luna.

We heard shouts from the street below and crept to the window, still under the Cloak.

Our savior, the barman here at the Hog’s Head, was facing a bunch of hooded Death Eaters.

“So what?” he was bellowing into one of the hooded faces. “So what? You send dementors down my street, I’ll send a Patronus back at ’em! I’m not having ’em near me, I’ve told you that, I’m not having it!”

“That wasn’t your Patronus!” said a Death Eater. “That was a stag, it was Potter’s!”

“Stag!” roared the barman, and he pulled out a wand. “Stag! You idiot — Expecto Patronum!”

A huge, horned animal shot out of his wand and charged down the street.

“That’s not what I saw —” said the Death Eater, although he didn’t seem quite that certain.

“Curfew’s been broken, you heard the noise,” one of his companions told the barman. “Someone was out in the street against regulations —”

“If I want to put my cat out, I will, and be damned to your curfew!”

“You set off the Caterwauling Charm?”

“What if I did? Going to cart me off to Azkaban? Kill me for sticking my nose out my own front door? Do it, then, if you want to! But I hope for your sakes you haven’t pressed your little Dark
Marks and summoned him. He’s not going to like being called here for me and my old cat, is he, now?”

“Don’t you worry about us,” said one of the Death Eaters, “worry about yourself, breaking curfew!”

“And where will you lot traffick potions and poisons when my pub’s closed down? What’ll happen to your little sidelines then?”

“Are you threatening — ?”

“I keep my mouth shut, it’s why you come here, isn’t it?”

“I still say I saw a stag Patronus!” shouted the first Death Eater.

“Stag?” roared the barman. “It’s a goat, idiot!”

“All right, we made a mistake,” said the second Death Eater.

“Break curfew again and we won’t be so lenient!”

The Death Eaters left then, back toward the High Street. Hermione and I sighed with relief, and stepped out from under the Cloak. She sat down in a wobbly chair and I just dumped myself on the floor seeing as there wasn’t much furniture, and the floor looked about as comfy as any of it anyways. Harry drew the curtains closed and we heard the barman rebolting the door downstairs and then climbing the stairs.

“You bloody fools,” he said gruffly when he entered the room “What were you thinking, coming here?”

“Thank you,” said Harry. “We can’t thank you enough. You saved our lives.”

The barman just grunted. He looked familiar. And not familiar, as in oh yeah I’ve seen him once or twice when I’ve come to Hogsmeade, but familiar as in he looks like someone I know…or knew.

Harry approached him, looking up at him and said, “It’s your eye I’ve been seeing in the mirror.”

We were all silent as they looked at each other.

“You sent Dobby.”

The barman nodded and looked around for the elf.

“Thought he’d be with you. Where’ve you left him?”

“He’s dead,” said Harry. “Bellatrix Lestrange killed him.”

The man’s face was impassive, but after a few moments he said, “I’m sorry to hear it. I liked that elf.”

He turned away then, lighting lamps with his wand, not looking at any of us.

“You’re Aberforth,” said Harry.

He said nothing, neither confirming nor denying, he just bent to light the fire.

“How did you get this?” Harry asked, walking across to a small mirror on the mantel of the fireplace.

“Bought it from Dung ’bout a year ago,” said Aberforth. “Albus told me what it was. Been trying to keep an eye out for you.”

Ron gasped.

“The silver doe!” he said excitedly. “Was that you too?”

“What are you talking about?” said Aberforth.

“Someone sent a doe Patronus to us!”

“Brains like that, you could be a Death Eater, son. Haven’t I just proved my Patronus is a goat?”

“Oh,” said Ron. “Yeah . . . well, I’m hungry!” he added defensively and his stomach gave an enormous rumble

I tried to hide a slight laugh.

“I got food,” said Aberforth, and he left, reappearing only moments later with a large loaf of bread, some cheese, and a jug of mead.

He set it all on a small table in front of the fire. Starving, we all ate and drank in silence, except for the crackle of the fire and the clinking of goblets.

“Right then,” said Aberforth when we were done. “We need to think of the best way to get you out of here. Can’t be done by night, you heard what happens if anyone moves outdoors during darkness: Caterwauling Charm’s set off, they’ll be onto you like bowtruckles on doxy eggs. I don’t reckon I’ll be able to pass off a stag as a goat a second time. Wait for daybreak when curfew lifts, then you can put your Cloak back on and set out on foot. Get right out of Hogsmeade, up into the mountains, and you’ll be able to Disapparate there. Might see Hagrid. He’s been hiding in a cave up there with Grawp ever since they tried to arrest him.”

“We’re not leaving,” said Harry. “We need to get into Hogwarts.”

“Don’t be stupid, boy,” said Aberforth.

“We’ve got to,” said Harry.

“What you’ve got to do,” said Aberforth, leaning forward, “is to get as far from here as you can.”

“You don’t understand. There isn’t much time. We’ve got to get into the castle. Dumbledore — I mean, your brother — wanted us —”

“My brother Albus wanted a lot of things,” said Aberforth, “and people had a habit of getting hurt while he was carrying out his grand plans. You get away from this school, Potter, and out of the country if you can. Forget my brother and his clever schemes. He’s gone where none of this can hurt him, and you don’t owe him anything.”

“You don’t understand,” said Harry again.

“Oh, don’t I?” said Aberforth quietly. “You don’t think I understood my own brother? Think you knew Albus better than I did?”

“I didn’t mean that,” said Harry. “It’s . . . he left me a job.”

“Did he now?” said Aberforth. “Nice job, I hope? Pleasant? Easy? Sort of thing you’d expect an unqualified wizard kid to be able to do without overstretching themselves?”

I grimaced as Ron gave a rather grim laugh. Hermione looked strained.

“I-it’s not easy, no,” said Harry. “But I’ve got to —”

“ ‘Got to’? Why ‘got to’? He’s dead, isn’t he?” said Aberforth “Let it go, boy, before you follow him! Save yourself!”
“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“I —” Harry started, then seemed to change his direction. “But you’re fighting too, you’re in the Order of the Phoenix —”

“I was,” said Aberforth. “The Order of the Phoenix is finished. You-Know-Who’s won, it’s over, and anyone who’s pretending different’s kidding themselves. It’ll never be safe for you here, Potter, he wants you too badly. So go abroad, go into hiding, save yourself. Best take these three with you.” He jerked his thumb at us. “They’ll be in danger long as they live now everyone knows they’ve been working with you.”

“I can’t leave,” said Harry. “I’ve got a job —”

“Give it to someone else!”

“I can’t. It’s got to be me, Dumbledore explained it all —”

“Oh, did he now? And did he tell you everything, was he honest with you?”

Harry didn’t say anything.

“I knew my brother, Potter. He learned secrecy at our mother’s knee. Secrets and lies, that’s how we grew up, and Albus . . . he was a natural.”

“I don’t believe it. Dumbledore loved Harry,” said Hermione.

“Why didn’t he tell him to hide, then?” shot back Aberforth. “Why didn’t he say to him, ‘Take care of yourself, here’s how to survive’?”

“Because,” said Harry, “sometimes you’ve got to think about more than your own safety! Sometimes you’ve got to think about the greater good! This is war!”

“You’re seventeen, boy!”

“I’m of age, and I’m going to keep fighting even if you’ve given up!”

“Who says I’ve given up?”

“ ‘The Order of the Phoenix is finished,’ ” Harry repeated. “ ‘You- Know-Who’s won, it’s over, and anyone who’s pretending different’s kidding themselves.’ ”

“I don’t say I like it, but it’s the truth!”

“No, it isn’t,” said Harry. “Your brother knew how to finish You- Know-Who and he passed the knowledge on to me. I’m going to keep going until I succeed — or I die. Don’t think I don’t know how this might end. I’ve known it for years.”

Aberforth just scowled.

“We need to get into Hogwarts,” said Harry again. “If you can’t help us, we’ll wait till daybreak, leave you in peace, and try to find a way in ourselves. If you can help us — well, now would be a great time to mention it.”

Aberforth stayed seated, gazing at Harry with eyes so extraordinarily like his brother’s. At last he cleared his throat, got to his feet, walked around the little table, and approached the portrait of the girl.

“You know what to do,” he said.

She smiled, turned, and walked away, but not as people in portraits usually do. She didn’t move out of the side of her frame, but down a long tunnel behind her. We watched until her small figure was swallowed in darkness.

“Er — what — ?” began Ron.

“There’s only one way in now,” said Aberforth. “You must know they’ve got all the old secret passageways covered at both ends, dementors all around the boundary walls, regular patrols inside the school from what my sources tell me. The place has never been so heavily guarded. How you expect to do anything once you get inside it, with Snape in charge and the Carrows as his deputies . . . well, that’s your lookout, isn’t it? You say you’re prepared to die.”

“But what . . . ?” said Hermione, frowning at the picture.

A tiny white dot had reappeared at the end of the painted tunnel, and now Ariana was walking back toward them, growing bigger and bigger as she came. But there was somebody else with her now, someone taller than she was, who was limping along, looking excited. His hair was longer than I remembered and he looked to have suffered several gashes to his face and his clothes were ripped and torn. Larger and larger the two figures grew, until only their heads and shoulders filled the portrait. Then the whole thing swung open on the wall like a little door, and the entrance to a real tunnel was revealed.