—— ϟ ——
Noel removed the outer layers of her clothes, feeling as if they were weighing her down. Producing rope she spelled it to wrap around the dragon so she could steer it. As the dragon flew higher and higher Noel focused on healing herself and the others. If she had the strength she would help the dragon as well.
She felt Harry behind her, turning to look over her shoulder she saw that her friends were clinging onto the dragon for dear life. Ron kept swearing at the top of his voice, and Hermione seemed to be sobbing. Climbing as high as she could, Noel grabbed the ropes in hope that her knowledge from owning a miniature dragon would help her control one that's been imprisoned.
The dragon seemed intent on nothing but getting as far away from its underground prison as possible; but the question of how and when they were to dismount remained rather frightening.
The dragon seemed to crave cooler and fresher air: It climbed steadily until they were flying through wisps of chilly cloud, and Harry could no longer make out the little colored dots which were cars pouring in and out of the capital. On and on they flew, over countryside parceled out in patches of green and brown, over roads and rivers winding through the landscape like strips of matte and glossy ribbon.
"What do you reckon it's looking for?" Ron yelled as they flew farther and farther north.
"No idea," Harry bellowed back. "Noel, where are you taking us!"
Noel ignored him because she had no idea, all Noel wanted to do was to stabilize the dragon and find a safe patch of land for them to land.
The sun slipped lower in the sky, which was turning indigo; and still the dragon flew, cities and towns gliding out of sight beneath them, its enormous shadow sliding over the earth like a great dark cloud.
Every part of Harry ached with the effort of holding on to the dragon's back.
"Is it my imagination," shouted Ron after a considerable stretch of silence, "or are we losing height?"
The landscape seemed to grow larger and more detailed as he squinted over the side of the dragon, and he wondered whether it had divined the presence of fresh water by the flashes of reflected sunlight. Lower and lower the dragon flew, in great spiraling circles, honing in, it seemed, upon one of the smaller lakes.
"Noel!" He shouted, hoping to grab her attention.
Noel herself looked down and realized that if the dragon got low enough they'd be able to jump but she couldn't leave it. She had to help it, it was blind and injured, she had no idea how long it was alone and if she could help it, even if it's getting rid of its large gashes she would do it.
"I say we jump when it gets low enough!" Harry called back to the others. "Straight into the water before it realizes we're here!"
They agreed, Hermione a little faintly, and now Harry could see the dragon's wide yellow underbelly rippling on the surface of the water. "Noel, jump." Harry said his voice full of reason. She looked at him and at the dragon, frighted on which decision to make.
"I can't," she shook her head at him.
"Yes you can. You can, love, I promise he'll be alright." Harry tried but he could see her inner turmoil. "Noel, please, jump off."
Noel closed her eyes tightly, and slid off with the rest of them. Landing in the cold water, she emerged back up, gasping and panting for air. The dragon did not seem to have noticed anything: It was already fifty feet away, swooping low over the lake to scoop up water in its scarred snout.
Noel, Harry, Ron, and Hermione struck out for the opposite shore. The lake did not seem to be deep: Soon it was more a question of fighting their way through reeds and mud than swimming, and at last they flopped, sodden, panting, and exhausted, onto slippery grass. Hermione collapsed, coughing and shuddering.
Though Harry could have happily lain down and slept, he staggered to his feet, drew out his wand, and started casting the usual protective spells around them. When he had finished, he joined the others. It was the first time that he had seen them properly since escaping from the vault.
They were wincing as they dabbed essence of dittany onto their many injuries. Hermione handed Harry the bottle, then pulled out three bottles of pumpkin juice she had brought from Shell Cottage (Pumpkin juice made Noel sick) and clean, dry robes for all of them. They changed and then gulped down the juice.
"Well, on the upside," said Ron finally, who was sitting watching the skin on his hands regrow, "we got the Horcrux. On the downside —"
"— no sword," said Harry through gritted teeth, as Noel dropped dittany on his injuries.
"No sword," repeated Ron. "That double-crossing little scab..."
Harry pulled the Horcrux from the pocket of the wet jacket he had just taken off and set it down on the grass in front of them. Glinting in the sun, it drew their eyes as they swigged their bottles of juice.
"At least we can't wear it this time, that'd look a bit weird hanging round our necks," said Ron, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand.
Hermione looked across the lake to the far bank, where the dragon was drinking water. "What'll happen to it, do you think?" she asked. "Will it be all right?"
"You sound like Hagrid," said Ron. "It's a dragon, Hermione, it can look after itself. It's us we need to worry about."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, I don't know how to break this to you," said Ron, "but I think they might have noticed we broke into Gringotts."
Noel watched Harry as he had suddenly become very quiet, the others watched him worriedly, waiting for him to open his eyes again. Knowing that he was having a vision.
"He knows." His own voice sounded strange and low. "He knows, and he's going to check where the others are, and the last one," he was already on his feet, "is at Hogwarts. I knew it. I knew it."
"What?" Ron was gaping at him; Hermione sat up, looking worried. "But what did you see? How do you know?"
"I saw him find out about the cup, I — I was in his head, he's–he's seriously angry, and scared too, he can't understand how we knew, and now he's going to check the others are safe, the ring first. He thinks the Hogwarts one is safest, because Snape's there, because it'll be so hard not to be seen getting in, I think he'll check that one last, but he could still be there within hours —"
"Did you see where in Hogwarts it is?" asked Ron, now scrambling to his feet too.
"No, he was concentrating on warning Snape, he didn't think about exactly where it is —"
"Wait, wait!" cried Hermione as Ron caught up the Horcrux and Harry pulled out the Invisibility Cloak again. "We can't just go, we haven't got a plan, we need to —"
"We need to get going," said Harry firmly.
"We have to be careful if we enter Hogsmeade," Noel spoke up, "It's being watched by Death Eaters and Snatchers. They're waiting for Harry to show up."
"We're going to have to take the risk, we can't afford for him to move the one that's at Hogwarts." Harry said, pulling the cloak over them. Harry pulled the Cloak down as far as it would go, and together they turned on the spot into the crushing darkness.
Noel's feet touched the road. She saw the achingly familiar Hogsmeade High Street. All the shops and slopes of the small village bringing back memories.
As soon as Harry's grip on her arm relaxed, The air was rent by a scream it tore at every nerve in Noel's body, and she knew immediately that their appearance had caused it. Even as she looked at the other three beneath the Cloak, the door of the Three Broomsticks burst open and a dozen cloaked and hooded Death Eaters dashed into the street, their wands aloft.
Harry seized Ron's wrist as he raised his wand; there were too many of them to Stun: Even attempting it would give away their position. One of the Death Eaters waved his wand and the scream stopped, still echoing around the distant mountains.
"Accio Cloak!" roared one of the Death Eaters. Harry seized its folds, but it made no attempt to escape: The Summoning Charm had not worked on it.
"Not under your wrapper, then, Potter?" yelled the Death Eater who had tried the charm, and then to his fellows, "Spread out. He's here."
Six of the Death Eaters ran toward them: the four backed as quickly as possible down the nearest side street, and the Death Eaters missed them by inches.
They waited in the darkness, listening to the footsteps running up and down, beams of light flying along the street from the Death Eaters' searching wands.
"Let's just leave!" Hermione whispered. "Disapparate now!"
"Great idea," said Ron, but before Harry could reply a Death Eater shouted, "We know you're here, Potter, and there's no getting away! We'll find you!"
"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 —"
The footsteps of the Death Eaters were becoming louder; but before Harry in his panic could decide what to do, there was a grinding of bolts nearby, a door opened on the left-hand side of the narrow street, and a rough voice said, "Potter, in here, quick!" He obeyed without hesitation: They all hurtled through the open doorway. "Upstairs, keep the Cloak on, keep quiet!" muttered a tall figure, passing them on his way into the street and slamming the door behind him.
They ran behind the counter and through a second doorway, which led to a rickety wooden staircase that they climbed as fast as they could. The stairs opened onto a sitting room with a threadbare carpet and a small fireplace, above which hung a single large oil painting of a blonde girl who gazed out at the room with a kind of vacant sweetness.
"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 traffic potions and poisons when my pub's closed down? What'll happen to your little sidelines then?"
"All right, we made a mistake," said the second Death Eater. "Break curfew again and we won't be so lenient!" The Death Eaters strode back toward the High Street.
Hermione moaned with relief, wove out from under the Cloak, and sat down on a wobble-legged chair. Noel followed out but she was mesmerized by the portrait.
Harry drew the curtains tight shut, then pulled the Cloak off himself and Ron. They could hear the barman down below, rebolting the door of the bar, then climbing the stairs.
Harry's attention was caught by something on the mantelpiece: a small, rectangular mirror propped on top of it, right beneath the portrait of the girl. The barman entered the room.
"You bloody fools," he said gruffly, looking from one to the other of them. "What were you thinking, coming here?"
"Thank you," said Harry. "We can't thank you enough. You saved our lives." The barman grunted.
Harry approached him, looking up into the face, trying to see past the long, stringy, wire-gray hair and beard. He wore spectacles. Behind the dirty lenses, the eyes were a piercing, brilliant blue. "It's your eye I've been seeing in the mirror."
There was silence in the room. Harry and the barman 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 barman's face was impassive. After a few moments he said, "I'm sorry to hear it. I liked that elf."
"You're Aberforth," said Harry to the man's back. He neither confirmed nor denied it, but bent to light the fire. "How did you get this?" Harry asked, walking across to Sirius's mirror, the twin of the one he had broken nearly two years before.
"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."
"I got food," said Aberforth, and he sloped out of the room, reappearing moments later with a large loaf of bread, some cheese, and a pewter jug of mead, which he set upon a small table in front of the fire.
Ravenous, they ate and drank, and for a while there was silence but for the crackle of the fire, the clink of goblets, and the sound of chewing. "Right then," said Aberforth when they had eaten their fill, and Harry and Ron sat slumped dozily in their chairs. "We need to think of the best way to get you out of here."
"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?"
Ron gave a rather grim laugh. Hermione was looking strained. Noel shifted uncomfortably, the air felt very tense. "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 roughly. "Let it go, boy, before you follow him! Save yourself!"
"I can't."
"Why not?"
"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 wanted with all his heart to say "Yes," but somehow the simple word would not rise to his lips. Aberforth seemed to know what he was thinking. "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."
The old man's eyes traveled to the painting of the girl over the mantelpiece. It was, now Harry looked around properly, the only picture in the room. There was no photograph of Albus Dumbledore, nor of anyone else.
"Mr. Dumbledore?" said Hermione rather timidly. "Is that your sister? Ariana?"
"Yes," said Aberforth tersely. "Been reading Rita Skeeter, have you, missy?"
Even by the rosy light of the fire it was clear that Hermione had turned red.
"Elphias Doge mentioned her to us," said Harry, trying to spare Hermione.
"That old berk," muttered Aberforth, taking another swig of mead. "Thought the sun shone out of my brother's every orifice, he did. Well, so did plenty of people, you three included, by the looks of it."
"Professor Dumbledore cared about Harry, very much," said Hermione in a low voice.
"Did he now?" said Aberforth. "Funny thing, how many of the people my brother cared about very much ended up in a worse state than if he'd left 'em well alone."
"What do you mean?" asked Hermione breathlessly.
"Never you mind," said Aberforth. "But that's a really serious thing to say!" said Hermione. "Are you — are you talking about your sister?"
Aberforth glared at her: His lips moved as if he were chewing the words he was holding back. Then he burst into speech. "When my sister was six years old, she was attacked, set upon, by three Muggle boys. They'd seen her doing magic, spying through the back garden hedge: She was a kid, she couldn't control it, no witch or wizard can at that age. What they saw scared them, I expect. They forced their way through the hedge, and when she couldn't show them the trick, they got a bit carried away trying to stop the little freak doing it."
Hermione's eyes were huge in the firelight; Ron and Noel looked sick. She wanted to tell him to stop, she didn't want to hear it anymore.
Aberforth stood up, tall as Albus, and suddenly terrible in his anger and the intensity of his pain. "It destroyed her, what they did: She was never right again. She wouldn't use magic, but she couldn't get rid of it; it turned inward and drove her mad, it exploded out of her when she couldn't control it, and at times she was strange and dangerous. But mostly she was sweet and scared and harmless."
"I'm so sorry," Noel whispered, she hadn't meant to say it outloud but she felt sincerely sorry. What startled Aberforth wasn't the fact that she had said it but the fact that she had said it to Ariana's portrait, the only person who deserved to hear the apology.
Aberforth remained fixed in his chair, gazing at Noel with the eyes that were 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 Ariana. "You know what to do," he said.
She smiled, turned, and walked away, not as people in portraits usually did, out of the sides of their frames, but along what seemed to be a long tunnel painted behind her. They watched her slight figure retreating until finally she was swallowed by the 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 Ariana's 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 Harry had ever seen it: He appeared 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 forward on the wall like a little door, and the entrance to a real tunnel was revealed. And out of it, his hair overgrown, his face cut, his robes ripped, clambered the real Neville Longbottom, who gave a roar of delight, leapt down from the mantelpiece, and yelled, "I knew you'd come! I knew it, Harry!"