Keeping a Promise

Chapter 23

"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 heburst into speech:

"When my sister was six years old, she was attacked, set upon, by three Muggle boys. They'd seen herdoing magic, spying through the back garden hedge: she was a kid, she couldn't control it, no witch orwizard 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 looked slightly sick. Aberforth stood up, tall as Albus, and suddenly terrible in his anger and the intensity of his pain. He continued to tell us a heartbreaking story of how he loved his sister and then was killed. She was murdered by getting in the middle of a fight between Albus, Aberforth, and Grindlewald, Albus's best friend. He was also another evil wizard, much like Voldemort was. I tried to hold back tears as he told the story, but it wasn't something I could do while listening. Neither could Kamrynn or Astoria could hold back their tears.

"– and I think she wanted to help, but she didn't really know what she was doing, and I don't know which of us did it, it could have been any of us – and she was dead." 

His voice broke on the last word and he dropped down into the nearest chair. Hermione's face was wet with tears and Ron was almost as pale as Aberforth. Harry looked as though he could punch someone or something. I wiped my tears away quickly. I don't think we were supposed to hear most of that. Ron gently grabbed my hand as I set it on my knee. I looked up and smiled at him before pulling my hand away. 

"I'm so ... I'm so sorry," Hermione whispered. 

"Gone," croaked Aberforth. "Gone forever." He wiped his nose on his cuff, and cleared his throat.''Course, Grindelwald scarpered. He had a bit of a track record already, back in his own country, and he didn't want Ariana set to his account too. And Albus was free, wasn't he? Free of the burden of his sister, free to become the greatest wizard of the –

 "He was never free," said Harry. 

"I beg your pardon?" said Aberforth.

"Never," said Harry. '"he night that your brother died he drank a potion that drove him out of his mind. He started screaming, pleading with someone who wasn't there. "Don't hurt them, please ... hurt me instead." '

I exchanged looks with Astoria and Kamrynn. We were definitely not meant to be here. We were just wallflowers just waiting on our next move, but instead we were here waiting on Harry to make the next call. When we were on different journeys, I was the one that was leading the group. I made most of the calls, but with The Golden Trio, Harry was the one in charge. Perhaps we should've went back to The Order. 

But the pull to Hogwarts was literally driving me insane. We were so close. 

'We need to get into Hogwarts,' said Harry again. 'If you can't help us, we'll wait 'til daybreak, leaveyou in peace and try to find a way in ourselves. If you can help us – well, now would be a great time tomention it.' 

Aberforth remained fixed in his chair, gazing at Harry every few seconds.  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 figurers treating 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 look out, isn't it? You say you're prepared to die."

We were all so confused. There was nothing that was quite making sense. There was only one way into Hogwarts now? Who were the Carrows? We really had to be 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 towards 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. He looked familiar, but his hair was longer than I 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 forwards 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!