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Mia's feet touched the road.
She saw the achingly familiar Hogsmeade High Street: dark shop fronts, and the mist line of black mountains beyond the village and the curve in the road ahead that led off toward Hogwarts, and light spilling from the windows of the Three Broomsticks, and with a lurch of the heart, she remembered with piercing accuracy, how she had landed here nearly a year before, supporting a desperately weak Dumbledore, all this in a second, upon landing, and then, even as she relaxed her grip upon Ron's and Hermione's arms, it happened.
The air was rent by a scream that sounded like Voldemort's when he realised the cup had been stolen. It tore at every nerve in Mia's body, and he knew that their appearance had caused it. The door of the Three Broomsticks burst open, and a dozen cloaked and hooded Death Eaters dashed into the streets, their wands aloft.
Mia seized Ron's wrist, and Harry grabbed Hermione's, and they all hid behind a table in the nearest pub. One of the Death Eaters raised his wand, and the scream stopped, still echoing around the distant mountains.
"Accio Cloak!" roared one of the Death Eaters. Harry seized Hermione's beaded bag, but it did not attempt to escape. The Summoning Charm had not worked on it."Not under your wrapper, then, Potters?" yelled the DeathEater who had tried the charm and then to his fellows. "Spread now. They're here."
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. Mia held her breath as she heard their footsteps getting louder and louder. Her eyes went red as a small energy ball appeared at her fingertips. Muttering under her breath, she flicked her fingers towards the opposite direction, causing a loud crash.
"POTTER!"
Before Mia in her panic could decide what to do, there was a grinding of bolts nearby, a door opened on the left-side of the narrow street, and a rough voice said: "Potters, in here, quick!"
The twins obeyed without hesitation and the four of them hurried through the open doorway. As Mia walked in, she got a glance of the man and had to do a double take before she carried on walking.
Mia had had no idea where they were, but now she saw, by the stuttering light of a single candle, the grubby, sawdust bar of the Hog's Head Inn. They ran behind the counter and through a second doorway, which led to a trickery wooden staircase, that they climbed as fast as they could. The stairs opened into a sitting room with a durable 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 a vacant sweetness.
"Did you look at him?" Ron asked as the four of them stood together. "For a second I thought that was. . . ."
"I know," Hermione whispered, "Dumbledore!"
Mia sighed as she looked around and furrowed her eyebrows. Her attention was caught by something on the mantel piece:a small, rectangular mirror. She looked at it and saw her brother's face.
"Harry?" Mia asked. "I can see you in this."
Harry looked at his sister before getting out the mirror and looking into it and seeing his sister's ginger hair and bright blue eye. Before either of them could speak, the barman entered the room again.
"You bloody fools, what are you thinking coming here?"
Mia turned to him and furrowed her eyebrows. Mia approached him looking up into the face: trying to see past the long, stringy, wire-grey hair beard.He wore spectacles. Behind the dirty lenses, the eyes were a piercing, brilliant blue.
"Have you any idea how dangerous it is?"
"You're Aberforth," Mia said, "Dumbledore's brother."
"It's you who I've been seeing in here," Harry said, motioning towards the mirror. "You're the one who sent Dobby."
"Where've you left him?" Aberforth asked.
"He dies," Mia said, her voice slightly shaky as Aberforth hesitated.
"Sorry to hear it," he said, "I liked that elf."
"Me too," Mia said, a sad smile on her face.
"Who gave that to you?" Harry demanded. "The mirror?"
"Mundungus Fletcher," Aberforth said, "about a year ago. Albus told me what it was. Been trying to keep an eye out for you."
"Dung had no right selling that to you," Harry snapped as Mia looked at him. "It belongs to. . . ."
"Sirius," Aberforth finished, "Albus told me. He also told me you'd likely be hacked off, if you ever found that I had it. But, ask yourself this, where would you be if I didn't?"
"Dead in a ditch," Mia shrugged.
"Do you have any others much?" Hermione asked, "from the Order?"
"The Order has finished," Aberforth said as Mia looked at him. "You-Know-Who has won, anyone who says otherwise is killing themselves."
"I know how to kill him," Mia said, "and to do that, we need to get into Hogwarts tonight."
"Dumbledore gave us a job to do," Harry added.
"Did he now," Aberforth said in a tone that made Mia believe he was mocking them, "nice job? Easy?"
"We've been hunting Horcruxes," Mia said, "we think the last one's inside the castle. But we'll need your help getting in."
"It's not a job my brother has given you, it's a suicide mission," Aberforth said as Mia looked at him.
"Maybe," she said, "but I'd rather die knowing I did everything I could to save the people I love."
"Do yourself a favour, girl go home!" he said as Mia shook her head. "Live a little longer."
"You don't get it," Mia said, "he's coming to kill us. He'll find us, and he'll kill every last man, woman and child who gets in his way. It's kill or be killed, and I know which one I'd rather do. Dumbledore trusted us to do this and we got to. . . ."
"Got to'? Why got to? He's dead, isn't he?" said Aberforth roughly. "Let it go, girl, before you follow him! Save yourself!"
"Because my mother and father died to save my life," Mia snapped, her eyes flickering red. "Because they gave their lives to save mine, not knowing if we would even fucking survive. They are the reason I am here tonight, they are the reason I am trying to kill him. Because I will not let them, and the hundreds of other people that pasty ass bastard killed die in vain. You have given up, that I can see bullshit, but I have not. I care enough about the people I love to fight for them. I would rather die, knowing I fought to my very last breath then let You-Know-Who destroy the people I love most. I don't give two fucks about what happened between you and your brother, not my fucking problem. But this will be your problem if you don't help us. We need to get into the castle tonight, with or without your help."
Aberforth remained fixed in his chair, gazing at Mia with the eye, 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, one 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.
A tiny white dot reappeared at the end of the painted tunnel,and now Ariana was walking back toward them, growing biggerand bigger as she came. But there was somebody else with her now, someone taller than she was, who was limping along, lookingexcited. His hair was longer than Mia had ever seen. He appearedand torn. Larger and larger the two figures grew, until only theirheads and shoulders filled the portrait. Then the whole thing swangforward on the wall like a little door, and the entrance to a realtunnel was revealed.
