Chapter 442 - An Ordinary Dumbledore

Chapter 442: Chapter 442 - An Ordinary Dumbledore

Aberforth gave Regulus a once-over, frowned, and turned back to his brother. "At least this one doesn’t talk much. Better than the last one. That one spent a whole evening lecturing me about international politics, and before his backside was warm he was telling me how to run a pub."

Dumbledore cleared his throat. "That was a clerk of the Wizengamot. Conversation isn’t his strong suit."

"The Wizengamot? That lot only know how to read out paperwork. Can’t name half the drinks in a pub and he wants to tell me how to run one."

Dumbledore’s mouth moved. He was Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot. The words got as far as his lips, and then he swallowed them and sighed.

Regulus’s eyes went back and forth between them and settled on Aberforth.

Wait until you do something you shouldn’t with a goat. Then you’ll find out what the Wizengamot can do.

Aberforth dragged a coarse clay bottle out from under the bar, pulled the cork, and poured half a glass of something cloudy and faintly green into a dusty glass. Sediment settled at the bottom.

"Drink. Homemade gin. You won’t get it anywhere else."

Dumbledore took a sip. His expression held for about half a second. His eyes blinked twice, his lips tightened and released, and his throat worked as he forced it down.

"...A very distinctive flavour."

"Distinctive? You mean it’s awful."

Dumbledore’s eyes narrowed. He didn’t nod and he didn’t shake his head, and his throat moved again.

"This is all I’ll be selling from now on. Anyone who comes in drinks it." Aberforth set the bottle down hard, poured himself a glass, took a big swallow, and didn’t blink. "You want Butterbeer, go to Honeydukes. You want to flirt with Rosmerta, out the door and turn left."

Regulus’s mouth twitched.

Stock the worst drink available and send anyone who wants better down the street. It was a wonder the place had survived at all.

Then again, the Order met here. Whatever brought you in, you still had to order something, and not ordering meant insulting the owner. Whether you could get it down was your problem. The owner could get it down.

"Go on, then." Aberforth put both hands on the bar. "What is it this time? Another favour? Somebody else about to die?"

He started reciting the titles. "Albus Dumbledore. Chief Sorcerer. Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot. Headmaster of Hogwarts. Supreme Mugwump of the International Confederation of Wizards. All that, and every time you come here it’s to clean up after somebody. Whose mess is it this time?"

Dumbledore looked up. "I was passing through. I wanted to see you."

Aberforth blew air out of his nose and turned his head away. He pulled another bottle off the shelf, bit the cork out, took a swallow. "Suit yourself. Every time you say that you’re never here long."

Dumbledore opened his mouth.

Regulus turned to look, the corner of his mouth going up.

Dumbledore felt it and glanced over. His blue eyes flickered.

He cleared his throat. "Aberforth isn’t usually this talkative."

"You brought someone here so I’d keep my mouth shut?"

Dumbledore’s mouth closed.

He picked up his glass, took a sip, and turned to Regulus with a stubbornness that refused to admit anything. "He really isn’t usually this talkative."

Regulus grinned and lifted his chin. Carry on.

"Aberforth, how have things been in Hogsmeade lately? Anything unusual?"

"If you want to ask something, ask it. Don’t use that headmaster voice on me. There are no students here to perform for. Are you a student?" He turned and shouted at Regulus. "Are you a bloody student?"

The corner of Dumbledore’s eye twitched.

Regulus waved a hand, expression unchanged.

Aberforth grunted and let it go. He’d been shouting at that hide most of his life.

He tidied the glasses, wrung out the rag, and headed for the yard. "Goat hasn’t been fed. Sort yourselves out."

The curtain swung. The goat stopped chewing and followed him, hooves clopping across the floor.

Regulus looked back at Dumbledore. "Is that how everyone in your family treats guests?"

Dumbledore picked up the glass Aberforth had poured and drank from it. "He’s exercising his rights as a younger brother."

"What rights?"

Dumbledore’s eyes crinkled behind the half-moon spectacles. "Reminding me, every day for decades, that I’m really just an ordinary man."

He went around behind the bar and bent down to rummage in a cupboard. Bread and cheese beside a half-empty gin bottle with a loose cork, a half-sliced pickled cucumber on a board, yesterday’s butter dried on the back of the knife.

He cut both badly, put it on a chipped clay plate, and carried it over.

Regulus bit into a piece of bread. Hard, cold, dry. Edible.

Dumbledore sat across from him with his elbows on the crooked table, the glass of green gin in front of him, entirely at ease.

"What are you looking at?" He glanced up, a little wary.

Regulus picked up another piece of bread. "Nothing."

It got late. Aberforth came back in, looked at the two of them, then at the half-eaten food, and grunted.

He took a rusty key off the wall and slid it down the bar. Regulus caught it.

"Upstairs, end of the corridor. Bed’s rubbish, sheets are old. Sleep or don’t." He glared at Dumbledore. "You know where you sleep."

Regulus headed for the stairs. As he passed, Aberforth spoke without looking up, his voice hoarse. "You’re young. Follow him around and don’t expect it to end well."

Regulus held up the key, shook it, and went upstairs.

The room at the end of the corridor was narrow, an iron-framed bed against the window. The bedding was old and smelled of nothing. He said sleep or don’t, but he’d washed what needed washing.

A hanging lamp with dead insects collected in the shade. The window faced a back alley, the roof of Honeydukes beyond it, and further off the towers of Hogwarts in the moonlight.

He flicked a silent Cleaning Charm off his fingertips and the grease came off the key.

He stood at the window and worked the dust and broken heather out of his hair. The burns on the waistcoat had repaired themselves and the scrapes on the cuffs were gone. McGonagall’s work held up.

Footsteps came to the door and Dumbledore pushed it open, crossing to the window with moonlight on his white hair.

Regulus sat down on the edge of the bed. "Your brother..."

"He isn’t a bad man."

Regulus let it go. "What’s the plan tomorrow?"

Dumbledore turned around, eyebrows up. "What would you like to do?"

"Go see the werewolves." Regulus pushed the window open a crack, and the night air lifted his hair. "North Yorkshire, that mining village. I set something up there a while back. I want to see how it worked out."

Dumbledore’s eyes brightened.

Regulus didn’t explain what he’d set up. "Tomorrow’s a full moon."

"Good."

Dumbledore turned for the door, then looked back and winked. "Get some rest, Geralt."

"Goodnight, Professor."

The door closed and the footsteps faded.

Downstairs, cups and plates knocked together and Aberforth muttered to himself. It went quiet for a bit. Then two more curses.

The springs dug into Regulus’s back.

Edgar Tomlin had gone into the full moon with Bellatrix’s guardian will anchored deep in his soul. He’d come through one already. Tomorrow was the second.

If the anchor had taken, Edgar would be the first werewolf to keep his mind through a full moon.

Some things, once you’ve made them, deserve to be seen. Especially by someone who can understand what he’s looking at.

Regulus rolled over and closed his eyes.

Werewolves tomorrow.

---

Join my Patreon for early access to Chapters: patreon.com/rivyura