Chapter 443: Geralt Goes Shopping

Regulus woke in the middle of the night to claws scratching at wood.

Several small grey shapes were running along the base of the wall toward the underside of the bed.

Two lifetimes, and this was the first time he’d shared a room with rats.

He flicked a finger under the blanket. Second form of the Decomposition Curse, no sound, no light, released and pulled back inside a very small radius.

The room went quiet. A few piles of ash sat in the shadow along the wall.

He pointed at the boards. The iron frame became oak, the collapsed springs rearranged themselves, and the sagging curve adjusted until it fit his spine. Whatever the pillow had been stuffed with turned into goose down.

A warming charm. Silencing charms on all four walls, cutting off the swearing downstairs and the goat in the back yard. A barrier over the gap in the window frame.

Roughing it was roughing it, but he had the means.

He rolled over and was asleep two minutes later.

In the morning the Hog’s Head served breakfast, which was itself a surprise.

A plate of greyish-white paste, somewhere between porridge and wallpaper glue, with a skin across the top that wobbled when the spoon touched it. Two slices of toast burnt black and shiny, the knife going through with a crunch and the inside cold. A cup of suspiciously coloured liquid Aberforth said was tea.

Regulus spooned up some of the paste. Far too salty, with a sourness he couldn’t place and a bitter aftertaste. It was already in his mouth. He chewed twice and swallowed.

Aberforth stood behind the bar with the air of a man who didn’t care either way.

Dumbledore was working through a piece of hard toast, entirely composed.

Regulus looked at that untroubled face and thought he’d found the root of the old man’s sweet tooth.

He decided he’d eat lunch somewhere else.

Dumbledore wasn’t going out. If the Headmaster turned up in the village on a Hogsmeade weekend the students would talk, and word would reach ears it shouldn’t. He seemed happy enough to stay in. Aberforth would swear, he’d answer back, they’d both go quiet, and once the silence ran out it would start again.

Regulus went out alone. He’d been through Hogsmeade several times, always on business. Wandering it was new.

Mid-March, most of the snow melted, the cobbles wet and catching the sun.

Students everywhere, in pairs and in crowds. A knot of them pressed up against the window of Honeydukes, noses on the glass, staring at a new gift box of Bertie Bott’s beans. A queue outside Zonko’s, two Gryffindor boys chasing each other with a fake toad while a few others threw Dungbombs. Dervish and Banges had a Wizarding Wireless in the window turned up loud, some shrill-voiced wizard reading out an international news item that was obviously made up.

Regulus walked up the main street, silver-white hair loose over his shoulders, the heat off his skin bending the cold air into a faint shimmer.

Six foot tall in a short waistcoat, he stood out. People turned to look. Mostly girls.

They started pointing from halfway down the street, three or four heads together, eyes following him. When he turned his head their way they all looked off in different directions at once.

A group of Ravenclaw girls came out of Honeydukes with paper bags in their arms. One spotted him and tugged at her friend’s sleeve, and several heads turned together.

They thought they were keeping their voices down.

Regulus didn’t look over, and kept walking.

The boys watched him differently. A group of Hufflepuffs came out of Dervish and Banges with a new Wireless between them. One glanced over, elbowed his friend, and said something under his breath. The friend looked up once and looked away again.

The corner of Regulus’s mouth went up.

Geralt’s face started brawls in taverns and turned heads in the street. Full range of functions.

He had lunch at the Three Broomsticks, and Madam Rosmerta brought the tray over herself.

Blonde hair loosely pinned up with a few strands falling by her ears, dark green eyes, the warm smell of Butterbeer and spices around her.

She set the tray down, rested her fingers on the edge of it, and didn’t leave. Her eyes went over his face, then the line of his shoulders, and her mouth curved.

“Haven’t seen you before. New around here?”

Regulus looked up and nodded.

“Where are you from?” She tilted her head, one hand braced on the table.

“North.” He picked up his fork.

Rosmerta raised an eyebrow. She’d run this place for years and knew which customers to push.

She tucked the tray under her arm and stepped back. “Not many come down from the north. Those eyes are easy to remember, though. Come back and I’ll know you.”

“I’ll come back.”

She smiled and walked off, apron strings swinging behind her.

Regulus watched her go, speared a piece of beef, and chewed slowly.

In another twenty years she’d be under Lucius’s son’s Imperius Curse, held there completely, in a girls’ bathroom.

He swallowed and took another piece.

Thick slices of roast beef with rich gravy, the Yorkshire pudding light and crisp, butter stirred into the mashed potatoes.

After breakfast at the Hog’s Head, it was salvation.

The old man was probably still sitting there with a plate of paste in front of him. He’d finish the whole thing without a flicker and then say the flavour was very distinctive.

Regulus’s mouth twitched.

It got fully dark.

The moon came up from behind the hills to the southeast and hung at the edge of the cloud, big and bright, not quite full. Silver light lay across the cobbles.

In the Hog’s Head, Aberforth was pushing the last stack of glasses into the cupboard under the bar. The fire was down to a few coals going light and dark in the ash. The goat had curled up in the hay.

Dumbledore stood by the door watching the brother he’d spent all day arguing with.

Aberforth didn’t look up. “What?”

“Nothing.”

Regulus held out his arm. Dumbledore came over and took hold of it.

Regulus turned his head toward the bar and grinned. “Thanks for having me, Mr. Dumbledore.”

Aberforth’s hands stopped. He looked up, blue eyes narrowing, working out whether that was politeness or mockery.

His pub was famously filthy. His breakfast was something the goat wouldn’t eat. Every room had rats.

He went with mockery. “Don’t come back.”

Then his eyes moved from this person whose name he still didn’t know to the hand Dumbledore had put on his arm. His expression turned odd. “Stick with him and you’ll want to stay off the roads at night.”

Regulus raised an eyebrow. He’s the one following me.

Dumbledore’s beard twitched. “Goodnight, Aberforth.”

Aberforth grunted.

The air twisted with a crack.

He stood where he was, staring at the empty doorway, then blew air out through his nose and went back through to the rear room.