HA 6b: Aberforth

HIM AGAIN: Chapter 6: Curse Him - Aberforth

Hagrid found himself nervously knocking on the front door of the Potters’ house three weeks later. Usually, delight at seeing Harry again was enough to overwhelm him, but this reunion meeting would be overshadowed by his task. The flying instructor would be interrogating him afterwards and there was no escaping Madam Hooch when she was on target.

Most of the remaining Order members were there already, sat round the Potters’ dining room table, cooing at Brian. They met up once a year - and there had been an unspoken agreement that Order reunions also encompassed DA reunions - and so the first person Hagrid saw was Neville Long bottom - grinning and laughing as the Weasley twins displayed some of their new products. Remus - the years seemingly having dropped off him at the end of the war - was sat next to Tonks, who was entertaining their six-year-old daughter with her malleable face. The incongruous sight of Alastor Moody, scarred and grizzled, holding Brian, barely out of babyhood, was enough to made Hagrid beam. There was much handshaking and hellos before everyone settled down.

“Is Minerva coming?” Remus asked concernedly, looking at the groundskeeper.

“Er - um - I think-” blustered Hagrid. Moody’s eye rolled round to look at him.

“Up to something, Hagrid?”

“Dunno what yeh’re on about-”

At that moment, Minerva entered. Remus smiled but Moody’s eye swept her up and down with a critical look. His ravaged face stiffened, drawing the scars deeper. Hagrid’s elbow jerked off the table; how was he going to ask her?

He’d even rehearsed the conversation in his cabin.

“Professor McGonagall, I was wonderin’-”

“Headmistress, I’d jus’ like ter ask yeh, because I’m worried…”

“Professor McGonagall, now I know it might be personal…”

“Zis McGonagall, ze is sztealing you away from moi, Rrrubeus,” Olympe had said, when she’d overheard.

“Cup of tea? Cup of tea, anyone?” Ginny hovered, the content image of domesticity. Hagrid smiled distractedly as her soft eyes rested on her husband and then moved on. The black-haired man’s emerald pair followed her out the door and into the kitchen and then drifted lazily around the room, seeming to drink in the sight of peace anew.

Another happy couple flashed into Hagrid’s head - another rebellious black mop and another set of russet locks. It was odd; how the Potters went for red-heads. He smiled genuinely at the connection he’d made - and felt a sudden burst of warmth as he looked around at them. The change a few years had made was brilliant, incredible. The people gathered there were at ease, their bodies a mass of relaxed curves and lines, their cheeks flushed with health and their eyes bright, quite unlike the set of haggard, worn individuals who had bitten their nails to the quick in Grimmauld Place.

“Yes, please. Oh no - I don’t take sugar.”

Minerva’s clipped voice roused him. No, that last thought hadn’t been quite true. Peace had damaged her rather than healed her - and Merlin knew why. He felt his brow crease in a frown. Something in the war - or just afterwards - had extinguished her spirit - and there was no forgetting that the Order had not escaped Voldemort unscathed.

Voldemort! Hagrid started in his seat. He could think the name now.

They had lost Sirius - now only a mass of tangled black hair and a wasted face to Hagrid, but he remembered the laughter and the handsome man Azkaban had all but destroyed. He hadn’t been there, but Harry’s face alone had conjured the Veil from Department of Mysteries and near pasted it on his mind.

A succession of grim images passed before his eyes. Who could forget Percy Weasley, redeeming himself through death and blood? Who could banish the sight of Dedalus Diggle having his soul tapped from his body by a Dementor? What person could escape the picture of Albus Dumbledore dead on the grass beneath the Astronomy Tower, spectacles askew and limbs akimbo?

A great man, Dumbledore, Hagrid repeated to himself, almost religiously. It was a scene from nightmares.

He shook himself and sat up straight. No point dwelling on things, he told himself sternly. Does no good at all. You’d do well to get on with your task.

“Professor McGonagall?” he said, conscious of Moody’s eye resting on him.

She looked up at him, hands clasped around her cup and her back straight, the image of the eminent Hogwarts Headmistress. Professor Hagrid, groundskeeper and Care of Magical Creatures teacher, was asking her a question. Hagrid’s courage flickered, like a candle about to go out.

“Uh,” he began. “Professor-”

“Hagrid, you have my undivided attention.”

“Er. Well, beggin’ your pardon-”

“Aberforth!” Remus cried, shocked.

A tall, thin wizard was standing in the threshold of the room, his beard and robes dripping. He looked so thoroughly irritated and somehow out of place that the whole congregation gaped at him. Then Moody started up from his seat and hobbled forwards.

“Abe. Haven’t seen you for a while now. Decided to show up at last, eh?”

Aberforth grunted and retreated to the nearest chair, which happened to be next to Harry. He directed a curt nod at the younger man and then shot a look at Ginny, as if to say, “where’s my tea?”

Hagrid watched as Ginny rolled her eyes and approached the old man with a smile that defied his sullen expression - and then realised that the Headmistress was still waiting for his question. Embarrassed, he looked back at her and opened his mouth. His jaw clamped shut again at the sight before him.

Minerva’s appearance was horrifying. The Headmistress was hunched in her chair, eyes fixed unblinkingly on Aberforth, the hands encircling the cup trembling. Her face was as pale as one of the Hogwarts ghosts and she looked stricken by some terrible calamity.

Hagrid found himself immobilised in panic. He had never, ever seen Minerva so distressed, so unlike Professor McGonagall. The calm, stiff essence that was the former Head of Gryffindor was shattered; sat before him now was someone frightened out of their wits, agonised…

Ill, he thought suddenly, ill! There was something wrong-!

“Headmistress!”

Minerva started; the cup dropped from her hands and scalding liquid spurted over her robes. At the same time her face switched back into an expression of impassivity; a door had closed, hiding a dark room from view.

“Professor!” Ginny was bustling over. Moody’s eye was dancing between Hagrid, Minerva and Aberforth, making connections. Aberforth himself was staring at the Headmistress with a look of annoyed confusion.

Hagrid sat back, thoroughly bewildered. He glanced at the old man and then looked away, suppressing a shiver, before scratching his head. All this was beyond him, he felt. Minerva’s horror was seemed to be centred in Aberforth - but how, and why?