Chapter Twenty-Eight: The Missing Mirror
Harry, Ron, and Hermione appear in Hogsmeade, but their
appearance triggers a magical alarm that sounds like loud screaming.
A dozen Death Eaters burst out of the Three Broomsticks pub in search
of them. Though they remain under the Invisibility Cloak, they have
nowhere to hide, and they infer from the Death Eaters’ comments
that enchantments will keep them from teleporting away again. The
Death Eaters unleash dementors in search of them, and Harry summons
his Patronus, potentially giving their position away.
Before the Death Eaters can find them, however, a door
opens in a house on the street, and a rough voice summons them inside
and into a room above the Hog’s Head Inn. Still cloaked, they look
out the window down at the street below, where the man who saved them—whom
Harry recognizes as the Hog’s Head barman—argues with the Death
Eaters. The man claims that it was he who set off the alarm, letting
his cat out after curfew. He claims that the Patronus was his own
goat Patronus, not Harry’s stag, and points out that Voldemort won’t
want to be summoned over a cat. Mindful that the Hog’s Head bar
is a convenient place for them to trade black market goods, the
Death Eaters leave him alone.
Harry recognizes the man’s blue eyes as those he’s been
seeing through the magic mirror, and he realizes that this man must
be Aberforth, Dumbledore’s brother, and that Aberforth was the one who
sent Dobby. Aberforth acknowledges that he’s been trying to keep
an eye on Harry, though it was not he who led them to the sword.
Aberforth tries to convince Harry that Voldemort has already won,
and that Harry should abandon his quest—whatever it is—and leave
the country, before he meets Dumbledore’s fate. He reminds them
of his brother Dumbledore’s penchant for lies and secrecy, and says
that many of those Dumbledore loved and cared for turned out to
be worse off than if he’d left them alone.
Hermione guesses that Aberforth is talking about his sister,
Ariana, and prods him into giving them the real story of what happened to
her. Ariana was not a Squib, as Rita Skeeter claimed. When she was
six years old, as her magic was beginning to manifest itself but before
she could control it, she was observed doing magic by three much
older Muggle boys, who attacked her in some unspecified way, leaving
her permanently unhinged. Dumbledore’s father was imprisoned in
Azkaban for attacking these boys, and Dumbledore’s early flirtation
with the idea of wizards dominating Muggles stemmed from anger at
what had happened to his sister and father, coupled with a wish
to create a world in which his sister would not have to hide.
Dumbledore returned home when his mother, Kendra, died
and took responsibility for Ariana. He met Grindelwald, and the
two began hatching grand plans to change the world, wanting to set
off as soon as possible. Aberforth confronted them, pointing out
that Ariana was in no fit state to travel or be left alone, so they
had no way to do whatever it was they wanted to do. As the argument
grew heated, Aberforth drew his wand, and Grindelwald used the Cruciatus
(torturing) curse on him. As the three fought, Ariana came to intervene,
and one of the curses the three wizards were hurling at each other
killed her. Grindelwald left immediately, and Dumbledore was free
to embark on his career.
