New Resident in the Office

"Brother, long time no see," Armor Brother called out to Nelson after dinner. Nelson had just finished cleaning the pet-wrecked dormitory and was dragging his exhausted body toward Dumbledore's office door, about to knock. "Where have you been making your fortune lately?"

"Ah... hello!" Nelson greeted the armor with flattered surprise. Mimicking its roguish manner, he cupped his hands in salute. "Same as always—not quite good enough, not quite bad enough. You, on the other hand, are still as impressive as ever."

"You always talk such nonsense." The armor raised an arm to scratch its head, looking a little embarrassed. A barbell-like laugh echoed hollowly through its shell with a clanking ho ho ho. Perhaps because it moved too wildly, the raised arm guard and gauntlet fell to the floor together. "Oh, awkward."

"You look like you've earned great merit with all these injuries." Nelson picked up its fallen half-arm and reattached it, getting dust all over his hand. "Shall I clean you up?"

"Much obliged." Armor Brother nodded. Nelson pulled out his wand and pointed it at him. "Scourgify!"

"Thank you so much. I've always wanted to take a bath, but I was afraid I'd scare the students." Armor Brother kept up its barbell-like laughter as it bent down and pulled open Dumbledore's office door. "Go on in. Dumbledore's been waiting for you for ages. Now that you've got a brother here, you won't even need a password to come by!"

"Th-thank you." Nelson nodded and bowed slightly in thanks as he entered the office, while a deep concern for Hogwarts' security rose within him.

He entered Dumbledore's office—now Aberforth's office—and found Aberforth lying sideways on the high-backed velvet sofa behind the desk, one leg crossed over the other and propped atop the desk. His mud-caked Martin boots rested carelessly against a crystal ink bottle. The sun had not yet set. Evening light streamed in sideways through the window behind him, which overlooked the Hogwarts grounds, filling the small office. Backlit as he was, the still-young man's face could not be seen clearly at all.

"You're here, Nelson."

"Mr. Aberforth." Nelson looked around the office he had visited once before. Compared to a week ago, it seemed largely unchanged. Perhaps Aberforth did not want to alter its furnishings too much, or perhaps the two brothers simply shared the same tastes.

Nelson keenly noticed the difference in the office. Compared to how empty it had been when Dumbledore occupied it, it no longer seemed quite so desolate. There was now someone extra in the painting of a drab little house by the window—though it would have been impossible not to notice. If a person suddenly appeared in an otherwise monotonous painting, failing to notice would have been the strange thing.

He studied the girl in the portrait closely and found her familiar. Wasn't she the girl in the painting he had encountered on his way to send a letter at Ravenclaw Tower that night? The corridor outside the Slytherin Common Room had frightened him badly enough that he had not gotten a proper look at her then. This time, he saw her clearly. Her hair was not silver; it was merely a sickly, pale reddish brown, somewhat similar to Nelson's own. She wore old-fashioned braids that hung serenely over her shoulders. Her complexion was fair and bloodless, but her features were gentle. She wore a clean yet old, ill-fitting blue dress, its lace seeming as though it had come from the last century. Nelson secretly winked at the country girl who was hiding behind Aberforth and sneaking glances at him. She responded with a face, then ducked behind Aberforth again.

"Oh? It seems you know my sister?" Aberforth straightened up, glanced behind him, then turned back to stare at Nelson. As he sat upright, the sunlight that had surrounded him from behind fell across his face, making the resemblance between his features and those of the girl behind him clearer still.

"Your sister?"

"Yes, my sister." Aberforth stood and walked over to the portrait. He looked at the girl, who was awkwardly sticking out her tongue after being caught making faces. This rough man's eyes were full of tenderness. He reached out as if to pat his sister's head, only seeming to remember as his hand neared the canvas that his sister was merely hiding in a painting. He hurriedly withdrew his hand, then leaned close to the chandelier beside her and carefully checked whether he had dirtied the painting. "Anna—Ariana Dumbledore. She's lovely, isn't she?"

"Yes." Nelson nodded, looking at Ariana with complete sincerity. "She is a kind and warmhearted young lady."

"Hm? Anna, did you help this kid with something?" Aberforth turned half his face toward Nelson, raising a brow as he asked. Ariana seemed unlike the other portraits in the castle. She could not make a sound and could only mouth words at Aberforth, yet he listened attentively, responding as he listened and occasionally interrupting to ask questions.

"Oh, I nearly neglected you. Pull over whatever chair you like and sit down. There's alcohol in the cabinet—help yourself to whatever you want." Aberforth was "listening" to Ariana when he suddenly noticed Nelson still standing there, so he waved him off to settle himself. "I wouldn't recommend his Mead. It smells like something meant for an old honeybee—the kind that builds a buzzing nest beneath your eaves and is always ready to sting you."

Nelson could only obediently summon a chair and sit there quietly to wait.

"Why are you just sitting there?" Aberforth walked over to the liquor cabinet and took out a bottle of aged liquor with a filthy label. As he conjured two glasses, he muttered, "Free drinks are free drinks. Don't tell me you're worried about breaking school rules? Or does your guardian not allow you to drink? Kid, when I was your age, I could drink two huge bottles of whiskey with a meal. As for French brandy, I drank that stuff like water. Right, Anna?"

He turned to his sister, only to find her looking at him reproachfully. He had no choice but to put the liquor back in the cabinet. "Fine, fine. Minors aren't allowed to drink."

"Orange juice should be fine." He opened a bottle of orange juice, filled two glasses, and set them on the table before returning to the sofa. "So, you two met a few months ago?"

"Yes," Nelson nodded. Unable to suppress his curiosity about how they communicated, he could not help asking, "How do you and Miss Ariana—"

"Lip-reading." Aberforth cut him off impatiently. "Couldn't you tell? Lip-reading is a good way to communicate with people who can hear but cannot speak. Everyone's lip movements are a little different, but I don't care. I never pay attention to what other people are saying."

"I see." Nelson nodded. He hesitated before speaking. "Sorry, Mr. Aberforth, but may I ask about Miss Ariana...?"

An anxious silence fell over the office. Aberforth turned and looked at Ariana. When she nodded, he slowly began, "You may not know this, but this is an old generation's grievance. It can only end with our generation. It involves Albus, me, Gellert Grindelwald, countless Wizards unable to control their own fates, and even your parents—"

"My parents?" Nelson was startled.

"But the little story I'm about to tell has nothing to do with them." Aberforth cut off Nelson's rising interest. He took a box of cheap-looking, cheap-smelling cigars from a drawer, pulled one out, and bit down hard without even cutting the tip, tearing off a mouthpiece. He reached behind him and received a shining silver box from beside the painting. With a light press, a bluish flame ignited the cigar between his lips. He took a deep drag and slowly exhaled, and smoke soon shrouded his head. "That old bastard Grindelwald seduced my and Ariana's brother when he was young. They became lovers, just as you're imagining. Yes! Exactly that expression—the same one I had when I first heard about it!"

Aberforth began coughing violently, perhaps choked by his own smoke, or perhaps because he had laughed himself breathless. "Later, he tried using his ridiculous theories to hook Albus too. I was still in school then, and Ariana was home alone recovering from illness. How could I let those two shameless dogs run off into the world together? So I beat up Grindelwald."

"You beat up Grindelwald?" Nelson's expression was even more spectacular than before.

"Who knows? Maybe I beat him up. Maybe he beat me up. Maybe any one of us beat up any other one of us. Anyway, it was a three-way brawl. I lost a kidney, Albus broke his nose, Grindelwald picked up his severed finger and ran... and Ariana lost her life. Grindelwald definitely did it. I examined it—it was a kind of Dark Magic I had never seen before! It was meant for me!" Hatred glinted in Aberforth's eyes as he toyed with the silver box in his hand. "You could call this my trophy. Grindelwald's little box filled with Fiendfyre was designed after this one, but their power is worlds apart. Still, it's quite a clever little thing. I prefer to call it a 'Lighter.' Since Anna likes you so much, it's yours."

"Come to think of it, you two are the same age." Aberforth slid the Lighter across the table, but his own thought seemed to amuse him. "Though you don't look young at all. You're disgustingly like Albus instead."

"Mr. Aberforth..." Nelson was about to refuse.

"I don't want to see it anymore anyway. To me, it's nothing but bad luck." Aberforth waved a hand impatiently. "Smoking is harmful to your health, but for a Wizard, that's only a minor problem. If you get that... what was it... consumption... no, lung cancer, Miss Joy can cure you in one second."

Anna smiled and waved from behind him, then gave her brother a reproachful look, seemingly urging Nelson not to learn to smoke from others.

"Speaking of which, Anna doesn't have many friends her age. She says that in all the years since she was moved to Hogwarts, she has only met two people. One was you, and the other was a little girl so lonely that she learned lip-reading. Could someone really be that miserable? Hahahaha..."

Aberforth laughed freely. He laughed so hard and so loudly that tears burst from his eyes.

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