"... Anyway, as I was saying, I do all this for my daughter's future," Henry continued, picking up the thread of the conversation that the interdimensional transition had left suspended. For a moment, he shifted his pupils toward the rearview mirror, observing Ariana's silhouette, her head beginning to nod as she was overcome by sleep against her brother's robes. "So... is the little one your granddaughter? Your daughter, perhaps?" he asked cautiously, reluctant to make a wrong judgment.
"She is my sister..." Dumbledore replied, his eyes fixed on the windows of the darkened shops, watching as they approached the gloomy alley of their destination.
"Oh..." That was the only syllable Henry articulated.
Though a flash of surprise crossed his features, he chose to add no further comments. Since being introduced to the inner workings of this new universe, he assumed that biological anomalies like such a pronounced age disparity must possess a technical explanation; whether it was a common resource capable of appearing in the Muggle world or a logic that defied his former common sense. Henry constantly reminded himself that he had a vast inventory of concepts left to assimilate and adapt to, all with the sole purpose of ensuring that his little Emma managed to integrate successfully into this society and reap the privileges for which he was fighting behind the wheel.
"Well, we have arrived," the chauffeur announced, bringing the Rolls-Royce to a stop right in front of the peeling facade of the pub.
Dumbledore nodded upon confirming that the door opened automatically. He slid outside and helped down an Ariana whose movements denoted the lethargy of sleep, displaying that slight tantrum typical of infants when their rest is interrupted.
"What is the cost of the fee, Mr. Watson?" Dumbledore asked as he finished settling the girl, not knowing if the framework of the fief stipulated a conventional taxi fare system.
"You owe me absolutely nothing. My contract defines me as the official chauffeur for travels linked to the [Fief]. My availability is absolute whenever you require entering or leaving quickly or traveling to any location your business demands," Henry stated, articulating the response with an almost promotional cadence. "The boss already enabled the [Messaging] system for you, correct? Just issue an alert and I will come immediately... Who knows, maybe this car will end up flying there... I don't know yet," he added with a light laugh.
"Understood. I shall keep it very much in mind for my future travels. I wish you an excellent night, Mr. Watson. Perhaps on our next journey we will have the necessary margin to continue our cultural exchange," Dumbledore concluded with his habitual institutional courtesy, taking his leave before the door sealed shut.
The Rolls-Royce described an elegant turn on the mud of the side street, advanced a couple of yards, and, after a subtle blink, dematerialized into the night air. The Headmaster followed the trajectory of the disappearance with his gaze, but spent no further mental reserves analyzing it. The cold of the night was worsening, and the weather conditions advised against keeping Ariana exposed to the elements in the middle of the alley.
Furthermore, his sharp eyes had already detected the dim, flickering interior light emerging through the dirty stained-glass windows of the Hog's Head. He knew perfectly well that, behind that layer of soot and grime, his younger brother must have already scrutinized his silhouette in the gloom.
The time to face the family past had arrived.
Albus advanced toward the weather-beaten wooden threshold and knocked with a sharp rap. Before his knuckles could strike a second time, the latch latched violently and the door swung wide open, revealing Aberforth's sullen, moody silhouette. The tavern keeper held his wand high, casting a dim, wavering luminescence that barely managed to dispel the shadows of the alley.
Aberforth let out a rough grunt upon recognizing his older brother's features. Albus, far from being daunted, merely offered him a gentle smile.
"Will you permit us to enter?" the Headmaster requested.
Without waiting for his host's permission and shedding the ceremonious respectfulness that usually marked their encounters, Albus made his way inside the premises. With a soft gesture, he guided forward the little girl he brought with him, who dragged her feet, plunged into a somnolent lethargy.
Aberforth furrowed his brow, closing the door with a rusty slam. For the illustrious Albus Dumbledore to show up at his hovel at such an hour and without prior notice was already cause for alarm; for him to do so escorting a minor was even stranger. Due to the gloom and the fog of sleep, the tavern keeper failed to distinguish the girl's features immediately.
"What brings you here at these hours? What has happened at the castle?" Aberforth inquired, spinning on his heels. His pupils finally focused on the little girl Albus was finishing settling under the dim light of the establishment.
The tavern keeper blinked repeatedly, shaking his head in a sharp gesture. His pulse accelerated erratically; he assumed that exhaustion was playing tricks on him, that the day's alcohol was still distorting his thoughts, and that the images of his surroundings had begun to melt under an ethyl delirium. However, upon shifting his gaze toward the large portrait ruling the main room, he confirmed with horror that the beautiful girl in the painting was observing the scene with an expression of absolute and unprecedented stupefaction. The two silhouettes were identical.
"I think I've finally gone mad... or I'm still hopelessly drunk," Aberforth articulated. A suffocating knot settled in his throat, cutting off his airflow. He experienced the certainty that his own hour had come, and that this was nothing more than the hallucinatory anteroom of death.
"You are not drunk, Aberforth... or at least I hope so, for it would be a terrible influence on Ariana," Albus replied. A solitary tear traced his wrinkles upon beholding his brother's collapse, reliving the same paralysis he had suffered in his office. His old heart beat in a violent rhythm of agony and relief; the punishment for his ancient mistake was finally beginning to transform into redemption.
"Aberforth?" the girl murmured, rubbing her eyelids with a childish fist. Its pupils took a moment to focus on the tavern keeper's physiognomy, but as soon as recognition occurred in her mind, her face lit up. "Aberforth!" she exclaimed with a squeal of vivid excitement, throwing herself toward him in an uncoordinated run.
The physical impact of the girl's body against his own bore no proportion whatsoever to the psychological devastation the tavern keeper was experiencing. Aberforth's arms remained suspended in the air, trembling espasmodically as they descended with a feverish slowness to clutch the little girl's outline. The simple thermal contact with her skin unhinged the last tatters of sanity remaining to the old man; his intellect dictated that he must be embracing a specter, but his hands certified the legitimate density of flesh, bone, and a vital pulse.
"A... Ariana?" he inquired with a thread of a voice so dry that the syllables seemed to choke in his larynx.
"You have a huge beard too!" the little girl celebrated, noticing that this brother also sported an elderly and disparate physiognomy compared to her memories.
"What is this...?" Aberforth whispered. His strength abandoned him completely; his knees buckled under the weight of the paradox and he collapsed onto the filthy floorboards, dragging Ariana down in the fall.
The girl did not seem to mind the sharp descent; she settled onto the floor, right in front of her brother's knees, and began to play with the folds of his neglected robes, which exhaled the uncomfortable aroma of goat and stale tobacco characteristic of the pub.
"It is Ariana, brother... Or at least, the closest thing to her. And if all goes well, she could be the very sister we lost on that terrible day so long ago..." Dumbledore explained, allowing his weary silhouette to lean against the tavern counter.
"What the hell have you done, Albus?!" he interrogated between a sibilant whisper and a bellow of pure desperation. In his chest collided historical hatred, accumulated guilt, and a savage euphoria that refused to accept the miracle. His eyes demanded an answer. He could not fathom whether the Headmaster had definitively lost his mind and subjected a student to an unforgivable transfiguration, if Flamel's forbidden alchemy had structured an exact replica, or if his older brother had shattered the boundaries of the natural order to plunder the realm of the dead.
"I do not possess the authorship of this miracle... It was not I, Aberforth," the Headmaster confessed, exhaling an air heavy with fatigue. "But she is Ariana. I wished for you to have her in front of you... It did not fall to me to have the moral right to monopolize the reunion."
Aberforth refused to process the magnitude of the event, but even if it were the sweetest and most poisonous of lies, he wished to devour it down to the last syllable. He forced a hoarse laugh in front of the girl, taking her small hands between his calloused fingers to initiate an improvised game, thereby preventing the weeping of his own collapse from frightening the little one. The sullen owner of the Hog's Head now lay in the grime of his floor, interacting with the infant as if he himself were a child of massive proportions, laughing with the fixity of one who knows himself trapped in the best dream of his existence and fears that any blink would cause his awakening.
"How is it possible...?" he questioned, without shifting his pupils a millimeter from his sister's pure eyes.
"It is a situation that defied all my senses... Someone has made me an offer... Aberforth. He will return Ariana to me in exchange for me doing certain things for him," Albus admitted with a tinge of bitterness, like one who acknowledges having signed a Faustian contract with the devil himself.
"Then do it! Fulfill every single one of his damn demands!" the tavern keeper roared from the floor, pinning him with a threatening look that admitted no replies or moral hesitations. "You owe it to her, Albus! You owe her life! If I detect the slightest hint of doubt in you, I will drag you by the neck myself to force you to fulfill his demands, no matter what they are."
The Headmaster merely maintained an absolute silence before his brother's reprimand. He knew perfectly well that if he dared verbalize a single scruple or suggested rejecting Red's conditions, Aberforth would unleash a duel to the death at that very instant beneath the beams of the establishment.
Albus curved his lips into a gentle, resigned smile; he understood that his only option was to accept, sell his being, and submit to the new order. And yet, contemplating the laughter of his broken family, finally unified after nearly a century, he experienced the certainty that the price demanded by Red Weasley was a ridiculously cheap gift.
Thus, after so many difficulties, the Dumbledore family was finally able to spend a night together... A short night, because Ariana ended up falling asleep very soon. After so much time, Aberforth finally cleaned his establishment just to leave a good place for the girl to rest. Once she fell asleep, both brothers had to stay up late, whether to catch up on all their history or to discuss Ariana's future. Aberforth did not plan to let her away from his side, nor to let her go with his brother, much less let her stay alone in the fief... She had to be with him.