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“Speaking of the Daily Prophet… I don’t know whether you saw, Mr. Doge -?”

 “Oh, please call me Elphias, dear boy.”

 “Elphias, I don’t know whether you saw the interview Rita Skeeter gave about
Dumbledore?”

 Doge’s face flooded with angry color.

 “Oh yes, Harry, I saw it. That woman, or vulture might be a more accurate term,
positively pestered me to talk to her, I am ashamed to say that I became rather rude,
called her an interfering trout, which resulted, as you my have seen, in aspersions cast
upon my sanity.”

 “Well, in that interview,” Harry went on, “Rita Skeeter hinted that Professor
Dumbledore was involved in the Dark Arts when he was young.”

 “Don’t believe a word of it!” said Doge at once. “Not a word, Harry! Let nothing
tarnish your memories of Albus Dumbledore!”

 Harry looked into Doge’s earnest, pained face, and felt, not reassured, but
frustrated. Did Doge really think it was that easy, that Harry could simply choose not to
believe? Didn’t Doge understand Harry’s need to be sure, to know everything?”

 Perhaps Doge suspected Harry’s feelings, for he looked concerned and hurried on,
“Harry, Rita Skeeter is a dreadful –“

 But he was interrupted by a shrill cackle.

 “Rita Skeeter? Oh, I love her, always read her!”

 Harry and Doge looked up to see Auntie Muriel standing there, the plumes
dancing on her hair, a goblet of champagne in her hand. “She’s written a book about
Dumbledore, you know!”

“Hello, Muriel,” said Doge, “Yes, we were just discussing –“

 “You there! Give me your chair, I’m a hundred and seven!”

 Another redheaded Weasley cousin jumped off his seat, looking alarmed, and
Auntie Muriel swung it around with surprising strength and plopped herself down upon it
between Doge and Harry.

 “Hello again, Barry or whatever your name is,” she said to Harry, “Now what
were you saying about Rita Skeeter, Elphias? You know, she’s written a biography of
Dumbledore? I can’t wait to read it. I must remember to place an order at Flourish and
Blotts!”

 Doge looked stiff and solemn at this but Auntie Muriel drained her goblet and
clicked her bony fingers at a passing waiter for a replacement. She took another large
gulp of champagne, belched and then said, “There’s no need to look like a pair of stuffed
frogs! Before he became so respected and respectable and all that tosh, there were some
mighty funny rumors about Albus!”

 “Ill-informed sniping,” said Doge, turning radish-colored again.

 “You would say that, Elphias,” cackled Auntie Muriel. “I noticed how you skated
over the sticky patches in that obituary of yours!”

 “I’m sorry you think so,” said Doge, more coldly still. “I assure you I was writing
from the heart.”

 “Oh, we all know you worshipped Dumbledore; I daresay you’ll still think he was
a saint even if it does turn out that he did away with his Squib sister!”

 “Muriel!” exclaimed Doge.

 A chill that had nothing to do with the iced champagne was stealing through
Harry’s chest.

 “What do you mean?” he asked Muriel. “Who said his sister was a Squib? I
thought she was ill?”

 “Thought wrong, then, didn’t you, Barry!” said Auntie Muriel, looking delighted
at the effect she had produced. “Anyway, how could you expect to know anything about
it! IT all happened years and years before you were even thought of, my dear, and the
truth is that those of us who were alive then never knew what really happened. That’s
why I can’t wait to find out what Skeeter’s unearthed! Dumbledore kept that sister of his
quiet for a long time!”

 “Untrue!” wheezed Doge, “Absolutely untrue!”

 “He never told me his sister as a Squib,” said Harry, without thinking, still cold
inside.

 “And why on earth would he tell you?” screeched Muriel, swaying a little in her
seat as she attempted to focus upon Harry.

 “The reason Albus never spoke about Ariana,” began Elphias in a voice stiff with
emotion, “is, I should have thought, quite clear. He was so devastated by her death –“

 “Why did nobody ever see her, Elphias?” squawked Muriel, “Why did half of us
never even know she existed, until they carried the coffin out of the house and held a
funeral for her? Where was saintly Albus while Ariana was locked in the cellar? Off
being brilliant at Hogwarts, and never mind what was going on in his own house!”

 “What d’you mean, locked in the cellar?” asked Harry. “What is this?”

 Doge looked wretched. Auntie Muriel cackled again and answered Harry.

 “Dumbledore’s mother was a terrifying woman, simply terrifying. Muggle-born,
though I heard she pretended otherwise-“

 “She never pretended anything of the sort! Kendra was a fine woman,” whispered
Doge miserably, but Auntie Muriel ignored him.

 “- proud and very domineering, the sort of witch who would have been mortified
to produce a Squib-“

 “Ariana was not a Squib!” wheezed Doge.

 “So you say, Elphias, but explain, then, why she never attended Hogwarts!” said
Auntie Muriel. She turned back to Harry. “In our day, Squibs were often hushed up,
thought to take it to the extreme of actually imprisoning a little girl in the house and
pretending she didn’t exist –“

 “I tell you, that’s not what happened!” said Doge, but Auntie Muriel
steamrollered on, still addressing Harry.

 Squibs were usually shipped off to Muggle schools and encouraged to integrate
into the Muggle community… much kinder than trying to find them a place in the
Wizarding world, where they must always be second class, but naturally Kendra
Dumbledore wouldn’t have dreamed of letting her daughter go to a Muggle school –“

 “Ariana was delicate!” said Doge desperately. “Her health was always too poor to
permit her –“

 “- to permit her to leave the house?” cackled Muriel. “And yet she was never
taken to St. Mungo’s and no Healer was ever summoned to see her!”

 “Really, Muriel, how can you possibly know whether –“

 “For your information, Elphias, my cousin Lancelot was a Healer at St. Mungo’s
at the time, and he told my family in strictest confidence that Ariana had never been seen
there. All most suspicious, Lancelot thought!”

 Doge looked to be on the verge of tears. Auntie Muriel, who seemed to be
enjoying herself hugely, snapped her fingers for more champagne. Numbly Harry

thought of how the Dursleys had once shut him up, locked him away, kept him out of
sight, all for the crime of being a wizard. Had Dumbledore’s sister suffered the same fate
in reverse: imprisoned for her lack of magic? And had Dumbledore truly left her to her
fate while he went off to Hogwarts to prove himself brilliant and talented?

 “Now, if Kendra hadn’t died first,” Muriel resumed, “I’d have said that it was she
who finished off Ariana –“

 “How can you, Muriel!” groaned Doge. “A mother kill her own daughter? Think
what you’re saying!”

 “If the mother in question was capable of imprisoning her daughter for years on
end, why not?” shrugged Auntie Muriel. “But as I say, it doesn’t fit, because Kendra died
before Ariana – of what, nobody ever seemed sure-“

 “Yes, Ariana might have made a desperate bid for freedom and killed Kendra in
the struggle,” said Auntie Muriel thoughtfully. “Shake your head all you like, Elphias.
You were at Ariana’s funeral, were you not?”

 “Yes I was,” said Doge, through trembling lips,” and a more desperately sad
occasion I cannot remember. Albus was heartbroken-“

 “His heart wasn’t the only thing. Didn’t Aberforth break Albus’ nose halfway
through the service?”

 If Doge had looked horrified before this, it was nothing to how he looked now.
Muriel might have stabbed him. She cackled loudly and took another swig of champagne,
which dribbled down her chin.

 “How do you -?” croaked Doge.

 “My mother was friendly with old Bathilda Bagshot,” said Auntie Muriel happily.
“Bathilda described the whole thing to mother while I was listening at the door. A
coffin-side brawl. The way Bathilda told it, Aberforth shouted that it was all Albus’ fault
that Ariana was dead and then punched him in the face. According to Bathilda, Albus did
not even defend himself, and that’s odd enough in itself. Albus could have destroyed
Aberforth in a duel with both hands tied behind his back.

 Muriel swigged yet more champagne. The recitation of those old scandals
seemed to elate her as much as they horrified Doge. Harry did not know what to think,
what to believe. He wanted the truth and yet all Doge did was sit there and bleat feebly
that Ariana had been ill. Harry could hardly believe that Dumbledore would not have
intervened if such cruelty was happening inside his own house, and yet there was
undoubtedly something odd about the story.

 “And I’ll tell you something else,” Muriel said, hiccupping slightly as she lowered
her goblet. “I think Bathilda has spilled the beans to Rita Skeeter. All those hints in
Skeeter’s interview about an important source close to the Dumbledores – goodness
knows she was there all through the Ariana business, and it would fit!”

 “Bathilda, would never talk to Rita Skeeter!” whispered Doge.

 “Bathilda Bagshot?” Harry said. “The author of A History of Magic?”

 The name was printed on the front of one of Harry’s textbooks, though admittedly
not one of the ones he had read more attentively.

 “Yes,” said Doge, clutching at Harry’s question like a drowning man at a life heir.
“A most gifted magical historian and an old friend of Albus’s.”

 “Quite gaga these days, I’ve heard,” said Auntie Muriel cheerfully.

 “If that is so, it is even more dishonorable for Skeeter to have taken advantage of
her,” said Doge, “and no reliance can be placed on anything Bathilda may have said!”

 “Oh, there are ways of bringing back memories, and I’m sure Rita Skeeter knows
them all,” said Auntie Muriel “But even if Bathilda’s completely cuckoo, I’m sure she’d
still have old photographs, maybe even letters. She knew the Dumbledores for years….
Well worth a trip to Godric’s Hollow, I’d have thought.”

 Harry, who had been taking a sip of butterbeer, choked. Doge banged him on the
back as Harry coughed, looking at Auntie Muriel through streaming eyes. Once he had
control of his voice again, he asked, “Bathilda Bagshot lives in Godric’s Hollow?”

 “Oh yes, she’s been there forever! The Dumbledores moved there after Percival
was imprisoned, and she was their neighbor.”

 “The Dumbledores lived in Godric’s Hollows?”

 “Yes, Barry, that’s what I just said,” said Auntie Muriel testily.

 Harry felt drained, empty. Never once, in six years, had Dumbledore told Harry
that they had both lived and lost loved ones in Godric’s Hollow. Why? Were Lily and
James buried close to Dumbledore’s mother and sister? Had Dumbledore visited their
graves, perhaps walked past Lily’s and James’s to do so? And he had never once told
Harry … never bothered to say…

 And why it was so important, Harry could not explain even to himself, yet he felt
it had been tantamount to a lie not to tell him that they had this place and these
experiences in common. He stared ahead of him, barely noticing what was going on
around him, and did not realize that Hermione had appeared out of the crowd until she
drew up a chair beside him.

 “I simply can’t dance anymore,” she panted, slipping of one of her shoes and
rubbing the sole of her foot. “Ron’s gone looking to find more butterbeers. It’s a bit odd.
I’ve just seen Viktor storming away from Luna’s father, it looked like they’d been
arguing –“ She dropped her voice, staring at him. “Harry, are you okay?”

 Harry did not know where to begin, but it did not matter, at that moment,
something large and silver came falling through the canopy over the dance floor.
Graceful and gleaming, the lynx landed lightly in the middle of the astonished dancers.
Heads turned, as those nearest it froze absurdly in mid-dance. Then the Patronus’s mouth
opened wide and it spoke in the loud, deep, slow voice of Kingsley Shacklebolt.

 “The Ministry has fallen. Scrimgeour is dead. They are coming.”