The noise of the crowd still echoed faintly behind him, a distant hum that clung to the walls like a ghost of the performance that had just ended. Oliver walked beside the twins, his feet light and unsteady from the adrenaline still coursing through his veins. The bright arena lights had left a soft haze in his vision, and even now, after stepping offstage, he could still see flickers of starlight shimmer behind his eyes — remnants of the magic that had responded to his music.
"Brilliant, Ollie," Fred said, clapping him on the back hard enough to nearly knock him off balance. "Absolutely brilliant! Did you see the crowd? Half of them were crying, the other half were ready to start chanting your name!"
"I think some of them actually did," George added, grinning. "They might need a bigger sign out front — Oliver Night and the Chudley Canons! Has a nice ring to it."
Oliver chuckled softly, exhaustion softening his features. "Let's not get ahead of ourselves. It was a team effort."
"Maybe," Fred said, squinting, "but no one ever gets this kind of roar over a single Snitch catch and a song. You've just made every Seeker in the league look like they're asleep on their brooms."
Oliver tried to laugh but only managed a weary smile. His voice had been echoing through enchanted speakers for hours, and his magic had poured into every note of the songs. He was tired — but not the bad kind. It was a good exhaustion, the kind that came after giving everything and being seen for it.
Nyx, perched on his shoulder in her now half-grown form, chirped quietly, her feathers faintly glowing with the remnants of her own magic. She nuzzled his neck, sharing warmth with the boy whose heart had never felt fuller.
The twins led him through a wide corridor toward the viewing room, where the rest of the group had been waiting during the match. Oliver knew his grandparents would be there — Nick and Penny had promised to watch every second — and Professor Dumbledore had said he'd bring "someone special."
He hadn't thought much of it at the time. After everything — the games, the inventions, the performances — "someone special" could mean just about anyone.
But the moment he stepped through the door, the room fell quiet. The smell of tea and pastries lingered in the air, mingled with the faint scent of parchment and pinewood. The space was warmly lit, all soft amber light and the low hum of firelight magic.
Nick and Penny stood immediately, their faces bright with pride. Dumbledore was there, sitting stiffly beside another man — someone Oliver didn't recognize right away.
The stranger was tall, broader than Dumbledore, with rough hands and a weathered face that looked carved by time and salt. His hair was streaked with gray, his coat worn and scuffed at the edges. The faint smell of hay and smoke clung to him, and at his feet, a stubborn-looking goat stared up at Nyx as if challenging her to a duel.
"Oliver," Dumbledore said softly, rising from his seat. There was a measured calm in his tone, but also something underneath it — tension, or perhaps guilt. "There's someone I'd like you to meet."
The man at his side shifted uncomfortably, clutching his hat in both hands. His eyes flicked toward Oliver, then away again.
Oliver tilted his head, curiosity overtaking hesitation. "Hello," he said simply. "I'm Oliver."
The man gave a short, awkward nod. "Aberforth," he replied gruffly. "Your— well, your uncle, as it were."
The words hung in the air, heavier than either expected.
Aberforth Dumbledore didn't look like much of a legend — not the kind that filled textbooks or whispered rumors. His face was lined, his knuckles scraped, his beard rough and uneven. But behind the hardened exterior was something Oliver recognized immediately — a quiet, kind light.
The same one he'd seen in Albus when the Headmaster had smiled over tea or spoken softly to a student in need. It was the same flame — just smaller, buried deeper.
Oliver smiled. "You must be my uncle. I'm really glad you came."
Aberforth blinked as if the words had startled him. "You are?"
"Of course," Oliver said, stepping forward and offering his hand. "I don't have a lot of family left to meet."
The man hesitated, staring at the offered hand as though it were a foreign object. Finally, he reached out and took it. His grip was firm — workman's hands, calloused and real. "You don't seem half as wary of me as I'd expect."
"You haven't done anything wrong," Oliver said gently. "Why would I be?"
Aberforth's mouth twitched. A huff of something between amusement and disbelief escaped him. "You sound like your grandmother."
Albus smiled faintly at that, though the motion seemed to cost him effort. "Mother always did have a gift for forgiveness."
Aberforth shot him a sidelong look. "You could've borrowed a bit more of it yourself."
The tension that followed was palpable. Even Nick and Penny, who had seen enough centuries to weather awkward silences, glanced at one another uncertainly.
Oliver stepped forward slightly, his tone careful but calm. "Then maybe tonight's a good time to start."
It wasn't an order — just a simple truth.
Albus lowered his gaze, folding his hands. "Aberforth and I… haven't spoken much over the years," he admitted.
"That's one way to put it," his brother muttered, though there wasn't real anger behind it anymore — only weariness.
The air in the room thickened. Years of grief, misunderstanding, and pride seemed to gather around them like mist.
Oliver felt it pressing against his chest, the old pain between them, heavy and tired. He thought of the things he'd already endured — loneliness, uncertainty, the need to belong — and realized he understood both of them more than either knew.
"You don't have to fix everything tonight," Oliver said softly. "You just have to start talking."
Aberforth looked at him, startled again by how simply the boy said things that men twice his age struggled to. "You sound like you've done this before."
Oliver smiled faintly. "I just know what it's like to want family and not have one."
Something in Aberforth's eyes shifted at that. He looked away, clearing his throat. "Didn't know what to say when Albus told me about you. Didn't think I'd earned the right to meet anyone else in this family after all that's happened."
Oliver shook his head. "You don't have to earn family. You just have to show up."
Aberforth's brows furrowed, a rough laugh escaping him. "You've got a strange way of seeing the world, lad."
"Maybe," Oliver said, "but it works for me."
For the first time that evening, Aberforth smiled — small, reluctant, but real.
Fred broke the silence with a muttered, "Well, this is cozy."
George elbowed him. "Careful, brother. The smell of goats might become permanent if you say the wrong thing."
Aberforth snorted, half a laugh, half a growl. "Careful yourselves, boys — goats have a better nose for troublemakers than professors do."
The twins exchanged mock looks of horror, and the whole room relaxed. Even Albus chuckled softly, the lines in his face easing.
Penny leaned toward Nick, whispering behind her teacup. "He's handling this beautifully, isn't he?"
Nick nodded. "Better than most grown men would. He's not just brilliant — he's kind."
Oliver, oblivious to the praise, was watching his uncles again. There was a resemblance between them — the same shade of blue in their eyes, the same old weariness. One had turned his pain into wisdom, the other into solitude. And here they were, sitting in the same room for the first time in decades.
If there was any magic stronger than spells, Oliver thought, it was forgiveness
Dumbledore, as if sensing the moment's gentleness, conjured a fresh pot of tea with a flick of his fingers. Steam curled up in lazy ribbons. He set cups in front of everyone like a host rediscovering a role he'd once enjoyed: a measure for Aberforth, one for Oliver, then Harry and Hermione, then the twins, Nick and Penny, and finally himself.
"Thank you," Aberforth said gruffly when the saucer touched his palm. He cupped it in both hands as though it were something delicate. "Been a long while since anyone made tea for me who wasn't trying to sell me a story."
"I could sell you two or three," Fred said, settling on the arm of a chair. "One about our fearless Seeker, one about his hair—"
"—and one about how his phoenix refuses to peck my ear off," George finished, leaning in to admire Nyx, who was studying Aberforth with one luminous, sky-blue eye.
Nyx chirped once, not unkindly, and tucked her head beneath a wing.
Oliver sat on the low settee nearest Aberforth, deliberately close without crowding him. "You watched the match?" he asked. "And the… performance?"
Aberforth cleared his throat. "Couldn't make sense of the flying, not honestly. You were too fast for these old eyes. But I heard the cheering." He took a careful sip. "As for the music—well. I run a pub, lad. Music keeps people in their seats and their cups half-full. But that wasn't just music. Never seen a room go quiet that way, not without a brawl brewing."
"It wasn't a brawl," Hermione said, smiling into her own teacup. "It was resonance. And pacing. And breath control. And possibly a selection of harmonic charms behaving as sympathetic overtones—"
Harry nudged her knee with his. "Translation: it was brilliant."
Hermione's smile warmed. "Yes. It was brilliant."
Oliver flushed. Praise still landed awkwardly for him, not because he disliked it, but because it felt like something he needed to set down carefully so it didn't break in his hands. "Thank you," he murmured. "All of you." He glanced back to Aberforth. "I'm glad you were there."
"Didn't think I would be," Aberforth admitted. "Nearly turned on my heel twice between the front gate and the stairs. Place like this…" He gestured vaguely at the well-appointed room, the neat plates of sugared scones and walnut biscuits. "Not where I'm at my best."
"You're here," Oliver said. "That's enough."
Across from them, Dumbledore folded his hands on his knee. "Aberforth," he began, and there was a careful humility in the way he said the name. "You didn't have to come tonight. I know that. And yet—"
"I didn't come for you, Albus." Aberforth spoke without heat. "I came to see the boy."
Dumbledore inclined his head. "Then I am doubly grateful."
A beat passed—soft, not sharp. Old arguments did not spring to life; they only breathed once and went still again, like horses made calm by a steady hand.
Nick rubbed his thumb over the rim of his teacup, watching Oliver with a small, private pride. "There is a kind of craft to these nights," he said to no one in particular, voice gentle. "Let things settle, and then say the true thing when it is invited." He looked to Aberforth with a grandfather's ease. "You did right to come."
Aberforth huffed, but the stubborn set to his jaw eased a fraction. "I reckon I did."
Penny leaned forward, green eyes bright. "And we hope it isn't the last time," she said. "You're welcome with us whenever you wish. We've rather a habit now of making too much tea and not enough sense—Oliver's fault, really. He insists on doing everything worth doing all at once."
"That's not true," Oliver protested, laughing.
"It is absolutely true," Hermione countered. "But it's also often wonderful."
Fred clapped his hands once. "Speaking of wonderful—uncle Aberforth, you should know your nephew is the most terrifying Seeker I've ever seen in the sky. And we have a long history of terrorizing seekers, so that's saying something."
"Seconded," George said solemnly. "If you need written testimony, I can forge McGonagall's signature."
"Please don't," Dumbledore said mildly.
"Wouldn't dream of it, Headmaster," George replied, already carrying a quill he hadn't had a second ago.
The room rippled with a quiet laughter that didn't need to fill the air to be felt. Oliver let it wash over him. He had never grown up with rooms like this—rooms that softened the edges of the day. He hadn't known he was hungry for them until he was finally full.
Aberforth side-eyed Dumbledore's robe and then Oliver's rumpled uniform jacket, the phoenix nesting against his collar. "You've got friends," he muttered, almost to himself. "Proper ones."
"I do," Oliver said. "I didn't—at first. But I do now."
Aberforth's gaze flicked to the twins, to Harry and Hermione, to Nick and Penny—lingered on Penny, whose expression could have warmed a winter—and then returned to Oliver. "Good. Don't let anyone talk you into giving that up."
"I won't." Oliver hesitated. "Sometimes the hard part is forgiving people who didn't know better. Or who did, and chose badly. But I'm trying to get good at that, too."
He didn't say Daphne's name. He didn't need to. Dumbledore's eyes softened, and Hermione's hand, resting on the arm of her chair, curled once in understanding.
Aberforth set his hat on his knee. His thumb worried the brim. "Forgiveness is a mercy, lad," he said quietly. "It's also work. Don't mistake one for the other. You can forgive a wolf for being a wolf and still keep the fence mended."
Penny made a soft sound of approval. "Well said."
Dumbledore looked down at his hands, then up again with something like resolve. "There are apologies I owe," he said. "Some I have begun to make. Others I have only admitted to myself." He turned to Aberforth, and the lines around his eyes were gentler than Oliver had ever seen them. "I am sorry, brother. For the years I let pride keep me from your door."
Aberforth's mouth moved as though around an old ache. He stared into his tea. "I'm not ready to hand you absolution like a sweet across the counter," he said. "But I heard you."
"That's enough," Oliver said softly, before Albus could answer. "Hearing is a start."
Aberforth looked at him sidelong. "You make it sound easy."
Oliver smiled. "It isn't. But it is simple."
From the corner, Fred sniffed dramatically. "If this keeps up, I'm going to start writing poetry."
George nodded. "We'll sell it at the Wheezes shop. 'Goat Sonnets and Phoenix Lullabies.' Reckon we'll make at least three Sickles."
"Four," Penny said, deadpan. "I'll buy one."
The laughter returned, easy and unforced. Harry tipped his head back against the chair and closed his eyes, smiling in that unguarded way he only did among people he trusted. Hermione leaned in and whispered something to Penny that made both of them chuckle; Nick patted Harry's shoulder as though greeting a grandson by habit.
Oliver watched it all with the quiet ache of someone hearing a favorite song played just a little bit slower than usual, savoring the notes. This—this was how nights should end: not with clamor, but with warmth.
Nyx stirred, stretching small wings. She hopped from Oliver's shoulder to the back of the settee beside Aberforth, then—to everyone's surprise—stepped daintily onto Aberforth's knee and peered up into his face.
Aberforth froze. "Er," he said.
"It's fine," Oliver murmured. "She's saying hello."
Nyx chirruped once, solemn. Aberforth's weathered features softened as he looked at her properly. "You're a strange one," he said, low. "Not like the other."
Oliver heard what he meant and what he didn't say. "She chose me," he said. "Or we chose each other. I'm still working out which way round it is."
Aberforth nodded as if that made a particular kind of sense only goats and old men understood. Very gently, with a hand that could lift kegs, he let his forefinger brush the feathers along Nyx's crown. She tolerated it with royal gravity, then hopped back to Oliver's shoulder and tucked herself beneath his jaw.
"Right," Fred announced with mock briskness, as if presiding over the minutes of a meeting. "We've established that Oliver's a genius, that Uncle—sorry, Mister Aberforth—has excellent taste in phoenixes, and that tea is still the best thing about civilized society."
"Second-best," George said. "Best is scones."
Dumbledore twitched a smile. "I had not realized the Weasley twins were paragons of culture."
"Oh, we're not," Fred said cheerfully. "We're just hungry."
Nick rose to pour seconds all around, his movements unhurried. He had the air of someone who could still a room without raising a hand. "There will be many such nights," he said, as much to Oliver as to the group. "Where joy learns the shape of your ordinary evenings. Hold them."
"I will," Oliver said quietly.
He felt the day catch up to him then—the flight, the music, the crowd, the strange new peace. It settled across his shoulders like a cloak. He set his tea down and let his head tip back for a moment, eyes closing, trusting the room to hold without him needing to watch it.
When he opened them again, he found Aberforth watching him—not with scrutiny, but with something close to wonder, the sort reserved for dawns and small miracles.
"You look like her," Aberforth said, voice rough. "Not in the face. In the part I can't point to. Ariana… she had quiet like that when she was small. Before the world made a mess of it."
Dumbledore's breath hitched, almost imperceptibly. Penny's hand found Nick's and squeezed.
Oliver's throat worked around a sudden, unexpected tightness. "I'll try to keep it," he said. "The quiet."
"Don't keep it," Aberforth said. "Live it. Take it into rooms like this. That's the work."
Oliver nodded, because there was nothing else to do with words like that except agree and try to deserve them.
For a little while, the conversation turned to gentler things: Harry recounted, in theatrical detail, a moment during the match when Oliver had outpaced two Bulgarian Chasers and somehow made it look like a dance; Hermione wanted to know whether the harmonic shimmer during the performance had been intentional or an emergent property of layered resonance; Fred and George debated designing phoenix-proof fireworks ("strictly commemorative," George insisted) while Penny offered to inspect their prototypes "for safety and spectacle, in that order."
Dumbledore said little, but he watched with a proud, private smile that sat differently on him than the public one. It was softer; it was uncle-shaped.
Eventually the tea ran low and the scones dwindled to crumbs. The roar of the stadium had faded to a memory and a hum through the window glass. The room grew quieter in that comfortable second wind of an evening—the one in which people begin to speak less and mean more.
Aberforth stood, hat in hand. He hesitated, then looked to Oliver. Up close, he seemed even larger, like a piece of the countryside had wandered indoors: boots, beard, weather, and all. "I'm not much for speeches," he said. "Or for city rooms. I spend most days with goats and the kind of folk who don't fancy being looked at too long."
"That's all right," Oliver said. He rose, too.
"I don't know what… what a proper uncle is meant to be," Aberforth continued, blunt and honest as a fence post. "Never had much practice. But if you don't mind a rough sort stopping by now and again, I'll try."
Oliver didn't reach for him this time. He simply met his gaze and let the acceptance be visible on his face. "I'd like that," he said.
Aberforth's shoulders eased a fraction, as if a strap had been loosened. He glanced past Oliver at Albus. Old grief moved between them like a wind they had finally learned to lean into rather than away from.
Dumbledore inclined his head. "Thank you for coming, Aberforth."
"Don't thank me," Aberforth said, and for a heartbeat the edge of an old temper flared—then gentled. "Just don't make a mess of it this time."
"I am learning," Dumbledore said.
"Good." Aberforth looked back to Oliver. "And you—remember what I said about fences."
"I will," Oliver replied.
The twins hovered near the door, suddenly and mercifully quiet. Harry stood and stretched, blinking sleepily; Hermione slipped Nyx a crumb of scone, which Nyx accepted with imperial grace. Nick blew out the last of the candles with a word, leaving only the hearth and a low drift of amber light.
Aberforth set his hat on his head, then took it off again and held it to his chest instead, as if realizing hats were for endings and he wasn't quite ready for one. He lifted his teacup a fraction toward Oliver—a rough, makeshift toast.
Oliver mirrored it with his own empty cup, the gesture not lacking anything for its absence of tea.
"Feels nice," Oliver said softly, not to anyone in particular and yet to all of them. "Not being alone."
Aberforth's mouth twitched—half smile, half ache. He slid his hat under his arm, and for once his voice carried without the bar's gravel in it.
"You never were, lad," he said. "You just needed to find where you belonged