Chapter 18

I had been visiting Hogsmeade for the past year so by now I was familiar with its shop and some of the locals even recognized me.

It was a quiet village with less people and they all seemed relatively friendly or polite. I quite liked coming here. We headed to Rosmerta's inn as we decided to have breakfast there.

It was already midday so it was more of a brunch by this point. The inn had few people around and it was not as noisy as usual. The students and teachers were not present since it was holiday time for them.

"Hey there...look who it is." Rosmerta said coming up to us.

"Done with your shopping?" she asked me.

"Yep~ got everything ready. Set me up something to eat, I am starving."

She nodded and went to get me some food while Eileen went to one of the empty rooms above to keep all the things we bought.

Rosmerta came back with some typical breakfast and even brought a saucer with milk for Nyx who I let out of the cage.

"So...what are your plans? When are you going to move in?" Rosmerta asked.

"Well mum said she would put the house in cokeworth for sale so once its sold,we move into the family manor.Oh..I nearly forgot, I am an heir now" I said smugly.

"Heh...now I can brag that I know an heir to the folks around. Might get some customers too."

Seeing her business mind, I rolled my eyes. I was an heir of a pureblood house but it was one in shambles so I didn't think it was a big deal.

"So...got any new ideas?" she asked as I took a bite of the food.

Well I did have some but since things were going so well, I didn't give them away.

"Well...I haven't really had time to think of new ones but don't worry if I got any, you will be the first one to know.."

Rosmerta smiled, clearly happy with the preferential treatment.

We kept talking for a while when a tall bearded man with grey stringy hair entered. He spotted Rosmerta and came over.

"How are you doing lass, go get me some of that butterbeer." he said.

Rosmerta sighed as she got up, "You know….I usually don't say this but you have been drinking too much of it. At this rate, I won't have enough for the others."

"Hey...I pay for 'em" he answered before his sight fell on me.

"Whose this kid? He Eileen's" he asked.

"Yes…" Rosmerta replied turning to me, "Severus...meet Aberforth, he is the owner of the less...successful Hog's Head Inn."

I wiped my mouth and greeted him, "Hello."

I was a bit surprised seeing him. Even though I visited Hogsmeade frequently, this was my first meeting with him. I had nearly forgotten he had existed. Aberforth Dumbledore, Albus Dumbledore's brother.

"Aye..nice to finally meet the business prodigy, the names Aberforth Dumbledore kid and yes...I am related to Dumbledore."

"Nice to meet you Sir, I am Severus Prince." I greeted him back politely.

"No need to be so polite with me, just call me Abe or uncle Abe if you feel the latter is weird."

"Sure...Uncle Abe." I said testing the name out.

"There ya go, I knew your mother and this lass when they went to Hogwarts."

"Really? How was mum like?" I asked.

"Well she was a shy dainty lady who drank ale like it was tea." I was glad I wasn't drinking anything when he said that.

I chuckled imagining a young Eileen drinking ale from a jar like it was tea.

"What about her?" I said pointing at Rosmerta who was taking orders from another customer.

"Ah...she was a vile temptress. She used to bring some upstuck noble kids, play with them and have some drinks with them then she would bolt leaving the boys to pay for her."

"She is still like that today...If I were you, I would be careful you know... She likes the younger ones from what I heard."

"I see…" I said awkwardly. I didn't know what to do with this information.

"So….if you have some good ideas, you can come to me…" he offered. Now I understood what he was trying to get at.

"Oi...trying to steal him right under me eh?" Rosmerta who was coming upto us with a plate and butterbeer said.

"..I was just showing him that there were other options besides you.." Abe said, flashing a smile at me.

"Right.." she said, giving him the stink eye. "Severus, you don't need to go to him. You can just come to me if you have new ideas."

I didn't answer and just took a sip from my mug. Inwardly I was thinking about Abe's offer. From what little I knew about him from canon, he was good at dueling and a strong wizard.

If I could convince him to teach me some tricks, my strength would double at the very least.

Once Rosmerta left, I turned to Abe, "I do have some ideas if you are interested…." I offered.

"Hoh...go on tell me, if you want we could go up to my place."

"Well I can just write them down for you but I need some compensation. I can't give them for free after all."

"Sure...I can pay you how much she pays or a bit more too if they work."

"I don't need money right now so I want another form of compensation.."

"What would that be?"

"Simple..I want you to teach me magic or more specifically dueling.I heard you are good at it so I want to learn from you."

"I see….that's doable but I don't have any experience teaching so it will be upto you to grasp what I show but first tell me your reason for wanting to learn. Be careful with your answer as if it doesn't satisfy me, I won't teach you." Abe warned.

I could sense that he wanted to test me so I thought about my answer. I didn't think I would be able to lie to him and I didn't want to give some dark answer and be marked as a potential threat.

I thought about why I wanted to learn it, the answer was for power but that would make me seem like Riddle and might ring some warning bells in him.

I thought harder about other reasons and I found one, that feeling of helplessness I had in the void made me want power but also I didn't like being powerless.

When Tobias was abusing Eileen, I had frozen. I didn't know what to do. If I hadn't been lucky enough to use my magic instinctively, she would have been at his mercy.

I clenched my fists thinking about and answered, "I don't want to feel powerless…."

Abe stared into my eyes. "You must know about my mother by now I assume?"

"Yes...I heard from her" he said.

"I hated not being able to do anything when he struck her...I don't want to feel like that ever again. So will you teach me?"

Abe stared harder. I didn't know if he was proficient at legilimency as his brother but I could tell he was good at reading people.

"Very well…" he sighed. "I shall teach you what you want. We can start from tomorrow if you want. I can understand your reason, I too couldn't save a loved one…."

His eyes went glazed as he seemed to reminisce about something, probably his sister I thought.

"Alright, we can start from tomorrow." I agreed. I had got my wand too so I was eager to try it out.