The Favourite

Chapter 1: Prologue

"But does he know anything about horses?" I asked.

"My dear, what difference does it make? He knows magic."

This time I released the sigh I had kept back before. "He can't do magic here, Albus. This isn't like--like the Underground. This is my home."

My old friend echoed my sigh, but his blue eyes, which had begun to twinkle when I mentioned the Underground, now danced in the smile that parted his long silvery moustache and beard. "This was your namesake's home, too, Helga. And it can be this man's home as well--at least for the rest of the summer."

I sighed again, and got up from the desk and moved towards the little table where I kept the tea-making things. The copper kettle on the gas ring was still steaming, and I took another teabag from the caddy, placed it in my mug, and poured out a mugful of hot water. As I did so I noticed, as a newcomer to the office might have, how tarnished and dented the old kettle was, how chipped the mug, how battered were the table, the desk, the desk chair, and the chair my old friend was sitting in. As I turned from the tea table to go back to my chair, I glanced past Albus and out through the open door of the office, out into the stable yard where the sun slanted brightly down onto gleaming cobbles and the glossy coats of the two horses tethered in front of two of the loose boxes. One of the horses was my own bay hunter. He seemed inordinately interested in the other, a grey mare, who like him wore a leather headcollar from which an ordinary white cotton leadrope ran to an iron ring in the stone stable wall. Beyond the two horses were others, some looking out of cool shadowy boxes, some being led by their lads--my lads, I thought--into the yard. One stood on three legs, in crossties, holding up a foot for the farrier.

"This is my home," I repeated, as I sat down at the desk again. "My name may be Helga, but it isn't Hufflepuff. As far as the rest of my branch of the family are concerned, the Old Hall was destroyed more than three hundred years ago, by either the Roundheads or the Royalists, I forget which."

"Well," said Albus, having swallowed a mouthful of tea, 'That is of course what is printed in the leaflets you hand out to the weekend visitors to the New Hall."

"Yes," I retorted. "The weekend visitors. The summer weekend visitors. They bring in a lot of money, Albus. They help feed all that lot." I waved a hand towards the yard--towards the horses, the lads, and the farrier. "How can we keep them coming if I keep a--a wizard working here? How can I keep anyone else working here? One person who knows magic can't take the place of six who know horses. And I couldn't have him doing magic here.

"Why not go and talk to the family at the Old Hall?" I went on. "He could do magic there. According to you, everyone does magic there--and has done, for the past three hundred years."

"Seven hundred," Albus reminded me quietly.

He stood up--and for a weird moment I thought he was going to leave; that the visit was over--his shortest visit yet to Brocklehurst Hall. But even before my heart could return to its regular rate of beating, he went only as far as the tea table, where he stopped, and turned, and looked back at me.

"May I have some more, please?" he asked.

I nodded. Then immediately I wondered if "more tea" was all he had meant.

I watched as he opened the tea caddy, using his hands--as I myself had done; took out a teabag; placed it in his mug; took the kettle from the ring--again manually, as I had--and poured steaming water over the teabag in his mug.

"It isn't Earl Grey this time, is it?" he remarked.

"Darjeeling," I replied. "With this warm spell we've been having, it's seemed more cooling."

"Most refreshing," Albus nodded. He went to the door, and stood gazing out into the yard, sipping his tea.

I sat looking at him: the tall, slim figure so familiar--so dear to me. So utterly alien to this place and to my upbringing, to any experience I had had of the world, before that ... how many years ago now was it? ... that Bonfire Night, in London's Red Lion Square ...

"Nearly ten years," I murmured; just as Albus spoke.

"Sorry?" I said.

"I beg your pardon." Albus turned back to me. "Do go on," he said, moving back to his chair.

"What were you saying?" I asked.

He sat down, and regarded me benignly over his half-moon spectacles.

I sipped my tea and waited.

At last he sighed, and spoke again. "You spoke of 'everyone' at the Old Hall," he said, "as if the family there were as flourishing now as in the days of the Muggle Civil Wars.

"But you know as well as I do that it was neither Cromwell's troops nor the King's who destroyed that house. That in fact it had stood as solid as Hogwarts, for nearly as many centuries, and that the 'ruins' were only an enchantment put on the Hall when your great-great-great-great-grandfather married out and built the New Hall for his Muggle bride."

"I know," I muttered, feeling my cheeks getting hot--and not from the tea, which was rapidly cooling in my mug, and not from the sun, which had begun to slip down behind the tall clock-cupola of the carriage-house.

Albus made a small gesture with one forefinger in my direction, and the mug in my hand grew warm again. I smiled, blushing again; and Albus continued:

"The only real ruin at the Old Hall is the east wing--and Hypatia hasn't bothered repairing that. She says the Hall is far too large as it is for her and the Finch and Fletchley cousins."

"How many of them are there now?" I asked. I never could keep track of the Finches and Fletchleys I knew--the Muggle ones; I had not met any of the magical ones since that one, disastrous, attempt at a family reunion ...

"Four," said Albus. "The Finch-Fletchleys have a new baby."

"That's wonderful!" I smiled at Albus. "What is it?"

"My dear, it's too soon to tell." Albus's eyes twinkled. "But the indications are very strong that he is magical."

I heaved a sigh of pure delight ... well, perhaps there was a little bit of ... not envy, exactly, but ...

I turned and looked out the door again. One of the lads--this particular one actually a "lass," and nearly as old as I--was untying my horse and attempting to lead him away across the yard. The horse, although a gelding, was proving reluctant to leave the grey mare.

"Come--on--Tiger," Shelagh grunted, tugging on the gelding's lead rope.

Tiger pushed his nose towards the mare, who pinned her ears back at him.

"Sorcha," said Albus quietly; warningly.

The mare tossed her head and wrung her tail, but made to move to attack Tiger, who, heaving a snorting sigh, let Shelagh lead him away.

Grinning, I turned to Albus, to see him regarding me with a broad smile and more than a mere twinkle in his eyes.

"Albus," I said--but the note in my voice did not sound nearly as convincing as the warning I--and the mare--had heard in his.

"Sounds to me as though they could use a powerful wizard over at the Old Hall," I continued. "Won't they take him in?"

"Oh, yes," Albus replied, and his eyes bored into mine like twin blue lasers. "They would take him. But he has absolutely refused to go. Said he'd rather live with Muggles than with Hufflepuffs. So what are we to do, you and I?" he asked.

I could not help smiling. Despite the reason for his visit--a wizard needing a place to stay--I was blissfully to have Albus at Brocklehurst again, and to be reassured, as each time we were together, that nothing between us had changed. Since that first Bonfire Night, how many times had we stood here together, in the office, watching the activities of the yard, admiring the sleek beauty of nonmagical as well as magical horses, my own pleasure only heightened by the hope that the farrier would never see that no colleague of his had ever trimmed one of Sorcha's unshod feet; that neither he nor any of the lads would ever detect the wings that I knew now lay folded along the mare's silvery-grey back.

The last of the horses were being brought in from the pasture now. They nickered and whinnied to Sorcha, who answered, and pawed at the cobbles. The farrier, packing his equipment away in his van, glanced towards her--and I held my breath until one of the lads called to him to come and look at a loose shoe.

As the farrier turned away from Sorcha, and from the office, the mug in my hand tingled suddenly--and I looked down as it started to leave my grasp. I clutched at it, as if it were about to fall to the floor--but it drifted away towards the tea table, to join Albus's, which I saw was already sitting there, as if waiting for mine. Albus stood up and walked over to me. Smiling down at me, he waggled a finger at the office door. Then, as it swung shut, he reached out and took both of my hands in his. Gently, and seemingly the same as a Muggle would have, he drew me to my feet.

"I've got evening stables," I told him.

"You've got six good lads," he replied.

Under the look in his eyes, I felt mine were melting. "Yes," I said. "Six good lads. I don't really need a seventh. Especially one who doesn't know anything about horses."

Albus's hands were warm holding mine. How well I knew those hands, back and palm, each finger and thumb. How well I knew those strong arms ... those shoulders ... that neck when it was not completely hidden by the long beard and the long robes, which now hid his chest as well, which itself could never utterly conceal all that was in his beating heart ...

"'Nearly ten years,' you were saying." Albus spoke softly, his voice throbbing with what sounded like the same feeling that was making my breath catch in my throat.

I nodded. "Ten years come Bonfire Night."

A laugh rumbled deep in Albus' chest. "And still you say he can't do magic here. While you have a very entrancing magic of your own."

The arms I knew so well--those dear arms--were round me now, holding me close. I could feel his heart pounding through his robes and through my jumper. My own heart was thumping like a triphammer, my whole system surging as with the power of the entire Underground.

"He can't stay in the Hall," I said.

"What about the flat?" asked Albus.

I shook my head. "He'll know. Even without magic, he'd know. I never allow any of the lads up there. No one ever goes up there. Even Muggles could ..."

"No." Albus's voice was gentle, but firm. "No Muggle can know. No witch or wizard. I saw to that the first time. On that Bonfire Night. If I hadn't, you and I would be up there at this very moment. We wouldn't have to use the stairs."

"We can't use the stairs anyway," I reminded him. "The lads are still here. And I've got evening stables."

Albus heaved a sigh so deep it seemed to go right down to the heels of his buckled boots. For a moment his arms held me close--then, almost pushing me away, he stepped back and stood looking down at me. "Go," he said. "Do your evening stables. See to all your horses."

"What will you do?"

"I?" He sighed again. "I shall take Sorcha for a flight. If we go fast enough, and high enough, I might get cold enough to wait until you have finished with your horses and are ready for me."

I looked up, meeting his eyes. "I'm ready now," I told him.

He gave a small, ironic-sounding laugh. "I know."

"I'm just not sure I'm ready to have another wizard here," I went on. "Especially not this one. If he were a Hufflepuff ... or a Gryffindor ..."

Albus smiled a tight smile. "If he were a Hufflepuff or a Gryffindor he wouldn't be in this--"

He broke off, and shook his head. His face suddenly looked deeply sad, and very old. Terrifyingly old.

"Albus--" I reached out to him--

"Four Gryffindors," he murmured. "Four Gryffindors. I never would have thought ..."

He sighed, and closed his eyes, and turned his head away.

"Albus--" I reached out and laid my hands on his arms. "You've never told me exactly what happened that Hallowe'en night," I said. "I don't really understand what became of those four Gryffindors. But I do know that they were all very dear to you ... perhaps even more dear than all the other witches and wizards who are gone, or ..."

I plunged on. "... or this ... this Slytherin. But he's still here. And he needs a place to stay--you need a place for him to stay."

Albus nodded. I heard him swallow, and then he turned back to look at me. The lamps were on out in the yard now, and by their light I thought I saw the glint of a tear in Albus's eye.

"He was in love with one of those four Gryffindors," Albus said. "He still is, all these nearly ten years on. And in September her son will be starting at Hogwarts. And Severus will have to teach him. And the only way I can ask that of him ..."

"Is to ask this of me," I finished.

Albus nodded again. "I'm not certain that I can keep him safe at Hogwarts. It's one of the safest places in our world ... but when one cannot guard one's own heart from itself ..."

"Then not even Hogwarts can." I took a step towards him, closing the distance he had made between us earlier, and put my arms around him.

He gave a deep and shaky sigh. "You have evening stables," he said, and his voice was a bit unsteady.

"I have six good lads," I replied. "And a flat that's been shut up--Muggle-ly as well as magically--for far too long."

"For nearly seven months, in fact," said Albus.

"Far too long," I reiterated, "for us to bother with the stairs."