Who, like you, have leadership thrust upon them, and take up the mantle because they

Must, and find to their own surprise that they wear it well.

“I was safer at Hogwarts. I think I was a good teacher –”

“You were the best ---”

“--- you are very kind, Harry. But while I busied myself with the training of

Young wizards, Grindelwald was raising an army. They say he feared me, and perhaps he

Did, but less, I think, than I feared him.

“Oh, not death,” said Dumbledore, in answer to Harry’s questioning look. “Not

What he could do to me magically. I knew that we were evenly matched, perhaps that I

Was a shade more skillful. It was the truth I feared. You see, I never knew which of us, in

That last, horrific fight, had actually cast the curse that killed my sister. You may call me

cowardly: You would be right, Harry. I dreaded beyond all things the knowledge that it

Had been I who brought about her death, not merely through my arrogance and stupidity,

But that I actually struck the blow that snuffed out her life.

“I think he knew it, I think he knew what frightened me. I delayed meeting him

Until finally, it would have been too shameful to resist any longer. People were dying and

He seemed unstoppable, and I had to do what I could.

“Well, you know what happened next. I won the duel. I won the wand.”

Another silence. Harry did not ask whether Dumbledore had ever found out who

Struck Ariana dead. He did not want to know, and even less did he want Dumbledore to

Have to tell him. At last he knew what Dumbledore would have seen when he looked in

The mirror of Erised, and why Dumbledore had been so understanding of the fascination it

Had exercised over Harry.

They sat in silence for a long time, and the whipmerings of the creature behind

Them barely disturbed Harry anymore.

At last he said, “Grindelwald tried to stop Voldemort going after the wand. He

lied, you know, pretended he had never had it.”

Dumbledore nodded, looking down at his lap, tears still glittering on the crooked

Nose.

“They say he showed remorse in later years, alone in his cell at Nurmengard. I

Hope that is true. I would like to think that he did feel the horror and shame of what he

Had done. Perhaps that lie to Voldemort was his attempt to make amends . . . to prevent

Voldemort from taking the Hallow . . .”

“. . .or maybe from breaking into your tomb?” suggested Harry, and Dumbledore

Dabbed his eyes.

After another short pause Harry said, “You tried to use the Resurrection Stone.”

Dumbledore nodded.

“When I discovered it, after all those years, buried in the abandoned home of the

Gaunts --- the Hallow I had craved most of all, though in my youth I had wanted it for

Very different reasons --- I lost my head, Harry. I quite forgot that I was not a Horcrux,

That the ring was sure to carry a curse. I picked it up, and I put it on, and for a second I

Imagined that I was about to see Ariana, and my mother, and my father, and to tell them

How very, very sorry, I was. . . .

“I was such a fool, Harry. After all those years I had learned nothing. I was

Unworthy to unite the Deathly Hallows, I had proved it time and again, and here was final

proof.”

“Why?” said Harry. “It was natural! You wanted to see them again. What’s wrong

with that?”

“Maybe a man in a million could unite the Hallows, Harry. I was fit only to

Date: 2015-12-11; view: 656