161[@more@]mourning his mother and caring for his sister!
No doubt those determined to keep Dumbledore on his crumbling pedestal
will bleat that he did not, after all, put his plans into action, that he must have suffered a change of heart, that he came to his senses. However, the truth seems altogether more shocking.
Barely two months into their great new friendship, Dumbledore and
Grindelwald parted, never to see each other again until they met for their
legendary duel (for more, see chapter 22). What caused this abrupt rupture? Had Dumbledore come to his senses? Had he told Grindelwald he wanted no more
part in his plans? Alas, no.
“It was poor little Ariana dying, I think, that did it,” says Bathilda. “It came as an awful shock. Gellert was there in the house when it happened, and he
came back to my house all of a dither, told me he wanted to go home the next day. Terribly distressed, you know. So I arranged a Portkey and that was the last I saw of him.
“Albus was beside himself at Ariana’s death. It was so dreadful for those two brothers. They had lost everybody except for each other. No wonder tempers
ran a little high. Aberforth blamed Albus, you know, as people will under these dreadful circumstances. But Aberforth always talked a little madly, poor boy. All the same, breaking Albus’s nose at the funeral was not decent. It would have destroyed Kendra to see her sons fighting like that, across her daughter’s body. A shame Gellert could not have stayed for the funeral. . . . He would have been a comfort to Albus, at least. . . .
This dreadful coffin-side brawl, known only to those few who attended
Ariana Dumbledore’s funeral, raises several questions. Why exactly did
Aberforth Dumbledore blame Albus for his sister’s death? Was it, as “Batty” pretends, a mere effusion of grief? Or could there have been some more
concrete reason for his fury? Grindelwald, expelled from Durmstrang for the near-fatal attacks upon fellow students, fled the country hours after the girl’s death, and Albus (out of shame or fear?) never saw him again, not until forced to do so by the pleas of the Wizarding world.
Neither Dumbledore nor Grindelwald ever seems to have referred to this
brief boyhood friendship in later life. However, there can be no doubt that Dumbledore delayed, for some five years of turmoil, fatalities, and
disappearances, his attack upon Gellert Grindelwald. Was it lingering affection for the man or fear of exposure as his once best friend that caused Dumbledore to hesitate? Was it only reluctantly that Dumbledore set out to capture the man he was once so delighted he had met?
And how did the mysterious Ariana die? Was she the inadvertent victim of
some Dark rite? Did she stumble across something she ought not to have done, as the two young men sat practicing for their attempt at glory and domination? Is it possible that Ariana Dumbledore was the first person to die “for the greater good”?
The chapter ended here and Harry looked up. Hermione had reached the bottom of the page before him. She tugged the book out of Harry’s hands, looking a little alarmed by his expression, and closed it without looking at it, as though hiding something indecent.
“Harry ---”
But he shook his head. Some inner certainty had crashed down inside him; it was exactly as he had felt after Ron left. He had trusted Dumbledore, believed him the embodiment of goodness and wisdom. All was ashes: How much more could he lose? Ron, Dumbledore, the phoenix wand . . .
“Harry.” She seemed to have heard his thoughts. "Listen to me. It --- it doesn't make a very nice reading ---"
"Yeah, you could say that ---"
"--- but don't forget, Harry, this is Rita Skeeter writing."
"You did read that letter to Grindelwald, didn't you?"
"Yes, I --- I did." She hesitated, looking upset, cradling her tea in her cold hands. "I think that's the worst bit. I know Bathilda thought it was all just talk, but 'For the Greater Good' became Grindelwald's slogan, his justification for all the atrocities he committed later. And . . . from that . . . it looks like Dumbledore gave him the idea. They say 'For the Greater Good' was even carved over the entrance to Nurmengard." "What's Nurmengard?"
"The prison Grindelwald had built to hold his opponents. He ended up in there himself, once Dumbledore had caught him. Anyway, it's --- it’s an awful thought that Dumbledore's ideas helped Grindelwald rise to power. But on the other hand, even Rita can't pretend that they knew each other for more than a few months one summer when they were both really young, and ---"
"I thought you'd say that," said Harry. He did not want to let his anger spill out at her, but it was hard to keep his voice steady. "I thought you'd say 'They were young.' They were the same age as we are now. And here we are, risking our lives to fight the Dark Arts, and there he was, in a huddle with his new best friend, plotting their rise to power over the Muggles."
His temper would not remain in check much longer: He stood up and walked
around, trying to work some of it off.
"I'm not trying to defend what Dumbledore wrote," said Hermione. "All that 'right to rule' rubbish, it's 'Magic Is Might' all over again. But Harry, his mother had just died, he was stuck alone in the house ---"
"Alone? He wasn't alone! He had his brother and sister for company, his Squib sister he was keeping locked up ---"
"I don't believe it," said Hermione. She stood up too. "Whatever was wrong with that girl, I don't think she was a Squib. The Dumbledore we knew would never, ever have allowed---"
"The Dumbledore we thought we knew didn't want to conquer Muggles by force!" Harry shouted, his voice echoing across the empty hilltop, and several blackbirds rose into the air, squawking and spiraling against the pearly sky.
"He changed, Harry, he changed! It's as simple as that! Maybe he did believe these things when he was seventeen, but the whole of the rest of his life was devoted to fighting the Dark Arts! Dumbledore was the one who stopped Grindelwald, the one who always voted for Muggle protection and Muggle born rights, who fought You-Know- Who from the start, and who died trying to bring him down!"
Rita's book lay on the ground between them, so that the face of Albus
Dumbledore smiled dolefully at both.
"Harry, I'm sorry, but I think the real reason you're so angry is that Dumbledore never told you any of this himself."
"Maybe I am!" Harry bellowed, and he flung his arms over his head, hardly
knowing whether he was trying to hold in his anger or protect himself from the weight of his own disillusionment. "Look what he asked from me, Hermione! Risk your life, Harry! And again! And again! And don't expect me to explain everything, just trust me blindly, trust that I know what I'm doing, trust me even though I don't trust you! Never the whole