220[@more@]power.”
“But you’d have been better, much better, than Fudge or Scimgeour!” burst out Harry.
“Would I?” asked Dumbledore heavily. “I am not so sure. I had proven, as a very young man, that power was my weakness and my temptation. It is a curious thing, Harry, but perhaps those who are best suited to power are those who have never sought it. Those 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 possess the meanest of them, the least extraordinary. I was fit to own the Elder Wand, and not boast of it, and not to kill with it. I was permitted to tame and use it, because I took it, not for gain, but to save others from it.
“But the Cloak, I took out of vain curiousity, and so it could never have worked for me as it works for you, its true owners. The stone I would have used in an attempt to drag back those who are at peace, rather than enable my self-sacrafice, as you did. You are the worthy possessor of the Hallows.”
Dumbledore patted Harry’s hand, and Harry looked up at the old man and smiled; he could not help himself. How coul dhe remain angry with Dumbledore now?
“Why did you have to make it so difficult?”
Dumbledore’s smile was tremulous.
“I am afraid I counted on Miss Granger to slow you up, Harry. I was afraid that your hot head might dominate your good heart. I was scared that, if presented outright with the facts about those tempting objects, you might seize the Hallows as I did, at the wrong time, for the wrong reasons. If you laid hands on them, I wanted you to possess them safely. You are the true master of death, because the true master does not seek to run away from Death. He accepts that he must die, and understands that there are far, far worse things in the living world than dying.”
“And Voldemort never knew about the Hallows?”
“I do not think so, because he did not recognize the Resurrection Stone he turned into a Horcrux. But even if he had known about them, Harry. I doubt that he woul dhave been interested in any except the first. He would not think that he needed the Cloak, and as for the stone, whom would he want to bring back from the dead? He fears the dead. He does not love.”
“But you expected him to go after the wand?”
“I have been sure that he would try, ever since your wand beat Voldemort’s in the graveyard of Little Hangleton. At first, he was afraid that you had conquered him by superior skill. Once he had kidnapped Ollivander, however, he discovered the existence of the twin cores. He thought that explained everything. Yet the borrowed wand did no better against yours! So Voldemort, instead of asking himself what quality it was in you that had made your wand so strong, what gift you possessed that he did not, naturally set out to find the one wand that, they said, would beat any other. For him, the Elder Wand has become an obsession to rival his obsession with you. He believes that the Elder Wand removes his last weakness and makes him truly invincible. Poor Severus . . .” “If you planned your death with Snape, you meant him to end up with the Elder Wand, didn’t you?”
“I admit that was my intention,” said Dumbledore, “but it did not work as I intended, did it?”
“No,” said Harry. “That bit didn’t work out.”
The creature behind them jerked and moaned, and Harry and Dumbledore sate
without talking for the longest time yet. The realization of what would happen next settled gradually over Harry in the long minutes, like softly falling snow. “I’ve got to go back, haven’t I?”
“That is up to you.”
“I’ve got a choice?”
“Oh yes,” Dumbledore smiled at him. “We are in King’s Cross you say? I think that if you decided not to go back, you would be able to . . . let’s say . . . board a train.” “And where would it take me?”
“On,” said Dumbledore simply.
Silence again.
“Voldemort’s got the Elder Wand.”
“True. Voldemort has the Elder Wand.”
“But you want me to go back?”
“I think,” said Dumbledore, “that if you choose to return, there is a chance that he may be finished for good. I cannot promise it. But I know this, Harry, that you have less to fear from returning here than he does.”
Harry glanced again at the raw looking thing that trembled and choked in the shadow beneath the distant chair.
“Do not pity the dead, Harry. Pity the living, and above all, those who live without love. By returning, you may ensure that fewer souls are maimed, fewer families are torn apart. If that seems to you a worthy goal, they we saw good-bye for the present.” Harry nodded and sighed. Leaving this place would not be nearly as hard as walking into the forest had been, but it was warm and light and peaceful here, and he knew that he was heading back to pain and the fear of more loss. He stood up, and Dumbledore did the same, and they looked for a long moment into each other’s faces. “Tell me one last thing,” said Harry, “Is this real? Or has this been happening inside my head?”
Dumbledore beamed at him, and his voice sounded loud and strong in Harry’s ears even though the bright mist was descending again, obscuring his figure. “Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean it is not real?”
Chapter Thirty-Six
The Flaw in the Plan
He was flying facedown on the grond again. The smell of the forest filled his nostrils. He could feel
the cold hard ground beneath his cheek, and the hinge of his glasses which have been knocked sideways
by the fall cutting into his temple. Every inch of him ached, and the place where Killing Curse had hit him
felt like the bruise of an iron-clad punch. He did not stir, but he remained exactly where he had fallen, with
his left arm bent out at an akward angle and his mouth gaping.
He had expected to hear cheer of triumph and jubilation at his death, but instead hurried footsteps,
whispers, and solicitous murmurs filled the air.
"My Lord... my Lord..."
It was Bellatrix's voice, and she spoke as if to a lover. Harry did not dare open his eyes, but allowed
his other senses to explore his predicament. He knew that his wand was still stowed beneath his robes because
he could feel it pressed between his chest and the ground. A slight cushioning effect in the area of his stomach
told him that the Invisibility Cloak was also there, stuffed out of sight.
"My Lord..."
"That will do," said Voldemort's voice.
More footsteps. Several people were backing away from the same spot. Desperate to see what was
happening and why, Harry opened his eyes by a milimeter.
Voldemort seemed to be getting to his feet. Various Death Eaters were hurrying away from him,
returning to the crowd lining the clearing. Bellatrix alone remained behind, kneeling beside Voldemort.
Harry closed his eyes again and considered what he had seen. The Death Eaters have been buddled
around Voldemort, who seem to have fallen to the ground. Something had happened when he had hit Harry with
the Killing Curse. Had Voldemort too collapsed? It seemed like it. And both of them had briefly fallen unconcious
and both of them had now returned. . .
"My Lord, let me --"
"I do not require assitance," said Voldemort coldly, and though he could not see it, Harry pictured
Bellatrix withdrawing a helpful hand. "The boy . . . Is he dead?"
There was a complete silence in the clearing. Nobody approached Harry, but he felt their concentraded
gaze; it seemed to press him harder into the ground, and he was terrified a finger or an eyelid might twitch.
"You," said Voldemort, and there was a bang and a small shrick of pain.
"Examine him. Tell me whether he is dead."
Harry did not know who had been sent to verify. He could only lie there, with his heart thumping traitorously, and wait to be
examined, but at the same time nothing, small comfort through it was, that Voldemort was wary of approaching him, that Voldemort
suspected that all had not gone to plan . . . .
Hands, softer than he had been expecting, touched Harry's face, and felt his heart. He could hear the woman's fast breathing,
her pounding of life against his ribs.
"Is Draco alive? Is he in the castle?"
The whisper was barely audible, her lips were an inch from his car, her head bent so low that her long hair shielded his face
from the onlookers.
"Yes," he breathed back.
He felt the hand on his chest contract: her nails pierced him. Then it was withdrawn. She had sat up.
"He is dead!" Narcissa Malfoy called to the watchers.
And now they shouted, now they yelled in triumph and stamped their feet, and through his eyelids, Harry saw bursts of red
and silver light shoot into the air in celebration.
Still feigning death on the ground, he understood. Narcissa knew that the only way she would be permitted to enter Hogwarts,
and find her son, was as part of the conquering army. She no longer cared whether Voldemort won.
"You see?" screeched Voldemort over the tumult. "Harry Potter is dead by my hand, and no man alive can threaten me now!
Watch! Crucio!"