Chapter 2

Dumbledore's smile faded. "What are you thinking about, Harry?"

Harry looked up at the old Headmaster and sighed. "What happened to Voldemort?" he questioned, lines of worry wrinkling his forehead.

The old man next to him sighed, too. "I could have guessed you would be asking this, but I'm afraid that I don't have an answer to that. I don't have the faintest idea, honestly. Old Tom never made it here, insofar as I have noticed."

"I don't understand."

"And neither do I, Harry, but I guess it had to do with the way you finished it. You did so, not wanting him to hurt others any more than he already had. Even though we both saw what a helpless, agonized creature he would have become when you succeeded in the difficult mission I gave you fifty years back – and you really did," Dumbledore added, smiling again, "He'd still hurt many by the mere thought of his presence here. Voldemort brought them here, you see, and ripped apart their families without dwelling on what he did. I can imagine the emotional toll was an unbearable torture, even without having to look at the one whose wand caused it."

Harry nodded, heavy-heartedly. Dumbledore understood without words. "I'm afraid that feeling's unavoidable. It is what those who are capable to love must endure. I've seen many who went insane from being able to see, but not touch."

"Wait… You're saying…"

"Ah, yes," Dumbledore replied. "If we really want."

Harry contemplated this, then uttered, "How?"

The older man beside him merely smiled. "From where we are going to–" "And where… are we going to?" Harry interrupted, getting even more confused each moment, with each word that passed between them, and this suddenly seemed more important than his previous question.

"On."

Harry nodded to the simple reply, and a silence fell between the two wizards. "When are we going?" Harry questioned when the lack of further clarification started getting uncomfortable.

"On the next train, I guess," Dumbledore answered. "And no, I have no idea when precisely that is," he added, upon seeing Harry's mouth open to ask.

He nodded again, then wondered, "Why here? Why you? I assume you reckon it is still… my party?"

Dumbledore laughed at this. "Yes, Harry. I'm convinced it is, still. I assure you that at my old age, I am quite partied out already."

Yet another silence fell between both men.

"He loved you. I know he loved you."

"I don't know who he loved, Hermione, but it was never me. This isn't love, the mess he's left me in. He shared a damn sight more of what he was thinking with Gellert Grindelwald than he ever shared with me."

Harry unsuccessfully tried to push his thoughts aside, and when he looked up at Dumbledore again, he noticed the piercing blue eyes filled with tears. "Forgive me, Harry," the grey man sadly whispered. "I perhaps should have paid more attention to you than to the mission that was so imperative to our survival. I didn't mean to make you feel like that. I didn't want you to feel unloved. I must admit I had hoped the presence of your friends to be enough. Foolish. I should have realized the complexity of love, and the need for you to have love from more than just your friends. I'm sorry, Harry. I did love you, and I haven't stopped doing that through dying. Miss Granger – now Mrs. Weasley – was again, as usual, right."

"Wait. How… You… saw it?"

Dumbledore's head shook. "No. I didn't. Professor Snape surely was a much more accomplished Occlumens than I once was, but that doesn't mean I'm not still adept. The fact that you aren't – I'm sorry, Harry – doesn't make it really hard for anyone to read you."

Harry didn't smile. "You're adept in anything that has to do with magic."

"Maybe I am," Dumbledore confessed, "but what does it matter if you use magic towards faulty ends?"

"You didn't," Harry whispered.

"Thank you for saying that, Harry, but even you should realize… Oh, but… that's right. You already did find truth behind all secrets I had."

Neither spoke, until Harry's voice sounded, "No. I didn't." He looked up at his old Headmaster, and continued, quoting McGonagall, Hogwarts' best Headmistress, who had been Harry's strict – if caring – supporter, teacher and Head of House. "Dumbledore would have been happier than anybody to think that there was a little more love in the world." She'd said it right after hearing about Albus' death, and Harry had taken comfort from those words. He'd never forget them either.

Dumbledore became quiet almost instantly.

"I long knew you would ask that question sooner or later; that you would put pieces together sometime. And I feared for it all these years back. I never told you about it for the same reason I never told you about my past: I was afraid that you'd judge me. That was, however, just another mistake of mine. Forgive me, Harry. I should have known you wouldn't abandon me."

Dumbledore sighed, and suddenly he looked so ancient and fragile. "Forgive me," he repeated, placing his entwined hands into his lap, looking down at them as he spoke again. "I should have trusted you." Another short silence fell before the old wizard continued, "You kept believing in me... believing that I knew what I was doing, even though what you heard or rather read – I'm mainly speaking of the farcical writings of Rita Skeeter's – contradicted what you thought was true. Things no longer seemed to be truthful in the narrow light they were shown. I imagine it must have confused you, and it must have been really hard upon you to continue while the environment you were in encouraged you so much to do the opposite. Sadly enough, perhaps most of what you heard was nothing less but true."

"You changed."

"Yes, Harry," Dumbledore whispered, smiling sadly. "I changed. Suddenly, I realized just about what I was doing, and changed. Years later, I would put even the man I loved in Nurmengard to try and make up for the mistakes I had made. Youthful mistakes, yet I don't think them any less wrong."