Disclaimer: I don't own any of the Harry Potter characters…
It was a well known fact in the wizarding world that Dumbledore believed completely in the power of love.
Ever wondered what made him so ardent a believer?
Why he was sure that good always will win in the end?
Why he suddenly decided to face Grindelwald?
What was that which helped him defeat so feared a wizard?
All these questions have only one answer.
Eleanor Zimmerman.
The one woman in his life whom he had believed was love personified.
She had been like the cool breeze in his life which was otherwise crowded with expectations to fulfill and pretences to keep.
She had been the one who had seen all his follies.
The one who had accepted some, and had strived till she had corrected the rest.
She had been the one who had been his brain and heart.
The one who had told him what he had refused to acknowledge.
The one who had led him the right way when he had veered towards selfishness.
The one who had stopped him from shirking from his duties towards his siblings.
There was only one time he had discarded her warnings.
And his losses had been cruel.
In later days, Dumbledore had always wondered about what would have happened if he had paid heed to her words of caution against Grindelwald.
Would his family still be alive and well?
Would she not have died at the vindictive wizard's hands?
Would she have lived to be as old as he was?
Would the wizarding world have faced so evil a wizard and lost so many at battle?
But, there were no answers to these never ending questions.
And the dead, no matter how much he hoped, never came back.
She might not be alive, but, she had left her inimitable effect in his way of thinking, in his beliefs, even in his manner of speech.
Indeed, it had been her death that had woken him up from his ignorance of his ex-comrade's malevolent deeds.
Her loss had been the fuel which had made him seek battle.
She had been his fairy goddess, leading him to victory.
He still believed in love, because he often felt her presence surrounding him, heartening him, as if she knew he needed her by him.
She gave him hope. Hope that he'd one day go back to her.
Hope that one day he could reverse all the wrongs he had done to his sister.
Hope that one day his brother would treat him like an elder brother and not like a stranger.
She had never misled him, and on several occasions which the world had attributed to his wisdom, it had been her who had led him.
It had been she who had pushed him to trust Snape, it had been she who had repeatedly insisted on Sirius Black's innocence, and it had been at her insistence that he had held on as he was dueling Voldemort.
People called it instinct, gut feeling, intuition, wisdom.
To him, it was all her wish.
All her wish.
Her wish that he stood by the side of all that was good and noble.
Her wish that he struggle till his last for the 'greater good'.
Her desire that he sacrifice himself willingly.
The final act of nobility. His only hope for salvation.
The only lead he gave three teenagers in their search for the horcruxes.
That sacrifices were what made the world go around.
As he fell from the tower, he pictured her face in the stars, smiling at him, proud of his actions, some thing no one had ever been.
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