"I have a lead on another horcrux and this time I cannot do it alone", Dumbledore said.
"Once again I must ask too much of you Harry."
Uncharacteristically, Harry remained silent. He turned around and gazed out of the window onto the snow covered grounds of Hogwarts.
"Professor, can I ask you a question?"
"You already have, but do go on." said an amused Dumbledore.
"How is it that Voldemort rose to power in the first place? Slughorn knew he was a half blood. Surely you could have talked some people out of supporting him."
Dumbledore's face turned very grave.
"Surely my boy, you do not mean to traffic in the same disgusting blood-based bigotry that the Death Eaters do?"
"No, just how has he maintained so much support from so many pureblood families for all these years? He's insane! Surely they know this!"
"Ah, now that is a good question." said Dumbledore. "Do sit down Harry. If we are to stay up too late like Muggle University students, I might as well break out the fire whiskey for this discussion"
"Really, sir?" Harry asked eagerly. "It's just that I've never.."
"Are you sure you're a sixth year my boy?" said Dumbledore, his eyebrows raised as he flicked his wand at a bookshelf. A thick book titled "Transfiguration of Metals: A Treatise" slid out and a bottle of Ogdens flew towards Dumbledore and landed gently on his desk. Another flick and two glasses
"Yet another way our world has failed your generation, I'm afraid. As a sixth year, you should be focusing on a future career, your love life and how to sneak firewhiskey past the eagle eyes of Mr. Filch. Ah, I could tell you tales of my sixth year .. but perhaps now is not the time."
Harry sat down firmly and took a sip of the golden liquid. It went down like fire, much as he had expected. A loud belch of flame flew out of his mouth and he watched horrified as it approached Dumbledore's collection of old and valuable books. Just as it was about to hit the shelf, a crimson shield covered in runes appeared in front of it and the flame immediately fizzled out.
"One of the first library spells created, to protect books from the elements," Dumbledore beamed. "Legend has it that Rowena Ravenclaw herself invented it and used it on all books at the Hogwarts Library at the time. I learned it shortly after I became a professor of Defense against the Dark Arts here in 1914."
"Defense?" said Harry, surprised. "I thought you taught Transfiguration"
"Oh no, I began as the Hogwarts Defense Professor. There was some unpleasantness back in 1927 with a particularly nasty Ministry official named Torquil Travers who tried to conscript me to fight for the Ministry against Grindelwald. I refused to, on the grounds that I would not fight under the banner of a government that I loathed so deeply against a man whose ideals I respected, even if I could not support his tactics. He used all his influence to force me out of the position and so I was shunted sideways into the Transfiguration department."
"Travers?" Harry asked. "The same as the Death Eater?"
"Ah yes, Torquil was a particularly nasty kind. The kind of wizard who wants to tell you how to live every aspect of your life and feels that as a pureblood it is his right to do so. In any case, we are not here to recall the glory days of my early career but to talk about Voldemort. In his and in the case of Grindelwald and earlier, the answer comes down to muggles."
"Muggles?"
"Yes, Muggles. As you know, the 19th century changed Muggle Britain enormously. They developed industrially and technologically to an incredible extent. Many wizards, especially Muggleborns wanted the same for themselves. Over the years, this led to many people questioning whether the Statute of Secrecy was really a good thing. I was one of many wizards of the day who wanted to share in this amazing technology and learn how magic interacted with it. The scholarship of men like Harvey, Planck and later Einstein penetrated magical society and was the talk of the town at the turn of the century."
"You see, wizards used to always be ahead of Muggles in science and mathematics. We were scholars from the beginning, advising kings and even ruling. Several British monarchs even attended Hogwarts for a couple years before the statute. One of the reasons the witch burnings lasted so long until the statute finally came down was that the king had to attend Hogwarts in secrecy. This ended when Charles I was killed and Cromwell and his followers took over."
"This strain of thought infuriated the purebloods. They grew steadily disenchanted with Muggleborns whom they blamed for the Hogwarts Express and the Magical Radio 'infecting' their pristine pastoral society. They fought every one of these developments tooth and nail and managed to enact draconian rules about interacting with Muggles. They developed technologies to monitor Muggleborns using magic and even put a fig leaf on it, calling it the Trace and arguing that it was to protect the statute.
Things were far worse in America when Lincoln freed the slaves. Rich Southern wizards refused to free their Muggleborn slaves and often used the imperious curse in flagrant violation of the law until the American Magical Civil War of 1890 when they were defeated."
"Grindelwald was the hope of every Muggleborn in Britain and America. He preached equality among all wizards and an end to the Statute of Secrecy. A religious man, he thought that magic was a gift from God and fervently believed that science and magic together could lead the world into a better 20th century. Unfortunately, his tactics were abominable. He killed off old pureblood lines, stole books and magical objects and used dark magic much too freely."
Harry gaped.
"Grindelwald was a Muggleborn?"
"Oh yes, and the Potters and Blacks were some of his strongest enemies. The Potters generally got along with Muggles and Muggleborns, but they loved their pastoral country life in Wales and loathed technology with a passion."
"After I finally defeated him in 1945 when I could no longer stand by and watch him murder innocent wizards simply for disagreeing with him, the purebloods thought I had changed my mind on technology and Muggleborns and had become one of them. As you know, I am a mere halfblood but they welcomed me with open arms as the savior of their cause."
"Unfortunately for them, I did not condone murder but my politics had remained the same. When I became Chief Warlock, I thwarted every effort to impose further penalties on Muggleborns. I fought my way in the 1950s and the 1960s to welcome more and more Muggleborns into our society and encouraged them to bring their culture and let us learn about them. One colossal fight that I lost was the making of Muggle Studies into a compulsory course and the institution of a proper scientific curriculum at Hogwarts. I made up for it in other ways. You may not have noticed but in Potions, Transfiguration and Charms, I mandated the teaching of basic scientific principles alongside the magical theory as a way to get around pureblood bigotry."
"If you were to take the A-levels today, you would have no trouble passing the mathematics, physics and chemistry sections. In fact, several Muggleborn students have done so in the past and have done extremely well. Many of them have gone on to become wonderful academics. I have many fond memories of visiting old students at Cambridge. Hogwarts advertises itself in the Muggle world as an invite-only school for scientific excellence and our scientific curriculum is a strong selling point for Muggle parents"
"Into this situation came a gifted wizard by the name of Tom Riddle. Now you know what he did at Hogwarts, but his loathing of Muggles and his powerful capacity for dark magic led the pureblood to want him as their leader. Their own counterpoint to Grindelwald."
"Tom hates technology too. Apparently when he was very young, his only childhood friend, a young witch in the same orphanage was run over by a car on the streets of London. She was the bastard daughter of Brutus Malfoy. So when Tom arrived at Hogwarts, took one look at young Abraxas and his fate was sealed."
"So to cut our long story short Harry, the purebloods will never abandon Tom because he is their only hope of preserving a dying culture. And I will never stop fighting Tom, not just because he is truly evil and has split his soul in eight parts but because I am a modern wizard who believes in technology and wants to see the Statute of Secrecy end in my lifetime."
Harry was very quiet at the end of this speech.
"I don't think I want the Statute to end, Professor. I love my wizarding life and don't really like the Muggle world"
Dumbledore gazed at Harry sadly.
"You are of course entitled to your own opinion Harry, but the world is much bigger than Privet Drive. Once again, I must bear the blame for your unhappy childhood, no matter how safe it might have been."
Dumbledore finished his glass and flicked his wand, vanishing it.
"And now Harry, it is time for bed. I must rest, these old bones creak more alarmingly as each year passes. Good night."
"Good night, Professor."
Harry rose and walked towards the door. As he was about to open the door, Dumbledore said.
"And Harry, before you go, I would like you to ponder this: we are wizards. We have magic and we are human. Why do we embrace our magical side so fervently and ignore our human side, a side we share with 6 billion other humans around the world?"
Dumbledore's eyes burned with a blue inner fire and he stood taller than Harry had ever seen him stand before. His gaze was penetrating.
"As an old friend of mine used to say: Magic blooms in rare souls. Why should we live like rats in the gutter?"