Disclaimer: You know the drill.
What Makes a Dark Lord
by
Acta Est Fabula
-Chapter I-
Pride
"Good day, Mr. Potter," called Mr. Dumbledore, his 'ever-visitor' as he called him "or would the greeting fashion of today's, such as 'Oi! Potter!,' would be more appropriate?" Mr. Dumbledore caressed his 'too long to be true' beard and mustache cluster with one hand.
Ever since he was one and a half years old, Mr. Dumbledore would visit him from time to time. Not that he could remember that far back, but Mr. Dumbledore had told him so. Sometimes as often as twice a week, sometimes as seldom as biweekly, but never less than three times a month. The visits never ceased to amaze him, however, as the timing was never foreseenable –not to mention the wonderous robes and hats he wore in all colors and designs, with so many variaties of pattern composition on them. He had even worn a stellar map of a few constellation, and he had told him the story of how the stars on his robes had come to be! Mr. Dumbledore was a great story-teller, in his eyes –how he could turn a simple thing into a tale! It was fascinating.
"Such a pleasure to see you, Mr. Dumbledore, this fine day." Harry replied in sentences decades bigger than his meager ten year old self. Mr. Dumbledore was also a great orator with unmached rhetoric skills, which he was trying to imitate now. "How have you been since we last met?" he inquired.
"Ah," Mr. Dumbledore smiled with the warmth only great-grand fathers could manage to radiate, "being nigh a century old, I have scarce few to complain about –if you look past the expectations of the society, though, even you might have as much reason to complain as myself of it, I presume...?"
Yes, Mr. Dumbledore spoke in riddles always. It had taken ages to get used to it, and doubly more to actually be able to understand. He was yet to manage the same conduct of speech fluently.
"Actually this weeks school-work was rather..." he squinted his eyes to find the most appropriate and most extravagant word to use, "compliant of my other..." he had yet to grasp the concept of this roundabout aproach of language usage, "leisure time endeavors!" He sighed with relief. Hope was not lost yet.
Mr. Dumbledore laughed wholeheartily, attracting even more stares, if there was any left to attract. He always did when Harry succeeded in imitating him. "I have been- ah, 'rubbing off on you' more and more, I see. Do tell me, though: what does your instuctor say about your behavior?" Then he indicated with hand to continue walking. The wide circle around them was painfully obvious.
Harry snorted in disdain. "He does not... appreciate my efforts; trying to dumb my every sentence down, I say...!"
Mr. Dumbledore's voice sharpened, "Be ever vigilant towards your own attitude, Harry; many a great man has fallen into the grip of selfishnes, and pride is the main culprit."
The comparision of Harry himself with those who believed pureblood wizards and witches were better than the rest was below the belt. They had talked about those kind of people –more like Mr. Dumbledore asked some questions, and Harry thought about the answers, mostly- and Mr. Dumbledore knew he was not like that. And he would tell Mr. Dumbledore so, in their way. "Should I not be better not because whom bore me, but whom I have become –whom I have chosen to become?"
Mr. Dumbledore's sigh choked Harry.
"Forgive my faux pas, Harry," Mr. Dumbledore apologized, "the resemblance is so uncanny that I sometimes forget...!" He smiled, a sad smile... "I merely wished you not take the same road that I have, lest it smites you into a half-broken shape than some other that would mold and bake a character to withstand."
Mr. Dumbledore was so humble a man –even in his overwhelming wisdom and experience, he would never think himself above apologizing,- that he felt what shame meant. "Forgive me, Mr. Dumbledore; I never meant to..." he paused, closed his eyes and inhaled to ease his distress and draw strength from the air around him.
Mr. Dumbledore didn't interrupt his ritual of calming, they would never interrupt, and they would not leave a sentence broken that had to be said –Harry was beginning to develop the almost intuition that Mr. Dumbledore had.
Harry began again, "If I offended you somehow, please forgive me. It was not my intention at all."
"Think nothing of it, Harry –how could I expect you to understand what I meant when it was said without the proper context? And let us shoot two birds with one stone, as the saying goes, and twist our topic for today's discussion to suit this need... shall we?"
"You mean, sir that...?"
Mr. Dumbledore's ever present smile deepened. "Ah, I see you have noticed our dilemma. Yes, you will have to play myself, while I shall content myself with being my younger self. I hope you will also see the irony which is my life. Also, that is the reason I gave you my biographies, not because I happen to be a big fan of those books and myself." He winked.
Harry frowned when the lesson in all this drama eluded him. Mr. Dumbledore always presented one –mostly in ethics and morals- but this one was even more ambiguous than ever. He would have deducted, most probably, by the end of the day –and more often he would learn the theme by then only, than the alternative with their 'games.' He repeated their mantra in his mind: 'First know all you can, then analyze, then decide; analyze your decision, come to a conclusion.' This was how they played 'the Game.'
During the Game, Mr. Dumbledore would play the 'devil's advocate' as he termed the act, and Harry himself would play the 'voice of reason,' or what he could manage the closest to it. How the rules applied to this was beyond him yet, as both sides were to be Dumbledores in some manner or another.
Mr. Dumbledore took his wizard's hat off with a flourish and, with but a touch, unlocked and opened the front door of the number four, Privet Drive. "Shall we?"
Harry noticed that the audience had dissipated at some point as they always would.
When they entered the house, Mr. Dumbledore immediately greeted the occupants inside, "Ah, my dear Petunia, how are you this magnificant day?"
Aunt petunia just huffed and puffed, not ceasing her cleaning. She didn't even acknowledge the address. She was as crude a muggle as a muggle could possibly be. Then, like she had not thought about it from the moment they entered, she threw the rubber gloves aside and started to practically run away.
Harry smiled at her. "Stay, Aunt; you need not let our presence keep you from your... duties."
They sat themselves comfortably on plush armchairs in front of a hearth facing each other. There was a chess set with moving pieces between them. With a flick of his wand, Mr. Dumbledore set the wood ablaze.
The red glow was casting an eerie light over the room, illuminating their faces in a most natural, yet so surreal way. This was magic, natural and surreal at the same time... And this was 'the Magic Corner' Dursleys would not even dare look, let alone touch any object there.
With another flick of Mr. Dumbledore's wand, they were sipping icy-cold butterbeers. Harry ordered his white horse to move verbally. He was frowning in confusion. "I do not understand, though; all the books only merely mention your life before your fight against Grindelwald. Why?"
Mr. Dumbledore sighed, "That, my boy, is a question I have asked myself many times. 'Why?' Why would they want to ignore some parts, while stressing and exaggerating others extensively against common sense? And every answer was even more ridiculous, more absurd, but more likely than the one before.
"Maybe we as two might come to a better conclusion than I could alone. Let us worry about it the last if it is not too much a bother...?" Mr Dumbledore moved a pawn forward, in horse's range.
"No, it is not." Harry moved the horse to destroy the pawn. The lance did its job and the pawn fell.
"Then let me tell you my story up to the parts you have read. I was eleven when I recieved my acceptance letter to Hogwarts..." And Mr. Dumbledore told his story without leaving out any detail, for hours on end. His school life, his familial relationship, his friends, everything. When he was done, the sun had already set, and the dinner set by Aunt Petunia –who had left with her husband and son for a family outing they would do when Mr. Dumbledore came over,- had long turned cold. "Now that we have the story out of the way, we can fill our empty bellies!" came Mr. Dumbledore's overly cheerful voice. The chess game was long forgotten.
Harry was affected by the story, to say the least. He struggled to find a word he knew to describe how he felt, but failed. There was simply no way to reconcile the story's main character with the old, benign man before him.
They sat to eat, but Harry simply could not spare the time to eat. He was far too busy contemplating the implications of the latest revelations about Mr. Dumbledore. He now could clearly understand why the books given to him had deliberately avoided the subject of Mr. Dumbledore's earlier life, as burying their heads were not only an ostrich trait –humans tend to do that, from what he could understand. But there was something very disturbing, overall. He could not put his finger on 'what,' exactly, but it was there, as if glaring at him, daring him to recognize. When the thought of Mr. Dumbledore's friendship with Gellert Grindelwald entered his mind, he dismissed it –it was just not that, though it should by all means have been that. All Mr. Dumbledore did to engage him in a conversation was blatantly ignored along with the food.
Only after the direct question from Mr. Dumbledore, 'What seems to be the problem, Harry?' did Harry raise his head. Half the food was gone and two empty butter beer bottles stood empty on top of the table. He realized, with somewhat of a shock, that he was thinking for a long time. He looked at the man in front of him, and the child and the teenager from the story.
He tried to begin, "There is something bothering me; like an irksome itch, whenever I scratch somewhere, I find that it is the wrong place. It is hard to describe." and could come up only with an analogy.
"Oh, I find myself feeling the same many times. I find changing my outfit most helpful in that situation."
Which was 'change the way you think that situation' in Dumbledorish. "But how?" he asked, "How do I change my perspective when I have but one?"
"Do you, now?" Mr. Dumbledore countered with another question, "What of the countless times you defended your claims against mine? Do they not count?"
"This is different..." Harry trailed off not knowing what to say.
But the opposition was persistant. "How so?"
"It just is!" He sounded his age even to his ears and it was displeasing greatly. "I am uncomfortable with this topic..." he stated looking at his folded hands.
"Then in vain would you defend while in doubt yourself... But do promise me, you will think on this matter long and hard, until you can have a closure... will you?"
"I will." Harry promised.
Mr. Dumbledore looked at his watch that had every function other than showing what the time was, "The time seems to have slipped away. Before I take my leave, though... do eat your dinner; I dare say it would be healthy for you, as well as your uncle and cousin." His eyes twinkled with hidden mischief behind them.
Harry snickered at the jibe. "It would be, would it not? So, what will our next discussion be?"
"I think what we had decided to for this session would be most convenient. Ah, and your move, by the way."
So their next discussion was going to be the thing they had digressed to today: why would one see what he wished to see? It was getting confusing... And the reminder of the chess was Mr. Dumbledore's parting words. He could deduct many from even that statement, and you never knew what was really meant. He ate absent-mindedly...
He would think on this story for years, and still fail to find what was making him feel so, to no avail –until one moment, a moment that he would look at his life and something would just 'click' and fit into place: the 'problem' was not with the story, it was with Harry himself...