AN: Hey all. This little idea was put into my head, in part from a thread about Dumbledore being a necessary evil, and in part as a response to all those manipulative Dumbledore stories, which have Dumbledore as a completely incompetent manipulator. I have to think that if Dumbledore really was that all knowing then Harry's efforts against him wouldn't be much use, unless he had alot of help. Therefore I have to think that Dumbledore was either very misguided and thus not evil, or he planned everything including getting caught.

Don't get me wrong, I like manipulative Dumbledore stories, but this idea just spawned and I had to write it. It is set in a post apocalyptic world, and it's my first time writing a chain of thoughts like this. I don't know where I would go with it if I decided to continue, but I would like to know what you all think.

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter and I am not making any money out of this.

Pandora's Box

Dumbledore, for years was described as the pillar of the light. After he died, when people were still ignorant of most everything, he was vilified as an evil manipulator. It is only now, when just a few remain that the saddest truth is known.

He was right.

Everything he did, he was right to do. Every evil action was necessary. Oh, I won't kid you. He knew it was wrong. He knew that he would be damned if anyone found out just how far he was willing to go. He knew that when all was said and done and he was long gone from this world, that he would be damned regardless. He didn't care! He was willing to sacrifice everything, and not for some ideal of a 'Greater Good', but because, no matter how horribly, horribly wrong his actions were, they were also so very, very right!

I know that now. I, who suffered more than any other at his hands, have finally learned that lesson that he tried to teach me from the start. It was never about testing me. I didn't need to be tested. Not by him, at least. He could read my mind and knew me better than I could ever know myself. That was just him. His greatest achievement was his complete understanding of human nature. We should have trusted him in that.

It was never about controlling me. I didn't need to be treated the way I was to be controlled, and the risk of my discovery of his actions was too great for him to take such an unnecessary risk, although I didn't think so at the time. I didn't think it through. He, who inspired loyalty in practically everyone, did not get that loyalty through cruelty. If I was treated with kindness, I would have been his. He knew I would have been his. By doing what he did, I wasn't his and he knew that as well.

It wasn't about correcting past mistakes. My similarities to Riddle were not something that Dumbledore would ever seek to experiment with. Dumbledore did believe in the choice of the person, but at the same time he knows statistics. Not everyone who is abused seeks to become a dark lord, or a murderer. Voldemort was a Psychopath and again Dumbledore knew it.

Dumbledore tried to teach me one lesson and one lesson from the very start. The lesson of sacrifice. Through my own parent's history, through my upbringing and from those around me, Dumbledore endeavoured to instil in me the ability to give my all for the right thing.

Dumbledore knew the lesson well, and lived it more fully then anyone less than him could have, but I? No, I have learnt it far too late.

Some might argue that he didn't have the right to make that choice. They would say that he could sacrifice himself all he wanted, but no one has the right to do that to a child. Once I would have agreed with them. Once I did agree with them, and when I found out what he did, (though not the reasons why) I fought back. I fought back and caused the fall of the only man who was doing anything to keep this world together. He died, alone and friendless, having failed to get me to realise that lesson.

I remember, I asked him once, angry as I was, why he did it. He said, "It was necessary. Alas, my only regret is that I did not get to finish my work."

I thought then the worst. Now I understand his true message. He did not regret getting caught, because he always knew he would be. He regretted not getting to teach me his final lesson. He regretted getting caught too soon.

He died, and then the world died, because I had not yet learnt how to give everything that I had, and so other people did. Those others were not the ones capable of ending the war. Only me, but I couldn't because I was too caught up in my own selfishness.

Voldemort was the beginning of the war, but it spread. It spread so far, that the entire world was consumed by it. Do you know what it is like to see the world burn and know that even if you are not the cause of the flame, you are still the one who stops it from going out? I do, but I didn't know how to stop it then and by the time I did learn, it was far too late.

Now the world is a wasteland, with survivors settling like primitive tribes amongst once mighty and metallic buildings. I could blame so many things for this. I could blame Voldemort, Dumbledore, I could even blame myself, and I do. On dark days I do. Yet, if I am honest, then really I know that such devastation was always the inevitable. We as a race had forgotten the nature of sacrifice and had become consumed by greed, pride, hate and selfishness.

I look across the city, of strewn metal and blackened ground. I am alone. Tomorrow I will begin trying to unite the tribes, if we are to have any chance of survival and regrowth. It will be a hard undertaking, but as I look across the devastation I see signs of new life. Plants, little more than weeds are growing between the cracks in the pavement. It reminds me of an old story, that I was once told.

Once a girl opened a box which held all evil and malice. By opening it, all the evil escaped into the world; all the greed, the pride, the hate and every other bad thing that exists. Yet when all had fled she looked into the box, and hidden amongst the darkness was a thing called hope.

I wondered then, why hope was amongst the bad, when it seems to be so good.

I think now, when it is all that I have left, I understand.