Wrote this a week or so ago on whim, and thought I'd go ahead and post it. Enjoy!
Dumbledore liked to think of himself as a happy man; an honest man. He would walk around for hours, sprouting nonsense and smiling gaily because, he supposed, that was the sort of man he wanted to be. Jolly and unique; uncaring of what the world thought of them.
Since he'd been a child his mind had worked this way. He would see something, and suddenly he'd feel himself copying the writing style; using the insult. But before long it became bigger things. Albus had always admired power- yearned for it in a way only rivaled by Tom Riddle's. He'd feel the longing build up in his gut, and he wouldn't be able to leave; couldn't be released until he'd learned the spell, looked up the potion's ingredients, beat the Slytherin in a duel.
But what Dumbledore both hated and loved was that, as a teenager at Hogwarts, nobody had seen him for the small, scared boy controlled by an unbeatable drive to know things, to be the best. They saw a strong, outgoing, inventive student unafraid of challenging his betters. And slowly but surely, that's the man he became.
In his later years he'd become a teacher. He chose to teach transfiguration, which had always been one of his best subjects, in a hope to let some of the hunger flee; leave him as it hadn't when he'd tried to become an auror. And, slowly but surely, his desire to learn and to know became a desire to teach and let others know. He'd lecture on things way out of anyone's league so that he wouldn't have to carry the unfinished knowledge around with him a like a brick; weighing him down.
Then he met Tom. Tom was everything Dumbledore had wanted to be; everything he'd been too scared to become. He began to fear Tom, knowing he would find secrets he shouldn't know, both belonging to Hogwarts and Albus himself. But he couldn't help but half-listen when he overheard the teenager helping a peer with class work- couldn't help but be enveloped by the new ways of thinking and inventive interpretations of information and opinions often thought of as set in stone.
When Tom became Voldemort, Dumbledore couldn't say he'd been surprised. He'd known he would do great things; good or bad to be decided later on. Tom had chosen dark, and the Dumbledore everyone thought they knew chose light. However sometimes, even these days, alone at night he would take out his long, nimble wand and, grasping it lightly between his fingers and begin to whisper curses. Curses and charms and spells many only dreamed of. He would sneak out, sometimes, when the moon was out, and in the forbidden forest begin casting hexes no man should ever cast; should ever have been able to cast.
Why?
The man was curious.
The man was hungry.
Thanks.