Christina's feet hit solid ground again; her knees buckled a little and the golden wizard's head fell with a resounding clunk to the floor. She looked around and saw that they had arrived in Dumbledore's office.
Everything seemed to have repaired itself during the headmaster's absence. The delicate silver instruments stood again upon the spindle-legged tables, puffing and whirring serenely. The portraits of the headmasters and headmistresses were snoozing in their frames, heads lolling back in armchairs or against the edge of their pictures.
Christina looked through the window. There was a cool line of pale green along the horizon: Dawn was approaching. She turned to look at Harry who was silently picking at the hem of his robes.
"Well?" Christina started, waiting for an apology for the numerous wrongdoings Harry had incurred over the night. He, instead, walked away. The glass cabinet next to Harry's head burst and glass shards rained on him, Christina didn't mean to but her powers seemed to be talking for her now.
"WELL?"
"Well, what!" Harry shouted back angrily.
"How about, I'm sorry for dragging you into the Department of Mysteries, I'm sorry for getting Sirius killed, thanks for making sure I didn't get killed! How about that, for starters!" she spat back, Harry paced the room, fuming. She could have killed him she was so angry. Any emotion she felt for Harry when he was dying was gone now, and now all she could think about was how this could all have been avoided.
The portraits were now stirring, grumpy from the rude awakening. A picture behind Harry gave a particularly loud grunting snore, and a cool voice said, "Ah . . . you two again . . .they should give you beds in here, you're practically house-guests . . ." Phineas Nigellus gave a long yawn, stretching his arms as he watched Christina and Harry with shrewd, narrow eyes.
"And what brings you here in the early hours of the morning?" said Phineas. "This office is supposed to be barred to all but the rightful headmaster. Or has Dumbledore sent you here? Oh, don't tell me . . ." He gave another shuddering yawn. "Another message for my worthless great-great-grandson?"
"No, he's dead. Harry killed him." Christina said nastily.
"SHUT UP!" Harry's wand flew up and sparks flew at Christina, smashing her against the wall. Christina's head snapped up to look at Harry who was now running at her. They collided on the floor and she began hitting every inch of him she could reach while he tried to restrain her hands. Spitting curse words at one another, Christina got the upper hand and was now gripping Harry by the hair screaming at him.
"I TOLD YOU! I TOLD YOU HE WASN'T THERE, BUT YOU WOULDN'T LISTEN! I HATE YOU! I HATE YOU, YOU ARROGANT, POMPOUS—!"
The empty fireplace burst into emerald-green flame, making Christina pause, staring at the man spinning inside the grate. As Dumbledore's tall form unfolded itself from the fire, the wizards and witches on the surrounding walls applauded. Whether the cries of welcome were from the fight ending or Dumbledore's return, Christina could not tell.
"Thank you," said Dumbledore softly. He did not look at Christina nor Harry at first, but walked over to the perch beside the door and withdrew, from an inside pocket of his robes, the tiny, ugly, featherless Fawkes, whom he placed gently on the tray of soft ashes beneath the golden post where the full-grown Fawkes usually stood.
"Well," said Dumbledore, finally turning away from the baby bird, "you will be pleased to hear that none of your fellow students are going to suffer lasting damage from the night's events."
Christina let go of the mat of hair she was holding onto and walked towards Dumbledore. Christina heard Harry dust his pants off and get up to join her in front of Dumbledore.
"Madam Pomfrey is patching everybody up now," said Dumbledore. "Nymphadora Tonks may need to spend a little time in St. Mungo's, but it seems that she will make a full recovery."
"That's good." Christina mumbled. Harry contented himself with nodding at the carpet. Christina was sure that all the portraits around the room were listening eagerly to every word Dumbledore spoke, wondering where Dumbledore, Christina and Harry had been and why there had been injuries.
"I know how you are feeling," said Dumbledore very quietly.
"No, you don't," said Harry, and his voice was suddenly loud and strong. White-hot anger leapt inside Christina, she didn't want to hear anything Harry had to say.
"You see, Dumbledore?" said Phineas Nigellus slyly. "Never try to understand the students. They hate it. They would much rather be tragically misunderstood, wallow in self-pity, stew in their own —"
"That's enough, Phineas," said Dumbledore. Harry turned his back on Dumbledore and Christina rolled her eyes.
"There is no shame in what you are feeling, Harry," said Dumbledore's voice. "On the contrary . . . the fact that you can feel pain like this is your greatest strength." Christina felt the white-hot anger lick her insides, blazing in the terrible emptiness, filling her with the desire to hurt Dumbledore for his calmness and his empty words.
"My greatest strength, is it?" said Harry, his voice shaking. "You haven't got a clue. . . . You don't know . . ."
"What don't I know?" asked Dumbledore calmly. Harry turned around, shaking with rage.
"I don't want to talk about how I feel, all right?"
"Harry, suffering like this proves you are still a man! This pain is part of being human —"
"THEN — I — DON'T — WANT — TO — BE — HUMAN!" Harry roared, and he seized one of the delicate silver instruments from the spindle-legged table beside him and flung it across the room. It shattered into a hundred tiny pieces against the wall. Several of the pictures let out yells of anger and fright, and the portrait of Armando Dippet said, "Really!"
"I DON'T CARE!" Harry yelled at them, snatching up a lunascope and throwing it into the fireplace. "I'VE HAD ENOUGH, I'VE SEEN ENOUGH, I WANT OUT, I WANT IT TO END, I DON'T CARE ANYMORE —" He seized the table on which the silver instrument had stood and threw that too. It broke apart on the floor and the legs rolled in different directions.
"You do care," said Dumbledore. He had not flinched or made a single move to stop Harry demolishing his office. His expression was calm, almost detached. "You care so much you feel as though you will bleed to death with the pain of it."
"I — DON'T!" Harry screamed, so loudly that Christina thought his throat might tear. She stayed out of Harry's way by the pensieve.
"Oh yes, you do," said Dumbledore, still more calmly. "You have now lost your mother, your father, and the closest thing to a parent you have ever known. Of course you care."
"YOU DON'T KNOW HOW I FEEL!" Harry roared. "YOU — STANDING THERE — YOU —" He ran to the door, seized the doorknob again, and wrenched at it. But the door would not open. Harry turned back to Dumbledore.
"Let me out," he said. He was shaking from head to foot.
"No," said Dumbledore simply. For a few seconds they stared at each other.
"Let me out," Harry said again.
"No," Dumbledore repeated.
"If you don't — if you keep me in here — if you don't let me —"
"By all means continue destroying my possessions," said Dumbledore serenely. "I daresay I have too many." He walked around his desk and sat down behind it, watching Harry.
"Let me out," Harry said yet again, in a voice that was cold and almost as calm as Dumbledore's.
"Not until I have had my say," said Dumbledore. Christina thought for a moment that she could just make the door turn to dust . . .
"Professor, maybe you should—" she started but Harry was screaming again.
"Do you — do you think I want to — do you think I give a — I DON'T CARE WHAT YOU'VE GOT TO SAY!" Harry roared. "I don't want to hear anything you've got to say!"
"You will," said Dumbledore sadly. "Because you are not nearly as angry with me as you ought to be. If you are to attack me, as I know you are close to doing, I would like to have thoroughly earned it. The same goes for you, Christina."
"What are you talking — ?" Christina asked, perplexed.
"It is my fault that Sirius died," said Dumbledore clearly. "Or I should say almost entirely my fault — I will not be so arrogant as to claim responsibility for the whole. Sirius was a brave, clever, and energetic man, and such men are not usually content to sit at home in hiding while they believe others to be in danger. Nevertheless, you should never have believed for an instant that there was any necessity for you to go to the Department of Mysteries tonight. If I had been open with you, as I should have been, you would have known a long time ago that Voldemort might try and lure you to the Department of Mysteries, and you would never have been tricked into going there tonight. And Sirius would not have had to come after you. That blame lies with me, and with me alone." Christina was gazing at Dumbledore, hardly breathing, listening yet barely understanding what she was hearing. Harry was still standing with his hand on the doorknob.
"Please sit down," said Dumbledore. It was not an order, it was a request. Christina slowly walked to the chair and sat down. Harry hesitated, then walked slowly across the room now littered with silver cogs and fragments of wood and took the seat facing Dumbledore's desk.
"I owe you two an explanation," said Dumbledore. "An explanation of an old man's mistakes. For I see now that what I have done, and not done, with regard to you, bears all the hallmarks of the failings of age. Youth cannot know how age thinks and feels. But old men are guilty if they forget what it was to be young . . . and I seem to have forgotten lately. . . ." The sun was rising properly now. There was a rim of dazzling orange visible over the mountains and the sky above it was colorless and bright. The light fell upon Dumbledore, upon the silver of his eyebrows and beard, upon the lines gouged deeply into his face.
"I guessed, twenty-one years ago," said Dumbledore, "when I saw the scar upon your forehead and hand, what it might mean. I guessed that it might be the sign of a connection forged between you both and Voldemort."
"You've told me this before, Professor," said Harry bluntly. Christina did not care that he was being rude. She did not care about anything very much anymore.
"Yes," said Dumbledore apologetically. "Yes, but you see — it is necessary to start with your scars. For it became apparent, shortly after you rejoined the magical world, that I was correct, and that your scar was giving you warnings when Voldemort was close to you, or else feeling powerful emotion."
"I know," said Harry wearily.
"And this ability of yours — to detect Voldemort's presence, even when he is disguised, and to know what he is feeling when his emotions are roused — has become more and more pronounced since Voldemort returned to his own body and his full powers." Christina did not bother to nod. She knew all of this already.
"More recently," said Dumbledore, "I became concerned that Voldemort might realize that this connection between you exists. Sure enough, there came a time when you entered so far into his mind and thoughts that he sensed your presence. I am speaking, of course, of the night when you witnessed the attack on Mr. Weasley."
"Yeah, Snape told me," Christina muttered.
"Professor Snape, Christina," Dumbledore corrected her quietly. "But did you not wonder why it was not I who explained this to you? Why I did not teach you Occlumency? Why I had not so much as looked at you for months?" Christina looked up. She could see now that Dumbledore looked sad and tired.
"Yeah," Christina mumbled.
"Yeah, I wondered." Harry agreed.
"You see," continued Dumbledore heavily "I believed it could not be long before Voldemort attempted to force his way into your mind, to manipulate and misdirect your thoughts, and I was not eager to give him more incentives to do so. I was sure that if he realized that our relationship was — or had ever been — closer than that of headmaster and pupil, he would seize his chance to use you as a means to spy on me. I feared the uses to which he would put you two, the possibility that he might try and possess you. I believe I was right to think that Voldemort would have made use of you in such a way. On those rare occasions when we had close contact, I thought I saw a shadow of him stir behind your eyes, Harry. And of course the night of Mr. Weasley's attack, Lord Voldemort was very clearly present in my office by using you, Christina . . . I was trying, in distancing myself from you, to protect you. An old man's mistake . . ."
Christina shuddered, remembering the awful night where she was spoonfed poison that removed Voldemort's grasp on her body . . .Christina was letting the words wash over her. She would have been so interested to know all this a few months ago, and now it was meaningless compared to the gaping chasm inside her that was the loss of Sirius, none of it mattered . . .
"Sirius told me that you felt Voldemort awake inside you the very night that you had the vision of Arthur Weasley's attack. I knew at once that my worst fears were correct: Voldemort from that point had realized he could use you. In an attempt to arm you against Voldemort's assaults on your mind, I arranged Occlumency lessons with Professor Snape." He paused. Christina watched the sunlight, which was sliding slowly across the polished surface of Dumbledore's desk, illuminate a silver ink pot and a handsome scarlet quill. Christina could tell that the portraits all around them were awake and listening raptly to Dumbledore's explanation. She could hear the occasional rustle of robes, the slight clearing of a throat. She noticed Phineas Nigellus was gone from his frame . . .
"Professor Snape discovered," Dumbledore resumed, "that you had been dreaming about the door to the Department of Mysteries for months. Voldemort, of course, had been obsessed with the possibility of hearing the prophecy ever since he regained his body, and as he dwelled on the door, so did you two, though you did not know what it meant.
"And then you saw Rookwood, who worked in the Department of Mysteries before his arrest, telling Voldemort what we had known all along — that the prophecies held in the Ministry of Magic are heavily protected. Only the people to whom they refer can lift them from the shelves without suffering madness. In this case, either Voldemort himself would have to enter the Ministry of Magic and risk revealing himself at last — or else you would have to take it for him. It became a matter of even greater urgency that you should master Occlumency."
"But I didn't," muttered Harry. "I didn't practice, I didn't bother, I could've stopped myself having those dreams, Hermione kept telling me to do it, if I had he'd never have been able to show me where to go, and — Sirius wouldn't — Sirius wouldn't —"
"I tried to check he'd really taken Sirius, I went to Umbridge's office, I spoke to Kreacher in the fire, and he said Sirius wasn't there, he said he'd gone!"
"Kreacher lied," said Christina bitterly.
"You are not his master, he could lie to you without even needing to punish himself. Kreacher intended you to go to the Ministry of Magic." Dumbledore confirmed.
"He — he sent me on purpose?"
"Oh yes. Kreacher, I am afraid, has been serving more than one master for months."
"How?" said Harry blankly. "He hasn't been out of Grimmauld Place for years."
"Kreacher seized his opportunity shortly before Christmas," said Dumbledore, "when Sirius, apparently, shouted at him to 'get out.' He took Sirius at his word and interpreted this as an order to leave the house. He went to the only Black family member for whom he had any respect left. . . . Black's cousin Narcissa, sister of Bellatrix and wife of Lucius Malfoy."
"How do you know all this?" Christina said. Her heart was beating very fast. She felt sick. She remembered worrying about Kreacher's odd absence over Christmas, remembered him turning up again in the attic. . . .
"Kreacher told me last night," said Dumbledore. "You see, when you gave Professor Snape that cryptic warning, he realized that you had had a vision of Sirius trapped in the bowels of the Department of Mysteries. He, like you, attempted to contact Sirius at once. I should explain that members of the Order of the Phoenix have more reliable methods of communicating than the fire in Dolores Umbridge's office. Professor Snape found that Sirius was alive and safe in Grimmauld Place.
"When, however, you did not return from your trip into the forest with Dolores Umbridge, Professor Snape grew worried that you still believed Sirius to be a captive of Lord Voldemort's. He alerted certain Order members at once." Dumbledore heaved a great sigh and then said, "Alastor Moody, Nymphadora Tonks, Kingsley Shacklebolt, and Remus Lupin were at headquarters when he made contact. All agreed to go to your aid at once. Professor Snape requested that Sirius remain behind, as he needed somebody to remain at headquarters to tell me what had happened, for I was due there at any moment. In the meantime he, Professor Snape, intended to search the forest for you.
"But Sirius did not wish to remain behind while the others went to search for you. He delegated to Kreacher the task of telling me what had happened. And so it was that when I arrived in Grimmauld Place shortly after they had all left for the Ministry, it was the elf who told me — laughing fit to burst — where Sirius had gone."
"He was laughing?" said Christina in a hollow voice. She turned her back to Dumbledore, shuddering.
"Oh yes," said Dumbledore. "You see, Kreacher was not able to betray us totally. He is not Secret-Keeper for the Order, he could not give the Malfoys our whereabouts or tell them any of the Order's confidential plans that he had been forbidden to reveal. He was bound by the enchantments of his kind, which is to say that he could not disobey a direct order from his master, Sirius. But he gave Narcissa information of the sort that is very valuable to Voldemort, yet must have seemed much too trivial for Sirius to think of banning him from repeating it."
"Like what?" said Harry.
"Like the fact that the person Sirius cared most about in the world was you," said Dumbledore quietly. The sentence hung there in the air, and Christina's heart-sank. She turned back to Dumbledore and studied his face. How could he say that with her clearly in the room?
"Should I leave? I didn't realize I was interrupting your let's-make-Harry-feel-better-about-murdering-my-dad speech." Christina said bitterly, tears yet again beginning to form.
"As I have already made quite plain, Harry is not the cause of Sirius' death." Dumbledore said calmly, Harry bowed his head trying to stay out of another fight.
"Yes, I know we all want to make precious Harry feel better, but I lost someone too! Do I not matter?! Why do I have to be the adult when Harry can throw a tantrum and get the he-loved-you-most speech? Does he not already receive it ten times daily?!"
"I understand that you are upset, Christina. We have all suffered—"
"I HAVE SUFFERED THE MOST! Boo-fucking-hoo Harry lost his godfather, I lost my father TWICE now! How dare you act like he—I – I can't do this," and Christina got up; to this Dumbledore stood up sharply and held out his arm to stop Christina.
"Please sit down, Christina. You need to hear this too." He knew Christina could really leave if she wanted to.
"This is bullshit! This is all bullshit! I lost Sirius! I saved Harry! I fought Lord Voldemort! Me! And what do I get? Sit and wait for me to spoon-feed bullshit to Harry Potter? No, not fair! I deserve more! Voldemort was right, you treat me like an animal!" That seemed to have struck a chord with Professor Dumbledore for he was now quiet and very serious.
"What did he say to you, Christina?" he said darkly.
"Nothing I didn't already know." said Christina. Dumbledore placed his hands on the desk and cleared his throat.
"Christina you have to understand, now that Voldemort knows about your natural powers he will stop at nothing to either collect you or kill you. Voldemort surrounds himself with powerful figures, the Death Eaters, Dementors, werewolves, giants . . . you are now his number one target, and if he can't have you on his side he will come after you and kill you. It's our job to protect you."
"I don't need protection. I think I've earned that bit of respect after tonight." said Christina resolute. She folded her arms and sat down in the chair in front of Dumbledore.
"Yours and Sirius' relationship was very complicated, as I'm sure you know Christina. It was so easy for him to be close to Harry because there were no hurt feelings between the two of them. Whereas you very much disliked the role Remus Lupin was playing on your life and all the while Sirius felt extremely guilty . . . He loved you and your mother very much –"
"It's too late for that, he's gone now. And so is she." Dumbledore sighed again, Christina knew she was being difficult and didn't care. The negative energy seemed to be contagious because now Harry was starting to get upset.
"What about Snape?" Harry spat. "You're not talking about him, are you? When I told him Voldemort had Sirius he just sneered at me as usual —"
"Harry, you know that Professor Snape had no choice but to pretend not to take you seriously in front of Dolores Umbridge," said Dumbledore steadily, "but as I have explained, he informed the Order as soon as possible about what you had said. It was he who deduced where you had gone when you did not return from the forest. It was he too who gave Professor Umbridge fake Veritaserum when she was attempting to force you to tell of Sirius's whereabouts. . . ."
"Snape — Snape g-goaded Sirius about staying in the house — he made out Sirius was a coward —" Christina added.
"Sirius was much too old and clever to have allowed such feeble taunts to hurt him, as do you with taunts from your fellow Sytherin students" said Dumbledore.
"Snape stopped giving me Occlumency lessons!" Christina snarled, ignoring Dumbledore's parallel. "He threw me out of his office!"
"I am aware of it," said Dumbledore heavily. "I have already said that it was a mistake for me not to teach you myself, though I was sure, at the time, that nothing could have been more dangerous than to open your mind even further to Voldemort while in my presence —"
"Snape made it worse, my scar always hurt worse after lessons with him —" Harry added. "How do you know he wasn't trying to soften me up for Voldemort, make it easier for him to get inside my —"
"I trust Severus Snape," said Dumbledore simply. "But I forgot — another old man's mistake — that some wounds run too deep for the healing. I thought Professor Snape could overcome his feelings about your fathers — I was wrong."
"But that's okay, is it?" yelled Harry, the scandalized faces and disapproving mutterings of the portraits covering the walls attempting to interrupt. "It's okay for Snape to hate my dad, but it's not okay for Sirius to hate Kreacher?"
"Sirius did not hate Kreacher," said Dumbledore. "He regarded him as a servant unworthy of much interest or notice. Indifference and neglect often do much more damage than outright dislike. . . . The fountain we destroyed tonight told a lie. We wizards have mistreated and abused our fellows for too long, and we are now reaping our reward."
"SO SIRIUS DESERVED WHAT HE GOT, DID HE?" Harry yelled.
"I did not say that, nor will you ever hear me say it," Dumbledore replied quietly. "Sirius was not a cruel man, he was kind to house-elves in general. He had no love for Kreacher, because Kreacher was a living reminder of the home Sirius had hated."
"Yeah, he did hate it!" said Christina, her voice cracking, turning her back on Dumbledore and walking away. The sun was bright inside the room now, and the eyes of all the portraits followed her as she walked, without realizing what she was doing, without seeing the office at all. "You made him stay shut up in that house and he hated it, that's why he wanted to get out last night —"
"I was trying to keep Sirius alive," said Dumbledore quietly.
"People don't like being locked up!" Christina said furiously, rounding on him. "You did it to me all last summer and even I left — !" Dumbledore closed his eyes and buried his face in his long-fingered hands. Christina watched him, but this uncharacteristic sign of exhaustion, or sadness, or whatever it was from Dumbledore, did not soften her. On the contrary, she felt even angrier that Dumbledore was showing signs of weakness. He had no business being weak when Christina wanted to rage and storm at him. Dumbledore lowered his hands and surveyed Christina through his half-moon glasses.
"It is time," he said, "for me to tell you what I should have told you five years ago, Christina. Please sit down. I am going to tell you everything. I ask only a little patience. You will have your chance to rage at me — to do whatever you like — when I have finished. I will not stop you." Christina glared at him for a moment, then flung herself back into the chair opposite Dumbledore, next to Harry and waited. Dumbledore stared for a moment at the sunlit grounds outside the window, then looked back at Christina and Harry and said, "Five years ago you arrived at Hogwarts, Christina two years ago, safe and whole, as I had planned and intended. Well — not quite whole. You both had suffered. I knew you would when I left you on your aunt and uncle's doorstep and a foster family in America, Christina. I knew I was condemning you two to seventeen dark and difficult years." He paused. Neither Christina nor Harry said anything.
"You might ask — and with good reason — why it had to be so. Why could some Wizarding family not have taken you in? Many would have done so more than gladly, would have been honored and delighted to raise you as children. Or why keep you separated? Truly neither of you will be another who has gone through similar events.
"My answer is that my priority was to keep you alive. You were in more danger than perhaps anyone but myself realized. Voldemort had been vanquished hours before, but his supporters — and many of them are almost as terrible as he — were still at large, angry, desperate, and violent. And I had to make my decision too with regard to the years ahead. Did I believe that Voldemort was gone forever? No. I knew not whether it would be ten, twenty, or fifty years before he returned, but I was sure he would do so, and I was sure too, knowing him as I have done, that he would not rest until he killed the two of you.
"I knew that Voldemort's knowledge of magic is perhaps more extensive than any wizard alive. I knew that even my most complex and powerful protective spells and charms were unlikely to be invincible if he ever returned to full power.
"But I knew too where Voldemort was weak. And so I made my decision. You would be protected by an ancient magic of which he knows, which he despises, and which he has always, therefore, underestimated — to his cost. I am speaking, of course, of the fact that your mother, Harry, died to save you. She gave you a lingering protection he never expected, a protection that flows in your veins to this day. I put my trust, therefore, in your mother's blood. I delivered you to her sister, her only remaining relative."
"She doesn't love me," said Harry at once. "She doesn't give a damn —"
"But she took you," Dumbledore cut across him. "She may have taken you grudgingly, furiously, unwillingly, bitterly, yet still she took you, and in doing so, she sealed the charm I placed upon you. Your mother's sacrifice made the bond of blood the strongest shield I could give you."
"I still don't —"
"While you can still call home the place where your mother's blood dwells, there you cannot be touched or harmed by Voldemort. He shed her blood, but it lives on in you and her sister. Her blood became your refuge. You need return there only once a year, but as long as you can still call it home, there he cannot hurt you. Your aunt knows this. I explained what I had done in the letter I left, with you, on her doorstep. She knows that allowing you houseroom may well have kept you alive for the past twenty-one years."
"Wait," said Harry. "Wait a moment." He sat up straighter in his chair, staring at Dumbledore. "You sent that Howler. You told her to remember — it was your voice —"
"I thought," said Dumbledore, inclining his head slightly, "that she might need reminding of the pact she had sealed by taking you. I suspected the dementor attack might have awoken her to the dangers of having you as a surrogate son."
"It did," said Harry quietly.
"Well — my uncle more than her. He wanted to chuck me out, but after the Howler came she — she said I had to stay." Dumbledore smiled and then panned over to Christina. "You were not quite the case. With your mother gone from the home, she could not have sacrificed her life for you. However, as you very clearly know now, is that the Unforgivable Curses don't particularly have the same effect on you as they do on others." Christina silently nodded, remembering Imperius curses bouncing off of her and a muted Cruciatus curse . . .
"The Killing Curse is the same . . . while the spell that protected Harry was certainly ancient magic, yours far exceeded magic today. Especially at a young age, your natural powers were at a peak. Think of it as the muggle-term 'charging', your energy when you were just a baby was focusing and honing and when Voldemort hit you with the killing curse you could not be touched . . . as you know the spell then rebounded from both you and Harry leaving a lightning bolt, starting at the center of your hand and ending at the middle of Harry's forehead.
She stared at the floor for a moment, then said, "But what's this got to do with . . ." She could not say Sirius's name.
"Five years ago, then," continued Dumbledore, as though he had not paused in his story, "Harry, you arrived at Hogwarts, neither as happy nor as well-nourished as I would have liked, perhaps, yet alive and healthy. You were not a pampered little prince, but as normal a boy as I could have hoped under the circumstances. Thus far, my plan was working well.
"And then . . . well, you will remember the events of your first year at Hogwarts quite as clearly as I do. You rose magnificently to the challenge that faced you, and sooner — much sooner — than I had anticipated, you found yourself face-to-face with Voldemort. You survived again. You did more. You delayed his return to full power and strength. You fought a man's fight. I was . . . prouder of you than I can say.
"Yet there was a flaw in this wonderful plan of mine," said Dumbledore. "An obvious flaw that I knew, even then, might be the undoing of it all. And yet, knowing how important it was that my plan should succeed, I told myself that I would not permit this flaw to ruin it. I alone could prevent this, so I alone must be strong. And here was my first test, as you lay in the hospital wing, weak from your struggle with Voldemort."
"I don't understand what you're saying," said Harry.
"Don't you remember asking me, as you lay in the hospital wing, why Voldemort had tried to kill you when you were a baby?" Harry nodded. "Ought I to have told you then?" Harry stared into the blue eyes and said nothing, but his heart was racing again.
"You do not see the flaw in the plan yet? No . . . perhaps not. Well, as you know, I decided not to answer you. Too young, I told myself, much too young to know. I had never intended to tell you when you were that young. The knowledge would be too much at such an age.
"I should have recognized the danger signs then. I should have asked myself why I did not feel more disturbed that you had already asked me the question to which I knew, one day, I must give a terrible answer. I should have recognized that I was too happy to think that I did not have to do it on that particular day. . . . You were too young, much too young.
"And so we entered your second year at Hogwarts. And once again you met challenges even grown wizards have never faced. Once again you acquitted yourself beyond my wildest dreams. You did not ask me again, however, why Voldemort had left that mark upon you. We discussed your scar, oh yes. . . . We came very, very close to the subject. Why did I not tell you everything?
"I allowed you to leave my presence, bloodstained, exhausted but exhilarated, and if I felt a twinge of unease that I ought, perhaps, have told you then, it was swiftly silenced. You were still so young, you see, and I could not find it in me to spoil that night of triumph. . . . but I knew I must at least give you some sort of explanation. So I introduced you to Christina, your childhood partner in crime so to speak.
"I was hoping that perhaps the two of you would stay out of trouble or at least help one another through school but as you know trouble always seems to find you two . . . and so I didn't tell you.
"Do you see? Do you see the flaw in my brilliant plan now? I had fallen into the trap I had foreseen, that I had told myself I could avoid, that I must avoid."
"I don't —"
"I cared about you too much," said Dumbledore simply. "I cared more for your happiness than your knowing the truth, more for your peace of mind than my plan, more for your life than the lives that might be lost if the plan failed. In other words, I acted exactly as Voldemort expects we fools who love to act.
"Is there a defense? I defy anyone who has watched you as I have —and I have watched you more closely than you can have imagined — not to want to save you more pain than you had already suffered. What did I care if numbers of nameless and faceless people and creatures were slaughtered in the vague future, if in the here and now you were alive, and well, and happy? I never dreamed that I would have such a person on my hands.
"Your third year I watched from afar as you two struggled to repel dementors, Christina you testing your powers, finding love, both finding Sirius, learned what and who he was and rescued him. Was I to tell you then, at the moment when you had triumphantly snatched your godfather and father from the jaws of the Ministry? But now my excuses were running out. Young you two might be, but you had proved you were exceptional. My conscience was uneasy. I knew the time must come soon. . . .
"But you both came out of the maze last year, having watched Cedric Diggory die—" Christina closed her eyes at the name, "—having escaped death so narrowly yourself . . . and I did not tell you, though I knew, now Voldemort had returned, I must do it soon. And now, tonight, I know you have long been ready for the knowledge I have kept from you for so long, because you have proved that I should have placed the burden upon you before this. My only defense is this: I have watched you struggling under more burdens than any student who has ever passed through this school, and I could not bring myself to add another — the greatest one of all." Christina and Harry waited, but Dumbledore did not speak. "I still don't understand." Harry said, breaking the silence.
"Voldemort tried to kill you when you were a child because of a prophecy made shortly before your birth. He knew the prophecy had been made, though he did not know its full contents. He set out to kill you when you were still a baby, believing he was fulfilling the terms of the prophecy. He discovered, to his cost, that he was mistaken, when the curse intended to kill you backfired. And so, since his return to his body, and particularly since your extraordinary escape from him last year, he has been determined to hear that prophecy in its entirety. This is the weapon he has been seeking so assiduously since his return: the knowledge of how to destroy you."
The sun had risen fully now. Dumbledore's office was bathed in it. The glass case in which the sword of Godric Gryffindor resided gleamed white and opaque, the fragments of the instruments Harry had thrown to the floor glistened like raindrops, and behind him, the baby Fawkes made soft chirruping noises in his nest of ashes.
"The prophecy's smashed," Harry said blankly. "I was pulling Neville up those benches in the — the room where the archway was, and I ripped his robes and it fell. . . ."
"The thing that smashed was merely the record of the prophecy kept by the Department of Mysteries. But the prophecy was made to somebody, and that person has the means of recalling it perfectly."
"Who heard it?" asked Christina, though she thought she knew the answer already.
"I did," said Dumbledore. "On a cold, wet night twenty-two years ago, in a room above the bar at the Hog's Head Inn. I had gone there to see an applicant for the post of Divination teacher, though it was against my inclination to allow the subject of Divination to continue at all. The applicant, however, was the great-great-granddaughter of a very famous, very gifted Seer, and I thought it common politeness to meet her. I was disappointed. It seemed to me that she had not a trace of the gift herself. I told her, courteously I hope, that I did not think she would be suitable for the post. I turned to leave." Dumbledore got to his feet and walked past Christina and Harry to the black cabinet that stood beside Fawkes's perch. He bent down, slid back a catch, and took from inside it the shallow stone basin, carved with runes around the edges, in which Christina had seen Harry's father tormenting Snape. Dumbledore walked back to the desk, placed the Pensieve upon it, and raised his wand to his own temple. From it, he withdrew silvery, gossamer-fine strands of thought clinging to the wand, and deposited them in the basin. He sat back down behind his desk and watched his thoughts swirl and drift inside the Pensieve for a moment. Then, with a sigh, he raised his wand and prodded the silvery substance with its tip. A figure rose out of it, draped in shawls, her eyes magnified to enormous size behind her glasses, and she revolved slowly, her feet in the basin. But when Sibyll Trelawney spoke, it was not in her usual ethereal, mystic voice, but in the harsh, hoarse tones Christina had heard her use once before.
"THE ONE WITH THE POWER TO VANQUISH THE DARK LORD APPROACHES. . . . BORN TO THOSE WHO HAVE THRICE DEFIED HIM, BORN AS THE SEVENTH MONTH DIES . . . AND THE DARK LORD WILL MARK THEM AS HIS EQUAL, BUT THEY WILL HAVE POWER THE DARK LORD KNOWS NOT . . . AND EITHER MUST DIE AT THE HAND OF THE OTHER FOR NEITHER CAN LIVE WHILE THE OTHER SURVIVES. . . . THE ONE WITH THE POWER TO VANQUISH THE DARK LORD WILL BE BORN AS THE SEVENTH MONTH DIES. . . ." The slowly revolving Professor Trelawney sank back into the silver mass below and vanished. The silence within the office was absolute. Neither Dumbledore nor Christina nor Harry nor any of the portraits made a sound. Even Fawkes had fallen silent.
"Professor Dumbledore?" Harry said very quietly, for Dumbledore, still staring at the Pensieve, seemed completely lost in thought. "It . . . did that mean . . . What did that mean?"
"I once thought it meant," said Dumbledore, "that the person who has the only chance of conquering Lord Voldemort for good was born at the end of July, nearly twenty-one years ago. This boy would be born to parents who had already defied Voldemort three times."
"However, I have come to mean it something entirely different. I believe the prophecy was referring to two children, 'Born to those who have thrice defied him' and another 'Born as the seventh month dies'." Christina felt as though something was closing in upon her. Her breathing seemed difficult again.
"It means — us?" Christina asked. Dumbledore surveyed him for a moment.
"The odd thing is, Christina," he said softly, "that it may not have meant you at all. Sibyll's prophecy could have applied to two wizard boys, both born at the end of July that year, both of whom had parents in the Order of the Phoenix, both sets of parents having narrowly escaped Voldemort three times. One, of course, was you, Harry. The other was Neville Longbottom."
"But then . . . but then, why was it my name on the prophecy and not Neville's? And why not Christina's?"
"The official record was relabeled after Voldemort's attack on you as a child," said Dumbledore. "It seemed plain to the keeper of the Hall of Prophecy that Voldemort could only have tried to kill you because he knew you to be the one to whom Sibyll was referring."
"Then — it might not be us?" said Harry.
"I am afraid," said Dumbledore slowly, looking as though every word cost him a great effort, "that there is no doubt that it is you two."
"But you said — Neville was born at the end of July too — and his mum and dad —"
"You are forgetting the next part of the prophecy, the final identifying feature of the child, or children I've come to learn, who could vanquish Voldemort. . . . Voldemort himself would 'mark them as his equal.' And so he did. He chose you, Harry, not Neville. He gave you the scar that has proved both blessing and curse. Christina, had you not been present that night I'm sure he would not have regarded you as anything other than an ordinary witch. Only recently did I start to understand the full meaning of the prophecy-"
"But he might have chosen wrong! Maybe I'm not the boy—" said Harry.
"He might have marked the wrong person!" said Christina.
"He chose the boy he thought most likely to be a danger to him," said Dumbledore. "And notice this, Harry. He chose, not the pureblood (which, according to his creed, is the only kind of wizard worth being or knowing), but the half-blood, like himself. He saw himself in you before he had ever seen you, and in marking you with that scar, he did not kill you, as he intended, but gave you powers, and a future, which have fitted you to escape him not once, but four times so far — something that neither your parents, nor Neville's parents, ever achieved."
"Why did he do it, then?" said Christina, who felt numb and cold.
"Why did he try and kill me as a baby? He should have waited to see whether Neville or I looked more dangerous when we were older and tried to kill whoever it was then —"
"That might, indeed, have been the more practical course," said Dumbledore, "except that Voldemort's information about the prophecy was incomplete. The Hog's Head Inn, which Sibyll chose for its cheapness, has long attracted, shall we say, a more interesting clientele than the Three Broomsticks. As you and your friends found out to your cost, and I to mine that night, it is a place where it is never safe to assume you are not being overheard. Of course, I had not dreamed, when I set out to meet Sibyll Trelawney, that I would hear anything worth overhearing. My — our — one stroke of good fortune was that the eavesdropper was detected only a short way into the prophecy and thrown from the building."
"So he only heard . . . ?"
"He heard only the first part, the part foretelling the birth of a boy in July and the part about parents who had thrice defied Voldemort. Consequently, he could not warn his master that to attack you would be to risk transferring power to you — again marking you as his equal. So Voldemort never knew that there might be danger in attacking you, that it might be wise to wait or to learn more. He did not know about a child that would have 'power the Dark Lord knows not' —" All eyes turned to Christina but she didn't care, and trudged on, "The end of the prophecy . . . it was something about . . . 'neither can live. . . .' "
" '. . . while the other survives,' " said Dumbledore.
"So," said Christina, dredging up the words from what felt like a deep well of despair inside her, "so does that mean that . . . that one of us has got to kill the other one . . . in the end?"
"Yes," said Dumbledore. For a long time, no one spoke. Somewhere far beyond the office walls, Christina could hear the sound of voices, students heading down to the Great Hall for an early breakfast, perhaps. It seemed impossible that there could be people in the world who still desired food, who laughed, who neither knew nor cared that Sirius Black was gone forever. Sirius seemed a million miles away already, even if a part of Christina still believed that if she had only pulled back that veil, she would have found Sirius looking back at her, greeting her, perhaps, with his laugh like a bark that reminded her of her own. . . .
"I feel I owe you another explanation, Harry" said Dumbledore hesitantly. "You may, perhaps, have wondered why I never chose you as a prefect? I must confess . . . that I rather thought . . . you had enough responsibility to be going on with." Christina smiled and chuckled.
"And I'm just too much trouble." Christina said laughing, remembering what Fred, George and Hermione had said to her seemingly eons ago about Ron becoming prefect . . .
"Perhaps . . ." Christina looked up at Professor Dumbledore and saw him smile while a tear trickling down his face into his long silver beard.