"He knew," The man pushed a slipping pair of glasses up his nose and swallowed. "Of course."
The centre cauldron heaved up bubbles and pops.
"Of course he did."
The thin fumes of potion vapour that danced around the array of tubes and flames did little to block out the the outline of the cloaked figure in the corner of the Grimmauld room, who watched silently as Harry measured out a dark brown powder and tipped it into one of the simmering pots.
"And even Dumbledore refused to be Immortal."
His hands moved around, clicking and clacking the ladles, stirring sticks, and other long, spindly metal instruments. The figure still had not moved, but a stream of late afternoon light had made its way through the curtains Harry had drawn out - in an effort to create the right conditions for his potion - and struck the wall behind the hooded entity's seat, casting a shadow on the peeling wallpaper.
"'Cause, you see, he had access to the three of the Hallows. All throughout that entire year, he could have asked me to lend my cloak, or just take it, or - then he would have had them all!" Here, Harry paused his rant and looked straight at his companion. "Of course. He was Dumbledore, and he saw the trap that he was going to fall into, because who else would have stopped themselves and not grabbed that chance? Even just to see, to unite the Hallows and see the potential power of being a Master."
The figure moved for the first time and made a strange action with their arm, grasping out and clutching a space in front of their chest. Harry took a deep exhale while his brows furrowed, slightly damp with sweat. He continued,
"He knew the choice you make between dying a hero, and winning a war to live in eternal life." His eyes were far away, glazed with memories, "it wasn't practicality you see. And I don't expect an everlasting entity like you to get the vitality of mankind's fragile mortality, Lord Peverell, but it was a matter of philosophy." Harry let out a tch and strode side to side, his eyes flickering all over the kitchen room.
"Of course, he could have become the Master of… You! Death! He could have lived to topple Riddle and so easily too! He could have been a god, a well of power he strove to become in his early life, and it would have been so fitting, as Dumbledore, the leader of the outnumbered Order of Phoenix, Dumbledore, the only man who could be surely trusted with that kind of power. But no."
Harry stopped pacing and grabbed something from the front of his chest in the same manner that Death had done.
"Of course. He realised how meaningless, trivial, Riddle's defeat would have been, millennia later, when he has seen civilizations rise and fall, when a man is so spent that he would live only because he couldn't die. He decided that he would fight a harsh, struggle-filled battle until his sacrifice, and in his moment of death, he would pretend how meaningful it all was."
Harry's eyes dropped to his fisted hand, the roughened skin of his palm feeling the cold sting of metal from the object that he held. The split-circle eye, the triangle of the cloak.
"It didn't matter what happened afterwards, whether the Hallows would fall into the hands of a man right after had just watched hundreds of comrades die. Whether they would even be found or not, when we so desperately needed them, while not knowing that they even existed. It didn't matter that in the hands of the Master of Death, the Elder Wand could swish and flick entire armies away. What mattered, was that Albus Dumbledore, in his moment of glorious martyr death, could tell himself, everything we did, it was for the Greater Good, Harry. Everything - including your death - so we could win."