CHAPTER 5

Albus Dumbledore

Harry had listened eagerly, tasting every word of the man, feeling fulfilled in some way. At last the biggest mystery of his life was solved. However, the nature of the solution left him in a confused state. Was it right to socialize with the man who'd just admitted he was the murderer of his parents? That thought had been with him from the beginning, but now that Voldemort had outright told him he was the culprit, Harry could no longer ignore it. The Dark Wizard interrupted his thoughts:

"I'm sorry… Boy? Do you need some time to let that, as young fellows say, 'sink in' before we move on to other matters?"

Harry muttered a vague approbation. Voldemort was thoughtful for an instant, then asked if Harry would like anything to eat. The schoolboy realized that he was starving. He hadn't eaten since he, Ron and Hermione had entered Dumbledore's labyrinth, after all. This distraction was welcome, and he moved to the table, where various dishes quickly appeared, some of which he recognized from the usual Hogwarts menu, others that he'd never heard about. All seemed delicious, though, and he engulfed himself in the activity of devouring it all, which fortunately took his mind off the moral dilemma.

Voldemort, probably not wanting to disrupt the boy's renewed good mood with his ominous presence, Accioed a kind of purple loaf of bread from the table and began chewing on it absent-mindedly as he left the room through one of the doors Harry had been unable to open.

All the students had been assembled in Hogwarts's Dining Hall, watched over by their stern Heads of House. All they had been told so far was that there was crisis. The Ravenclaws were eager to know what it was all about and were already hazarding guesses; most Hufflepuffs looked scared, though the older ones comforting the first years; the Gryffindors were growing more and more reckless, demanding that the truth be told to them so that they may slay the threat themselves; the Slytherins were all staring suspiciously at each other, persuaded no doubt that the crisis was a plan form one of them gone out of control. The Gryffindor first years, for once, were the most knowledgeable sources, because they, and only they, had so far noticed that Ronald Weasley, Harry Potter and Hermione Granger had all gone missing.

Albus Dumbledore, looking grave and concerned, appeared, quickly cast a sound-strengthening spell and spoke.

"Students of all ages, members of the staff, house-elves, ghosts, I apologize to you in advance for being the bearer of very bad news. Before starting to recount them, I do wish to remind you that green chocolate cakes are banned for the summer."

One Hufflepuff first year asked how that was relevant. An older one answered that it obviously wasn't, but Dumbledore was crazy.

"Now on to the news, continued the old wizard. The first bad new is that Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived, has gone missing. The last people to see him yesterday, aside from myself, who only caught a glimpse of the boy when he was unconscious, were Mr Weasley and Miss Granger, here."

Hermione and Ron emerged from behind the headmaster, a worried and embarrassed look on their faces.

"Miss Granger", said Dumbledore, leaning toward Hermione, "would you please tell all of us what you, Mr Weasley and your famous friend had in mind yesterday when you entered the Third Floor Corridor."

"Well", she answered, "Harry had found out the Philosopher's Stone was going to be stolen, you see? So we just… We thought only we could…" Hermione sounded as though she was almost about to cry.

"I understand, Miss Granger", said Dumbledore, "and I am not blaming you. It was very brave of you three…" Then he turned back to the audience. "So you see, my friends, that it is trying to save the stone that Mr Potter disappeared. There rarely was a nobler battle, and we mustn't blame him for his own problems. And yes. It was indeed the Philosopher's Stone that was concealed at the end of my booby-trapped corridor. It took great skill and patience for these three young heroes to make their way through it; you must grant them that. You must also rest assured on one point: the Philosopher's Stone is safe. For whatever reason, the intruder didn't take it with him when he fled."

Professor McGonagall seemed trying to get the Chief Warlock's attention. Eventually the white-bearded wizard listened. The Transfiguration teacher whispered:

"Enough beating around the bush, Albus - just tell them! The longer you delay it, the greater the shock will be!"

"Alright, Minerva, alright", answered Dumbledore. Then loudly: "I have withheld the truth long enough. Harry Potter's kidnapper was none other… than Lord Voldemort."

Utter terror barely describes the audience's reaction at that moment (though the Slytherins were noticeably less frantic than the rest). One student rose from his seat and yelled:

"It can't be! He's dead!"

Dumbledore magically silenced the rest of the room before answering, in strange, almost sad tone:

"Yes… Yes, he was dead."

The exact moment Harry had finished his meal and was beginning to feel better, Voldemort came back from the mysterious room.

"Boy, are you ready to continue?"

Harry paused before nodding. He'd decided that either Voldemort was not evil and he wasn't in any danger talking to him, or he was evil and he had better not disobey him.

"Huh… Can you tell me more about Dumbledore?"

"Albus? Yes, I suppose I can. I suppose a boy your age must have stumbled upon a Chocolate Frog card of him already?"

Harry nodded, remembering the card, his surprise when the drawn Dumbledore had moved, and Ron's explanations…

"Yeah… it said… he was the greatest wizard of modern times…" said Harry, somewhat hesitant.

"Blatant propaganda, that. I'm far more powerful than Albus, and neither of us can compare next to Master Flamel. Although perhaps they don't count him as a wizard of 'modern times'… never mind that for the moment. What else?"

"They also said he had worked on alchemy with Master Flamel… Discovered twelve uses for dragon blood,… oh, and there was this Dark Wizard he fought…"

"You mean, me?" said Voldemort, looking somewhat flattered.

"I don't think so, it gave a name… Grinningwald, or something."

"Ah, Grindelwald! Of course, how could I forget? Grindelwald was, much unlike me, a genuinely evil monster. I doubt he ever really understood good, for all he claimed that he was working 'for the greater good' when Albus finally got his hands on him. Scorpius Grindelwald was born in a little German town around 1910, and studied magic the old way, in an apprenticeship. He created great battle spells, but much of his success was due to his great war tactics. In the second half of the 1930's, as you probably know, some lunatic German Muggle somehow got himself elected leader and he engaged his country in a useless war for control of Europe that got out of hands and spread like a disease throughout the Muggle world.

Grindelwald, being German, took what little information about Muggle affairs he got from local newspapers; and those were obvious propaganda. Grindelwald underestimated Muggles too much to think they could possibly do something so elaborate as to lie to their populations, and he believed every word of it, the fool. He saw this dictator praised as a great hero and depicted as being inches away from successfully ruling the world. It was not the case, of course, but Grindelwald decided to do the same thing in the wizarding world, persuaded that he could succeed even better than the Muggle, since he had magic to back himself up. He turned out to be a competent war leader, as I told you, and soon he was seriously threatening Wizarding Britain. Albus Dumbledore had been the Chief Warlock of Britain for years, and, every inch the Gryffindor, this scholar, with little fighting experience outside the Defence Against the Dark Arts class he'd taken as a boy, decided to go fight Grindelwald himself. To this day I don't know how he managed it, because as has been tested today, Dumbledore is a hopeless duelist. At any rate, he became a famous hero and was made Headmaster of Hogwarts shortly after - such is the blindness of modern wizards, I'm afraid."

"But sir, Harry said, this only answers part of my question. Can you tell me more about Albus Dumbledore himself?"

"Do you know you would have done well in Slytherin, boy? You pick up on verbal tricks better than any Gryffindor known to me ever did. At any rate… Albus Dumbledore was born in 1881 in Godric's Hollow to Percival Dumbledore and Elizabeth Gryffindor. Like you, at age 10, he joined the Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry. To no one's surprise, the last direct descendant of Godric the Glorious was Sorted into Gryffindor. I came to Hogwarts the same year, and Albus and I got to know each other a bit; Albus was probably only making friends like a Hufflepuff, but I - though I did enjoy his company - did have some ulterior motives, namely being in the Scion of Gryffindor's good book by the time he came of age and became a leading political figure. Our friendship wasn't really encouraged by the staff and the student bodies, who seemed to have something against Slytherins and Gryffindors associating (which is idiotic, Godric and Salazar were best friends); but the few who actually took action would soon find themselves in hilarious predicaments involving deadly snakes, and by second year we managed to be left alone.

I saved Albus's life many times over the years, including from three Dark Wizards, ten random bullies, all sorts of snakes, and an absurd number of griffins that Albus thought he could tame through the sheer power of his mother's maiden name. There was also an incident involving Polyjuice Potion that I'll tell you about some other day, but Albus's life wasn't actually in danger. At any rate, we drifted apart when I began pursuing immortality; he was persuaded that this was an evil goal to have, and after attempting, with his flawed Gryffindor rhetoric, to convince me to abandon it, he left me alone with my own choices. That was when we were 16 or so. Then he passed his OWL Tests… Sorry, that stands for 'Ordinary Wizarding Level'. As I said he passed these tests, which granted him legal majority; he became Lord Gryffindor in addition to Mr Dumbledore, and he inherited a great fortune. Albus put both to good use by getting into politics, at which he was better than I'd have expected; he managed to get himself elected Chief Warlock after only three decades. He used his leisure time to fund wizarding scholars like Master Flamel, and do some research of his own. That included his famous discovery of twelve different uses for Dragon blood, a remarkable enough achievement, I must admit. Then again, even if Albus was no genius, I still wouldn't have been friend with him for several years had he been totally hopeless.

Then there was the war with Grindelwald, which I told you about; the amount of influence he got from it is absolutely dumbfounding. Among other things, he was made Grand Sorcerer, Supreme Mugwump and Merlin knows how many other stupid honorific titles, and he got several medals, including the Order of Merlin, the Order of the Phoenix, the Order of the Leaping Broom and the Order of Orders. And of course, he became Headmaster of Hogwarts. It was around the time I heard those news that I decided that the current government of Wizarding Britain was going to pot and that I had better take matters into my own hands."