Professor Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore, Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardy, leader of the Order of the Phoenix, Grand Sorcerer, Supreme Mugwump of the International Confederation of Wizards, Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot, and… very old man sat staring at his calendar in his office at Hogwarts. Currently alone, for Fawkes was out doing whatever phoenix's do when not hanging around old men, he was staring intently at the calendar that clearly showed that tomorrow, the letters would be going out.
He wasn't sure if he wanted them to go out or not this year. This year, Harry Potter would be coming to Hogwarts. This year, all of the nightmares he had been burying beneath his occlumency shields would begin to hammer at him again. This year, he would have to deal with the return of a celebrity who hadn't seen his world since the death of his parents, ten years ago. This year would require a lot of Firewhiskey, and maybe some of that muggle valium he'd heard about.
He tried. He tried very, very hard not to remember, but the ghosts of his past were always there, always watching, waiting for a moment of weakness to start their wailing again. Such moments as today.
Long ago, in his misguided youth, he and his friend Gellert were so sure they had all the answers. They'd read Nietzche, Marx, Lenin, Sun Tzu, Confucius, Husserl, Blackburn and others. Putting it all together, they KNEW what needed to be done, For the Greater Good.
For the Greater Good.
Never has any one phrase meant so much and so little at the same time.
His Greater Good cost him Arianna and Aberforth.
So he revised it. Gellert disagreed with the revisions and left him.
Left him for Nazi Germany, war, death, destruction, and a near apocalypse for the wizarding world.
So he then lost Gellert. For the Greater Good.
Years later, he found Gellert again. But once again, his heart was demanded in sacrifice to the altar of the Greater Good. He could not bring himself to kill Gellert, not after Arianna. He just didn't have it in his heart to kill. Of course, it was only these many years later he realized how much harder it had become knowing Gellert lived on, imprisoned in Nurmengard.
It was during the same period he found a boy, and failed him all in the same year.
Poor Tom. If only he had seen Tom's suffering sooner, had shown the boy something other than the cruelty of post war orphanages and the hunt for power. Truth be told, Tom's quest for power was much similar to his own, if spurred by different reasons.
Perhaps that's why he felt so ashamed of his failure. He saw what he might have become had he and Gellert managed to pursue their own Greater Good. And Arianna would most likely still have died, perhaps in a more horrible fashion as many of Tom's victims had.
Perhaps this lack of the killing instinct was his flaw, his divorce from the rest of humanity with its violence and action. At least he had never accepted the position of Minister.
No, that would never do. That kind of power was not for him. That was a dark road he had already set foot on before he was so violently yanked back before he had tread too far.
It was all for the Greater Good.
Then it happened. His nightmare come back to haunt him. Tom had returned under the pseudonym, Lord Voldemort.
Darkness. Death. Lives lost for no reason or for reasons best left unknown.
He tried. Once again, called to protect the Greater Good, he tried so very hard to stop the deaths, on both sides. Couldn't they see? Why wouldn't they SEE?
Every death they caused, every bit of harm, made things all the darker. Made them all that much smaller. Took away from the glory of wizarding Britain.
Tears fell freely as he recalled those who fell in the conflict. The Prewett boys. Johnson. Keller. The Bones. Fenwick. Dearborn. Those poor muggle twins, the Kirk-Patricks, only eight. He found them waiting at a tram station that was attacked in one of the infamous Revels of Tom's. He only knew their names because of the nametags.
So many lives lost. So many souls blackened. So many families shattered. So many voices calling for HIM to avenge them. He could not.
He could not bring himself to do what was necessary. Oh, he KNEW what he should do, but he was so very afraid that once he started down that path again, once he began to LIKE that POWER, that he couldn't stop.
For the Greater Good, he had to find another way.
Then came that godsend, that curse. Sybill Trelawney.
Poor Sybill. She never knew how useless she was, how dangerous she could be, how very much in danger she was, both from Tom and from himself if he should ever slip.
He kept her as a reminder. A reminder of how EASY it would be to take that step.
That first step would be the end.
The end of the Greater Good.
Poor Harry. His parents were another casualty. His and Neville's.
He tried. He tried so hard to carry this burden. This knowledge that one of them would do what he could not. What he feared he would be forced to do.
His relief that he would not be forced to take another life was tempered by the sure knowledge that whichever boy was the target of the prophecy would surely suffer.
Again, the Greater Good demanded blood.
Blood that it took in copious amounts.
He protected the Longbottoms and the Potters as best he could, but Prophecy could not be denied Her due. Fate was a cruel and heartless mistress.
They were protected, but Fate stole away that protection and with it, the lives of Harry and Neville's parents. Perhaps She would have anyway, but Albus couldn't help but think that She did it to punish him for his presumption to try and deny Her the sacrifice She demanded.
And then it happened.
Harry lived.
Whatever transpired that night, no one would ever know for sure, but with what Albus knew of Lily, she had found some way, some secret, some trick of the Fates to save her son. And doom him to be the Chosen.
Albus picked up the bottle he had been saving. He looked at it through his tears and wondered how much it would help. He knew it hadn't helped then.
The wards had fallen at the Longbottoms.
Fearing that the Prophecy was making itself felt, he had hurried over to their safehouse.
To find Bellatrix LeStrange and about twenty others.
He knew magics few dreamed of, had tricks only the insane could imagine, and power the likes of which had not been seen in ages, but he was not God.
Fighting his way through all those arrayed against him, he was too late to save Frank and Alice. Only providence saved young Neville. He wasn't there.
Neither was Tom.
That's when he felt it.
The wards at Godrics Hollow had fallen as well.
The anti-apparation wards were still up over the Longbottom house. He had to hurry if he was to help the Potters.
He was too late.
Taking a sip of the glass he had poured, Albus recalled with vivid detail the scene he had arrived to.
The wards were gone. The house burning, one whole section of the upper floor blown completely out. The section where young Harry's room was located. Hagrid stood off t one side of the house, with Sirius' motorbike. But no Sirius.
Fear. Anger. Horror.
Stepping through the remains of the front door, he encountered James' last stand. And James' accusing eyes, staring up at him from the floor near the stairs. Evidence of a long, hard battle was all around him. Holes, blasted furniture, twisted shapes of transfigured items, puddles of water. A pool of blood.
Hurrying past James' dead form, he rushed up the stairs, further evidence of a continued battle seen on the walls and parts of the floor.
A massive hole in the hallway wall where the Potters' bedroom had been indicated that James and Lily had placed a clever trap. A brief smile managed to break through the grief as Albus realized the metal fragments he saw embedded in the walls were from a runestone explosion. Once that had been turned into a shrapnel mine, something that Tom would not have expected of magicals.
Hurrying down the hall, Albus turned to Harry's room. The door was unharmed.
It was, however, open.
Before him was the sight he feared the worst.
Lily.
Though she had been tossed aside after dying ad her eyes were not visible, Albus still felt them. Like James below, Lily stared with accusing eyes. Demanding eyes.
And he had no answers for her.
Albus hesitated. Did he really want to look in the crib? Did he want another pair of dead, accusing eyes staring back at him from the darkness?
With feeble footsteps, he approached the small bed. Halfway across the room, he stopped, unable to bring himself to look.
Albus Dumbledore, greatest wizard of an age, collapsed to his knees in tears, unable to look and see if the infant son of James and Lily was alive or dead.
A sound. Like tapping on the house's frame.
His tears still flowing, Albus staggered to his feet.
"Pr'fesser Dumbeldore, sir," came Hagrid's call from outside.
He remembered. He remembered the Prophecy.
The sound again. Hagrid trying to get his attention. Didn't he understand? All was lost. Voldemort had won. All because Albus couldn't do what was needed.
Stumbling back down the stairs, tears in his eyes, Albus saw Hagrid standing just outside the door. Standing so he didn't have to see his friend's body lying cold on the floor.
Walking outside, Albus saw Hagrid had something in his arms. Stepping closer, he looked down at a baby boy. A baby covered in blood.
Confusion.
The killing curse doesn't draw blood.
Reaching down, Albus wiped a bit of the blood from the baby's face. The eyes that had been shut opened.
HE LIVES!
Fear and horror were driven back for the moment by hope.
Quickly cleaning the child's face with a wave of his wand, Albus found a strangely shaped cut on the boy's forehead.
He tried to heal it. Nothing. Only the bleeding stopped, and only just.
Albus frowned and cast a different spell.
The mark was from something dark. Something evil. From a spell that Albus knew all too well.
After all, Tom so loved to use the Avada Kedavara.
His wonderings were interrupted by the gentle crying of the baby before him. Shoving everything aside, Albus picked up the small form and asked Hagrid what happened.
A bad idea that one. Hagrid could barely speak through his grief. Something about Sirius telling him to meet him at the Potters. How he'd arrived and Sirius was wailing inside, screaming in rage and heartache.
How Sirius had shoved the bundle with young Harry into his arms and apparated away.
As Albus stood with young Harry, he wondered at Sirius' appearance. Wasn't he the Potters' Secret Keeper? How did the wards fail if he was still alive? Had he sold them out? Had he been tricked? Albus hurried to find the answers to these questions.
He then made what was perhaps the single worst mistake of the last decade. He gave Hagrid Harry and told him to hold up in the Leaky Cauldron until he heard from Albus.
While Albus rushed around trying to find Sirius, or anyone, who could tell him what had happened, Hagrid was telling the world that Harry had defeated Voldemort.
The Greater Good was demanding more than just blood. Fate and the Greater Good demanded hearts, bodies, SOULS.
By the time Albus had gotten the story from Bartemius Crouch, the whole of the wizarding world was alight with rumors.
The Potters were dead.
Voldemort was dead.
Harry Potter had survived the killing curse.
They were calling him The-Boy-Who-Lived.
Albus tried. He tried to show how it was Lily that defeated Tom. Her bravery, her sacrifice. But she was a muggle-born. They would not hear of this mockery.
Others were convinced that Albus had done it. They pressured him once more to take up the reins of government and lead them. Again, his fear and desire battled for his very soul. In the end, fear won once more.
The Greater Good.
Albus hid Harry away. Very, very few knew of his Aunt Petunia. She would care for the boy. And her link to Lily would keep the protections Albus found on Harry strong.
So many years. Staving off those who wanted to push him into positions of power. Staving off the ghosts that haunted him. Staving off his own desires. Thank Merlin the ICW had little real power, even less than Headmaster.
So now he sat, the greatest wizard of an age, drinking himself under the table as he stared at the clock and the calendar while the minutes ticked away towards his greatest fear.
Would Harry ever forgive him?
He knew the ghosts would not.