The Lost Prophecy
Arthur's feet finally hit solid ground with his knees buckling a little and the golden wizard's head fell with a resounding clunk on the floor.
He looked and saw that he just arrived in Dumbledore's office.
Everything seemed to be repaired during Dumbledore's absence. The delicate silver instruments stood once more on the round table with the sword of Gryffindor next to them, puffing and whirring serenely.
The portraits of previous Headmasters and Headmistresses all snoozed in their frames, heads lolling back in armchairs or against the edge of the picture.
Arthur looked out the window high up and saw a cool line of pale green, meaning that dawn was approaching.
The silence and stillness, which was broken by the occasional grunt or snuffle of a sleeping portrait, was just too unbearable for Arthur. He just walked around the quiet, beautiful office, breathing, trying desperately to not think of what happened… but he had to… he can't delay the process of accepting what happened.
He fell to his knees and cried his eyes out.
It was all his fault….
If he didn't fall for Voldemort's trick, Sirius would still be alive. Why did he have to be so convinced that the dream was real? Was he just trying to deny that he really is some attention seeking twat? That he has a love for playing the hero?
It was all just too unbearable for him, he kept crying his eyes out, his face pressed against the stone floor as that terrible hollow formed inside him, one that Sirius once filled.
He wished that he wasn't in this silent space, he just can't stand it -
A picture behind him gave a particularly loud grunting snore and a cool voice said "Ah… Arthur Pendergast…."
Phineas Nigellus gave a long yawn, stretching his arms as he watched Arthur with his shrewd, narrow eyes.
"And what brings you here in the early hours of the morning?" He said. "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?"
Arthur didn't speak, Phineas Nigellus didn't know that Sirius is now dead, Arthur just couldn't tell him. To say it aloud would be finite and absolute.
A few more portraits stirred. Terror of being interrogated by them made Arthur get up and stride across the room to seize the doorknob, yet it wouldn't turn. He was locked in.
"I hope this means…" The corpulent, red nosed wizard said. "...that Dumbledore will soon be back among us?"
Arthur turned, seeing the wizard eyeing him with great interest. Arthur just nodded wordlessly, tugging the doorknob behind his back, still remaining immovable.
"Oh good." The wizard said. "It has been very dull without him, very dull indeed."
He settled himself on the throne-like chair that he had been painted and smiled benignly upon Arthur.
"Dumbledore thinks very highly of you, as I am sure you know." He said comfortably. "Oh yes. Holds you in great esteem."
The guilt that now filled Arthur's chest was some parasite, writhing and squirming. He couldn't stand it, he just couldn't stand being himself anymore. He now felt the most trapped in his own body and head, wishing so desperately that he was someone else.
The empty fireplace burst into emerald green flame, making Arthur leap away from the door, staring at the figure that spun inside the grate.
As Dumbledore's tall form unfolded itself from the fire, the wizards and witches on the surrounding walls all jerked away, many giving their cries of welcome.
"Thank you." Dumbledore said softly.
He didn't look at Arthur at first, walking over to the perch beside his desk and withdrew, from an inside pocket of his robes, the tiny featherless Fawkes, whom he gently placed on the tray of soft ashes beneath the golden post where the fully grown Fawkes usually stood.
"Well, Arthur…" Dumbledore said, turning away from the baby phoenix. "...you will be pleased to hear that none of your fellow students are going to suffer lasting damage from the night's events."
Arthur would've said something about this, knowing that they, especially Mike, were all going to be alright, but he didn't say anything. Dumbledore just reminded him of the damage he had caused. And despite Dumbledore now looking at him directly with a kind expression instead of an accusing one, Arthur just couldn't look him in the eyes.
"Madam Pomfrey is patching everybody up." Dumbledore said. "Nymphadora Tonks may need to spend a little time in St Mungo's, but it seems she will make a full recovery."
Arthur just contented himself with nodding at the stone floor, which grew lighter with the sky outside growing paler. He knew that the portraits all listened eagerly to every word Dumbledore said, wondering where he and Arthur had been, and why there were injuries.
"I know how you're feeling, Arthur." Dumbledore said very quietly.
"YOU DON'T!" Arthur roared, now looking at him in anger. How dare he think that he knew what Arthur was feeling, he knew nothing.
"You see, Dumbledore?" Phineas Nigellus said 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." Dumbledore cut him off.
Arthur turned his back on Dumbledore, staring ahead of him at his ancestor's sword.
"There is no shame in what you are feeling, Arthur." Dumbledore said. "On the contrary… the fact that you can feel pain like this is your greatest strength."
His words just made Arthur furious, making him desire nothing but to hurt Dumbledore for being so calm with his empty words.
"Is it really my greatest strength?" Arthur asked in the most cold voice possible. "You don't know…."
"What don't I know?" Dumbledore asked calmly.
Arthur just shook with rage, it was just too much.
"I don't want to talk to you about how I feel." He spat, turning to face him.
"Arthur, suffering like this proves you are still a man! This pain is part of being human -"
"THEN I DON'T WANT TO BE HUMAN!" Arthur roared and seized the silver instruments on the round table, flinging them across the room, shattering into a hundred tiny pieces. Several pictures let out yells of anger and fright, the portrait of Armando Dippet saying "Really!"
"I DON'T CARE" Arthur yelled at them all, snatching a lunascope and throwing it into the fireplace. "I HAVE HAD ENOUGH! I'VE SEEN ENOUGH! I WANT IT ALL TO END!"
He then threw the sword away and seized the table, throwing it, making it break apart on the floor and the legs rolled in different directions.
"You do care." Dumbledore said, having not flinched or made a single move to stop Arthur from demolishing his office. His expression was calm, downright detached. "You care so much you feel as though you will bleed to death with the pain of it.
"I DON'T!" Arthur screamed the loudest he ever raised his voice. He felt a real desire to just hurt Dumbledore, to shatter the calm old face, make him understand even the smallest part of the horrors inside him.
"Oh, yes, you do." Dumbledore said, still as calm as ever. "You have now lost your mother, your father and the closest thing to a parent you have ever known. Of course you care.
"DON'T YOU DARE TALK LIKE YOU KNOW HOW I FEEL! YOU DON'T!" Arthur roared right into his face. "YOU JUST STAND THERE, THINKING YOU'RE ABOVE EVERYONE, LIKE YOU'RE PERFECT!"
Now words weren't enough, same for smashing things. He just wanted to run and never look back at those clear blue eyes that were staring at him.
He ran to the door, seized the doorknob again and wrenched it, yet the door still wouldn't open.
"Let me out." He said, turning back to Dumbledore, shaking from head to foot.
"No." Dumbledore simply said.
For a few seconds they just stared at each other.
"Let. Me. Out." Arthur hissed through gritted teeth.
"No." Dumbledore repeated.
"If you don't let me out, I will hurt you, and I won't hold back." Arthur warned him.
Dumbledore just walked up to his desk and sat behind it, watching Arthur.
"Let me out, you bastard." Arthur spat in a voice that was deadly calm.
"Not until I have had my say." Dumbledore replied.
"You really think I want to hear what you have to say, AFTER TOSSING ME ASIDE FOR A YEAR?" Arthur roared. "YOU CAN FORGET IT!"
"You will." Dumbledore said steadily. "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."
"What are you talking -?"
"It is my fault that Sirius died." Dumbledore said clearly. "Or should I 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, Arthur, 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."
Arthur stood with his hand on the doorknob, but was unaware of it. He just gazed at the Headmaster, hardly breathing, listening yet barely able to understand what he was hearing in his emotional state.
"Please sit down." Dumbledore said, his request sounding more like an order to Arthur's ears. He hesitated before walking slowly across the floor, which was now littered with silver cogs and fragments of wood, taking the seat facing Dumbledore's desk.
"Am I to understand…" Phineas Nigellus said slowly from Arthur's left. "...that my great great grandson - the last of the Blacks - is dead?"
"Yes, Phineas." Dumbledore said.
"I don't believe it." Phineas said brusquely.
Arthur turned in time to see Phineas marching out of his portrait to go and visit his other painting in Grimmauld Place.
"Arthur, I owe you an explanation." Dumbledore then said. "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 now rising properly, a rim of dazzling orange was visible now and the sky was colourless and bright. The light now fell upon Dumbledore, the silver of his eyebrows and beard and on the lines that gouged deeply into his face.
"I guessed, fifteen years ago, when I saw the scar on your forehead, what it might mean. I guessed that it might be the sign of a connection forged between you and Voldemort."
"You've already told me this, Professor." Arthur bluntly pointed out. He didn't care if he was rude at the moment.
"Yes." Dumbledore said apologetically. "Yes, but you see - it is necessary to start with your scar. For it became apparent, shortly after you rejoined the magical world, that I was correct, and that your scar was giving you warning when Voldemort was close to you, or else feeling powerful emotions."
"I know." Arthur rudely pointed out.
"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."
Arthur was starting to get annoyed because he knew all this already.
"More recently, I became concerned that Voldemort might realise 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 you witnessed the attack on Benjamin Merlon."
"I know, Snape told me." Arthur muttered.
"Professor Snape, Arthur." Dumbledore corrected him quietly.
"He doesn't deserve respect, don't correct me." Arthur hissed at him angrily.
"Anyway, 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?"
"I always thought because he tossed me aside like I was just some tool." Arthur spat.
"No, Arthur, that isn't true." Dumbledore said. "You see, 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 realised 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 of which he would put you, the possibility that he might try and possess you. Arthur, 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…."
Arthur remembered those instances where he felt like a snake was about to be unleashed from within him, the moments when he and Dumbeldore made eye contact.
"Voldemort's aim in possessing you, as he demonstrated tonight, would not have been my destruction. It would have been yours. He hoped, when he possessed you briefly a short while ago, that I would sacrifice you in the hope of killing him. So you see, I have been trying, in distancing myself from you, to protect you, Arthur. An old man's mistake…."
He sighed deeply as his words washed over Arthur. He would've been interested in all of this a few months ago, but it was now meaningless with the loss of Sirius, it just didn't matter anymore.
"Sirius told me you felt Voldemort awake inside you the very night you had the vision of Benjamin Merlon's attack. I knew at once that my worst fears were correct: Voldemort had realised 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 as Arthur looked up at the sunlight, which slid slowly across the polished surface of Dumbledore's desk, illuminating a silver ink pot and a handsome scarlet quill. Arthur knew that the portraits were all awake and listened raptly to Dumbledore's explanation; he could hear the occasional rustling of robes, the slight clearing throats. And Phineas Nigellus still hadn't returned.
"Professor Snape discovered 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, though you didn't know what it meant until he saw the actual door yourself on the day of your hearing. 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."
"And I did… until I slipped up yesterday." Arthur said, trying to ease the weight of guilt on his shoulders: a confession had to relieve the pressure somehow. "I slipped up because I was so sure I wouldn't have those dreams anymore. If he didn't show me where to go, Sirius wouldn't - he wouldn't -"
He had to explain why he went.
"I tried checking if Sirius was really taken. I broke into Umbridge's office and spoke to Kreacher in the fire. He said that Sirius was gone!"
"Kreacher lied." Dumbledore said calmly. "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."
"He sent me there on purpose?"
"Oh yes. Kreacher, I am afraid, has been serving more than one master for months."
Arthur thought about it and remembered when Kreacher was absent during the Christmas holidays. He then remembered the Black family tree and how Lucius is related by marrying one of them.
"Narcissa." He growled.
"Yes." Dumbledore said. "Kreacher seized an opportunity shortly before Christmas 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 this?" Arthur asked, feeling sick.
"Kreacher told me last night." Dumbledore replied. "You see, when you gave Professor Snape that cryptic warning, he realised that you 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 before continuing. "Alastor Moody, Nymphadora Tonks, Kingsley Shacklebolt, Benjamin Merlon and Remus Lupin were at Headquarters when he made contact. All agreed to go to your aid at once. Professor Snape requested that Sirius remained 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 laughed?" Arthur said in a hollow voice.
"Oh, yes." Dumbledore said. "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 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."
"What?" Arthur asked.
"The fact that the person Sirius cared most about in the world was you." Dumbledore said quietly. "The fact that you were coming to regard Sirius as a mixture of father and brother. Voldemort knew already, of course, that Sirius was in the Order, and that you know where he was - but Kreacher's information made him realise that the one person for whom you would go to any lengths to rescue was Sirius Black."
Arthur's lips were now cold and numb.
"So… when I asked Kreacher if Sirius was there…."
"The Malfoys - undoubtedly on Voldemort's instructions - had told him he must find a way of keeping Sirius out of the way once you had seen the vision of Sirius being tortured. Then, if you decided to check whether Sirius was at home or not, Kreacher would be able to pretend he was not. Kreacher injured Buckbeak the Hippogriff yesterday, and, at the moment when you made your appearance in the fire, Sirius was upstairs tending to him."
Arthur held his breath as he let all this information sink in until he breathed.
"And Kreacher told you all this and laughed?" He croaked.
"He did not wish to tell me." Dumbledore said. "But I am a sufficiently accomplished Legilimens myself to know when I am being lied to and I - persuaded him - to tell me the full story, before I left for the Department of Mysteries."
There was silence for a while until Dumbledore broke it.
"I had warned Sirius when we adopted Twelve Grimmauld Place as our Headquarters that Kreacher must be treated with kindness and respect. I also told him that Kreacher could be dangerous to us. I do not think Sirius took me very seriously, or that he ever saw Kreacher as a being with feelings as acute as a human's -"
"Don't you dare talk about Sirius like that -" Arthur hissed through his rage. "Kreacher is nothing but a disgusting, lying git, he deserved -"
"Kreacher is what he has been made by wizards, Arthur." Dumbledore said. "Yes, he is to be pitied. His existence has been as miserable as your friend Dobby's. He was forced to do Sirius' bidding, because Sirius was the last of the family to which he was enslaved, but he felt no true loyalty to him. And whatever Kreacher's faults, it must be admitted that Sirius did nothing to make Kreacher's lot easier -"
"DON'T YOU DARE TALK ABOUT SIRIUS LIKE THAT!" Arthur yelled.
He was now back on his feet, furious and ready to fly at Dumbledore, who he felt didn't understand Sirius at all.
"What about Snape?" Arthur spat. "You're talking about him! When I told him that Voldemort had Sirius, he just sneered at me -"
"Arthur, you know Professor Snape had no choice but to pretend not to take you seriously in front of Dolores Umbridge." Dumbledore said 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 her Sirius' whereabouts."
Arthur disregarded this fact, he felt nothing but a desire to blame Snape.
"Snape did nothing but try to goad Sirius on about staying in the house!" Arthur pointed out. "He even threw me out of Occlumency lessons! He's nothing but an immature man child!"
"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 father - I was wrong."
"So you're saying that it's okay for him to hate my dad, but that it isn't for Sirius to hate Kreacher?" Arthur yelled, ignoring all the scandalised and disapproving faces and mutterings of the portraits.
"Sirius did not hate Kreacher." Dumbledore said. "He regarded him as a servant unworthy of much interest of 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 YOU'RE SAYING THAT SIRIUS DESERVES TO DIE?" Arthur roared at him.
"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."
"Of course he hated it!" Arthur said, his voice cracking, turning his back on Dumbledore and walking away. The sun was bright inside the room and all the eyes of the portraits followed him as he walked, not realising what he was doing, without seeing the office. "You forced him to stay shut up in the house he hated all his life, it's why he got out last night -"
"I was trying to keep Sirius alive." Dumbledore said quietly.
"People don't like being locked up, you idiot!" Arthur said furiously, making the portraits gasp collectively. "You did the same to me last summer -"
Dumbledore closed his eyes and buried his face in his long fingered hands. Arthur watched, not being softened by this sight at all. If anything, he felt more angry that Dumbledore was now showing a sign of weakness. He had no right being weak.
Dumbledore lowered his hands and surveyed Arthur through his half moon glasses.
"It is time for me to tell you what I should have told you five years ago, Arthur. 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."
Arthur just glared at him before he flung himself back into the chair opposite Dumbledore and waited.
Dumbledore just stared for a moment before he looked Arthur in the eye and said "Five years ago, you arrived at Hogwarts, Arthur, safe and whole, as I had planned and intended."
Arthur didn't say anything when he paused.
"You're probably wondering why you were left on your aunt and uncle's doorstep. It was because it was my priority to keep you alive. You were in more danger than perhaps anyone but I realised. 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 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 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."
"But what does that have to do with anything?" Arthur asked, not fully understanding.
"She took you in. 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."
"Can you please stop being so vague and explain -?"
"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 mainly once a year, but as long as you can still call it home, whilst you are 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 to stay may well have kept you alive for the past fifteen years."
"But what does this have to do with what you were supposed to tell me five years ago?" Arthur asked.
"Five years ago, then…" Dumbledore continued, like he didn't pause in his story. "...you arrived at Hogwarts, happy and well nourished. 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. 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."
Arthur remembered that moment, and how Dumbledore refused to answer his question about why Voldemort wanted to kill him. He remembered the look on Dumbledore's face… he realised the flaw.
"You didn't tell me about why he wanted to kill me." He answered.
"Yes. That was the flaw. I decided not to answer you. Eleven, I told myself, was much too young to know. I had never intended to tell you when you were eleven. The knowledge would be too much at such a young age. I should have recognised 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 recognised 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 on you. We discussed your scar, oh yes… we came very, very close to the subject. Why did I not tell you everything? Well, it seemed to me that twelve was, after all, hardly better than eleven to receive such information. I allowed you to leave my presence, bloodstained, exhausted but exhilarated, especially with the reveal of your ancestry, and if I felt a twinge of unease that I ought, perhaps, to have told you then it was swiftly silenced. You were still so young, you see, and I could not find it in myself to spoil that night of triumph…. Do you see, Arthur? 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."
Arthur soaked in his words and realised what he's saying.
"You cared about me."
"I did. Too much, perhaps." Dumbledore said 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 defence? 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? Especially with your recent relationship with Michael McGonagall? I never dreamed that I would have such a person on my hands. We entered your third year. I watched from afar as you struggled to repel the Dementors, as you found Sirius, having figured out what he was and rescued him. Was I to tell you then at the moment you had triumphantly snatched your godfather from the jaws of the Ministry? But now, at the age of thirteen, my excuses were running out. Young you might be, but you had proved you were exceptional. My conscience was uneasy, Arthur. I knew the time must come soon…. But you came out of the maze last year, having watched Cedric Diggory die, 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 defence is this: I have watched you struggling from under more burdens than any students who has ever passed through this school and I could not bring myself to add another - the greatest one of all."
"What burden?" Arthur asked after Dumbledore stopped speaking for several moments.
"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 fully risen now: Dumbledore's office was now bathed in it. The sword of Gryffindor gleamed, the fragments of the instruments Arthur threw to the floor glistened like raindrops and Fawkes made soft chirruping noises in his nest of ashes.
"The prophecy's smashed." Arthur said. "I smashed it the moment the Order came."
"The thing you 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."
"And that's you." Arthur said, remembering the initials from the label.
"Yes. On a cold, wet night sixteen 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 then got to his feet and walked past Arthur to a cabinet and pulled out a shallow stone basin from within it that was carved with runes around the edges. The very thing that Arthur saw his father torment Snape.
Dumbledore walked back to the desk, placed the Pensieve upon it, raised his wand to his temple and withdrew a silvery, gossamer fine strands of thought clinging to the wand and deposited them into the basin.
He then 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 from it, draped in shawls, her eyes magnified to an enormous size behind her glasses, and revolved slowly, her feet in the basin. But when Trelawney talked, it wasn't with her usual ethereal, mystic voice, but with the harsh, hoarse tones that Arthur heard her only speak in 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 him as his equal, but he 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 Trelawney now sank back into the silver mass below and vanished.
The silence that filled the office was very absolute. Neither Arthur or Dumbledore, even the portraits, made a sound. Even Fawkes fell silent.
"Professor?" Arthur said very quietly, Dumbledore still stared at the Pensieve, like he was lost in thought. "What did that mean?"
"It meant that the person who has the only chance of conquering Lord Voldemort for good was born at the end of July, nearly sixteen years ago. This boy would be born to parents who had already defied Voldemort three times."
Arthur's breathing was now shallow and difficult to maintain as he realised what it all meant.
"It's about me."
Dumbledore took a deep breath.
"The odd thing, Arthur…" He said softly. "...is that it may not have meant you at all. Sybill'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. The other was Neville Longbottom."
"Then why was my name on the prophecy?"
"The official record was relabelled after Voldemort's attack on you as a child. It seemed plain to the keeper of the Hall of Prophecies that Voldemort could only have tried to kill you because he knew you would be the one to whom Sybill was referring."
Arthur thought about the prophecy. What stuck out to him was the part of Voldemort making his enemy as his equal. He marked Arthur because of the scar on his forehead. Just one thing didn't make sense to him.
"Why would he choose me and not Neville?" He asked, sounding defeated and lost.
"He chose the boy he thought most likely to be a danger to him. And notice this, Arthur: he chose, not the pure-blood (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."
"But why do it, then?" Arthur said, now numb and cold. "Why try to kill me as a baby? Why couldn't he have waited to see if Neville or I looked more dangerous when we were older and tried to kill then?"
"That might, indeed, have been the more practical course, except that Voldemort's information about the prophecy was incomplete. The Hog's Head inn, which Sybill 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 Sybill 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 beginning, the part foretelling the birth of a boy in July to 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, and marking you as his equal. So Voldemort never knew that there might be danger in attacking you, that it might be wise to wait, to learn more. He did not know that you would have power the Dark Lord knows not -"
"I don't!" Arthur said in a strangled voice. "I could never fight the way he did tonight. I can't possess or kill -"
"There is a room in the Department of Mysteries…" Dumbledore interrupted him. "...that is kept locked at all times. It contains a force that is at once more wonderful and more terrible than death, than human intelligence, than the forces of nature. It is also, perhaps, the most mysterious of the many subjects for study that reside there. It is the power held within that room that you possess in such quantities and which Voldemort has not at all. That power took you to save Sirius tonight. That power also saved you from possession by Voldemort, because he could not bear to reside in a body so full of the force he detests. In the end, it mattered not that you could not close your mind. It was your heart that saved you."
Arthur thought about his thoughts when he was possessed. All the grief and love that he felt and how he was released right after. Now he understood: the power he has against Voldemort, which is also what protects him at the Dentleys, is love.
"The end of the prophecy…" Arthur said, moving on. "...it said neither can live…."
"...while the other survives." Dumbledore finished.
"Then…" Arthur said, dredging the words from a deep well of despair as he thought about Sirius again. "...that means one of us will have to kill the other… in the end."
"Yes." Dumbledore nodded.
Neither of them spoke for a long time. Beyond the office walls, Arthur heard the voices of students heading to the Great Hall for an early breakfast.
It was hard for him to think that people in the world would still desire food, who would laugh, who neither cared that Sirius Black was now gone forever. Sirius truly felt like he was millions of miles away.
"I feel I owe you another explanation, Arthur." Dumbledore then said 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."
Arthur looked up and saw a tear trickling down Dumbledore's face into his silver beard.
"Honestly… I never cared for being a Prefect." Arthur replied, making Dumbledore make a soft smile.
"I see… well, on another note… I wish you luck with your relationship with Michael McGonagall."
That is just so much for Arthur to take in.