"How did it go?" Dave asked his grandson quietly as soon as he and Dumbledore had exited the minister's office.
"I thought it went rather well, although I certainly wouldn't have told the minister so much," said Dumbledore.
"Don't I know it," Harry snorted, his contempt for the headmaster obvious. "If you had your way you would hold secrets so frantically to yourself that by the time you released them, if you ever did, it would be far too late to prevent a catastrophe, which likely would have included numerous deaths. You have such an aversion to telling the truth that many people have lost their lives that might well have lived. You don't give people the knowledge to protect themselves, because you think you're the only one that can possibly handle such information correctly. Even you are not totally infallible Albus Dumbledore, something that you need to realize before it's too late. Your sense of ethics and morals are so screwed that you truly believe you're the only one that can lead me to the defeat of Voldemort, just because you took out Grindelwald. You expect me to do it all by myself, with no help from anyone. What do you expect me to do? Give him a hug and a kiss?"
This was said so sarcastically that Dumbledore winced, something he had been doing a lot of lately.
"Because of what I told the minister I got him on my side, which means I won't be thrown in Azkaban just for supposedly killing the dork lord. I have no doubt that's something that Voldemort's followers within the Ministry of Magic would cook up to get me out of the way and they have enough power and enough people in their pocket to do so. It's not that grandfather wouldn't get me out immediately and then we would disappear into the Otherworld never to return, it's just that I'd rather not go to the bother of going through some kind of fake trial, just so Voldemort's followers can put me away or try to at any rate."
Dumbledore winced as he listened to Harry rant quietly, never raising his voice, knowing that it was a strong possibility if they didn't take care of all the people in the ministry that believed in Voldemort's ideals or at least believed that killing someone no matter the reason was murder, even if it was in self-defense. It was no wonder that the ministry had had so much trouble dealing with Voldemort and his Death Eaters in the last war. A lot of the people that worked there didn't really follow the laws and depending on who ran the trial would have a lot to do with whether Harry was found innocent or not.
It was still possible that he would go free, even if it was run by someone who wanted to see him thrown into prison. Dumbledore could see Dolores Umbridge wanting to throw the Boy Who Lived in Azkaban for killing Voldemort, but he suspected her real reason would be because he was the half blood, one who had influence, but since being a half blood wasn't against the law Umbridge would have the perfect excuse to throw him in prison. Umbridge's bigotry against anyone who wasn't a pureblood was well known and she hated the fact that a half blood was so famous. Unfortunately, Umbridge had a lot of power, so might have gotten her wish very quickly if not for the protection from the minister.
"You don't want people who think for themselves, no, you want good little followers that follow your every command no matter how stupid or misguided it is or how many laws they break in doing so," Harry continued to rant quietly. "Wizarding people here in England seem to have an utter lack of logical thinking and just seem to follow the strongest leader no matter what kind of idiotic decisions that leader makes.
"No one in the first war questioned any of your plans and because of your idiocy a lot of good people died including my parents. You think that you have the ability to lead people when you can't even keep a secret. Thanks to your grand plans my parents died hidden behind some obscure charm when it would've been much better if they had hid in the Otherworld. Granddad has already said that if he had only known the danger they were in he would've convinced them to do so and if they had, they would have survived that night.
"I could've grown up with my parents and while my grandparents are good substitutes they're still not the real thing as much as I love them. Instead my parents chose to listen to the headmaster of a school who can't even get a simple magical oath from people to not reveal what was talked about. If it had been worded right Peter Pettigrew never would've been able to betray my parents to their deaths.
"This is why I told you before that I don't trust you and I doubt I ever really will, considering how you meddled in my life and screwed it up in a hundred different ways. After Voldemort's gone if you ever meddle in my life again you will not like the results," Harry warned Dumbledore seriously, his green eyes glimmering with anger. "Even an idiot should've known to watch out for traitors in a supposedly secret group that they were leading to fight a great evil and yet it probably never even likely occurred to you to do so. I mean really headmaster how naïve and stupid can you be? Especially considering your years of experience?
"It should have occurred to you from the beginning that not everyone was loyal to your cause and when you were finally betrayed you threw the wrong man in Azkaban or at least you didn't prevent it by demanding a trial. Perhaps that was your plan all along so you could have control of your weapon. An innocent man has spent over eight years in hell, just because of the utter lack of following the laws that you supposedly championed. A good man has been betrayed by the very people that should have at least demanded that justice be done. I won't be surprised once we get Sirius free that he tells you to go stuff your Order of the Phoenix and shove it up your wrinkly old arse."
This last was said so sarcastically that it practically dripped scorn and derision.
Dumbledore winced again, because it was suddenly clear that Harry loathed him not just resented him. Dumbledore had to admit privately that Harry had every reason to at least resent the hell out of him. Apparently though, Harry didn't just resent him, no, he totally loathed him and Dumbledore knew if he tried to tell Harry that such emotion was the path to going dark that he and his grandfather would hold such an idea in utter contempt.
He was sure that Harry's grandfather would lecture him about how someone can't control what emotions they feel or always think or feel positively, as that just wasn't human nature. He was sure that Dave would also point out that his grandson was only a nearly 11-year-old boy and children were not known for being rational or being able to control their emotions most of the time. Even adults could resent or loath or hate someone sometimes for very good reason, sometimes not.
As Dave had pointed out he hadn't really bothered to get out into the world in decades to see how it had changed in that time nor did he know very much about human nature and considering how old he was that was just ridiculous. Dumbledore had been sure that Harry's relatives would take care of a baby like he was the couples own son and he had been badly mistaken in that. So if he was mistaken in that what else had he been mistaken about?
Dave was right that he hadn't even bothered to ring the doorbell to talk to the people inside the house and just left baby Harry on their doorstep at the beginning in November no less. A baby that was then abused for five years before Dave had located his grandson and took him away.
Dumbledore knew he was very sure of his own abilities, his own intelligence, but he also knew he had made a bad mistake, several of them actually. Not only had he left an innocent man in prison, not bothering to get him a trial like he should have, but he had put a defenseless baby into an abusive home. He was lucky that the Dursleys hadn't killed him.
As both Harry and Dave had pointed out he'd had no right to meddle in Harry's life at all and while they understood that he had truly been trying to protect Harry from the Death Eaters he had done a lousy job of it. He hadn't even fulfilled the most basic requirements of a guardian something Dave had pointed out to him more then once. He had just assumed that the Dursleys would look after baby Harry and love him, which was ludicrous he could now see, though it had never occurred to him at the time. Also, he had failed to even set up a stipend for Harry's care and hadn't bothered to do even a basic investigation to make sure that the Dursleys would be suitable guardians.
Minerva had warned him that the Dursleys were the worst sorts of Muggles, but he had not listened and now he knew it had been a very bad mistake. A mistake that might cost him his life if he didn't go about this very carefully.
Children shouldn't need to control their emotions all the time. They should be free to hate, love, feel frustration, joy and sadness and any other emotion as much as they wanted to so long as it didn't get out of hand. Even adults should be free to feel whatever emotion they wanted so long as it did not hurt anybody else.
He tended to forget that Harry might appear very mature, but he was still only a nearly 11 year old boy and therefore, just a child and he certainly deserved to have some sort a childhood, which he in his arrogance, had stripped part of from him. He had been so sure that he was doing right thing that it had blinkered him to the fact that he was making a major mistake.
Minerva had lectured, yelled and screamed at him when she had learned of his mistake. He could still hear her voice ringing in his ears, her Scottish accent thicker than normal, because she was so furious. She had cussed at him in English, Gaelic, Latin and French because she was so upset.
Dumbledore remembered how Dave had ripped into him when he'd tried to claim that he was the only one that could kill someone without going dark, just because he was the great Albus Dumbledore and he now saw that was his own arrogance at work. Dave and Harry had both pointed out that this was war and just to knock out your opponents unconscious was bad strategy because they had friends that would only revive them and put them back into the fight usually without the good guys being aware of it.
In times of war, killing someone should be considered justified so long as it was someone that was trying their best to kill you. Because of his beliefs, many of the people on the side of light had lost their lives, because he refused to let them kill, even when it ought to be obvious to an idiot that it was necessary.
Killing on an ordinary basis was wrong, and he knew that Dave and Harry agree with him on that, but they also had no problem with killing to protect themselves or an innocent. Dave had pointed out that so long as you were genuinely remorseful you weren't going to go dark by killing. It was called self-defense for a reason, something that Dumbledore had chosen to ignore for many years. He was so sure that he could guide those on the wrong side back to the light that he hadn't wanted to kill them and not give them a chance at redemption.
Dave had taken great pains however, to point out, while his grandson was busy elsewhere that those that raped and murdered and enjoyed it were not going to suddenly change their views and come back and see what they were doing was wrong. They were called fanatics for a reason Dave had told him and much like Dumbledore himself, believed in their cause so strongly that they weren't going to suddenly change their ways.
Dave had even been kind enough to show him a few memories of times he had experience such fanatic devotion to another and the results never ended well. Dave had said that the British wizarding world was at least 150 years behind the times, possibly even more in certain areas and that they didn't know a thing about human nature.
Dumbledore had argued with him and Dave had simply looked at him with contempt and then he had taken him on a journey where he had observed several other wizarding communities in other parts of the world. Dumbledore had been to other countries before for his duties with the ICW, but he had never really paid attention to how modern most of them were. Most places where there were magic users even had electric lights, which he had been informed were far cheaper and more economical then gas lamps or candles.
Dave had taken great pains to point out that he might have been to other countries that were more modern before, but he really hadn't paid attention to the differences between them and his own country.
Dave had told him quite bluntly that one of the reasons Grindelwald and Voldemort were able to almost takeover, was because the beliefs of those in England.
The prejudices of the British wizarding world or at least those in power, was one of the main reasons that Voldemort at least has had such a easy time of gaining followers. Those beliefs have got to change or you'll have another Dark Lord likely in your lifetime and I promise you that my grandson will not be involved.
He originally just wanted to let you stew in the mess that you and those in power made by refusing to change and not help you out at all. It took a lot for me to convince him that just because a lot of people in England are idiots that didn't mean that there aren't a lot of good people that have no idea what is going on.
Dumbledore wanted to protest about being called an idiot, but he realized suddenly that he had been so stuck in his views that he had been one of the ones that kept the country from progressing into the 21st-century. He and many others of the wizarding world in England had believed that the Muggle world didn't matter, but since then Dave and Harry had opened his eyes and showed him plenty of examples where magical folks were beginning to stick out more and more and it would only be a matter of time before they were discovered.
You need to learn how to blend in headmaster for magicals are going to be discovered simply because they don't, he remembered Harry saying. A lot of magicals deny themselves so many opportunities to experience the world because they stick to just a small portion of it. That's their choice of course, but I fear they are so afraid of learning something that upset their worldview that they refuse to even try. They're so afraid of learning that Muggles aren't as stupid as they believe they're happy in their ignorance.
No, they'd rather remain in their narrow mindset and wipe out anything that they don't understand, not caring about the hundreds, even thousands of deaths they'll cause, because to them they are not people, but simply cattle. They've refused to open their minds and learn how much Muggle civilization has progressed, while the wizarding one in Britain has stayed basically to same for centuries. Mundanes have progressed from candles to electricity, from computers to space rockets. We actually landed a man on the moon in the late 60s and now our space programs sends robot probes and does experiments on Mars.
Can you honestly tell me that your society has advanced as far as the Muggle one has in the last hundred years? You ignore the mundane world at your peril headmaster. Hogwarts is where magical children's education truly begins and where they spend their formative years. Hogwarts is where their ideas about the world around them are formed and many never break out of that mold once they are grown.
Dumbledore knew that things were simply going to have to change and though he wanted to wait until after the war was over he knew that wasn't a good idea as he might very well die. Harry could spearhead the changes that he wanted and with Dumbledore supporting him they should be able to accomplish a great deal.
He wanted more than anything to at least gain the boy's respect, even if Harry never truly trusted him because of his former actions. That was going to be a hard task to accomplish at the very least though. It might even be impossible.
While he had been woolgathering Harry and Dave had been discussing what had happened with the minister softly as the three of them exited the Ministry of Magic.
"So I think it's about time we shop for your school supplies, even though Hogwarts doesn't start for over a month," Dave suggested.
"Sounds good," Harry said agreeably. The three of them parted ways Harry and Dave headed to Charing Cross Road so they could go to Diagon Alley while Dumbledore headed back to Hogwarts after promising that they would keep in contact as their plans progressed. Dumbledore might have offered to accompany the him to buy things for school, but he knew very well that they wouldn't want his presence, so he didn't bother.
Sídhe were a very unforgiving lot when it came to the protection of children and the fact that he had put one's grandson in an abusive environment did not endear that sídh to the headmaster. Dave or Harry for that matter had not grown up holding Dumbledore in absolute reverence like most of the magical community barring the Muggle-borns. Most of the magical community was so used to him making the important decisions for them that they always believed that those decisions were the right ones, but it had been pointed out to him fairly brutally on several occasions recently that he was capable of making mistakes and he had made plenty, especially where it concerned one, Harry Potter.
Dumbledore shuddered as he remembered how Harry had said on a couple of occasions that he had contemplated suicide, all because his existence was so bad. It was like something out of the 18th century where those that couldn't pay off their debts were sent to the workhouse. Sure they had shelter and food but they were paid such a pittance that the poor people forced to work there never managed to work off their debts. The only difference being was Harry hadn't been fed decently and made to basically work from dawn to dusk, never being able to eat the fruits of his labors. Never having time to simply be a child, to have fun.
Dave had showed Dumbledore his memory of how Harry had first appeared when he had originally found him and Dumbledore had been genuinely horrified at seeing the boy so thin that his ribs stuck out. He was also small for his age but Dumbledore knew that was due to the malnutrition. It was clear from Dave's memory that the Dursleys were not taking care of the Boy Who Lived properly and though he had known this intellectually seeing was believing as the saying went.
It was no wonder Harry absolutely loathed him, as he was the one that had put him in such a unsafe environment in the first place and then hadn't even bothered to check up on him, not once. He'd just been so busy with various duties that he had never bothered to see how the boy that he had left on his aunt's and uncle's doorstep was faring. He had assumed he was fine and growing up healthy. Because of his inactions the poor boy had been abused in every possible way.
Dumbledore's suddenly remembered the fact that Harry had mentioned the Order of the Phoenix, something that a ten year old boy shouldn't know about. He knew however, that Harry's grandfather had probably told his grandson all about it and how ineffective they had been during the last war, partly because of his no killing policy something that he hadn't wanted to admit at the time.
How Dave even knew about them was a question, but Dumbledore knew that the Seelie wouldn't tell him if he asked. It's not like he was going to give up one of his sources of information to someone who had already made a major foul up where his grandson was concerned. Sídhe had always been a rather mysterious race and he was sure that they had numerous ways to find out anything they wanted to know, but there was so little known about them that Dumbledore had no idea what those ways could be.
Dumbledore had a suspicion that Dave could have gone right through his mental shields if he had cared to, but had not done so out of simple courtesy, as it was rumored that all sídhe were excellent at the mind arts. Dave, doing so, might have damaged his mind no matter how careful he tried to be, but that didn't mean that Harry's grandfather wouldn't do so, if he believed that he was a threat to his grandson. Dumbledore had no doubt that Dave could turn him into a drooling idiot if he chose to, so he wasn't about to give the sídh a reason for doing so.
The sídhe had their own laws and rules and Dumbledore suspected that he didn't want to be caught doing something that would bring those laws down on his head. He knew that Dave wouldn't care that he wasn't one of his race, if he did something that went against everything the sídhe stood for then he could find himself in a great deal of trouble.
Dumbledore headed back to Hogwarts still lost in his own thoughts.
~~~Dave and Harry~~~