Another plot bunny. This one is about an Albus Dumbledore who was a quite different much darker man in his youth, before turning against Grindelwald. A man who has been seeking redemption for the next half a century, refusing to kill and believing that everyone deserves a second chance, just as he made one for himself though he didn't deserve it.

However, after the Chamber of Secrets, Dumbledore simply could no longer delude himself...

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. It belongs to J. K. Rowling and the various publishers. This story is written with no commercial aims. I do not make any money from it.

Twilight

=TW=

Prologue

Spell-fire. It was almost beautiful.

Crimson, azure, emerald as well as sickly yellow shattered the twilight.

Albus smiled sadly as he barely avoided a long ribbon of purple energy, which effortlessly shattered the stone fence behind him. He retaliated with a blinding fast series of curses, each of them harmlessly splashing over his opponent's shield.

"You should have joined me, Albus. We could have brought order upon this world!" Grindelwald screamed in desperation.

A sharp slash with the wand, sent Dumbledore's former lover in a desperate roll as a silver lance of pure magic sliced through his shield as if it wasn't there.

"I was tempted, Gellert. Oh so temped." The sad smile never left Dumbledore's face. He twirled his wand and a bunch of rubble transformed into small metal birds, which he banished at his friend.

The current Dark Lord made a halting motion and the transfigured projectiles evaporated a meter away from his outstretched hand.

"Then why don't you?! With you at my side we can change the world!"

"That's what I'm afraid of. You're treading a path I can't follow, Gellert. For if I do, this world we'll make will be terrible to behold."

Albus blazed with arcane energies as he finally unleashed every last drop of his magic, making it available to the Elder Wand. Dumbledore became a blur obscured by his aura as he started casting some of the darkest curses he knew.

Gellert shielded the first few, ducked and rolled to avoid the next, while his wand was busy sending his own attacks.

Albus simply sidestepped most of the spells coming his way and wandlessly shielded the few which would have found their mark. Before he could slam a flesh eating curse home, Gellert apparated away. Acting on instinct, Dumbledore rolled forward a split second before a whip of fire slashed through his former position. He conjured a steel shield that immediately shattered under the impact of the Killing Curse.

Albus jumped on his feet and faced his friend once again. This time Gellert had unleashed the full scope of his power, a Dark, inviting aura swirling around him like a cloak picked up by a gentle breeze.

For an instant, they simply stared at each other, but then, as if under unseen signal, they exploded in motion.

The very air itself became thick with magic as dozens of curses flew between the wizards, then caught ablaze as the spell exchange escalated even further. The ground glassed from the residual energy of blocked spell-fire, then shattered from near misses, before the debris could be scorched once again.

Dumbledore staggered as a ruby red lance smashed his shields to pieces. He dropped to his knees as a long ribbon of a cutting curse flashed millimeters over the crow of his head. Albus retaliated with a bone breaker, followed by a blasting curse and lighting fast Bloodspiller.

Gellert shielded the first and jumped out of the way of the next, though the final attack connected with his left thigh. Grindelwald managed to counter the curse in a split second, but that was more than enough. Dumbledore's next two attacks slammed into him, smashing through a hastily conjured shield. The Dark Lord was thrown back, the sheer blunt force of the last attack snapping the ribs on his left side as if they were twigs.

Geller spat a mouthful of blood and groaned as he felt bits of shattered bone spearing through his lung and pocking, tearing at his heart. He managed to cast a fast mending charm and tried to once again aparate within the confines of the wards surrounding the battlefield, but before he could muster the necessary concentration a long, silver spike caught him in the side, nailing him to the ground.

Only the extensive empowering rituals he had gone through were keeping him alive at that point.

A disarming spell later, he was staring at Albus, who was towering over his broken form. "I'm sorry it came to this, Gellert." Dumbledore muttered, while he was pointing his wand between the eyes of his former lover.

"Pity." The dying Dark Lord coughed a globe of steaming blood. "Me too. It wasn't supposed to be like this..."

"No. It sounded great when we discussed our plans all those years ago, didn't it?" Dumbledore's smile became even sadder. "How many more people should have died for our hubris, Gellert? For all our power, we aren't gods."

"Gods?… no…" Grindelwald rasped. "Our world… change… only us..." Gellert started chocking on his own blood.

"Perhaps. After all I helped you do, after all I did… Do you honestly believe we would have changed the world for the better after spilling rivers of blood? After all the horrors we're responsible for?" Albus shook his head in denial. "No. I could no longer follow this path, no matter how much a part of me wishes I could. Rest in peace, my love. Reducio."

=TW=

Albus stood up in his bed with a pained gasp.

Its been some time since he had that particular nightmare. Dreaming of that particular battle has been rare since the end of the last war.

Then again, at that time his nightmares were of his fresher failures… Like James, Lily, Harry and all the others he failed to protect.

Not because he lacked the power to do so, but because he was afraid to use it. After what the muggles called the Second World War, he had been tainted by all the horrors he perpetuated under the sway of Gellert. It took him an accident visit to a Concentration camp in Poland to finally admit to himself that he had become a monster, serving a terrible cause.

The worst thing was that even then, after seeing men, women and children slaughtered as if they were less than a cattle, there was that dark part of him which sneered, thinking that the muggles deserved everything they've got after what happened to his little sister.

Yet… Fortunately for both worlds, there had been a small piece of conscience that remained within his heart.

It took him a week of fighting with his own darkness before Albus finally decided that he had have enough and turned on his former comrades. He cast off his mask and hunted down Gellert's knights until their fateful confrontation in Bavaria.

Albus spent the next fifty years seeking redemption by fighting for and promoting the cause of the Light.

He threw away his covers and slowly headed for the loo.

It was all for nothing. The Dark was gaining strength once again. While Tom had been gone for more than a decade, his supporters were becoming more powerful.

And Albus… He was continuing to fail again and again.

Especially young Harry, who just yesterday had to fight a Basilisk in this very castle.

Dumbledore went to the sink and splashed cold water all over his bearded face. He stared in his reflection in the mirror.

Instead of his faces, he saw the devastation of a continent turned into one giant battlefield.

It was going to happen again if Tom regained a body.

Albus blinked at the mirror. While it was showing his own tired face, he saw the reflections of people who he failed during the last war. People who had trusted him with their very lives, with their families… and they died because he simply couldn't force himself to really wage war no matter the despicable acts of Tom's followers.

He returned to his bed to find Fawkes waiting for him and trilling mournfully.

"How did I let it happen, old friend? Even when I tried to be the Leader of the Light, I let thousands die by my inaction, by my fear."

Albus chuckled darkly. "Second chances… Just as I got one..." He spat the last sentence, while his heart was torn apart by self-loathing.

The Phoenix chirped and gave him a flat look.

"I've often wondered what did you find in me, friend? I'm nothing but a monster. When I act, people die by my hands. When I don't, by my inaction..."

Fawkes trilled angry and flew to Dumbledore's shoulder, before cuffing the back of his head with a wing and glaring.

"What? It's the truth."

Disgruntled chirp.

"You know it."

Affirmative chirp and another cuff followed.

Dumbledore's thoughts drifted to the events of yesterday. Lucius Malfoy had brought a Dark Artifact in his school, almost killing multiple students and wost of all, nearly bringing Tom back.

Yet, Albus could prove nothing. The murderous bastard had gotten Scot free, with only Harry's quick thinking costing the Death Eater his House Elf.

It was pathetic! Albus couldn't even protect the students in his own school.

Yet another cuff, this time delivered by a flaming wing. An angry tirade of chirps and trills followed.

"Yes. I'm afraid. I was barely able to walk away from the Dark last time. I know how weak I am." Dumbledore admitted sadly. "I fear that I wont be able to do it again."

Fawkes screeched at his companion and dug his talons in his shoulder.

"Ow."

"Perhaps you're right."

Chirp! Fawkes glared. Chirp! Chirp!

"No, I'm not letting Harry get hurt again if it is in my power!"

Chirp?! Fawkes cuffed him another time.

"You're right." Dumbledore sighed.

Chirp.

"Yes, of course you're."

Albus took a deep breath and closed his eyes. He plunged deep within himself, until he reached his magical core. His mental fingers caressed the bindings he had placed upon himself, which were keeping a part of his very being sealed off.

After killing Gellert, he had made a vow to himself. That he would seek redemption and never again let the darkness within himself loose.

Then he made sure of it by binding the part of himself that contained his great affinity to the dark arts.

The world never knew who Albus Dumbledore really was in his youth. They knew him only as the Leader of the Light, the man who saved them instead as one of the faceless monsters that helped bring Europe to her knees.

His fingers gripped the first binding and he closed his mental eyes too.

Second chances. The policy to only stun Death Eaters and do ones best to bring them alive…

His leadership had cost countless innocent lives, because he was terrified to wage another war.

Albus tore the binding with a hiss, as pain speared through his core. Then he grabbed the next one.

An image of Harry in the hospital bed after the boy faced Voldemort last year flashed through Dumbledore's mind.

The binding dissolved in his grip as he thought of the terrible way he had endangered the boy he considered his own grandson.

Albus knew all the excuses he had been telling himself. The why's of treating Harry that way.

They were all lies, meant to placate himself, to assure his own fears.

Another bindings snapped as Dark Magic surged within his core.

"Fawkes, when did I become a coward planning to let children fight my battles? Fix my mistakes?" Albus asked his familiar.

Chirp!