Albus

His office was destroyed. The young man who did it had no idea how costly it would be, what precious artefacts he cut to pieces in his rage. Looking around, Albus couldn't help but think that it was as it should be, the exact reflection of how he felt.

He tried, he did his best, but he was just a man, as flawed as anyone else. It wasn't fair that he was supposed to be infallible, the one with all the answers, the protector, the perfect one. It wasn't fair. He tried, he really did. But he went wrong, because there was no way to be right.

Fucking prophecy. He hated it almost as much as Harry did right now. Because he knew the price of being "the one". He felt it when he had to be the one to take care of his sister, he felt the chains of responsibilities tightening around him, suffocating him when he was anything but an overgrown child, a prodigy in magic but not in maturity. He bore it when people called on him to fight Gellert, the Dark Lord who had once been his lover, his hope of a brighter future, the twister of his dreams. He resisted, but in the end his broken heart had no say, and he had to become what they wanted him to be. Him, the teacher, the pacifist, had to go to war, to try to crush an enemy he never wished for. And yet, it hadn't been enough. He came back, did his duty, and it wasn't enough. They wanted more, always more. He stayed at Hogwarts, tried to avoid being the hero, The One they relied on to solve their problems. He only wanted to raise the next generation of wizards, to show them a better path, one that didn't lead to hate and senseless killing in the name of power.

He failed, he miserably failed. Tom Riddle emerged from his school, and tore apart the country, methodically, efficiently. He had to become a warrior again, a poor one as it went against everything he was, everything he shaped himself to be when he lost Ariana. But there was no one, no one else willing to take on the mantle, to make a difference. He rose to the occasion, the best he could, not waiting in the shadows like he did with Gellert, because he learned from his previous mistakes. He simply did new ones. And people died, left and right, around him. The enemy was too strong, too ruthless, bereft of humanity, too incomprehensible for Albus to counter. He wasn't made for this. Yet, he tried. He slowly chipped away parts of himself, becoming one he couldn't recognise.

The prophecy was made. And Voldemort was defeated, if temporary. He had nothing to do with it. When he saw the baby, looking so innocent, so fragile, he couldn't let him be The One, he couldn't let the wheels of Fate crush him like it did to him. He made a call. A wrong one, for sure, but what else could he do? He couldn't understand people who couldn't love, who wished ill of others, so he didn't fathom that his own blood, his own family would. Not to that extent.

He spent a decade being called on, he spent another decade being the one. People didn't understand that he grew tired of it, that he couldn't be the one to save the situation, every time, that he couldn't hold all the answers, always, that he wasn't responsible for everything just because he was good at transfigurations. He hid in Hogwarts, and did a poor job at the one he was actually paid for. He was just a man, and there was too much on his shoulders to bear it, to do anything right.

Exhausted people had poor judgment, it was known. Yet no one really questioned his, no, no one he trusted rose the right objections when it came to his decisions. Enemies were questioning him, all the time, for the wrong reasons, after all. He learned to stop listening to them a long time ago. Maybe he should have.

He put Harry, and all the children under his care in harm's way, all for the Greater Good. That same Greater Good he swore to leave behind, to renounce when it killed his little sister. He lost who he was in the expectations thrust upon him, in the bigger picture he was supposed to take.

He was old, he was tired. He was so exhausted, his bones brittle under the weight of it all. He felt shattered, unable to collect the pieces of himself to make a semblance of shelter, an umbrella to stand under to keep away the heavy skies and harrowing winds. He failed.

Harry had still been the one to save the day, over and over. He had to kill Quirell, he had to kill the shade of teenage Voldemort, he had to run from a werewolf and fight hundreds of dementors, he had to duel his nemesis after being tortured, and he had to fight Death Eaters and duel Voldemort, again, when he tried to take over his body, his mind.

He prevailed, as every time he did it to save someone else. Yet, it came at a price. He saw people get injured, die, all around him. Sirius's death had been the most recent one, the latest drop to make everything unbearable, but it wouldn't be the last. Albus knew war, and this one was just starting. It would get worse before it would get better.

He tried, he did his best to protect the child, to get him a few more years without being The One, and he failed. Miserably. It didn't matter. Fate had made its champion, and there was no escaping its clutches. He knew, he knew it too much, and he hadn't been designated, he hadn't been. There had been no prophecy about him. None.

What would befall on Harry's shoulders, how would it make him crumble and fall under its weight?

Seating on his desk, because his chair had simply been obliterated by the lad's accidental magic, his eyes roamed over the destruction in his office. Yes, it was fitting, he thought, tears running on his face.

The worst of it, was that he knew it wasn't over. By his actions, he would add cruelty to the already twisted path Harry's life was crawling. There was no other way, no satisfactory solution to Voldemort's end. Because he had to be vanquished, annihilated, for Britain to have a chance at a brighter future. And Harry would be crushed in the process, more so than he himself had been throughout his life.

Fate was heartless, and Albus was eroding to make the best, no, the less worst of it.

All he ever wanted was to be a teacher, to nurture and set the spark in his students' eyes, and amend for his sister's death.

All he did was… this. Unable to stop his world to be blasted to pieces.

And it was only the beginning of a new cycle of destruction.

Yet, all the sacrifices, all the sleepless hours, all the lives given for it all to end… it was worth it, right?

Harry would see it. He would prevail, see his world rise from the ashes. Albus was ready to die for it, to make the ultimate sacrifice to give him even the tiniest chance to make it.

It was worth it. It had to be.