2 | CONFESSIONS° HARRY POTTER

17 | THE LIFE AND LIES OF ALBUS DUMBLEDORE

ACT FIVE, love
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN, the life and lies of albus dumbledore

         Hermione asked Iris to accompany her outside to bring Harry the tea she had made and show him the copy of the book they had found. Iris had no problem agreeing, but she had a feeling that the only reason Hermione wanted her to accompany her was because it was quite obvious that Harry was mad at her over what happened to his wand. Iris tugged her dad's jacket over her shoulders and they stepped outside into the cold.

"Harry?" Hermione asked hesitantly.

Harry turned to them. Hermione looked frightened that he might curse her with her own wand. Her face streaked with tears, she crouched down beside him, three cups of tea trembling in her hands and the bulky book under her arm. 

"Thanks," he said, taking one of the cups. 

"Do you mind if we talk to you?" 

"No," he said, but Iris could hear in his voice that he did mind.

"Harry, you wanted to know who that man in the picture was. Well . . . we've got the book." 

Timidly she pushed it onto his lap, a pristine copy of The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore. 

"Where — how — ?" 

"It was in Bathilda's sitting room, just lying there. . . . This note was sticking out of the top of it." 

Hermione read the few lines of spiky, acid-green writing aloud.

"I think it must have arrived while the real Bathilda was alive, but perhaps she wasn't in any fit state to read it?" 

"No, she probably wasn't." 

Harry looked down upon Dumbledore's face and Iris glared at the side of his face. His anger was palpable and he was doing a poor job at hiding it from Hermione, who looked as though she was on the verge of breaking down again.

"You're still really angry at me, aren't you?" said Hermione, fresh tears leaked out of her eye and Iris rubbed her back before looking at Harry with a pointed expression.

"No," he said quietly. "No, Hermione, I know it was an accident. You were trying to get us out of there alive, and you were incredible. I'd be dead if you two hadn't been there to help me." 

He tried to return her watery smile, then turned his attention to the book.

He riffled through the pages, looking for photographs. He came across the one he sought almost at once, the young Dumbledore and his handsome companion, roaring with laughter at some long forgotten joke. Iris moved over to the other side of Harry and dropped her eyes to the caption. 

Albus Dumbledore, shortly after his mother's death, with his friend Gellert Grindelwald. 

She gaped at the last word for several long moments. Grindelwald. His friend Grindelwald. Harry looked sideways at her and she glanced over at Hermione, who was still contemplating the name as though she could not believe her eyes. Slowly she looked up at them. 

"Grindelwald?" 

Ignoring the remainder of the photographs, Harry searched the pages around them for a recurrence of that fatal name. Eventually he found himself at the start of a chapter entitled "The Greater Good." Together, the three of them started to read.

It spoke of Dumbledore's siblings, Aberforth and Ariana. The same summer that Dumbledore's mother, Kendra, died, Bathilda Bagshot agreed to allow her great-nephew, Gellert Grindelwald,  live with her after he was expelled from Durmstrang. It said that Dumbledore and Grindelwald developed a rather close relationship with one another. There was even a copy of an original letter from Dumbledore to Grindelwald.