Lord Phantom

Chapter 22: Aftermath

"Why do you reckon Professor Dumbledore wants to talk with us?" Asked Harry as he and Danny went to Headmaster's office. The last one shrugged.

"No clue"

They said the password, knocked on the door, then entered the room after hearing soft 'come in'. Dumbledore was sitting at his desk, looking at them over his moon spectacles. 

"Sit down, please," he said, gesturing to the armchairs in front of him. They did as was told, "you are undoubtedly wondering why you are here. I wanted to apologize to you, Harry," they blinked in surprise.

"Don't you remember asking me, as you lay in the hospital wing during your first year, why Voldemort had tried to kill you when you were a baby?"

Harry nodded.

"Ought I to have told you then?"

Harry stared into the blue eyes and said nothing, but his heart was racing.

"You do not see the flaw in the plan yet? No ... perhaps not. Well, as you know, 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, 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, Harry? 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"

"I don't..."

"I cared about you too much," said Dumbledore 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? 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 dementors, as you found Sirius, learned what he was and rescued him. Was I to tell you then, at the moment when 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, Harry. 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 under more burdens than any student who has ever passed through this school and I could not bring myself to add another-the greatest one of all"