{Thirty-Five Owls}

XXXI

[sealed with a charm which opens only to a drop of Gellert Grindelwald's blood]

December 25th, 1995

Gellert,

A Christmas letter, after all this time. I must confess that I have not held to your wishes. Voldemort remains undefeated, and he has recently returned in full health, after his brush with what he so feared, and begun to gather followers. Horcruxes, old friend. Horcruxes and dozens of other defenses. And, on my word, I do not lie. I do not know why I won, in the end. I do not know what you want me to say.

And I know--that I said I would not write again. And I accept your apology, of course, years ago. But I cannot think what else to do. I beg of you patience...

I suppose by now you must have heard of Harry Potter.

I send this to you in the deepest confidence. As I remember writing long ago, I have no true intimates. Peculiar as it is, after all the years of silence and all the anger, you are the man whom I trust most with--this. With a matter of no consequence to the war, to England, to Voldemort--

Harry Potter started at Hogwarts five years ago. He was Sorted into Gryffindor House, which I doubt surprises you. His academics are on the upper side of average, his teacher relations generally neutral, and his friendships unbreakable as diamonds. He was raised by an abusive, neglectful Muggle family, utterly miserable until he came to Hogwarts, and that was my will, for it was necessary to protect him. Necessary to condemn him to a horrible childhood. His entire life is bound up in old magic, wild philomency, things Voldemort refuses to acknowledge and which even you and I barely plumbed the existence of. He is both ordinary and extraordinary at once, and it strains my wit to describe him.

He has suffered so, so much for a boy so young. And so much of it at my hands, even if indirectly. And--he does not know. He has not even the faintest clue of the true weight of it.

His fate is entwined with Voldemort's. Magic beyond logic or reason--

Gellert, I must send him to his death.

I had tried for so many years not to see it. A shred of Voldemort's soul, so torn from the creation of his Horcruxes, dislodged when the Killing Curse backfired and stuck in an innocent boy. There is a prophecy. Twin serpents in the smoke of the pathfinder. Old, old, antediluvian magic--

I cannot tell him. How could I? He must realize it himself--

He is a good boy, Gellert. He is tough and brave and mostly clever, and he deserves better. He deserves to grow up and grow old and fall in love and herd about children and write crochety letters. He deserves to bury Voldemort and move on to his own life, free of fates and scars and nonsense, and I would give my life to make it so, but I cannot, not ever, because that is not how things are.

I feared you, when I realized the extent of your plans, the terror of your rule, the Muggle-torture. When you fled from Ariana's body like a common cut-throat. And I was angry, yes, of course. So very angry. But I never hated you. I never wished upon you the worst thing in the world. And hence you wake and sleep and eat and breathe, and do not burn in the everlasting furnace of phoenix fire into which I would cast Voldemort--no, Tom Riddle, that is his name, the rest is affectation--into which I would cast the man who bound Harry to his fate, I hate him so, I hate him to the marrow of my bones--

You do not cling to life like a canker. That is remorse enough for me, no matter what you may think. And for a Dark wizard, you have a surprisingly healthy relationship with death--

Listen to me. I am sorry. I write to you in despair and burden you with an old man's insoluble worries, after we both said there was nothing left between us but bitterness. But, Gellert. I send him to his death. For the greater good.

You claim Nurmengard and I will not break you. And perhaps they have not. But, Gellert, Tom and Harry have broken me. You're stronger than me in the end, I suppose.

Oh, but there is a chance! a faint glimmer of a chance that he might just survive. That Harry might live--damaged, no doubt, shell-shocked as the Muggles would say, but alive.

But sometimes hope is more painful than surrender.

Ignore me. Laugh at me. I send an innocent boy to war and torture and death, because I must do what is necessary, because I must not apologize for what is necessary. Look over your door, Gellert--I still live by those bloody, cursed words--

Only you could possibly appreciate what this means. The full irony of it. Only you, old friend, after everything we've done and all this time we've spent hurting each other.

I never knew the way. For all that I am a sanctimonious old bastard, I never knew the way. I only tried to help, to do what I thought would be right, would be successful. And this is where it ends, sending a child to die--everything I touch, everyone I love, turning to dust--I admit what I am, Gellert, I am a monster--

I--must stop this. I'm sorry.

Albus

P.S. for both of us

[enclosure: a package of sherbet lemons]