"Yes," the wizard said quietly. "She did."
Harry lifted his gaze from the pedestal to look at Dumbledore. "Would the world be a better place if she hadn't fought?"
"No, it would not," said the old wizard. His voice was tired, and grieving. He seemed more bent now, as though he were folding in on himself. "I see that you still do not understand. I think you will not understand until the day that you - oh, Harry. So very long ago, when I was not much older than you are now, I learned the true face of violence, and its cost. To fill the air with deadly curses - for any reason - for
Harry looked away from the blue eyes, cast his gaze down at the black metal of the floor. The Headmaster was trying to tell him something important, that was clear; and it wasn't something that Harry thought was stupid, either.
"There was a Muggle once named Mohandas Gandhi," Harry said to the floor. "He thought the government of Muggle Britain shouldn't rule over his country. And he refused to fight. He convinced his whole country not to fight. Instead he told his people to walk up to the British soldiers and let themselves be struck down, without resisting, and when Britain couldn't stand doing that any more, we freed his country. I thought it was a very beautiful thing, when I read about it, I thought it was something higher than all the wars that anyone had ever fought with guns or swords. That they'd really done that, and that it had
"I recognize the name, Harry," said Dumbledore. The old wizard's lips twitched upward. "Although honesty compels me to say that dear Winston was never one for pangs of conscience, even after a dozen shots of Firewhiskey."
"The point is," Harry said, after a brief pause to remember exactly who he was talking to, and fight down the suddenly returning sense that he was an ignorant child gone insane with audacity who had no right to be in this room and no right to question Albus Dumbledore about anything, "the point is, saying violence is evil isn't an
"And your own answer, Harry?" Dumbledore said quietly.
"One answer is that you shouldn't ever use violence except to stop violence," Harry said. "You shouldn't risk anyone's life except to save even more lives. It
"
"You shouldn't be Headmaster," Harry said through the burning in his throat. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, but you shouldn't try to be a school principal and run a war at the same time. Hogwarts shouldn't be part of this."
"The children will survive," the old wizard said with tired old eyes. "They would not survive Voldemort. Have you wondered why the children of Hogwarts do not speak much of their parents, Harry? It is because there is always, within earshot, someone who has lost their mother or father or both. That is what Voldemort left behind, the last time he came.
"Is that why you waited so long to confront Grindelwald?"
Harry had uttered the question without quite thinking -
There was a slow time while the blue eyes searched him.
"Who have you been talking to, Harry?" said the old wizard. "No, do not answer. I already know." Dumbledore sighed. "Many have asked me that question, and always I have turned them aside. Yet in time you must learn the full truth of that matter. Will you swear never to speak of it to another, until I give you leave?"
Harry would have liked to be allowed to tell Draco, but - "I swear," Harry said.
"Grindelwald possessed an ancient and terrible device," said Dumbledore. "While he held it, I could not break his defense. In our duel I could not win, only fight him for long hours until he fell in exhaustion; and I would have died of it afterward, if not for Fawkes. But while his Muggle allies yet made blood sacrifice to sustain him, Grindelwald would
Harry slowly nodded. It wasn't entirely implausible, by the standards of magic...
"And then," Dumbledore's voice went on, even quieter, almost as though he were speaking to himself, "since it was I who felled him, they obeyed me when I said he should not die, though they cried by the thousands for his