There was a pause. The creature behind them whimpered, but Harry no longer looked around.















"Grindelwald was looking for them too?" he asked.















Dumbledore closed his eyes for a moment and nodded.















　　　"It was the thing, above all, that drew us together," he said quietly. "Two clever, arrogant boys with a shared obsession. He wanted to come to Godric's Hollow, as I am sure you have guessed, because of the grave of Ignotus Peverell. He wanted to explore the place the third brother had died."















"So it's true?" asked Harry. "All of it? The Peverell brothers ?"















　　　"-were the three brothers of the tale," said Dumbledore, nodding. "Oh yes, I think so. Whether they met Death on a lonely road . . . I think it more likely that the















Peverell brothers were simply gifted, dangerous wizards who succeeded in creating those powerful objects. The story of them being Death's own Hallows seems to me the sort of legend that might have sprung up around such creations.















　　　"The Cloak, as you know now, traveled down through the ages, father to son, mother to daughter, right down to Ignotus's last living descendant, who was born, as Ignotus was, in the village of Godric's Hollow."















Dumbledore smiled at Harry.















"Me?"















　　　"You. You have guessed,, I know, why the Cloak was in my possession on the night your parents died. James had showed it to me just a few days previously. It explained much of his undetected wrongdoing at school! I could hardly believe what I was seeing. I asked to borrow it, to examine it. I had long since given up my dream of uniting the Hallows, but I could not resist, could not help taking a closer look. . . . It was a Cloak the likes of which I had never seen, immensely old, perfect in every respect . . . and then your father died, and I had two Hallows at last, all to myself!"















His tone was unbearably bitter.















　　　"The Cloak wouldn't have helped them survive, though," Harry said quickly. "Voldemort knew where my mum and dad were. The Cloak couldn't have made them curse-proof."















"true," sighed Dumbledore. "True."















Harry waited, but Dumbledore did not speak, so he prompted him.















"So you'd given up looking for the Hallows when you saw the Cloak?"















　　　"Oh yes," said Dumbledore faintly. It seemed that he forced himself to meet Harry's eyes. "You know what happened. You know. You cannot despise me more than I despise myself."















"But I don't despise you ?"















　　　"Then you should," said Dumbledore. He drew a deep breath. "You know the secret of my sister's ill health, what those Muggles did, what she became. You know how my poor father sought revenge, and paid the price, died In Azkaban. You know how my mother gave up her own life to care for Ariana.















"I resented it, Harry."















　　　Dumbledore stated it baldly, coldly. He was looking now over the top of Harry's head, into the distance.















"I was gifted, I was brilliant. I wanted to escape. I wanted to shine. I wanted glory.















　　　"Do not misunderstand me," he said, and pain crossed the face so that he looked ancient again. "I loved them, I loved my parents, I loved my brother and my sister, but I was selfish, Harry, more selfish than you, who are a remarkably selfless person, could possibly imagine.















　　　"So that, when my mother died, and I was left the responsibility of a damaged sister and a wayward brother, I returned to my village in anger and bitterness. Trapped and wasted, I thought! And then of course, he came. . . ."















Dumbledore looked directly into Harry's eyes again.















　　　"Grindelwald. You cannot imagine how his ideas caught me, Harry, inflamed me. Muggles forced into subservience. We wizards triumphant. Grindelwald and I, the glorious young leaders of the revolution.















　　　"Oh, I had a few scruples. I assuaged my conscience with empty words. It would all be for the greater good, and any harm done would be repaid a hundredfold in benefits for wizards. Did I know, in my heart of hearts, what Gellert Grindelwald was? I think I did, but I closed my eyes. If the plans we were making came to fruition, all my dreams would come true.















　　　"And at the heart of our schemes, the Deathly Hallows! How they fascinated him, how they fascinated both of us! The unbeatable wand, the weapon that would lead us to power! The Resurrection Stone ? to him, though I pretended not to know it, it meant an army of Inferi! To me, I confess, it meant the return of my parents, and the lifting of all responsibility from my shoulders.















　　　"And the Cloak . . . somehow, we never discussed the Cloak much, Harry. Both of us could conceal ourselves well enough without the Cloak, the true magic of which, of course, is that it can be used to protect and shield others as well as its owner. I thought that, if we ever found it, it might be useful in hiding Ariana, but our interest in the Cloak was mainly that it completed the trio, for the legend said that the man who had united all three objects would then be truly master of death, which we took to mean 'invincible.'















　　　"Invincible masters of death, Grindelwald and Dumbledore! Two months of insanity, of cruel dreams, and neglect of the only two members of my family left to me.















　　　"And then . . . you know what happened. Reality returned in the form of my rough, unlettered, and infinitely more admirable brother. I did not want to hear the truths he shouted at me. I did not want to hear that I could not set forth and seek Hallows with a fragile and unstable sister in tow.















　　　"The argument became a fight. Grindelwald lost control. That which I had always sensed in him, though I pretended not to, now sprang into terrible being. And Ariana . . . after all my mother's care and caution . . . lay dead upon the floor."















　　　Dumbledore gave a little gasp and began to cry in earnest. Harry reached out and was glad to find that he could touch him: He gripped his arm tightly and Dumbledore gradually regained control.















　　　"Well, Grindelwald fled, as anyone but I could have predicted. He vanished, with his plans for seizing power, and his schemes for Muggle torture, and his dreams of the Deathly Hallows, dreams in which I had encouraged him and helped him. He ran, while I was left to bury my sister, and learn to live with my guilt and my terrible grief, the price of my shame.















　　　"Years passed. There were rumors about him. They said he had procured a wand of immense power. I, meanwhile, was offered the post of Minister of Magic, not once, but several times. Naturally, I refused. I had learned that I was not to be trusted with power."















　　　"But you'd have been better, much better, than Fudge or Scimgeour!" burst out Harry.















　　　"Would I?" asked Dumbledore heavily. "I am not so sure. I had proven, as a very young man, that power was my weakness and my temptation. It is a curious thing, Harry, but perhaps those who are best suited to power are those who have never sought it. Those who, like you, have leadership thrust upon them, and take up the mantle because they must, and find to their own surprise that they wear it well.















"I was safer at Hogwarts. I think I was a good teacher ?"















"You were the best ---"















　　　"--- you are very kind, Harry. But while I busied myself with the training of young wizards, Grindelwald was raising an army. They say he feared me, and perhaps he did, but less, I think, than I feared him.















　　　"Oh, not death," said Dumbledore, in answer to Harry's questioning look. "Not what he could do to me magically. I knew that we were evenly matched, perhaps that I was a shade more skillful. It was the truth I feared. You see, I never knew which of us, in that last, horrific fight, had actually cast the curse that killed my sister. You may call me cowardly: You would be right, Harry. I dreaded beyond all things the knowledge that it had been I who brought about her death, not merely through my arrogance and stupidity, but that I actually struck the blow that snuffed out her life.















　　　"I think he knew it, I think he knew what frightened me. I delayed meeting him until finally, it would have been too shameful to resist any longer. People were dying and he seemed unstoppable, and I had to do what I could.















"Well, you know what happened next. I won the duel. I won the wand."















　　　Another silence. Harry did not ask whether Dumbledore had ever found out who struck Ariana dead. He did not want to know, and even less did he want Dumbledore to have to tell him. At last he knew what Dumbledore would have seen when he looked in the mirror of Erised, and why Dumbledore had been so understanding of the fascination it had exercised over Harry.















　　　They sat in silence for a long time, and the whipmerings of the creature behind them barely disturbed Harry anymore.















　　　At last he said, "Grindelwald tried to stop Voldemort going after the wand. He lied, you know, pretended he had never had it."















　　　Dumbledore nodded, looking down at his lap, tears still glittering on the crooked nose.















　　　"They say he showed remorse in later years, alone in his cell at Nurmengard. I hope that is true. I would like to think that he did feel the horror and shame of what he had done. Perhaps that lie to Voldemort was his attempt to make amends . . . to prevent Voldemort from taking the Hallow . . ."















　　　". . .or maybe from breaking into your tomb?" suggested Harry, and Dumbledore dabbed his eyes.















After another short pause Harry said, "You tried to use the Resurrection Stone."















Dumbledore nodded.















　　　"When I discovered it, after all those years, buried in the abandoned Home of the Gaunts --- the Hallow I had craved most of all, though in my youth I had wanted it for very different reasons --- I lost my head, Harry. I quite forgot that I was not a Horcrux, that the ring was sure to carry a curse. I picked it up, and I put it on, and for a second I imagined that I was about to see Ariana, and my mother, and my father, and to tell them how very, very sorry, I was. . . .















　　　"I was such a fool, Harry. After all those years I had learned nothing. I was unworthy to unite the Deathly Hallows, I had proved it time and again, and here was final proof."















　　　"Why?" said Harry. "It was natural! You wanted to see them again. What's wrong with that?"















　　　"Maybe a man in a million could unite the Hallows, Harry. I was fit only to possess the meanest of them, the least extraordinary. I was fit to own the Elder Wand,















and not boast of it, and not to kill with it. I was permitted to tame and use it, because I took it, not for gain, but to save others from it.















　　　"But the Cloak, I took out of vain curiousity, and so it could never have worked for me as it works for you, its true owners. The stone I would have used in an attempt to drag back those who are at peace, rather than enable my self-sacrafice, as you did. You are the worthy possessor of the Hallows."















　　　Dumbledore patted Harry's hand, and Harry looked up at the old man and smiled; he could not help himself. How coul dhe remain angry with Dumbledore now?















"Why did you have to make it so difficult?"















Dumbledore's smile was tremulous.















　　　"I am afraid I counted on Miss Granger to slow you up, Harry. I was afraid that your hot head might dominate your good heart. I was scared that, if presented outright with the facts about those tempting objects, you might seize the Hallows as I did, at the wrong time, for the wrong reasons. If you laid hands on them, I wanted you to possess them safely. You are the true master of death, because the true master does not seek to run away from Death. He accepts that he must die, and understands that there are far, far worse things in the living world than dying."















"And Voldemort never knew about the Hallows?"















　　　"I do not think so, because he did not recognize the Resurrection Stone he turned into a Horcrux. But even if he had known about them, Harry. I doubt that he woul dhave been interested in any except the first. He would not think that he needed the Cloak, and as for the stone, whom would he want to bring back from the dead? He fears the dead. He does not love."















"But you expected him to go after the wand?"















　　　"I have been sure that he would try, ever since your wand beat Voldemort's in the graveyard of Little Hangleton. At first, he was afraid that you had conquered him by superior skill. Once he had kidnapped Ollivander, however, he discovered the existence of the twin cores. He thought that explained everything. Yet the borrowed wand did no better against yours! So Voldemort, instead of asking himself what quality it was in you that had made your wand so strong, what gift you possessed that he did not, naturally set out to find the one wand that, they said, would beat any other. For him, the Elder Wand has become an obsession to rival his obsession with you. He believes that the Elder Wand removes his last weakness and makes him truly invincible. Poor Severus . . ."















　　　"If you planned your death with Snape, you meant him to end up with the Elder Wand, didn't you?"















　　　"I admit that was my intention," said Dumbledore, "but it did not work as I intended, did it?"















"No," said Harry. "That bit didn't work out."















　　　The creature behind them jerked and moaned, and Harry and Dumbledore sate without talking for the longest time yet. The realization of what would happen next settled gradually over Harry in the long minutes, like softly falling snow.















"I've got to go back, haven't I?"















"That is up to you."















"I've got a choice?"















　　　"Oh yes," Dumbledore smiled at him. "We are in King's Cross you say? I think that if you decided not to go back, you would be able to . . . let's say . . . board a train."















"And where would it take me?"















"On," said Dumbledore simply.















Silence again.















"Voldemort's got the Elder Wand."















"True. Voldemort has the Elder Wand."















"But you want me to go back?"















　　　"I think," said Dumbledore, "that if you choose to return, there is a chance that he may be finished for good. I cannot promise it. But I know this, Harry, that you have less to fear from returning here than he does."















　　　Harry glanced again at the raw looking thing that trembled and choked in the shadow beneath the distant chair.















　　　"Do not pity the dead, Harry. Pity the living, and above all, those who live without love. By returning, you may ensure that fewer souls are maimed, fewer families are torn apart. If that seems to you a worthy goal, they we saw good-bye for the present."















　　　Harry nodded and sighed. Leaving this place would not be nearly as hard as walking into the forest had been, but it was warm and light and peaceful here, and he knew that he was heading back to pain and the fear of more loss. He stood up, and Dumbledore did the same, and they looked for a long moment into each other's faces.















　　　"Tell me one last thing," said Harry, "Is this real? Or has this been happening inside my head?"















　　　Dumbledore beamed at him, and his voice sounded loud and strong in Harry's ears even though the bright mist was descending again, obscuring his figure.















　　　"Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean it is not real?"

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