I followed Professor McGonagall a couple of paces behind. She was advancing at an astonishing speed, making the echo of her heels resonate loudly. Her body language screamed indignation; throughout the entire journey, she did not stop hurling reproaches, questions, and reprimands regarding the madness I had unleashed at the Ministry.
I, for my part, opted for passive resistance. I ignored the substance of her complaints and limited myself to nodding mechanically to keep her from exploding right then and there... until my indifference exhausted her patience.
"Do you have absolutely nothing to say, Mr. Weasley?" she exploded furiously, stopping dead in her tracks and turning her torso to lock me in a gaze laden with the implacable severity of a mother at her limit.
"Have you become much more beautiful?" I let out with rehearsed shyness, completely disrupting the script of her reprimand.
"What?" she blinked, dazed by the absolute lack of connection between her fury and my response.
"You look... please don't be upset by what I'm about to say, but... younger?" I feigned a mixture of curiosity and innocent confusion. "I know I've been away for a while, Professor, but you look different. Radiant, full of life... happy, even. It's strange. Have you been using some new cream or potion? Seriously, the change is remarkable, but in the best possible way. You look... truly beautiful."
Minerva let out a sharp huff and resumed her stride, refusing to waste any more breath on me and tacitly delegating the punishment into Dumbledore's hands. However, she couldn't stop her scowl from softening subtly and one corner of her lips from hinting at a smile. She wasn't the first to tell her; she herself had noticed it in the mirror. Her mind, betraying her, drifted from the duel of honor to lose itself in the memory of that night at a certain clandestine establishment that seemed to have restored her lost years.
Thanks to that well-timed touch of distraction, I enjoyed the silence for the rest of the way.
We finally arrived before the gargoyle guarding the entrance to the Headmaster's office. After she uttered the password—the name of a sickeningly sweet magical candy—the statue sprang to life and revealed the spiral stairs.
The oak door opened, revealing the Headmaster's sanctuary. Albus Dumbledore was standing there, his back to us, next to his desk. His figure remained rigid, his gaze lost beyond the tall windows.
"Albus..." Minerva began, attempting to introduce the subject.
"Leave us, Minerva. You may step down," the Headmaster's voice cut her off immediately. It was an absolute calm, a stillness of deep waters that felt more threatening than any shout.
Though surprised by the Headmaster's unusual tone and firmness, McGonagall did not dare to disobey. She gave a slight nod to the old man's back, shot me a final look laden with a silent warning, and crossed the threshold, closing the doors behind her with a resounding echo.
An overwhelming silence dominated the room. The Headmaster was still there, an unmoving silhouette with his back to me, while I remained near the threshold. Even the portraits on the walls, usually prone to whispering and gossiping, had fallen completely mute.
Seeing that this game of statues would lead us nowhere, I began to advance toward him. My footsteps echoed softly until I closed the distance to a few meters.
"So..." I began, but the world flipped upside down in the blink of an eye.
Dumbledore flicked his right hand. Resting in his fingers was the Elder Wand, and that slight, precise whip through the air changed everything.
An invisible, unstoppable force slammed into my chest, throwing me backward. Before I could crash onto the floor, a sturdy wooden chair materialized in my trajectory, catching my body and forcing me to sit. Without giving me a moment to breathe, the Headmaster spun around completely to face me; from the tip of his wand erupted a whip of pure energy that flew toward me, wrapping around my torso and pinning my arms to my sides with a sharp violence. As the knot closed, the flash of light solidified into an ancient-looking rope, though its weave vibrated with an aberrant nature. I felt it immediately: my external magical flow was being drained and suppressed to levels bordering on absolute futility.
And there he was. Albus Dumbledore, holding his wand with his arm raised, pinning me with a gaze as severe and icy as few living men have ever witnessed in history. The look he undoubtedly reserved for his enemies.
"All right... That was a surprise," I commented, keeping my voice level despite the pressure on my chest.
The Headmaster showed not the slightest trace of amusement at my levity. He lowered his arm slowly, regaining his upright posture, and began to study me with an implacable scrutiny, though his blue eyes seemed to lose focus at times, caught in the labyrinth of his own thoughts. With slow, rhythmic paces, he began to pace back and forth in front of me.
It was a heavy interlude. We both waited: he, for the torrent of his reflections to organize into words; I, to discover what his first move would be.
"Do you know... why despite everything you have done, Red... I never intervened to stop you?" he asked, halting his stride for a moment to fix his eyes on the portraits on the wall. "Every single one of your actions in this castle... They were not typical of a child. Not a normal one. Many of your decisions were risky, others frankly questionable... All of them indications of an exceedingly dangerous future."
"Dangerous for me, or for everyone else?" I inquired, holding his gaze without a single hint of fear.
Dumbledore ignored the question, but his silence proved more eloquent than any confirmation.
"Why?" I pressed, deciding to play along.
"Because every human being has the right to make mistakes," he replied, gently tapping the length of his wand against the palm of his free hand. "I overlooked your transgressions because, in a way... I saw a reflection of myself in you for a few brief moments." He looked up, and his features hardened, taking on a somber solemnity. "I too was young once, Red. I made countless errors. Errors I regret every single day of my existence, and I deeply regret not having had the wisdom to make different choices at the time..."
He paused, his voice dropping to a deeper register, laden with the weight of the years.
"And I know all too well that it is mistakes that forge a person. Though it pains me to admit it, it was my own failures and their terrible consequences that forced me to open my eyes, that pushed me to seek the right path. That is why I allow my students to stumble; so they may learn to pick themselves back up. But it is my duty to watch over them... to ensure that their mistakes do not reach the same magnitude as my own."
The old man was delivering a memorable speech, charged with a maturity and a melancholy that would have broken any other student. But I knew the background of his story perfectly well, the weight of his secrets, and the name of the man who shared that dark past with him. I didn't blink. I had lived far too long to let myself be swayed by the eloquence of an old headmaster; that heartfelt confession was nothing more than the prelude to what truly mattered.
"You are an exceptional student... I am very clear on that," the old man continued, tempering his severity with what seemed like a genuine compliment. "Do you remember when I mentioned to you that you were not the only student to have arrived at Hogwarts possessing certain special abilities? Indeed. However, I doubt any of them ever went as far as you have."
Dumbledore stopped in front of the great window, intertwining his hands behind his back.
"Your achievements in magic, alchemy, potions... exceptional. Your social life, questionably astonishing. Your activities outside Hogwarts... hrm... When you blackmailed me into allowing you to participate in those Ministry apprenticeships alongside Nymphadora, I did not stop it. I believed that someone with your talents could learn, better channel their qualities, and, in the process, achieve that maturity I so expect from my students. I wanted you to see the world, to transition from a troublesome child into a wiser young man... And my word, did you surprise me. The Dragons of Albion... an exceedingly peculiar establishment. I have still not managed to uncover the whereabouts of those... mysterious benefactors who, according to you, back you. In fact, I have begun to weigh the idea that such figures do not exist, and that it is simply you, pushing your capabilities beyond what is believable."
"More or less..." I nodded, without moving a muscle.
At this point, I no longer saw any sense in hiding certain things. The old man had exhausted his patience, and my own plans had matured enough to begin dragging him onto the board.
"Certainly, your abilities are as strange as they are formidable," Dumbledore resumed, turning slowly to lock his blue eyes onto me. "For that very reason, despite your conflict-prone personality, I did not attempt to restrain you or suppress your growth. I thought you were a child bursting with energy, one who needed to burn through phases and cause some trouble before maturing... But I was wrong!" His voice thundered slightly as he advanced toward my chair. "I did not only make tragic mistakes in my youth, Red; I made them in my adulthood as well. I failed in my duty as an educator, and the result..." He turned his gaze toward the empty space, and his face seemed to age in seconds. "You must already know it, correct?"
His question was not seeking confirmation, but rather measuring the extent of my information. He knew I was sharp—sharp enough to peer into the darkest corners of modern history.
"Voldemort," I nodded, with an indifference that was nearly insulting.
"Yes... Him." Dumbledore lowered his head, heaviness dimming the light in his eyes. "I failed to guide him properly in his formative years, and the world paid the price. That is my second greatest regret. Because of my blindness and my omissions, countless families were destroyed, friends separated, lovers torn apart... An era of absolute darkness plagued the wizarding world."
"Eh... Don't beat yourself up so much, Headmaster. To be honest, I don't think your actions would have changed much," I commented, adopting a casual conversational tone that contrasted grotesquely with the fact that I was bound and deprived of my magic. "If I am not mistaken, Tom Riddle was doomed to that path. His mother used a love potion to bind his father, and that forced union resulted in a birth defect: his psychopathy, the biological inability to feel love or empathy. Perhaps he could have been trained to contain his impulses and pretend to be normal so as not to harm others, but looking for humanity in him... is like asking an elm tree to produce pears."
Dumbledore fell silent, taking in my words. He did not dispute the details about the Gaunt lineage or the effects of the potion; instead, he studied me with a renewed fixedness, bewildered by my total lack of sensitivity at the name of the Dark Lord.
"Yes... Perhaps," the old man conceded. "But even so, a less destructive path would have been preferable to the tragedy we lived through. And precisely that... was the difference I believed I saw between him and you. The reason why I treated you with a certain flexibility, though never taking my eyes off you... Despite which, you managed to go unnoticed most of the time."
"Guilty," I flashed a smile, holding his gaze. "But don't worry, I do feel love... quite a lot of it. Perhaps I will become the exact opposite of Voldemort? He suffers from absolute apathy, whereas I... I feel too much. Perhaps to levels you would consider pathological."