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Heri considered this for a moment before she nodded. She had been told that Professor Dumbledore was a leader of the forces that fought against Voldemort during the war. She would have realised very quickly, if had she seen him then, that he would have at least some inkling of why Voldemort wanted her dead.
"And ought I to have told you then?"
Heri stared into the blue eyes and said nothing. Her emotional part said that she should have been told whatever this great truth was as soon as possible because it was her right to know, but her rational mind knew that it would have only hindered her at that age for something as heavy as the headmaster was implying to hang over her, especially if there was nothing she could do about it.
"You do not see the flaw in the plan yet? No . . . perhaps not. Well, as you know, I decided not to tell 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 might already want to ask the terrible 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 then either, why Voldemort had left that mark upon you. We discussed your scar and ability to speak Parseltongue, 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, have told you then, it was swiftly silenced. You were still so young, you see, and I could not find it in me to spoil that night of triumph . . .
"Do you see, my dear? 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."
Heri's brow crinkled.
"I don't . . ."
"I cared about you too much," said Professor 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, Miss Potter. I knew the time was coming.
"But then you disappeared from the maze in your fourth year and I believed I had waited too long, that instead of protecting you, I had led to your downfall . . . yet still I did not tell you when you were found again. There was no time; the protection surrounding the school had to be looked to and then you were off to America.
"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, that you have been capable for longer than I originally thought. 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."
Heri waited, but the Headmaster did not speak.
"Sir?"
"Voldemort tried to kill you when you were no more than a baby because of a prophecy made shortly before your birth. He knew the prophecy had been made, though he did not know its full contents. He set out to kill you when you were still a baby, believing he was fulfilling the terms of the prophecy. He discovered, to his cost, that he was mistaken when the curse intended to kill you backfired. And so, since his return to his body, he has been determined to hear that prophecy in its entirety. This is the weapon he has been seeking so assiduously since his return: the knowledge of how to destroy you.
"On a cold, wet night sixteen years ago, in a room above the bar at the Hog's Head Inn, I had gone there to see an applicant for the post of Divination teacher. She had travelled rather far to apply and was boarding there. The applicant was the great-great-granddaughter of a very famous, very gifted Seer, and I thought it common politeness to meet her. I was disappointed. It seemed to me that she had not a trace of the gift herself. I told her, courteously I hope, that I did not think she would be suitable for the post.
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