Coup de Foudre [Fred Weasley] [7]

⚡️ Chapter 24 ⚡️

There was silence as Vega, Harry and Hermione came to the button of the page, and Vega could only stare at the ground in silence, trying to process everything that she had read, and how insensitively it had been written. When none of the others spoke anything, Vega knew that she needed to put an end to anything written by Rita Skeeter, "This is stupid,"

Harry shook his head at Vega, who knew exactly what he was thinking. He felt betrayed that Dumbledore thought all of this when he should've been the 'embodiment of goodness and wisdom'. Vega knew the feeling but she was also aware of biases.

"Do you seriously believe everything written in her?" Vega asked, raising her eyebrows. "This looks to be something sensational by none other than Rita Skeeter – you know how she twists a situation into something else entirely and lose sight of the origin,"

"You did read that letter to Grindelwald, didn't you?" Harry responded and Vega nodded stiffly. He turned to Hermione. "What do you think about the letter? You read it, right?"

"Yes, I – I did," Hermione said. She hesitated, looking upset, cradling her tea in her cold hands as she glanced at Vega. "I think that's the worst bit. I know Bathilda thought it was all just talk, but 'For the Greater Good' became Grindelwald's slogan, his justification for all the atrocities he committed later. And... from that... it looks like Dumbledore gave him the idea. They say 'For the Greater Good' was even carved over the entrance to Nurmengard,"

"What's Nurmengard?" Harry said sharply.

"It was the prison Grindelwald had built to hold his enemies and opponents," Vega answered. "He was himself imprisoned him in there after he lost," She looked up. "Listen, I understand, it's horrible that part of Dumbledore's ideas helped Grindelwald rise to power. But on the other hand, even Rita can't pretend that they knew each other for more than a few months one summer when they were both really young, and –"

"I never thought you'd say that," Harry said as he struggled to keep his voice steady. "I never thought you'd say 'They were young.' They were the same age as we are now. And here we are, risking our lives to fight the Dark Arts, and there he was, in a huddle with his new best friend, plotting their rise to power over the Muggles,"

"Why do you think I'm excusing him?" Vega asked, raising her eyebrows. "You fail to see that I never said he wasn't wrong – it was just a different world for them than for us. And I'm so very upset that this is what Dumbledore had been doing. But I have never thought that Dumbledore was a perfect person, and I don't think you should've done that either,"

"Uh, Vega's correct," Hermione said meekly. "All that 'right to rule' rubbish, it's 'Magic Is Might' all over again. But Harry, his mother had just died, he was stuck alone in the house –"

"Alone?" Harry asked. "He wasn't alone! He had his brother and sister for company, his Squib sister he was keeping locked up –"

"That is the one part I cannot trust," Vega interjected, shaking her head. "I'm not sure what exactly was wrong with the girl but I don't think she was a Squib,"

"That's right," Hermione said, agreeing with the younger girl quickly. "Besides, the Dumbledore we knew would never, ever have allowed –"

"The Dumbledore we thought we knew didn't want to conquer Muggles by force!" Harry shouted, his voice echoing across the empty hilltop, and several blackbirds rose into the air, squawking and spiralling against the pearly sky.

"I'd like to believe that he changed and improved on himself," Vega spoke calmly. "It could be that he did believe these things when they were seventeen, but the whole of the rest of his life was devoted to fighting the Dark Arts. I mean to say, he was ultimately the one to stop Grindelwald, and who fought You-Know-Who from the start, and he died trying to bring him down.