Two for One

Chapter 27: A good answer

"I heard what happened." Albus says, coming to a stop at the park bench, dressed in a midnight velvet coat.

Harry looks up and smiles, thinking about this man in a future Dumbledore's eye-watering fashion. "We're all fine, thanks. Take a seat?"

Albus sits down beside Harry and looks out over the playground, the other children keeping to the edges and pointedly skirting wide around the sandbox, where Tom and Gellert have made a make-shift map in the sand, wielding sticks to draw their battle plans. Tom is losing but he has a look in his eyes that says he's got a trap waiting.

"Why do you bring them here?" Albus wonders. "Why not a safer wizarding area?"

"I'd like to say it's because I'm watching them so they're safe," Harry muses. "But basically it's because if they do something particularly frightening to the children, then it's not going to follow them to adulthood like it would if a wizard or witch saw them."

Albus just laughs. It's a charming sound.

"What do you think of muggles being a threat?" Harry asks, curious how this Dumbledore has changed.

"Is this because of what happened to you?"

"More because I want to know what you think," Harry admits.

Albus pauses a moment. "All people can be good or bad and it's lazy to judge so grandly."

Harry takes a deep breath. "Why are you a Dark Lord? I keep trying to figure it out but the newspapers are useless, no one who knew you when you were younger wants to talk, and you're so different from..."

"Well, I wouldn't call myself a Dark Lord first of all," Albus corrects. "I try to negotiate and have meaningful conversations, but I will also take the forceful route if needed. It's not so much the power that I listen to but the greater good-"

"Start again," Harry says. "But tell me the truth this time."

Albus pauses, looking to Harry's eyes as if searching for something. He smiles. "Because my father was Kissed by a Dementor for defending my sister and my mother lost herself in grief. Because my brother was shut out and spurned and attacked for defending creatures until he dove to his death at the bottom of a bottle. Because my sister died to an easily curable sickness all due to the fact that she was not better than a squib and, well, the healers had better things to do, didn't they?"

Harry swallows thickly and tells himself now is not the time to feel sympathy. "Get revenge on those people then. Tear them apart."

"I have," Albus states.

"Then it's over, isn't it?"

"I don't pretend to be a good man, Harry," Albus says solemnly. "I feel anger and I rage and it still hurts when I think of my family, innocent people, suffering. I know it can be better, and I will make it better, even if the rest of the world hates me for it."

"But why choose this way?" Harry demands. "You're targeting innocents yourself now."

Albus sighs. "Much like love, hatred knows no bounds."

They sit in silence for a while, Harry's wringing his hands together because he wants to keep pushing but he knows Albus won't change, not after this long, not with just a short conversation.

Gellert rises to his knees, punching his fists into the air with a wide grin. Tom slaps his stick into the sand, maintaining eye contact, and draws a symbol that means attack. Gellert looks down at the map, run through with lines and symbols and furrows where they rubbed things out by stomping on it, and his eyes widen in shock.

"You can go over," Harry tells Albus. "I won't attack you or anything."

Albus takes a moment to tear his eyes away. "Oh, can I? I'm so curious."