章 28: The Ghosts of Dumbledore’s Decisions
Albus Dumbledore sighed in frustration and exasperation. He read the letter again, but it did nothing but increase his already present headache. He was the Headmaster of Hogwarts! He should have been consulted before Griselda Marchbanks administered the exams to Harry. Now, it was too late. The seal of the Head of the Department of Magical Education was present on the authorization letter. Other than Harry's disappearance four years ago, these past few months seemed like the first time in a decade that he felt helpless to stop something. The last time such a feeling had gripped him, countless lived had been destroyed due to a war started by a madman.
Dumbledore had developed a plan more than ten years ago which he thought would finally end Lord Voldemort for good. When Sybill Trelawney foretold the birth of a boy who would have the power to vanquish the Dark Lord, he had been intrigued and frightened. Curious because he wondered how the said child would defeat the Dark Lord, and frightened because the prophecy claimed that the boy would be more powerful - in a sense - as compared to Lord Voldemort.
And if there was anything that scared Albus, it was power in the hands of dangerous individuals. Merlin knows his life had been destroyed due to his lust for power. His love for Gellert and the plans they had concocted for world domination had backfired spectacularly. The three-way duel had resulted in the love of his life fleeing England, and culminated with him burying his sister's dead body. Even now, more than a century later, Albus did not know whose Killing Curse had snuffled out Ariana's life. He had a strong suspicion but was too scared to even acknowledge it to himself. After that incident, he had decided to quit his dreams of being a world leader.
It was ironic that he was now the Supreme Mugwump of the International Confederation of Wizards, the chosen leader of hundreds of millions of witches and wizards around the world.
Nursing his broken heart, he had travelled all over the world for many years, seeking knowledge about different kinds of magic. He was especially talented in Transfiguration, and once his grand tour was complete, he had applied for a teaching post at Hogwarts.
For a few decades, things were quite calm. Albus had realised he had a real passion for teaching. He saw many young witches and wizards come and go, but outside the walls of the school, things began heating up.
Gellert had started seizing power and by the early 1930s, there was an all-out international hunt for him ordered by the I.C.W. Europe and America were burning due to his methods of seeking power. Albus had never condoned violence of any kind. It was one of the things he and Gellert had often fought about back then. He preferred to manipulate in the background and seize power through charisma and leadership. Of course, his current status as the leader of the I.C.W. was proof to decide which theory was right.
While the great magical war was raging on in the western part of the planet, a new threat emerged in the form of an eleven-year-old wizard named Tom Riddle. Albus had been quite worried about the boy's behaviour. He seemed unusually powerful for his age and seemed to have a strong grasp on magic even before he was informed about being a wizard. Not only that, he seemed to be using his powers to harm his enemies.
The fact that he was a Parselmouth only made Albus not trust him more, though he did try to give the boy a chance. For the next several years at Hogwarts, Albus had treated Tom Riddle with indifference, and in some cases, intense suspicion. Unfortunately, this backfired on him again, with the bright, intelligent boy resorting to the blackest of the black arts, and also opening the dreaded Chamber of Secrets, which resulted in several attacks and the death of a student.
Albus remembered the boy pleading with him to let him stay at Hogwarts during the summer (as much pleading as a Slytherin would do), but he had refused, wanting Tom to get along with Muggles better. The other reason was that he did not want Tom to spend more time at Hogwarts than necessary (especially without supervision during the holidays) and he thought his decision was sound after the opening of the Chamber of Secrets a few years later.
Unknown to Albus Dumbledore, that choice of his had been one of the main reasons why Tom Riddle resorted to Horcruxes to prevent his death. The young Slytherin had grown up in the Muggle city during the London Blitz, and even though at the time, the Second World War had ended, Tom Riddle was still too frightened to stay in London where a bomb could be dropped on the orphanage anytime by enemy powers.
He had at least wanted to stay at the Leakey Cauldron, where the wards around Diagon Alley protected them from the bombs, but without money and adult consent, he couldn't do so. He was forced to stay in the Muggle world and survive during the immediate aftermath of a brutal war, with little to no food, and face the danger of being killed every day.
That experience was what had made Tom Riddle create a Horcrux when he was just a sixteen-year-old boy, despite warnings in the book to not attempt it before magical maturity. The more he split his soul, the more twisted and evil he became. Soon, Voldemort was but a shadow of his former self. In his quest for immortality, he had traded his sanity and humanity. Tom Riddle had always been dark, but he would not have become as twisted and insane if not for the Horcruxes he created.
Albus Dumbledore, however, didn't know this. When Voldemort started his surgical strikes against the British magical society, the aged headmaster was consumed with guilt. He had allowed yet another very powerful wizard to destroy the world - and it was all his fault.
He had allowed Gellert to seize power by supplying him with various plans for world domination; tens of thousands of witches and wizards abroad had died as a result and he didn't even want to count the number of Muggle deaths. He had failed in stopping Voldemort's rise to power; dozens, hundreds and within twenty years, thousands of witches and wizards in Britain had perished. So when he heard the prophecy in his office when the Seer had recited it to him during a job interview, he acted.
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