Harry finally rushed out from the opening of a fireplace and stepped on the carpet with his feet. He looked around and found that he was in the headmaster's office that had been vacant since Professor Dumbledore left.
Everything around him was the same as the day Dumbledore left: exquisite silverware was placed on the table. Occasionally, some white mist was sprayed out. The portraits of the old male and female principals were dozing quietly on the canvas. Harry looked out of the window.
Looking outside, a simple and elegant gray-green line hangs on the horizon: dawn is slowly coming.
The office was quiet, with only the occasional snoring or sniffling from a sleeping portrait breaking the silence. Harry couldn't stand such an environment, and he was now very worried about his friends who had followed him into the Ministry of Magic.
They were also worried about the members of the Order of the Phoenix who came to rescue them later. They were completely scattered in the previous battle, and Harry could only silently pray that they would be okay.
Just as he stood silently on the window sill and looked out the window, an emerald green flame suddenly burst out from the empty fireplace. When Dumbledore's tall figure emerged from the flames, the male and female wizards on the surrounding walls all
Suddenly awakened, many of them burst into loud cheers.
"Thank you, thank you all." Dumbledore said as he took out Fawkes, who looked like a newborn chick, from his pocket and gently placed it on a plate filled with fine ash under the gilded perch. This position is for adults.
Where Fox usually stays.
"Oh, Harry," Dumbledore finally walked away from the young phoenix and said to Harry, "there is one fortunate thing that I need to tell you. Most of the people who entered the Ministry of Magic because of you yesterday were
Survived. In that absolutely disadvantageous environment, this is simply a miracle."
"Most of them?" Harry's heart skipped a beat after hearing this word, and he asked in a trembling voice: "How are everyone doing specifically?"
"Mrs. Pomfrey is treating them," Dumbledore said. "You young people can be better. Nymphadora Tonks and Sirius Black may need to stay in St. Mungo's Hospital for a while, but it seems
They will also recover quickly, but Sirius was hit by a Death Eater with dark magic when he was one against five, and lost his left hand, but I believe that will not affect his life."
"You just said that most people survived, so who died?" Harry said this sentence with difficulty. He felt that when he spoke, it was as if someone else was speaking through his mouth.
It's like floating in the clouds.
"Ryan and Hermione." Dumbledore's tone also dropped. "Although no one saw their deaths, I went to the house to explore the arch after talking to Fudge just now. I can confirm that the two of them were
They have all crossed that door."
"That door." Harry closed his eyes. He remembered what Ryan said when he entered the house before: "Passing through the curtain, people will completely disappear from our world. No one can ever escape from that door."
Come back alive from behind the door.
"They are gone just like this?" Harry said in a trembling tone, and then seemed to be a question and an answer. "Because of me, are they gone?"
"I know how you feel now, Harry." Dumbledore said in a very soft voice. "It is a very uncomfortable thing to have relatives and friends pass away because of one's own fault. I have encountered this kind of thing in my life.
Many times”
"No, this is different." Harry sat there with ten fingers deeply inserted into his hair. "You used to do it just because of your mistakes or mistakes, but this time it was equivalent to sending my friend to death with my own hands.
Ah. Now I'm thinking, if I had listened to you and not saved people on my own, maybe Ryan and the others wouldn't have died."
Harry felt that his whole body was weak, and he said in a hoarse voice. "Ryan was actually against me taking risks before, but later I decided to save people and he chose to go with us because he was worried that we would not be able to face the magic."
There are some complicated magics in the department, and Hermione came with the same idea at the time. They didn't have to go, I'm sorry for them."
"They are indeed very good at understanding magic, and their worries are not unreasonable." Dumbledore nodded. "I have inspected the arch, and after combining other people's accounts, I can confirm that they
The two resisted the explosion of death in front of that door. If they had not done that, it would have been impossible for you on the stage to survive. They saved everyone except themselves."
At this point Dumbledore paused: "So there's nothing wrong with the two of them following you. You alone can't resist the power of death. I just didn't expect that Ryan would go so far in the research of magic.
.But I think they should have known what they were going to face when they rescued you, but they still did it. They are very brave in this regard, braver than most adult wizards."
"So, it's my fault." Harry lowered his head and muttered quietly, but Dumbledore interrupted his self-pity. "This is not just your problem, but also my fault."
Harry looked up at Dumbledore in surprise, and then saw an apology in Dumbledore's eyes. "I have been the headmaster for too long, and this long experience has made me more inclined to look at problems comprehensively rather than looking at problems from a single person.
Look at the problem from my perspective. After Sirius was kidnapped, I just wanted to find the optimal solution to rescue Sirius and minimize the harm to innocent people. But I did not consider that he is your only relative now, and I ignored you.
Inner feelings.”
"Harry, I want to apologize to you on this point. I also want to apologize to Ryan and Hermione." Dumbledore said word by word, "This is an old man's reflection on the mistakes he has made. I realize that I
A long life has given me not only experience, but also some stubborn misconceptions. As the world’s number one white wizard, this honor and responsibility sometimes makes me ignore the feelings of many people. I realize this is a big mistake.
It’s so wrong, I shouldn’t forget how ordinary people feel.”
The sun has risen; the mountains show a dazzling orange edge, and the sky above is colorless and bright. The light shines on Dumbledore, falling on his gray eyebrows, beard, and deep wrinkles
At this time, Harry also realized that Dumbledore was indeed old, and those heavy burdens might not have enough energy to think about everything comprehensively.
"By the way, what is the prophecy ball that Voldemort and we are fighting for today?" After a moment of silence in the office, Harry asked him another question. He wanted to know what exactly was it that his friends exchanged their lives for?
"This is a long story, Harry. I want to present it to you in a more intuitive way." After saying that, Dumbledore stood up and walked past Harry to a black man next to the Phoenix Perch.
In front of the cabinet, he bent down, unlatched the door latch and took out the pensieve from inside. Then he raised his wand and pointed it at his temple, pulling out a few strands of silver, spiderweb-like thought fibers and sticking them to the wand, and then put these thought fibers on the wand.
Put it into a stone basin.
Harry buried his head into the pensieve with Dumbledore, and did not raise his head until a quarter of an hour later. He looked at Dumbledore and asked: "Is this what you have been hiding from me? The cause of everything is
Because of such a prophecy?" As a wizard who grew up in the Muggle world, Harry has never been very interested in this kind of prophecy. Especially after taking the divination class at Hogwarts, Harry thought so. In this case,
When he learned that everything in his life was caused by this prophecy, he naturally felt a sense of absurdity.
"Yes, even if Voldemort only listened to the first half of the prophecy: the boy's birthday is in July, and his parents defeated Voldemort three times. But he still came to try to kill you, but he failed under the protection of your mother. But he
He also put a mark on you, marking you as his lifelong enemy." Dumbledore said slowly.
"At the end of the prophecy, it says that both people cannot live." Harry's heart seemed to sink. "We must kill one of the other."
"Yes, this is the burden you will bear. It is heavier than the burden on anyone I have ever seen. On this road, you will see many sacrifices. Those of your relatives, friends, and even your own misfortune.
What's more, Ryan and Hermione are probably just the beginning, and what you can do now is try to minimize such a tragedy."
After listening to Professor Dumbledore's words, Harry stood there silently for a long time.