Percy Jackson and the Department of Mysteries

166) Dumbledore Def Rehearsed This

"Wait. Wait a moment," Harry sat up straighter. "You sent that Howler. You told her to remember — it was your voice —"

"I thought," Dumbledore tilted his head, "that she might need reminding of the pact she had sealed by taking you. I suspected the dementor attack might have awoken her to the dangers of having you as a surrogate son."

"It did," Harry said loosely. "Well — my uncle more than her. He wanted to chuck me out, but after the Howler came she — she said I had to stay." He looked at the floor. "But what's this got do do with..."

It seemed he couldn't say Sirius' name.

"Five years ago, then," Dumbledore's voice was soft, eyes unfocused as if lost in a memory, "you arrived at Hogwarts, neither as happy nor well nourished as I would have liked, perhaps, yet alive and healthy. You were not a pampered little prince, but as normal a boy I could have hoped under the circumstances. This far, my plan was working well.

"And then... well, you will remember the events of your first year at Hogwarts as clearly as I do. You and your friends rose magnificently to the challenge that faced you, and sooner — much sooner — than I had anticipated, you found yourself face-to-face with Voldemort. You survived again. You did more. You delayed his return to full power and strength. You fought a hero's fight. I was... prouder of you than I can say.

"Yet there was a flaw in this wonderful plan of mine. An obvious flaw that I knew, even then, might be the undoing of it all. And yet, knowing how important it was that my plan should succeed, I told myself that I would not permit this flaw to ruin it. I alone could prevent this, so I alone must be strong. And here was my first test, as you lay in the hospital wing, weak from your struggle with Voldemort."

"I don't understand what you're saying," Harry frowned, and, admittedly, I was confused as well.

"Do you remember asking me, as you lay in the hospital wing, why Voldemort had tried to kill you when you were a baby?" Dumbledore asked, and Harry nodded. "Ought I to have told you then?" He looked into Harry's emerald green eyes, his blue ones wavering, sad, old. "You do not see the flaw in my plan yet? No... perhaps not. Well, as you know, I decided not to answer 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 recognized the danger signs then. I should have asked myself why I did not feel more disturbed that you had already asked me the question to which I knew, one day, I must give a terrible answer. I should have recognized 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 of 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 again, however, why Voldemort had left that mark upon you. We discussed your scar, oh yes.... We came 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, to 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, Harry? 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."

I wanted to tell Dumbledore, I'm dyslexic, man, you're gonna have to spell it out for me, because I was more than a little lost.

Harry was, too, "I don't —"