Harry Potter: The Making of a Dark Lord

To his credit, Dumbledore held her gaze with his own. "I have done what's best for our world, Amelia," he replied softly. "I have done what I had to do, and it gave us over a decade's rest from the Dark Lord and saved countless lives. That is why you must heed me now."

Bones clenched her jaw and flexed her wrist, and Croaker wondered if there was about to be a duel in the small office. He and Bones vs. Dumbledore would make for an interesting fight.

But Fawkes squawked in warning from his perch, and Bones spoke rather than draw her wand.

"There will be a reckoning for this, Albus, I promise you that. You will pay for what you've done to that boy and his family. You may be powerful, but you are not a god, and you may have doomed us all, you bloody fool. Have you not considered the whole prophecy? That the child will have the power to defeat the Dark Lord, that he has a power the Dark Lord knows not? What if we need that power?"

Dumbledore responded calmly despite the tension that threatened to erupt into violence.

"Amelia, the prophecy does not say that Harry is the only one who can vanquish him. Do you honestly think that a mere teenager has a chance to defeat Voldemort? The only thing that prophecy says is that the Dark Lord can't be killed until he takes out Harry Potter—that the boy must die at his hands first. Should we spend years investigating supposed secret powers, when the prophecy can be fulfilled right now? I regret the necessity of it, but our only choice is to sacrifice Harry Potter."

Croaker sat back in his chair and ran his hands through his short gray hair.

The situation was much more complicated than he had anticipated. He was less outraged than Bones at Dumbledore's willingness to sacrifice Potter—he did have somewhat plausible reasons for thinking it necessary—but he was infuriated that Dumbledore had made such an important decision in secret, especially considering that he was no expert in the subject of prophecies.

"You had no right to conceal this information, Albus, you damned fool," he spoke venomously. "Amelia is right—you may have doomed us all. If you had shown me everything you knew fourteen years ago, I would have counseled you to slit the child's throat immediately. Now it is too late for that."

"What?" said Bones weakly from his side, thinking she had surely misheard.

"You and your bloody horcruxes, Albus, I swear…I'm fairly certain that the Dark Lord survived that killing curse only because he was in the middle of that ritual and had a link to Potter's magic. If you had killed the child years ago, that link would have been destroyed and none of this mess would be upon us," he said disgustedly.

Dumbledore paled at the implications, while Bones' eyebrows rose to her hairline as she looked between the two aged men in horror.

"Surely you can't be advocating murdering the boy, Algernon!" she cried, stunned at his words.

"No, Amelia, I'm not," he replied calmly. "It's far too late for that. The Dark Lord is back, and whatever link existed between him and Potter is gone. The rotten bastard has to die the old-fashioned way now, thanks to our friend Albus here."

"I've had about enough of your disrespect, Algernon," Dumbledore growled at Croaker, his patience at an end. "Regardless of your esteemed opinion about my past actions, the way forward is clear. The prophecy is an obstacle that must be removed immediately."

"Dumbledore," Croaker returned, his voice rising, "what makes you so certain that you'll be able to defeat Voldemort if Potter dies? Are you truly that arrogant? What if the boy is our only chance? What if Voldemort will be invincible after Potter falls?"

"That is just…that's absurd," Dumbledore replied, nonplussed. "How could the fate of an entire world hinge on the life of a single boy?"

"Damnation, Dumbledore!" Croaker roared, standing and slamming his fists down on the ornate desk. "I don't know—and you don't know, and that's the bloody point! It's a fucking prophecy, and it's going to come true no matter what anybody does to stop it or aid it! You can't go about engineering things to make one come true—haven't you read any Greek tragedy? It's a recipe for bloody disaster, you arrogant old man."

Croaker stood back from the desk, his wand automatically finding its way to his hand from its holster. Fawkes squawked loudly and hopped from his perch onto the center of the desk, placing himself between the two men. Croaker glared at the bird but made no move to return his wand to its holster.

Dumbledore eyed Croaker's wand warily for a few seconds, but did not draw his own. When he spoke again, his tone was icy.

"What's done is done," he said, looking Croaker directly in the eye, "and it is not in your best interest to threaten me, Algernon."

"Ahem" said Bones, clearing her throat loudly and getting to her feet. "If you two are through determining who's got the bigger wand, we have some important decisions to make. And let me remind you, Albus, that's it not in your best interest to threaten anyone at the moment."

The two old men stared at each other for a few more seconds, before Croaker finally slid his wand back into its holster. Fawkes, satisfied that his job was done, flew lazily back to his perch.

"Now," said Bones, trying to be the voice of reason despite her rage, "Albus is right that the past is in the past. We need to decide what to do next—the Ministry is incredibly vulnerable, and I refuse to believe our problems will be solved by sending a teenager to his death. He is not some animal to be sacrificed to a pagan god."

Dumbledore sighed heavily and looked at Bones in exasperation.

"Amelia, surely you must agree that a confrontation between Harry Potter and the Dark Lord is required by the prophecy. Even if the fight is not handicapped, do you not see that it must happen immediately?"

"Albus, the only thing I see right now is the necessity of protecting Harry Potter from you, all of people," she hissed.

"Amelia," Dumbledore said evenly, "I know you have Mr. Potter, and every day you spend training him is a day wasted, a day when innocent people are going to die because we can't destroy the Dark Lord. If he has some sort of secret power, then so be it; perhaps Mr. Potter will perform some miracle and destroy the Dark Lord forever. But it is a waste of time and lives to spend time trying to find out what that power is. No doubt you think me a monster, but I am only trying to prevent a catastrophe. Think on that."

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