The Shopkeeper of All Worlds in the British Wizarding World

Chapter 450 Responsibility and Burden (Please subscribe, please bookmark, please vote)
Harry finally rushed out of a fireplace and stepped on the carpet. He looked around and found himself in the headmaster's office, which 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 headmasters and headmistresses were quietly napping on the canvas. Harry looked out the window and saw a simple gray-green hanging on the horizon: dawn was slowly approaching.

The office was quiet, with only the occasional snoring or sniffling of a sleeping portrait breaking the silence. Harry couldn't stand this environment. He was now very worried about the friends who followed him into the Ministry of Magic, and also about the members of the Order of the Phoenix who came to rescue him later. They were completely scattered in the previous battle, and Harry could only pray silently that they were okay.

As he stood silently by the windowsill and looked out, emerald flames suddenly appeared in the empty fireplace. When Dumbledore's tall figure emerged from the flames, the wizards and witches on the walls around him suddenly woke up, and many of them burst into warm cheers.

"Thank you, thank you everyone." As Dumbledore spoke, he took out Fawkes, who looked like a newborn chick, from his pocket and gently placed him on a plate of fine ash under the gilded perch, where the adult Fawkes usually stayed.

"Oh, Harry," Dumbledore finally walked away from the young phoenix and said to Harry, "I have one thing to be thankful for. Most of the people who entered the Ministry of Magic because of you yesterday survived. In such an absolutely disadvantageous environment, this is simply a miracle."

"Most of them?" Harry's heart skipped a beat when he heard the word. He asked in a trembling voice, "How are everyone - how are they doing?"

"Madam Pomfrey is treating them," Dumbledore said, "You young people will be better. Nymphadora Tonks and Sirius Black may need to stay in St. Mungo's Hospital for a while, but it seems that they will recover quickly. It's just that Sirius was hit by a Death Eater with dark magic when he was fighting five people alone, 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, and the whole person seemed to be floating in the clouds.

"Lion and Hermione." Dumbledore's tone also dropped. "Although no one saw their deaths, I went to the house to check the archway after talking to Fudge just now, and I can confirm that both of them passed through that door."

"That door -" Harry closed his eyes, and he remembered what Ryan said when he entered the house before: "Through the veil, people will completely disappear from our world. No one can come back alive from behind that door.

"They--just disappeared?" Harry said in a trembling voice, and then it seemed like a question and an answer. "Because of me, they are gone?"

"I know how you feel now, Harry," Dumbledore said in a very soft voice. "It is a very difficult thing to lose relatives and friends because of your own fault. I have encountered this kind of thing many times in my life-"

"No, this is different." Harry sat there, his ten fingers deeply inserted into his hair. "Your previous actions were just due to your mistakes or errors, but this time I am sending my friends to death with my own hands. Now I think, if I had listened to you and not gone to save people alone, maybe Ryan and the others would not have died."

Harry felt weak all over, and he spoke in a hoarse voice. "Ryan had actually been against my taking risks before, but when I decided to go and save people, he chose to go with us because he was worried that we couldn't face some of the complicated magic of the Ministry of Magic, and Hermione came with the same idea at the time. They could not have gone, and I - I feel sorry for them." "They are indeed very good at understanding magic, and their concerns are not unreasonable." Dumbledore nodded. "I checked the archway, and after combining the accounts of others, I can confirm that the two of them resisted the outbreak of the breath of death in front of that door. If they hadn't done that, you who were on the platform at the time would basically not have survived. They saved everyone - except themselves."

Dumbledore paused for a moment and said, "So there is nothing wrong with the two of them following you. You alone cannot resist the power of death. I just didn't expect Ryan to go so far in his research on magic. But I think they should have known what they were going to face when they saved you, but they still did it. They are very brave in this regard, braver than most adult wizards."

"So, this is my fault--" Harry lowered his head and muttered quietly, but Dumbledore interrupted his self-pity. "This is not only your problem, but also my fault."

Harry looked up at Dumbledore in surprise, and 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 from a certain person's perspective. When Sirius was kidnapped, I just wanted to find the best solution to rescue Sirius and minimize the harm to innocent people. But I didn't consider that he is your only relative now, and ignored your inner feelings."

"Harry, I want to apologize to you for this. I also want to apologize to Ryan and Hermione." Dumbledore said word by word, "This is an old man's review of his own mistakes. I realize that my long life has given me not only experience, but also some stubborn wrong ideas. As the world's number one white wizard, this honor and responsibility sometimes makes me ignore the feelings of many people. I realize that this is a big mistake. I should not forget the feelings of ordinary people."

The sun had risen; the mountains were a dazzling orange rim, and the sky above was colorless and bright. The light fell on Dumbledore, on his gray eyebrows, beard, and deep wrinkles. Harry realized at this time that Dumbledore was indeed old, and those heavy burdens might not have enough energy to think about everything.

"By the way, what exactly is the prophecy that Voldemort and we are fighting for today?" After a moment of silence in the office, Harry asked another question. He wanted to know what his friends had exchanged their lives for?
"This is a long story, Harry. I want to present it to you in a more intuitive way." After that, Dumbledore stood up and walked past Harry to a black cabinet next to the Phoenix Perch. He bent down, unbolted the door and took out the Pensieve from inside, then raised his wand to his temple, pulled out a few silver, spider-web-like strands of thought fibers and stuck them on the wand, and then put these thought fibers into the stone basin.

Harry and Dumbledore buried their heads in the Pensieve together, and did not raise their heads until a quarter of an hour later. He looked at Dumbledore and asked, "Is this what you have been hiding from me? Everything is caused by such a prophecy?" As a wizard who grew up in the Muggle world, Harry has never been very interested in such prophecies. Especially after taking the Divination class at Hogwarts, he thought so even more. 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 though Voldemort only heard the first half of the prophecy: the boy's birthday was in July, and his parents had defeated Voldemort three times. But he still came to try to kill you, but he failed under the protection of your mother. But he also marked you, marking you as his lifelong enemy." Dumbledore said slowly.

"The end of the prophecy - it says - that both cannot live -" Harry's heart seemed to sink. "We must one kill the other -"

"Yes, this is the burden you will bear, heavier than any other person I have ever seen. On this road, you will see many sacrifices. Family, friends, and even your own. Unfortunately, Ryan and Hermione are likely just the beginning, and all you can do now is to minimize such tragedies."

After listening to Professor Dumbledore's words, Harry stood there in silence for a long, long time -

(End of this chapter)