Alastor now leads the Order of the Phoenix. Heed his words well, both his advice and his confidences. It is one of my life’s greatest regrets that I did not heed Alastor more and sooner.
That you will in the end defeat Voldemort, I have no doubt.
For that will be only the beginning of your life’s destiny. Of that, too, I am certain.
When you have vanquished Voldemort, when you have saved this country, then, I hope, you may embark upon the true meaning of your days.
Hurry then to begin.
Yours in death (or in whatever), Dumbledore.
P.S. The passwords are ‘phoenix’s price’, ‘phoenix’s fate’, and ‘phoenix’s egg’, spoken within my office. Minerva can move those rooms to where you can reach them more easily.
Harry folded up the parchment and put its back into the envelope, frowning thoughtfully, then took the grey-ribboned scroll from the Headmistress. When the long grey wand in Harry’s hand touched the ribbon, it fell away at once; and Harry unrolled the scroll, and read it.
Dear Harry James Potter-Evans-Verres:
If you are reading this, you have defeated Voldemort.
Congratulations on that.
I hope you had some time in which to celebrate before you opened this scroll, because the news in it is not cheerful.
During the First Wizarding War, there came a time when I realised that Voldemort was winning, that he would soon hold all within his hand.
In that extremity, I went into the Department of Mysteries and I invoked a password which had never been spoken in the history of the Line of Merlin Unbroken, did a thing forbidden and yet not utterly forbidden.
I listened to every prophecy that had ever been recorded.
And so I learned that my troubles were far worse than Voldemort.
From certain seers and diviners have come an increasing chorus of foretellings that this world is doomed to destruction.
And you, Harry James Potter-Evans-Verres, are one of those foretold to destroy it.
By rights I should have ended your line of possibility, stopped you from ever being born, as I did my best to end all the other possibilities I discovered on that day of terrible awakening.
Yet in your case, Harry, and in your case alone, the prophecies of your apocalypse have loopholes, though those loopholes be ever so slight.
Always ‘he will end the world’, not ‘he will end life’.
Even when it was said that you would tear apart the very stars in heaven, it was not said that you would tear apart the people.
And so, it being clear that this world is not meant to last, I have gambled literally everything upon you, Harry James Potter-Evans-Verres. There were no prophecies of how the world might be saved, so I found the prophecies that offered loopholes in the destruction; and I brought about the strange and complex conditions for those prophecies to come to pass. I ensured that Voldemort discovered a certain one of those prophecies, and so (even as I had feared) condemned your parents to death and made you what you are. I wrote a strange hint in your mother’s Potions textbook, having no idea why I must; and this proved to show Lily how to help her sister, and ensured you would gain Petunia Evans’s heartfelt love. I snuck invisibly into your bedroom in Oxford and administered the potion that is given to students with Time-Turners, to extend your day’s cycle by two hours. When you were six years old I smashed a rock that was on your windowsill, and to this day I cannot imagine why.
All in the desperate hope that you can pass us through the eye of the storm, somehow end this world and yet bring out its people alive.
Now that you have passed the preliminary test of defeating Voldemort, I place my all in your hands, all the tools I can possibly give you. The Line of Merlin Unbroken, the command of the Order of the Phoenix, all my wealth and all my treasures, the Elder Wand out of the Deathly Hallows, the loyalty of such of my friends as may heed me. I have left Hogwarts in Minerva’s care, for I do not think you will have time for it, but even that is yours if you demand it from her.
One thing I do not give you, and that is the prophecies. Upon the moment of my departure, they will be destroyed, and no future ones will be recorded, for it was said that you must not look upon them. If you think this frustrating, believe me when I say that even your wit cannot comprehend what frustration you have been spared. I will die, or be lost by you, or in some other way be taken from you—the prophecies are unclear, naturally—without ever once knowing what the future truly holds, or why I must do what I do. It is all cryptic madness and you are well rid of it.
There can only be one king upon the chessboard.
There can only be one piece whose value is beyond price.
That piece is not the world, it is the world’s peoples, wizard and Muggle alike, goblins and house-elves and all.
While survives any remnant of our kind, that piece is yet in play, though the stars should die in heaven.
And if that piece be lost, the game ends.
Know the value of all your other pieces, and play to win.
—Albus
Harry held the parchment scroll for a long time, staring at nothing.
So.
There were times when the phrase ‘That explains it’ didn’t really seem to cover it, but nonetheless, that explained it.
Absently Harry rolled up the parchment scroll in his fist, still staring at nothing.
“What does it say?” said Amelia Bones.
“It’s a confession letter,” Harry said. “Turns out Dumbledore’s the one who killed my pet rock.”
“This is not a time for jokes!” cried the elder witch. “Are you the true holder of the Line of Merlin Unbroken?”
“Yes,” Harry said absently, his mind occupied with thoughts that were, by any objective quantification, overwhelmingly more important.
The old witch was sitting very still in her chair. She turned her head, and locked eyes with Minerva McGonagall.
Meanwhile Harry’s brain, which was juggling way too many possibilities over way too many time horizons, some of them involving literally billions of years and stellar disassembly procedures, declared cognitive bankruptcy and started over. All right, what’s the first thing I have to do to save the world… no, make it even more local, what do I have to do today… besides figuring out what to do, that is, and I’d better not delay before looking at whatever Dumbledore left me in the Phoenix’s Egg room…
Harry raised his eyes from the rolled-up parchment and looked at Professor—at Headmistress McGonagall, at Mad-Eye Moody, and at the leathery-looking old witch, as though seeing them for the first time. Though he was in fact seeing Amelia Bones for mostly the first time.
Amelia Bones, head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, whom Albus Dumbledore had thought worthy to lead the Wizengamot at least temporarily. Her cooperation would be invaluable, maybe necessary, for… for whatever was headed Harry’s way. Dumbledore had chosen her, and he’d read prophecies Harry hadn’t seen.