greater good and, to his last hour, as willing to stretch out a hand to a small boy
with dragon pox as he was on the day I met him.



Harry finished reading, but continued to gaze at the picture accompanying the
obituary. Dumbledore was wearing his familiar, kindly smile, but as he peered over the
top of his half-moon spectacles, he gave the impression, even in newsprint, of X-raying
Harry, whose sadness mingled with a sense of humiliation.

He had thought he knew Dumbledore quite well, but ever since reading this
obituary he had been forced to recognize that he had barely known him at all. Never once
had he imagined Dumbledore's childhood or youth; it was as though he had sprung into
being as Harry had known him, venerable and silver-haired and old. The idea of a
teenage Dumbledore was simply odd, like trying to imagine a stupid Hermione or a
friendly Blast-Ended Skrewt.

He had never thought to ask Dumbledore about his past. No doubt it would have
felt strange, impertinent even, but after all it had been common knowledge that
Dumbledore had taken part in that legendary duel with Grindelwald, and Harry had not
thought to ask Dumbledore what that had been like, nor about any of his other famous
achievements. No, they had always discussed Harry, Harry's past, Harry's future, Harry's
plans… and it seemed to Harry now, despite the fact that his future was so dangerous and
so uncertain, that he had missed irreplaceable opportunities when he had failed to ask
Dumbledore more about himself, even though the only personal question he had ever
asked his headmaster was also the only one he suspected that Dumbledore had not
answered honestly:

"What do you see when you look in the mirror?"

"I? I see myself holding a pair of thick, woolen socks."

After several minutes' thought, Harry tore the obituary out of the Prophet, folded
it carefully, and tucked it inside the first volume of Practical Defensive Magic and its
Use against the Dark Arts. Then he threw the rest of the newspaper onto the rubbish pile
and turned to face the room. It was much tidier. The only things left out of place were
today's Daily Prophet, still lying on the bed, and on top of it, the piece of broken mirror.

Harry moved across the room, slid the mirror fragment off today's Prophet, and
unfolded the newspaper. He had merely glanced at the headline when he had taken the
rolled-up paper from the delivery owl early that morning and thrown it aside, after noting
that it said nothing about Voldemort. Harry was sure that the Ministry was leaning on the
Prophet to suppress news about Voldemort. It was only now, therefore, that he saw what
he had missed.