Harry Potter 05 - Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

you to her sister, her only remaining relative.’
    ‘She doesn’t love me,’ said Harry at once. ‘She doesn’t give a damn –’
    ‘But she took you,’ Dumbledore cut across him. ‘She may have taken you grudgingly, furiously, unwillingly, bitterly, yet still she took you, and in doing so, she sealed the charm I placed upon you. Your mother’s sacrifice made the bond of blood the strongest shield I could give you.’
    ‘I still don’t –’
    ‘While you can still call home the place where your mother’s blood dwells, there you cannot be touched or harmed by Voldemort. He shed her blood, but it lives on in you and her sister. Her blood became your refuge. You need return there only once a year, but as long as you can still call it home, whilst you are there he cannot hurt you. Your aunt knows this. I explained what I had done in the letter I left, with you, on her doorstep. She knows that allowing you houseroom may well have kept you alive for the past fifteen years.’
    ‘Wait,’ said Harry. ‘Wait a moment.’
    He sat up straighter in his chair, staring at Dumbledore.
    ‘You sent that Howler. You told her to remember – it was your voice –’
    ‘I thought,’ said Dumbledore, inclining his head slightly, ‘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,’ said Harry quietly. ‘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 stared at the floor for a moment, then said, ‘But what’s this got to do with –’
    He could not say Sirius’s name.
    ‘Five years ago, then,’ continued Dumbledore, as though he had not paused in his story, ‘you arrived at Hogwarts, neither as happy nor as well-nourished as I would have liked, perhaps, yet alive and healthy. You were not a pampered little prince, but as normal a boy as I could have hoped under the circumstances. Thus far, my plan was working well.
    ‘And then … well, you will remember the events of your first year at Hogwarts quite as clearly as I do. You 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 man’s fight. I was … prouder of you than I can say.
    ‘Yet there was a flaw in this wonderful plan of mine,’ said Dumbledore. ‘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,’ said Harry.
    ‘Don’t you remember asking me, as you lay in the hospital wing, why Voldemort had tried to kill you when you were a baby?’
    Harry nodded.
    ‘Ought I to have told you then?’
    Harry stared into the blue eyes and said nothing, but his heart was racing again.
    ‘You do not see the flaw in the 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 recognised 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 recognised 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 at 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 on you. We discussed your scar, oh yes … we came very, 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,