Harry Potter Abridged! OotP Chapter 37
[Harry touches down in Dumbledore’s office]
Harry: Oh, wow. Everything’s back to the way it was when Dumbledore lived here. It’s so…peaceful…. So quiet…. It’s…a…bit…TOO QUIET! AAAAAAARGH SIRIUS IS DEAD AND IT’S ALL MY FAULT! WHY DID I HAVE TO SCREW UP SO BADLY?! WHY DO I HAVE TO SUFFER THIS WAY?!
Phineas Nigellus: What on earth is the matter with you, boy?!
Harry: I CAN’T TAKE THIS PAIN IN MY SOUL ANYMORE IT’S EATING ME FROM THE INSIDE OUT!
Phineas Nigellus: You sure are feeling dramatic tonight.
Harry: THAT’S BECAUSE SIRIUS IS--!
Phineas Nigellus: Is what?
Harry: N-never mind. It’s too horrible to even contemplate.
[Dumbledore arrives shortly]
Dumbledore: So, you’ll be happy to know that none of your friends have suffered…permanent…damage.
Harry: Oh, good! One less thing to add to the generous supply of guilt weighing down my tortured soul!
Dumbledore: Oh, by the way, did I mention that I know exactly how you’re feeling?*
Harry: Don’t make me laugh!
Dumbledore: In fact I’m the only one who understands.
Harry: Huh?!
Dumbledore: You truly are a lovely young man, Harry. A strong one too. You always amaze me with the amount of pain you manage to hide behind that beautiful smile of yours.
Harry: Now you’re creeping me out. And since when do I ever smile?! Unless I’m seeing my enemies in pain….
Dumbledore: Yes, pain. Pain is part of being human. You suffer, therefore you are human.
Harry: WHAT KIND OF TWISTED LOGIC IS THAT?!
Dumbledore: The fact that you are capslocking with pain and rage now shows how much you truly care.
Harry: I’LL SHOW YOU CARING! [Smashes some of Dumbledore’s random trinkets]
Dumbledore: Whatever. I could always get new ones.
Harry: AAAAAARGH YOU ARE JUST SO FRUSTRATING! I’M THE MAIN CHARACTER! I’M ALWAYS SUPPOSED TO COME OUT ON TOP!
Dumbledore: If you’re the main character can you stop acting like an infant for ten minutes?
Harry: So you can do what?
Dumbledore: So I can take the blame for Sirius’s death.
Harry: …Bwhut?
Dumbledore: See, if I had just been more honest with you about the potential danger, or found a better way of teaching you occlumency than by using your least favorite teacher, then maybe you would have taken it more seriously and Sirius would not have died. You see? This entire mess is all my fault, really!
Phineas Nigellus: You mean…Sirius is dead?
Dumbledore: Alas.
Phineas Nigellus: Wow! I am absolutely shocked!
Harry: Alright, I’ve got a sneaking suspicion you’ve got an ulterior motive here. Why on earth are you taking the blame for my mistakes? Or owning up to your own for that matter?
Dumbledore: All so I can reel you in and ensure that you’re nice and cooperative throughout my long-winded exposition speech.
Harry: Your…l-long winded exposition s-speech?
Dumbledore: The first of many. Sit down, we’ll be here awhile.
Harry: Kill me. Just kill me right now. [Sits down obediently]
Dumbledore: So, anyway, that scar you have? I suspected all along it was connecting you somehow to Voldemort.
Harry: And…?
Dumbledore: And I also suspected all along that this connection would get stronger once he returned to full power.
Harry: …And…?
Dumbledore: And I also suspected all along that he might try to use his power to influence you!
Harry: And?! I know all this already!
Dumbledore: I’m getting to the bit you don’t know! So, anyway, as I was saying, have you ever wondered why I had Snape teach you when I could have taught you myself?
Harry: Now that you mention it, yes. What the hell?! How did you expect me to learn anything from the one professor I can’t get along with and never could?!
Dumbledore: Don’t worry-I had a reason for everything. Specifically, that reason is that I am not the wise, infallible mentor you know me as, but am actually deeply flawed, and made a critical mistake here.
Harry: Yes, yes, good, but what the hell kind of explanation is that?!
Dumbledore: So don’t delude yourself into thinking that I’m perfect or two-dimensional, because I’m not.
Harry: Get to the point already!
Dumbledore: Well I just wanted to make sure Voldemort never had the opportunity to get close to me through you.
Harry: So…so it’s you Voldemort was after this entire time!? But how?! I’m the main character! Everything’s supposed to be about me!
Dumbledore: I’m getting to that. He was hoping that I would kill you to save myself and kill him.
Harry: I can’t follow as confusing a train of thought as that! And why didn’t you tell me all this before when it would have actually made a difference to what I did?!
Dumbledore: Because, suffering death and loss and angst is a very important part of growing up.
Harry: I’ve known about death and loss and angst ever since my parents died when I was one year old! How is more death and loss and angst supposed to help me grow up?!
Dumbledore: By the way, did you know it was Sirius that tipped me off about Arthur Weasley and the snake? Thereby informing me that Voldemort could use you for his own purposes?
Harry: Oh, yeah, speaking of Sirius…HE’S DEAD AND GONE AND IT’S ALL MY FAAAAAAAAAAAULT!
Dumbledore: I’m getting to that! First let’s talk about the prophecy.
Harry: The prophecy?! What has the prophecy got to do with anything?!
Dumbledore: Simply that only the person the prophecy is about can remove it from the shelf, so if Voldemort wanted it he would have been forced to either get it himself and reveal himself, or use you. That’s why I told you to learn occlumency!
Harry: Oh, wow! Now I feel really stupid for not practicing occlumency! …But…but…I did check to see if Sirius was there, and he wasn’t!
Dumbledore: And who did you ask?
Harry: Oh, just Kreacher.
Dumbledore: Ah, but you see, Kreacher lied to you. He doesn’t have any obligations to be honest to anyone but his master.
Harry: I’ve been outsmarted by a racist house elf?!
Dumbledore: It gets better: Kreacher has apparently been in contact with Narcissa Malfoy for months, since she’s the only member of the Black family he still respects!
Harry: Aaaargh, why didn’t I think of that?!
Dumbledore: Well you don’t think much in general.
Harry: True, true.
Dumbledore: So let me feed you information like a good boy.
Harry: Whatever.
Dumbledore: By the way, it was Snape who first found out about your dream about Sirius, and he was the one who sent all those people to the Ministry to rescue you.
Harry: Snape did that?! I’m so shocked!
Dumbledore: At some point Sirius asked Kreacher about what had happened, and as it turned out he had fed the Malfoys just enough information to reveal that Sirius was the one person you’d do almost anything to rescue.
Harry: Wow, that’s awful--! Wait, you sure do seem to know an awful lot about what Kreacher was thinking and saying. Just how did you figure all this out?
Dumbledore: Oh, I have, ah, ways of persuading people to tell me things….
Harry: Oh, really? …Well Kreacher deserves anything he gets anyway, I suppose. The bastard.
Dumbledore: Well, you must admit, Sirius was rather cruel to Kreacher.
Harry: Only because he sensed what he knew to be the truth-Kreacher was evil!
Dumbledore: And did you ever think that maybe Kreacher would feel some resentment over being enslaved to someone whom he had no loyalty to?
Harry: WHO CARES SIRIUS WAS AWESOME AND ANYONE WHO HAD A PROBLEM WITH HIM HAD ONLY THEMSELVES TO BLAME! Ahem, anyway, isn’t Snape just as much at fault? He goaded Sirius about being stuck in the house once!
Dumbledore: You really expect Sirius to rise to a taunt like that like some gradeschooler?
Harry: Well frankly, yes. Anyway, Snape was the one who threw me out of his office! I still have no idea why he would throw me out of his office after I rifled through his private traumatic memories!
Dumbledore: That was my fault, for not teaching you occlumency myself. I concede I was the one who was wrong here.
Harry: I’ll say it was! How do you know Snape wasn’t trying to make me more susceptible to Voldemort?
Dumbledore: Nonsense-Snape is totally trustworthy!
Harry: What on earth makes you so sure of that?!
Dumbledore: Because I know everything. Including that Snape is trustworthy.
Harry: [Facepalm]
Dumbledore: Now I suppose you may be wondering why I forced you to spend the first ten years of your life with you evil abusive aunt and uncle.
Harry: Come to think of it...yes, you’re absolutely right. What the hell, Dumbledore?!
Dumbledore: To that I can provide a simple explanation.
Harry: Go on…
Dumbledore: You see…I had a headache.
Harry: You…had…a…headache?! You mean to tell me you forced me to grow up being raised by evil abusive relatives who treated me like shit just because you had a headache?!
Dumbledore: It was a really, really bad headache, okay?! Also I needed to invoke the protection of your mother’s blood, and therefore you needed to be placed in the care of your mother’s family.
Harry: I don’t understand complex trains of thought like that. Anyway, it’s not like my aunt ever loved me, or treated me with anything other than abuse.
Dumbledore: Yes, but she still took you in and that was all that mattered.
Harry: Alright, then…since we’re talking about my dark and troubled past, why did you force me to face Quirrelmort alone?
Dumbledore: To test your mettle. Also I had a headache.
Harry: And the Basilisk?
Dumbledore: I had a headache then too.
Harry: Oh, what’s next, are you going to tell me you had a headache for every awful event that happened to me in all these past books?!
Dumbledore: My headaches are serious business!
Harry: [Buries face in hands]
Dumbledore: But all this pales in comparison to the fact that there is a prophecy about you and Voldemort, which came out shortly before you were born! This is the terrible secret my headaches have kept me from spitting out to you for all those years!
Harry: I know that! But…I destroyed that prophecy.
Dumbledore: Wrong! You destroyed the record of the prophecy. Prophecies never cease to exist, see. In fact, it was one Trelawney who delivered the prophecy to none other than myself.
Harry: Trelawney?!
Dumbledore: Yes, quite.
Harry: So…what does the prophecy say?
Dumbledore: Well…it’s about Voldemort and one other person, who would be born at the end of the seventh month almost sixteen years ago. It says only, “This child was born to die.” I suppose Voldemort just didn’t like the idea of competition.
Harry: Wait, wait, wait…you mean…I’m born to die?
Dumbledore: Yes and no. The plot thickens. You see, there were two boys born at the end of July about sixteen years ago, and either one of them could have been Voldemort’s victim. One of them was you. The other was, wait for it, Neville Longbottom!
Harry: Navel?! Navel could have been the one the prophecy was referring to?!
Dumbledore: Well, his name is Neville, but yes. Except that Voldemort chose you. Therefore, you and he are the only ones the prophecy can refer to.
Harry: So his name was Neville all this time?! I had no idea!
Dumbledore: Yes, well, whatever. Enjoy having a prophecy about death written about you, and we’ll be revisiting this in the next book!
Harry: One more thing…what does it mean that I was born to die? Does the fact that I survived his initial attack on me mean that I’m no longer in danger of death?
Dumbledore: You’ll learn all about that in due course. For now, good day!
[Harry turns to leave]
Harry: Oh, wow! That conversation was so stimulating I’ve almost forgotten about Sirius’s death! Aaaargh Sirius is dead and it’s all my faaaaaaaaault!
Dumbledore: Oh, by the way-if you’re wondering why I didn’t make you prefect-
Harry: Yes, why is that? Did you have a headache then too?
Dumbledore: No. I just figured I’d foist all that responsibility off on your friend so you could reap all the benefits of being a main character without having to do any actual work!
Harry: Oh Dumbledore, you know me so well!
Dumbledore: Yes, I do.
*A/N: In all seriousness, if you’re talking to someone who’s grieving you NEVER EVER EVER want to tell them you know how they feel! Not even if you lost someone close to you as well!
Harry: Oh, wow. Everything’s back to the way it was when Dumbledore lived here. It’s so…peaceful…. So quiet…. It’s…a…bit…TOO QUIET! AAAAAAARGH SIRIUS IS DEAD AND IT’S ALL MY FAULT! WHY DID I HAVE TO SCREW UP SO BADLY?! WHY DO I HAVE TO SUFFER THIS WAY?!
Phineas Nigellus: What on earth is the matter with you, boy?!
Harry: I CAN’T TAKE THIS PAIN IN MY SOUL ANYMORE IT’S EATING ME FROM THE INSIDE OUT!
Phineas Nigellus: You sure are feeling dramatic tonight.
Harry: THAT’S BECAUSE SIRIUS IS--!
Phineas Nigellus: Is what?
Harry: N-never mind. It’s too horrible to even contemplate.
[Dumbledore arrives shortly]
Dumbledore: So, you’ll be happy to know that none of your friends have suffered…permanent…damage.
Harry: Oh, good! One less thing to add to the generous supply of guilt weighing down my tortured soul!
Dumbledore: Oh, by the way, did I mention that I know exactly how you’re feeling?*
Harry: Don’t make me laugh!
Dumbledore: In fact I’m the only one who understands.
Harry: Huh?!
Dumbledore: You truly are a lovely young man, Harry. A strong one too. You always amaze me with the amount of pain you manage to hide behind that beautiful smile of yours.
Harry: Now you’re creeping me out. And since when do I ever smile?! Unless I’m seeing my enemies in pain….
Dumbledore: Yes, pain. Pain is part of being human. You suffer, therefore you are human.
Harry: WHAT KIND OF TWISTED LOGIC IS THAT?!
Dumbledore: The fact that you are capslocking with pain and rage now shows how much you truly care.
Harry: I’LL SHOW YOU CARING! [Smashes some of Dumbledore’s random trinkets]
Dumbledore: Whatever. I could always get new ones.
Harry: AAAAAARGH YOU ARE JUST SO FRUSTRATING! I’M THE MAIN CHARACTER! I’M ALWAYS SUPPOSED TO COME OUT ON TOP!
Dumbledore: If you’re the main character can you stop acting like an infant for ten minutes?
Harry: So you can do what?
Dumbledore: So I can take the blame for Sirius’s death.
Harry: …Bwhut?
Dumbledore: See, if I had just been more honest with you about the potential danger, or found a better way of teaching you occlumency than by using your least favorite teacher, then maybe you would have taken it more seriously and Sirius would not have died. You see? This entire mess is all my fault, really!
Phineas Nigellus: You mean…Sirius is dead?
Dumbledore: Alas.
Phineas Nigellus: Wow! I am absolutely shocked!
Harry: Alright, I’ve got a sneaking suspicion you’ve got an ulterior motive here. Why on earth are you taking the blame for my mistakes? Or owning up to your own for that matter?
Dumbledore: All so I can reel you in and ensure that you’re nice and cooperative throughout my long-winded exposition speech.
Harry: Your…l-long winded exposition s-speech?
Dumbledore: The first of many. Sit down, we’ll be here awhile.
Harry: Kill me. Just kill me right now. [Sits down obediently]
Dumbledore: So, anyway, that scar you have? I suspected all along it was connecting you somehow to Voldemort.
Harry: And…?
Dumbledore: And I also suspected all along that this connection would get stronger once he returned to full power.
Harry: …And…?
Dumbledore: And I also suspected all along that he might try to use his power to influence you!
Harry: And?! I know all this already!
Dumbledore: I’m getting to the bit you don’t know! So, anyway, as I was saying, have you ever wondered why I had Snape teach you when I could have taught you myself?
Harry: Now that you mention it, yes. What the hell?! How did you expect me to learn anything from the one professor I can’t get along with and never could?!
Dumbledore: Don’t worry-I had a reason for everything. Specifically, that reason is that I am not the wise, infallible mentor you know me as, but am actually deeply flawed, and made a critical mistake here.
Harry: Yes, yes, good, but what the hell kind of explanation is that?!
Dumbledore: So don’t delude yourself into thinking that I’m perfect or two-dimensional, because I’m not.
Harry: Get to the point already!
Dumbledore: Well I just wanted to make sure Voldemort never had the opportunity to get close to me through you.
Harry: So…so it’s you Voldemort was after this entire time!? But how?! I’m the main character! Everything’s supposed to be about me!
Dumbledore: I’m getting to that. He was hoping that I would kill you to save myself and kill him.
Harry: I can’t follow as confusing a train of thought as that! And why didn’t you tell me all this before when it would have actually made a difference to what I did?!
Dumbledore: Because, suffering death and loss and angst is a very important part of growing up.
Harry: I’ve known about death and loss and angst ever since my parents died when I was one year old! How is more death and loss and angst supposed to help me grow up?!
Dumbledore: By the way, did you know it was Sirius that tipped me off about Arthur Weasley and the snake? Thereby informing me that Voldemort could use you for his own purposes?
Harry: Oh, yeah, speaking of Sirius…HE’S DEAD AND GONE AND IT’S ALL MY FAAAAAAAAAAAULT!
Dumbledore: I’m getting to that! First let’s talk about the prophecy.
Harry: The prophecy?! What has the prophecy got to do with anything?!
Dumbledore: Simply that only the person the prophecy is about can remove it from the shelf, so if Voldemort wanted it he would have been forced to either get it himself and reveal himself, or use you. That’s why I told you to learn occlumency!
Harry: Oh, wow! Now I feel really stupid for not practicing occlumency! …But…but…I did check to see if Sirius was there, and he wasn’t!
Dumbledore: And who did you ask?
Harry: Oh, just Kreacher.
Dumbledore: Ah, but you see, Kreacher lied to you. He doesn’t have any obligations to be honest to anyone but his master.
Harry: I’ve been outsmarted by a racist house elf?!
Dumbledore: It gets better: Kreacher has apparently been in contact with Narcissa Malfoy for months, since she’s the only member of the Black family he still respects!
Harry: Aaaargh, why didn’t I think of that?!
Dumbledore: Well you don’t think much in general.
Harry: True, true.
Dumbledore: So let me feed you information like a good boy.
Harry: Whatever.
Dumbledore: By the way, it was Snape who first found out about your dream about Sirius, and he was the one who sent all those people to the Ministry to rescue you.
Harry: Snape did that?! I’m so shocked!
Dumbledore: At some point Sirius asked Kreacher about what had happened, and as it turned out he had fed the Malfoys just enough information to reveal that Sirius was the one person you’d do almost anything to rescue.
Harry: Wow, that’s awful--! Wait, you sure do seem to know an awful lot about what Kreacher was thinking and saying. Just how did you figure all this out?
Dumbledore: Oh, I have, ah, ways of persuading people to tell me things….
Harry: Oh, really? …Well Kreacher deserves anything he gets anyway, I suppose. The bastard.
Dumbledore: Well, you must admit, Sirius was rather cruel to Kreacher.
Harry: Only because he sensed what he knew to be the truth-Kreacher was evil!
Dumbledore: And did you ever think that maybe Kreacher would feel some resentment over being enslaved to someone whom he had no loyalty to?
Harry: WHO CARES SIRIUS WAS AWESOME AND ANYONE WHO HAD A PROBLEM WITH HIM HAD ONLY THEMSELVES TO BLAME! Ahem, anyway, isn’t Snape just as much at fault? He goaded Sirius about being stuck in the house once!
Dumbledore: You really expect Sirius to rise to a taunt like that like some gradeschooler?
Harry: Well frankly, yes. Anyway, Snape was the one who threw me out of his office! I still have no idea why he would throw me out of his office after I rifled through his private traumatic memories!
Dumbledore: That was my fault, for not teaching you occlumency myself. I concede I was the one who was wrong here.
Harry: I’ll say it was! How do you know Snape wasn’t trying to make me more susceptible to Voldemort?
Dumbledore: Nonsense-Snape is totally trustworthy!
Harry: What on earth makes you so sure of that?!
Dumbledore: Because I know everything. Including that Snape is trustworthy.
Harry: [Facepalm]
Dumbledore: Now I suppose you may be wondering why I forced you to spend the first ten years of your life with you evil abusive aunt and uncle.
Harry: Come to think of it...yes, you’re absolutely right. What the hell, Dumbledore?!
Dumbledore: To that I can provide a simple explanation.
Harry: Go on…
Dumbledore: You see…I had a headache.
Harry: You…had…a…headache?! You mean to tell me you forced me to grow up being raised by evil abusive relatives who treated me like shit just because you had a headache?!
Dumbledore: It was a really, really bad headache, okay?! Also I needed to invoke the protection of your mother’s blood, and therefore you needed to be placed in the care of your mother’s family.
Harry: I don’t understand complex trains of thought like that. Anyway, it’s not like my aunt ever loved me, or treated me with anything other than abuse.
Dumbledore: Yes, but she still took you in and that was all that mattered.
Harry: Alright, then…since we’re talking about my dark and troubled past, why did you force me to face Quirrelmort alone?
Dumbledore: To test your mettle. Also I had a headache.
Harry: And the Basilisk?
Dumbledore: I had a headache then too.
Harry: Oh, what’s next, are you going to tell me you had a headache for every awful event that happened to me in all these past books?!
Dumbledore: My headaches are serious business!
Harry: [Buries face in hands]
Dumbledore: But all this pales in comparison to the fact that there is a prophecy about you and Voldemort, which came out shortly before you were born! This is the terrible secret my headaches have kept me from spitting out to you for all those years!
Harry: I know that! But…I destroyed that prophecy.
Dumbledore: Wrong! You destroyed the record of the prophecy. Prophecies never cease to exist, see. In fact, it was one Trelawney who delivered the prophecy to none other than myself.
Harry: Trelawney?!
Dumbledore: Yes, quite.
Harry: So…what does the prophecy say?
Dumbledore: Well…it’s about Voldemort and one other person, who would be born at the end of the seventh month almost sixteen years ago. It says only, “This child was born to die.” I suppose Voldemort just didn’t like the idea of competition.
Harry: Wait, wait, wait…you mean…I’m born to die?
Dumbledore: Yes and no. The plot thickens. You see, there were two boys born at the end of July about sixteen years ago, and either one of them could have been Voldemort’s victim. One of them was you. The other was, wait for it, Neville Longbottom!
Harry: Navel?! Navel could have been the one the prophecy was referring to?!
Dumbledore: Well, his name is Neville, but yes. Except that Voldemort chose you. Therefore, you and he are the only ones the prophecy can refer to.
Harry: So his name was Neville all this time?! I had no idea!
Dumbledore: Yes, well, whatever. Enjoy having a prophecy about death written about you, and we’ll be revisiting this in the next book!
Harry: One more thing…what does it mean that I was born to die? Does the fact that I survived his initial attack on me mean that I’m no longer in danger of death?
Dumbledore: You’ll learn all about that in due course. For now, good day!
[Harry turns to leave]
Harry: Oh, wow! That conversation was so stimulating I’ve almost forgotten about Sirius’s death! Aaaargh Sirius is dead and it’s all my faaaaaaaaault!
Dumbledore: Oh, by the way-if you’re wondering why I didn’t make you prefect-
Harry: Yes, why is that? Did you have a headache then too?
Dumbledore: No. I just figured I’d foist all that responsibility off on your friend so you could reap all the benefits of being a main character without having to do any actual work!
Harry: Oh Dumbledore, you know me so well!
Dumbledore: Yes, I do.
*A/N: In all seriousness, if you’re talking to someone who’s grieving you NEVER EVER EVER want to tell them you know how they feel! Not even if you lost someone close to you as well!