"Yes," said Dumbledore. "I was a hero myself once, before I was a mysterious old wizard, in the days when I opposed Grindelwald. You have read history books, Miss Granger?"
Hermione nodded.
"Well," said Dumbledore, "that is what heroes have to do, Miss Granger, they have their tasks and they must grow strong to accomplish them, and that is what you see happening to Harry. If there is anything that can be done to gentle his pathway, then you will be the one to do it, and not I. For I am not Harry's friend, alas, but only his mysterious old wizard."
"I -" said Hermione. "I'm not sure - I still want to be -" Her voice stopped, it seemed too awful to say aloud.
Dumbledore closed his eyes, and when he opened them, he looked a little older than before. "No one can stop you, Miss Granger, if you choose to stop being Harry's friend. As for what it would do to him, you may know that better than I."
"That - doesn't seem fair," Hermione said, her voice trembling. "That I've got to be Harry's friend because he's got no one else? That doesn't seem fair."
"Being a friend is not something you can be forced to, Miss Granger." The blue eyes seemed to look right through her. "The feelings are there, or they are not. If they are there, you can accept them or deny them. You are Harry's friend - and choosing to deny it would wound him terribly, perhaps beyond healing. But Miss Granger, what would drive you to such extremes?"
She couldn't find words. She'd never been able to find words. "If you get too near Harry - you get swallowed up, and no one sees you any more, you're just something of his, everyone thinks the whole world revolves around him and..." She didn't have the words.
The old wizard nodded slowly. "It is indeed an unjust world we live in, Miss Granger. All the world now knows that it is I who defeated Grindelwald, and fewer remember Elizabeth Beckett who died opening the way so I could pass through. And yet she is remembered. Harry Potter is the hero of this play, Miss Granger; the world does revolve around him. He is destined for great things; and I ween that in time the name of Albus Dumbledore will be remembered as Harry Potter's mysterious old wizard, more than for anything else I have done. And perhaps the name of Hermione Granger will be remembered as his companion, if you prove worthy of it in your day. For this I tell you true: never will you find more glory on your own, than in Harry Potter's company."
Hermione shook her head rapidly. "But that's not -" She'd known she wouldn't be able to explain. "It's not about glory, it's about being - something that belongs to someone else!"
"So you think you would rather be the hero?" The old wizard sighed. "Miss Granger, I have been a hero, and a leader; and I would have been a thousand times happier if I could have belonged to someone like Harry Potter. Someone made of sterner stuff than I, to make the hard decisions, and yet worthy to lead me. I thought, once, that I knew such a man, but I was mistaken... Miss Granger, you have no idea at all how fortunate are those like you, compared to heroes."
The hot burning feeling was creeping up her throat again, along with helplessness, she didn't understand why Professor McGonagall had brought her here if the Headmaster wasn't going to help, and from a glance at Professor McGonagall's face, it looked like Professor McGonagall also wasn't sure now that it had been a good idea.
"I don't want to be a hero," said Hermione Granger, "I don't want to be a hero's companion, I just want to be me."
(The thought came to her a few seconds later that maybe she did in fact want to be a hero, but she decided not to change what she'd said.)
"Ah," said the old wizard. "That is a tall order, Miss Granger." Dumbledore rose from his throne, stepped out behind his desk, and pointed to a symbol on the wall, so ubiquitous that Hermione's eyes had glossed right over it; a faded shield on which was inscribed the heraldry of Hogwarts, the lion and snake, and badger and raven, and in Latin engraved words whose point she'd never understood. Then, as she realized where that shield was, and how old it looked, it suddenly occurred to Hermione that this might be the original -
"A Hufflepuff would say," said Dumbledore, tapping his finger on the faded badger and making Hermione wince for the sacrilege (if it was the original), "that people fail to become who they are meant to be, because they are too lazy to put in all the work involved. A Ravenclaw," tapping the raven, "would repeat those words that the wise know to be far older than Socrates, know thyself, and say that people fail to become who they are meant to be, through ignorance and lack of thought. And Salazar Slytherin," Dumbledore frowned as his finger tapped the faded snake, "why, he said that we become who we are meant to be by following our desires wherever they lead. Perhaps he would say that people fail to become themselves because they refuse to do what is necessary to achieve their ambitions. But then one notes that nearly all of the Dark Wizards to come out of Hogwarts have been Slytherins. Did they become what they were meant to be? I think not." Dumbledore's finger tapped the lion, and then he turned toward her. "Tell me, Miss Granger, what would a Gryffindor say? I do not need to ask whether the Sorting Hat offered you that House."
It didn't seem like a hard question. "A Gryffindor would say that people don't become who they should be, because they're afraid."
"Most people are afraid, Miss Granger," said the old wizard. "They live their whole lives circumscribed by crippling fear that cuts off everything they might accomplish, everything they might become. Fear of saying or doing the wrong thing, fear of losing their mere possessions, fear of death, and above all the fear of what other people will think of them. Such fear is a most terrible thing, Miss Granger, and it is terribly important to know that. But it is not what Godric Gryffindor would have said. People become who they are meant to be, Miss Granger, by doing what is right." The old wizard's voice was gentle. "So tell me, Miss Granger, what seems to you like the right choice? For that is who you truly are, and wherever that path leads, that is who you are meant to become."
There was a long space filled with the sounds of things that could not be counted.
She thought about it, because she was a Ravenclaw.
"I don't think it's right," Hermione said slowly, "for someone to have to live inside someone else's shadow like that..."
"Many things in the world are not right," said the old wizard, "the question is what is right for you to do about them. Hermione Granger, I shall be less subtle than is usual for a mysterious old wizard, and tell you outright that you cannot imagine how badly things could go if the events surrounding Harry Potter turn to ill. His quest is a matter you would not even dream of walking away from, if you knew."
"What quest?" said Hermione. Her voice was trembling, because it was very clear what answer the Headmaster was looking for and she didn't want to give it. "What happened to Harry back then, why was Fawkes on his shoulder?"
"He grew up," said the old wizard. His eyes blinked several times, beneath the half-moon glasses, and his face suddenly looked very lined. "You see, Miss Granger, people do not grow up because of time, people grow up when they are placed in grownup situations. That is what happened to Harry Potter that Saturday. He was told - you are not to share this information with anyone, you understand - he was told that he would have to fight someone. I cannot tell you who. I cannot tell you why. But that is what happened to him, and why he needs his friends."