"Is that what you were thinking, Harry?" The blue eyes were keen, and there was a terrifying moment when Harry wondered if the world's most powerful wizard could see right past his Occlumency barriers.
"Yes," Harry said, "I flinched away from the pain of losing all the money in my vault. But I did it! That's what counts! And you -" The indignation that had faltered out of Harry's voice returned. "You actually put a price on Hermione Granger's life, and you put it below a hundred thousand Galleons!"
"Oh?" the old wizard said softly. "And what price do you put on her life, then? A million Galleons?"
"Are you familiar with the economic concept of 'replacement value'?" The words were spilling from Harry's lips almost faster than he could consider them. "Hermione's replacement value is infinite! There's nowhere I can go to buy another one!"
Now you're just talking mathematical nonsense, said Slytherin. Ravenclaw, back me up here?
"Is Minerva's life also of infinite worth?" the old wizard said harshly. "Would you sacrifice Minerva to save Hermione?"
"Yes and yes," Harry snapped. "That's part of Professor McGonagall's job and she knows it."
"Then Minerva's value is not infinite," said the old wizard, "for all that she is loved. There can only be one king upon a chessboard, Harry Potter, only one piece that you will sacrifice any other piece to save. And Hermione Granger is not that piece. Make no mistake, Harry Potter, this day you may well have lost your war."
And if the old wizard's words hadn't hit quite so hard, and quite so close to home, Harry might not have said what he said then.
"Lucius was right," Harry ground out. "You never had a wife, you never had a daughter, you've never had anything but war -"
The old wizard's left hand closed hard upon Harry's wrist, bony fingers digging into the still-developing muscle of Harry's arm, and for a moment Harry was paralyzed with the shock of it, he had forgotten what it meant that adults were stronger.
Albus Dumbledore did not seem to notice. He only turned, dragging Harry with him, and moved forward in hard steps toward the wall of the room.
"Phoenix's price."
Harry was pulled up along the black stairs.
"Phoenix's fate."
The room of black pedestals, silver light falling on shattered wands.
"You think," yelled Harry, after his lips unlocked, "that you can win any argument, just by standing here?"
The old wizard ignored him, dragging Harry across the room. His right hand, no longer holding his wand, grabbed up a vial of silver fluid -
Harry blinked in shock; the vial of silver fluid had been standing next to a picture of Dumbledore, or so it had appeared to Harry in the brief moment before he was dragged past.
Past the end of all the pedestals, at the farthest part of the room, rose a great stone basin with runes carved into it that Harry didn't recognize. The center was a shallow depression filled with transparent liquid, and into this the old wizard dumped the canister of silver fluid, which at once began to spread out, to swirl, to set the entire basin glowing eerie white.
The old wizard's hand let go of Harry's arm and gestured to the glowing basin, commanding harshly, "Look!"
As requested, Harry stared at the glowing water.
"Put your head into the Pensieve, Harry Potter." The old wizard's voice was stern.
Harry had heard that word before, but he couldn't remember where . "What - does this do -"
"Memories," the old wizard said. "You will see my memory. My oath that it is safe. Now look into the Pensieve, Ravenclaw, if you still care anything at all for your precious truth!"
That was a request that Harry could not deny, and he stepped forward and thrust his head into the glowing water.
Harry was sitting behind the desk in the Headmaster's office of Hogwarts, and his wrinkled hands that clutched at his head were spotted with age and white hairs.
"He is all that I have!" wept a voice, very strange was Dumbledore's voice as Dumbledore himself remembered it, from the inside it seemed far less stern and wise. "The last of my family! All that I have left!"
No emotion had been allowed to pass through the Pensieve, only the physical sensation of seeming to speak the words. Harry heard the utter desolation in Dumbledore's words, the sounds that seemed to come from Harry's own throat, but Harry did not feel it beyond the hearing.
"You've got no choice," said a harsh voice.
The eyes moved, the field of vision jumped to a man that Harry didn't recognize, in clothing tinged with Auror crimson but made of solid leather with many pockets.
His right eye was overlarge, with an electric-blue pupil that constantly darted and moved.
"You cannot ask this of me, Alastor!" Dumbledore's voice was wild. "Not this! Anything but this!"
"I'm not asking," growled the man. "Voldie's the one who's asking, and you're going to tell him no."
"For money, Alastor?" Dumbledore's voice was begging. "Only for money?"
"You ransom Aberforth, you lose the war," the man said sharply. "That simple. One hundred thousand Galleons is nearly all we've got in the war-chest, and if you use it like this, it won't be refilled. What'll you do, try to convince the Potters to empty their vault like the Longbottoms already did? Voldie's just going to kidnap someone else and make another demand. Alice, Minerva, anyone you care about, they'll all be targets if you pay off the Death Eaters. That's not the lesson you should be trying to teach them."
"If I do this I will have no one. No one." Dumbledore's voice broke, the world tilted as the outlooking head fell down into the ancient hands, and awful sounds came from not-Harry's throat as he began to sob like a child.
"Shall I tell Voldie's messenger no?" said Alastor's voice, now strangely gentle. "You don't have to do it yourself, old friend."
"No - I will say it myself - I must -"
The memory ended with a shock and Harry ripped his head out of the glowing water, gasping as though he'd been deprived of air.
The transition between scenes, between decade-old reality and present moment, was another jolt to Harry's mind; in some fashion his immersion in the past had unanchored him. The broken old man sobbing in his office had been another person in another era, Harry had understood that much; someone softer -
Before it had all vanished like dissipating smoke, returning the now, the present day.
Terrible and stern stood the ancient wizard, like he was carven from stone; beard woven of thread like iron, half-moon glasses like mirrors, and the pupils behind as sharp and unyielding as black diamond.
"Do you also wish to see my brother as he died under the Cruciatus?" said Albus Dumbledore. "Voldemort sent me that memory as well!"
"And that - " Harry was having trouble producing a voice, for the growing sickness in his chest. "That was when -" The words seemed to burn in his throat, as the awful knowledge dawned on him, the horrible understanding. "That was when you burned Narcissa Malfoy alive in her own bedroom."
Albus Dumbledore's gaze was cold as he answered. "To that question only a fool would say yea or nay. What matters is that the Death Eaters believe I killed her, and that belief kept safe the families of all who served the Order of the Phoenix - until this day. Now do you understand what you have done? What you have done to your friends, Harry Potter, and to any that stand with you?" The old wizard seemed to grow still taller and more terrible, as his voice rose louder. "You have made them all targets, and targets they will remain! Until you prove, the only way it can be proven, that you are no longer willing to pay such prices!"