For The Greater Good
“I wish you all good luck.” Dumbledore walked through the classroom back to his desk. “It has been an honour to teach you. I hope that you learned something in my class.”
“How to sleep with my eyes open” Walls whispered and then pretended to snore.
It was the last Transfigurations class before the NEWTS exam. Bella was so glad that they were finally free from Dumbledore. Well, in a classroom. She was sure she would see Dumbledore again, once Theseus would win the elections. However, the torture of seeing Albus Dumbledore each day of the week, morning and evening, had finally ended.
“Miss Rizzo, may I speak with you?”
Her friends gave her a pitiful look before leaving the class with the rest of the students.
“You better be fast. I have Charms in 10 minutes.”
“You haven’t finished school yet. You still ought to treat me with the same respect you treat your other professors.”
Bella snorted.
“Sit down, please.” She obeyed. “I know things have been tense since you and Forth broke up. But I don’t want it to be any bad blood between us. I heard that we’ll be working together after you graduate.”
“Oh, so this is what you are worried about” Bella felt pleased. “You don’t like that if we win the election, I’ll be more powerful than you.”
“No, it’s not like I don’t like it. I’m just concerned, and I want us to have a good relationship...”
“You never thought that this could happen, right?” she asked with an egocentric smile. “You thought you had me controlled and now, you don’t. You don’t have the power and that scares you, Dumbledore.”
“You do believe me the villain, Miss Rizzo?”
“Let’s cut the bullshit for the next 5 minutes” Bella offered. “Let’s tell each other the truth for once. Nothing we say will come out of these four walls.”
Dumbledore didn’t deny her proposal, so she assumed that meant yes.
“You don’t like me” she began, “and I don’t like you either. But I always wondered why you were so keen for your brother and I to be together.”
Dumbledore’s kind smile dropped to the floor. His mask was off. The trustful soul that she had always suspected to be a lie was in fact one. And there he was: the real Albus Dumbledore. The power-thirsty, egomaniac Albus Dumbledore.
“You know very well why I encouraged it” Albus admitted. “You are someone very difficult to control, Miss Rizzo, and your power... A great power like yours can be very difficult to control.”
“You think I’m dangerous.”
“No, of course not, but I don’t like leaving some loose ends around” Albus explained. “Your relationship with Aberforth allowed me to keep an eye on you.”
“You didn’t plan on Aberforth leaving me.”
“Unfortunately, my brother has a talent for ruining what it’s good for him” Albus sighed. “I must admit that even though I was taking advantage of the situation, I believed that it would eventually bring us the chance to understand each other-”
“And be friends? How sweet of you.”
“I don’t see why we shouldn’t work together, Miss Rizzo.”
“Because we don’t trust each other” she emphasized. “I’m not Monty or Ames, Dumbledore. I didn’t grow up admiring you. I know what you are. You think that I’ll fall for this white flag act and then you can start to manipulate me. But you won’t. You don’t want me to work with you. You want me to work for you. Am I right?”
“You make a lot of assumptions out of nowhere” Dumbledore answered. “I gave you my shack in Hogsmeade for your clinic, and you accepted it without even thinking twice. Does that not make me a little trustworthy?”
“I don’t like a wolf in sheep’s clothing, professor.”
“I don’t think I know what you mean...”
“May I be clearer? I don’t trust the man that used to work with the man that is responsible for my kin’s death.”
Dumbledore let that sink in. She knew. She knew about him and Grindelwald. Dammit, Aberforth! He couldn’t keep his mouth shut just for once. He questioned how much more she knew. Did she know about the Deathly Hallows?
“What happened with Grindelwald is one of my biggest regrets, Miss Rizzo” Dumbledore tried to make amends. “I won’t excuse myself, but I was young and foolish-”
“I’m young and foolish when I sneak out of Hogwarts and get drunk” Bella objectified. “Creating a totalitarian regime, where the muggles aren’t more than cattle, is not being young and foolish.”
“I will not explain myself to you” Dumbledore said, raising his chin. “Not when I spent the last fifteen years trying to catch him, and I did. I paid for my sins.”
“Yet I ask myself repeatedly if it was okay to make him pay for what he did and let you go without any consequences.”
“I am not responsible for what happened to your family, Miss Rizzo. I never planned on it. I never thought of it. Grindelwald did that on his own.”
Bella loved to have him cornered. At the end of the day, there was nothing that he could say that it would make her hate him less.
“Now, I see that we will never get along” Albus concluded. “But you must at least try. I’m not someone you want us your enemy.”
“Was that a threat?”
“No, Miss Rizzo, of course not.” Albus stood up and wandered around her. “But like I said, I gave you my shack for those poor soldiers that fought in the war.”
“You had to.” Bella stood up as well. “I know it was you who brought the coke for them. You fucked their lives.”
“Language-”
“Don’t fucking language me, Dumbledore. You owe it to them.”
“Coke is proved to take the fear out of them. It gives them adrenaline.”
“It also causes seizures, nosebleeds, heart attacks, lung-”
“We did what it was needed to be done. Then, we dealt with the consequences.”
“You mean that I dealt with the consequences. I took care of it” Bella argued. “And we did what it was needed to be done? That sounds a lot like Grinelwald’s slogan, doesn’t it? For the greater good... Be careful, Dumbledore. People might realize where your actual loyalty lies.”
“Now, you are making threats.” He stopped walking. “This is what we’ll do. You’ll work for me, once Theseus becomes Minister, and you’ll answer only to me. In return, you can keep your job at the Ministry, and I won’t shut down the clinic.”
“How dare you?”
“It’s time you understand, Miss Rizzo, that you’re living in my world.”
But Belladonna didn’t shiver out of terror. She didn’t kneel after his power like he expected. She just laughed. She burst out laughing like a maniac and just wouldn’t stop.
“What is so funny?”
“It’s just-just the way you said it” she explained while laughing. “You’re living in my world” she mocked him, lowering her tone to sound like him.
“Stop laughing!”
She calmed herself and searched for something in her schoolbag. Then, she took a piece of paper-a contract-and handed it to him.
“I made Aberforth sign an agreement, which stipulates that although the shack still belongs to you, you have no longer control of the property for as long as it is used by the Ministry.”
Albus wanted to crumple the paper with rage. Aberforth’s clear signature was there.
“Thank you, Dumbledore, for lending us the shack in the name of public good.” She took the paper out of his hands. “Welcome to my world, Dumbledore.”
“I told you. You don’t want me as your enemy” he said while she was finally leaving for Charms.