“Thank you,” said Dumbledore softly.
He did not look at Harry at first, but walked over to the perch beside the door and withdrew, from an inside pocket of his robes, the tiny, ugly, featherless Fawkes, whom he placed gently on the tray of soft ashes beneath the golden post where the full-grown Fawkes usually stood.
“Well, Harry,” said Dumbledore, finally turning away from the baby bird, “you will be pleased to hear that none of your fellow students are going to suffer lasting damage from the night’s events.”
Harry tried to say “Good,” but no sound came out. It seemed to him that Dumbledore was reminding him of the amount of damage he had caused by his actions tonight, and although Dumbledore was for once looking at him directly, and though his expression was kindly rather than accusatory, Harry could not bear to meet his eyes.
“Madam Pomfrey is patching everybody up now,” said Dumbledore. “Nymphadora Tonks may need to spend a little time in St. Mungo’s, but it seems that she will make a full recovery.”
Harry contented himself with nodding at the carpet, which was growing lighter as the sky outside grew paler. He was sure that all the portraits around the room were listening eagerly to every word Dumbledore spoke, wondering where Dumbledore and Harry had been and why there had been injuries.
“I know how you are feeling, Harry,” said Dumbledore very quietly.
“No, you don’t,” said Harry, and his voice was suddenly loud and strong. White-hot anger leapt inside him. Dumbledore knew nothing about his feelings.
“You see, Dumbledore?” said Phineas Nigellus slyly. “Never try to understand the students. They hate it. They would much rather be tragically misunderstood, wallow in self-pity, stew in their own —”
“That’s enough, Phineas,” said Dumbledore.
Harry turned his back on Dumbledore and stared determinedly out of the opposite window. He could see the Quidditch stadium in the distance. Sirius had appeared there once, disguised as the shaggy black dog, so he could watch Harry play. . . . He had probably come to see whether Harry was as good as James had been. . . . Harry had never asked him. . . .
“There is no shame in what you are feeling, Harry,” said Dumbledore’s voice. “On the contrary . . . the fact that you can feel pain like this is your greatest strength.”
Harry felt the white-hot anger lick his insides, blazing in the terrible emptiness, filling him with the desire to hurt Dumbledore for his calmness and his empty words.
“My greatest strength, is it?” said Harry, his voice shaking as he stared out at the Quidditch stadium, no longer seeing it. “You haven’t got a clue. . . . You don’t know . . .”
“What don’t I know?” asked Dumbledore calmly.
It was too much. Harry turned around, shaking with rage.
“I don’t want to talk about how I feel, all right?”
“Harry, suffering like this proves you are still a man! This pain is part of being human —”
“THEN — I — DON’T — WANT — TO — BE — HUMAN!” Harry roared, and he seized one of the delicate silver instruments from the spindle-legged table beside him and flung it across the room. It shattered into a hundred tiny pieces against the wall. Several of the pictures let out yells of anger and fright, and the portrait of Armando Dippet said, “Really!”
“I DON’T CARE!” Harry yelled at them, snatching up a lunascope and throwing it into the fireplace. “I’VE HAD ENOUGH, I’VE SEEN ENOUGH, I WANT OUT, I WANT IT TO END, I DON’T CARE ANYMORE —”
He seized the table on which the silver instrument had stood and threw that too. It broke apart on the floor and the legs rolled in different directions.
“You do care,” said Dumbledore. He had not flinched or made a single move to stop Harry demolishing his office. His expression was calm, almost detached. “You care so much you feel as though you will bleed to death with the pain of it.”
“I — DON’T!” Harry screamed, so loudly that he felt his throat might tear, and for a second he wanted to rush at Dumbledore and break him too; shatter that calm old face, shake him, hurt him, make him feel some tiny part of the horror inside Harry.
“Oh yes, you do,” said Dumbledore, still more calmly. “You have now lost your mother, your father, and the closest thing to a parent you have ever known. Of course you care.”
“YOU DON’T KNOW HOW I FEEL!” Harry roared. “YOU — STANDING THERE — YOU —”
But words were no longer enough, smashing things was no more help. He wanted to run, he wanted to keep running and never look back, he wanted to be somewhere he could not see the clear blue eyes staring at him, that hatefully calm old face. He ran to the door, seized the doorknob again, and wrenched at it.
But the door would not open.
Harry turned back to Dumbledore.
“Let me out,” he said. He was shaking from head to foot.
“No,” said Dumbledore simply.
For a few seconds they stared at each other.
“Let me out,” Harry said again.
“No,” Dumbledore repeated.
“If you don’t — if you keep me in here — if you don’t let me —”
“By all means continue destroying my possessions,” said Dumbledore serenely. “I daresay I have too many.”
He walked around his desk and sat down behind it, watching Harry.
“Let me out,” Harry said yet again, in a voice that was cold and almost as calm as Dumbledore’s.
“Not until I have had my say,” said Dumbledore.
“Do you — do you think I want to — do you think I give a — I DON’T CARE WHAT YOU’VE GOT TO SAY!” Harry roared. “I don’t want to hear anything you’ve got to say!”
“You will,” said Dumbledore sadly. “Because you are not nearly as angry with me as you ought to be. If you are to attack me, as I know you are close to doing, I would like to have thoroughly earned it.”