HP Thirty-Five Owls

Dear Gellert:

No matter how terrible this day is in superstition, today is another peaceful NO.13.It's a good time in England, very quiet.Even though you were still angry, you still wrote me back.I see again between the lines the poetic gift that made your speech so sparkly when you were young.

Yes, I know exactly what I did to you.I will not apologize for those necessary things.Someone has to stop you from having this or that power any longer, so that you can stop hurting the world.For—well, for those great causes.And given that I'm such a bigoted old man - a student made this memorable comment about me a few weeks ago - I would never have murdered you either. (Looks like I've got some gray hairs already, too.) And it makes me sad to think that a brilliantly gifted soul like yours is wasting all this time.It also makes me sad to hear what happened to you.I hope this provides you with at least a little fun.

I think you deserve to know, Gellert, my secret plans for what I can win from you in a duel. (I admit, I share your penchant for strict rhetoric, given the nature it implies.) If I succeed in breaking its bloody lineage, I want to take it to my grave... ...well, I'm a bigot, as they say.But, based on everything I've seen now, I believe it's a better bet for the world.

This is one of those particular things I can't predict your reaction to.I have to admit it.

I have to apologize again because—if you were trying to teach me Russian geography when you were fiddling with those ice cubes, I'm afraid you failed.Because I was so absent-minded at that time that I couldn't concentrate.I thought it was kind of weird, even though we'd known each other for like two months at the time, and I have to admit the passion was charming, but you brought it up too often.Is that short period of time that you left behind when you left, is it really that important to you?

You should have told me earlier what the guards did to you, and I'd have them replaced right away, just a bunch of small favors.Believe me, I never wanted your punishment to include such degradation.The truth of what you said makes me suffer with guilt.

i have to go to work

Thanks.

Albus Dumbledore

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Coincidentally, the date of this letter is a day when disasters often occur, and apparently "today" is all right!