"You've raised the ceiling for wizards. I can even imagine that, once your theories become widespread, young wizards will graduate from Magic School with at least the level of a Master."
"Perhaps by then, anyone hoping to become a professor at a Magic School will need to be at least as skilled as Dumbledore."
Anton ushered the four of them up to the second floor of the old Cabin. As the excited chatter of their friends downstairs drifted up, Grindelwald spoke slowly, his face filled with emotion.
Professor McGonagall gave a scornful, almost combative laugh. "That sounds like a wonderful thing!"
Grindelwald raised an eyebrow. "Who knows?"
Dumbledore paid no attention to their argument. He merely rubbed the strange Ring on his finger, leaned against the wall by the stairs, and listened quietly to the discussion downstairs.
As he listened, a kindly smile spread across his face.
"Good. They're all good children."
And rather amusing, too.
He imagined himself as Harry, perhaps Professor McGonagall as Hermione, and Grindelwald as Draco.
After all, the arguments upstairs and downstairs were so perfectly in sync that he really couldn't help laughing.
At last, when Gellert and Minerva had finished arguing, he looked up at his two old friends. "Perhaps this really is a new era. I think the future truly does belong to them. It seems like a promising possibility."
Perhaps Gellert still had ambitions and a desire to do something, to guide the world in some way. But Dumbledore was truly tired.
Especially...
Ever since Anton had blasted Voldemort to smithereens in front of so many people in New York, the subtle shifts in the balance of power had made Dumbledore genuinely weary of facing all that petty politicking again.
He really was old.
Nicolas Flamel had once told him that, having