Dumbledore had actually drifted off for a moment just now.
For some reason, watching these clamoring wizards made him suddenly feel weary.
By Grindelwald's reasoning, at his age, shouldn't he be enjoying what remained of his life? Was it really worth trapping himself in matters like this and exhausting himself for wizards he did not even particularly like?
Grindelwald said he was clinging to power, but Dumbledore did not think so. He had never been overly attached to power. As he looked at these wizards, what rose within him was... pity, sympathy, compassion, and concern.
They were all still too young. In the wizards shouting that Murphy should be wiped out entirely, Dumbledore saw shadows of his younger self and Grindelwald. In the moderate opposition, he saw his middle-aged self. And those silent, stern neutrals who rarely spoke—they were so much like Aberforth.
From the perspective of an elder who had lived for more than a century, he could almost see his former self in every one of them. He could understand them and sympathize with them, and so he could tolerate them.
He could accept their mistakes because he had made mistakes himself. He could accept their burning ambitions for power because he too had felt power's fatal allure. He even felt deep sympathy and pity for some Death Eaters, and even Voldemort.
He understood the fragility of human nature, the insignificance of mankind, and the selfishness and fickleness of the heart. Thus, he understood the complexity of others and how little control they sometimes had over themselves.
He saw everyone struggling painfully upon their own battlefield. He wanted to offer a hand whenever possible, yet too much experience had taught him that he was better off standing aside.
Yet he could not do nothing.
As the individual who