Chapter 744

"I'm not like you, Tierra," Dumbledore said in a mournful tone. "Your life has been perfect. You have no scars that can never heal, no regrets you will carry for the rest of your life."

"Do you mean your sister and Grindelwald?" Tierra asked.

"Yes, Tierra, them exactly. The loss of my sister, Ariana, has always filled me with pain and regret." Dumbledore nodded. "As for Grindelwald... my relationship with him was even more complicated. We were once close friends who could tell each other anything, comrades who fought side by side, but in the end..."

"Headmaster Dumbledore, you should know that if you wanted, I could—" Tierra offered.

"No. No need." Dumbledore refused. "What happened to us has already happened. No matter how smoothly you plaster over a wall after nails have been driven into it, you cannot change the fact that the wall was once covered in scars."

"We cannot recklessly change the past simply because we have learned this magic. Our lives are not video games. There should not be save points in our lives," Dumbledore said.

Dumbledore's words carried a deep sense of guilt and self-reproach.

He understood Tierra's good intentions, but Dumbledore rejected the proposal because he knew that the imperfections of the past, the things that could not be changed, were part of life.

"You are a Godhood Attainer," Dumbledore continued. "You should understand better than any of us what an anchor of personality is, what it is that defines me as myself."

"My dear sister Ariana... and Grindelwald, my failed dearest friend. They were both important figures in my life. Their existence and our experiences shaped me into who I am now. My past defines me as myself."

"Life is not a video game, not something where we can reload and start over