"Let it sit for a while?" Jacob Kowalski repeated, lightly tapping his fingertips against the edge of the table, looking thoughtful.
"Yes." Dumbledore interlaced his fingers over his lap. "If I had brought up this magic from the very beginning, it would be like this morning, when I didn't finish my raspberry oatmeal fruit yogurt cup..."
"When you followed my recommendation and tried this 'raspberry oatmeal fruit yogurt cup,' you might offer it a few compliments, but you wouldn't actively want to have it—to taste it for yourself."
With Dumbledore putting it that way, Jacob Kowalski understood. "Mr. Dumbledore, that does seem to be the case..."
A knowing smile appeared on his face. "Otherwise, I wouldn't have said what I did to you before the morning meeting ended."
"Exactly!" Dumbledore said. "That was why I didn't need to disrupt the pace of the meeting. I should have simply presided over it properly."
"They would speak up of their own accord. During their reports, they would feel the helplessness and frustration of facing a new threat."
"That reminds me of my grandfather..." Jacob Kowalski's voice lowered as he looked into the distance, his tone tinged with remembrance.
"Ah..." Dumbledore sighed sentimentally. "He was a very interesting man, and his bread was quite good too. It was just a little lacking in sweetness."
"My grandfather once told me about something like that..." Jacob Kowalski continued. "When he was fighting in the war, his supplies nearly failed to arrive in time, and he almost starved to death on the battlefield..."
"When he was nearly desperate and had begun eyeing his boots, the supplies finally arrived... Even though all that reached him was a tin of the same awful canned food he had seen every day before."
"But not a single soldier refused that