Dumbledore's wall was shut. So was the false door that pretended to be the entrance to his office, and Tom knew that the man inside preferred it that way. Whatever else could be said about him, and an awful lot had been said and written about Tom in recent months, none would argue that he gave up or scared easily. Even so he felt a little trepidation as he knocked on the wall. For a moment the stones stayed rigid before they slipped aside to reveal the professor's chamber.

Tom hadn't been there in months, Dumbledore had been absent for most of them, and the changes were legion. Most obvious was the open window, letting in the summer air, but past that the room was spartan. The numerous devices and objects with no discernable purpose were gone, the sole remaining decoration was Fawkes's perch. The phoenix looked the same of course, immune to the passing of time and shifting circumstances. At last he dragged his eyes from the bird to the professor, recognizing that his delay was driven by nervousness.

Dumbledore had changed. His hair was shot through with white, the auburn at last losing the battle. His beard was neat and shorter, no longer the flowing expanse he'd been so proud of. His eyes were still the same piercing blue, but the face around them was colder. Tom had seen the face before, through Bond's eyes.

"Mr. Riddle." The manners remained, but the geniality had greatly decreased. "What can I do for you?"

The question wasn't one he had an answer for. Since the battle in the Ministry Tom hadn't seen Dumbledore in private, a change that had been jarring yet lost amidst the other results of his victory. He was tempted to prevaricate, but the older man knew him too well for that.

"I just wanted to," he was grateful for the occlumency, just to be certain that the professor couldn't know exactly how ill at ease he was, "clear the air."

"Regarding what?" Dumbledore stood from his desk and moved to the window, looking out across the sundrenched lawn. "I felt your remarks to the papers were quite illuminating."

Tom barely remembered the aftermath of the battle. He'd been drunk on magic, on glory, on his resurrection, and the story that he'd told his audience had surged out without his conscious control or direction. He had killed Bond, and nothing could induce him to lie about it. He'd given credit to Dumbledore for Grindelwald, the professor's exit hadn't allowed him to contradict the story. "I was curious about your sudden distance."

"Curious?" Dumbledore turned back towards him, backlit by the bright afternoon. "If my reasons were obvious to you I suspect the distance would never have been created." It wasn't like the professor to dissemble, but he'd said enough.

"Because I killed Bond? He'd been trying to kill me for months!" Tom was glad he hadn't been invited to sit, leaping to his feet would have showed a greater lack of control than his shout.

Dumbledore wasn't shaken or taken aback, not that Tom expected him to be. "Because you used an Unforgivable."

"So? I've set men's breath aflame inside their chests, turned their blood to molten silver, hell I ripped a Reaper's skin out of time! What makes one lousy curse so different?" He was still shouting he noted, and he'd advanced.

"The Unforgivables are different." Dumbledore's voice was even. "And the circumstances more so."

"He was a wizard of enough power to walk through the Hogwarts wards, to wage a private war on Grindelwald. Cursing him in the back was the smart thing to do!" He tried to match the professor's tone, but by the end he was raging. "We don't all have the luxury of chatting with our enemies or being able to fight them head on!"

"You're correct. I won't pretend that you didn't have cause." Dumbledore met his eyes for the first time since he'd come into the office, and Tom felt the temptation to dive in and see what the professor was trying to say. "You once asked me why I didn't join the government." Tom didn't have the patience for the customary rhetorical pause.

"You said your reason would take a little more trust to share."

"Or a greater cause." Grindelwald's sign, the symbol of the Hallows appeared once more in the air. "I wasn't willing to trust myself with power. I know that I am not immune to its temptations."

"And?"

"You're the greatest student I've ever taught, perhaps the greatest to walk these halls. You drink in knowledge and magic like nothing I've ever seen, and you use it with such fluency I'm gratified to witness it." Dumbledore stepped away, this time to Fawkes. "If I can't trust myself with the strength I have, if I'm unwilling to take responsibility for the problems I can solve out of fear, how can I give another the same ability? Gellert wasn't wrong when he said this was an exile, that I'd retreated from the world."

The professor sat back down, almost slumped. "And here I am, with more power than I know what to do with, each of my actions rippling forth to unknown ends. All I can do is try to do what is right, as best I can see it, rather than what is easy."

"And you don't think I can do the same?" Tom was back at Wool's, back to their first meeting.

The piercing eyes rose up again. "Do you think you can? I'm confident I can't. It's why I came here and why I'm now leaving Hogwarts."

His words didn't register for a moment, Dumbledore was Hogwarts, he was the magic of the castle and the wizarding world embodied into a single man. "You're what?"

"Leaving. Surely you noticed the change in décor." The emptied office took on a new significance. "Europe is a mess, much was raised that must be put down and I don't trust others to do it properly. Inferi have been terrorizing the east, there's an infestation of dementors sweeping from Poland, and of course with the Rätikons out of the picture there's a horde of goblins storming out of the Alps."

Tom couldn't help but feel a surge of pleasure at that, another enemy brought low, but the conversation pulled him back. "And you think that you'll do more good battling creatures than teaching children? What about your passion to shape the world at one remove?"

"I can be more confident in the immediate results, and that is something I'm willing to accept." Dumbledore straightened up, and for a moment it was like the events of the ministry had never happened. "Now Mr. Riddle, before you go I have something of yours."

The professor waved his hand, and Tom would have been convinced it was simple muggle legerdemain except for the faintest twist of magic that accompanied it. Out of nowhere Dumbledore had a wand in his hand, Tom's old wand. "I was in Nurmengard rather briefly, and I happened upon this and I felt you might want it back." Tom numbly accepted the length of yew. "I'm curious which of the two you'll favor now. I myself am going through something similar." Dumbledore stood and ushered him to the hole in the wall. "I'm sure you'll do great things Mr. Riddle. Good luck."

Tom stood in the corridor as the wall closed behind him. Yew in his left hand, holly in his right. The symbolism didn't escape him. He could feel the phoenix fire at their hearts, banked for now but he knew that with a few simple choices it could be brought back its full fury. There was some utility in having two wands he decided.

"No need to choose yet."