February 2nd, 1982
Gellert,
My sincerity is mine, to do with as I will; if I spend it on an old, angry friend, that is my choice. And—I have more of it than you think, I swear, somehow I do. I always try to be better.
As for England spawning a Dark Lord—
I'd had my suspicions, ever since I first met him. He was eleven; I was sent to contact him, in the Muggle world, inform him of his acceptance into Hogwarts and a world he'd never known. Even then, he was hungry, suspicious, cruel just under the surface. Off-putting. Sorted into Slytherin, and I wondered; and I thought of keeping an eye on him. But I was such a meddling, sanctimonious old bastard, wasn't I? Always poking my long broken nose into other people's business, always making things worse when I did.
He learned, he grew, into what he was to become, at Hogwarts, even as I taught. He made his first Horcrux right under my selfsame nose, and I wasn't paying attention. Because Europe was groaning under your yoke; because I wrestled with the necessity of challenging you; because I didn't want to meddle in yet another child's life.
Oh, I tell myself it wouldn't have made a difference if I had. Or that it would have made things worse. But my country fell to a Dark Lord until—yes, stopped by an infant—because I didn't stop him soon enough, because I didn't stay his hand when he was still a child, still learning his ways. Because I was trying to be better.
In a way, it seems the thing I miss the most about those months we had together, however selfishly, is how I could let you command me. Abdicate responsibility to one I trusted—however mad I may have been to trust you. Abdicate responsibility at all; it's not a choice I have anymore. And you've been left with no responsibilities whatsoever.
I suppose we each envy the other. And I suppose we have nothing left to say to each other but denials and rejections. I—wish it were otherwise, at times.

March 16th, 1982
Darling Albus—
You really are a contemptible bitch, do you know that? I mean, that's magnificent. That really is. Over the top. Beyond the pale. When in all nine hells are you going to learn that it isn't all about your guilt? Verdammter Schweinhund, don't you even remember why you won our duel?
I know more of you than anyone else in the world, Albus P.W.B. Dumbledore. Go kill your Dark Lord and get it over with. Stop blaming yourself and be brilliant, like you used to be, fly free, let the world tremble before you—except that would mean cruelty, wouldn't it? But every moment of your life is cruelty. Set down truth for once and admit it!
You don't have to lie to me, old friend. Oh, I'm laughing so hard at you right now. I've had you stripped and bound and begging me to bugger you—well, as much as you ever begged anyone in your life, you vain fool—of all people, you don't have to lie to me.
Do away with Voldemort. Tell me why you won. Admit what you are. Or bloody well stop this nonsense and save your owls the trouble.

June 27th, 1982
Grindelwald,
The truth, as you asked: I do not know what you mean—why I won the duel? I do not know. It should not have happened. I cannot do as you say. And I am tired of opening letters full of knives. Tired of feeling vises about my chest when your owls arrive.
I miss our earlier correspondence. I truly do. I miss—you, even, the moments of kindness you used to show, all those years ago, before you left down the dark path entirely. The way you touched me, in consolation, when you first met my sister. But now, perhaps, there is nothing left but this.
My apologies, but I do not think I shall be writing again.

July 10th, 1982
Dumbledore—
You're still lying, damn you. Schwanzlutscher.

August 9th, 1989
Dumbledore—
I've started too many letters and crumpled them unsent. I'm sorry. Write to me?
Lonely.
[sealed with a charm which opens only to a drop of Gellert Grindelwald's blood]

December 25th, 1995
Gellert,
A Christmas letter, after all this time. I must confess that I have not held to your wishes. Voldemort remains undefeated, and he has recently returned in full health, after his brush with what he so feared, and begun to gather followers. Horcruxes, old friend. Horcruxes and dozens of other defenses. And, on my word, I do not lie. I do not know why I won, in the end. I do not know what you want me to say.
And I know—that I said I would not write again. And I accept your apology, of course, years ago. But I cannot think what else to do. I beg of you patience...
I suppose by now you must have heard of Harry Potter.
I send this to you in the deepest confidence. As I remember writing long ago, I have no true intimates. Peculiar as it is, after all the years of silence and all the anger, you are the man whom I trust most with—this. With a matter of no consequence to the war, to England, to Voldemort—
Harry Potter started at Hogwarts five years ago. He was Sorted into Gryffindor House, which I doubt surprises you. His academics are on the upper side of average, his teacher relations generally neutral, and his friendships unbreakable as diamonds. He was raised by an abusive, neglectful Muggle family, utterly miserable until he came to Hogwarts, and that was my will, for it was necessary to protect him. Necessary to condemn him to a horrible childhood. His entire life is bound up in old magic, wild philomency, things Voldemort refuses to acknowledge and which even you and I barely plumbed the existence of. He is both ordinary and extraordinary at once, and it strains my wit to describe him.
He has suffered so, so much for a boy so young. And so much of it at my hands, even if indirectly. And—he does not know. He has not even the faintest clue of the true weight of it.
His fate is entwined with Voldemort's. Magic beyond logic or reason—
Gellert, I must send him to his death.
I had tried for so many years not to see it. A shred of Voldemort's soul, so torn from the creation of his Horcruxes, dislodged when the Killing Curse backfired and stuck in an innocent boy. There is a prophecy. Twin serpents in the smoke of the pathfinder. Old, old, antediluvian magic—
I cannot tell him. How could I? He must realize it himself—
He is a good boy, Gellert. He is tough and brave and mostly clever, and he deserves better. He deserves to grow up and grow old and fall in love and herd about children and write crochety letters. He deserves to bury Voldemort and move on to his own life, free of fates and scars and nonsense, and I would give my life to make it so, but I cannot, not ever, because that is not how things are.
I feared you, when I realized the extent of your plans, the terror of your rule, the Muggle-torture. When you fled from Ariana's body like a common cut-throat. And I was angry, yes, of course. So very angry. But I never hated you. I never wished upon you the worst thing in the world. And hence you wake and sleep and eat and breathe, and do not burn in the everlasting furnace of phoenix fire into which I would cast Voldemort—no, Tom Riddle, that is his name, the rest is affectation—into which I would cast the man who bound Harry to his fate, I hate him so, I hate him to the marrow of my bones—
You do not cling to life like a canker. That is remorse enough for me, no matter what you may think. And for a Dark wizard, you have a surprisingly healthy relationship with death—
Listen to me. I am sorry. I write to you in despair and burden you with an old man's insoluble worries, after we both said there was nothing left between us but bitterness. But, Gellert. I send him to his death. For the greater good.
You claim Nurmengard and I will not break you. And perhaps they have not. But, Gellert, Tom and Harry have broken me. You're stronger than me in the end, I suppose.
Oh, but there is a chance! a faint glimmer of a chance that he might just survive. That Harry might live—damaged, no doubt, shell-shocked as the Muggles would say, but alive.
But sometimes hope is more painful than surrender.
Ignore me. Laugh at me. I send an innocent boy to war and torture and death, because I must do what is necessary, because I must not apologize for what is necessary. Look over your door, Gellert—I still live by those bloody, cursed words—
Only you could possibly appreciate what this means. The full irony of it. Only you, old friend, after everything we've done and all this time we've spent hurting each other.
I never knew the way. For all that I am a sanctimonious old bastard, I never knew the way. I only tried to help, to do what I thought would be right, would be successful. And this is where it ends, sending a child to die—everything I touch, everyone I love, turning to dust—I admit what I am, Gellert, I am a monster—
I—must stop this. I'm sorry.
P.S. for both of us
[enclosure: a package of sherbet lemons]

January of 1996, perhaps—
Albus—
Fifty years. I have been here fifty shit-scraping years. And in all that time, you—you of all people—never sent me sweets. Just the smell of them made me shake with joy. It was the most glorious thing I've tasted in my life.
Fifty years. My body is a skeleton pecked with sores, I can barely remember how I could have been beautiful once. I'm the only inmate alive. The guards have left. An ancient house elf shoves the food between the bars. Even the charms on my watch are fading. The hands waver, the calendar's nearly dead. I think an owl takes three days or so to get from Hogwarts to here? More, perhaps, these days? Is the world expanding beneath me? Is that why I've become so distant? So it must be sometimes in January, the sun's in about the right place.
But I am nothing to you anymore but an ear. Writing ancient lovers tearful letters in your Christmas sherry again, Albus? Back & forth we go, back & forth. Your hand hasn't even changed. I'm running out of parchment. Most of my correspondents are dead. I've read every book in this room a dozen times. I suppose Fawkes is still there? Everything as it always was?
I don't bother to sleep anymore. If I read Gertrude in delirium, she almost makes sense. Words of one, two syllables. Listen to me.
Poor Albus. I'm barely even angry with you anymore. Scheisse, I almost feel sorry for you. You never had children, did you? Never married, never settled down? You'll just die and take It and the Potter boy with you, leaving nothing but pretty birdsong & a bag of candy.
But this means you have something in common with me. You and I—we fall in love with people better than us, and we do it badly. I let you win that duel because I thought you would save me, you betraying bastard, and you left me to rot instead. You don't care about anyone but the boy anymore, I know. But you will not break me. You will not break me.
We're getting too old. We belong a century ago by the millstream, Albus, not rotting away in our towers caught on the horns of the world. We belong at the beginning, where our brilliance is not weighted by responsibility, our beauty not marred by age. Before the consequences start breaking us.
I've stopped thinking of you, those times in the past. I've tried to stop thinking of anything, really. Just back & forth across my cell. Words over the door. Triangles and circles and lines.
You're right. One boy, at least, should walk away with a good life. Ours are long, long destroyed.

June 9th, 1997
Gellert—
V researching wands—shares cores with H's, Priori Incantatem incident—he is seeking an alternative to his chosen wand—
Gellert, if he realizes of Its existence—if he traces It to Gr.—Legilimency—he will come for you—he will do to you what he fears the most—he will kill you—it may be inevitable—
Sorry to be brusque. Am running out of time. You deserve a warning.
Farewell,

August 21st, 1997
Return owl to sender. Recipient, Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore, deceased.
Our condolences,
The Owlery Office
Ministry of Magic

[the End]

dd

dd 众所周知，哈吧是个学英语吧

您好，翻译请贴出作者及授权图（3楼看不到了

我好像没看到gg写的最后一封信的英文