AD's reasoning on Nov. 1 (was Who should raise Harry)

[Ebony AKA AngieJ]

No: HPFGUIDX 11419

I'm re-reading PS/SS this week... and thinking about Penny's "Sudden 
Thought About the Dursleys" thread.

> Monika wrote:
> 
> >Maybe Dumbledore didn't warn Hagrid about Sirius because he didn't
> >think he would meet him at the Potter's house. If you have just
> >murdered your best friends, you won't usually stay put and wait 
until the police (or the hit wizards) get you.

Amy Z responded:
> Good point.  But doesn't he need to warn him that there's still 
> someone out there who wants to kill Harry?
> 
> I guess I can accept that he just thought this way was safest.  Or 
> that he was sure the traitor, knowing that his master was unable to 
> kill Harry, wouldn't dare try it himself.  He was right about 
that.  Peter must've known, since the entire wizarding world did, 
that Harry had survived--but when V fell, instead of trying to finish 
what V had started he saved his own skin.
> 

I'm also impressed with Dumbledore's reasoning on November 1, 1981.

What do you think of the choice he made for Harry's upbringing?

It has been argued here that the Dursleys were abusive.  Child abuse 
of any form IMO is... well, I'll keep my strong opinions on that 
subject to myself.  But today I realized that it was the wise Albus 
Dumbledore that *chose* for Harry to live with the Dursleys.  (Quick 
rhetorical question--does the Hogwarts Headmaster usually function as 
the Department of Social Services equivalent in such cases?  Or is 
there a Ministry agency that usually handles such cases?)

My question--did Dumbledore make the wisest choice possible?   Did he 
make the *only* choice possible?

If there is nothing special about Harry, and if Voldemort is not evil 
incarnate in this fictional universe... why did Harry grow up in that 
cupboard under the stairs?  Wouldn't adoption by sympathetic Muggles 
have been a plausible solution?  (There are a number of Muggles who 
know about wizards anyway... think of all those parents of Muggle-
born Hogwarts students, etc.--one of my arguments against a large 
Hogwarts/wizarding world should be obvious here.)

Why did Harry have to grow up with a blood relative in the first 
place?

Why was it so important that this particular child lived?

I'm reminded of other children who were similarly protected in other 
narratives.  All of those children were *different* in some way.

Would someone who does not subscribe to the "There's Something 
Special About Harry" theories please explain away PS/SS Ch. 1?  Even 
the opening seems to foreshadow his unique status.

--Ebony