Riddle's popularity/Dumbledore and evil (was re: Dicu...

[marinafrants]

No: HPFGUIDX 37668

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., Edblanning at a... wrote:

> I think perhaps Kel, who originally raised this point and I are both
a bit 
> guilty of over-egging the pudding, as clearly, Dumbledore *did* do
something: 
> he enabled Hagrid to stay at Hogwarts. But the system rewarded
Riddle and 
> that was the original point. The innocent still got punished and the 
> evil-doer still got rewarded.

It looks to me as if Dumbledore did as much as was in his power to do
at the time.  He was just another teacher then, not Headmaster or even
Deputy Headmaster; and it seems that all he had against Tom was a
suspicion, no actual evidence.  So he was not in a position to punish
Tom.  All he could do was minimize the harm done to Hagrid.  In fact,
even if Dumbledore *had* had the power to punish Tom, doing so on a
mere suspicion would've been wrong.  The framing of Hagrid was a
miscarriage of justice, but a system in which a powerful man could
say, "no, don't punish this guy, punish this other guy, because I say
so" would be open to far greater and more frequent injustices, I
think.

Marina
rusalka at ix.netcom.com