The Spying Game and the Shrieking Shack (VERY LONG)

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 39697

I find it hard to argue with a post that posits competent!Snape 
and acknowledges the possibility of evil!Lupin. However, I  
disagree with the central and unspoken premise that the 
situation at the beginning of PoA is identical to the situation 
during the Voldemort years and post-GoF. 

Voldemort is in exile at the beginning of PoA, far more thoroughly 
isolated, weakened and disgraced than Napoleon on St. Helena. 
Even his erstwhile followers have no more use for him. It is very 
unlike the terrorist war you referred to in your post, where even  
jailed  leaders still wielded considerable power and influence 
from their cells, and it might make sense to plant a weakened 
lieutenant in their midst.  

Even if Dumbledore regarded Voldemort's reembodiment as 
ineviteable, and there is no indication of that, I find it hard to 
believe that he and Snape would conspire to bring it about.  The 
fact that Voldemort used Harry's blood offers a gleam of hope but 
no more. It's clear that Dumbledore regards Voldemort's return 
as a catastrophe for the entire wizarding world. It's not 
something he wanted to have happen. 

 I also don't like the idea of Harry as a puppet in the shack, 
manipulated into doing whatever Dumbledore and Snape have 
in mind. It undermines the theme of choices. 

Eleven year old Harry's belief that Dumbledore knows more or 
less everything is, IMO, as much hero-worship as anything else.   
In each book we see Dumbledore exercising less and less 
control over events. To have Snape micromanaging the end of 
PoA in the fashion you suggest would not be in keeping with the 
pattern. 

Pippin