Dishwashers , Puppy hunts and werewolf excursions

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 39896


I wrote:
>>> The situation changes when Sirius turns up missing and 
 evidence is found that he planned to declare himself openly for 
 Voldemort when the Potters died. Then Dumbledore wants 
 Sirius found. The Ministry has far better resources for a 
 puppy-hunt than Dumbledore has, once they bestir themselves. 
 It doesn't make sense for Dumbledore to hold back any 
 information that will help locate Black. Better to find him first, 
 and *if* he turns out to be innocent of betraying the Potters, and 
 *if* the Ministry is able to substantiate that Black is an 
 animagus, then Dumbledore can worry about helping Black 
beat the  unregistered animagus rap. <<<

Pip:
>Several questions with this - firstly, what evidence? What Fudge 
says is ''Black was tired of his double-agent role, he was ready 
to declare his support openly for you-know-who, and he seems 
to have planned this for the moment of the Potters' death.'' (PoA, 
p. 153, UK hardback)

This could be taken to mean a) Fudge is indulging in 
after-the-event speculation
b) Peter planted evidence that was found *after* the street fight. 
That the Ministry had evidence *before* the street fight is only 
one possiblity out of several - c), in fact.<<<

So, according to a) and b) there never was a puppy-hunt. Fudge 
is giving the misleading impression that the Ministry was 
pursuing Black prior to his attack on the Muggles, when in fact 
they didn't have a clue. They not only didn't catch up with him first, 
they weren't chasing him at all.  If it hadn't been for Pettigrew's 
supposed heroism, Black would have got away clean. Very 
ingenious, and in character for Fudge, except that the person in 
charge of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement at the 
time was the now discredited  Barty Crouch, Sr. Why would 
Fudge be trying to make him look good now, twelve years after 
the fact? Or is Fudge covering for Dumbledore? Because this 
really makes Dumbledore look useless--he spends twelve 
hours or whatever totally involved (no multi-tasking for him!) in 
arranging some extra protection for  the one person who already 
has more protection than anyone else, while a murderer is on 
the loose and a threat to innocent people, twelve of whom 
eventually die.

Pip:
>>I stand by the ambiguity of the canon. Dumbledore says 'an 
extraordinary achievement - not least keeping it quiet from 
me'(PoA p. 312) when he could have said 'an extraordinary 
acheivement - not least that it's one of the few things I've never 
found out' or something else equally unambiguous. (See post 
39841)<<

If Dumbledore only uses ambiguity when the truth is the 
opposite of his surface meaning, that's not actually very clever. I 
really must invite him over for a round of poker some time <g>.

I don't think Dumbledore would be above allowing a little whisper 
of doubt to exist in young Harry's mind about whether James et 
al had actually gotten clean away with it, if only to cover his 
chagrin that they had done so indeed. <g>
Miss Marple would understand.

BTW, if Dumbledore didn't know about the Secret Keeper switch, 
what made him so sure that Pettigrew was really a Death Eater? 
Pettigrew could have been in hiding because he put the Death 
Eaters' best man in Azkaban, just as he claimed.  Would 
Dumbledore allow a known Death Eater to murder a man whose 
only crime was choosing to live as a harmless rat? 

What troubles me about the whole MAGIC DISHWASHER 
scenario is that it's all predicated on the idea that Voldemort can't 
be killed while he's a disembodied spirit. Dumbledore has to 
force him to re-embody so that he can be destroyed, lest 
Dumbledore perish of old age before Harry is ready to carry on 
the fight.

There must have been some way to destroy the disembodied 
Voldemort, or he would have had no reason to stay hidden. 
Perhaps it was a means, such as Dementors, that Dumbledore 
would never use. But the mere threat of it was enough to keep 
Voldemort in hiding. In the twelve years before Pettigrew returned 
to him, Voldemort managed to kill exactly one person. That 
situation doesn't change  if Dumbledore dies.  It changes if 
Voldemort comes back. 

Voldemort has to come back before he can resume his career 
as a ruthless killer. If he refrains from killing, Dumbledore has 
no interest in him. He doesn't care who rules the wizarding world 
and he doesn't care about immortality. As long as they're not 
aiding Voldemort, Flamel and Fudge and even Lucius Malfoy can 
do as they please with Dumbledore's blessing. Dumbledore 
isn't trying to prevent Voldemort from coming back as an 
immortal. He's trying to keep Voldemort from coming back at all.


Applying Grey Wolf's strategy lesson, Voldemort would have tried 
his best scheme for coming back first. The first and best option 
was for a faithful servant to return to him...for this Voldemort was 
willing to endure ten horribly painful years of staving off death by 
sheer effort of will. He might have been lying about that, but why? 
Surely not to gain sympathy <g>.

 Each successive scheme  for coming back, including 
persuading someone to steal the Stone for him, using a 
possessed body to steal the Stone, etc.  must have been less 
desireable than the one preceding it. Why would Dumbledore 
choose the best option to facilitate  when Voldemort himself had 
given up on it?

 Voldemort is in successively worse positions after PS and CoS. 
Dumbledore was *winning*...why take the chance that Pettigrew 
will flee to Voldemort before Harry has a chance to spare his 
life?

It nearly happened. Probably the only reason Pettigrew remained 
hiding in Hagrid's hut after faking his death again was that he 
couldn't  get past the Dementors or didn't dare to try.  Being an 
animagus was no protection from them, since they can drain the 
magic from a wizard if there are enough of them. It only works for 
Sirius because he knows, with doggish purity of heart, that he is 
innocent. Pettigrew knows no such thing. But all Pettigrew has to 
do is wait until Harry goes home again and the Dementor 
guards will leave. He came within a week  of succeeding. He 
was discovered only by accident, when Hermione broke the jug. 

Finally, this last argument against Dumbledore the extremely 
grey. Dumbledore's relationships are built on trust. Those who 
have known him best and longest trust him most: Snape, 
McGonagall, and most tellingly  Fawkes, whom only loyalty can 
tame. LeCarre spymasters may be revered, but they are not 
trusted except by the most gullible of their tools, and those never 
last long in the Spying Game.

Pippin, wondering whether the grave yard post will refute all this.