Dumbledore (was: The Sorting Hat)

[Geoff Bannister]

No: HPFGUIDX 87379

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "arrowsmithbt" 
<arrowsmithbt at b...> wrote:

Kneasy:
> Geoff, Geoff, poor lad; so trusting, so innocent.
> 
> The Ministry of  Magic, like any other Ministry is a bureaucracy. 
Lots of
> ambitious pen-pushers, paper-filers and possibly origami merchants 
all 
> over the place. It runs on meetings and files. That wouldn't suit 
DD at all.
> Fudge fits into that sort of structure; probably packs the meetings 
with
> placemen who support everything he proposes - "All those in favour? 
All
> those against please update your CVs." Even so, he has to tell 
other people
> what  he's doing and what he plans to do. When people complain, and 
> start demanding that he do something, he has to respond in some way
> even if the  answer is "No." He has to justify what he does. 
> 

<Snip>

> But DD at Hogwarts is master of all he surveys (at least until a 
Dolly
> Umbridge turns up; even then she can be circumvented). He can make
> decisions, meet 'undesirables', influence people and events and 
who's to
> know?
> 
> His staff is hand-picked and he knows what everybody is up to. His 
word,
> or rather suggestion, is law. At Hogwarts he is a Dictator de 
facto. Out
> there in the wilds but still within easy reach of and in contact 
with all his 
> little friends, sitting in his study doing who knows what. And he 
doesn't 
> have to tell anyone anything. He's a spider, interpreting  the 
vibrations of 
> his web and spinning his plans accordingly. It sounds worse than it 
is;
> I  don't think he's ESE!DD so much  as Devious!DD.
> 

Trusting, innocent? Oho no, I'm not, I'm a bit more streetwise than 
that. Remember I speak as an ex-teacher who had a fair amount of 
administrative experience and clout. Your view of Dumbledore as 
headmaster probably held water until about 1986-87. In fact, I 
acknowledge that all my "real" teacher training came from a Welsh 
head like Dumbledore who was his own master under whom I worked for 
12 years. In my last few years, the then headmaster of my school (and 
most of us staff) had more than enough of Ministry type thinking 
thrown at him, especially after Keith Joseph became Secretary of 
State. I could write reams about the fun and games with the National 
Curriculum except it would be off-topic. Origami? When I took early 
retirement, four of my colleagues also did at the same time because 
we were tired of climbing a paper mountain and getting diverted from 
the task of teaching which is why we were in the profession.

Pen-pushing or not, Fudge managed to keep the return of Voldemort 
under wraps for a year by keeping Dumbledore sidelined and by trying 
to boot Harry out of Hogwarts and started this by arranging the 
destruction of Barty Crouch. He was in a way reminiscent of Neville 
Chamberlain. What did friend Dumbledore have to say?

"'You are blinded.... by the love of the office you hold, 
Cornelius!.... I tell you now - take the steps I have suggested and 
you will be remembered in office or out as one of the bravest and 
greatest Ministers for Magic we have ever known. Fail to act - and 
history will remember you as the man who stepped aside and allowed 
Voldemort a second chance to destroy the world we have tried to 
rebuild!'"

(GOF "The Parting of the ways" pp. 614-15 UK edition)

Hypothetical question. What would Devious!Dumbledore as you term him 
have done in a similar position?