Harry's behavior was Re: Riddle's information re:

[jwcpgh]

No: HPFGUIDX 83915

> > --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Jen Reese" 
> <stevejjen at e...> 
> > <snip>
> > He [DD]doesn't want another Tom Riddle on his hands, in other 
> words, a bitter, manipulative, revenge-seeking adolescent who 
makes his choices from blind rage more than anything else.
> > 
> > Laura:
> > 
> > Well, he sure succeeded, didn't he?  Harry doesn't have the 
> > manipulation thing down but the rest of it sounds unpleasantly 
> > familiar...

 Pippin
> It's Harry at the beginning of OOP, when he doesn't understand 
> what's going on. But when he's finally told, he's not bitter at 
the  whole world, only Snape. He's not plotting to kill the Dursleys 
or turn a monster loose on Hogwarts.
> 
>  I think that part of Dumbledore's plan succeeded, though not as 
> well as Dumbledore might have hoped. And really, suppose that 
> Dumbledore had spilled all the beans at the beginning of OOP. 
> Voldemort would have learned all he needed to know about the 
> Prophecy, and also, perhaps, been able to breach Fideliius 
> through the link with Harry's mind. Then he would have attacked 
> the Order. And who's to say that Sirius would have survived?

Laura responds:

I agree that at the end of OoP, Harry seems to have reached a point 
of emotional equilibrium.  He's been able to cry for Sirius and has 
begun to accept the finality of his death.  He has experienced 
public acts of support from his friends and adult mentors, both on 
the train back from school and at the station.  So when we meet him 
again in book 6 (sooner rather than later, we hope!) we may see a 
less angry Harry.  But...

If Harry's not still furious with DD in book 6, I'll be mightily 
surprised.  I still think that the prophecy is a great big old red 
herring.  I haven't yet read a compelling explanation for why LV had 
to be kept from knowing what it said.  That's where I think DD made 
his big miscalculation.  Abigail pointed out in a recent post that 
DD has his skills but managing people isn't among them, at least of 
late.  DD assumed that telling Harry everything would cause him pain 
and anxiety.  Well, it should have been pretty darned obvious that 
keeping him ignorant was doing that very effectively.  DD knows 
Harry very well, and he should have known that Harry wasn't going to 
sit around passively with his hands folded in his lap.  He was going 
to act on the information he had.  And who was providing that 
information?  None other than LV.  And by Christmas everyone in the 
Order knew it.  So even if DD's strategy made sense over the summer 
and into the beginning of the school yearm (which I don't think it 
did), the vision of Arthur in the MoM should have made DD realize 
that it wasn't working.  

No, I think that if DD had been honest with Harry from the time 
Harry arrived at Grimmauld Place, Harry would have been able to 
understand the situation, learn Occlumency and do everything he 
could to keep LV from manipulating him.  Despite the poignancy of 
DD's explanation at the end of OoP, Harry is not likely to be 
persuaded by DD's stated motivation of potecting him, imo.  Hary 
isn't bitter at the whole world at that point, but he's not too 
pleased with DD, and the more he thinks about what happened during 
the year, the less pleased he's likely to be.

The idea that an adult keeps you in ignorance in order to protect 
you is not one that kids understand.  You have to be an adult to see 
why it might make sense to act that way.  Kids want to be respected 
and trusted, not infantilized and patronized.  And if the grownups 
who care for them want them to grow into thinking, responsible 
adults, they'll understand that and act accordingly.  If the kid is 
old enough to ask the question, s/he's old enough to hear (at least 
some of) the answer.
>