Dumbledore's integrity (was Prophecy problems)

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 79457

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Kirstini" 
<kirst_inn at y...> wrote:

 >The fact that Sirius describes Harry as "the last of the Potters"
suggests to me that he has some sort of information about the 
 bloodline of the family and its importance to Voldemort that 
Harry  and the reader still don't.  And would Order member Sirius 
really  have kept this information from his boss? If we can 
assume that DD  has this information, and Harry doesn't, then 
it's not to big a step  to get to the assumption that he *hasn't*
told 
him everything. <

Just because Sirius thinks Harry's descent is important to 
Voldemort doesn't mean that Dumbledore thinks it is. 
Dumbledore, in fact, specifically dismissed the importance of 
Harry's bloodline to Voldemort; he says that even though 
Neville's lineage is purer, Voldemort picked Harry as his equal.

 If Dumbledore believes what he says, that Voldemort chose to 
go after Harry because of his Muggleborn mother, then Harry's 
wizarding ancestry *is * irrelevant. Harry could be descended 
from Merlin himself and Dumbledore still wouldn't be  keeping 
back anything that he thinks is instrumental to Harry's 
understanding his position vis a vis Voldemort.  

As far as Dumbledore the manipulator, one of his titles is 
Supreme Mugwump. I came across a description of the 
historical Mugwumps today. They were "New England reformers 
who had no political base and shrank from direct political 
combat."  This, I think, is how we are meant to regard 
Dumbledore. 

Dumbledore is not trying to build the  Order  into a political force 
(this is what Umbridge cannot understand) and therefore does 
not try to usurp control from the Ministry.  Rather he wishes to 
see that the Ministry officials make  decisions based on 
good information rather than Malfoy's lies or Fudge's denials. 

In the same way, Dumbledore does not want to usurp control of 
Harry's life, he wants to empower Harry to make good decisions. 
His mistake was to persuade himself that Harry would not need 
to make decisions about his own destiny for a long time yet, and 
so did not   need to know about the Prophecy, or about the full 
implications of the connection to Voldemort.

IMO, Dumbledore always expected he would have a chance to 
teach Harry Occlumency before Voldemort's return, while 
Voldemort was still too weak to penetrate Harry's mind unless 
he was at close range.  At that point , it would have become safe 
for Dumbledore to reveal the entire prophecy without risk that 
Voldemort would glean it from Harry's mind.  The flaw in the plan 
was that  Dumbledore could not bring himself to make Harry 
deal with the knowledge that he, Harry, carried part of Voldemort 
inside him. 
 
Pippin