Dumbledore's Bridge (was: Dumbledore's Philosophy (was MAGIC DISHWASHER...)

[Jen Reese]

No: HPFGUIDX 81805

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "arrowsmithbt" 
<arrowsmithbt at b...> wrote:
> I don't take any of DD's statements at face  value. This one falls 
into
> the same category as all the rest.
> 
> Consider,
> The implications of this statement are either:
> 1. Lily loved Harry more  than any other mother loved her child, 
*ever*
> so providing unique protection,  or
> 
> 2. Every  child is so protected by mother love.
> Which is patently rubbish.
> 
> Which one do you choose? 
> (Advice: Not the first,  or at least not  publicly because the 
posters 
> who are mothers are liable to rip your head off.)
> 
> Also, since that little chat, DD has admitted that  he did not think
> Harry  was ready for the truth at that age and so lied or at least
> very strongly and deliberately misled him. Are  you now certain
> that the whole truth has now  been revealed? I'm not.


Jen:

I'm not certain the whole truth has been revealed, but I'm also not 
convinced DD made a *mistake* waiting to tell Harry about the 
Prophecy until now. Sure in hindsight, after Sirius is dead, DD 
thinks it was a mistake--who wouldn't? But he could just as easily 
have told Harry the Prophecy at age 11, and some other event would 
have made DD think *that* course of action was a mistake. 

Go ahead, call me a DD apologist, but I'm not ready to say Dumbledore 
making difficult choices about how to handle the Prophecy equals 
being a liar. 

And sure, if the books reveal some nefarious plan DD's been hatching 
or a juicy conspiracy theory at work, I'll be disappointed. But I 
won't spend time bashing myself for being a sucker! The beauty of HP 
is we all see what you want to see until proven otherwise (and even 
then some....).

And since I'm defending DD, about the mother's love thing, how about 
option #3? This is the Wizard world and Dumbledore tells us in OOTP 
that Lily dying to save Harry is a form of ancient magic and Petunia 
activates the Charm of blood protection by "sealing the deal" when 
she takes Harry in. So no, presumably a Muggle Mom dying to save her 
child wouldn't inspire the same protection, no matter how ardently 
she loved her child. Just a guess. 

And since the WW has its own rules, maybe every child *is* protected 
when a Mom dies to save him/her.  Why not?  Works for me, and is 
called author's privilege.

Jen