If DD knows, then why...? [was: Snape, trying very hard not to smile?]

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 94111

SUSAN:
<snip> Is there something in canon which makes people *sure* DD knew
Tom opened the Chamber and what was within it, or is it the
"all-knowing DD" assumption?  
> 
Carol:
> Dumbledore may have suspected that Tom had opened the Chamber, but
> surely he would have testified against him at Hagrid's expulsion
> hearing if he had conclusive evidence. Instead, Hagrid's wand was
> broken and he was expelled. <snip>
> I think Dumbledore suspected that Tom had
> opened the Chamber and may even have suspected that it contained a
> basilisk but could prove nothing and so he did nothing. 
> Well, I thought I knew where I was going on this post, but now I've
> succeeded in confusing myself. At any rate, I started out thinking
> that DD didn't know that Tom Riddle had opened the Chamber. Now I'm
> leaning the other way--he either knew or strongly suspected but had 
> no proof.
> Coming to my rescue, SSS?
> 
> Sue: 
> I'll help Carol! (At least I will try.) I didn't see any 
> reluctance in Myrtle about sharing her experience, in fact when 
> Harry asked, "Myrtle's whole aspect changed at once.  She looked as 
> though she had never been asked such a flattering question."  CoS 
> US pb 299. If DD had bothered to ask, she would have been more 
> than willing to share.

> SUSAN AGAIN:
> Hmmmm....  Things get curiouser & curiouser, then, don't they?  With 
> JKR's fondness for "as though" and "as if" statements being clues, I 
> suspect that this DOES mean Myrtle was never asked before.  Why the 
> dickens didn't DD ask her anything?!?  Surely he couldn't be unaware 
> of her ghost's presence at Hogwarts??

Carol:
Thanks, Sue. I deleted the Myrtle section of my original post because
the whole thing was getting out of hand and looking up quotes is so
time-consuming that I felt I couldn't support it properly. I was going
to say something about her possibly being too occupied with getting
revenge on Olive Hornby to cooperate with Dumbledore. But I think
you're right that she would have been flattered by the inquiry and it
seems strange that he wouldn't ask. But maybe he did ask her about her
death and she couldn't identify the boy whose voice she heard
(probably she didn't see Tom or even the basilisk itself--only the
deadly yellow eyes). That would confirm DD's suspicions that a
basilisk had petrified the students, but he still wouldn't have had
the proof he needed to implicate Tom and rescue Hagrid. And since
Myrtle apparently didn't see the basilisk come out of the entrance
(exit!) to the Chamber of Secrets, he wouldn't necessarily have
guessed that it was right there in that girls' restroom.

We have one more quote that I forgot to cite in my previous post,
Professor Binns's comment that "the school has been searched for such
a chamber, many times, by the most learned wizards and witches" (SS
Am. ed. 151). This group includes DD because Binns adds, after arguing
that the Chamber is a mere legend, "If a long succession of Hogwarts
headmasters and headmistresses haven't found the thing-- . . . I
repeat, if the likes of Dumbledore--" (152). Of course, Binns seems to
be oblivious to the death of Myrtle fifty years earlier (and anything
outside his dusty old books), so he's not the most reliable witness,
but still he seems to be saying that straight out that DD looked for
the Chamber and couldn't find it.
 
Sue:
> I tend to think that, as you [Carol] said, there was no way for DD 
> to prove what he believed. There was probably nothing he could do 
> about the Chamber either. Only a Parselmouth can open it, he just 
> had to wait and hope another one didn't come along.  <snip>
> Once it was open, all he could do was sit and wait.

Carol:
Right. Or, as Binns reluctantly tells the students, only the Heir
could unseal it (151), but evidently once it had been unsealed,
another Parselmouth could open it (a point that Binns, of course,
doesn't make). But, either way, DD not only couldn't open it, he
evidently couldn't even find it before or after it was reopened. And
when Harry finally found the entrance, DD was gone--but of course, he
seems to have arranged for Fawkes and the sword of Gryffindor to come
to Harry's aid when he needed them.

Thanks, Susan and Sue. I'm back to the point where I think DD did the
best he could under the circumstances. Maybe there's more to his
"innocent until proven guilty, Severus," than meets the eye. He hadn't
really proven Tom Riddle's guilt in opening the Chamber fifty years
earlier. And even at this point in the story, it can't be proven with
the basilisk dead and the diary destroyed.

As I said in an earlier post, he never reveals the whole story to the
students. Most of them don't even know about the basilisk. (See the
first DA meeting in the Hog's Head Inn.) No wonder half the school
believes Harry tells tall tales!

Carol