Occlumency questions/LV 's plans

[dungrollin]

No: HPFGUIDX 114682


Dungrollin previously:
> > But something else jumped out at me, and I've not found any
> > discussion of it – perhaps because everyone was so delighted
> > to have so much else to analyse in the few pages dedicated to the
> > Occlumency lessons – is that Snape glosses over *how* they
> > know that You Know Who knows that Harry's seeing into his mind.

Annemehr:
> The best idea I could come up with, is that Dumbledore could tell 
> when he looked into Harry's eyes the night of the snake attack, 
> just as he was Portkeying Harry and the Weasleys to Grimmauld 
> Place. At that instant, Harry felt hatred for Dumbledore and 
> wanted to sink fangs into him. Dumbledore tells Harry his view of 
> the incident in his office after the MoM battle: "On those rare 
> occassions when we had close contact, I thought I saw a shadow of 
> him stir behind your eyes..."
<snip>

Dungrollin previously:
> > Is it significant that they know that, but not that Harry's
> > already dreaming about the corridor? Is Harry's dreaming about
> > the corridor *up until* snake.vs.Weasly because You Know Who is
> > dreaming of getting his hands on the prophecy, but *after*
> > snake.vs.Weasly Harry's dreaming because You Know Who is feeding
> > him misinformation?

Annemehr:
> The snake might be presumed to be Nagini possessed by Voldemort. I
> don't quite feel easy about believing this, because possession by
> Voldemort is apparently damaging, and I don't think LV would want 
> to damage Nagini nor cause her to mistrust him. If it were 
> possible for LV to possess an animal benignly, wouldn't he have 
> been able to "keep" the animals in the Albanian forest for longer?

Dungrollin now:
Hmmm.  I'm sure this has already been well dissected...  But what 
the hell. My thoughts lean towards short-term possessions – e.g. 
Riddle/Ginny throughout CoS, and LV/Harry at the end of OotP.  These 
don't appear to be too damaging in the long-term, and even
Quirrel survived it for a year (though whether that's actually
the same thing is debateable).  Nagini is unlikely to be an ordinary 
snake anyway; presumably being magical would extend the survivable 
time of possession.

Annemehr:
<snip>
> So, I think LV was there, possessing a snake, to gather more
> information regarding how to get at the prophecy. While attacking
> Arthur (which he was not originally planning to do), it seems he 
> felt Harry's emotions of horror and realised what was happening.
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> 
> It was only just before (chapter-wise, I mean) the escape of the
> imprisoned DEs that Harry realised during an Occlumency lesson that
> the door he'd been dreaming of was the door to the DoM. It had 
> always been closed so far, so I infer that LV had not yet seen 
> what was behind it. After Rookwood was available to LV, I believe 
> the dreams were more and more about making Harry actually want to 
> see what was behind the door. I think it was after Rookwood's 
> escape that LV formulated his plan of luring Harry to the DoM. LV 
> soon learned all he needed to know, began sending Harry dreams on 
> purpose, and then it was only a matter of time until LV felt 
> Harry's horror at "seeing" Sirius being tortured, and would know 
> Harry was coming. That's when he put the rest of the plan into 
> action.

Dungrollin now:
You appear to think that Dumbledore knew that LV realised Harry was 
intruding into his mind just from how *Harry* changed.  Well,
I'll admit is a possibility.  But surely we can come up with 
something more interesting...

I was more inclined to theorise about Snape and Dumbledore and the 
Order and the spying on the DEs. All we get from the conversation at 
St. Mungo's overheard on the old extendables is suspicions,
nobody appears to know anything for certain.  In the first 
Occlumency lesson Snape says `It seems so' in response to
Harry's question about whether LV realised Harry was reading his 
thoughts. Then (possibly to avoid answering any more questions) he 
says `It is enough that we know' which sounds a lot more
certain than previously.

Dumbledore seems to have been waiting for this to happen (according 
to Molly in St. Mungo's.  And we know all about this damn
connection between Harry and LV in GoF.  So why on earth didn't
he start with the Occlumency lessons in September?  Why wait until 
after Christmas?  The decision to teach Harry Occlumency can't be
a result of Dumbledore's suspicions after snake.vs.Weasly, because
Dumbledore was already suspicious, and the Order take Dumbledore's
suspicions seriously (Lupin: `Dumbledore's got a shrewd
idea,' said Lupin, `and Dumbledore's shrewd ideas
normally turn out to be accurate' – OotP, chapter 5.) What
new piece of information made him realise that LV *knew* Harry was 
seeing into his thoughts, and where did it come from?

Now, for the moment I'll ignore the rousing chorus of `Snape
the double agent!' simply because I rather fancy the idea that
he's doing something more interesting than spying(1). So, purely
in the spirit of exploring other possibilities, I'm going to leave
that as my option of last resort.

Could it be something to do with Bode?  Nah.  When Bode was killed 
by the Devil's Snare DD and the order would automatically think
of LV reading Harry's mind, seeing that Bode was recovering and
sending a gift-wrapped helping hand into the sweet hereafter.  But 
that all happened after the Occlumency lessons started, so it
can't have influenced the decision.

Similarly, they didn't know about Harry dreaming about the
corridor until Snape saw it, so it can't be that...

Damn it, I think I'm out of ideas. If any old-timers are reading 
this and not replying because someone's thought it through
before, please let us newbies know... We're confused!

Cheerio,
Dungrollin.

(1) `Thanks to you, Dumbledore was able to recall the Order of
the Phoenix about an hour after Voldemort returned,' –Sirius,
OotP chapter 5. – Is this what Snape was sent to do at the end of 
GoF?