[HPforGrownups] GH re-re-revisited

[manawydan]

No: HPFGUIDX 115218

Dungrollin wrote:
>Then again, if Dumbledore *didn't* set it all up before hand, how
>*could* he know what saved Harry at GH?  How could he even know that
>Lily sacrificed her life so that Harry would live? As far as we
>know, he didn't witness the attack at GH.  To assume that he
>knows absolutely what he's talking about and is pretending not to be
>sure about it in front of Harry for some other nefarious reason,
>we'd have to assume that there's an eyewitness who told him how Lily
>died.  The only evidence we have for Lily dying to save Harry, is
>Harry's memories of her pleading with Voldy, the ones that start
>to come back when he gets too close to a Dementor, and we have no
>evidence that Lily's dying did actually save him. (For that matter,
>I don't think we have any actual evidence that Harry's really safe
>at Privet Drive, either.) Perhaps, Dumbledore along with the rest of
>the WW, assumed that it was an AK, and the only way he could imagine
>Harry possibly survived was through this ancient magic that Voldy
>despises.

1. By first thing the following morning, the entire WW knows what's
happened, or at least the fact that Voldemort is gone and that they have
Harry to thank. And it's not just rumour, they're convinced and out on the
streets partying.
2. Although Dumbledore hasn't seen Hagrid all day, he too knows exactly what
happened by the time he meets McGonagall.
3. If the Ministry weren't also convinced of what had happened, I would
suggest that they'd have stamped very hard on the celebrations.

Hagrid finding two dead bodies and a live Harry wasn't going to be
sufficient to convince anyone, even if he'd stayed around (which he didn't).

All of which suggests to me that _someone_ from the good guys' side
witnessed what happened (perhaps through the bedroom window from the street)
and their story to the Ministry and the media (and later to Dumbledore) was
sufficient to convince everyone that Voldemort was dispersed and hadn't just
walked away muttering "Foiled Again!"

I've previously aired the theory that the rescue party was larger than just
Hagrid and that they arrived just too late, in time to be witnesses but too
late to intervene.

Cheers

Ffred

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