DD and the rat (was:Re: Minerva McGonagall-/Dumbledore)

[carolynwhite2]

No: HPFGUIDX 115594


--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Nora Renka" <nrenka at y...> 
wrote:
> 
--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "carolynwhite2"
<carolynwhite2 at a...> wrote:

[I'm combining replies to Nora's and HunterGreen's post (115592) 
here, since they make similar points.]

Carolyn wrote:
>>So, we have three twenty-somethings, who think they are so smart,
trying to protect a toddler. All very touching. Their bright idea,
possibly found at lastminute.com, is to volunteer Peter for the job,
who unfortunately is just what he says on the tin - frightened out of
his wits at the responsibility, but they don't notice this. 

HunterGreen:
Or perhaps Peter, who's been a spy for about a year at this point, is
happily thinking of bringing the information to Voldemort? You think
the three of them "bullied" him into it? He could have easily
refused, all he had to say was 'no'. 

Carolyn:
No, I cannot imagine Peter doing anything 'happily'. His phrases, 
when Sirius lets him speak are: 'what could I have done? ..he has 
weapons you can't imagine..I was scared Sirius, I was never brave 
like you and Remus and James. I never meant it to happen.. he was 
taking over everywhere..what was there to be gained by refusing him?'

We are all repelled and have a lovely time, self-righteously 
saying 'huh, I'd never do that'. Hang him! But in fact, Lily, James 
and Sirius have mistakenly treated Peter just as Sirius later treats 
Kreacher - as a nonentity, a worm. Sirius repeats their thinking at 
their time: 'a bluff..Voldemort would be sure to come after me, would 
never dream they'd use a weak, talentless thing like you.'

The point I am making here is that they created their own nemesis. No 
one, especially not the supposedly saintly Lily thought to consider 
who Peter really was, why he hung around them so creepily, what the 
effect of their constant contempt might be. JKR might be drawing a 
parallel by letting us see how Harry reacts to the tiresome Creevey 
brothers. So far, he hasn't really been nasty to them, but he might 
be; it is very tempting.

Of course Peter should not have gone over to Voldemort, but how many 
people on this list would really be that brave if they were in 
genuine fear of torture and death? It is so simple how people get 
sucked in - fiddling your tax, buying stuff on the black market, a 
bit of hash for a roll up..all seems pretty small beer until suddenly 
it isn't.


Carolyn:
> So, in his distress, and worry that this is the stupidist plan he'd
> ever heard of, does he go to the strongest person he could think of
> to protect him - Dumbledore, and confess what he'd been doing up to
> now? Or did Dumbledore get wind of the plan, and intercept Peter
> and run him through the old 'it's our choices' routine?
>
> Or neither, and Dumbledore, accepting he could not change the
> actions of three headstrong people, or give courage to a coward,
> quietly hoped that his other surmises - the possible effects of
> sacrificial love, plus Voldie's wand (containing Fawkes' tail
> feather) not working properly against Harry might save the day?


Nora:
Putting Dumbledore *in* on this renders DD morally repugnant, 
shrugging off the deaths of Lily and
James with a 'Well, I hope this works' or even deliberately
sacrificing them. While we've got that ambiguous canon for DD being
willing to put Harry's life above others, that was more in a sense of
*neglect* for others--never in a more active sense, as this scenario
would imply. I think it's one of DD's moral principles that all life
is important, and that's coming straight from JKR--the thing she
finds most repugnant and immoral about Voldie is that he kills early
and often.


HunterGreen:
.. if Dumbledore knew about the switch and knew Peter was the secret-
keeper, why did
Voldemort find out? Why wouldn't Dumbledore guard Peter, or go to
James and Lily and insist they changed the SK to him? Whatever
happened because of it, Dumbledore did *not* want Voldemort going to
the Potter's house. Even if he was willing to sacrifice James and
Lily, the chances of Harry getting killed were too high.


Carolyn:
All I hear here is extreme worries that Dumbledore might not be 
as 'good' as you, and many others, want him to be. What I think is 
closer to the truth is that he trusts almost no one, and is old 
enough to have seen just about everything human nature is capable of, 
including many shades of weakness and betrayal.

What canon says is, in the words of Fudge: 'DD..had a number of 
useful spies..One of them tipped him off, and he alerted James & Lily 
at once...told them that their best chance was the Fidelius Charm'. 
What Sirius says is: 'I persuaded Lily & James to change to Peter at 
the last moment'..

There is no canon to suggest that Peter went directly to Dumbledore, 
and I think DD guessed what had happened after it was too late to 
act. McGonagall says 'James Potter told Dumbledore that Black would 
die rather than tell where they were...and yet, Dumbledore remained 
worried.' Sirius and Lupin admit at the Shrieking Shack that they 
suspected each other of being the spy that Dumbledore had detected in 
their ranks.

I think Dumbledore will have coolly and calmly assessed each of them 
in terms of their likelihood to crack under pressure, how they might 
be tempted, what might be the consequences in each case, even Lily. 
We have discussed before on this list what a mother might do to save 
her child - here she was given the chance to die for Harry, which is 
nice and clean and suitably heroic. What if she had had to make a 
messier choice? James to die to save Harry? Everyone has their price.

For this reason, I think Dumbledore will have had a pretty good idea 
of the risk Pettigrew represented, and yes, some sense of futility in 
trying to intervene. Time and again in the series he has allowed 
fantastically high risk situations to develop - the protections 
guarding the Philosopher's Stone; having student's still at the 
school when a monster was obviously on the loose; giving Hermione 
permission to use the TT; allowing Harry to participate in the Tri-
wizard contest; leaving Harry to mind-wrestle Voldemort on his own. 

He is a cold man, IMO, a calculator of odds.. just look at the first 
chapter of PS/SS again. One of his calculations has come true, the 
trio of Sirius, James & Lily have screwed up big time, I think he 
knows immediately that it was Pettigrew that did it, and why.  Yes, I 
think he his indifferent about Sirius rotting in Azkaban for his 
hubris, and that although not technically guilty of the crime he was 
in for, Sirius is as good as guilty and might as well stay there.

I think his mind immediately moved on to considering the next moves - 
what it might mean that Pettigrew was still loose..planning, always 
planning..

Carolyn