DD's agenda (was LV's survival )

[Jen Reese]

No: HPFGUIDX 112154

> Carolyn:
> Fawkes readily does whatever DD asks - look at the alarm system 
the 
> bird provides, alerting them to Umbridge's approach when DD needs 
> time to send the Weasley's and Harry back to GP. And look at the 
role 
> he plays in carrying DD out of the office when Fudge comes to 
arrest 
> him, and then in the MoM he swallows an AK to save DD's life. Plus 
> the numerous services he has performed for Harry. I think Fawkes' 
> allegiance is pretty clear.

Jen: Fair enough. So since the Phoenix song inspires courage in the 
pure of heart & has tears with magical healing powers, you could 
extrapolate out to say the Phoenix would only be loyal to a person 
of purity and integrity.  So Fawkes would *not* grant Dumbledore 
something for personal gain or impure motives. So, I'd say Fawkes 
gave the feather willingly based on his loyalty to Dumbledore, a 
person Fawkes deems to have integrity. 

> Carolyn:
> Only two wands that we know of have phoenix cores, Voldemort's and 
> Harry's [although I'd bet quite a bit that DD's wand does as 
well]. I 
> think it was inevitable that Harry's wand would choose him, 
because, 
> as you say, Harry has a power to equal Voldemort. DD already 
guessed 
> this would be the case from the prophecy, and from his knowledge 
of 
> Voldemort's powers; he didn't have to force or risk anything.

Jen: The only thing that bothers me here is a point Hannah brought 
up in post 112124. She said:

"And he {Ollivander} makes Harry try lots of others first, which 
seems a risky course of action. A wizard must suit more than one 
wand, otherwise how do people ever manage when they break one. What 
if another good wand had turned up? Why not just say; 'let's try 
this one,' present the Fawkes-wand and save a lot of trouble. Harry 
wouldn't have known any different!"

Why bother with the pretense? As Hannah points out, the process is 
completely new to Harry and he wouldn't question if the 1st, 5th or 
100th wand was the one!

Carolyn:
> At the risk of shocking FAITH's sensibilities yet further, is it 
> worth asking why DD might have set all this up?
<snipping> 
> How sure are you that DD had not anticipated this? Maybe he had no 
> knowledge of where and when it might be useful, but he must 
certainly 
> have known that the second wand would not work against its 
brother? 

Jen: Oh, absolutely! I'm certain Dumbledore saw an opportunity to 
influence the outcome of some future duel between Harry and 
Voldemort, with one possible outcome being Prior Incantatem. But 
that is where our paths divide. Once again, I see Dumbledore wisely 
setting up yet another barrier to Voldemort vanquishing Harry before 
the opposite happens. But many events had to occur for DD's plan to 
suceed. IF the brother wand chose Harry and IF he and Voldemort are 
dueling and IF they both cast a spell at the same time, Dumbledore's 
plan suceeds. That's not a 100% gurantee, just one outcome of many 
possible ones. 

Carolyn:
> Finally, having hopefully induced further feelings of disquiet, I 
> would like to ask a further wand-related question. Does Voldie 
know 
> where the core of his wand originated? And if he does, what 
> implications does that have?

Jen: Interesting thought. I guess now LV does know about the brother 
wands, so if there are any negative implications for having Fawkes' 
feather as his wand core, he'd better be working out a plan that's 
more successful than his usual machinations!

Carolyn: 
> I speculated that for many years DD has been the most powerful 
wizard 
> in the WW, but (because he has rejected immortality following his 
> work with Flamel .. 'its your choices' etc) he has to look for a 
> successor to carry the baton. He thought he had found that person 
> in Tom Riddle, and his clue was Tom being able to claim his 
> particular wand (containing the Fawkes feather core). 
 
> Unfortunately, it appears that Tom concluded that immortality 
sounded 
> rather a good idea, once he realised he had the necessary magical 
> ability to claim it. Maybe he was possessed by essence of Slyth as 
> Kneasy thinks, whatever. The situation went critical at this 
point, 
> and DD has been struggling for many years to think of a way of 
> dealing with him - and then along comes the prophecy, and the rest 
is 
> history, or possibly toast, as far as Weapon!Harry is concerned.

Jen: I don't have any speculation myself, but you make a good case 
for Tom-as-succesor based on having the Fawkes feather wand core. 
Even though 16 y.o. Riddle tells Harry that Dumbledore, "never 
seemed to like me as much as the other teachers did" (COS, chap. 17, 
p. 312) that could be the infamous Riddle paranoia surfacing. Or 
Dumbledore was starting to suspect Tom would *not* follow in his own 
footsteps and in fact, was headed in a very troubling direction.

Carolyn: 
> But Jen, going waaaay back to your post  81106 (everything catches 
up 
> with you in the end!), would you really be any happier with one 
> wizard's power winning out over the other? What does that solve?

Jen: Ah, yes, one of my favorite posts! There's no contradiction 
though, between what I said then and now. Do I want Harry to defeat 
Voldemort? Yes. Because, as I said in that post, "I believe a 
society set up to disapprove of evil is a better society. Any 
society that chooses to transform Evil to Good is making the better 
choice."  Do I want to see Dumbledore sacrifice the entire WW in the 
Fires of Transformation to eradicate Evil once and for all, without 
the knowledge or consent of most of the population? Well, you know 
my answer to that one ;). 

> Carolyn
> Hoping that JKR will leave us with that kind of problematic moral 
> ending, and actually not caring very much whether Harry is dead or 
> alive as result. FAITH, poor love, will, like truth be one of the 
> first casualties of the war. RIP.

Jen, who doesn't have a clue whether Harry will live or not, and 
even less of an idea what type of ending JKR is going for.