CHAPTER DISCUSSION: Chapter 27, The Centaur and the Sneak

[Hannah]

No: HPFGUIDX 113955

Petra wrote:
<massive snip of chapter synopsis and other questions>
> [4]  What does Dumbledore mean when he 
> says that he is not going into hiding 
> and that Fudge will soon wish he'd 
> never dislodged the headmaster from 
> Hogwarts?

Hannah now: This comment of DD's has always interested me.  It seems 
like the one time when he says something that isn't strictly true.  
He says he's not going into hiding - yet we see and hear no more of 
him until the night of the DoM.  Umbridge has no idea where he is 
although she is trying quite determindly to find out, presumably 
Fudge doesn't either... so if they are trying to find him and can't, 
then he must be hiding.  He's entitled to, since he's on the run 
from the law, but why say that he's not going into hiding?  Is he 
just speaking figuratively, meaning that he's not going to sit and 
do nothing?

What I don't like about this comment is what it says about his 
attitude to Sirius.  When McGonagall asks if he's going to Grimmauld 
Place, he immediately brushes it aside with the rather scathing 'I'm 
not going into hiding' comment.  He's now in a similar situation to 
Sirius - on the run from the law.  Yet while it's OK to force Sirius 
to hide in Grimmauld Place - and the tone of his answer shows how 
little worth he considers that - he couldn't possibly do such a 
thing himself.  I know that the situation isn't quite the same, but 
I think he shows remarkably little empathy for Sirius at this point.
It does make me wonder what else there is going on behind the 
scenes/ has happened in the murky past, between DD and Sirius.

The other thing that comes across in this scene is DD's arrogance (I 
bet a lot of people will disagree with me on this!).  But DD really 
does think a lot of himself - his lofty assertion that he could 
escape Azkaban for example.  He is probably justified in this 
comment, since he is the greatest wizard of the age or whatever, but 
I do think that over confidence is an error made by DD as well as by 
LV.

In OotP, DD messes up big time IMO.  And a lot of his problem comes 
from believing that he is all-powerful, and can somehow make 
everything work out all right without even explaining the situation 
properly to those it concerns (ie. Harry).  He doesn't teach Harry 
occlumency himself in case LV uses it to attack him, but considers 
it OK to get his top spy to take that risk!

I'm not trying to argue for an ESE!Dumbledore here, and I do think 
that DD is basically good.  But I don't think that he's perfect, and 
I think he is prepared to do some pretty unpleasant things in the 
interest of the greater good, and this scene hints at that.  But I 
have to agree with Phinease Nigellus, he does have style!

Hannah, for whom 'DD resists arrest' is one of the best scenes in 
OotP.