Back to the cave and Dumbledore's screams

[hekatesheadband]

No: HPFGUIDX 137538

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "vmonte" <vmonte at y...> wrote:
> vmonte:
> I just reread this scene again. What exactly did this potion do to 
> Dumbledore? Is he reliving something or repeating someone else's 
> words?
> 
> If the potion is making Dumbledore relive his worst moment what 
could 
> it be...
> 
> Was Dumbledore was always good? or was he also given a second 
chance 
> by someone?
> 
> 
> Perhaps Dumbledore's worst moment in life had to do with facing up 
to 
> some wrongs he had once committed. 
> 
> 
> Does the "Love Room" force you to "face the music?" 
> 
> I really want Dumbledore to have always been good, so I welcome 
> counter arguments. If Dumbledore is a reformed bad guy then 
perhaps 
> that is why he could not defeat Voldemort and why Harry still can. 
> 
> Maybe the key to destroying Voldemort is to have never killed.
> 
> (Who is Grindelwald? Please tell me Dumbledore was not this man 
> once...)
> 
> Vivian  


hekatesheadband: My guess is that Dumbledore has always been good - 
but that doesn't mean he hasn't made mistakes! He may feel 
responsible for the harm that's befallen people because of decisions 
he's had to make or actions he'd had to take, even if the harm was 
inevitable, unavoidable, or unintentional. He could be remembering 
some incident from his childhood, or blaming himself unfairly, as 
people tend to do. JKR has said that Dumbledore _is_ goodness - but 
notice that she didn't say "perfection!" The best person in the 
world can't live 150 years without commiting some non-venial sins.

That said, one brilliant livejournal user has come up with an 
explanation that seems to be better supported by the text than any 
other I've encountered. (You can find it at 
http://www.livejournal.com/users/vejgurl/, entries on HBP chapters 
13 and 26.) She suggests Dumbledore is reliving what happened in 
that cave when Tom Riddle took the other children there. She 
suggests that his words may belong to more than one original 
speaker - and that a fourth person, someone very interested in Tom, 
a wizard who found him first, might have been there as well. That's 
of course speculative, as she acknowledges, but it's a very 
interesting possibility. 

-hekatesheadband
Because the Sorting Hat is really Bono.