Even powerful wizards get the blues (was: Many sleepless nights)

[Freud]

No: HPFGUIDX 124790


Paul:
<snip>
> Suppose you are Dumbledore the most powerful wizard and the most 
> well connected one I will add. You have someone of great value to 
> protect. First of all don't tell me that you don't check what kind 
> of people will take care your protege or how they treated him after 
> they had taken him. 
<snip>

The most powerful and well connected wizard is still a human being 
who still has many vulnerabilities.  Things had not been going well 
for the Order of the Phoenix at that time.   

How do I know this?  Because DD wasn't able to stop Voldemort or the 
death-eaters - they were winning.  

>From http://www.hp-lexicon.org/wizards/voldemort.html :
> During this time the only safe place was Hogwarts School and many 
> speculated that though the Dark Lord called Headmaster Albus 
> Dumbledore, "that champion of commoners, of Mudbloods and Muggles," 
> he feared to confront him and knew Dumbledore was working tirelessly 
> against him. Dumbledore formed the Order of the Phoenix at that 
> time, a group of witches and wizards who fought hard against 
> Voldemort's Death Eaters. They were frightfully outnumbered, 
> however, and the Death Eaters were killing the members of the Order 
> off, many times filling their entire families along with them

But I believe DD would have stopped Voldemort if he could have.  

Of course Dumbledore knew about the Dursleys.  But compare the 
psychological profile of the Dursleys to the Deatheaters... 
Compare Harry's life to Dobby's for example.  The Dursleys weren't 
kind and they weren't nice - but they weren't forcing him to iron
his own hands. 

Do we even know the definition of abuse in the Wizarding world?
I suspect it is very different from our standards. Think of Sirius, 
growing up in a household where murder and mayhem are family values, 
racism is applauded, and the heads of dead house elves decorate 
the walls. Think of Winky and what her horrible employer demanded 
her to be responsible for.  

Harry's life with the Dursleys, while difficult, was a piece of cake 
compared to the lot of many a house elf.  

AD was watching Harry.  Remember how Harry had a feeling of being 
watched all the time?  And how about those circumstances when 
something truly physically harmful was going to happen to Harry yet 
somehow it was mysteriously prevented?

Could AD have done more?  We don't really have the information 
required to judge AD fairly.  What the heck was in his letters to 
Petunia?  How do we know AD didn't try to intercede?      

Paul:
<snip>
> I accept your points that AD doesn't want to
> make things worst. Now tell me honestly. Couldn't AD at least "force"
> them to act more mildly,  not in an active way but with a subtle one
> like I don't know a Dursley-specific-to-act-in-a-human-way ward or at
> least a not-abuse-Harry ward. 
<snip>

We don't know that he didn't.  Perhaps Vernon and Petunia threatened 
to throw Harry out on a weekly basis.  Perhaps Dumbledore intervened 
time and time again.  We do know that more than one letter was sent 
between Petunia and Dumbledore. 

Paul:
<snip>
> I am not saying to make them act as
> Harry's parents but at least not as his jailers. Secondly about the
> risk that took AD to raise Harry in a similar environment to Tom
> Riddle's I have only two adages to say. "Don't play with the fire If
> you don't want to be burned" and "The road to hell is made on good
> intentions".

I really doubt AD was consciously thinking - "hey, I want Harry 
raised in an environment similar to Tom Riddle's."  I think it was 
more like this:

"This remarkable baby that just absorbed Voldemort's powers could be 
our redemption or another Voldemort.  
Everyone will want to venerate him, many will want to destroy him.  
How can I keep him alive?  I have no blood tie to the boy. 
He needs magical protection.  Perhaps if the mother's sister will 
raise the boy?"  

And just because Tom Riddle hated his childhood, that doesn't mean 
that Harry and Tom are EXACTLY alike. 

>From http://www.hp-lexicon.org/muggle/muggle_places.html :
> Tom Riddle was raised in a Muggle orphanage. <snip>
> The Stockwell Orphanage might have been the place where Tom Riddle 
> grew up in misery, although by all accounts it was not a repressive 
> place of the type we imagine from Oliver Twist. 

Do we really know if the orphanage was responsible for Tom Riddle 
choosing to become a psychopathic killer?  I think the reasoning is 
far fetched.  While Harry hates the Dursleys, he doesn't use them as 
a reason to embrace evil. 

In conclusion, I still believe that Dumbledore did the best he could 
under extremely difficult circumstances. 

I do believe he loves Harry and that we will learn more information 
in the following two books that will clear up suspicions of wrong-
doing on his part. 

tabekat