DD the Legilimens vs TR the Occlumens

[Steve]

No: HPFGUIDX 131865

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "fanofminerva"
<drjuliehoward at y...> wrote:
> I was re-reading COS ...edited...
> 
> Questions:
> 1. Is this same penetrating stare the one used in Legilimency?  
> 2. ...
> 3. If DD was using Legilimency,... then 4. IS DD A BETTER LEGILIMENS
> THAN TOM RIDDLE IS AN OCCLUMENS?
> 
> Let's ...assume that DD was using legilimency and TR was using 
> Occulmency. ...
> 5. If DD is better, what did he learn?
> 6. If he learned that Tom Riddle was opening the chamber of secrets, 
> why did he not act?
> 7. If 5th year Tom Riddle is a better occlumens than DD is a 
> legilimens, what implications would that have for the wizarding 
> world?
> 
> ...snipped passage...
> 
> This (snipped) passage implies that DD may have learned something 
> from Tom that night on the stair, but what?  
> 8. If he learned that Tom opened the chamber, why did he do nothing 
> more than keep a eye on him?  
> 9. Why did he not turn in Tom Riddle when LV started wreaking havoc?
> 10. Why did JKR use the word "carelessly" about Tom telling Harry DD 
> kept an annoyingly close watch on him?  Why was that a careless 
> thing for him to say?
> 
> 11. Or, was Tom a better Occlumens and DD didn't really learn 
> anything but just had "a hunch" that something was amiss? 
> 
> 
> Julie

bboyminn:

First, you are assuming that Tom Riddle (aka:Voldemort) is skilled at
 Occlumency. The books only tell us he is skilled at Legilimency,
Second, you are assuming that a highly intelligent, old and wise,
experienced teacher like Dumbledore needs to use Legilimency to tell
if a student is lying. As your own experience with parents and
teachers should tell you, teens are not as good at lying as they would
like to make themselves believe, so I think in 99% of the cases,
parents, teachers, or Dumbledore don't need to rely on magic to
determine the presence of falsehoods.

That said, I suspect that Dumbledore MAY have probed Tom just deep
enough to determine that Tom wasn't telling him everything, and wasn't
being completely truthful. But those who are skilled at Legilimen have
an ethic obligation. They can't go around probing the mind of every
person they meet for little or no reason other than the fact that they
can. A persons thought are very private and personal, and should
therefore be respected. So again, I think Dumbledore may have raise
his Legilimens /radar/ to the level of intuition, and sensed that
Riddle wasn't being completely truthful, but I really don't think at
the time and place, he probed deeply into Riddle's mind, and extracted
detailed information.

Next, and finally, we don't really know how Legilimency works. Yes, we
have an overview of what it accomplishes, but we don't have the deep
internal details of it's nature and mechanics. Can a skilled
Legilimens read a persons mind, can they sort through it the way a
muggle sorts through a set of encyclopedias? Or, is it more random?
Or, is it more intuitive? You can probe deep enough to know the truth
or lie of that matter, but it's not like selectively watching a video. 

Further, in the same vein, I suspect it's somewhat easy and fast to
probe deep enough to get a quick sense of truth or falsehood, but to
probe deep enough to get detailed, logically consistent, well sorted
information takes asserted deep concentration and time; in other
words, far more than a quick glance.

I certainly can't prove that last part, but the point I'm actually
making is that with so little information of the details of
Legilimency, we really don't know it's internal workings.

I think there is some truth in the idea that Dumbledore used some
degree of Legilimens, but we see nothing to indicate that Tom Riddle
block his efforts with Occlumency, nor do we have informtion
indicating that Tom/Voldemort is particularl skilled at Occlumency. 

I suspect he has some very basic skills in this area, Tom is,
afterall, a very powerful, skilled, experienced, and highly educated
wizard, and logically, Occlumency would be a skill that would serve
him, but, again, we have no indications in the books that I can
remember, that indicate that Tom/Voldie has anything more that a
reasonable and basic working knowledge of Occlumency.

For what it's worth.

Steve/bboyminn