[HPforGrownups] Omniscient Dumbledore (Was Re: Snape's AK Failed!!!, and DADA responses)

[Magda Grantwich]

No: HPFGUIDX 135681

> Nora wrote:
> 
> Confidant is an interesting word, because that is exactly what  JKR
> says that Dumbledore *does not have*, in the latest interview.  I  
> suspect that we've been overestimating how much Dumbledore actually
> tells Snape, in the sense of planning things out as an explicit
> line of attack.  It seems much more Dumbledore's style to let 
> Snape go his  own way, and then only step in when necessary.  I 
> can't see the good  
> cop/bad cop team that's been hypothesized, anymore.  I really can't
> see the idea that Dumbledore and Snape set up half the things we've
> tended to think they have.


There is one thing that Snape and Dumbledore have in common that no
one else in the Order or at Hogwarts can share in: they both know Tom
Riddle/Voldemort intimately.  They have seen The Enemy up close and
know him better than anyone else on the good side - and for both of
them the upcoming fight is the last chance to get it right.  

This common knowledge is the basis of a lot of their private
discussions over the years - especially the last five years - and in
that sense we can describe Snape as Dumbledore's confidant.  Both men
understand that in order to win the big war, they might have to lose
a few battles along the way, endure casualties from their own side,
whatever.  I can't see anyone else in the Order having the stomach to
face these unpleasant realities squarely.

I'm not sure that legilimacy can account for Snape's receiving some
kind of message from Dumbledore to kill him on the tower; I do think
that the two of them have been talking over the year about what to do
to make sure that Voldemort is defeated.  One of the ways to do this
would be for Snape to do something so incredibly evil that
Voldemort's doubts would be wiped completely away.  Killing
Dumbledore would be a sure-fire way to accomplish this.  So when
Snape came up onto the tower, Dumbledore begged him to take the
final, irrevocable step and kill him so that he could return to the
DE's openly and with the Final Game Plan in mind.

And Snape - like a good confidant - did.

Magda


		
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