Has anyone thought that Dumbledore knows what the outcome is going to be?

[Eileen Nicholson]

No: HPFGUIDX 130487

Michael (mggoulden) wrote:

Dumbledore is my favourite character in the books...... his positively ludicrous decision to entrust an innocent man's
fate to two 13 year-old wizards, and something is decidedly fishy.
And yet, I just don't believe that Dumbledore would openly and
brazenly meddle with time - he himself says it is dangerous (from
experiece, perhaps? You see, it's still fishy!) - but then I am
clouded by my desire to see the old Headmaster of Hogwarts in a
positive light. In my opinion, he is the proverbial shrewd operator,
who's guesses tend to be right 90% of the time.

 
Eileen: 
 
I thought myself that if DD wanted to save Sirius, he'd have found a more reliable way to do it than entrusting it to two kids with a time turner - he had Sirius locked in the castle, after all - so I don't think this was his objective. Which left me wondering what he wanted to achieve. 
 
Since he had already seen that Buckbeak had vanished in a very short space of time, he would have been aware that a time turner might be in use by someone who was motivated to rescue Buckbeak. After he has spoken to Snape, (when Sirius is imprisoned in the castle and the kids are in the hospital wing) he knows that the dementors attacked Harry and Hermione (they also attacked Sirius but I don't think this is a major concern for DD) and that something drove them off. DD realises that the time turner is needed to drive away the dementors from Harry and Hermione, and that Harry with his 'saving people thing' can be relied on to do it while saving Sirius. Harry and Hermione, then, are the 'more than one innocent life' that DD intends to be saved. 

Michael wrote:

I believe that in PS Dumbledore knew that Professor Quirrel was under the control of Voldemort. As such, he had the Philosopher's Stone placed in the school to tempt Voldemort out of hiding. Now, I'm sure the Headmaster didn't know Voldemort was under the turban, but he did know that he was around somewhere. His trick with the Mirror of Erised at the end was a masterstroke, possibly designed to keep Voldemort/Quirrel stumped so that he could confront them.
Unfortunately, Harry got involved.


Eileen:

I think you're right, but that it was no accident that Harry got involved. The Mirror of Erised trick had to have someone with Harry's motivation involved in order to bring Voldemort out in the open - without him, you would have had Quirrell, the mirror, and stalemate. 
Michael again: 
 
In OotP, the Headmaster utilised the same trick that he did in PS -
he explicitly tempted Voldemort with an object the latter was
desperate to obtain, i.e, the Prophecy. Dumbledore knew, and
Voldemort came to know, that only two people can take Prophecies out
of the DoM - in this instance, Harry and Voldemort. The two enemies
know that Voldemort doesn't want to risk rushing into the Ministry
himself as that would result in the exposure of his return (which is
what happened in a roundabout way - see how Fudge was alerted?), so
that leaves just Harry.

Dumbledore kept Harry in the dark precisely because he knew Voldemort
was always there in the boy's head somewhere; some of Harry's anger
was down to Voldemort, surely? All the "cloak and dagger" stuff in
OotP highlights this mental battle of wills between the Headmaster
and the Dark Lord, locking horns in a way they have been doing ever
since Dumbledore suspected Riddle of opening the Chamber. It's
fascinating reading OotP from this perspective; the machinations at
play are numerous and fairly complex. Yes, keeping Harry unawares
hurt him and ultimately led to Sirius' death, but Dumbledore (who is
perhaps a closet utilitarian) never lost sight of the ultimate goal:
to reveal Voldemort's return and get the Ministry back on his side.
Sirius may have been killed, but now the world knows You Know Who is
back. In light of this, I have to ask myself, would Dumbledore do
things differently if he could go back and change things? And even
though he's my favourite character, I have to say that, given the
choice, Dumbledore probably wouldn't change a thing.
 
-Michael

 
Eileen: 
I quite agree that he wouldn't want to change a thing; Voledemort out in the open exactly as planned, and Sirius'life sacrificed for Harry as a bonus. He might have some difficult explaining to do, but for him that would be a small price to pay.
 
Eileen Nicholson



		
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