[HPforGrownups] Re : Harry's Role in OotP (long) (was:Re: "Some won't lik...

[eileennicholson at aol.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 130565

Gerry _vuurdame at _ writes:
 
>Gerry:
>There has been a lot of comment on your post, so I  will not 
>repeat others and just post my own unmentioned disagreements : ) 
>
>First: Sirius was Harry's godfather, not his nominated guardian. 
>So there was no danger at all that Sirius would have been able to  
>raise baby Harry, as he was not a relative. <

 
Eileen: 
'Well ... your parents appointed me your guardian,' said Sirius stiffly.  'If anything happened to them ...' PoA UK paperback 
p.277. Hagrid had the task of taking Harry to Privet Drive from Godric's Hollow, and had to persuade Sirius to let him do so. PoA P.154. 
 
>Why would Sirius vindicated be a danger to DD's plans? Harry is 
>not being turned into a weapon for the order against LV. Harry 
>has quite a strong inner motivation in wanting to fight LV. The 
>man killed his parents and tried to kill him. Not only as a baby 
>but a few times later as well. And Harry knows he will try to 
>kill him again.  Sirius has nothing to do with it. <
 
Eileen:
 
Given the prophecy and Voldemort's reaction to it, Harry would 
always be motivated to fight LV but, living with Sirius, he may 
not have lived long enough to do it, and his motivation might not 
be as pure - Dumbledore wants to defeat LV, but he also wants to change the wizarding culture to ensure that there's no room for 
a successor to LV. By OoP, the risk to Harry is less, but still  sufficient for the order to think it worthwhile for the Weasleys 
as well as Lupin to stay in Grimmauld Place over the summer, and Molly and Lupin seem to provide a lot of advice to both Harry 
and Sirius...

>The order's main purpose for the moment is keeping Harry long 
>enough alive to give him a chance to defeat LV. Up till now he 
>has been lucky, but his luck has to go sour only once and the 
>order will have a dead Harry on its hands. Sirius' death is 
>actually bad for Harry. Again he lost someone. He now has anger,  >hate and grief to deal with. If he comes out all right, leaves 
>the anger and the hate behind, he will be a stronger person for 
>it. If he does not, he will be weaker. Now some Machiavellian 
>like character may like the idea of focussing that anger and 
>hate against LV and thus create a 'weapon' for the order, but 
>as I pointed out, there is no need for that, and even if DD were 
>this kind of person, this is an extremely dangerous strategy that 
>can easily go wrong. <snip>
 
Eileen:
 
I think the prophecy was a weapon for the Order from the moment 
when LV thought there might be some risk to him in it, and LV 
himself chose Harry as the weapon when he attacked him in Godrics Hollow and was defeated. Dumbledore has simply done his best to 
keep LV thinking that way since then.  ;-)
 
Until now, Harry has been lucky, and there have been some good arguments in previous posts to suggest that his luck is partly 
due to his magical power.  He has also had the (gradually being withdrawn over time, I think) protection of Dumbledore and the 
Order members. But LV is once again out in the open and the threat 
to Harry is much greater - he needs to grow up very quickly to 
deal with it, and losing Sirius and hearing the prophecy will 
cause him to do just that. Sirius' death has already helped him defeat LV in the MoM atrium, when his emotion ended Harry's possession by LV, and I think JKR has some further idea of Sirius helping Harry from beyond the veil that we don't know about yet.
 
It seems to me Dumbledore is both a great strategist and an  opportunist, and combines the two very effectively.
 
Incidentally, I have been wondering why Dumbledore's eyes twinkle. 
It was suggested that it was due to occlumency, but both Snape and Lupin appear to be skilled in occlumens but without the twinkle.....any ideas? 
 
Eileen
I'm sending this post from AOL, I hope it doesn't clash with  Yahoomort!