Not getting this one.....

[eileen_nicholson]

No: HPFGUIDX 143256

Jen, 
I worry that I have missed your point because your confusion leaves 
me confused, so maybe I'm making a mistake here, but I'll have a go 
at responding anyway, and perhaps someone else can come along and 
sort us out :)

I thought Dumbledore was teaching here, and Harry got part of the 
point he was making but not yet the whole thing. Dumbledore was 
saying that seeking after power can be very corrupting,and that it 
was remarkable that it hadn't had the effect of corrupting Harry (a 
la Snape). Harry says that it is anger about Voldemort killing his 
parents that protects him. Dumbledore responds that it is righteous 
anger that protects him, and the only thing that protects from 
corruption is love. 

Dumbledore is saying that Voldemort put the power to corrupt Harry 
out of his, Voldemort's, own reach when he put Harry's parents beyond 
the sphere where his power of control has effect, by killing them. 
Harry now has a foot in two camps, so to speak, and Voldemort, whose 
entire value system is based on one camp, cannot compete in this 
arena. Harry has resources invested in death, if you like, that 
Voldemort cannot draw upon, and every time Voldemort achieves the 
killing of another of Harry's protectors he gives Harry greater 
power.  Dumbledore is saying that it isn't the power that's the 
problem, rather it's your choice about how you use it, and that 
having great power without the accompanying power to make the right 
choices is very dangerous.

At this point Harry has the beginnings of compassion for Tom Riddle, 
but none for Snape. He is still one step behind Dumbledore in 
understanding what is happening and where he is headed. His anger 
needs to go through another cleansing process, where he separates out 
the actions out from the perpetrator, and can forgive the perpetrator 
while condemning the actions. He'll presumably do this in book 7 by 
achieving an understanding of Snape (and, I hope, how the attraction 
of that power took Snape over to the dark side but didn't keep him 
there), in the same way that I presume James did when he transformed 
his hatred of the Dark Arts from a vendetta against all its 
perpetrators and rescued Snape from the werewolf in the Shrieking 
Shack.   

Every time Harry experiences the death of someone close to him he  
becomes more reconciled with the idea of death. If it's the next 
great adventure, and Harry as Dumbledore's man through and through is 
presumably coming to accept this maxim, then it follows that it isn't 
worse for everyone around him either; the only one who has a serious 
problem with it is Voldemort.

Eileen