What does Slughorn knows about Dumbledore's injury? WAS: Re: CHAPDISC: HBP4

[dumbledore11214]

No: HPFGUIDX 143377

Alla earlier:
> > 7. If Horace has been "out of touch with everybody for a 
year",   
> > how does he know about Dumbledore's injury?
> 
> Betsy Hp:
> It looks to me that Slughorn only noticed Dumbledore was injured 
> after Dumbledore arrived.
> 
> > Is there any significance that he describes the reason for 
the     
> > injury basically the same way Snape describes it to 
Bella          
> > in "Spinner's end"?
> > <snip>
> 
> Betsy Hp:
> Again, I agree with Carol, that this was the most obvious excuse 
so 
> Dumbledore and Snape have decided to go with this particular 
tale.  
> It's always struck me as fake because Dumbledore was so clearly 
> *not* suffering from slowed reactions when he battled Voldemort in 
> OotP.


Alla:

Very interesting. It seems like many people ( or maybe even 
everybody who answered this question) think that Slughorn did not 
know about Dumbledore's injury before they came. But to me the fact 
that Slughorn first tells Dumbledore that he ought to think about 
retirement and THEN narrator says " his pale gooseberry eyes had 
found Dumbledore's injured hand" implies that Slughorn ALREADY knows 
why DD may want to think about retirement. Curious, very very 
curious indeed. :-)

Oh, and  if you say that "Reactions  not what they were, I see" was 
the excuse that DD and Snape cooked up, then would not it make sense 
that since Slughorn knows about the excuse, he would already know 
about the reason for the excuse, namely the injury itself?

Am I making sense? If I am aware that Dumbledore's reactions are 
slower that they were, woudn't I know why?

Of course  the main reason why it bugs me is because Slughorn's 
behaviour in this chapter is a possible indicator that Dumbledore's 
injury was NOT mortal wound or anything like that.

When I read the book for the first time this chapter was one of  the 
main reasons why I did not even consider that DD injury could be 
serious.


Oh, and there is another reason why " reactions slower than they 
were" bugs me. That was a reason given to DE. Where Slughorn would 
learn it, especially if he is on the run and out of touch with 
everybody?

JMO,

Alla