Strange Dumbledore( was What about the strange language?)

[houyhnhnm102]

No: HPFGUIDX 141974

Ginny343:

[...]
> Okay, first, I know DD has done this before because the word "again" 
> did not phase me when I read it, but I cannot find where.  If 
> someone could remind me where it is, I would be grateful.
> 
> But here is the thing that has me wondering.  JKR writes "he thought 
> he understood" not "he understood" . . . so that makes me think DD 
> was muttering in some strange language for another reason.  And I 
> wonder what it could be?  Or, I could just be reading too much into
 
houyhnhnm:

In the antechamber of the cave:
-------------------------------------------
Dumbledore approached the wall of the cave and caressed it with his
blackened fingertips, murmuring words in a strange tongue that Harry
did not understand.
(p. 558, HBP, Am. Ed.)
-------------------------------------------

As many times as Harry has simply "understood" and turned out to be
wrong, for Rowling to write that "he *thought* he understood" is bound
to raise a red flag.  It may simply be the truth--that DD was undoing
the special enchantments he had set to guard Hogwarts.  But with all
the mystery surrounding the events of that night, I agree it is
suspicious.

Unfortunately, I don't have a hypothesis.  I think we may learn more
about it in book 7, though.  As a confirmed DDM!Snape-er  I am
expecting some kind of explanation for Snape's AKing DD that
exonerates Snape.  The idea that Snape was a man trapped by fate who
was forced to make an odious choice in order to preserve DD's plan
satisfies
*me* as an adult reader, but I am coming to think that, in a
'children's' series, the explanation for Snape's behavior is going to
have to be something a little more concrete.

Lately, I have been thinking a lot about the possibility that
Dumbledore somehow took on some of Voldemort's essence both in the
cave and in the destruction of the first horcrux--intentionally ("KILL
ME").  Perhaps no one but Harry can safely destroy Voldemort's
horcruxes, but Dumbledore thought it was too much for Harry to
accompish, to go after all five alone, so he has been trying to reduce
the number that Harry must find and destroy, even at the cost of his
own life. That is, he has been practicing some very deep magic that
hasn't been explained to us yet, and the muttering on the way back to
Hogwart's may be part of that.

Some of the evidence for me:  1. The fact that Harry is no longer in
danger from LV's Legilimency. (It wouldn't be the first time DD
withheld the truth from Harry.)2. Dumbledore's snarkier personality in
HBP. (We saw the same thing with Harry in OotP and thought it was just
adolescent angst, but found out later that LV was possessing him.)

I'm sorry I don't have a coherent theory worked out yet.  My job,
lately, is syphoning off a lot of brain power I would rather devote to
my avocations and I really resent it. :-)