Harry's assumption VS Everyone's assumption

[Ceridwen]

No: HPFGUIDX 151670

meanmommyfish:
> Thanks for wading through all of that. It was my first post, so go
easy on me, please.

Ceridwen:
Hi, and welcome to the group!  I'm not a fish, but my kids have 
called me mean on occasion.

meanmommyfish:
> We know Dumbledore believed that lives would have to be sacrificed
to save the Wizarding World. When he realized that Harry Potter was
the marked man (sorry, no pun intended), they approached Lily. I
believe the three of them were in this together, they made "a choice
between what is right and what is easy" (GoF US pg 724). 

Alla:
> I don't think that Dumbledore and Lily engaged in any kind of
complicated schemes. I think it is as simple as we learned so far -
mother's love protects Harry.

Ceridwen:
I agree with Alla.  I don't think Dumbledore enlisted Lily's help in 
the plan at all.  Lily's act was spontaneous, which in my opinion is 
a large part of the magic.

meanmommyfish:
> I also believe that Snape was very remorseful when he realized which
wizarding child Voldemort would attack; I don't think Snape was
prepared for it to hit so close to home, feelings for James Potter not
withstanding. I don't believe Dumbledore lied to Harry when he said
that. I think that Dumbledore tells Harry selective tidbits of
information, a true manipulator. Now that Voldemort had started this
fight Dumbledore needs Harry to finish it. How could he reveal the
whole truth,  divulge Snape's true loyalties to a boy who can't
protect his own thoughts, implicate himself in that boy's mother's
death, however complicit she was, and risk loosing Harry's trust?

Ceridwen:
I do believe Snape reacted very differently once it became a matter 
of life and death in a real sense, the same way Draco blanched at 
killing Dumbledore face to face.  It's one thing to talk 
belligerently; it's another thing to actually have a hand, however 
remote, in death.

Alla:
> I just think that this is a plan which looks more like something 
that Voldemort would do than Dumbledore, but I am not a believer of
Dumbledore as true manipulator either. :)

Ceridwen:
Again, I agree with Alla here.  But maybe not as much, in the sense 
that I do think Dumbledore will 'do what is right' rather than what 
is easy, even if it does involve the deaths of some people.  That's 
the way it is in war, and it cannot be avoided.  Acknowledging that 
some people will have to die is a far cry from deliberately laying a 
trap using tools which are unproven (the ancient magic) in order to 
vaporize but not eliminate the threat.  I do think that Snape was in 
on the limited plan, such as it was, and this is one reason 
Dumbledore trusts him.

One thing which goes against Lily's involvement was the independent 
course she and James took in selecting Pettigrew as their Secret 
Keeper.  If there was a master plan between her and Dumbledore, she 
would have wanted Dumbledore as SK.  He would need to know her 
whereabouts, if his involvement was so great, so it would be logical 
to have him as SK.  That didn't happen.

And, as I mentioned above, the ancient protection of Lily's blood 
sacrifice was unknown in the WW, according to the books.  Dumbledore 
could have researched until his fingers grew callouses on their 
callouses and he wouldn't have found it.  It was the spontaneous 
nature of the sacrifice, willingness to die *for Harry*, not for a 
plan, that provided the protection.  The protection went to the 
person Lily was protecting.  This would fall more into the category 
of the prophecy taking on life since LV believed in it enough to try 
to circumvent it.  What always happens to people who try to get 
around a prophecy in literature?  They make it come true.

I also don't think Dumbledore is 'a true manipulator'.  Sometimes 
parental figures look like manipulators, but they know the child 
better than someone distant.  DD tells Harry what he needs to know, 
nothing more.  Harry is still a child during most of these books.  It 
isn't his business to know Snape's business.

Also, Dumbledore tells Harry what Harry *needs* to know.  He 
compartmentalizes the information that he has, telling each person 
only what is necessary.  The fewer people who know the Grand Scheme, 
the fewer who can betray it under torture.

Compartmentalizing also serves the purpose to focus each person on 
their own task instead of focusing on someone else's.  The end of GoF 
is a good example: Snape is sent off to who knows where at the time, 
Sirius is given his own mission independent of Snape's.

This is not manipulating, it is good practice not to let the left 
hand know what the right hand is doing in any sort of intelligence 
operation.  And this is what the Order seems to be doing, at least 
while the war is at its lull.

Ceridwen.