Young Dumbledore (OK, youngish Dumbledore!)

[deborahhbbrd]

No: HPFGUIDX 148457

Carol's snipped response, from WA-AY back:
We're told from the first chapter of the first book that Dumbledore is
"too noble" to use certain types of magic ... That being the case, I'm
not at all willing to assume that DD killed Grindelwald in any way
that could be considered murder or using an Unforgiveable Curse. We're
told (in an interview) that Grindelwald is indeed dead, but the book
(SS) only tells us that DD *defeated* Grindelwald, not killed him.
Since we know that both LV and DD know of at least one wizard who made
a single Horcrux, and Grindelwald's defeat so nicely coincides with
the year that Tom Riddle left Hogwarts, it seems likely that the
wizard in question is Grindelwald, that DD's fame results from
destroying Grindelwald's Horcrux and therefore making him mortal, and
that LV fears DD for exactly this reason.

Deborah, now:

What does a Dark Lord, staring defeat in the face, do? Big, fat clue:
which real-world DL faced this problem in 1945?

If however one has Horcruxed oneself into a state of immortality, what
would serve but to have someone - anyone - some compassionate person -
destroy the Horcrux on one's behalf? So this would from Dumbledore's
point of view not constitute the killing of Grindelwald ... but it
certainly would cause his defeat, downfall, death. 

I quite fancy this idea, as it releases DD from the necessity of being
a murderer with a fragmented soul, etc, etc while still removing GW
from the scene comprehensively. It also gives Harry, as DD's
successor, a possible motive for his necessary course of action. We
could all respond to Harry defeating LV as an act of compassion,
whereas the notion of the Boy Who Lived inflicting death is downright
horrible.

The fatal flaw, of course, is that there is nothing to say how LV
will/could be brought to the point where he actually wishes to embrace
death as a preferable option. Preferable to what? If you asked the
Sibyl (not our Divination Professor!), hanging in her bottle, what she
wanted, she said, "I want to die", but she couldn't. We never did find
out what DD believed to be worse than death; this probably doesn't
matter as it's what LV comes to believe that will count. And that
could easily fit into one last book <sob!>, though many other
scenarios couldn't. (FWIW, if LV were to lose/be deprived of his power
to manipulate and hurt, I imagine his longing for life would disappear
rather smartly. But the mechanics of it are beyond me.)

Deborah, not sure really about the ethics of assisted suicide but
convinced that it can be the lesser of lots of evils. Fond, also, of
the thought that in our world Grindelwald is a high Alpine valley,
much like Berchtesgaten.