DD and Draco's murder attempts WAS: Draco and Harry

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 153531


> > >>Pippin:
> > What Dumbledore would find abhorrent, IMO, is disappearing Draco
> > against his will without sufficient evidence that Draco is guilty 
> > of something worse than breaking school rules or imagining that
> > he could kill Dumbledore.
> 
> Betsy Hp:
> I still don't see that Dumbledore had any question about who was 
> behind the cursed necklace finding its way into Katie Bell's hands.  
> The harsh part *would* be the fact that by merely questioning Draco, 
> Dumbledore would have broken Draco's cover. For which Voldemort 
> would have killed him.  So Draco wouldn't have had much of a choice.

Pippin:
Look at it this way. It's clear to me that Lupin killed Sirius. I don't
have any question. But I wouldn't want anyone to be convicted or 
disappeared on such evidence as I have, because it's based on 
hearsay and subjective factors such as my reading of Lupin's character. 
I trust my reading, but it could be wrong. 

 My refusal  to have Lupin deprived of his freedom on those grounds, 
were we sharing the same universe, would protect *me*, and those 
I care about. Not from death but from the far worse evil of despotism.
There are some things worth dying for.
 
Draco is not nearly the danger to  the other students that Dumbledore
would become if Dumbledore voted himself the powers of a despot.
It's not Draco's existential right to choose that Dumbledore is protecting, 
but every student's right to be judged objectively instead of on the whims 
of an individual, even one as wise and steady as Dumbledore. 

Despotic power would change Dumbledore, IMO, would set him on the 
path to becoming another Crouch. And that would place the students in 
far more physical danger than Draco.

Yes, Dumbledore will allow students to die if the only way to 
protect them is to deprive individuals of their rights without some
*objective* proof that they are threatening the rights of others. 
Barty Crouch wouldn't. Which one would you rather have in charge?

> Betsy Hp:
> Oops!  Sorry, I was unclear.  I was talking about Dumbledore 
> allowing Harry to drop down into the gauntlet in PS/SS.  If Harry 
> had been alone he'd have died at the first challenge.  Ron nearly 
> did die, and Harry ended the adventure with a three day (IIRC, multi 
> day, anyway) coma.

Pippin:
I once thought that theory was laid to rest when Dumbledore said in OOP
that "sooner--much sooner --than I had anticipated, you found
yourself face-to-face with Voldemort." Apparently, like the Mirror
itself, the theory  has got far too much hold on the imagination.<g>

 I don't see how one can say that the ease of the course shows 
that Dumbledore meant 11 year old Harry to get through it, 
while at the same time arguing that its difficulty showed that 
Dumbledore ruthlessly planned it as a near lethal test. <g> 

It is possible, surely, that Dumbledore allowed Harry to find the
mirror because he was curious about Harry's character, and
explained its use because *someday* he thought Harry and
Voldemort would battle one another for the Stone, without 
anticipating that it would happen that very same year? That
Harry has never fully admitted that to himself, because that
would require him to face the fact that he had led his friends
into needless danger, and JKR is not ready for that, just as
she's not quite ready to let Harry face his guilt over Sirius?

Pippin