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

[lupinlore]

No: HPFGUIDX 153552

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "horridporrid03" 
<horridporrid03 at ...> wrote:
<SNIP>
> 
> But that Dumbledore seems to clash with the man keeping the 
prophecy 
> a secret from Harry merely to allow Harry his boyhood, no matter 
> that it screws with all of his well laid plans.  Why would the same 
> man who nearly killed Harry at age 11 so he could check out his 
> character, *cry* because Harry's got a big burden on his shoulders?
> 


Yes, that is a problem.  But if I was forced to put ten dollars on 
the answer, I suspect JKR would skew heavily away from a 
Machiavellian Dumbledore.

I doubt, when push comes to shove, that JKR would say that DD 
deliberately enticed Harry into the gauntlet or that he meant it as a 
test of Harry's character.  I suspect that she would say that DD had 
protected the stone without meaning for it to be an enticement to 
anybody; that DD was pleased about what Harry did but not because he 
meant to trick or train or test or entice Harry in any way but 
because he liked the way Harry's own decisions had turned out; and 
that DD had given the cloak to Harry in the spirit of "let's see what 
the young man can find out," never intending or imagining that Harry 
and his friends would come anywhere close to the gauntlet.  She might 
also claim that DD's intentions are always to keep Harry alive and 
well, and that he "unwillingly allows" Harry to face some situations 
in an effort to achieve that end, as he "suspects what Harry might be 
facing" in that Voldemort "will not rest" until Harry is dead, and 
that any utilitarian motives or anti-Voldemort strategy he has would 
be distinctly secondary.  Indeed, I suspect she would say that 
Dumbledore's "plan" as far as it relates to Harry specifically 
consists merely of a determination to keep Harry alive and well.

Now, I grant you that such statements don't come anywhere near 
solving all of the problems.  But, if I had to put ten dollars on 
what she would say if asked point blank, I rather suspect that she 
would come out with something like that -- i.e. emphasizing that 
DD "unwillingly allows" Harry to face some situations, not that he 
ever deliberately tricks, cajoles, or entices Harry into such, and 
HEAVILY emphasizing (as she has done in her interviews and to a 
lesser extent in canon) that DD's main and overriding goal is Harry's 
life and well-being.

And there we are into the situation, I agree, of JKR trying to be 
mealy-mouthed and squirm out of the implications of plot points she 
may well not have thought through very well.  And yes, I think JKR 
*DOES* sometimes put her foot in her mouth not only in her interviews 
but in canon as well -- such as the infamous speech at the end of 
OOTP.

<SNIP>
> 
> For a very long time I've had a brilliant and thoroughly logical 
> theory about PS/SS that Explained It All (tm).  However, the fact 
> that Dumbledore has never corrected Harry's belief that Dumbledore 
> sent him on that "little adventure", the fact that this was a 
> conversation that could have easily taken place in OotP, and the 
> fact that Dumbledore is dead (or mostly dead, depending on 
> theories), suggests that my own theory, brilliant though it may 
have 
> been, is not the real deal.
> 


Oh, don't give up yet.  For one thing, I rather suspect that JKR was 
not fully aware of the problems with DD until the aftermath of OOTP, 
and is still working to correct them.  The confrontation with the 
Dursleys was one such, the fatherly DD of HBP was another example 
(teary moments and all).  And she has said we will be learning more 
about DD, his mistakes, and his attitudes.

Also, conversations with DD (or at least information from him) are by 
no means out of the question in a world of pensieves and talking 
paintings.


Lupinlore