The Statute of Secrecy

[Ken Hutchinson]

No: HPFGUIDX 159033

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Mike" <mcrudele78 at ...> wrote:

> Mike:
> 
> Whoa, Dumbledore didn't forge anything. He used magic to convince 
> Mrs. Cole that he had proper authorization to offer Tom a place 
> at "his school", which he *did*. He used his magic to keep from 
> revealing that "his school" was a school for witchcraft and 
> wizaredry. Not to defraud anyone. 
> 
> You may call it being lazy. You may say that he should have 
> convinced the current Minister of Magic to go to the present Prime 
> Minister (would that have been Chamberlain? haha) to produce a 
> different *false* document that claimed that Hogwarts is just an 
> ordinary boarding school in Scotland. You may also blame Dumbledore 
> for taking the easy way out for not affecting an endemic change 
> between the WW and their RW. Sorry I'm not convinced that was or is 
> a realistic expectation and, make no mistake, that is the scale of 
> correction you are asking for. 
> 


Ken:

I see that there are at least three of you who make what I consider to
be an error. You are confusing the *technology* that is used to create
a forgery with the act of forgery itself. What Dumbledore needs in
this instance is a document or documents that convince Mrs. Cole that
Hogwarts is a school accredited by the UK government to educate
students with Tom's "problems" and that Hogwarts is offering that
education gratis. Dumbledore has no such documents on his person, he
creates them out of thin air. The fact that the piece of paper is
physically blank and remains blank is immaterial. The key is that
Dumbledore has created *something that appears to be an official
document* when he in fact has no official document. That is forgery.
The fact that magic was used is immaterial. The fact that the document
itself was only an illusion is immaterial. *All forgeries are illusions!*

So I will make your counter argument for you. It certainly is
*possible* that Dumbledore was authorized to have such documents from
both the state and from Hogwarts. I'd say it is certain that he had
Hogwart's official blessing to make the offer of a free education. If
Hogwarts also is accredited by the state and has a blanket
authorization to offer a magical education to magically gifted orphans
then the fact that Dumbledore conjured the documents out of thin air
rather the presenting preprinted documents is also immaterial. If what
Dumbledore did in this scene was offically sanctioned then it was not
forgery. If it was not offically sanctioned then it was. How do you
read the scene? As far as I can tell everyone reads this as a case of
Dumbledore doing something on the sly and that is how I think the
author intended it. But Cannonically I suppose it is impossible to
decide the matter since Dumbledore did not address his apparent deception.

All I am saying is that the MoM has an official relationship with the
British government in these stories. In another post Carol questions
how far back it goes and fair enough, we don't know that it goes this
far back, we don't know that it does not. My guess is that it goes
back nearly to the founding of Hogwarts but that is only my opinion.
Assuming that this relationship was in place at the time of the "Cole
incident" then there was no reason for Dumbldore or anyone else to
have done anything illegal or to use any false documentation. I would
think that a matter like this could easily fall within the executive
authority of the PM's office and certainly would have been within the
executive authority of the direct monarchy that preceeded Britian's
present parlimentary democracy. I am not questioning the ends, I
believe I have previously indicated that the ends are honorable and in
the best interest of all parties, including the children. I am
questioning the means. Alternate, legal means would appear to have
been available. 

We can look at this scene and still see Dumbledore as epitomizing
goodness precisely because his ends are honorable. I cannot look at
this scene and say that Dumbldore is acting properly. He is not perfect.

Ken