Dumbledore does Lie-Part II, Snape Turned

[Neri]

No: HPFGUIDX 159939

> Mike now:
> <snup> But as far as Dawlish vs. Snape, Dawlish is a trained 
> Auror, training that included stealth per Tonks. I would give his 
> tailing ability the nod over a 20-year-old untrained Snape.
> 

Neri:
It's not so much the difference between Dawlish and Snape as the
difference in the type of mission. Tailing and infiltration are two
very different missions that don't go well together. Dumbledore
already knew who and what was Dawlish, and Dawlish was told by his
boss to discover where does Dumbledore spend his nights, so he didn't
have many options except tailing Dumbledore. It's not like he could
apply to a teacher post at Hogwarts and win Dumbledore's trust, even
if he had the time for it. If Snape's mission was indeed infiltration
into Hogwarts (Trelawney tells us he was also looking for a job at
that time, and in Spinner's End Bellatrix knows that Snape took the
post "on the Dark Lord's orders") then it just doesn't go well with
tailing Dumbledore. You don't tail someone if you want to get a post
from him. If Voldemort wanted Dumbledore tailed, then he could easily
put another DE (or five) on this. We know he didn't have any shortage
of DEs at that time. But getting a job at Hogwarts, this is something
that not any DE could do.

> Mike:
> I guess I have more confidence in Dumbledore's power of obvervation. 
> He didn't seem to have any problem ascertaining that the fab four 
> that followed Voldemort to the Hog's Head were DEs.

Neri:
Well, duh. They come with Voldemort, they stay with him, so they are
his henchmen. Doesn't take that much power of observation.

> Mike:
> He watched Snape 
> for seven years (at least),

Neri:
Where's the canon?

> Mike:
> we know he had at least one up close and 
> personal talk with him following the werewolf caper.

Neri:
So? He also had at least one personal talk with Terry Boot.

> Mike:
> We see that he 
> can identify the budding DE in Draco (he recognized Draco's 
> tendencies in PS/SS and identified him as Harry's antagonist then). 
> Do you doubt that Dumbledore is very much aware of Draco's DE 
> leanings by year six? As well as who Draco hangs with and their 
> tendencies.

Neri:
Dumbledore has at least two very good reasons to watch Draco closely:
1) he's the son of a major and active DE. 2) he's a rival of "the
Chosen One", and we know Harry is watched closely. But did Dumbledore
have any reason to watch Snape closely during his school days? Not
much that I see, except he was a good student.

> Mike:
> How about Lucius, Bella and the others when they were in 
> school and who hung around with them (read: Snape)?

Neri:
This is according to a comment by Sirius, and yet Sirius himself, who
had several good reasons to watch Snape closely during their school
days, still didn't know if Snape was a DE when he made this comment.
So why would Dumbledore know in 1979?

> Mike:
> Besides, the 
> portrayal we get of Dumbledore throughout the book is one of almost 
> omniscience, I can easily see Dumbledore identifying Snape. Or, more 
> correctly, I would be astounded if Dumbledore had not made the 
> connection, wouldn't you?
> 

Neri:
Ah yes, I wrote something, long ago, about the myth of Dumbledore's
omniscience.
The new Yahoo search really helps in finding these forgotten posts. Here:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/96085

Perhaps you're trying to say that you'd be astounded if Dumbledore
didn't watch closely someone who in later years proved so important to
the plot. I won't. Dumbledore isn't a seer and JKR has made that obvious.

> Mike:
> As to Voldemort assigning Snape; 20 years before Voldemort openly 
> walked into Hogwarts for a meeting with Dumbledore. I'm sure he is 
> more secretive himself 20 years later, however many of his Death 
> Eaters are operating in the open these days even though there may be 
> suspicions about them. Also, like I said above, I think Dumbledore 
> could easily determine where any other's loyalties lie and I believe 
> Voldemort would be well aware of this ability. If Voldemort had to 
> limit himself to who Dumbledore didn't suspect, well, the list would 
> be extremely limited. Add on Legilimency and Dumbledore's wizarding 
> prowess, I think you might have to concede this point. <g>

Neri:
I'm not sure what I have to concede here. That Dumbledore suspected
Snape? Of course he did. Canonically, during VW1 you suspected
*anyone* you didn't know well (and if you had any brain, also some
people you did know well). Suspicion isn't much help when everybody's
a suspect. As for Leglimency, Voldemort is an expert Legilimenn
himself so he's well aware of the problem, and I doubt he'd send
Dumbledore a spy who isn't a good Occlumenn.   

Dumbledore also suspected Kreacher but not enough to do something
about it. He didn't recognize that Fake!Moody wasn't his old time
friend, he didn't recognize that Crouch Sr. was under the Imperius
curse, he didn't know if young Crouch Jr. was guilty of the attack on
the Longbottoms or not, he didn't realize three of his students had
become unregistered animagi, and this is just the beginning of the
long list of cases where Dumbledore's didn't see through people.
Dumbledore isn't superhuman and he isn't omniscient.
  

> > Neri:
> > Dumbledore may not know at this point that Snape is a DE. Snape 
> > has a good cover story for listening at the door: he is   
> > interested in a post himself and looking for tips (it may even be  
> > true, in the sense that he needed to get a post in order to  
> > infiltrate into Hogwarts, and therefore indeed attempted to get  
> > these tips). <snip>
> 
> Mike:
> I refer you to Carol's post, 
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/159793
> 
> and my argument in the original post. I don't see Snape with a good 
> cover story at all.
> 

Neri:
I'm not sure to which of Carol's arguments you refer, and no post of
yours appear in that thread. Most of Carol's canon in this post isn't
very conclusive. We don't really know when the meeting in the HH took
place, we don't know how much time after that Trelawney was actually
hired, we don't know what posts were open then, and we don't know for
what Snape was applying.  He may have been applying for a replacement
teacher position, or for the Astronomy post, or for the Ancient Runes
post, or for the DADA position because the DADA teacher that year had
incurred an early bad luck. Or there wasn't any post open but Snape
still had some reasonable cover story. Trelawney tells us he was
looking for a job at that time and we don't have any special reason to
doubt this part of her story (except if our theories require
otherwise, that is
). Since both Snape and Voldy aren't complete
idiots, I assume they had a reasonable cover story for Snape.

 
> Mike:
> Ahh, but a 13 year old Harry recognized when Sibyll was not being 
> Sibyll and cottoned on to her, that maybe, possibly, this was a real 
> prophesy. I'm gonna guess that 10 times older Dumbledore might 
> figure it out too.
> 

Neri:
The fact that Sybil isn't Sybil doesn't necessarily imply that her
prophecy is true. In HBP, Ch. 23 Dumbledore asks Harry rhetorically:
"do you think every prophecy in the Hall of Prophecy has been
fulfilled?" So Dumbledore is well aware that some prophecies come true
and some don't.


> Mike:
> Dumbledore thinks all prophesies are mumbo jumbo and illegitimate, 
> isn't that the way you perceive his opinion of the whole field of 
> Divination? I sure do. The problem with prophesies is always 
> the "Macbeth syndrome", when someone who believes in the rot, acts 
> on the rot. And this prophesy was about the Dark Lord.
> 

Neri:
Then why did Dumbledore need Trelawney at all? He could just invent
whatever mumbo jumbo he thought would trick Voldemort, and tell
anybody that Trelawney or another fraud said it. According to your
theory only Dumbledore ever heard Trelawney saying the prophecy. Snape
never heard any part of it, Trelawney doesn't remember it at all,
Pensieve memories can be forged, and Dumbledore does lie. So maybe
Trelawney had never made the prophecy at all. Dumbledore invented it,
and told everybody that Trelawney said it.   


> Mike: 
> Dumbledore absolutely cannot allow this prophesy to see the light of 
> day, if there is any chance that Voldemort might act on it. And 
> knowing Tom Riddle as well as anyone, Dumbledore is quite sure that 
> he *will* act on it. Of course hindsight, being 20/20, I could say 
> that canon backs up this. I won't. I will only claim that Dumbledore 
> would not have wanted the prophesy released, regardless to whom it 
> referred. Dumbledore *must* stop Snape at all costs. 
> 

Neri:
Yes, but this requires that Dumbledore would understand the prophecy
*might* be important (because he had no way to be *sure*) within the
very short time it probably took Aberforth to throw Snape out. This
was in the end of an interview in which Trelawney probably told
Dumbledore lots of mumbo jumbo and convinced him she's a total fraud.
Dumbledore had to change his opinion about her in a very short time.
If he realized she might not be a *total* fraud ten seconds after
Snape was out of the building then this was probably too late.

You might not use 20/20 hindsight but you keep calling it "the
prophecy". You have to remember that Dumbledore didn't know it was
"the prophecy" at the time. He didn't know there even will be a prophecy.


> Mike: 
> Sixteen years later in the MoM, Dumbledore proved that he is still 
> quick enough on his feet and in his mind to be able to react to a 
> critical situation.

Neri:
Heh. I have to warn you here that if you insist on mentioning the MoM
battle you risk dragging me into one of my favorite Dumbledore bashing
lectures. The number of critical mistakes he made on that day is
appalling. Trust me, you don't want me to start going through them
again <g>.


> Mike:
> I have no doubt that Dumbledore would feel that 
> a prophesy about Voldemort, allowed to reach Voldemort, qualifies as 
> a critical situation.

Neri:
Do you think no other prophecies, true or false, were made about the
Dark Lord during VW1? Do you think none of them ever reached Voldy?
The Dark Lord was the most burning issue in the WW for eleven years.
No doubt it was the most popular subject for prophesizing. These
"prophecies" were probably all over the Daily Prophet twice a week
(why d'you think it's called the Daily *Prophet*?) and I shudder to
think what The Quibbler was printing. I wouldn't be surprised if
Trelawney herself had made three or four Dark Lord predictions to
Dumbledore during that very interview. 

Voldemort probably didn't think much of Trelawney's prediction when he
first heard it. But several months later a part of Trelawney's
prediction cane true – two boys were born in the end of July to
couples that defied Voldemort three times. That's probably when things
got serious. JKR's timeline supports this view. The two years between
the prophecy and GH are partly explained by this.


Neri