Blood protection/ Dumbledore and Harry

[horridporrid03]

No: HPFGUIDX 158485

> >>Tonks:
> > <snip> 
> > This was an unusual situation.  No one had ever survived an AK 
> > before.  AFAWK, There was never a prophesy like this one        
> > before. This little baby was the hope of the world.  The whole   
> > world, WW and MW was on his shoulders. 
> > <SNIP>

> >>Alla:
> What you just described is precisely manipulative Dumbledore I 
> detest so much, **but** it is certainly one of the possibilities, 
> but then Dumbledore should not have said so many times how much he 
> loves Harry IMO - not **weapon** Harry, but just Harry.
> <snip>

Betsy Hp:
I'm having a hard time seeing the contradiction you see, Alla.  
Harry is, per the prophecy, the only thing out there threatening 
Voldemort.  Voldemort takes enough interest in that prophecy that he 
targets Harry personally, even though Harry is just an infant at the 
time.  Surely the most loving thing Dumbledore can do is keep Harry 
safe, weapon or no weapon?

Yes, keeping Harry safe is a practical matter too, if the prophecy 
is true (and Dumbledore seems a bit cynical about the whole thing).  
But the fact is, Voldemort had made Harry his number one enemy.  
Should Dumbledore not take that seriously?  Just leave Harry 
somewhere kinda, sorta, mostly safe?  Like Neville?  

> >>Alla:
> Maybe indeed JKR did not know whether her other books will even be 
> published and for Cinderella story, Harry certainly should have   
> stayed with Dursleys, but for later books, it is just not sitting 
> well with me.
> <snip>

Betsy Hp:
This is probably part of the breakdown of our views.  For me, in the 
story-book pantheon of "bad parents" the Dursleys just aren't that 
bad.  At least, not in my opinion.  I don't read a lot of children's 
books and those that I have are a bit dated.  So "bad parents" tend 
to be *really* bad in the books I've read, and the Dursleys come 
across as mildly horrid but survivable. (Harry wasn't treated like 
Cinderella, for example.  Washing a car and weeding a flower bed 
does not compare to the drudgery of a scullery maid.  He was also 
allowed to keep his name and his place in society.)

I guess I just don't see that Dumbledore has all that much to answer 
to for leaving Harry at the Dursleys.  It was the place where Harry 
was the safest.  I expect any loving person would have done the same 
thing.  Or lived with Harry ending up in Bellatrix's capable hands 
because of their unwillingness to make the hard call.

> >>Alla:
> But as I recently realized and mentioned on list - I very 
> embarrassingly forgot Sirius remark that he was indeed an         
> appointed guardian, that is why now to me even Dumbledore's       
> initial decision does not pass scrutiny of "that is how the       
> conflicted man who is forced to act to save the baby behaved" and 
> instead pushes me back to contemplate whether Dumbledore is indeed 
> a manipulative bastard.
> <snip>

Betsy Hp:
Well, I'm pretty sure Dumbledore's mother was married to his 
father... <g>.  Seriously, this is where I think Dumbledore's 
position as a patron weighs in.

I'm not sure JKR meant to set up her world this way. (I'm not sure 
how much faith I put into her world building skills.  I get the 
sense she's more a satirist than a world builder.)  But I do get the 
sense that the WW works on the patron-client system.
[see this fabulous essay here:
http://community.livejournal.com/hp_essays/7250.html  ]

The Potters were Dumbledore's clients.  So yeah, Dumbledore had the 
right to decide what to do with their son once they were killed.  In 
such a crisis situation it was Dumbledore's *duty* to get involved. 
He's the Weasley patron as well, I'd imagine. So we see him take a 
similarly commanding position when Arthur is wounded in OotP.  
Dumbledore decides what the Weasley children should do, without 
consulting their mother.  Similarly, if something happened to 
Vincent Crabbe's father, Lucius Malfoy might be consulted as to 
Crabbe's welfare.

Interestingly enough, I get the sense that Sirius was *not* 
Dumbledore's client when Voldemort fell.  Dumbledore may have wanted 
to be, but I can easily see Sirius deciding he doesn't need that 
sort of protection and striking out on his own.  Which would explain 
why his sentence to Azkaban was such a farce.  He didn't have anyone 
to speak for him.  (When Sirius finally breaks free in PoA, I think 
he does agree to take Dumbledore on as his Patron.  Which is why 
Dumbledore supervises the passing on of Sirius's property in HBP.)

> >>Alla:
> Here is another related thing, which I cannot let go of. As we    
> know Potters turned down Dumbledore's offer to become a secret    
> keeper for them, except we don't know why, unless I again forgot   
> something important. :(
> One can of course argue that James was arrogant, etc,etc.
> Since I am not into that line of reasoning at all ( I always 
> remember that Lily was a very strong woman and IMO would not have 
> allowed James to make any decisions without her), I am forced to 
> look into other reasons.
> I speculate that Potters thought that they had a reason to        
> mistrust Dumbledore.
> <snip>

Betsy Hp:
Oh, I think part of it was James's and Sirius's arrogance in their 
own creativity.  That they could outfox Voldemort without any help.  
I don't think they actually distrusted Dumbledore.  For one, Hagrid 
would have had something to say about that if there were even a hint 
of such thinking.  For another, James does give Dumbledore his 
cloak, and Dumbledore also has care of the Potters' Gringotts key.

I think the secret-keeper switch wasn't shared with Dumbledore 
because they were either afraid Dumbledore would frown on the risk 
it put Sirius into, or they were just used to not sharing their 
plans with authority figures.  I think it fairly obvious that Peter 
would do everything in his power to keep the plan as secret as 
possible.  So he'd have encouraged keeping it just between the 
players.
 
> >>Alla:
> As a matter of fact, can anybody refer me to the quote where it is 
> said that blood protection was the **only** way? Safest in         
> Dumbledore mind, yeah.
> <snip>

Betsy Hp:
Is there anything anywhere within the books suggesting that there 
was another way of keeping Harry safe?  Because really, if we're 
supposed to start doubting Dumbledore's call, than there needs to be 
a suggestion of another way he could have gone *within the books*.  
And I think it'd be really important to show that another character 
had approached Dumbledore with that other possibility.

Betsy Hp