Sirius, Sirus, and more Sirius/ Blood protection/ Dumbledore and Harry

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 158491

> Alla:
> 
> And he also says that his mistakes are of bigger magnitude than 
> others (paraphrase) and that I believe too. He may have understand 
> the things about blood protection others do not, it is just I want 
> to know the reasons for his decision - **why** he came up with blood 
> protection. In short - I don't buy the Dumbledore would do correct 
> thing just because he is Dumbledore, you know? Just does not sit 
> right with me.
> 

Pippin:
But surely his big mistake is the one canon keeps harping on --
that he trusted the wrong person. On the technical details of
magic he is not likely to be wrong, nor would it be very
meaningful if he was. Anyway, love alone is not enough to
protect anybody from Voldemort. One of the most poignant
things in canon is that we see how sorely all the dead are
missed. Most of them were loved, but it didn't save them.

Sirius's love alone could not have protected Harry any more 
than James's did. Nothing is purer than Harry's love for his 
parents, but it didn't save them. 


> 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.

Pippin:

It is not a question of the good of many over the good 
of one.

Obviously Harry needs to survive in order to save himself, 
not just other  people. Dumbledore knew that Voldemort would 
never give up his quest to kill Harry. No one except Harry ever 
survived longer than a year or so from Voldemort's first attempt 
on them.  

We can guess that the Order has successfully hidden people, but
I doubt that it has hidden anyone  Voldemort was after personally.
Also there is the mind link, so Dumbledore would not be able
to pretend that Harry had died.

Saying that Dumbledore is a great wizard so he should have
been able to devise something better than the blood protection
is like saying we can put a man on the moon so why can't we 
cure cancer. It's a non sequitur. 

But Dumbledore is a greater wizard than Voldemort
because he anticipated, as Voldemort did not,
that Lily's love would give  a  power to Petunia that protects Harry
even though Petunia is not magical and the sacrifice was not 
made for her sake.  

Alla:
> I speculate that Potters thought that they had a reason to mistrust 
> Dumbledore. **NO** I am not arguing evil Dumbledore or anything of 
> similar nonsense. :)
> 
> All that I am saying that it is possible that the webs of lies and 
> mistrust that Voldemort weaved around members of the original order 
> went very deep, maybe even deeper than we know and I want to know 
> **who** did it ( Shhhhh, Pippin ;))

Pippin:
Nope, not being shushed, sorry :) It beats me how people can
look at the mound of evidence piling up around Lupin and pretend it
isn't there. I think these books must be very much about the power of
denial.

In his book _Friends, Lovers, Chocolate_, Alexander McCall Smith has
an interesting take on akrasia, the philosophical term for  doing things 
against one's better judgement. It is  called 'weakness of will'
in English though the literal meaning of the Greek word is 'bad mixture'. 
Hmmm.  Anyway, McCall says it is really a *strong* will that allows 
people to ignore their conscience and do as they wish. 

If we think of Lupin as a person with a strong will who is able to
overcome his better judgement in order to get what he wants, then 
perhaps we can resolve the paradox of how an apparently 
weak-willed person could be a bold and resourceful spy.

 

Pippin