What Did Dumbledore Know and When Did He Know It

[va32h]

No: HPFGUIDX 174440

You know I've been thinking - I'm not sure I believe that Dumbledore 
*was* raising Harry to die....Looking at the timeline of DD's horcrux 
knowledge, it's not really clear when DD realized that Harry was a 
horcrux himself. 

1981: Voldemort tries to kill Harry, fails, and is blasted into 
nothingness. Dumbledore decides that Harry should be raised away from 
the wizarding world and suspects that Voldemort will find a way to 
come back.  Dumbledore seems to understand how Harry was protected, 
and how DD can keep protecting him (the charm on 4 Privet Drive), and 
expresses fear that Harry will one day be endangered by Voldemort 
again.  

Skip ahead 11 years, and here's Harry at school - as Dumbledore says 
himself, an engaging child. And the whole thing with Quirrell 
happens, and Dumbledore gets confirmation that Voldemort is indeed 
still out there. But he still isn't sure why, or what will come of 
it. 

It isn't until CoS that Dumbledore has proof that Voldemort has 
created a horcrux - the diary. And since the diary was meant to be 
used, DD senses that it's probably not the only one. It would also be 
in this book that Dumbledore might start to suspect that there is a 
bit of LV in Harry (from the parseltongue, and from the sorting hat). 

But even if there is a bit of Voldemort in Harry, it's sort of a non-
issue -- because Voldemort is still just floating around in Albania 
or wherever. Dumbledore may have brooded on the future ramifications 
of Harry carrying about a bit of Voldemort's soul, may have even 
speculated that eventually Harry would have to die to truly get rid 
of Voldemort, but at this point in the story - Voldemort has no body, 
nor any prospects of getting one. I mean - if Voldemort doesn't get 
his body back ever, Harry can just live a normal life and die at the 
age of 150 and the soul bit dies with him. 

The issue of Harry being a Horcrux only becomes pertinent when 
Voldemort gets his body back, two years later. And since the same 
ceremony that gives Voldemort back his body also gives Harry the 
means to come back from death - the problem of Harry having to 
sacrifice himself is already solved. 

Rather than Dumbledore raising Harry as a pig for slaughter - I would 
say there's about a 40 minute period where Dumbledore fears that 
Harry will have to die - permanently - to get rid of Voldemort 
permanently. And that's the time period between Harry saying "he's 
back" and Harry getting to the part of the story where Wormtail cuts 
open his arm. 

Dumbledore really doesn't know everything from the beginning. We are 
used to believing that (and certainly Dead!Dumbledore in King's Cross 
appears to know a lot of stuff that he shouldn't have any reason to 
know - but I think there's plenty of evidence that there are many 
things Dumbledore doesn't know. He didn't know that three 
unregistered Animagi were tromping around his school for years. He 
didn't know how to use the Resurrection Stone properly. He didn't 
know what the Room of Requirement really was (he encountered it once, 
full of chamber pots). He didn't know as much as he thought he knew 
about Draco's plan in HBP. He didn't know Moody wasn't Moody!

He was apparently wrong about when and with whose deaths Voldemort 
created the horcruxes too - if JKR's web chat answers are accepted as 
canon. 

So - was I stupid for initially agreeing with Snape about the pig for 
slaughter comment, and everyone else already caught on to this or am 
I just a rampant Dumbledore apologist or what? I'm not sure. 

va32h