Dumbledore lied to Harry... AGES ago.

[Zara]

No: HPFGUIDX 175747

> Eggplant:
> If so then the books don't make much sense. Dumbledore told Snape he
> didn't expect Harry to survive and for the life of me I can't see why
> he would lie to Snape of all people about that. And Dumbledore thought
> the snake, the last Horcrux (except for Harry), would be dead when
> Harry marched into the forest to meet Voldemort. If the snake were
> dead the results of that meeting would have been apocalyptic for both
> of them.

zgirnius:
I disagree, I think Dumbledore believed Harry had an excellent chance 
of surviving the encounter in the Forest with all the other Horcruxes 
destroyed, while defeating Voldemort permanently, and the story makes 
sense that way.

First, why Dumbledore would lie to Snape about Harry's survival:
DD knew he himself would be dead and gone by the time Snape was to tell 
Harry the bad news, at Snape's hand, to make matters even worse. He 
knew Harry already greatly disliked and distrusted Snape, without Snape 
having murdered anyone that Harry knew of. So he had to expect that 
Snape would have to somehow prove the truth of the story to Harry, and 
that this would be very difficult (probably impossible) to accomplish 
through simple persuasion. 

The easiest way for Snape to overcome this obstacle, would be to 
provide Harry the memory in which Dumbledore told him about it. (Which 
is indeed how Snape did communicate the information in the end). So if 
Dumbledore wanted to deceive Harry, he needed also to deceive Snape.

Second, I don't see why Nagini is relevant. If Harry allowed Voldemort 
to AK him, Voldemort would still be alive in the crucial moment when 
the AK hit Harry, and that momentary survival would be enough for the 
blood protection thingie to kick in and keep Harry (but not the soul 
bit in him) alive. The spell could in the next instant blow back and 
kill Voldemort, leaving Harry alive and Voldemort dead. Only, Nagini 
still lived as the events actually played out in DH, contrary to The 
Plan, so Harry and LV were both alive after that confrontation, and 
Harry had to find a new and different way to defeat Voldemort, all on 
his own. (I thought this was a nice touch, it made him far less a 
puppet on Dumbledore's strings). 

The reason *Harry* needed to remain in ignorance of the possibility of 
his survival is that, while he maintained the intent to die as a 
sacrifice for his friends and the Wizarding World, the AK would leave 
him alone and go after the soul bit. If Harry knew he might live, he 
would know he might not be *truly* sacrificing himself, and this might  
not be enough for Dumbledore's blood-protection idea to work.

Finally, I think that when Dumbledore was putting this plan together, 
it had not occured to him that Snape would *mind* that Harry had to 
die, or that it would be his job to to tell Harry this. That, anyway, 
is how I interpret their exchange at the end of that scene, in which 
Dumbledore asks Snape if he has come to care for Harry, Snape angrily 
deflects  the question (without answering, most importantly, without 
denying it!), and Dumbledore gets tears in his eyes. Why? 

Dumbledore has passed the (for him, because he loves Harry) enormously 
difficult job of telling Harry he must die onto Snape. Only to discover 
that this might not be as easy for Snape as he had thought.