Legilimency/DD secrecy

[Mike]

No: HPFGUIDX 179793

> lizzyben:
> 
> LV says "with a little persuasion," DD says he "coaxed it out of 
> him", LV & DD both say that they used magic to "extract" a modified
> memory, & both say that it was difficult process. 
> 
> Crouch Jr. is the only independent eyewitness to the breaking of a 
> Memory Charm, and he calls it torture. ("He tortured her until he 
> broke through the Memory Charm my father had placed on her." 

Mike:
Young Master Barty wasn't an eyewitness to anything. When Voldemort 
was breaking through the memory charm on Bertha Jorkins, Crouch Jr. 
was at his father's house under an IC and under the Imperious Curse, 
still. His "testimony" is second hand at best.



> lizzyben:
> It's also interesting that DD never shows Harry the memory of his
> own interrogation of Hokey and Morfin, while he does show Harry
> his own memories of questioning Burke & Riddle. Why? I think it's 
> because DD's actual interrogation method w/Hokey & Morfin was 
> something that he wouldn't want Harry (or anyone else) to see. He 
> extracted these memories through less than human means. He tortured
> them, just as LV had tortured Bertha Jorkins. It's just that DD is
> more inclined to use euphemisms, so we hear about how he 
> used "skilled Legimency", & extracted the memories with "extreme 
> difficulty," etc. This could just be speculation, but the proof is
> in the fact that both prisoners died right after DD's questioning.

Mike:
"This could just be speculation" - ya think? ;) It's one thing to 
criticize Dumbledore's plans and strategies, penchant for secrecy, 
Machiavellian machinations, and ability to obfuscate the truth, as
I have right along with you. It's another altogether to suspect him 
capable of torture and de facto murder merely to extract memories.

This speculation is clearly non-canonically based, imo. The DD 
revealed in DH is not the "epitome of goodness" (a non-canonical
depiction, imo, as it comes from a JKR interview. You will not find 
those words it in the books.) It is now understood that any may be 
sacrificed in the pusuit of the "plan's" success. 

Yet the "plan" did include Harry's survival. It's clear from The 
Prince's Tale and King's Cross that Dumbledore intended for LV to 
curse Harry and that that would allow Harry to survive. And 
the "plan" did include minimizing the pain and suffering of the 
Hogwarts students, through ensuring Snape's headmastership. Those 
are canon. That is the canonical Dumbledore. Whether one agrees or 
disagrees with his strategies and tactics, his goals are clear.

One must stand the canonical Dumbledore on his head to conclude 
that he is also capable of torture and murder of innocents. IMO, 
you are no longer reading between the lines, you are clearly off 
the page. A slightly misguided youth with skewed ideas of the 
perfect world that results in the accidental death of his sister 
does not translate into a behind the scenes torturer.

To the specifics; Carol has pointed out the extreme age of Hokey, 
by the time Dumbledore would have come calling. Morfin has spent at 
least 14 years in Azkaban, (in my calculations) and quite probably 
many more than that by the time Dumbledore extracts the memory. 
Dumbledore, in both cases must circumvent the implanted memory 
(canon said the memories were implanted), not break memory charms 
(which seek to hide memories) like LV did with Bertha. Therefore, 
DD's and LV's objectives and methods must of necessity be different. 
The branch of magic is no doubt the same, as Animagus and 
Metamorphmagus transformations are no doubt in the same branch. But 
the methods and results are entirely different.


> lizzyben:
> Morfin himself no longer has any memory of that meeting, yet DD & 
> Harry watch his extracted memory in the Penseive. How did DD get
> an erased memory?

Mike:
The memory cannot have been "erased", it was obviously still there, 
else it could not have been extracted.


> lizzyben:
> He had to break through the memory charm/oblivation that LV 
> had placed on Morfin. Morfin's memory is the real "sluggish 
> memory," and it took quite a bit of prying for DD to obtain it.

Mike:
"memory charm/obliviation" is not canon. "performed the complex bit 
of magic that would *implant* a false memory in his uncle's mind" 
is canon. (HBP p. 367; emphasis mine) We have seen people extract 
their own memories and put them into a Pensieve. I've no doubt 
implanting ones own memories into another in such a way as to cover 
up the new hosts previous memory is a "complex bit of magic" as 
Dumbledore described it. If it had been more sinister, or if it had 
involved an Obliviate (a charm introduced in the second book), I see 
no reason to exclude that bit of information. 

Of course, in this case, it appears that Morfin was unconscious the 
entire time and there was no previous memory to cover. The actual 
memory that was extracted and visited was only of the preamble to 
the implanted memory. That's the one that Dumbledore used "a great 
deal of skilled Legilimency to coax it out" of Morfin.(ibid) 
Likewise, I'd imagine much skilled Legilimency is needed to 
circumvent a complex bit of magic that has convinced the victim that 
the implanted memory is the true memory and anything that contradicts 
that memory must be denied. Morfin would not have wanted reveal the 
memory (just as Kreacher didn't in OotP), so Tom Riddle would not 
have concerned himself with hiding it. His plan worked to perfection 
without it, didn't it?
 


> lizzyben: 
> 
> Oh, but he does confess:
> 
> "Master of Death, Harry, master of Death! Was I better, ultimately,
> than Voldemort?"
> "Of course you were," said Harry. "You never killed if you could 
> avoid it!"
> "True, true," said Dumbledore, and he was like a child seeking 
> reassurance. (DH)
> 
> I think that's as close to a confession as we'll ever get from 
> Dumbledore for anything. -<snip>-
>
> DD's been responsible for the deaths of many people & he knows it.
> I think Morfin & Hokey are among that number - <snip>

Mike:
Much has already been debated about this confession of Dumbledore's. 
I will merely add that I dispute your premise of equivalent 
obstacles, equivalent methods, and therefore your conclusion similar 
outcomes regarding DD's and LV's memory extraction operations.



> lizzyben, who never thought she'd see a connection between Harry 
> Potter & the CIA interrogation scandal, but does now!

Mike, who figures lizzyben's concatenation of the CIA and 
Dumbledore's methods of information gathering, means the CIA has an 
equally deleterious reputation as she's proven Dumbledore's to be.

Conspiracy theories and theorists abound, 
actual evidence is thin on the ground.