Dursleys or Death (was Re: Christian Forgiveness and Snape)

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 164517



> 
> Jen:  I was speaking more rhetorically to the fact that Dumbledore 
> knew Harry would suffer at the Dursleys, that he was dooming him 
> to 'ten dark and difficult years' and he decided to make the decision 
> alone rather than ask someone what the Potters might have wanted or 
> to 'condemn' Harry themselves.  To do so would risk others 
> saying 'no, we'll find another way' or having their compassion move 
> them to reconsider once the immediate danger passed.  Dumbledore 
> believed at the time that compassion for Harry's suffering would cost 
> Harry his life and that he alone might be capable of choosing with 
> his head and not his heart.

Pippin:
I'm not sure where this is coming from. The Potters *died* to
keep Harry alive. I think that's a pretty strong statement of 
their wishes. Who would Dumbledore think they'd want
him  to ask? 

Sirius,  who at the very least must have inadvertently 
betrayed the Potters' whereabouts?

Lupin? Where the heck was he anyway? 

Some committee of ministry do gooders? James and Lily were 
members of the Order, clearly they didn't trust the ministry to fight 
Voldemort for them.

In any case, the immediate danger was never past --
suppose the Weasleys had won the galleon draw ten years
earlier? Or that someone like Quirrell had wandered into 
Albania sooner than Quirrell did? The danger of Voldemort
might fade from people's consciousness, but the danger itself still
existed. The blood protection would not fail through complacency,
nor could it be hoodwinked or blackmailed or jinxed, at least
as long as wizards could be kept from contact with the Dursleys.

The light in Dumbledore's eyes usually shows itself when he's
amused or pleased about something. Of course he wouldn't be
pleased about having to leave Harry at the Dursleys. But it seems
like a leap to say that his compassion for Harry's suffering had
to die so that he could do  such a thing. I think his heart
was aching, but it would be  a poor return for James and Lily's
sacrifice if he let their son be murdered to salve his own
feelings.

Dumbledore did say that he feared what would happen if
he cared about Harry too much -- but that was about Voldemort
trying to use Harry as a spy against him, and about Dumbledore's
failure to explain to Harry why Voldemort wanted him dead. It
was not about Harry staying at the Dursleys, which continues
even after Dumbledore has admitted that he does care about
Harry.

This whole too much thing is again part of that older culture
that says feelings aren't to be trusted. And Dumbledore is
struggling with that, working his way to the idea that
his love for Harry was not a mistake, or if so it was a felix
culpa. (OOP is the book of 'felix culpa', Dumbledore even
refers to it when he says a "lucky mistake" brought him
to Harry's hearing on time.)

But it's not as if Dumbledore had a choice between Petunia and
some other relative of Lily's who could have provided a 
nurturing home. If Rowling wanted Dumbledore's choice
to be about that, about Dumbledore deciding  that nurture 
would  be bad for Harry, she could easily have created such a
relative, (Mark Evans, anyone?) but she didn't.

Dumbledore feels very strongly that pampering would be
bad for Harry, but I think it's a misunderstanding to equate
pampering with nurture and love. Doing so is so far
from Dumbledore's thinking that I'm sure he feels he
doesn't need to explain the difference -- leaving his
readers just where Rowling wants them, ie thinking about it.

 "SIRIUS DESERVED WHAT HE GOT" is the same, IMO, so far 
from Dumbledore's thinking that it didn't occur to him that his
words would sound that way to Harry, just as he didn't
expect Harry to put so much weight on the prophecy.  

Dumbledore is at fault if he forgets how youth thinks and feels, 
since he was young once, but Harry is also a product of a culture 
which Dumbledore never experienced and which  he can never 
fully understand. Naturally this creates a wealth of 
misunderstandings, a source of confusion which Rowling finds
fruitful.

Pippin