What if...? - My last minute theory

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 172099

Miss Vassy wrote:
> 
> Thank you for pointing me to your post with a similar theory.  I
searched high and low on here and wasn't able to find any other
ostings with this type of theory, otherwise I wouldn't have posted it.
> 
> Just as a clarification,  I do not think that Dumbledore gave this
information about the Potters and the Prophecy voluntarily.  I think
he was tortured into doing it and is not evil, just weaker than
Voldemort. <snipped>

Carol responds:
If Dumbledore had told Voldemort the Prophecy under torture, why would
Voldie waste a whole book trying to learn the rest of it? And why
would Dumbledore be "the only one he ever feared" if DD were weaker
than Voldemort? Why didn't Voldie just destroy DD during the DADA
interview and take over Hogwarts then? And note that Voldie fled the
MoM, defeated by Dumbledore, in OoP.

Now, granted, Voldie expected the assassination plan to fail and Draco
to die, but he seems to have "intended [Snape] to do it in the end.
Punishing Lucius is petty revenge; destroying Dumbledore is an
essential step to killing the Chosen One and taking over the WW.

Dumbledore's weakness at the end of HBP results from two things: the 
curse of the ring Horcrux (Snape saves his life but can't save his
wand arm) and the poison, both the result of his own choices. Age
alone has not weakened him, as demonstrated by his easy defeat of the
Aurors and MoM officials and again by his battle with Voldie in OoP.
Snape says that DD "has been" a great wizard and that he's weakened by
the battle with Voldie and "has since sustained a serious injury."
That sounds to me like a cover story, along with the "reflexes aren't
what they used to be" idea used with Slughorn and the DEs. DD shows
that withered hand to the whole school. He wants it to be seen, wants
Draco and anyone who's helping him, including Voldie, to think he's weak.

Something is up. DD is manipulative (but not a puppetmaster, IMO!).
Both he and Snape are cunning, and it seems to me that they've agreed
upon a tale. And I do think that DD is dying throughout HBP, but not
because he's weaker than Voldemort to begin with. He acts as if he's
either expecting or planning to die. But if it weren't for the ring
and the green poison, the 150-plus-year-old DD would still, IMO, be
stronger than Voldie. And Voldie, defeated and humiliated in the MoM,
wants him dead. From Voldie's pov, Draco is small potatoes. If he dies
in the attempt, satisfying Voldie's desire to punish Lucius Malfoy,
the DEs or Snape will kill him, and if Snape fails or refuses, he'll
die, too. There can be no question that Voldie really want Dumbledore
dead. He's lucky, however, that he was dealing in HBP with a weakened
Dumbledore who really could be killed. Any attempt made before the
encounter with the ring Horcrux would certainly have failed.

As for capturing and torturing Dumbledore, who says that he could
escape from Azkaban if the Aurors were foolish enough to arrest him
and then knocks them all out with one spell and disappears from under
their noses, I just can't see it.

And if DD had leaked the Prophecy to LV under torture, why on earth
would he have offered himself to the Potters as Secret Keeper? The
whole point was that he alone was strong enough to keep Voldie from
discovering their whereabouts, just as he kept him and the DEs from
discovering the headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix. 

Carol, who thinks that DD had to die for Harry's sake, but that Voldie
could not have hurt him, any more than Snape or Voldie himself could
have killed him, had DD himself not willed it