Dumbledore the Godfather

[barkingiguana]

No: HPFGUIDX 173567

--- "eggplant107" wrote: <snipped and slightly reordered>

> And if Harry had managed to kill that snake as Dumbledore expected
> before he so bravely walked into the Forbidden Forest to meet
> oblivion then both Harry and Voldemort would indeed have died at
> that instant.

barkingiguana:
Are you sure? Harry was the last horcrux. Perhaps killing the horcrux
within him was all that cursing could ever have done.

Eggplant:
> This is what Dumbledore wanted this is what he expected.


barkingiguana:
It is what he led Snape and Harry to believe he wanted and expected.
And *if* there were no other ways of ridding the world of Voldemort,
I agree it's what he would have wanted. I'm not convinced one way or
the other whether Dumbledore actually thought that that's the way it
would play out.

Eggplant:

> "If I know him [Harry] he will have arranged matters so that when he
> does set out to meet his death, it will truly mean the end of
> Voldemort." ... When Snape responds with horror (I never in my life
> dreamed I would someday write the words "Snape responds with
> horror", but there you go):
>
>  "You have kept him alive so that he can die at the right moment?"
>
> Dumbledore seems to dismiss Snape's reservations as trivial
>
> "Don't be shocked, Severus. How many men and woman have you watched
> die?"
>
> That is cold, that is very cold, but the next part is worse, it
> approaches absolute zero:
>
> Snape: You have been raising him like a pig for slaughter."
>
> Dumbledore: But this is touching Severus, have you grown to care for
> the boy after all?
>
> Dumbledore is sneering. Dumbledore is sneering at Snape because he
> is reluctant to murder a 17 year old boy.


barkingiguana:
That all reads quite differently if Dumbledore thinks that Harry must
believe he is going to to his doom, but that only the belief, not
that actual doom, is necessary. With that reading, Dumbledore's
amusement is much less cold.