Dumbledore the Godfather

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 173995

allies426 wrote:
> 
> > DD misled Snape because Harry had to TRULY THINK he was walking to
his death 
> 
Eggplant GG answered:
> Huh? So Dumbledore figured out that Snape would die, and he figured
out that Harry would be there when he died, and he figured out that
Harry would capture his last memories, and he figured out Harry would
find a way to read them, and he figured out Harry would be profoundly
effected by it? And Dumbledore figured out that Harry wouldn't die
whatever he did? I'm sorry but that's just nuts. Face it, Dumbledore
was being cold blooded, and being cold blooded is exactly what the
world needed at that time. I love Harry as much as anyone, but better
he die than the entire wizard world.  

Carol responds:
Of course DD didn't figure out that snape would die and Harry would be
there with him. (What if he'd been AK'd or swallowed by Nagiin? How
could he possibly anticipate Snape's last bit of magic, releasing
memories from his own head?)

What Dumbledore knew, or at least anticipated, was that Voldemort
would discover that his Horcruxes were being destroyed and start
keeping Nagini beside him, magically protected. That was to be snape's
signal that the end was near; it was time to deliver the message to
Harry that Harry had a soul bit in his scar and must walk willingly to
his death for that soul bit to be destroyed. That's the message Snape
is so desperate to deliver, the reason he keeps saying "Let me go to
the boy." Having Nagini kill him rather than having LV AK him (which
he doesn't attempt because he thinks Snape is the Elder Wand's master)
gives Snape the chance to deliver the message in his own unique way.
(Also, of course, LV doesn't have Nagini swallow Snape. Instead, he
releases her from her bubble, wrongly thinking that she's safe. Harry,
as DD anticipated, has taken the precaution of telling a friend to
destroy the snake.)

DD has not told Snape that the scar is a Horcrux, only that it
contains a soul bit that must be destroyed. He knows that Harry will
understand why it's so important to have Voldemort kill him without
resisting. And DD knows that for Harry's sacrifice to work, he must go
willingly to his death. Neither Snape nor Harry must know that Harry
has a chance for survival (a chance that depends on the Hallows, as I
understand it). 

DD did not anticipate Snape's death any more than he anticipated that
Harry's holly-and-phoenix-feather wand would break. Snape's murder by
Nagini was a matter of chance, the consequence not only of Draco's
becoming the master of the wand (Snape still had to kill DD on the
tower to survive the UV and carry out the rest of DD's plan) but a
series of coincidences. If the DEs hadn't figured out which was the
real Harry, if Harry's wand hadn't attacked LV of its own volition, if
Voldemort hadn't found Grindelwald's picture at Bathilda's and figured
out the identity of the thief, if he had not realized that the wand
(whose power DD intended to destroy when he chose to die by Snape's
hand) was not working because he was not its master and (wrongly)
assumed that he had to kill Snape to solve that problem, Snape would
not have died. "That bit didn't work," as Harry understatedly point
out in "King's Cross." "Poor Severus," an integral part of DD's plan
in everything from protecting the students at Hogwarts and getting the
Sword of Gryffindor to Harry to passing on the last key piece of
information the moment LV started fearing for Nagini's life, had to be
alive to fill the role that DD had assigned him. And part of that role
was somehow convincing Harry that he had to die to kill the soul bit,
which is what he was trying to get away from LV to do.

DD tells snape after the argument in the forest when Snape resists the
plan to kill DD, "Harry must not know until the last moment, not until
it is necessary, otherwise, how could he have the strength to do what
must be done? . . . . Now listen closely, Severus. There will come a
time--after my death . . . when Lord Voldemort will seem to fear for
the life of his snake. . . . If there comes a time when Lord Voldemort
stops sending that snake forth to do his bidding, but keeps it safe
beside him under magical protection, then I think it will be safe to
tell Harry . . . that on the night Lord Voldemort tried to kill him .
. .  a fragment of Voldemort's soul . . . latched itself onto {Harry).
. . . And while that fragment of soul . . . remains attached to and
protected by Harry, Lord Voldemort cannot die."

"So the boy....the boy must die?" asks Snape, and DD responds, "And
Voldemort must do it himself, Severus. That is essential" (DH Am. ed.
685-86).

This is the message that Snape must deliver when he sees Nagini
magically protected, the reason he so urgently wants to find the boy.
And DD could hardly have expected Snape to deliver it as he was dying
by means of memories issuing from his head. He expected the clever and
dependable Snape to find a way to deliver the message as he did with
the Sword of Gryffindor. But from the moment that Draco disarmed DD,
"that bit" started to go wrong. 

It was important, however, that Snape not give Harry a possibly false
hope of surviving. Harry could not know, and therefore neither could
DD's messenger, Snape, that Harry wouldn't die from this sacrifice
because of the shared drop of blood (the soul bit would die instead).
It was, however, still possible that he would die from a second AK. DD
had tried to disable the Elder Wand via Snape so that LV couldn't use
it against Harry (or anyone). He also gave Harry the chance of
assembling the Hallows and becoming the Master of Death. But "King's
Cross" shows Harry that if he does die, death is nothing to fear
(unless you're Voldemort, who has sacrificed his own soul for power,
and faces eternity as a tortured fetus). Snape's death, of course, was
not part of DD's plan, which requires him to be alive to deliver this
last-minute message. His death scene works perfectly for *JKR* as the
means of Snape's redemption and the necessary understanding and
compassion that Harry needs to feel as he goes willingly into the
arena to die for the WW, but it was no part of DD's plan.

Carol, who wonders how child readers are supposed to figure all this
out if we adults (even Grindelwald <g>) are having so much trouble