A Dark Glamour - Voldemort's Appeal - DDs Complicity

[Mike]

No: HPFGUIDX 179477

> lizzyben:
> Warning - this got pretty long & rambly! 

Mike: I've rearrainged this post into a more chronological order 
(according to the story).
Still a bit long and rambly, though. ;)


> lizzyben:
>  -<snip>- 
> DD said that he was just about to leave when Trelawney began 
> prophicizing.  ...  As soon as DD heard the first 
> sentence ... he must have realized that something odd was 
> happening - it's directly related to Voldemort, predicting 
> the LV's defeat, and who will ultimately defeat him, etc.

Mike:
Add to this that DD knew Trelawney was decended from a famous seer. 
Quite probably DD guessed he was hearing a real prophesy.


> lizzyben:
> DD casts the silencing spell at this point, protecting the rest
> of the prophecy from possible (or known) eavesdroppers. Then, 
> Aberforth comes in with a Death Eater who had been listening
> outside the door.

Mike:
Except, DD related that the eavesdropper was *"detected"* a short 
way into the prophesy. Not that no more than the first part of the 
prophesy could have been heard by the eavesdropper. From subsequent 
reveals, we know he was "detected" by Aberforth, not by Albus. 

If Albus had chose this point to cast the silencing spell you are 
crediting him with, why the convoluted answer to Harry's question? 
Wouldn't he instead have simply said, "I cast a silencing spell on 
the room part way into the prophesy"? This is the man who once 
said "It was one of my more brilliant ideas, and between you and me, 
that's saying something." And he's not going to take credit for his 
quick thinking and spell casting?


> lizzyben:
> And DD lets him go, knowing that he will take the prophecy 
> straight to Voldemort. Because only DD had heard the 2nd half of 
> the prophecy, & only DD knew that acting on the prophecy would 
> lead Lord Voldemort to his downfall.

Mike:
Yes, he let's Snape go, a poor choice. But I think you give 
Dumbledore too much credit of forethought. In the short time between 
the completion of the prophesy and Snape's expulsion, you have him 
conceiving of a complex plan to see Voldemort act on the prophesy, 
create and mark his eventual vanquisher, yet somehow not succeed in 
killing that self-same vanquisher. I don't think DD is that good nor 
that quick at formulating plans.


> lizzyben:
> What makes you think that DD didn't put any stock in the prophecy?

Mike:
DD told Harry that he put "too much store by the prophesy". DD 
admitted to not having studied the subject (divination) himself. He 
said he was disinclined to continue the subject. He makes light of 
Sibyll's second prophesy about Wormtail, and does nothing to prevent 
it coming to pass. All indications are that DD neither believed in 
prophesies' truthfulness, nor thought them unavoidable. IMO. 

DD knew of the Hall of Prophesies. He's sure that all those 
prophesies haven't come true. Instead, he takes the more common sense 
approach of ignoring prophesies and they become just incoherent 
ramblings. I feel confident in the assessment that DD would not have 
taken Trelawney's prophesy seriously.


> lizzyben: 
> He knew that LV was afraid of death, so he knew or should have 
> known that VOLDEMORT would take the prophecy seriously and act 
> upon it. 

Mike:
I don't see how one follows after the other. Why would LV's fear of 
death translate into believing in prophesies? That LV, like all 
tyrants, would be on the lookout for "the one who would challenge 
him", would not leave one such as Dumbledore with the impression 
that he'd think prophesies are a reliable source of information.



> lizzyben: 
> By letting Snape go, DD was endangering every family that fit the 
> prophecy's description. But DD didn't care - he'd finally found a 
> way to defeat LV.

Mike:
Agree with your first sentence. However, at this point in the 
timeline, we don't have evidence enough to deduce your second 
imprecation. Therefore, I disagree with that sentence. If you want
to charge DD with that proclivity after Harry has survived GH, I'll 
concur.


> lizzyben:
> 
> DD may have contempt for prophecies, but he has caught a real live
> Death Eater outside his door. ... But he lets Snape go to LV, 
> knowing the prophecy could endanger an innocent family if LV takes
> it seriously. Because DD knew that LV believed in prophecies, most
> especially anything foretelling his own death. DD doesn't have 
> contempt for prophecies; in HBP, he just says that one party has 
> to *act* upon it to make it come true. DD let the prophecy go to 
> ensure that LV would act upon it, & make it come true.

Mike:
I don't disagree that letting Snape go here was poor judgement. 
History bears that out. But I've made my case for DD not believing in 
prophesies. I also don't see anything besides hindsight that shows 
that LV believes in prophesies at the time of Trelawney's first. And 
DD didn't actually make a sweeping *self-fulfilling prohesy* case. He 
just said that by acting on the prophesy, LV caused the first part to 
happen. But I'd rather doubt that DD would have predicted the things 
that happened at GH at the time that Snape was thrown out of the 
Hog's Head.


> lizzyben:
> 
> Nah, why would DD bother casting a spell just to muffle the wind?
> I think it's pretty clearly a silencing spell of some kind, which 
> encases Snape & DD in a bubble of silence - they can't hear the
> wind anymore, and outsiders can't hear them anymore. 

Mike:
I stand corrected. I think your assessment is more logical than mine.


> > Mike:
> > Unless DD is Legilimensing Snape just then.
> 
> lizzyben:
> 
> ... or unless he knows that he cast a Silencing Spell halfway 
> through the prophecy. Snape's assurance that he took everything 
> he'd *heard* to LV would reassure DD that Snape hadn't heard & 
> relayed the entire prophecy.

Mike:
You are, of course, entitled to conjecture. I've stated my doubts 
towards this being the what happened. I think canon favors my read. 
Remember, I was convinced of Snape's complicity with DD before DH. 
But the new canon convinced me I was wrong.


> Mike:
> > Now, as to your assertion that DD would sacrifice the Potters;
> 
> lizzyben:
> 
> -<snip>-  I'm not sure if he did or not, but IMO there's a 
> lot of circumstantial evidence tying DD to the crime. 
> First of all, DD asked for the Potters' invisibility cloak 
> a week or so before the murders. 

Mike:
I think DD's obsession with the Hallows explains this better than 
some possible conspiratorial intent.


> lizzyben: 
> Secondly, how did DD know what had happened so quickly? He sent 
> Hagrid to take Harry before the authorities had even shown up. And
> he also knew about the "blood protection" that Lily's sacrifice had
> created for Harry. Meaning he knew that Lily had stood in front of
> Harry & sacrificed her life. How does he know this? Really, how 
> would he know what happened in Godric's Hollow? There were no 
> witnesses, but within hours of the attack, DD knew exactly what had
> happened, how it had happened, & why Harry survived. 

Mike:
I'm afraid this one has to be chalked up to a new author, not 
expecting that anyone would explore her story to the degree that we 
have here. There are just too many inconsistencies with the whole GH 
plotline to pin one or two things on specific characters. 

How was the whole WW celebrating LV's demise the next morning? What 
about the 24 hours? If Hagrid told Minerva about bringing Harry to 
the Dursleys in time for her to be sitting outside their house by the 
morning of November 1, why did it take until midnight for Hagrid to 
actually retrieve Harry and show up? How did DD know it was an AK 
that LV cast? Conversely, if it's given that DD knew it was an AK, 
then DD, the big ancient-love-magic proponent, would deduce that was 
the only way Harry could have survived the AK. And, as brought up by 
Shelley on a different thread, both James and Lily threatened enough 
to go under the Fidelius don't keep their wands handy?

I have to conclude that the GH events and subsequent actions by the 
characters happened because the author needed them to happen. Also, 
the holes happened because she didn't choose to fill them or she 
couldn't fill them without giving away too much, too soon.



> lizzyben:
> 
> LV had to *mark* the child to make him his equal - and DD wouldn't
> know exactly how that would happen, but he knew that LV and Harry 
> had to have a confrontation for it to happen.

Mike:
To get to this point we've had to make quite a few assumptions.
1) DD cared about prophesies.
2) DD thought LV would believe in prophesies and act upon them.
3) DD deduced all this in the short time between prophesy completion 
and the go ahead to throw Snape out of the Hog's Head.
4) DD believed in prophesies so much that he would purposely enable 
LV to attack a child figuring that child would somehow survive.
5) DD didn't think the boy was *born* with "power the dark lord knows 
not", but that instead the prophesy would somehow provide it. Or 
maybe some unknown interaction was sure to happen to give him this.

There's more, but those will do to make my point. This is way too 
much for me to believe that DD believed and/or was capable of 
conceiving. Now you want to add a couple more. That DD understood 
prophesies so well as to know that *marking* required some 
confrontation, yet non-lethal for the "chosen one", and that there 
would be some transfer or incurring of power into the "chosen one" 
through this confrontational marking. More than I'm willing to 
accept. 



> lizzyben:
> 
> But a Harry that's kept safe & far away from Voldemort won't 
> become the Chosen One. -<snip>-
> DD doesn't need to know exactly how the prophecy would play out,
> or how Harry would become an equal, he just needs to know that 
> this attack will create one w/special powers to defeat LV.

Mike:
You have not convinced me that DD would put *that* much store in 
prophesies to just blindly go along with them/it. Besides, where in 
the prophesy did it say the attack would create the powers? AND, 
wasn't it "power the Dark Lord knows not"? How could that come from 
LV's marking? It didn't, did it? Harry's "special power" is LOVE, 
that's what LV "knew not", and it didn't come from LV.

We are not talking about Lily's love protection, the ancient magic 
stuff. That saved Harry from death (something that only an uncritical 
believer of prophesies would believe *had* to happen). No, Harry's 
Love is inborn. DD explains this in OotP and reiterates it in HBP, 
and it follows that the prophesy foretold this as the prophesy was  
about the boy *to be born*. 



> Mike:
> > I don't think the trip to the graveyard was in DD's 
> > plan, but luck saved Harry on that one.
> 
> lizzyben:
> 
> Well, I'm not so sure about that. -<snip>-
> 
> Yeah, IMO DD owned the Riddle estate. He knew exactly what 
> was going on there, and exactly why Harry's name was entered 
> into the TWT. Both DD and LV wanted Harry to end up in that 
> graveyard. When LV used Harry's blood to resurrect, that gave 
> Harry the ability to survive an AK from LV. DD's plan *worked*,
> which is why he had a "gleam of triumph" at the end of GOF.

Mike:
I snipped the stuff that I mostly agree with. That DD wasn't unhappy 
that Harry got in the TWT. Concerned as to how, and to what end the 
GoF confunder was aiming, but happy that Harry would get another 
place to "try his strength". I also agree that DD should have 
expected some LV involvement in getting Harry into the TWT.

Which got me to here. DD owned the Riddle estate and therefore he 
knew why Harry was entered into the TWT and knew he would end up in 
the graveyard. It works as a conspiracy theory, but theres no 
evidence to back the accusation. It's pure conjecture based on an 
interpretation of DD's character.

The "Gleam", on the other hand, comes because an unexpected but 
welcomed boon has just fallen into DD's lap. 



> lizzyben:
> Isn't it odd how often LV's & DD's interests coincide? They both 
> .... planned for Harry to die. It's more than complicity - it's 
> almost *collaboration*.


Mike:
Wait, so it was DD's plan for Harry's blood to get into LV so he 
would survive the AK, yet DD also planned for Harry to die. But of  
course you don't mean DD wanted Harry to die in the same way LV 
wanted Harry to die. Yet it's "more than complicity". Sorry, but the 
level of complicity, deviancy, and intricacy you've imbued in DD's 
*plan* would seem to require that Voldemort was in on and agreed with 
the *plan*.



> lizzyben:
> 
> Oh, I don't like him either. I think he's downright evil, maybe 
> more evil than Voldemort. 

Mike:
I wouldn't have guessed. ;)


> lizzyben:
> But he just might be my favorite character in the series. He's 
> incredibly complex, conflicted, ruthless and idealistic. 

Mike:
You know, most readers claim this mantle for Snape. But I think 
you're right. I suspected DD before DH, but the final installment 
definitely ratcheted his character up into a new level malignancy.


<snip of a very good sewing together of scenes from DH and PS>

> lizzyben:
> LOLOL, Dumbledore, what an asshole. And he's a consistent one!
> Is this a man who's grieving over the Potters' death & his 
> inability to protect them - or one who's quite smug & pleased 
> about the success of his Plan for a chosen one? You decide.

Mike:
Well, I don't think DD planned the GH massacre of the elder Potters. 
But I agree with your overall assessmnet of DD - he's an asshole! A 
quipping, nonsense-spouting, talking-behind-your-back, twinkly-eyed,  
jerk that you'd best not turn your back on.

JMO, mind you. ;)
Mike