Dumbledore

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 177397

> zanooda replied: 
> > Yes, it's a very confusing part. Why did Harry need to believe that
> he is sacrificing himself? Why wasn't he allowed to know that he may 
> survive? 

Pippin:
Dumbledore  could only guess that Harry might survive, the situation
 between Harry and Voldemort being utterly without precedent.
--
"His body keeps her sacrifice alive, and while that enchantment
survives, so do you and so does Voldemort's one last hope for himself."

Dumbledore smiled at Harry, and Harry stared at him.

"And you knew this? You knew--all along?"
"I guessed." --DH ch 35

IMO, Dumbledore did not want to repeat his mistake with Snape
and let Harry risk himself for the sake of a false hope. Also, it
seems he guessed that by choosing death Harry would be able to 
invoke protection on the people he died for, as Lily did. That is
the best explanation I have for why Dumbledore was so 
satisfied that Harry had not defended himself. 

"But I should have died--I didn't defend myself! I meant to let
him kill me!"
"And that," said Dumbledore, "will, I think, have made all the
difference."
Happiness seemed to radiate from Dumbledore like light, like
fire: Harry had never seen the man so utterly, so palpably
content. --DH ch 35

We understand later what Harry was able to accomplish:
"I was ready to die to stop you from hurting these people--"
"But you did not!"
"--I meant to, and that's what did it. I've done what my mother
did. They're protected from you. Havne't you noticed how none
of the spells you put on them are binding? You can't torture
them. You can't touch them." --DH ch 36

This is not a mere bluff as Neville's escape from the body
bind curse and the Sorting Hat's survival shows. What Harry did
worked, so even if he had not survived, the WW would have
gained protection from Voldemort. It shows, further, that
blood is not the operative factor in the protection, since
Neville and Harry do not share blood. 

Dumbledore explains in detail why he sent Harry after the Hallows
while withholding so much information about them. He wanted Harry
to have them so that Harry would know there was nothing to fear
in death, but he was afraid that  if he made it too easy, Harry 
would misuse the Hallows as Dumbledore had done. He begs
Harry's forgiveness for not trusting him more.  

As it unfolds, it can really only have been the Stone that Dumbledore 
wanted Harry to use.

Harry already had the cloak. Snape was supposed to have had the  
wand, and, presumably to know what it was, because otherwise
Dumbledore could not have been sure that Snape would take it.

"If you planned your death with Snape, you meant him to end
up with the Elder Wand, didn't you?" -DH ch 35

Harry explains later that the wand would have lost its powers if 
Dumbledore had died as he had planned.

"Dumbledore intended to die undefeated, the wand's last
true master! If all had gone as planned, the wand's power
would have died with him, because it never had been won 
from him!" -DH ch 36

It's not clear what Dumbledore expected Snape to do with
the (secretly) disempowered wand but it might have kept 
Voldemort from attacking him, since Voldemort knew
he'd come so close to being beaten by that wand at
the MoM. It's interesting that Snape raises a wand in
the Shrieking Shack but apparently decides not to fight.

But he couldn't have won against horcrux-protected
Voldemort and the only weapon he could have used
against Nagini is fiendfyre. In such close quarters that
would only have meant an even more horrible death. 

Dumbledore's "Poor Severus" remark suggests he didn't
intend for Snape to die as he did. That this contradicts
"Don't pity the dead" suggests two intriguing possibilities:
one, that Snape isn't dead (I wish!) or more likely, IMO,
at this point Harry has worked out for himself that no 
one who has not abused their soul as thoroughly as
Voldemort did has anything to fear from death. 

Pippin