ChapDisc: DH 18, The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore

[Zara]

No: HPFGUIDX 182746

> Pippin:
> Dumbledore thinks Voldemort will send his DE's to intercept Harry, 
but
> they will be foiled by the polyjuice  -- they won't know which one 
is
> the real Harry so it won't be safe to attack any of them.

zgirnius:
Agreed, and I think he is right. If it had been anyone but Stan 
following Harry, I think this would have worked just as planned!

> Pippin:
> He thinks
> that Voldemort ought to have learned from Ollivander that Harry's 
wand
> has absorbed Voldemort's magic and can defend itself from him. 

zgirnius:
I do not see why you believe this. Albus states:

> DH, "King's Cross":
> "Why did my wand break the wand he borrowed?"
> "As to that, I cannot be sure."
> "Have a guess, then", said Harry, and Dumbledore laughed.
> "What you must understand, Harry, is that you and Lord Voldemort 
have journeyed together into realms of magic hitherto unknown and 
untested. But here is what I think happened, and it is unprecedented, 
and no wandmaker could, I think, ever have predicted or explained it 
to Voldemort."

zgirnius:
Do you suggest that he is lying to Harry in this scene? Even while 
admitting to all his other plans?

Personally, I believe the cited statement is the truth as Albus sees 
(and saw) it. So Albus expected the plan to protect the Order in the 
sense that the DEs would not know who Harry was. So they would have 
to divide up into small groups and the Order members would have a 
good chance to escape, as 6 out of 7 groups did. And Voldemort, were 
he to join the chase personally, would not be likely to end up facing 
Harry at all.

> Alla: 
> No, sorry, I can see no legit purpose for Dumbledore to give out 
this 
> secret, or to be precise for him to order Snape to give it out.

zgirnius:
An observation. I do not believe that Albus HAD the information to 
give out. If the Order had any sense, they would change any plans 
made before Albus's murder, since they would have to presume Snape 
had that information on the basis of Albus's oft stated complete, 
ironclad, etc. trust of Snape. More likely, the Order did not even 
HAVE a plan before Albus's murder, because they figured Albus had 
one. Behind Albus and Snape's back, the Order made a new plan, and 
laid the false trail for Yaxley/other Ministry infiltrators to find. 

So what Snape had to do, was first get the information, and then, 
with Albus's approval, give it out. We know getting the information 
was not hard for Snape to do. Did Voldemort?

The text seems to suggest the answer is yes. We are told by Albus's 
portrait that Voldemort believes Snape to be well informed, *after* 
Albus's murder. This is confirmed also in "Dark Lord Ascending", by 
Snape and Voldemort's references to an unnamed source which, it is 
implied, is known to them both. And if the answer is yes, I do not 
see how Dumbledore could have acted differently. Snape's failure to 
get the right date would have been suspicious, and Voldemort would 
have known where to double check whether Snape knew the right date, 
and whether he had attempted to get it.

So instead Dumbledore ordered Snape to meet Voldemort's reasonable 
and fact-based expectations, and tried also to prevent the giving of 
the date from turning into a disaster, by having Snape suggest the 
Polyjuice trick to the Order.