Wand Lore / Luna / Alchemy

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 181714

a_svirn:
> Actually, they are neither theories, nor guesswork. They are an 
attempt to unravel Dumbledore's possible intentions.

Carol responds:
Which is exactly what the rest of us are also trying to do.

a_svirn:
> When you are planning something you don't deal in certainties,
naturally. 

Carol:
Exactly. One of the themes of the books is that the best-laid plans
gang oft aglay. And Dumbledore is as aware as anyone that the
consequences of our actions (which would include planned actions) are
beyond our control. He says as much to Harry after Harry makes Black
and Lupin spare Wormtail's life.

a_svirn:
> But then you don't indulge in wishful thinking, either (hopefully).

Carol:
Oh, I think DD *hoped* that the drop of blood would keep Harry from
dying, for one. And he *hoped* that Harry would choose to sacrifcie
himself after hearing Snape's message. A lot depended on things going
right, people making the right choices, etc. Any time you depend on
other people to carry out your plans (as Portrait!Dumbledore, in
particular, was forced to do, you have to engage in, if not, wishful
thinking (that things are as you hope they are), at least in hopes
that things will work according to plan.

a_svirn:
> You deal in contingencies. You must see that certain actions incur
certain risks. It does not mean, of course, that all those risks would
materialise, but there no sense in taking them if they can be 
avoided. Still less sense in taking them for no purpose at all. 

Carol:
Of course. No one, as far as I can see, is disputing that point. The
question is whether the risks that Dumbledore took, both as Wizard and
as portrait, were taken for "no purpose at all." And that's where you
need to defend, or at least clarify, your position. Which risks did he
take "for no purpose at all"? None that I can see.

Pippin:
> But I don't understand how this one works.
> > 
> > Giving Harry the wand would not make him master of it. 
> 
> a_svirn:
> Why not? When Ollivander sells an eleven-year-old a wand it 
> recognises them as a master, and they don't have to duel with 
> Ollivander. I suppose one can make a present of a wand or bequeath 
> it. In that case a wand would change allegiances in accordance of its 
> previous master's will. Moreover, even if Harry wouldn't be a master 
> of the wand, he could be its custodian until Dumbledore died, and 
> *then* he could become its master. 

Carol:
We don't know whether willing a person a wand makes the new possessor
the master of the wand. It would have no more reason to choose its new
owner than a stolen wand would. 

If giving the wand made a person master of the wand, why did he want
to give it to Snape? By your logic, that would make Snape master of
the wand. But DD didn't want anyone to be master of the wand. He
wanted to rob it of its power by dying at snape's hand. (The question
is, of course, why he wanted Snape to have a useless stick robbed of
its powers, but I assume that Portrait!Dumbledore would have told him
what to do with it if the plan headn't bee thwarted by Draco's
Expelliarmus.)

 a_svirn:
> The point is it was unnecessary risky. Dumbledore himself made sure
that Harry would be tempted by the Hallows. What's more he made sure 
that Harry would misunderstand their significance. And if his plan 
had succeeded, Harry would almost certainly have gone after Snape.
Whom Dumbledore needed alive at least until he delivered his message. 
> Which is unnecessary risky and complicated. <snip>

Carol:
Do you have an alternative? Not counting giving Harry the wand, which,
as I've said, is not a feasible alternative because the whole point of
dying as he intended (aside from the need to keep Snape alive and
Draco from becoming a murderer) was to rob the wand of its powers? The
only point in Harry's having the now-useless wand would be to bring
the Three Hallows together and make Harry the Master of Death.
(Believe me, I wish as much as anyone that the Elder Wand had never
come into the story at all.)

As for Harry going after Snape, why would he do that? To get the wand?
For revenge? He *didn't* go after him, despite wanting to, throughout
most of DH. And when he was under the Invisibility Cloak with Luna and
wanted to curse Snape, he didn't intend to kill him. Snape seems to
know that Harry is there and Harry raises his wand, ready to attack
(DH Am. ed. 597) but he does nothing, letting Snape continue his
conversation with McG, still looking around for Harry. (He looks into
McG's eyes when he asks whether Harry is there, evidently using
Legilimency on her.( At that point McG attacks and Harry thinks that
"Snape must crumble, unconscious" but Snape's Protego throws her off
balance. Then Harry is "about to curse [not kill] Snape," but he's
prevented by the torch that McG causes to come out of its bracket. At
any rate, here's Harry under the Invisibility Cloak, in the presence
of allies, and he doesn't try to kill Snape, only curse him.

As I've said, the only nonverbal curse that Harry knows is Levicorpus,
which would not prevent Snape from figuring out where he was and using
Petrificus Totalus on him. As long as he still had his own wand, he
could easily reverse the Levicorpus himself. And he could force Harry
to listen, step one being to show him his Patronus. And while
Dumbledore didn't know the details of Snape's Sword of Gryffindor
plan, he did know what Snape's Patronus looked like. *And* he knew
that Snape was a clever and careful man who was unlikely to be
defeated, much less killed by Harry. (If *draco* is not a killer,
surely Harry, whom DD regards as "pure," is not a killer, either. As
he showed by *not* attempting to kill Snape, only to curse him, while
he was under the Invisibility Cloak.)

Really, Snape having to deal with Harry before communicating his
message is a minor matter, easily solved by Snape hiimself. (Snape
must already have been thinking about it; he's looking all around for
Invisible Harry when he talks to McG, and he tries at least three
times to convince Voldemort to let him find the boy. I can't imagine
his not having a plan for convincing Harry that he was on the same
side and that Harry needed to listen. There are other flaws in the
plan, but that's the least of them, IMO.)

a_svirn:
> Didn't have to be a duel. He didn't duel with Amycus, Luna didn't 
> duel with Alecto. 

Carol:
And they didn't kill them, either. *Nor* did Harry try to kill Snape
from beneath the Invisibility Cloak when he had the chance. Snape
escaped the much more serious threat from McGonagall using a suit of
armor (a Protego would have killed McGonagall by turning her own curse
back on her). Now, granted, if he'd succeeded in Stupefying Snape (or
McGonagall had killeed him), Dumbledore's plan would have been
thwarted. But, as we see, Snape escaped from both of them. (Now I do
think that Portrait!DD should have informed McGonagall that Headmaster
Snape was on their side. It would have made matters much, much easier.
But then the story wouldn't have been as exciting. Snape's death (much
as I, personally, wish it hadn't happened) is much more dramatic than
Snape and McG escorting Harry upstairs so that he can enter Snape's
memories in the Pensieve. Granted, Snape doesn't know at this point
that Nagini is being kept prisoner in her bubble, but he does know
that LV is coming, so it looks as if he intended to reveal the
self-sacrifice memory (at least) early if possible. Otherwise, he
wouldn't have been looking around distractedly for Harry.
> 
> > Pippin:
> Under those circumstances Snape would have  time to convince Harry
that he'd got things wrong. 
> 
> a_svirn:
> Hardly. Under those circumstances Harry wouldn't likely to listen. 
> Wouldn't even likely to grant Snape an opportunity to speak.

Carol:
As I said, all Snape has to do is cast a Petrificus Totalus and Harry
has no choice but to listen. And, of course, he could cast Muffliato
and place the Invisibility Cloak over both of them and no one would
see or overhear them.
 
> a_svirn:
> No, but he knew Voldemort. And Voldemort is fairly predictable in
this respect. 

Carol:
Voldemort doesn't even know about the Elder Wand until after "The
Seven Potters," when he interrogates Ollivander after a glitch in both
his and Dumbledore's plans. He's had Ollivander with him since the
beginning of HBP, yet he still hasn't gone after the wand. How could
Dumbledore *know* that he would do so? And how could he *know* that
Voldemort would succeed? And how could he *know* that Voldemort (who
can make any wand work) would figure out that he wasn't the wand's
master and go after Snape? He made it possible for Harry to go after
the wand, which would have kept it from Voldemort. 

As for Snape's danger, he willingly put himself in danger of death
every time he lied to Voldemort and by taking the Unbreakable Vow. He
could have died on the tower had he not agreed to go along with
Dumbledore's plan. He could have been caught and killed by the Order
as Dumbledore's "murderer." (We see that McGonagall had no hesitation
to kill him with her daggers.) Finding a way to deliver the message to
Harry was just one more risk, a minor one, IMO. And LV's mistakenly
thinking that Snape was the master of the wand (as he would not have
been even if the plan had worked) was not inevitable. If Snape had the
disempowered wand, Portrait!Dumbledore would surely have told him what
it was (any temptation for Snape to use it himself having been
removed) and come up with some sort of plan to keep LV from going
after it (or viewing Snape as its master). To me, it's clear from
"King's Cross" and from the need to get the memory to Harry that
Dumbledore didn't intend for "poor Severus" to die. What isn't clear
is what Dumbledore did intend to happen.

BTW, Grindelwald never tells Voldemort how to become master of the
wand. He only says that he never had it, which LV apparently knows is
a lie (we don't know whether he does Legilimency on GG to find out the
truth because Harry slips out of LV's mind into the peresent at that
point), and right before he's killed, GG says, "Kill me, then! You
will not win, you cannot win! That wand will never, ever be yours!"
(DH Am. ed. 472)--no indication of where the wand is or how to make it
his, only the flat out statement that nothing he can do will make it
his. And that "nothing" would include killing the present master of
the wand, whether that's Snape, Draco, or Harry. LV, however, doesn't
listen and arrives at his own very strange conclusion--that the wand,
which is working perfectly well, isn't working. But, then, this is the
same person who thinks that he's the only person clever enough to find
a room which thousands of other people have obviously found before him
(which means, BTW, that at least ten or so people per year since the
founding of Hogwarts a thousand years before have used the room).

Let's go back to Dumbledore. He has to die in the way he wishes to
keep a DE or Voldemort or Draco from becoming master of the wand so
that the wand will lose its power, which means that Snape has to do
it. He gives Snape every reason but that one for killing him. He
reveals the rest of the plan, which requires Snape to be alive. On the
tower, even though the Elder Wand plan has gone out the window, he
still needs Snape to kill him for the reasons he stated and to keep
Snape from being killed by the UV. Could he have let someone other
than Snape kill him? No. Snape was the only person he trusted who
could and would kill him, and the only person who could and would (to
the best of his ability) protect the students at Hogwarts and still
appear to be loyal to Voldemort. What other choice did Dumbledore
have, with or without the Elder Wand, once he had stupidly put on the
cursed ring? *That* was DD's fault, pure and simple.

Aside to zgirnius: Snape is "not entirely stupid"? I'd say he's as far
from stupid as any character in the book, and that includes both DD
and Hermione, both of whom have done stupid things on occasion.

Carol, who wants to know what Dumbledore intended to do near the end
of HBP when he tried to get Harry to summon Snape *and* why DD wanted
Snape to have the wand