Dumbledore's Worthless

[Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)]

No: HPFGUIDX 184806

JLyon wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/184793>:

<< I would say that Harry's second year shows how little Dumbledore is
willing to do. Children are dropping like bowling pins and he can't
even figure out about the basilisk. This is with his mastery of
Legillimency not detecting Quirellmort or the fraud that was Lockhart. >>

I feel sure that Dumbledore knew all along what a fraud Lockhart was.
If he didn't know it before he hired Lockhart (supposedly because
Lockhart was the only applicant for the job, altho' it may have been
that DD had decided to relieve the wizarding world from this
particular nuisance), if the House Elves or the portraits didn't tell
him about the mess Lockhart made with his Cornish Pixies, if Hagrid
didn't complain to him about Lockhart, Dumbledore would at least have
found out when they discovered the Petrified Mrs Norris.

Lockhart said: "It was definitely a curse that killed her" and four
short paragraphs later, Albus said: "She's not dead, Argus". As Albus
explained "She has been Petrified", Lockhart said: "Ah! I thought so!"
in the background. What more evidence does DD need to know he's a
fake? Evidence that DD already knew about Lockhart's Memory Charms
waits until the end:

"He tried to do a Memory Charm and the wand backfired," Ron
explained quietly to Dumbledore.

"Dear me," said Dumbledore, shaking his head, his long silver
mustache quivering. "Impaled upon your own sword, Gilderoy!"

'Impaled' upon your own sword instead of 'hoist on his own petard' 
-- it's not a reference to magic, so perhaps the idea is that the
old-fashioned wizarding world hung on to a phrase used before petards
were invented. Petards were an early form of grenade invented around
1580 and in those days, an 'engineer' didn't drive a choo-choo train,
much less design bridges; an engineer made catapults and explosives.