HBP Chapters 27 - 30 post DH look LONG SORRY

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 184487

> 
> Montavilla47:
> You're setting up a false choice.  It's not either/or.  (Either
Dumbledore ignores the Dursleys or he bullies them.)  As Alla pointed
out a long  time ago, all it really took for the Dursleys to get Harry
out of the  cupboard was a letter delivered by an owl.  Just the
thought that they were being contacted by the wizards was enough for
them to shape up.
> 
> Did Dumbledore need to bully the Dursleys?  How about simply
> talking to them?  Dumbledore didn't even tell Petunia in person
> that her sister was dead.  He wrote her a note.
> 
> How about providing them a bit of gold in return for taking care
> of Harry?  How about a little felix felicis potion to help Vernon
> get those all-important drill contracts?  Maybe they wouldn't be
> so anti-magic if they could see some its advantages.

Pippin:
So... it would be a positive example, nay, a moral duty, to bully or
outright bribe the Dursleys for sixteen long years?

Some of us seem to have  very different ideas of what disgraces the
name of wizard.

 What would Harry, and the soul bit inside him, make of such an
example in human relations? What would the readers think? At least
Harry has no doubt that the Dursleys are treating him badly. But if
the people who love him are bullies, too, he's apt to be as confused
about right and wrong as Draco Malfoy.

Yes, the Dursleys do get bullied occasionally. Who doesn't? And it
occasionally brings about a positive change, though seldom
intentionally. As you say, it's not either/or. 

But  as I pointed out long ago in response to Alla, the
letter from Hogwarts was not intended to get Harry a decent bedroom.
It was intended to invite him to Hogwarts, a task at which it failed.
And then Harry ended up on the floor of the hut on the rock, obviously
a worse place than the smallest bedroom, and arguably also worse than
the cupboard.

This sets up the pattern. 

Bullying does, sometimes, make the Dursleys behave a little better.
But it doesn't last. Giving Dudley  a pig's tail didn't tame the
Dursleys for long.

Every  time the Dursleys resort to bullying again, their behavior is a
little worse. They never actually tried to starve Harry, until 
CoS.

For all their neglect, they kept Harry clean and insisted on good
grooming, until after the ton tongue toffee thing. 
 
 They do seem chastened after OOP,  but then Harry's not a
helpless little boy any more, he's a strapping self-confident young
wizard who can more than take care of himself.  Besides, Dudley has
had a change of heart, not because Harry  bullied Dudley but because
he saved Dudley's life.

Bribes might work for a while. But they have a way of getting bigger.
As Harry guesses, Vernon's dislike of magic would not extend to a big
pile of wizard gold. But Vernon's behavior does not suggest that he
has learned the value of moderation. How long before Vernon asked for
something that even Dumbledore couldn't give? And what would Harry
have learned in the meantime? It can't be a bad thing to take bribes,
if kindly old Dumbledore is giving them out.

Bullies often hope that just a little bullying will put things right.
Bribers always hope that the bribes will stay manageable.  And those
without power or wealth enough to indulge in either like to 
daydream that they would.   Harmless enough. But there are those in
the WW like Voldemort and Grindelwald, with the art of  convincing
people that such dreams can come true.

 Young Dumbledore pretended to himself that a  display of wizard power
would be all it took to put the Muggles in their place, "only the
force that was necessary and no more" all justified in the name
of benefits for wizards. 

Grindelwald showed him how wrong he was.

I'm not saying the Dursley deserve a pass. They don't. But two wrongs
do not make a right. A bad solution is not better than doing nothing,
as putting Stan Shunpike in Azkaban showed. 


Dumbledore's choice, very starkly, was between the Dursley's
protection and Harry's murder by a vengeful Voldemort. 
That's not an entirely realistic situation: in the real world criminal
masterminds are seldom entirely bent on the destruction of one little
boy, and there wouldn't be just one family with the magical power to
protect him. But that wasn't Dumbledore's choice.

As I said, Dumbledore had to prepare against the worst case scenario
even if that meant allowing things that under the best case scenario
he would have prevented.   

Pippin