DH reread CH 6-7

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 186359

Pippin wrote:
> I'm not a lawyer, but AFAIK wills often have bequests that can't be enforced, for example because the deceased disposed of the property in question and didn't change the will. Or because ownership of the item is disputed. <snip>

Carol responds:
Right. And I'm pretty sure that Dumbledore knew that his bequeathing the Sword of Gryffindor to Harry would be disputed. ;-) The point of the bequest was not to *give* Harry the sword but to inform Harry that he would need it and let him figure out why. (Actually delivering the sword to Harry could be accomplished later via Snape.)

Pippin:
> I disagree with Carol that the sword did not regard Dumbledore as a worthy Gryffindor and a rightful user. He became one when he took it  under conditions of need and valor to destroy the Ring horcrux. But since its guardianship had thus passed to Dumbledore, it wasn't Harry's anymore, and Harry would need to reclaim it properly before he could use it again. Just handing it over with a note wouldn't work, and passing the sword by inheritance does not make you the rightful user as far as the magic is concerned. <snip>

Carol responds:
I see your point here and I'm revising my view of Dumbledore accordingly. I still see him as the guardian of the Sword both--before and after Harry used it--because he's headmaster, much as he's also the guardian, not the owner, of the Sorting Hat. (Harry was not the guardian of the sword until after Ron used it, and he lost it to Griphook. Oops.) But I agree that if the need to destroy a Horcrux meets the "need" criterion for Ron (the locket) and Neville (Nagini), it must also meet that criterion for Dumbledore even though the sword was already in his office and didn't come to him as it did to Neville and Harry and he didn't earn the right to use it through valor as Ron did. I suppose, however, that using your last strength to destroy a Horcrux that has already cursed you before calling for help meets the "valor" criterion. So even though the sword didn't choose him or come to him and even though neither Scrimgeour nor Harry knew that DD had used the sword, I'll happily add him to the list of "worthy Gryffindors."

However, as Scrimgeour points out, being a "worthy Gryffindor" to whom the sword has come (or, in DD's case, who has used the sword under "conditions of need and valor") does not make the "worthy Gryffindor" the owner of the Sword. Nor does Dumbledore, who is its guardian not its last user but as headmaster (the guardianship passes to Snape, as we see in DH), have the right or the authority to will the sword, as Scrimgeour points out. He starts to say who it belongs to, but Hermione interrupts him. "Unfortunately, that sword was not Dumbledore's to give away. The Sword of Gryffindor is an important historical artifact, and as such belongs----------" (DH Ame. ed. 129). To whom? Not Dumbledore or any one person, apparently. I'm curious to know how others would fill in that blank. I'm torn between Hogwarts and the Wizarding World, but Gryffindor House is another possibility since evidently the sword doesn't aid anyone from any other house. (Whether they could wield it, I don't know, but it wouldn't "choose" them, to use Hermione's word.)

At any rate, we see through Neville in particular that Scrimgeour is right in saying that "the sword may present itself to any worthy Gryffindor." Assuming he is also right in saying "That does not make it the exclusive property of Mr. Potter," it would also not be "the exclusive property" of Dumbledore, its guardian and last user but not its owner. Scrimgeour does not question Dumbledore's right to will HRH the Deluminator, the book of runes, or the Snitch (which, in any case, is already more Harry's than his). He does examine those items and try to discover their secrets (which, as Minister for Magic, he is legally entitled to do), but he follows the law in distributing them to their owners when the thirty-one days are up (124). 

As Harry and Hermione agree, Dumbledore must have known that he would examine the will and the bequeathed items, as the law that Hermione and Scrimgeour discuss allows him to do, and he must have known that Scrimgeour would deliver the items that he had the right to bequeath and withhold the Sword of Gryffindor because, guardian or not, "worthy Gryffindor" or not, it was not his to bequeath.

I agree with Pippin's last sentence, "Just handing it over with a note wouldn't work, and passing the sword by inheritance does not make you the rightful user as far as the magic is concerned." Just as possession of the Elder Wand doesn't make you its master, possession of or former use of the Sword of Gryffindor doesn't make you its owner with the right to bequeath it or give it away. As Harry realizes when he tells Ron that Ron is "supposed" to destroy the locket Horcrux, it's the magic that matters.

Pippin:
> Dumbledore could have arranged for Harry to take possession of the sword in the proper way before he died, but surely as long as Dumbledore lived, he was better able to guard it than Harry was.

Carol:
By "proper way," do you mean retrieving it "under conditions of need and valor" like those that Snape set up? I think he planned all along to have Snape deliver it in some such way. (The plan is Snape's own, but he already knew the conditions that had to be met.}

Pippin:
> He did not expect to be killed before he had demonstrated the use of the sword to Harry,IMO, but I agree with Carol that he trusted that Hermione would be able to tell Harry why  Dumbledore would want him to have it if Dumbledore didn't get the chance to do so himself. 

Carol:
This is a small point, but I think that if DD had intended for Harry to know that the Sword would destroy Horcruxes because of the Basilisk venom, the time to tell him was when he explained that his hand had been cursed by the ring Horcrux and that Snape had saved him. He promises to tell "that thrilling tale" at a later time but never does, and Harry only finds out that DD used the Sword of Gryffindor to destroy the Horcrux (but not the curse) when he views Snape's memories in the Pensieve. 

DD knew that Draco was planning to kill him. He even knew, before the visit to the cave, that Draco had succeeded in whatever he was trying to do in the Room of Requirement, which almost certainly meant that DD would die that very night, by Snape's hand if DD's plan succeeded. He thought that he and Harry would find a real Horcrux in the cave. Before they left on that expedition, he had one last chance to tell Harry how to destroy that Horcrux if he himself could not do it. But he forfeited that opportunity.

Why would he do that? I think it's because he had already written the will, not as a back-up plan but as the only plan. He intended to tell Harry cryptically, through the will, that he would need the Sword of Gryffindor, leaving him to figure out why. As for delivering the sword, if "conditions of need and valor" that the Sword would recognize and honor did not arise on their own, as they did for Neville, he could arrange to have Snape create them (which is exactly what happened).

Carol, noting that Dumbledore works in mysterious ways, even (somehow) arranging for his own portrait to carry on his interaction with Snape