Dumbledore's role in Trio becoming friends WAS: Re: CHAPTER

[Geoff]

No: HPFGUIDX 188442

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Alice" <loptwyn at ...> wrote:

Alla:
> > I mean, I totally get how Manipulative!Dumbledore made Harry love Hogwarts and want to go there, that I understand and agree to a large extent, but how did he insured that Harry became friends specifically with Ron and Hermione?

> > Did he hypnotize Ron to make sure he would like Harry on the train and vice versa? ...
> > Thanks,

Mad Alice:
> Yes, how would Dumbledore even know that Harry would meet Ron on the train?
 
> And for that matter, the fact that he met Draco earlier in Diagon Alley, and found him unpleasantly like his cousin Dudley, also influenced him when Draco tried to warn him off Ron later at Hogwarts.
 
> Dumbledore is a Machivellian manipulator, but he is not omniscient and all-powerful--something Rowling in fact emphasizes every once in a while in the books.  I don't think even he could have managed to set Harry's whole life experience up so that he would be friends with certain people when he got to school.

Geoff:
As I said, my views of Dumbledore have become more cautious 
as the books have gone on and I suspect that there was some 
sort of subliminal "guidance".

Let's just take one instance: Ron on the train. On his birthday, 
Hagrid gives Harry his ticket in an envelope at Paddington railway 
station as he boards the train without saying more than telling 
Harry that all the information is on the ticket.

So Harry arrives at Kings Cross and becomes rather confused when 
trying to find Platform 9 3/4 and  begins to worry. I know we've 
talked about this recently when I set up the discussion for this 
chapter  but isn't it a strange coincidence that Molly just happens 
to march by with her tribe within hearing range of Harry while 
asking them what the platform number was?

As for Hermione, I could accept her meeting with the boys as 
being serendipitous. I agree that, even if Dumbledore is being 
Machiavellian, he would probably not have factored Hermione 
into his plans.

Am I just getting paranoid in my old age?