CHAPDISC: PS/SS 1, The Boy Who Lived and Avatar SPOILERS LONG

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 187784

 
> Alla:
> 
> I hate this phrase because I hate that Dumbledore used it as justification for leaving Harry with Dursleys first and foremost, I hate this phrase not only because I find it quite to be quite despicable justification, but also because as far as I am concerned Dumbledore is using it to say either/or – either Harry will be with Dursleys or he will be a pampered prince. I also hate it because I think what Dumbledore really means here is that if Harry grows up with people who love him, he will be a pampered prince.

Pippin:
Dumbledore never does anything of the kind, IMO. Your argument links two conversations that take place 14 years and thousands of pages apart, in entirely different contexts.

McGonagall does not know how Harry is going to be treated at the Dursleys when she argues with Dumbledore at Privet Drive. She's not a Muggle hater, she's not going to think that the Dursleys are going to hate Harry just because he's a wizard, and she knows nothing of the grudge Petunia bears for her sister. Vernon is very careful not to mention it. 

The worst she could have heard is that Petunia thinks "Harry" is a nasty common name. That's not very nice, but it hardly means that Harry is going to be shut in a cupboard or have the  magic squashed out of him. As far as McGonagall knows, Harry is at risk of being misunderstood, annoyed by his cousin, and allowed to behave like Dudley, who kicks his mother all the way down the street, screaming for sweets.   

Dumbledore  asks if she can't see that Harry will be better off away from  people who will turn his head. It's a question of being spoiled by two people and annoyed by his cousin,  as opposed to being spoiled by a whole society and annoyed by the likes of Rita Skeeter and Romilda Vane.

Actually, Dumbledore knows there isn't much chance that the Dursleys are going to spoil Harry, but the fact remains he certainly never  implied to McGonagall that it's okay to abuse a child to keep him from being spoiled. The question did not arise.

Harry never heard this conversation, so he can't possibly have had it in mind when Dumbledore refers, fourteen years later and hundreds of miles away, to "a pampered little prince." The way I interpret it, Dumbledore considers Harry normal, in implied contrast to children who might seem to have had a softer life, but came out the worse for it. Harry would think of Draco and Dudley. I've explained why I think Dumbledore was thinking of himself. 

But  that does not imply that those children would have been better off if they'd been brought up by the Dursleys, or that the abuse Harry suffered was necessary in order to keep him from turning out like them. 

If Dumbledore thought that  loving homes were bad for children or that they had to be deprived of them to make sure they'd only be loyal to him, he would never have trusted Ron and Hermione so much. 

Dumbledore knows that Harry could have returned to him in much worse shape than he did. Harry, fortunately, is one of those people  who can usually generate an interior sense of well-being. He can find things to like about himself even though he has no one. Others, like Snape and Petunia, were not so gifted, and were more damaged by neglect even though in absolute terms they received more care.

Pippin