Doing it for Lily? was Re: Snape and Harry and expulsion LONG

[dumbledore11214]

No: HPFGUIDX 188973

OY, I missed the whole sentence and a word, so adding it. Sorry.

> Lealess:
> > In the end, Potter may have had a choice, but there is evidence for me to
believe it was a highly-conditioned one.
>
> Pippin:
> ::rolls eyes:: I don't think one could train even the most adoring, compliant
spaniel to obey you by showing up once a year to deliver a treat and say how
proud you are, still less one that had been kept in an abusive situation for ten
years. And humans, in my experience, respond to training less reliably than
dogs.


Alla:

But if you are consistently putting this spaniel (or human in our situation) in
the situations which require certain modes of behavior I think you can train him
pretty darn well.

You do not have to agree that the whole book 1 and Harry going to face Voldemort
was the training set up by Dumbledore, but I hope we agree that there is a canon
supported argument to be made for that, heck Harry himself says it very clear
that Dumbledore gave him a chance (paraphrasing). You do not have to agree with
Harry, but it is canon.

Dumbledore may have finally graced Harry with his conversational skills at the
end of the year in OOP, but he was the one who put Harry on the path he was in
OOP - occlumency lessons, avoiding him etc.

And of course in HBP Dumbledore meets with Harry so much more often than once a
year.


Trust me, hate Dumbledore as I am, I really really wanted to be convinced that
Harry chose on his own at the end, and of course there is a scene where he
decides that Dumbledore betrayed him and that his plan is a good one.


However I cannot ignore the evidence that lealess described. Even though I think
that Harry chose on his own at the end (there was nobody there to coerce him
after all) since he so clearly believes that Dumbledore betrayed him, I think
Dumbledore made sure to condition Harry to at least decrease the possibility
that he would chose differently.

As I said, because I like the character of Harry so much, I would MUCH prefer
that the choice would have been completely his own, but I just cannot buy so
anymore, and we  never hear Harry assert that he is his own man, only that he is
Dumbledore's man. I only hope that in the years between the fight with Voldemort
and epilogue he learned how to be his own man.

JMO,

Alla