What HP Character Scares You Most?

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 191915



> Nikkalmati
> 
> This is not a fair comparison.  I was suggesting DD should have inquired into Sirius' situation, not that he should have protected him (unless the inquiry showed he was innocent). 

Pippin:
But that's just it. Dumbledore's enquiries showed that Sirius was guilty. We don't know what evidence James and Sirius contrived to persuade everyone that Sirius was the secret keeper, but it's canon that they planned to do so,   and that everyone, including Dumbledore, was fooled. That, plus the eyewitness testimony of all those Muggles (which couldn't be checked since they were all memory charmed afterwards), clinched the case. 

Dumbledore didn't randomly interrogate prisoners to get their side of the story. He looked into Hokey's case and Morfin's because he suspected there was a connection with Voldemort which the Ministry was refusing to see. 

There was no need to do that with Sirius -- the Ministry had no problems believing that he was connected to Voldemort.  So from Dumbledore's point of view there was nothing he needed to find out. 

Nikkalmati:

 Just like he protected Harry from the Wizengamot.  Protecting Sirius after the Prank and Draco in the last year was not protecting the innocent.  Lupin was, of course, innocent, but he needed no protecting at that time.  DD was the legal system at Hogwarts, so if he ignored the events - there was no justice.  


Pippin:
Dumbledore knew the Ministry was out to get Harry and using the Wizengamot as its tool. He had no reason to think there was some political grudge against Sirius. 

 While Draco undoubtedly deserved some punishment, even Harry did not think he deserved to be murdered, and that's what would have happened to him if Dumbledore had exposed his crimes. As for Lupin, he was indeed innocent, (at least of plotting against Snape) but that wouldn't have mattered if it had come out that he was a werewolf. That could hardly have been concealed if  Sirius was convicted of  setting him at Snape. And probably many people would have been willing to believe Snape's contention that Lupin was in on it. 

If by justice you mean punishment for the guilty, then yes, Dumbledore believes protecting the innocent is more important. Reasonable people can disagree about that -- but I wouldn't call either viewpoint sinister. 


> Nikkalmati
> 
> Even I don't think DD would fail to protect Lily and James after he had been told they were marked by LV.  If he thought he could easily lose more of his own people, he must have had more followers than we know about.  :>) I don't doubt he would have done just what he did do.  He advised them to go into hiding, offered to be their Secret Keeper, and probably cast the Fidelius Charm.

Pippin:
 James and Lily were already at risk before Harry was born -- they had defied Voldemort three times.  JKR is maddeningly vague about what James and LIly did for the Order. But look at what the others did: guarding Harry and others who were unable to defend themselves, negotiating with Giants, breaking into restricted areas of the Ministry, fighting wand to wand with Death Eaters.  Activities like those are not safe, and they were, as Lupin says, being picked off one by one as they did them. If they had let the threat of assassination stop them, there couldn't have been an Order at all. 
 

I agree, Dumbledore did not have so many agents, so many people who were willing to risk their own lives to defend others and do dangerous things that the Ministry was unable or unwilling to undertake,  that he could take two of them out of the fight and get nothing in exchange.

> Nikkalmati
> 
> Presumably Snape felt obliged by having given his word..

Pippin:
That didn't stop him from breaking his word to Voldemort. He could have broken his word to Dumbledore, but he didn't. I agree that he thought Dumbledore had the best chance of defeating LV. If so, learning that Dumbledore had misled him about Harry's role wouldn't change anything. 

So I am not sure how that compares to  the obligations laid on Death Eaters. Dumbledore was not going to murder Snape if Snape didn't agree to serve him. 

 I can see a comparison between Voldemort's manipulation of Draco and Dumbledore's manipulation of Harry. Both boys were naively devoted and certain they would receive the power to do something which any reasonable person could see was completely beyond their abilities and always would be. Dumbledore, like Voldemort, took full advantage of that. 

But the difference is that Dumbledore really did have a plan to defeat Voldemort and Harry really was instrumental in it, whereas Draco's mission to kill Dumbledore was never serious on LV's side.

Pippin