Question re Chapter 13 - The Secret Riddle

[snow15145]

La La
Tra La la
Tra La La la
Tra La La La la

Enough 
is 
Enough
In La La Land

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "mgrantwich" <mgrantwich at y...> 
wrote:
> Harry and Dumbledore go pensieve-diving into Dumbledore's memory of 
> meeting the 11-year-old Tom Riddle at the orphanage and telling him 
> the news about going to Hogwarts.  Dumbledore is obviously disturbed 
> at Tom's (probably regretted later once he'd got over the shock) 
> comments that he can control and/or hurt people and animals if he 
> wants to.  
> 
> Given Dumbledore's concern, wasn't it just a bit...off-message, shall 
> we say....to respond to Tom's request for a magic demonstration by 
> torching his wardrobe in a display of intimidating power?  Not to 
> mention just a little OOC for Dumbledore?
> 
> What would a clearly disturbed and ammoral 11-year-old take from such 
> a performance?
> 
> Magda

Snow:


I would think that a wizard of Dumbledore's caliber would want to test 
the waters
see the response for himself
to know who he is really 
dealing with given Tom's birthright gifts. To me it was nothing more 
than a test of Tom's reactions to wand like magic, which is exactly 
what Tom's ultimate reaction was " Where can I get one of them" pg. 272 
Tom was eagerly enthused with what Dumbledore displayed to him with a 
wand. And likewise Dumbledore was less than enthused with the eagerness 
he saw in young Tom's eyes. 

Even back then, when Dumbledore first laid eyes on young Tom Riddle, 
Dumbledore suspected an extraordinary boy, from his accounts by Mrs. 
Cole, but one who had already displayed his favor of bullying others 
and experimenting with his unknown gifts beyond his years. What better 
way to see if he was right than to test Tom by visualizing real magic 
to him? From then on Dumbledore was weary of Tom, to the point that he 
watched him closely and I would imagine even more so once the Phoenix 
feather recognized him for his wand. Or is that why Dumbledore created 
that wand through his Phoenix Fawkes
to help in keeping an eye on him? 

Snow