Untitled

[dumbledorefanboy]

On Dumbledore and Legilimency.

I was reading and enjoying an amazing Dumbledore meta, and it got to a point where Dumbledore's Legilimency is mentioned, and how fanon exaggerates how much he uses it on Harry and the students. And it got me thinking on that topic in general, and my conclusion is an escalation from that point. I don't think he uses it on Harry... ever, like in the whole series, or to be more precise, I don't think the evidence is quite as clear cut as people make it out to be, and that at most it could go either way. (The brackets with the numbers near the quotes is there so that I could reference them again without bloating this post with too many repeated quotes.)

The evidence for the Legilimency theory:

The main evidence is that you can do Legillmency wandless and with only eye contact....most probably

“Time and space matter in magic, Potter. Eye contact is often essential to Legilimency.” This is the quote I found, and what I want to remark on is that all this said was that eye contact was often required, not that it was the only thing needed. But that point is moot, because the next quotes here heavily imply (and to not be purposefully obtuse, they basically confirm it.) that you could do it wandless and with only eye contact.

There was a pause and then Snape said quietly, “Ah… Aunt Bellatrix has been teaching you Occlumency, I see. What thoughts are you trying to conceal from your master, Draco?” It's important to note that Harry can't see anything and is only relying on his sense of hearing, but you'd think that something would give away that Snape started pointing his wand at Draco suddenly, like perhaps the sound of the wand being drawn, or Draco making a surprised sound or a complaint at a wand being suddenly pointed at him, but no such thing was hinted at. So we can say that it was done wandless. And these is the damning quotes for me: “Yeah… that’s what my friends call me,” said Harry. “I understand what a nickname is,” said Snape. The cold, black eyes were boring once more into Harry’s; he tried not to look into them. Close your mind… Close your mind… But he had never learned how to do it properly…(1)

“No,” said Snape softly. “I mean the one concerning a man kneeling in the middle of a darkened room. . . .” “It’s . . . nothing,” said Harry. Snape’s dark eyes bored into Harry’s. Remembering what Snape had said about eye contact being crucial to Legilimency, Harry blinked and looked away. “How do that man and that room come to be inside your head, Potter?” said Snape. “It —” said Harry, looking everywhere but at Snape, “it was — just a dream I had.”(2) .

“Really?” said Snape, showing his first, faint sign of interest as he looked around at Harry. “Well, it doesn’t surprise me. Potter has never shown much inclination to follow school rules.” His cold, dark eyes were boring into Harry’s, who met his gaze un-flinchingly, concentrating hard on what he had seen in his dream, willing Snape to read it in his mind, to understand . . .(3)

Of course these are all purely Harry's thoughts that could be wrong... and in the first two scenes Snape was holding his wand, but still there was no mention was made about Snape pointing his wand at Harry again. I take it as narrative confirmation that wandless Legilimency is possible as why else would those lines be included? Honestly, letting go of the whole "can you do it wandless" point which is really just there for arguments sake, these three quotes are the main reasons for why I think the constant Legilimency theory has merit (at least for Snape), thrice now Harry, and thus the narrative, has given us quotes that very much imply that Snape could be trying to read Harry's mind to find information. And that gives a small opening to claim that Dumbledore does so too. Along with that, we have examples of Snape's eyes 'boring' into Harry when he's trying to find out information, so it would be another point to the Legilimency theory, and you can then link that to whenever Dumbledore was staring into Harry's eyes, particularly with his X-ray vision. Snape's eyes were boring into Harry's. It was exactly like trying to stare down a hippogriff. Harry tried hard not to blink. "Mr. Malfoy then saw an extraordinary apparition. Can you imagine what it might have been, Potter?"(4) “Don’t lie to me,” Snape hissed, his fathomless black eyes boring into Harry’s. “Boomslang skin. Gillyweed. Both come from my private stores, and I know who stole them.”(5) Another point of evidence that I've seen people use as a smoking gun is this quote:

“I’m coming,” said Harry, almost before Dumbledore had finished speaking. Boiling with anger at Snape, his desire to do something desperate and risky had increased tenfold in the last few minutes. This seemed to show on Harry’s face, for Dumbledore moved away from the window and looked more closely at Harry, a slight crease between his silver eyebrows. “What has happened to you?” “Nothing,” lied Harry promptly. “What has upset you?” “I’m not upset.” “Harry, you were never a good Occlumens —” The word was the spark that ignited Harry’s fury. (6)

And well, it looks like either Dumbledore is threatening to read Harry's mind, or he has already done so and is informing Harry that he knows, right? Well, I disagree with all those points, here's why.

My Counterarguments:

Here's my biggest one, if Snape and Dumbledore are reading Harry's mind, then why do we never get any sort of indication of extra knowledge that they gained from Harry? Why do we never see them use said knowledge? Even assuming that wandless Legilimency grants you much less information than using the wand and incantation, say maybe just what someone is feeling, it still would be very circumstantial evidence by itself, since all the deductions that the characters make don't require mind reading at all, and even more, Harry is described by Snape as someone who wears his heart on his sleeve, so you would not even need Legilimency to read his emotions if you're adept as Dumbledore in reading people's emotional states. To prove my point, let's look at some instances of eye contact. (I'm not saying all instances since I could easily have missed some.) Off topic, but since I mentioned him let's start with Snape, plus it would help corroborate my point that eye contact from a Legilimens=/= assured Legilimency (1) What extra information do we see Snape gain here? He already knows that Harry has his book due to the Sectumsempra incident, and "That's my nickname" is a bad lie, especially given that Roonil Wazlib bears much more of a resemblance to his best mate's name, Ronald Weasley. And no mention of Snape getting any sort of hint that he shouldn't have known about, like the room of requirement or something. (2) Similar situation as the one before, Snape is already inclined to think the worst of Harry, and he already had evidence from their previous Legilmency session of Harry having a Voldemort related dream and not sharing it with Snape. (I would also say that Harry is doing the tell of doing his darndest to avoid looking at Snape's eyes, but that could be excused as him not wanting his privacy breached more given their unique situation of it being an occlumency lesson.) (3) Snape showed no reaction when his eyes bored into Harry, in fact the only reaction he ever showed was when Harry mentioned Padfoot, honestly this is more so evidence of Snape not reading Harry's mind. (4)(5) I'm repeating myself a lot here haha, so I'm grouping these two together. Once again it's the same situation, Snape is already predisposed to not believe Harry. In POA, he has testimony from Draco about it and Harry is conveniently sweating like he has been running for dear life. In GOF, the ingredients had been stolen, and Harry has used Gillyweed in the second task. and once again we have no mention of any extra information that Snape could have, he did not mention people helping Harry, like a house elf or Hermione. Now (finally!) onto Dumbledore. I'm going a little out of order here for the first quote

‘I must ask you, Harry, whether there is anything you’d like to tell me,’ he said gently. ‘Anything at all.’ Harry didn’t know what to say. He thought of Malfoy shouting, ‘You’ll be next, Mudbloods!’ and of the Polyjuice Potion, simmering away in Moaning Myrtle’s bathroom. Then he thought of the disembodied voice he had heard twice and remembered what Ron had said: ‘Hearing voices no one else can hear isn’t a good sign, even in the wizarding world.’ He thought, too, about what everyone was saying about him, and his growing dread that he was somehow connected with Salazar Slytherin … ‘No,’ said Harry, ‘there isn’t anything, Professor.’ I've seen people link this flash of memories to the same ones that Harry gets when Snape uses Legilimency with both an incantation and a wand and eye-contact, and...I don't get it? For the memory recollection, this is a bit of a reach, in here Harry is thinking of those events, exactly as one would do when they are lying about something. It is very different from the experience of having your mind read, in the occlumency lessons it was much more visceral, Harry wasn't just thinking of those memories, he was kind of re-experiencing them, he could no longer see where he was and was somewhat inside the memories

Snape had struck before Harry was ready, before Harry had even begun to summon any force of resistance: the office swam in front of his eyes and vanished, image after image was racing through his mind like a flickering film so vivid it blinded him to his surroundings. . . . Even if you hand wave that away by saying that it was 3 books and a tone shift apart, that the intent was to link those two experiences together.... Come on, Dumbledore wasn't even looking at Harry's eyes here, no mention of X-ray vision or piercing eyes, not even just simple eye contact. Sure you could say that eye contact is always implied with Dumbledore unless it's stated otherwise, but then this is falling into a slippery slope, since now you can claim that in any scene where there is very little to zero evidence, that Dumbledore was reading a character's mind. You could at least expect the text to mention the eyes as a tell for the reader to look out for Legilimency or something.

Onto the next quote.

Dumbledore was giving Harry a searching look. His twinkling light-blue gaze made Harry feel as though he was being X-rayed. ‘Innocent until proven guilty, Severus,’ he said firmly. Reversing what I said above about Snape, Dumbledore has already started to love Harry here, he has a good idea of whom Harry is as a person given his actions in first year and what he saw in the mirror, I think he trusts that Harry really wasn't going to be harming people to that extent. But most people point to the piercing X-ray look as some sort of tell for Dumbledore using Legilimency, and I honestly found no correlation for it. Dumbledore frequently had that look during moments where he had little reason to read Harry's mind.

“Professor,” Harry said at last, “do you think he’s getting stronger?” “Voldemort?” said Dumbledore, looking at Harry over the Pensieve. It was the characteristic, piercing look Dumbledore had given him on other occasions, and always made Harry feel as though Dumbledore were seeing right through him in a way that even Moody’s magical eye could not. “Once again, Harry, I can only give you my suspicions.” Dumbledore sighed again, and he looked older, and wearier, than ever. Dumbledore was currently engrossed in his other task of checking over his memories for to try and make the situation with Barty Crouch make sense, Harry is already being open with him and telling Dumbledore of his dreams, what reason could Dumbledore have to read Harry's mind here? Does he suspect that Harry had another dream and is hiding it? It's possible, but once again we get no indication of Dumbledore gaining any sort of knowledge from this and knowing anything he shouldn't.

“Ah,” said Harry, brought up short. What with Apparition lessons and Quidditch and Ron being poisoned and getting his skull cracked and his determination to find out what Draco Malfoy was up to, Harry had almost forgotten about the memory Dumbledore had asked him to extract from Professor Slughorn. “Well, I asked Professor Slughorn about it at the end of Potions, sir, but, er, he wouldn’t give it to me.” There was a little silence. “I see,” said Dumbledore eventually, peering at Harry over the top of his half-moon spectacles and giving Harry the usual sensation that he was being X-rayed. Dumbledore here is scolding Harry. From Harry's mannerisms and plainly, his lack of a memory and what he says, we can guess Dumbledore already knows the situation. Dumbledore has no reason to read Harry's mind here, and once again, no hint of knowledge that he reasonably shouldn't have. His tone was light, but his blue eyes pierced Snape as they had frequently pierced Harry, as though the soul they discussed was visible to him. At last Snape gave another curt nod.

I suppose you could say that Dumbledore is gauging Snape's emotions to better convince him, but firstly, Snape is the occlumency of the series here, and secondly there is once again no evidence of Dumbledore knowing something he shouldn't have, and the piercing look isn't evidence at all by itself, it's just how Dumbledore's eyes are described as you'll see in the next few quotes.

Dumbledore sat down in one of them, and Harry fell into the other, staring at his old headmaster’s face. Dumbledore’s long silver hair and beard, the piercingly blue eyes behind half-moon spectacles, the crooked nose: Everything was as he had remembered it. And yet . . . “But you’re dead.” said Harry. Dumbledore is either dead and is here to give answers to Harry, and thus he has zero reasons to read Harry's mind, or he is a figment of Harry's imagination and not real, at which point take the point of him having no reason to read Harry's mind and and multiply it by about a billion. This is my main point, Dumbledore's piercing X-ray eyes are not evidence of him using magic, it's instead just evidence for his personality, it's how his eyes regularly look and it shows how inquisitive he is about people and how he frequently can understand them. Time for a COS quote before returning to DH. Professor McGonagall gave him a piercing look, but he was sure she had almost smiled. Her mouth looked less thin, Minerva also gave out piercing looks in the first two books, once to Dumbledore in cat form in PS, and the second time to Harry here in the quote above. Of course this isn't a particularly strong point, the same looks could convey wildly different things for different characters....except for if the books directly compare them, Aberforth and Albus share the exact same eyes to the point where Harry cannot tell the difference at all. Aberforth's eyes are described as piercing 3 times in the books, and as X-raying one time to bring the combined total to 4 times in DH, just one less than Albus's total in the whole 7 books.

He had imagined it, there was no other explanation; imagined it, because he had been thinking of his dead headmaster. If anything was certain, it was that the bright blue eyes of Albus Dumbledore would never pierce him again. .

Dobby would never be able to tell them who had sent him to the cellar, but Harry knew what he had seen. A piercing blue eye had looked out of the mirror fragment, and then help had come. Help will always be given at Hogwarts to those who ask for it. .

The barman grunted. Harry approached him looking up into the face: trying to see past the long, stringy, wire-gray hair beard. He wore spectacles. Behind the dirty lenses, the eyes were a piercing, brilliant blue

This is Harry seeing Aberforth's eye and mistaking it for Albus's, was Aberforth a Legilimens? Was he trying to read Harry's mind through the mirror? And further more the last sentence in the first quote is suspect, since it could be seen as Harry referencing his grief for Albus, so in here the book would address that grief as "Man, Dumbledore will never read Harry's mind again?" Instead of just treating it as an inquisitive look which would fit much better as "Dumbledore would never give Harry his usual look again?" But here's the actual best quote for this issue.

He met Aberforth’s gaze, which was so strikingly like his brother’s: The bright blue eyes gave the same impression that they were X-raying the object of their scrutiny, and Harry thought that Aberforth knew what he was thinking and despised him for it. Give this quote to Albus, or hell, just any character that was even vaguely hinted at being a Legilimens, and this would be taken as 100% proof of them using that ability. Not just for the X-ray, but for Harry directly mentioning the feeling like they knew what he was thinking. But again, is Aberforth a Legilimens? It was not hinted at for us at all. This is my favorite proof that the X-ray vision and piercing look was never a sign for Legilimency, but just Albus's natural look for his eye when he was focusing on someone or something. I've saved the HBP quote for last, (6) To disprove the emotions bit, Harry was currently feeling boiling anger, he himself mentioned how something must have shown on his face. This seemed to show on Harry’s face I like to think that when Harry is really angry, you could see it on his face. As for knowledge, I don't think Dumbledore read Harry's mind, why else would Dumbledore only react after Harry shouted about Snape and not before? Dumbledore’s expression did not change, but Harry thought his face whitened under the bloody tinge cast by the setting sun. For a long moment, Dumbledore said nothing. “When did you find out about this?” he asked at last. If he had already knew this from reading Harry's mind, then he would have reacted before then, no? Unless someone is suggesting that Dumbledore read Harry's mind, told Harry about it, but then felt the need to act surprised when Harry shouted about Snape, and had such control over his facial features to not show any reaction except for his face whitening?? And I don't think Dumbledore was threatening Harry here too, Dumbledore has never threatened Harry with magic before, and for such a situation too? Where Dumbledore could have easily said "Tell me why you're angry or else I wont let you come with me"? So The threatening interpretation doesn't make a lick of sense too. I think it's just Dumbledore telling Harry that he doesn't hide his emotions well We already have this quote from Snape linking Occlumency with emotional control

“Fools who wear their hearts proudly on their sleeves, who cannot control their emotions, who wallow in sad memories and allow themselves to be provoked this easily — weak people, in other words — they stand no chance against his powers! He will penetrate your mind with absurd ease, Potter!” And I think Dumbledore was kind of referencing a part of the same notion here, he was saying "Harry you wear your heart on your sleeve"

(Edited the post for spelling and grammer stuff)

[dumbledorefanboy]

People ship Grindelwald/Dumbledore, I however only ship Dumbledore/Love..... because Dumbledore is always getting screwed by it.

[humlesnurr]

but shouldnt albus be like gellert at least when they were together? like werent they meant to be sort of the same? /gen

I mean, each to their own here, but I think them being 100% the same has no real basis in canon and that interpretation of them often feels like it stems from wanting to make them into a murder-husbands sort of deal. In the book and the information around their relationship that we get from JKR, they were different already at that point. Albus supporting Gellert in his ideas during those two months was horrible (and I am not saying anything else!) and yes, he also had an appetite for power (which, I believe, greatly was aided by how powerless and trapped he felt in Godrics Hollow after his mothers death)

They were alike in that they both were brilliant and powerful, and similar in that they both were lonely in their brilliance before they met the other. But Gellert is described as an "almost dark twin" for a reason; they are twinning in how they both are intelligent, powerful, ambitious and arrogant, but Gellert put all of that in another direction than Albus did already in and before 1899. JKR describes it as Albus losing his moral compass and that he filled in gaps in Gellert's personality with what he wanted to see due to being so in love with him. Albus supporting those ideas and aiding them that summer is in almost every way described as a dark, corruptive spiral he ends up in due to being so in love with Gellert. (In fact, even being compared to Bellatrix here; Albus that summer almost being a Bellatrix to Gellerts Voldemort.)

One quote from just a year after DH released being this; "“He’s an innately good man, what would make him do that. I didnt even think it through that way, it just seemed to come to me, I thought ‘I know why he did it, he fell in love.’ And whether they physically consummated this infatuation or not is not the issue. The issue is love. It’s not about sex. So that’s what I knew about Dumbledore. And it’s relevant only in so much as he fell in love and was made an utter fool of by love. He lost his moral compass completely when he fell in love"

And in DH, we see also their differences clear as day. Doge's eulogy, no matter how much trust you put in him, paints Albus as someone who made it clear during his school years that he didn't agree with his father's actions or bigotry. We also see Albus put his skills into academic pursuits, while Gellert got expelled for his violent behaviour. Even in their approach to the resurrection stone we see their difference; Gellert is implied to have thought of inferi armies, Albus wanted his parents back so he wouldn't have to be a caretaker anymore.

Even in 1899, in that letter to Gellert, we see Albus in a letter that almost comes across as trying to quell some of Gellerts likely more violent ideas, by first introducing the concept of Greater Good but also bringing up Gellerts expulsion and his use of force at his school as a mistake on his part.

For me, I just frankly don't see the appeal in making them identical. I personally enjoy the difference here, and seeing Albus as the inherently good man he is described to be also being capable of becoming radicalised, partly due to his family circumstances, partly due to love. I dont think him actually being considered as becoming radicalised that summer even has to take away from his culpability in aiding Gellert, because his actions still are his own, but I think that viewpoint and how they are described show a great deal of difference between the two. And I think it says a lot that Gellerts takeaway from that summer is how to use almost an utilitarian sort of speech that focuses on a "greater good" - because even in Albus's darkest time there, Albus still approach the horrible concept with sort of stressing the benefit for both wizards and responsibility towards Muggles rather than "Muggle torture" as Gellert's schemes are described as, and also talks about having scruples and clearly not having his whole heart into it. (Like of course, one could argue that the letter shows that Gellert too approach it from a "wizard dominance is good for muggles" but all the rest we see of him during that particular time is steeped in desire to commit violence towards Muggles in a way I don't think we actually see from Albus)

"Oh, I had a few scruples. I assuaged my conscience with empty words. It would all be for the greater good, and any harm done would be repaid a hundredfold in benefits for wizards. Did I know, in my heart of hearts, what Gellert Grindelwald was? I think I did, but I closed my eyes."

vs

"He vanished, with his plans for seizing power, and his schemes for Muggle torture"

both quotes I think show how different they were. Not to mention that their respective capacity for violence too is so different in 1899 - Gellert tortures Aberforth for daring to not only try to talk Albus down from leaving, but for raising his wand against them, something I don't think Albus that summer would even consider doing, it would be unthinkable to him.

I think both the idea of Albus as a poor softie that never did anything wrong and the idea of him and Gellert being just the same with just the same appetite for violence and harm are wrong. Albus, to me, is arrogant and manipulative but we know he feels shame and that he, despite that arrogance and power, actually does have a great capacity for gentleness and care too that Gellert mostly seems to lack (other than perhaps towards Albus)

And here I have mostly focused on their 1899 selves, but if we would get into their FB eras selves, we also see a great deal of difference between who and what kind of people respective man surrounds himself with. Albus's closest ally in the movies being Newt, and Gellert's being people from old pureblood families.

[coffee-malediction-deactivated2]

voldemort, with distorted features and red eyes: i would like to teach the children pls

dumbledore, observing this shady guy who no one has heard from in 10 years and looking like he just crawled out of someone’s nightmare: ………….no

[not-socoherent]

“They do not call me ‘Tom’ anymore,” he said. “These days, I am known as —”

‘hello children my name is professor voldemort’- his plan

[dumbledorefanboy]

After he was rejected, Voldemort decided to switch careers and turn into a dark lord, and thus Albus learnt his terrible, terrible lesson. From then on, Albus vowed to never again reject another applicant for this job, after all... one dark lord was enough.

[faecaptainofdreams]

No one:

Dumbledore: LOL hey Severus isn't it so funny how i depend on your for virtually everything with no breaks and refuse to let you have any rewards or accolades for your accomplishments and heroism?

Dumbledore: LOL hey Severus isn't it hilarious that i tell the boy whose face triggers you daily about your sexual assault and other traumas lies about why you protect him? Of course i never had to tell him the truth, but isn't the lie just SO funny? Like, that it's because you OWE JAMES, your TORTURER AND SEXUAL ASSAULTER, for saving his and his friends' own asses from a situation Sirius willingly put them all in? Don't you just love that? Didn't you love when i swore you to secrecy and ensured you never processed almost being killed by a monster at 15? Severus?

Dumbledore: LOL Severus, you simply MUST adore how much i dismiss your very real suffering. Also don't you love being terminally hated? Do you enjoy the death sentence i've secured for you? I worked very hard to get you that, it's quite special.

Dumbledore: LOL hey Severus, don't you just love how i give you orders and withhold information from you in thinly veiled insults to rile you up, then give you a compliment, then pimp slap your brain with another comment i know will upset you?

Dumbledore: LOL hey Severus

[dumbledorefanboy]

Could you tag this with the anti-Dumbledore tag please? Sometimes people just want to scroll through their faves's tag without being hit with pure character hate, and going through the effort of filtering that tag out when I'm in a mood only to come across it always isn't very fun.

Dumbledore: LOL hey Severus isn't it so funny how i depend on your for virtually everything

Does Dumbledore depend heavily on Snape? Yes. Was Snape essential to winning the war? Yes. Did Snape literally save Dumbledore's life? Also yes. Does it mean that Dumbledore was relying on Snape for virtually everything? I disagree, especially since Snape was relying on Dumbledore too.

with no breaks

What kind of breaks could Dumbledore give Snape? For the school job part, did Dumbledore forbid Snape from having vacation time like the other teachers?

For the war part, well, it's war. People's life depend on this stuff, Dumbledore can't very well stroll up to Voldemort and ask him for a time out could he? Plus I'm pretty sure Snape himself wouldn't want to take a break, he's committed to the cause too.

refuse to let you have any rewards or accolades for your accomplishments and heroism

When did Dumbledore refuse to give Snape any reward or accolades? And what kind of reward could Dumbledore give Snape?

for saving his and his friends' own asses from a situation Sirius willingly put them all in?

Saving Sirius and Remus's asses (and Snape's life) only here at the risk for his own life, James himself was not directly linked to the situation beyond being Snape's primary bully, which I don't think would land him in much hot water in the 70s, certainly not enough to warrant risking his life. Regardless, that is a nitpick, your core point here is valid. I don't know why Dumbledore lied to Harry at the expense of Snape there, but it's true that what Dumbledore did here was pretty shit.

Didn't you love when i swore you to secrecy

Valid move by Dumbledore in order to not screw over Remus here, who was innocent in this situation (aside from the general bullying.) But it's still true that the situation here was not handled well by Dumbledore at all. The marauders should have also been sworn into secrecy too, and whether or not Sirius was punished for what he did, it clearly was not effective so Dumbledore failed there too.

adore how much i dismiss your very real suffering

If you are talking about that scene in book 1 again then fair point, you can also add onto that the scene in POA with Snape freaking out about Sirius escaping. I don't think Dumbledore could have warned or told Snape about anything there, especially since Fudge was right next to them, and I also don't think that Dumbledore trusted Snape to act rationally about the information about Sirius in his currently very emotional state. Nevertheless Dumbledore showed amusement in there with his twinkling eyes, which is also pretty shitty, he should have just kept a calm and solemn face.

Also don't you love being terminally hated?

Why is that on Dumbledore? He is the one that continually insisted on Snape being trustworthy, and hid Snape's involvement in the prophecy from Harry even though Harry deserved to know, and then still tried very hard to defend Snape when Harry found out and was angry about it. If this is talking about Dumbledore having Snape kill him , then this would be a very unfair criticism IMO, it was a decision that Dumbledore and Snape both agreed upon in order to protect Draco from death, protect the students from harm under Voldemort's regime by having Snape as headmaster, and then furthermore protect an innumerable number of people from death and torture because Snape's trusted position would be key to winning the war.

Do you enjoy the death sentence i've secured for you?

Interesting topic that actually, Dumbledore setting up Snape's death with the Elder Wand makes no sense, especially since Dumbledore's plan relied on Snape surviving till the very end so that he could tell Harry about the scarcrux, it would utterly ruin Dumbledore's plan for the war if Snape died like this. Plus Dumbledore setting up Snape is never given any weight by the narrative, Harry doesn't blame Dumbledore for setting up Snape's death when his opinion of Dumbledore was at it's lowest in 'The Forest Again'. In 'King's Cross', Harry never blames Dumbledore for it and makes no comment even when Dumbledore says the "Poor Severus" quote. Harry comes out of limbo/whatever-it-is bragging about how Snape was 'Dumbledore's man' all along to everyone. Harry puts Severus's name after Albus's in 'Albus Severus Potter' in the epilogue. Those actions make zero sense if we're meant to believe that Dumbledore intentionally set up Snape for death.

I give you orders and withhold information from you

Dumbledore is doing his job as a resistance leader trying to stop a genocidal tyrant by keeping a good information policy. Especially since Snape is spending most of his time as a spy near Voldemort, a powerful Legillmens. That is also an unfair criticism IMO.

in thinly veiled insults to rile you up

When did Dumbledore do that? Even taking the "We sort too soon" comment in it's worst possible interpretation of it insulting Slytherin, it would then not be a thinly veiled insult and instead a very bad attempt at a compliment.

[dumbledorefanboy]

Isn't it fun to run into untagged Dumbledore bashing while reading fanfiction? Honestly I should be grateful that I managed to last a couple of months before running into it again.

Apparantly now, Dumbledore due to his own ego, planned the Potters' death and the sacrificial protection....Somehow. I immediatly clicked out of the story so I don't know how it's explained, but it doesn't make sense at all in canon unless you prescribe omniscience to Dumbledore.

Dumbledore would have to not only know that Peter is the spy, but he would have to know and suspect the secret keeper switch or that James and Lily would pick Peter in general, he would then have to predict that their positions in the house during the precise moment that Voldemort visits doesn't allow Voldemort to reach Harry before Lily, or allows him to reach Lily while she wasn't standing over Harry to protect him, maybe in another universe it's Lily that comes rushing to Voldemort while James stays to watch over Harry.

He would have to predict that Voldemort won't kidnap the whole family to kill them with a DE audience in another location, that Voldemort would not just stun Lily and be done with it instead of taking the time to offer her mercy, he would have to predict that Voldemort would even honor Snape's request in the first place!

Oh, and that's discounting the fact that this deep betrayal was never hinted at by the text at all, nor does it fit Dumbledore's narrative portrayal. (No, Dumbledore taking the invisibility cloak which is something he directly tells Harry and is the reason he blames himsslf for the Potter's death doesn't count. It points to his deep obsession with the hallows which even caused his own death, not that he intentionally set up the Potters to be murdered.)

[dumbledorefanboy]

Dumbledore almost always shows his emotions

I remember seeing a post some time ago from a Dumbledore fan(No shade intended of course!!) referencing Dumbledore's stoicism, and it made me think, stoicism really isn't something I attribute to Dumbledore's personality as a usual position for him in my opinion.

First to say what I think stoic means, The definition for Stoic (noun) from the Cambridge dictionary is

someone who does not complain or show their emotions

And Yes, Dumbledore does indeed have moments of stoicism, but they are few and far in between, and even in those moments you still see his emotions breaking through. But for his regular state though.. When he is happy, you'll know it

Professor Dumbledore, though very old, always gave an impression of great energy. He had several feet of long silver hair and beard, half-moon spectacles, and an extremely crooked nose. He was often described as the greatest wizard of the age, but that wasn't why Harry respected him. You couldn't help trusting Albus Dumbledore, and as Harry watched him beaming around at the students, he felt really calm for the first time since the dementor had entered the train compartment. If he is angry, even for your sake, you'll feel it

At that moment, Harry fully understood for the first time why people said Dumbledore was the only wizard Voldemort had ever feared. The look upon Dumbledore’s face as he stared down at the unconscious form of Mad-Eye Moody was more terrible than Harry could have ever imagined. There was no benign smile upon Dumbledore’s face, no twinkle in the eyes behind the spectacles. There was cold fury in every line of the ancient face; a sense of power radiated from Dumbledore as though he were giving off burning heat. Dumbledore paused, and although his voice remained light and calm, and he gave no obvious sign of anger, Harry felt a kind of chill emanating from him and noticed that the Dursleys drew very slightly closer together Yes here it says that his face doesn't show signs of anger, and his voice is calm, but the feeling of anger he is giving off is felt by both Harry and the Dursleys. If he is passionate about something, then he his voice will raise, he will exclaim, he will emphasize, and if he does not, then his eyes will give it away.

‘Yet again, Cornelius, I tell you that taking Hagrid away will not help in the slightest,’ said Dumbledore. His blue eyes were full of a fire Harry had never seen before. . ‘And what exactly did you want with me, Lucius?’ said Dumbledore. He spoke politely, but the fire was still blazing in his blue eyes. “You are blinded,” said Dumbledore, his voice rising now, the aura of power around him palpable, his eyes blazing once more, “by the love of the office you hold, Cornelius!

And of course the biggest example for passion for me would be his speech to Harry about prophecies not being absolute, you see him shouting, “Of course you would!” cried Dumbledore You see the amount of exclamation points used “Got to?” said Dumbledore. “Of course you’ve got to!(1) But not because of the prophecy!(2) Because you, yourself, will never rest until you’ve tried!(3) We both know it!(4) Imagine, please, just for a moment, that you had never heard that prophecy!(5) How would you feel about Voldemort now? Think!(6)” You see how he paces while doing it Harry watched Dumbledore striding up and down in front of him, and thought

If he is touched, if he is sad, or if he is vulnerable, you also see it. He is, I think, only second to Hagrid as the male character with the most crying shown in relation to his presence by word count, it breaks through not only when he isn't trying to hide his emotions,

Dumbledore opened his mouth to speak and then closed it again. Behind Harry, Fawkes the phoenix let out a low, soft, musical cry. To Harry’s intense embarrassment, he suddenly realized that Dumbledore’s bright blue eyes looked rather watery, and stared hastily at his own knees. When Dumbledore spoke, however, his voice was quite steady. “I am very touched, Harry.” . But Harry had eyes only for the man who stood in the largest portrait directly behind the headmaster’s chair. Tears were sliding down from behind the half-moon spectacles into the long silver beard, and the pride and the gratitude emanating from him filled Harry with the same balm as phoenix song.

But even when he is trying to act calm and nonchalant “See what they’ve named themselves?” said Fudge quietly. “Dumbledore’s Army.” Dumbledore reached out and took the piece of parchment from Fudge. He gazed at the heading scribbled by Hermione months before and for a moment seemed unable to speak. Then he looked up, smiling. Yes him smiling shows that he regained his composure quickly, but he was still shocked speechless And these are not just things only seen by Harry, everyone saw him angry at the quidditch pitch when the dementors almost killed Harry, and Hagrid was able to sense Dumbledore's worry “How dare he,” Hagrid growled as they strode past the lake. “How dare he accuse Dumbledore. Like Dumbledore’d do anythin’ like that. Like Dumbledore wanted you in the tournament in the firs’ place. Worried! I dunno when I seen Dumbledore more worried than he’s bin lately. And all of this isn't mentioning King's Cross, where Dumbledore goes from radiating happiness like light to sobbing his heart out.

Like I said above, Dumbledore does have moments of stoicism, but again, even in those moments you see emotions, like with his terrible anger with Barty, and his fear showing before he goes on to calmy (or softly to be more accurate) interrogate Barty, or with his duel against Voldemort where he is described to be extremely calm, but again at the end when Voldemort possesses Harry you see fear in Dumbledore's eyes (Though to be fair, only the most extremely stoic would see someone they love being hurt like that and not show emotion.) And the final example to that is Dumbledore's confession to Harry in OOTP's "The Lost Prophecy", where Dumbledore tries very hard and succeeds in being calm, detached, and serene, but still breaks at the end, shows how vulnerable he is, and even sheds a tear. (After I wrote those next two paragraphs, I realized that I shifted from just 'not showing emotions in general' which is untrue given how Dumbledore is almost always smiling and very rarely shows an emotionless face, to Dumbledore hiding his emotions in general and masking them with his smiles and such, but I still think this applies so eh.) I'm not saying that Dumbledore is so open with his emotions that he cries in front of everyone or something, he has an extremely close relationship with Harry that would make him show more emotions to Harry, and Harry himself, even discounting him knowing Dumbledore better and thus being able to read him better, is also generally observant. However, that only extend to the moments where Dumbledore is showing extremely vulnerable emotions that cause him to cry or almost do so, and I don't think the students caught his worry in GOF and just saw him smiling as usual, only people close to him such as Hagrid could see that. But other emotions such as happiness, anger, and passion? Any character in the HP world could see that I think.

[jasontoddliker]

The fact that Dumbledore knew Sirius was innocent but didn’t do shit still cracks me up. He dgaf😭😭

[dumbledorefanboy]

Could you please tell me where it was said that Dumbledore knew about Sirius's innocence?

Because it is never hinted at in the books, Sirius talks about keeping the secret keeper switch plan secret from everyone, Dumbledore tells the trio about how he gave evidence against Sirius in the trial which is basically him saying that he didn't know, he then later helps Sirius escape and helps hide him.

[dufferpuffer]

There isn't any evidence he knew about Sirius' innocence.

Last he knew - they refused making him secret keeper and discussed making Sirius secret keeper.

“So Black was the Potters’ Secret-Keeper?” whispered Madam Rosmerta. “Naturally,” said Professor McGonagall. “James Potter told Dumbledore that Black would die rather than tell where they were, that Black was planning to go into hiding himself… and yet, Dumbledore remained worried. I remember him offering to be the Potters’ Secret-Keeper himself.” (PoA ch10)

Then Sirius, a known capable Wizard compared to Peter,

“Pettigrew… that fat little boy who was always tagging around after them at Hogwarts?” said Madam Rosmerta. “Hero-worshipped Black and Potter,” said Professor McGonagall. “Never quite in their league, talent-wise. I was often rather sharp with him. You can imagine how I—how I regret that now…” She sounded as though she had a sudden head cold. [...] Professor McGonagall blew her nose and said thickly, “Stupid boy… foolish boy… he was always hopeless at dueling… should have left it to the Ministry…” [...] “You don’t know what you’re talking about, Hagrid,” said Fudge sharply. “Nobody but trained Hit Wizards from the Magical Law Enforcement Squad would have stood a chance against Black once he was cornered. (PoA ch10)

...betrayed the Potters, killed Peter and a bunch of Muggles - with many witnesses. Sirius laughed when he was taken in by Aurors and didn't fight for his innocence - he went easy.

“Anyway, they cornered Black in the middle of a street full of Muggles an’ Black took out ’is wand and ’e blasted ’alf the street apart, an’ a wizard got it, an’ so did a dozen Muggles what got in the way. ’Orrible, eh? An’ you know what Black did then?” Stan continued in a dramatic whisper. “What?” said Harry. “Laughed,” said Stan. “Jus’ stood there an’ laughed. An’ when reinforcements from the Ministry of Magic got there, ’e went wiv ’em quiet as anyfink, still laughing ’is ’ead off. ’Cos ’e’s mad, inee, Ern? Inee mad?” (PoA ch3)

“There, now, Minerva,” said Fudge kindly, “Pettigrew died a hero’s death. Eyewitnesses—Muggles, of course, we wiped their memories later—told us how Pettigrew cornered Black. They say he was sobbing, ‘Lily and James, Sirius! How could you?’ And then he went for his wand. Well, of course, Black was quicker. Blew Pettigrew to smithereens…” [...] I was Junior Minister in the Department of Magical Catastrophes at the time, and I was one of the first on the scene after Black murdered all those people. I—I will never forget it. I still dream about it sometimes. A crater in the middle of the street, so deep it had cracked the sewer below. Bodies everywhere. Muggles screaming. And Black standing there laughing, with what was left of Pettigrew in front of him… a heap of bloodstained robes and a few—a few fragments—” Fudge’s voice stopped abruptly. (PoA ch10)

Dumbledore wasn't there for any of that. He was at Hogwarts. He didn't get to see Sirius before he was taken by Aurors.

I do think he suspected Sirius was innocent, though - because he was so ready to take massive risks to save him at the end of PoA, even with limited and very biased information. He talked to some kids and Sirius himself and believed them.

But before that: he accepted the Dementors patrolling the school. Even though he hates Dementors. They probably killed his dad. (though tbf - thats also out of his hands. The Ministry decided Dementors were required and he lacks the power to overrule them.) He tried hard to keep Harry in the school, safe. Severus was intense, McGonagall was strict - Dumbledore came out to watch Quidditch games himself, which is unusual for him.

He didn't know for sure. He had no proof Sirius was innocent.

The idea that Dumbledore could have done much to help Sirius, even with suspicions of innocence, is a bit ridiculous. He is giving evidence, he isn't leading the case - and what is he supposed to say? "I know there are many witnesses who all say the same thing, many corpses - and the last I heard Sirius was their Secret Keeper... but like... the vibes are wrong"

Considering Dumbledore, on the spot, made a plan that involved trusting children to use a time-turner illegally and dangerously to save Sirius Black (and hopefully a hippogriff)... has a long-standing aversion to Dementors and likely Azkaban in general... and was in contact with Sirius when he was free, finding ways to safely hide him...

I think he did give a fuck. The main thing that got Sirius Black killed was him giving such a strong fuck about him staying alive, wrapping him in bubble wrap, he was miserable and bursting to run out and help.

[dumbledorefanboy]

Wonderful! And you basically gave all the quotes that I was too lazy to search out and add too, thank you!

Last he knew - they refused making him secret keeper and discussed making Sirius secret keeper.

And it was coming off the year where it was noted that someone specifically close to the potters had been leaking information, "He was sure that somebody close to the Potters had been keeping You-Know-Who informed of their movements," said Professor McGonagall darkly. "Indeed, he had suspected for some time that someone on our side had turned traitor and was passing a lot of information to You-Know-Who."

Even the marauders started suspecting Lupin. What I mean is it didn't come completely out of nowhere, it was already known and accepted that someone was a spy against the order I want to emphasize on a point you made though.

(though tbf - thats also out of his hands. The Ministry decided Dementors were required and he lacks the power to overrule them.)

This! This this this! POA is the book where we get told straight up multiple times that Dumbledore hates Dementors, while I don't think he was overruled, since we get told straight up that Dumbledore allowed them, we were still told that he did it grudginly. "Of course he knows. We had to ask him if he minds the Azkaban guards stationing themselves around the entrances to the school grounds. He wasn't happy about it, but he agreed."

This was said by Arthur too, so if Dumbledore was forced into it he would have said so IMO. But regardless, he only allowed the dementors to be around Hogwarts, and he really really really didn't want Dementors inside it. "Oh yes," said Dumbledore coldly. "But I'm afraid no dementor will cross the threshold of this castle while I am headmaster." This is one of the few times where we see Dumbledore talk 'coldly' (And it's the first ever time we see Dumbledore too it too, and this is the children's book version of Dumbledore too! The ultra tropey whimsical one), and leading from that, the dementors entering the quidditch pitch made Dumbledore go batshit insane. "Dumbledore was really angry," Hermione said in a quaking voice. "I've never seen him like that before. He ran onto the field as You fell, waved his wand, and you sort of slowed down before you hit the ground. Then he whirled his wand at the dementors. Shot silver stuff at them. They left the stadium right away (I know that Hermione's voice was probably quaking here due to Harry being injured, but a part of be can't help but think that it was also due to seeing Dumbledore's anger.) That anger is emphasized again here Lupin looked at him quickly. "Yes, I did. I don't think any of us have seen Professor Dumbledore that angry And here too Harry saw no hint of a dementor within the grounds. Dumbledore's anger seemed to be keeping them at their stations at the entrances (I like to think that it wasn't just Dumbledore's patronus that scared the dementors lol) Dumbledore's anger is referenced even more after this too, but I think I made my point

I do think he suspected Sirius was innocent, though - because he was so ready to take massive risks to save him at the end of PoA, even with limited and very biased information. He talked to some kids and Sirius himself and believed them.

I agree with this, but I don't think it was just for Sirius in general, but for everyone. I don't think Dumbledore would have liked to believe anyone to be the spy, but he had to because information was being leaked. I would like to say that the proof Sirius brings is massive though, or at the very least not limited. Sure none of it could be 100% proven, if Dumbledore used Legillmency then Sirius could have used Occlumency, and Sirius could have genuinely just been unable to take down Harry, but.. Sirius still had an Animagus form that Dumbledore completely didn't know about, Sirius had multiple chances to kill Harry at the shrieking shack alone , and the fact that he didn't was strong proof on it's own, neverminded if he also mentioned the firebolt he got Harry...

I think he did give a fuck.

Dumbledore gives a fuck, Dumbledore always gives a fuck about everyone, even when he tried very hard not to with Harry, it ended up happening anyways.

[jasontoddliker]

The fact that Dumbledore knew Sirius was innocent but didn’t do shit still cracks me up. He dgaf😭😭

[dumbledorefanboy]

Could you please tell me where it was said that Dumbledore knew about Sirius's innocence?

Because it is never hinted at in the books, Sirius talks about keeping the secret keeper switch plan secret from everyone, Dumbledore tells the trio about how he gave evidence against Sirius in the trial which is basically him saying that he didn't know, he then later helps Sirius escape and helps hide him.

[dumbledorefanboy]

Well, I have no title here, originally it was supposed to be about Dumbledore's response to physical pain, but this kind of just slipped away into multiple side tangents and stuff, so it looks like I just really wanted to talk about old Dumbles here... It's not structured and barely coherent, and a lot of it is just opinion while the rest is stating the obvious, but I'm posting it anyways, enjoy the mess if you want.

I've been thinking of Dumbledore's response to physical injury since it seemed interesting to me, and by injury I don't mean just the feeling of pain itself (That one is up for interpretation Imo, I think he has high tolerance, but I've seen a meta that takes it to the extreme), but rather the injuries on the whole and what they mean for him. We only see Dumbledore get injured three times, twice in HBP's 'The Cave', and another in DH's 'The Prince's Tale'. Onto the first example:

“Professor!” protested Harry, hurrying forward as Dumbledore raised his knife. “I’ll do it, I’m —” He did not know what he was going to say — younger, fitter? But Dumbledore merely smiled. There was a flash of silver, and a spurt of scarlet; the rock face was peppered with dark, glistening drops. Yeah, Dumbledore really doesn't give a damn here, it's mentioned that it's a deep cut so it must have been extra painful, but Dumbledore showed zero hesitation, he was even smiling through it! Obviously this is extremely different than from a normal person doing it, since unlike them Dumbledore really isn't affected by it at all, he wasn't at risk of a permanent injury or such and he healed the wound instantly, but I still found it interesting to mention. I don't think the smile means anything in particular, Dumbledore is always shown to be smiling more often than not, like when he was smiling serenely next to Harry when viewing Slughorn's fake memory, and when he was smiling at Umbridge when he was defending Trelawny, and he was smiling at Fudge when he took responsibility for the D.A, and at Voldemort when he was interviewing him for the DADA position. Dumbledore generally is always smiling both because I think he's usually a happy person, and in order to make whomever he's with feel safe by imparting a sense of cheer and of everything being fine. While with enemies to mock them and show them how unaffected and in control he is. Likewise I think that the same is happening here in the cave, it's just Dumbledore acting natural while also trying to reassure Harry, and also emphasizing his point that he says right before this:

“I said it was crude,” said Dumbledore, who sounded disdainful, even disappointed, as though Voldemort had fallen short of the standards Dumbledore expected. “The idea, as I am sure you will have gathered, is that your enemy must weaken him-or herself to enter. Once again, Lord Voldemort fails to grasp that there are much more terrible things than physical injury.” I think that one line at the end basically summarizes Dumbledore's views on physical pain, and Dumbledore would go on to ironically prove his point further when we see just how affected he was by Voldemort's potion. And speaking of that, this is the second time where we see Dumbledore injured, and it's a more internal injury that weakens him and causes both physical and emotional pain. Physical pain is due to Dumbledore's screaming and Kreacher saying that his insides felt like they were burning, and also the intense dehydration which had Dumbledore panting and begging for water. The emotional pain was there also since of course this was Dumbledore begging for Ariana and Aberforth, I think the physical and emotional pain melded together here, especially since the pain seems to be linked to whatever emotional trauma Dumbledore has: “It’s all my fault, all my fault,” he sobbed. “Please make it stop, I know I did wrong, oh please make it stop and I’ll never, never again…” The 'make it stop' here is repeated multiple times, and the screaming seems to renew after each drink, I think that reaction for both the memories he's relieving and the pain he's feeling, and Dumbledore here believes that not repeating his mistakes might stop both. Harry attributes most if not all the pain as due to the emotional aspect of seeing Ariana and Aberforth tortured and not the physical aspect: “He thought he was back there with you and Grindelwald, I know he did,” said Harry, remembering Dumbledore whispering, pleading. “He thought he was watching Grindelwald hurting you and Ariana . . . It was torture to him, if you’d seen him then, you wouldn’t say he was free. And I agree with that, I think Albus would have reacted to the physical pain still, but not nearly to the level of what we saw in the cave had it been without the emotional aspect. (Side tangent here: This is one of the moments where Dumbledore was wrong about Voldemort, since Voldemort proved here that he understood how much emotional pain could affect people by having this potion be the last line of defense for his horcrux—or well, I think Dumbledore in general would be correct if the physical injury in question would lead to death, which is what Voldemort fears above all else, but in this context where the sacrifice is meant to weaken and not kill, he was completely wrong. That line is weird too given this quote in OOTP In other words, I acted exactly as Voldemort expects we fools who love to act. Where Dumbledore implies that Voldemort expects for people to act irrationally and risk their plans due to love, which would further imply that Voldemort does understand how love and grief would pain people, but ah well, tangent over.)

After that is the third instance of Dumbledore getting injured, though we only see the aftermath of it. “Why,” said Snape, without preamble, “why did you put on that ring? It carries a curse, surely you realized that. Why even touch it?” Marvolo Gaunt’s ring lay on the desk before Dumbledore. It was cracked; the sword of Gryffindor lay beside it. Dumbledore grimaced. “I . . . was a fool. Sorely tempted . . . ” It could be a grimace of pain, since a rotting hand might just be painful, but then grimacing only once and then never referencing the pain again would be a little strange, maybe the golden potion Snape fed him had pain relieving properties that were gradually kicking in. But I think that the grimace wasn't from the pain—and honestly I do think that the potion had pain reliving qualities— but from shame, it's in direct response to Snape's question after all, and it's a topic intimately linked with Dumbledore's past with Ariana, it's his shame for once again falling to the temptation of the hallows.

Dumbledore’s tone was conversational; he might have been asking for a weather forecast. (...) Dumbledore smiled. The news that he had less than a year to live seemed a matter of little or no concern to him This is Dumbledore's reaction to the damage itself, first it was examining the hand curiously, and then it was smiling. I don't think that smile shows happiness at his own death, Again and as the text notes, I think this was to show how unaffected he was by it, he just brushes it off naturally and then goes on to plan his own death with absolutely zero hesitation or fear or sadness, all the while his speech is peppered with his usual smiles. A part of it is Dumbledore never showing how vulnerable he is to anyone except Harry, but still we get exactly zero indication that Dumbledore was at all affected or saddened by his own death beyond how he could use it to benefit others. It puts him in sharp contrast with Voldemort, it shows how he really does see death as just 'The Next Great Adventure' and considers it a natural part of life (Though his age doesn't play a very big role here, since he's living in a culture where it's expected for him and others to have lived to much older ages), and I do think that if there was a chance for Dumbledore to mitigate the curse fully then he would have taken it, but it's still really saddening to see how little Dumbledore is affected by it. (In my headcanon, I think that a part of it is because Dumbledore thinks he deserves to die, given his extreme guilt over Ariana and the belief that he is a monster.) But there is something else in that scene too, since Dumbledore lists avoiding pain as one of the reasons for him asking Snape to kill him. “You alone know whether it will harm your soul to help an old man avoid pain and humiliation,” said Dumbledore. “I ask this one great favor of you, Severus, because death is coming for me as surely as the Chudley Cannons will finish bottom of this year’s league. I confess I should prefer a quick, painless exit to the protracted and messy affair it will be if, for instance, Greyback is involved— I hear Voldemort has recruited him? Or dear Bellatrix, who likes to play with her food before she eats it.” But I think Dumbledore really was just manipulating (ouch, that word is like kryptonite to me lol) Snape here, Dumbledore really would prefer to die a painless death rather than to die by torture, as any reasonable person would, but he is heavily, heavily exaggerating that want in order to guilt Snape into agreeing.

As in, Dumbledore never talked about the pain he would feel for the whole conversation, it was all focused on making sure that the students were safe, be it Draco from Voldemort, or all the other students when Snape becomes headmaster. it's only when Snape mentions his own soul that Dumbledore pounces, first by explaining how he's dying either way, so what Snape is doing isn't really murder and instead just saving Dumbledore pain, and then by mentioning the more sadistic death eaters by name in order to make it all more real to Snape. Dumbledore is both hammering in the point of pain in order to assure Snape that his soul won't be damaged, and is also milking it for all that it's worth in order to abuse Snape's compassion and make him agree. In conclusion:.....blueghh? This is all really just a rambling mess, I guess.... Dumbledore does react to physical pain/injury and wants to avoid it (obviously), but not to the same extent as other people and he also views emotional pain as much much more damaging and dangerous, it's the thing that he actually tries to avoid with all his might. Oh, and Dumbledore smiles a lot.

[heartoftheserpent]

i've put a lot of thought into why Albus Dumbledore doesn't trust Sirius Black, or at least why he didn't push for a real trial for him, especially since he speaks in HBP multiple times about trying to push for a real trial for both Morfin and Hokey the House Elf. As they're my two favorite characters in the series i've spent a lot of time thinking about it and today I think I finally cracked the code.

But first, I need to talk about a book called "Mastiff."

"Mastiff" is the third book in the Provost's Dog trilogy by Tamora Pierce, that follows a young cop called Beka Cooper. You don't need to know much about it to understand why I'm talking about this. What you need to know is that in book 3, Beka receives iron-clad information that one of three people very close to her (mentor, friend, romantic partner) is a traitor working against her.

this could be a great plot device. but something weird happened to me when I read it, and I've talked to other people who have had the same experience, which is that once I knew it HAD to be one of those three....mentally, emotionally, I turned on all of them. I stopped liking all of them the same way. I felt like i had to harden my heart to all three of them. When the traitor was eventually revealed, I almost didn't care. I wasn't even glad for the other two, and i STILL liked them less than I had before I had to come to terms with the fact that they might be a traitor.

I feel like that experience gives me the exact perspective of what Albus is going through at the end of the First War. He knows, according to McGonagall in PoA, that someone "close to the Potters" (I interpret this to mean Remus, Peter, and Sirius) is passing information to Voldemort, and has been for quite a while. He offers to be their Secret-Keeper himself, because the only person he can 100% count on not to be a traitor, controlled, deluded, or misguided by Voldemort is himself. He's already mentally accepted (has had to!) that one of them is a traitor. He did not believe any of them were, but if ONE has to be, then they all CAN be. He has to accept that it is possible each of them COULD be betraying James and Lily. Emotionally, he's hardened himself to it.

It also reminds me of the King's Dilemma in the Stormlight Archives. If you know 3 shepherds in your town have murdered an innocent man, and there are 4 shepherds in your town, and you have no way to know which one is innocent, can the Just King afford to let any of them go free? Can the Just King afford to hang any of them? What if there were 5 shepherds in the town? What if there were 1,000? One king says even if there were 1,000, they must all hang. The other says even if 999 were murderers, he could not hang any of them, because any one might be the innocent one.

If the responsibility of protecting people from traitors is your job, how many can you afford to let go free?

So when he gets word that Sirius has betrayed Lily and James, Albus has already cut Sirius off in his heart. I think he tries very hard to undo that, but honestly, i think that forced emotional deadening probably contributes to how little he truly understands Sirius in book 5.

[dumbledorefanboy]

Dumbledore and Sirius's food situation in GOF

So I remembered the scene where Sirius sent for Harry and co. to meet him near hogsmeade, and how it's made a point (in a weird amalgamation of a serious/comedic tone that was probably not intended to be taken in any way other than 'Wow Sirius cares about Harry this much!', but I digress) that Sirius was starving in there, his general appearance has degraded again to matted hair and torn robes, he was described as thin, he had to quite literally eat rats! And Dumbledore is involved with this: “You are not Sirius’s only correspondent,” said Dumbledore. “I have also been in contact with him ever since he left Hogwarts last year. It was I who suggested the mountainside cave as the safest place for him to stay.”

Dumbledore is the one who suggested that hiding spot, so Dumbledore should have also known about Sirius's situation and sent up food, right? So why didn't he? Well, taking into account that it would literally take Dumbledore just asking either a house elf or Fawkes to send up food to Sirius really quick, as in it would take very very little effort for Dumbledore to solve this, my only answer is that... he didn't think about it (Yes my answer is just 'he forgor💀', deal with it.) As in, think about it, Dumbledore has no reason to not give Sirius food, even if you think that Dumbledore doesn't want Sirius near Harry (For some reason), then this attempt is like... really really bad, he knows that Sirius escaped from Azkaban just for Harry, and that a starving Sirius on the run from everyone and still freshly traumatized from Azkaban still took the time of day to send Harry a Christmas gift! (And also to watch Harry's quidditch game, but Dumbledore doesn't know that.) Dumbledore would know that starving Sirius wouldn't deter him from taking care of Harry, and that all what that move would accomplish would be having Harry love Sirius more, and perhaps also make Harry or Sirius distrust Dumbledore. If Dumbledore really didn't want Sirius to 'interfere' with Harry, he would have just.... not suggested him that good hiding spot that allows Sirius this exact thing, or even better, he would have let Sirius be there, and after some time he would just discreetly make someone (via confundus or something) stumble into that cave and then run away to call the aurors, and then Dumbledore would be like "Oh gee golly, see Sirius? This isn't safe here for you, better for you to fuck off out of the country." Back to the point though, again I think Dumbledore just never considered that this may be a problem. Not even in a "Oh I have a nice place for Sirius to hide, he could handle other stuff like food!" But in a "Oh I have a nice place for Sirius to hide!" and that's it, no thought of food or such. Because Dumbledore at that point would be living for decades in a castle with free infinite food cooked by multiple chefs, even his experience as a secret resistance leader wouldn't help here, because even if there was a rare mission or two where it requires a long term stay in another location (IE: Hagrid and Maxime to the giants), you get the feeling that it was kinda on the order members sent on the mission themselves to take care of the food and lodging and stuff. And also, Sirius wouldn't tell Dumbledore if he was starving (pretty sure he wouldn't tell Dumbledore even if he was... idk, if *insert angsty thing times 1000 here*.) Look at how Sirius was treating it, he didn't send Harry a letter saying "Oh Merlin, Harry I'm starving! I need food!" No, he told Harry to come primary to help Harry, and was then like "Oh btw bring some food along with you." Be at stile at end of road out of Hogsmeade (past Dervish and Banges) at two o’clock on Saturday afternoon. Bring as much food as you can. And then looking at the way he talks about it with Harry... it was in a light joking tone, as if he expects Harry to just be like 'feelsbadman' and move on, he didn't even ask Harry to keep on sending him food. “I’ve been living off rats mostly. Can’t steal too much food from Hogsmeade; I’d draw attention to myself.” He grinned up at Harry, but Harry returned the grin only reluctantly. Literally just grins at Harry while explaining how much he's starving, he totally just expected it to be a funny thing for Harry to laugh at, poor guy, my heart aches for him.

Sure you could say that his parental relationship with Harry would be different than his relationship with Dumbledore, but again getting a general sense of Sirius's character, he doesn't seem like the guy to ask his distant boss/teacher for food, he'd want to feel like he could take care of himself without help, especially since he considers Harry his responsibility. (And no evidence that Dumbledore knew of Sirius's starvation situation, and Sirius never expressed any bitterness at Dumbledore for it.) Dumbledore just plain goofed and didn't think about it, and he was regularly exchanging letters with Sirius and Sirius didn't mention any problems he had, so all was well anyways in Dumbledore's mind. Pretty sure if Harry mentioned Sirius's problems, Dumbledore would have slapped himself upside the head before literally solving the whole thing with a single sentence to a house-elf. Oh, and as an added bonus, how do you know that Dumbledore loved Sirius a lot (and probably felt really really guilty for not double checking if Sirius really was a traitor)? By looking at how Dumbledore basically locked Sirius inside of Grimmauld, just like Harry and Ariana. It's fine for Sturgis Podmore to take a big risk, infiltrate the ministry, and then get caught and land himself in Azkaban, it's fine for Hagrid and Maxime to take a dangerous mission to the giants where they could be crushed, but Sirius? Oh no you're staying put in there, don't you see how you could be caught by the Ministry and Death Eaters?* No no no you stay locked up in here under one of the strongest protection spells where nothing could happen to you! Classic Dumbledore move of him harming those he loves in an attempt to protect them. Astrisk here*: Yeah, cause even after Lucius spots Sirius, the DE and ministry could for sure really have an ultra big spy network to catch this random stray black dog out of thousands, just more evidence of how Dumbledore was overprotective of Sirius.

[thephiesintheforest]

I have several points that I want to make in reply to this. Prepare for barely-steuctured rambling that's only vaguely connected to your original point(s) ^^

1. About Albus just plain forgetting that acquiring food might be a challenge for Sirius in his situation during GoF

You are so 100% right.

Here's the thing. one of the worst mistakes people make in trying to decipher Albus' actions is to assume that he is indeed omniscient (as was assumed by an 11 year old harry)

he's not. And this is exactly the kind of oversight he tends to make

He himself is so hypercompetent, as well as chronically self-reliant that he quite forgets that other people have needs that he might be able to meet better than they can. Combine that with the fact that Albus seems to have a tendency to get lost in his own thoughts, even when he has company and you get someone who can come off as uncaring and is indeed not really suited to attend to other's basic needs.

Case in point? He and Harry have just swum in the icy north sea and Albus doesn't realise that Harry doesn't know a drying or warming charm until, after a few minutes, he shivers so badly that he can barely speak.

This isn't a character flaw, btw. It's just the way Albus seems to be wired. (And psst, I find this relatable. I try to be attentive bc i care a lot, but it doesn't come naturally to me.)

2. About Albus "wanting to distance Sirius from Harry"

This isn't a point you made op, it's one you cite others making and I have to double down on your point about how ridiculous this notion is.

Throughout book 4, aka Sirius one year of freedom, Albus actively aids him in being as close to Harry as possible. In fact, it always strikes me just how much Albus treats him as he would Harry's parent. At the end of the book, he doesn't just permit Sirius to be present while he interrogates Harry about the graveyard, he actively facilitates him being there. And that's what you'd normally do when you have to question a minor on something emotionally taxing: you get the parent involved and have them be present the entire time.

That's exactly what Albus does here with Sirius, thus very much acknowledging his claim as the closest thing Harry has to a parent.

Book 5 then is a special case and imo an absolute clusterfuck of bad circumstances that lead to a bunch of people making some very dumb trauma-informed decisions.

Which brings me to my next point:

3. About the nature of Albus' feelings for Sirius.

You make the point that Albus loves Sirius and that this is why he kept him hidden. Because whom Albus loves, he seeks to protect and hiding people is how he learned to protect them.

I agree with the latter statement but I'm still debating with myself over whether the first statement is really the only logical conclusion here.

The thing is, you are 100% correct, imo, that Albus protecting Sirius in this particular manner, by confining him physically, follows directly from the way he himself was raised. There is one particular part in the lost prophecy chapter that always makes me stare off into space for like 5 minutes straight:

“Yeah, he did hate it!” said Harry [...]. “You made him stay shut up in that house and he hated it, that’s why he wanted to get out last night —”

“I was trying to keep Sirius alive,” said Dumbledore quietly.

“People don’t like being locked up!” Harry said furiously, rounding on him. “You did it to me all last summer —”

Dumbledore closed his eyes and buried his face in his long-fingered hands.

There is so much in this short passage. Harry starts off by, rightfully, stating that being locked up in the house of his childhood traumas was abysmal for Sirius mental state and that this did contribute to his reckless behaviour (though tbh, I think Sirius would have come to the ministry to save Harry in any situation no matter his own state of mind. Denying that gives Sirius too little credit. Though Harry not seeing that in this moment is understandable)

And i find it remarkable that after the way Albus mannerisms have been described in this chapter so far (calm, detached, almost cold), it is here that he seems to first melt and then crack. Obviously, "quietly" doesn't carry a lot of emotions in and off itself but coming off the previous descriptors of Albus' mannerisms, it comes off as almost meek, like Harry's outburst suddenly and finally pentrates his many emotional walls and he feels the need to justify himself.

And then Harry really seems to strike a nerve with "people don't like to be locked up! You did it to me all last summer —"

There are few interpretations I'm as set on as Albus very suddenly and violently being reminded of what that feels like and that's why this is where the ice around him cracks. (Because when Ariana was locked up it ended in disasters. When he himself was locked up it ended it disaster.)

I'm repeating myself but this is where Albus suddenly doesn't manage to be detached anymore. He's tried so so hard. But he knows this feeling and he knows this pattern and as he later says he's fallen into the trap he had forseen and still he didn't manage to avoid it.

And that trap ... was loving Harry.

And here comes my point: because I don't think him protecting Sirius by keeping him locked up somewhere safe is necessarily evidence of him loving Sirius. It's evidence of him loving Harry.

Because, as stated in point two, Albus knew full well that Sirius had very quickly grown to be one of (if not the) most important parental figure in Harry's life and in protecting Sirius he was protecting Harry from loosing one more person he could emotionally rely on.

Best laid plans and all that ...

[dumbledorefanboy]

This is one of the best things I've ever woken up to, a long reply that's also an amazing meta to to read! I agree with basically everything you said here, and I want to add a little of my thoughts to your points.

1. About Albus just plain forgetting

What was that famous saying again? "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity" (Though I wouldn't be quite as scathing to Dumbledore here). Given how the fandom treats Albus, I think this saying fits perfectly, and it's basically what Albus said anyways in HBP “Naturally I do, but as I have already proven to you, I make mistakes like the next man. In fact, being — forgive me — rather cleverer than most men, my mistakes tend to be correspondingly huger.” And wow, that moment in the cave really is the perfect evidence for this! Albus was oblivious, but as soon as he noticed his mistake he corrected it immediately with an apology.

That's exactly what Albus does here with Sirius, thus very much acknowledging his claim as the closest thing Harry has to a parent.

There's another moment that shows Albus's acknowledgment of this, and it's him accepting Sirius's letter as a permission form for Harry to go to Hogsmeade. Given that the students could only go with permission from their guardian, it's basically Dumbledore saying that Sirius is Harry's de-facto guardian. it's less profound than what you mentioned, but it goes nicely with what you said.

(though tbh, I think Sirius would have come to the ministry to save Harry in any situation no matter his own state of mind.

We've already seen Sirius risk himself multiple times before this and not even just for Harry's safety, but for his comfort too. And a few paragraphs before this Dumbledore said that the thing Sirius cares most about was Harry. And some paragraphs before that too was this quote: Sirius was a brave, clever, and energetic man, and such men are not usually content to sit at home in hiding while they believe others to be in danger In general, I don't remember a moment in the books where Harry downplayed Sirius's care for him or thought that Sirius would see him as a bother, it's not impossible for this to happen, but it's a weird quote for me (especially since that thought process wasn't addressed by the narrative neither then or later)

And i find it remarkable that after the way Albus mannerisms have been described in this chapter so far (calm, detached, almost cold), it is here that he seems to first melt and then crack.

I find this interesting actually, because I hold a different opinion. I don't prescribe the detachedness to the whole scene before the point you mentioned, but only at that specific point in relation to a specific thing that Dumbledore said, As in, at the start, Dumbledore was indeed still calm, but he wasn't detached, he was also described as kindly, and even in his speech he showed some emotion like here with the exclamation mark. “Harry, suffering like this proves you are still a man! This pain is part of being human — You also mentioned how Dumbledore talking about Sirius quietly was a sort of melting point, and that it sounds meek, I 1000000% agree with that statement, I think you described it perfectly, same with the ice cracking around Albus when hit with the full force of what that isolation felt like, but there was also another moment before that where Dumbledore was talking quietly—very quietly, in fact: “I know how you are feeling, Harry,” said Dumbledore very quietly. I'm curious about what you think that statement conveys here, I think here it could be another expression of guilt and meekness that eeked out here, or it could be a precursor to the detachment that Dumbledore was described with, and speaking of: The moment he was described as detached was in here(I cut off the middle part of that quote): “You do care,” said Dumbledore. He had not flinched or made a single move to stop Harry demolishing his office. His expression was calm, almost detached. “You care so much you feel as though you will bleed to death with the pain of it.” . “Oh yes, you do,” said Dumbledore, still more calmly. “You have now lost your mother, your father, and the closest thing to a parent you have ever known. Of course you care.” This is Dumbledore explaining exactly how Harry feels in this situation with extreme accuracy, and that, plus the way he just viscerally described it makes me think that at that point, he was remembering his own past and what he felt when Ariana died. To explain what I think about the detachment here, I have to first say I think that Dumbledore was always feeling the intense emotions and guilt throughout this whole scene here, and that he's masking them (And from your post, I feel that you think the same?), both to give Harry something to rage out without feeling guilty, and also because well.... Albus really really really doesn't like showing vulnerability to people, he's always going to try and show himself as not being hurt, and the moment that broke that barrier for him and Harry is, like you said, after the "people don't like being locked up" quote. So take those two feelings, and multiply them by 1000X because not only will Albus be hit by the and longing and sadness regarding his family, but it's also his past and shame, it's the one thing that he never wants to share with anyone, and is the main driving point for Harry's feelings of betrayal in DH. And the result will be Dumbledore going really really overboard the calmness to the point of detachment. Dumbledore was then described as 'Serene' while refusing to let Harry out, which I think is a hold over from his detachment earlier, and also again him allowing Harry to rage at something without guilt. After that, Dumbledore's detachment begins to fade, he started acting generally calmly like earlier, though now with a bit more of emotion showing “You will,” said Dumbledore sadly. “Because you are not nearly as angry with me as you ought to be. . Harry looked up. He could see now that Dumbledore looked sad and tired. Now occasionally, Dumbledore will show more emotions like talking 'sadly' or 'heavily' or giving a deep sigh, all peppered between him talking 'calmly' or 'steadily', I think it's his mask over his emotions and vulnerabilities slipping further and further, until it's completely shattered by the moment you pointed to, the moment where Dumbledore was forced to show his emotions to Harry fully and even explain, and the moment where he finally admitted to loving Harry.

I'm always struck by this quote here “I feel I owe you another explanation, Harry,” said Dumbledore hesitantly. “You may, perhaps, have wondered why I never chose you as a prefect? I must confess . . . that I rather thought . . . you had enough responsibility to be going on with.” Harry looked up at him and saw a tear trickling down Dumbledore’s face into his long silver beard. It's the first moment we ever see Dumbledore hesitate and pause and almost stutter, it's the first time we ever see him cry! And it comes directly after that barrier of almost emotional distance was broken between him and Harry.

And here comes my point: because I don't think him protecting Sirius by keeping him locked up somewhere safe is necessarily evidence of him loving Sirius. It's evidence of him loving Harry.

I think that works too! And I'm stealing this for my interpretation. Interactions between Dumbledore and Sirius are scarce, and maybe I was jumping the gun a bit by saying that it's evidence of Dumbledore loving Sirius more (Though I still like the idea) Now though, I think it's a mixture of three things: 1: Dumbledore caring about Harry so much to the point that he'd be protective of those Harry loves. 2: Dumbledore feeling incredibly guilty and blaming himself for Sirius's time in Azkaban (Though that one is a headcanon, since we don't see Dumbledore talk about that, but considering his general character...) 3: Dumbledore caring about Sirius, perhaps only as much as any other order member, perhaps a bit more, but caring about him all the same.

Albus knew full well that Sirius had very quickly grown to be one of (if not the) most important parental figure in Harry's life

“You have now lost your mother, your father, and the closest thing to a parent you have ever known. Of course you care.” Nothing more to add, it's the same quote from above, I just thought it'd be neat to put it here too. :)

[inthemoodforblastt]

Do you remember Tom Riddle being a teenager during World War II and Dumbledore not letting him stay at school during the holidays so he had to spend them in the Muggle world that was literally being bombed? And then people wonder how he ended up developing absolute contempt for that world and sociopathic tendencies? NOBODY COULD HAVE SEEN IT COMING, GUYS, a child raised seeing death and destruction turning out morally antisocial. And then Albus like: I ALWAYS KNEW SOMETHING ABOUT HIM WAS WRONG. No fucks old man, you're a total Freud.

[dumbledorefanboy]

Do you remember Tom Riddle being a teenager during World War II

Not pointed to by the narrative at all, author probably didn't think about the timeline when writing this, and it shows, we never see Tom even once point to the war as a reason for staying at Hogwarts to DIppet, even thought it might have convinced him, and even disregarding that, if it was the war, then he could have asked to stay with one of his 'friends'\followers if he was worried about the bombings, Dippet would have no say over that. We never see Voldemort or Tom ever mention the war or the fear of bombs. Not even in his inner POV or when Teen Riddle was trying to manipulate Harry.

Dumbledore not letting him stay at schoo

Dippet, not Dumbledore, Dumbledore had absolutely nothing to do with this lmao, wasn't even his head of house and we don't know if he was the deputy then or not.

And then people wonder how he ended up developing absolute contempt for that world

His absolute contempt was from him thinking that they are supirior to muggles due to magic, not once had he, again, ever mentioned anything about the war, or muggles being savages or anything like that, it was all superiority over having magic and also the innate fear of death, which was also present before the war. Hell, he even hated the name 'Tom' because of how ordinary it is, this was made note of in the flashback chapter in HBP.

and sociopathic tendencies?

Were present waay before the war, Tom was torturing children and hanging rabbits before Dumbledore met him.

Albus like: I ALWAYS KNEW SOMETHING ABOUT HIM WAS WRONG

When did Albus phrase it like that? You are putting an unnecessary negative connotation over it. Albus was like "I was concerned for his tendencies of torturing children and animals, and I intended to distantly keep an eye on him like I would any alone and friendless boy... and also because he tortured children"

“Did you know — then?” asked Harry. “Did I know that I had just met the most dangerous Dark wizard of all time?” said Dumbledore. “No, I had no idea that he was to grow up to be what he is. However, I was certainly intrigued by him. I returned to Hogwarts intending to keep an eye upon him, something I should have done in any case, given that he was alone and friendless, but which, already, I felt I ought to do for others’ sake as much as his. Could you please at that point just put the 'anti albus dumbledore' tag over your posts so that others could filter them out? It's tiring to constantly see hate when searching in a tag of a character that you like.

[dumbledorefanboy]

Dumbledore and Sirius's food situation in GOF

So I remembered the scene where Sirius sent for Harry and co. to meet him near hogsmeade, and how it's made a point (in a weird amalgamation of a serious/comedic tone that was probably not intended to be taken in any way other than 'Wow Sirius cares about Harry this much!', but I digress) that Sirius was starving in there, his general appearance has degraded again to matted hair and torn robes, he was described as thin, he had to quite literally eat rats! And Dumbledore is involved with this: “You are not Sirius’s only correspondent,” said Dumbledore. “I have also been in contact with him ever since he left Hogwarts last year. It was I who suggested the mountainside cave as the safest place for him to stay.”

Dumbledore is the one who suggested that hiding spot, so Dumbledore should have also known about Sirius's situation and sent up food, right? So why didn't he? Well, taking into account that it would literally take Dumbledore just asking either a house elf or Fawkes to send up food to Sirius really quick, as in it would take very very little effort for Dumbledore to solve this, my only answer is that... he didn't think about it (Yes my answer is just 'he forgor💀', deal with it.) As in, think about it, Dumbledore has no reason to not give Sirius food, even if you think that Dumbledore doesn't want Sirius near Harry (For some reason), then this attempt is like... really really bad, he knows that Sirius escaped from Azkaban just for Harry, and that a starving Sirius on the run from everyone and still freshly traumatized from Azkaban still took the time of day to send Harry a Christmas gift! (And also to watch Harry's quidditch game, but Dumbledore doesn't know that.) Dumbledore would know that starving Sirius wouldn't deter him from taking care of Harry, and that all what that move would accomplish would be having Harry love Sirius more, and perhaps also make Harry or Sirius distrust Dumbledore. If Dumbledore really didn't want Sirius to 'interfere' with Harry, he would have just.... not suggested him that good hiding spot that allows Sirius this exact thing, or even better, he would have let Sirius be there, and after some time he would just discreetly make someone (via confundus or something) stumble into that cave and then run away to call the aurors, and then Dumbledore would be like "Oh gee golly, see Sirius? This isn't safe here for you, better for you to fuck off out of the country." Back to the point though, again I think Dumbledore just never considered that this may be a problem. Not even in a "Oh I have a nice place for Sirius to hide, he could handle other stuff like food!" But in a "Oh I have a nice place for Sirius to hide!" and that's it, no thought of food or such. Because Dumbledore at that point would be living for decades in a castle with free infinite food cooked by multiple chefs, even his experience as a secret resistance leader wouldn't help here, because even if there was a rare mission or two where it requires a long term stay in another location (IE: Hagrid and Maxime to the giants), you get the feeling that it was kinda on the order members sent on the mission themselves to take care of the food and lodging and stuff. And also, Sirius wouldn't tell Dumbledore if he was starving (pretty sure he wouldn't tell Dumbledore even if he was... idk, if *insert angsty thing times 1000 here*.) Look at how Sirius was treating it, he didn't send Harry a letter saying "Oh Merlin, Harry I'm starving! I need food!" No, he told Harry to come primary to help Harry, and was then like "Oh btw bring some food along with you." Be at stile at end of road out of Hogsmeade (past Dervish and Banges) at two o’clock on Saturday afternoon. Bring as much food as you can. And then looking at the way he talks about it with Harry... it was in a light joking tone, as if he expects Harry to just be like 'feelsbadman' and move on, he didn't even ask Harry to keep on sending him food. “I’ve been living off rats mostly. Can’t steal too much food from Hogsmeade; I’d draw attention to myself.” He grinned up at Harry, but Harry returned the grin only reluctantly. Literally just grins at Harry while explaining how much he's starving, he totally just expected it to be a funny thing for Harry to laugh at, poor guy, my heart aches for him.

Sure you could say that his parental relationship with Harry would be different than his relationship with Dumbledore, but again getting a general sense of Sirius's character, he doesn't seem like the guy to ask his distant boss/teacher for food, he'd want to feel like he could take care of himself without help, especially since he considers Harry his responsibility. (And no evidence that Dumbledore knew of Sirius's starvation situation, and Sirius never expressed any bitterness at Dumbledore for it.) Dumbledore just plain goofed and didn't think about it, and he was regularly exchanging letters with Sirius and Sirius didn't mention any problems he had, so all was well anyways in Dumbledore's mind. Pretty sure if Harry mentioned Sirius's problems, Dumbledore would have slapped himself upside the head before literally solving the whole thing with a single sentence to a house-elf. Oh, and as an added bonus, how do you know that Dumbledore loved Sirius a lot (and probably felt really really guilty for not double checking if Sirius really was a traitor)? By looking at how Dumbledore basically locked Sirius inside of Grimmauld, just like Harry and Ariana. It's fine for Sturgis Podmore to take a big risk, infiltrate the ministry, and then get caught and land himself in Azkaban, it's fine for Hagrid and Maxime to take a dangerous mission to the giants where they could be crushed, but Sirius? Oh no you're staying put in there, don't you see how you could be caught by the Ministry and Death Eaters?* No no no you stay locked up in here under one of the strongest protection spells where nothing could happen to you! Classic Dumbledore move of him harming those he loves in an attempt to protect them. Astrisk here*: Yeah, cause even after Lucius spots Sirius, the DE and ministry could for sure really have an ultra big spy network to catch this random stray black dog out of thousands, just more evidence of how Dumbledore was overprotective of Sirius.

[peckedpolaris]

theres a lot of things about dumbledore i dont like; but i do find portrayal of him as just as evil as voldemort but opposite, or as uncaring and cold, a little much; i think the reason dumbledore is so compelling is becuz he has so much knowledge and power, and yet, he continues to make mistakes, he does care about people, doesn't seem to want to harm others, especially those he considers allies, but does

he does love harry, but he sends him back to an abusive household over and over; he does love harry, but that love leaves him teetering between giving too much, ruining harry's already ruined childhood which ends up with harry not knowing enough after dumbledore died

he vouches for snape, but uses him as well---he'd help a slytherin student trying to escape the deatheaters, no doubts---but he's biased against them anyway, and they'd never come to him

hes leading a war, he's in charge of hundreds of students; he made mistakes he'll regret till he dies, but he continues to make mistakes, seems incapable of not making mistakes

i dont like dumbledore glaze, but i dont like bashing either; i like it when he's human; when he's flawed and fucked up; when he's trying and still isnt enough

but that being said, if evil!dumbledore works for ur fic, why not; id still read it lol

[dumbledorefanboy]

Which is why it sucks when I go to read Dumbledore discourse... and 99% of the stuff I see being thrown against him are either made up or are just putting extra responsibility on him even though it shouldn't be. (Like with Tom, no the (probably overworked) math teacher dealing with trauma from Grindlewald isn't responsible for literally anything with Tom other than teaching him Transfiguration, nor would he reasonably know literally anything about child psychology. It was the fucking forties, not 2020. )

[hptmriddle]

Harry Potter, the protagonist, was not Dumbledore’s puppet

Just like I did with another post, I decided to make my own bringing up the same points, because I think they’re relevant enough to stand on their own. So I genuinely don’t understand where this idea comes from —that Harry was manipulated by Dumbledore from the very beginning, that he should never have trusted him — and from these ideas, people somehow jump to the conclusion that Harry was Dumbledore’s puppet the entire time, caught in some political game between him and Voldemort, while ignoring Voldemort being Harry’s equal, something confirmed in the books:

“He chose the boy he thought most likely to be a danger to him,” said Dumbledore. “And notice this, Harry. He chose, not the pureblood (which, according to his creed, is the only kind of wizard worth being or knowing), but the half-blood, like himself. He saw himself in you before he had ever seen you

OotP

Why did Voldemort pick Harry and not Neville?

JK Rowling: Dumbledore explains this in 'Order of the Phoenix'. Voldemort identified more with the half-blood boy and therefore decided he must be the greater risk.

Reinforced by the author herself.

‘The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches ... born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies... and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not... and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives ... the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies…’

And the quote above was even pointed out in an article on the official Harry Potter site that literally says: 7 times that Professor Trelawney actually got it right.

It’s worth noting that the same quote explicitly says “The one,” which refers to Harry himself, not to him as a tool for another character, or even for those who stood by him and helped him along the way. I’ve seen people try to lean on the idea of collectivity and the lesson on friendship of the series to argue otherwise, as if the core of the saga didn’t begin with Harry and Voldemort being marked as equals. It’s not about a collective standing above the individual and diluting the protagonist’s agency; it’s about how that very collective forms and organizes itself around him.

So, it doesn’t make sense for a series called Harry Potter to have its own protagonist reduced to being groomed into Dumbledore’s puppet. Harry didn’t even trust Dumbledore with everything, and he spent a good part of the series trying to hide things from him. Like in GoF, when he never told him about his dreams or the pain in his scar. In HBP, he fully disagrees with Dumbledore about Draco and Snape, proving he doesn’t always trust his judgments. He also sees Hermione as the one who trusts Dumbledore’s authority the most. Even if they share similar values, Harry literally grew up wary of Dumbledore’s secrecy, and he wasn’t one to be restrained when it came to pursuing things on his terms.

Harry has immense respect for him, not just because he believes in his intentions — in the cause behind them — but because there’s an almost paternal bond there. So why is that framed as blind trust? Their relationship is more complex than that!

It’s always about reducing things into easily digestible concepts— the same way people take the good vs evil framework, rendered as Harry (the hero) = pure and naive, Voldemort (the villain) = impure and heartless. And that’s the same logic here, because Dumbledore is a manipulative – “impure” – figure, Harry is then positioned against him, cast as the “pure” counterpart and automatically reduced to a passive lamb. All the nuance gets ignored, as if actions could only exist in a single, illogical dimension.

That kind of interpretation fails to account for Harry Potter himself.

Harry was a soldier— DA’s leader, carrying out a mission he believed in, just as much as Dumbledore did. And he had plenty of personal reasons for it; to end the war that had defined his entire life, and to make sure no one else had to die for something that was always meant to end with him. His sacrifice was a choice — one he had the courage and honor to make himself. Again, like a soldier, like a hero — not because he was being manipulated by Dumbledore.

Yes, Dumbledore is an extremely manipulative individual, but implying Harry’s choices were a product of that entirely misses the point of his character. The lack of actually reading the books— where the narration is centered on Harry— leads some people to come up with random theories that erase defining elements of the story.

[dumbledorefanboy]

Dumbledore's and the Dursleys: the Bond of Blood and Keeping Harry there

I wanted to talk about this, since it's probably the one thing Dumbledore is criticized for most in the series, and I blame him for it too, but as my username implies, this won't be just a post that dunks on Albus, here I'll try to offer reasons for why he did what he did that would be in keeping with his narrative portrayal, that way it could be seen as "Albus fucked up here" and not "Albus is a monster"

Disorganized Yapping below, read at your own risk:

0: Narrative Portrayal

So, Dumbledore is at the very least partly responsible for the abuse Harry suffered for as a child and for the first 5 books. Before I talk about anything else, we have to talk about how the narrative treats this, what blame is laid at Dumbledore's feet for this? How is it resolved in the story? What reasons or justifications did Dumbledore have? "Dumbledore had to place him there as it provided the strongest protection possible against Voldemort." Great! That explains why Harry was placed there, now why was he kept in there without any interference to try and keep the Dursleys in line? "Huh? What a weird thing you just said, moving on.." Yeah... the books never really ever acknowledge this point at all, it is never even hinted at in the books. It's jarring. Here's what I mean: For example, in the end of GOF: “She went to ask him if you could come straight to us this summer,” he said. “But he wants you to go back to the Dursleys, at least at first.” “Why?” said Harry. “She said Dumbledore’s got his reasons,” said Ron, shaking his head darkly. “I suppose we’ve got to trust him, haven’t we?” . .

Mrs. Weasley was close by him. She hugged Harry very tightly when she saw him and whispered in his ear, “I think Dumbledore will let you come to us later in the summer. Keep in touch, Harry.”

Molly wanted to get Harry to stay with them over the summer, and Dumbledore refused and that's about it for that in this book, this will interaction will never be mentioned nor alluded to again ... What? From what I understand, the 'Dumbledore has his reasons' part probably means that Dumbledore told her about the bond of blood, and Molly agreed, she shows no hint of bitterness to Dumbledore's decision at all. Which I find weird, the fact that Molly took the initiative and asked Dumbledore for it means that she recognizes that the Dursleys aren't very good to Harry, given that she thought that Harry would be better served staying with her and the Weasleys rather than his adoptive family (well, 'family') Okay, so then why wasn't anything else done? Why don't we see her blaming Dumbledore for at least not interfering with the Dursleys sooner to at least make Harry's stay less miserable? Why didn't Harry too? Same in book 5: In 'The Lost Prophecy', Dumbledore explains to an extremely angry and grief stricken Harry why he left him with the Dursleys, keep in mind that Harry (rightly) wasn't feeling particularly generously about Dumbledore here, he cuts Dumbledore off multiple times, shouts at him, and disagrees with him, about Sirius and Kreacher, and funnily enough about Petunia and Harry (Very chunky quote, so I'm cutting it off and only putting in the bits I want to reference)

I am speaking, of course, of the fact that your mother died to save you. She gave you a lingering protection he never expected, a protection that flows in your veins to this day. I put my trust, therefore, in your mother’s blood. I delivered you to her sister, her only remaining relative.” “She doesn’t love me,” said Harry at once. “She doesn’t give a damn —” “But she took you,” Dumbledore cut across him. . . “Wait,” said Harry. “Wait a moment.” He sat up straighter in his chair, staring at Dumbledore. “You sent that Howler. You told her to remember — it was your voice —” “I thought,” said Dumbledore, inclining his head slightly, “that she might need reminding of the pact she had sealed by taking you. I suspected the dementor attack might have awoken her to the dangers of having you as a surrogate son.” “It did,” said Harry quietly. “Well — my uncle more than her. He wanted to chuck me out, but after the Howler came she — she said I had to stay.” He stared at the floor for a moment, then said, “But what’s this got to do with . . .” He could not say Sirius’s name. Harry even directly references one of the times in which Dumbledore interfered to stop Harry from being kicked out, but he didn't have a single objection to Dumbledore not doing that any time before. Now I think that the above piece of evidence is a bit weak, Harry's mind wasn't exactly on the abuse he suffered, but on Sirius's death, as shown when he redirected the conversation back to Sirius, but I still wanted to mention it. Anyways, after that we get the scene of the Order coming together to threaten the Dursleys, and again, none of the adults there ever blamed Dumbledore or questioned why this didn't happen sooner, and neither did Harry. Then in HBP, Dumbledore finally scolds the Dursleys for what they'd done to Harry, and his anger here was so great that even Harry felt it

Dumbledore paused, and although his voice remained light and calm, and he gave no obvious sign of anger, Harry felt a kind of chill emanating from him and noticed that the Dursleys drew very slightly closer together. And yet again, no thoughts like "Why didn't Dumbledore do this sooner" or "Too late" from Harry (not even the Dursleys tried to use it as a jab like "You let us do it, why start now?") And the two worsts examples are in Deathly Hallows. Harry is having a crisis of faith about Dumbledore; he's wondering if Dumbledore ever loved him or not, partly because Dumbledore didn't tell him about his family being in Godric's hollow too, but most importantly because he thought that Ariana was locked away and abused just like him. And throughout the whole book, Harry never once thought about why Dumbledore didn't intervene sooner, even though the Dursleys would be heavy on his mind due to the Ariana point, in fact, the complete opposite happens!

He wanted the truth and yet all Doge did was sit there and bleat feebly that Ariana had been ill. Harry could hardly believe that Dumbledore would not have intervened if such cruelty was happening inside his own house, and yet there was undoubtedly something odd about the story Oh man, Harry could hardly believe that Dumbledore would not intervene if someone did this. .

Numbly Harry thought of how the Dursleys had once shut him up, locked him away, kept him out of sight, all for the crime of being a wizard. Had Dumbledore’s sister suffered the same fate in reverse: imprisoned for her lack of magic? Had Dumbledore truly left her to her fate while he went off to Hogwarts to prove himself brilliant and talented? Had Dumbledore truly left Ariana alone to be abused?? Why Dumbledore had never done this! Hell, the Dursleys and his abuse was mentioned in the exact same paragraph, but no such thought or connection about Dumbledore's actions were made.

THIS is what I mean about narrative portrayal, nobody ever blames Dumbledore for this and it is not even thought of as a flaw, not by Harry and not by his friends or any adults, Dumbledore never explains himself for it as it is not thought of by the books as something bad that needs explaining. You are left with a hollow and incomplete feeling over it, there is no resolution, you might even feel like it's extremely unfair that Dumbledore 'got away' with it without any criticisms, which is why I think a lot of people hated Dumbledore over this and even prescribe malice to his inaction. Truly I think that if the books had addressed this point with detail, then the Dumbledore hate wouldn't have been nearly as prevalent as it is now. This was point '0' because it is the precursor that should be read before all of this post, while reading the later points, imagine that every other line I typed this sentence in full caps: "The books do not see this as a mistake, it was not intended for his character."

1: The Bond of Blood:

So, Dumbledore left Harry at the Dursleys because of the magical protection right? How strong is the protection to be worth all of this, especially given that Harry already has the sacrificial protection on his person?

i:How Strong is the bond of blood?

Let's check his quote:

“While you can still call home the place where your mother’s blood dwells, there you cannot be touched or harmed by Voldemort. He shed her blood, but it lives on in you and her sister. Her blood became your refuge. You need return there only once a year, but as long as you can still call it home, there he cannot hurt you.

At first, I thought "Meh, Voldemort already couldn't touch Harry due to the sacrificial protection, sure more protection is always good, but it wasn't worth him potentially facing abuse." But then I thought about it more, check these quotes here for PS: (though keep in mind that PS is the first book of the series, not much things would have been planned out then I think, things were a bit loosey-goosey)

Harry jumped to his feet, caught Quirrell by the arm and hung on as tight as he could. Quirrell screamed and tried to throw Harry off – the pain in Harry’s head was building – he couldn’t see – he could only hear Quirrell’s terrible shrieks and Voldemort’s yells of ‘KILL HIM! KILL HIM!’ and other voices, maybe in Harry’s own head, crying, ‘Harry! Harry!’ He felt Quirrell’s arm wrenched from his grasp, knew all was lost, and fell into blackness, down … down … down … Maybe it was because Quirrell's body was a buffer, but Quirrelmort wasn't instantly vaporized by the protection which could have given him time to act if he of (absurd levels of) pain tolerance. Regardless of that though, Harry touching Voldemort directly (and maybe also the sacrificial protection working) caused Harry extreme pain and knocked him out.

.

I had just left. I arrived just in time to pull Quirrell off you –’ ‘It was you.’ ‘I feared I might be too late.’ ‘You nearly were, I couldn’t have kept him off the Stone much longer –’ ‘Not the Stone, boy, you – the effort involved nearly killed you. For one terrible moment there, I was afraid it had. As for the Stone, it has been destroyed.’ The effort of destroying Quirrelmort with the sacrificial protection almost killed Harry. Then onto DH' Battle of Hogwarts, Harry cast his own sacrificial protection on everyone there, and even with that Voldemort was still handily dealing with Minerva, Kingsley, and Horace all at the same time, what I want to focus on though is this:

Harry felt as though he turned in slow motion; he saw McGonagall, Kingsley, and Slughorn blasted backward, flailing and writhing through the air, as Voldemort’s fury at the fall of his last, best lieutenant exploded with the force of a bomb. Voldemort raised his wand and directed it at Molly Weasley. “Protego!” roared Harry, and the Shield Charm expanded in the middle of the Hall, and Voldemort stared around for the source as Harry pulled off the Invisibility Cloak at last. THINK ABOUT THIS!!! Even with the sacrificial protection at play, Voldemort's spells still managed to knock back all three and did possibly more damage as they were 'writhing' in the air! Harry still felt that Molly could be in danger from Voldemort and cast a shield charm on her! (Also cast Portego on other students that Voldemort tried to attack, hmm... Portego blocking the unlockable curse is extremely strange... could be because of the sacrificial protection then?) Even if Voldemort's spells can't affect Harry with their full strength, they can still do shit and greatly harm him! Imagine Voldemort using that to knock a fragile child Harry into a wall. Now it seems much more reasonable that Dumbledore would take all the measures he could to have Voldemort not even be near Harry, even with the sacrificial protection, no? And that's not all! I don't think that the bond of blood protects Harry from just Voldemort, but also from everyone working under him too! Check this quote from Dumbledore in OOTP: “My answer is that my priority was to keep you alive. You were in more danger than perhaps anyone but myself realized. Voldemort had been vanquished hours before, but his supporters — and many of them are almost as terrible as he — were still at large, angry, desperate, and violent. And I had to make my decision too with regard to the years ahead. (The quote continues into Dumbledore talking about not knowing when Voldemort will return, but that's not what I want to focus on) His first ever justification for why he placed Harry in the Dursleys wasn't Voldemort, but his DE followers. Which means by logic that the bond of blood works on his followers too. This is also corroborated by Voldemort himself in GOF:

“But how to get at Harry Potter? For he has been better protected than I think even he knows, protected in ways devised by Dumbledore long ago, when it fell to him to arrange the boy’s future. Dumbledore invoked an ancient magic, to ensure the boy’s protection as long as he is in his relations’ care. Not even I can touch him there..."  He is referencing the magic Dumbledore specifically invoked on the Dursley's place, "Not even I can touch him there" And you also have to take in mind how weak Voldemort was before that:

How am I to survive without you, when I need feeding every few hours? Who is to milk Nagini?” “But you seem so much stronger, My Lord —” “Liar,” breathed the second voice. “I am no stronger, and a few days alone would be enough to rob me of the little health I have regained under your clumsy care. Silence!” He's extremely weak, he has to be carted around by Peter and can't do shit, (But he can still use magic well, since he used AK to kill Frank) While I think it's possible that Voldemort was talking about only himself with the bond of blood, I'd find it unlikely, plus he could wait hidden near the range of the bond of blood (However far the range is... we'll take about that later) and send peter off to quickly grab the unprotected Harry. You could say that Voldemort's initial plan was to remain hidden, so Peter casting spells at Privet Drive could alert the ministry due to Harry's trace being near, but Voldemort didn't mention that fact at all and only talked about Dumbledore's magic here. (Also, this isn't pertaining to the point of other DEs being affected, but just the plain fact that Voldemort mentioned the Bond of Blood as a significant obstacle and not just the sacrificial protection should be quite telling at how effective it was.) Then in OOTP, Harry was noted to be walking around with almost no protection (I think any powerful DE could handily deal with whatever single order member that was tailing Harry, certainly Mundungus Fletcher) and yet he was only ever attacked by the ministry and not Voldemort's group*(there's a problem here.) But aside from all of that, the biggest proof that the bond of blood works on all DEs and not just Voldemort Is in The Battle of the Seven Potters.

“So this time, when you leave, there’ll be no going back, and the charm will break the moment you get outside its range. We’ve choosing to break it early, because the alternative is waiting for You-Know-Who to come and seize you the moment you turn seventeen Why do that if Voldemort has a large amount of DEs and the ministry under his disposal? He could send the DEs and the aurors to fight Harry and force him out of the range of the protection charm, hell if he wants to keep it secret then he could just 'arrest' Harry with the aurors under his control. And also here:

Privet Drive, by the time he looked over the edge of the sidecar he could no longer tell which one it was. Higher and higher they climbed into the sky— And then, out of nowhere, out of nothing, they were surrounded. At least thirty hooded figures, suspended in midair, Why wait for the order members to form up? Why wait for them to get that high up? Why not just straight up attack the house and surprise them inside it? Or them off while they were rising in the air. I think that this plus Dumbledore's words in OOTP give me a high confidence that the Bond of Blood works on other DEs too. ...... and now for the asterisk. * “It means that I think they were ordered there,” said Dumbledore. “I think we might have a record of it if someone had ordered a pair of dementors to go strolling through Little Whinging!” barked Fudge. “Not if the dementors are taking orders from someone other than the Ministry of Magic these days,” said Dumbledore calmly. “I have already given you my views on this matter, Cornelius.” “Yes, you have,” said Fudge forcefully, “and I have no reason to believe that your views are anything other than bilge, Dumbledore. The dementors remain in place in Azkaban and are doing everything we ask them to.” “Then,” said Dumbledore, quietly but clearly, “we must ask ourselves why somebody within the Ministry ordered a pair of dementors into that alleyway on the second of August.” Dumbledore thinks that Voldemort is the one that sent the dementor (he was wrong, it was Umbridge) and suggests so to the ministry, that puts quite a hole in what I said, and also puts into question how little he thought Harry was guarded at privet drive all these years. And... I don't have a good explanation for this, maybe it's only the people with the dark mark that couldn't attack Harry? Or that it only affected his human followers? But then in both cases it means that he would have thought that Harry was unprotected for all these years. It goes directly against what he said at the end of OOTP. Maybe he thought that the protection would do so, but was surprised when the dementor was able to find Harry? But then Harry was left alone for for hours after the dementor attacked before the order came to pick him up, hours where the apparently unprotected Harry could be attacked again, it's a shockingly low response time for this. Maybe... Dumbledore thought that it was the Ministry and was just lying at the court hearing, but that's just headcanon with no evidence to support it, and again the point of Harry staying alone until night still remains. I genuinely can't explain it, if someone has an explanation then I would like to hear it. Anyways, onto the next part for the bond of blood..

ii: Why Not Fidelius?

Why didn't Dumbledore just use the Fidelius charm? Is it not also an unbreakable protection? Well, Dumbledore gives us the reason:

I knew that Voldemort’s knowledge of magic is perhaps more extensive than any wizard alive. I knew that even my most complex and powerful protective spells and charms were unlikely to be invincible if he ever returned to full power

The Fidelius would be counted among Dumbledore's most complex charms I think, so Dumbledore thought that Voldemort would be strong enough to straight up break through the fidelius (Voldemort didn't, but Dumbledore wouldn't know that). And so Dumbledore chose the one type of magic that he thinks that Voldemort would never understand or beat, the one type of magic which he thinks is the greatest of all, Love magic. But there's also another reason for why I think Dumbledore chose the bond of blood, and that is it's range. From what we've seen of the Fidelus, it has a limited range only to the household where it's cast and an area around it (Bill's Shell cottage and it's boundary lines) which would be a... much too small place for someone to be kept in for 11 years straight (and consider Dumbledore's past with Ariana..), but with the bond of blood, it's range was massive, Harry would walk all around Surrey with no warning of going outside of the area. The point to which they went out of range in DH was when Privet Drive was a small speck that Harry could no longer distinguish from the other houses. (Would be an even larger area if you think that Hagrid didn't go straight up like some kind of arrow, but at more of an angle). But talking about the range, another problem surfaces, mainly Harry's going to the zoo, which probably isn't in range of the protection, and Harry going regularly to elementary and middle school, which may be in range of the protection, but would Dumbledore know that such a school was there? Basically, with the schools Harry may have spent regular large intervals of his day unprotected, and it's even more likely with the field trip to the zoo and such, this is also a point that sticks out that a sore thumb, dunno what to do with it. Regardless, the bond of blood has a much bigger range than the fidelius, which would be safer then.

2: Why did Dumbledore not Interfere Sooner?:

Let's just get this out of the way: He knew Harry was abused, and going into it, he at the very least knew that Harry would not have had a happy childhood.

“Five years ago you arrived at Hogwarts, Harry, safe and whole, as I had planned and intended. Well — not quite whole. You had suffered. I knew you would when I left you on your aunt and uncle’s doorstep. I knew I was condemning you to ten dark and difficult years.” This is explicit and clear language, "Condemning you", "Suffered", there are no two ways about it. So... what degree of abuse did Dumbledore expect when he left Harry at the Dursleys? Unknown, you could say that he expected heavy abuse of all kinds, or that he expected it to be limited to neglect (Which would still be very shitty). I choose to go with the latter option, others may not. So that's what Dumbledore expected, now what did Dumbledore know? Well, we know that Figg was reporting to Dumbledore, and Fig said this about the Dursleys to Harry:

“Dumbledore’s orders. I was to keep an eye on you but not say anything, you were too young. I’m sorry I gave you such a miserable time, but the Dursleys would never have let you come if they’d thought you enjoyed it. It wasn’t easy, you know. . . . But oh my word,” With that, Dumbledore would know that it would go further than neglect and uncaring, that the Dursleys genuinely wanted him miserable, he would also know that Harry was malnourished (given his descriptions with knobby knees and such in book 1, surely Figg would have noticed) As for bruises and physical abuse... no such bruises were mentioned in year 1, so I do think the Dursleys made an effort to hide the physical abuse when they sent him to figg— and there is physical abuse, even if you don't count the stuff in the first two books as just tone shifts, then Vernon straight up choking Harry in book 5 will count (Even if said choking was written in a disturbingly comedic tone by the narrative) And it's also mentioned in HBP:

Harry ran down the stairs two at a time, coming to an abrupt halt several steps from the bottom, as long experience had taught him to remain out of arm’s reach of his uncle whenever possible. Anyways, where was I? Oh right, I can believe that Vernon choking Harry in public was a one time thing (The in public part, not in general) due to Harry pulling out his wand and apparently straight up doing magic (which he didn't do), and that's after Vernon had gained a fear of wand after Hagrid's visit in book 1. So to summarize: Dumbledore expected that Harry would be abused (to what extent, we don't know), and then would very likely have known about the Dursleys wanting Harry miserable and him being malnourished

So... WHY did Dumbledore not act?

I use a mix of three reasons for why he didn't interfere sooner. 1: He did not know the full extent of the abuse, he knew there was emotional abuse and malnourishment, but he did not know about the cupboard and (being generous here to try and keep him consistent with his narrative portrayal) he might not have known about the physical abuse. 2: He would be scared that any interference from him or other wizards and threats would have made them just chuck Harry out, which would void the protection, which would make Harry much more vulnerable to Voldemort and his followers. Plus after Hogwarts Harry would 'only' (bleh) have to stay with the Dursleys for a month, even less if Harry goes to other places like the Weasleys or such. 3: He was lying to himself (I saw this one on reddit and liked it) He knew there was a chance that Harry might be a horcrux

“I guessed, fifteen years ago,” said Dumbledore, “when I saw the scar upon your forehead, what it might mean. I guessed that it might be the sign of a connection forged between you and Voldemort.” (and got it basically confirmed in book 2 and super duper confirmed in books 4 and 5).

“Yet there was a flaw in this wonderful plan of mine,” said Dumbledore. “An obvious flaw that I knew, even then, might be the undoing of it all. And yet, knowing how important it was that my plan should succeed, I told myself that I would not permit this flaw to ruin it. I alone could prevent this, so I alone must be strong. And here was my first test, as you lay in the hospital wing, weak from your struggle with Voldemort.” He started on a plan, that plan is unknown to us, but given what we know and him talking about not telling Harry about the prophecy, then that plan would not bode well for Harry, it likely entailed telling Harry about the prophecy early and then.... idk, preparing him to sacrifice himself to Voldemort. Dumbledore doesn't believe in prophecy as a thing that can absolutely happen, but maybe he'd train Harry early or something**. The most important part of that plan was that Dumbledore should never love Harry in order to be able to have him sacrifice himself , otherwise Dumbledore likely thought that he would never have the strength to do so. Thus Dumbledore decided to distance himself as much as possible from Harry, he would not think about him, he would downplay any and all reports of abuse that he would have heard. (Oh, and this is headcanon, most of this post is headcanon lol, but this point is the most headcanon-ey of them all) Yes this interpretation is not particularly kind to Dumbledore, it still has him being extremely willfully ignorant of the abuse Harry suffered and thus still makes him a large cause for why Harry was abused, and that is still something very much blameworthy. But it's the most reasonable one IMO, since I cannot see Dumbledore being this blind to the abuse Harry would suffer unless he forces himself to be so. And it's better, I think, than the other interpretations of Dumbledore apparently wanting Harry to be abused or even engineering it, ignoring that it would make Dumbledore much too dark for his narrative portrayal, it is also a stupid plan, Dumbledore would not know how abuse would shape Harry, Harry could have easily been much much worse off than he'd been, he could have hated muggles, he could have joined the DEs, he could have held his heart closed and choose not to love.

“Yes, you have,” said Dumbledore firmly. “You have a power that Voldemort has never had. You can —” “I know!” said Harry impatiently. “I can love!” It was only with difficulty that he stopped himself adding, “Big deal!” “Yes, Harry, you can love,” said Dumbledore, who looked as though he knew perfectly well what Harry had just refrained from saying. “Which, given everything that has happened to you, is a great and remarkable thing. You are still too young to understand how unusual you are, Harry.”

Dumbledore himself acknowledges it, and Dumbledore is the one who holds love to the highest esteem and constantly praises it. Harry sacrificed himself because of love, not because he didn't value his life (He does.)

So, why did Dumbledore finally start interfering then?

Again, it's going to be a mix of three points. 1: He figured that the Dursleys wouldn't kick Harry out now. He was forced to intervene once already in book 5 to keep Petunia from kicking him out, he learnt from that that interference could work. And the Dursleys would be well aware of the dangers of the magical world and it is much more real for them rather than just some words on a letter from Dumbledore all those years back, and also the fact that the main threat after Harry is now demonstrably back and in full power with a body. 2: (could be added to point one): Harry would be staying there only for a short while longer, just two more times, and add to that that Harry would probably desperately need that intervention after the death of Sirius... The Dursleys abusing him more now could be catastrophic. 3: Dumbledore stopped lying to himself. He utterly failed in his plan to not love Harry and started caring about him anyways, he just never realized it and kept on trying to fool himself until that conversation in The Lost Prophecy. Look at his quotes in there, it's very much Dumbledore telling Harry how he kept on rationalizing not telling Harry about the prophecy while trying to not admit to himself that he loved Harry.

Eleven, I told myself, was much too young to know. I had never intended to tell you when you were eleven. The knowledge would be too much at such a young age. “I should have recognized the danger signs then. I should have asked myself why I did not feel more disturbed that you had already asked me the question to which I knew, one day, I must give a terrible answer. I should have recognized that I was too happy to think that I did not have to do it on that particular day . He said basically the same thing for second year too. Dumbledore was basically deep in denial about caring for Harry, and I think that it was when Voldemort possessed Harry in front of the ministry, where Dumbledore showed true fear, that Dumbledore finally had to admit to himself that he loved Harry. And at which point, Dumbledore could no longer try and act detached, and after the order threatened the Dursleys, he came to them later to also scold them and show his displeasure at them. (I also saw a headcanon that says that Snape told Dumbledore about the full extent of the abuse from the occlumency lessons, and that's what caused him and the order to act, and... I like it) ** (This was supped to be a tangent that got too long, so I'm leaving it down here) I don't think there even was a concreate plan by then, Dumbledore wasn't sure of the horcruxes, he didn't know when Voldemort would come back, even if Voldemort had a horcrux he wouldn't know where it is or if he made more than one... pretty sure his plan was just to find out out more about Voldemort and keep on delaying him until something happens (I got this from reddit too!) I think this quote in PS was basically Dumbledore's plan until he manages to get more info:

Nevertheless, Harry, while you may only have delayed his return to power, it will merely take someone else who is prepared to fight what seems a losing battle next time – and if he is delayed again, and again, why, he may never return to power.’

[dufferpuffer]

((I suddenly got rescue chickens so this took awhile oops)) Warning that this is a bit of a mess. Part response, part addition and part happy rambling. But you've done a fantastic job and I have things to say <3 <3 <3 Hooray!

0: Narrative Portrayal

All the little bits about how nobody, not even Harry, ever questions why Dumbledore didn't step in to help - I haven't considered that before. God that's a clever thing to point out

1: The Bond of Blood

I'm not sure Dumbledore knew about Harry's 'don't-touch-me' abilities beforehand. In general i'm an early-knowledge skeptic.

Nobody, including Dumbledore, knew what was going on with how Harry survived Voldemort. He had theories, and as he gathered more information those theories evolved.

He probably considered Horcruxs as one possibility - but I don't think he was treating it as likely fact until the diary. It seems strange to me that he would do nothing for 11 years if he was reasonably sure Tom used that method? Not even confirming what items they were???

It's more satisfying if he saw the diary, heard Harry could talk to Snakes, etc - and went "so THATS what Tom did! In that case… hm…" Then the next few years (PoA, GoF, OotP) are hectic while he is planning what to do about it.

BUT - whatever. That's not really important. I'm rambling.

Your main point is that Harry was never 'safe' with his love protection. That's a sharp catch.

The Bond of Blood was therefore a significant protection on Harry at the Dursleys, just as Voldemort himself says.

i.5 The Bond(s) of Blood

"Which means by logic that the bond of blood works on his followers too."

I actually would take this a step further: I think it protects Privet Drive from any person Harry doesn't in some way 'love'. *aside from Dobby. Because House Elf magic is fucking weird.

((Note: I am being loose with 'love' here. 'Want around', 'considers important', etc. Harry doesn't 'love' Slughorn but doesn't want him hurt either, yknow?))

Harry is famous - yet no friendly, thankful wizard found him...? The deputy Headmistress sent a million owls - but didn't show up herself...? Hagrid finally chases them down… to a tiny island Airbnb far away from their home.

I think it's near impossible to find Harry at home if he doesn't care about you. The more people he cares for - the weaker that defense. (eg. Tonks was a stranger brought in by Order members Harry loves.)

This adds to the importance of keeping him separate from the Wizarding World until he was old enough to go to Hogwarts.

I hadn't considered the 'range' of this protection - only that it's at least the house itself - but you've picked some good examples of where it may reach. Nice B^)

Why the house? Because Petunia considers it his home.

I believe the magical protection applies to her and the people she 'loves' just as much as it does Harry. That people cannot find her, either, unless she wants them to. She is 'using' magic to protect herself and her family.

Why else would she take Harry in as a baby? A Magic War has just murdered her sister. She has a baby son, a clueless husband - and she can do NOTHING to protect anyone! All she can cling to is an obsession with normalcy.

Why would she bring magic into her home when it's proved deadly? It wasn't pure sentimentality. They almost kicked Harry out. That would have left Harry unprotected. Why should they care…? Dudley almost died! Magic was coming and hurting them like she was always scared it would!!!

“REMEMBER MY LAST, PETUNIA.” Aunt Petunia looked as though she might faint. She sank into the chair beside Dudley, her face in her hands. The remains of the envelope smoldered into ash in the silence. (OotP ch2)

I've seen some people suggest Dumbledore threatened her. But that isn't his style. He is usually very good at allowing people freedom of choice, even if its not what he wants. If he needed to manipulate her so forcefully - he could have used Magic. He's used magic to manipulate Muggles before (Toms Orphanage).

I think the threat is simply that if she doesn't keep Harry around her family is also vulnerable. As long as she thinks of Harry as belonging at Privet Drive her family is also safe within Privet Drive.

When he turned 17 they needed to move elsewhere and be protected. Kick Harry out - the magical connection is severed early.

She raised her head. She was still trembling. She swallowed. “The boy — the boy will have to stay, Vernon,” she said weakly. “W-what?” “He stays,” she said. She was not looking at Harry. She got to her feet again. “He … but Petunia …” “If we throw him out, the neighbors will talk,” she said. She was regaining her usual brisk, snappish manner rapidly, though she was still very pale. “They’ll ask awkward questions, they’ll want to know where he’s gone. We’ll have to keep him.” Uncle Vernon was deflating like an old tire. “But Petunia, dear —” Aunt Petunia ignored him. She turned to Harry. “You’re to stay in your room,” she said. “You’re not to leave the house. Now get to bed.” Harry didn’t move. “Who was that Howler from?” “Don’t ask questions,” Aunt Petunia snapped. “Are you in touch with wizards?” “I told you to get to bed!” (OotP ch2)

She is keeping secrets from her magic-hating family. She is pretending magic isn't involved in her decisions. She is terrified of what will happen if Harry is gone.

“As you will no doubt be aware, Harry comes of age in a year’s time —” “No,” said Aunt Petunia, speaking for the first time since Dumbledore’s arrival. “I’m sorry?” said Dumbledore politely. “No, he doesn’t. He’s a month younger than Dudley, and Dudders doesn’t turn eighteen until the year after next.” “Ah,” said Dumbledore pleasantly, “but in the Wizarding world, we come of age at seventeen.” (HBP, ch3)

She's fucking fast to point out Harry's age. Cuts Dumbledore off. Like she knows exactly what he is getting at, and why.

“The magic I evoked fifteen years ago means that Harry has powerful protection while he can still call this house ‘home.’ […] This magic will cease to operate the moment that Harry turns seventeen; in other words, at the moment he becomes a man. I ask only this: that you allow Harry to return, once more, to this house, before his seventeenth birthday, which will ensure that the protection continues until that time.” None of the Dursleys said anything. […] Uncle Vernon looked as though he had something stuck in his throat; Aunt Petunia, however, was oddly flushed (HBP ch3)

Vernon is flabbergasted at this news... why is she 'flushed'? She already knew that was coming. She's known the whole time that magic has been protecting them. She never told them.

The letters from the Ministry, Mr. Weasley, and Sirius were crushed in his left hand. Don’t leave the house again, whatever you do. DO NOT LEAVE YOUR AUNT AND UNCLE’S HOUSE. (OotP ch2)

Harry has to stay in Privet Drive. For himself AND for the Dursleys. So they didn't get magical visitors he didn't allow.

...

How did the Dementors find him? For one thing - he was further from the house. So a weaker 'range'.

BUT more importantly… how 'accepted' was he at that time?

“We know you’re up to something funny,” said Aunt Petunia. “We’re not stupid, you know,” said Uncle Vernon. “Well, that’s news to me,” said Harry, his temper rising, and before the Dursleys could call him back, he had wheeled about, crossed the front lawn, stepped over the low garden wall, and was striding off up the street. He was in trouble now and he knew it. (Ootp ch1)

For years he has been taking joy in being able to scare them with his magical stories. At the moment the Dementors find him - he is having a fight with Dudley, threatening him with his wand.

Dudley has Lily's blood, too - through Petunia.

Dudley backed into the alley wall. Harry was pointing the wand directly at Dudley’s heart. Harry could feel fourteen years’ hatred of Dudley pounding in his veins — what wouldn’t he give to strike now, to jinx Dudley so thoroughly he’d have to crawl home like an insect, struck dumb, sprouting feelers — “Don’t ever talk about that again,” Harry snarled. “D’you understand me?” “Point that thing somewhere else!” “I said, do you understand me?” “Point it somewhere else!” “DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?” “GET THAT THING AWAY FROM —” (OotP Ch1)

Did Dudley, at that moment, see Harry 'the guy who lives with me' - or was Harry now an unwelcome, scary monster?

If the Dementors can't normally find Harry because Privet Drive is accepted as his home… then perhaps his protection is at its weakest when he is away and his 'family' is nearing maximum rejection.

* Your Asterisk:

This would be my explanation:

Dumbledore didn't think the Dementors were sent directly to Harry. Voldemort wanted to use Harry for himself, after all. They were possibly sent to cause issues against Muggles (Death Eaters like attacking Muggles) and happened to be drawn to Harry (two souls).

It's evidence that Voldemort's people are active again, which Albus is desperate to prove. If it was indeed the Ministry's actions - Who? How? Why? Fudge has to find a way to explain why the Ministry might attack a Muggle neighbourhood, especially one Harry is somewhere near, without admitting Death Eaters are more active.

After the attack, at Privet Drive, after Albus made sure Petunia complied - Harry was absolutely safe to wait till nightfall.

ii: Why Not Fidelius?

I agree with everything said about the Fidelius being a 'known' thing to Voldemort - and about the 'range'.

To add my thoughts: Dumbledore had his trust with the Fidelius broken. Sirius betrayed them. Everything fell apart because he trusted others.

The Blood Bond requires no trust. As long as Harry is kept from the Magical world, and Petunia believes that her family is being magically protected, then it is self-sufficient.

2: Why did Dumbledore not Interfere Sooner?

I agree with Dumbledore expecting 'neglect' rather than heavy abuse.

I think the points brought up are all good, though once again I don't personally think he knew about the Horcrux's specifically.

' if he is delayed again, and again, why, he may never return to power.’ Wonderful quote to bring up <3

when everything was so mysterious and questionable, I do think he went 'we will tackle things as they happen. In the mean time: keep Harry safe.'

"[…]other interpretations of Dumbledore apparently wanting Harry to be abused or even engineering it, ignoring that it would make Dumbledore much too dark for his narrative portrayal, it is also a stupid plan[…]"

Oh my god… there's so many interpretations that essentially say "Dumbledore was actually doing horrible things" - and almost every time that'd mean his plans suck!!!

Risky, incompetent endeavors for the sake of making things seem edgier, most characters blind and/or stupid… idk. They don't appeal to me.

I agree with you that love was especially important to Dumbledore, even when he wasn't very good at knowing what to do with it.

He was trying to be detached to Harry because he doesn't trust himself with the wellbeing of others. He doesn't have people he is 'close' to. He is alone and scared of love. His strategy to keep people safe is to give them a 'home' to stay in. Usually Hogwarts.

So the biggest reason I think he finally interfered… ...was at the end of OotP, after cocking up everything badly, he decided to lock in. He never wanted to be personally involved with Harry because love is scary - but now he has to. He promised. Finally in HBP he goes and gives the Dursleys a talking to. Harry is HIS boy and he will no longer stand by and watch him suffer.

'I am, yours most sincerely, Albus Dumbledore' (HBP ch3)

“Ah, good evening Harry,” said Dumbledore, looking up at him through his half-moon glasses with a most satisfied expression. “Excellent, excellent.” These words seemed to rouse Uncle Vernon. It was clear that as far as he was concerned, any man who could look at Harry and say “excellent” was a man with whom he could never see eye to eye. (HBP ch3)

“He accused me of being ‘Dumbledore’s man through and through.’” “How very rude of him.” “I told him I was.” Dumbledore opened his mouth to speak and then closed it again. Behind Harry, Fawkes the phoenix let out a low, soft, musical cry. To Harry’s intense embarrassment, he suddenly realized that Dumbledore’s bright blue eyes looked rather watery, and stared hastily at his own knees. When Dumbledore spoke, however, his voice was quite steady. “I am very touched, Harry.” (HBP ch17)

(quotes are just some cute moments - he loves Harry <3)

…Mixed in with not wanting to step on the Dursleys toes earlier. They wanted to be quite separate from Magic, after all. But there's many ways he could have balanced that before.

Like… if he himself dressed like a Muggle and visited occasionally, not to embarrass them but to frame himself as coming to check on Harry and make sure they are all safe… he could have fostered a better relationship with them and kept everyone happier. But no. He is a pussy ass bitch. Our pussy ass bitch <3 <3 <3

[kyraneko]

I've written a great deal about the theory that magic of certain magnitudes needs to be paid for, and in fact get more powerful and effective the more you pay for them.

The obvious ones are Lily paying with her life for Harry's protection, Harry paying with his life for everyone else's protection, and Dumbledore paying with his absence for various happy accidents that defend the safety of Hogwarts students (such as the many coincidental items interrupting direct contact with the basilisk's gaze, leading students to be petrified rather than killed).

I think that's part of what's at play here.

Who is paying? Everyone, arguably. Harry, obviously, with the loss of love and community and basic physical and emotional needs, as well as his suffering of more direct cruelty.

But also Petunia and Vernon, with the wrecking of their perfect life, the need to divert some resources from giving Dudley everything he wants to keep Harry fed and clothed, and the fear and worry and loathing they must feel keeping a wizard child in their house.

Also every adult who had felt any affection or care for baby Harry, who were all denied any ability to know or care for him directly for those years of his childhood.

Also Dumbledore himself, who is giving himself a significant moral injury for sending this innocent child to a place where he will be mistreated, who might in fact be reliving the question of his sister's treatment, and doing no better a job the second time around.

I think Dumbledore is making a devil's bargain here. I think he very heavily guilt-tripped Petunia (less directly than through the memory of the sister Petunia once loved), and the possibility existed that the situation carried a certain amount of command just because he was a wizard making a significant request of muggles who feared magic, but also part of the deal was likely that the wizarding world would butt out of having any contact with Harry or opinions about his upbringing.

I think that was necessary for Petunia and Vernon to agree, or so highly likely to be necessary that Dumbledore let them have it without demur or even offered it to them. (We don't see the contents of the letter Dumbledore left with Harry, or any insight into why the Dursleys kept him rather than bring the abandoned baby to the police station with a strongly worded complaint of what sort of riffraff they're allowing to roam the streets and leave babies on people's doorsteps, but we do hear the Dursleys telling Hagrid that "we swore when we took him in" that they would be keeping all that away from him. It's delivered in the context of suggesting they would keep Harry safe from that wizardly nonsense, not just themselves.)

I think when they took in Harry, they did so with the strong intent of keeping him away from magic. I recall a reference to "beating it out of him," though it's been awhile since I've read the part in question. Certainly they're objecting strenuously to Harry receiving the letters from Hogwarts, and to Harry knowing about the magical world, and to Harry being allowed to go to Hogwarts.

I think they made that decision as a decision to rescue their nephew from the magical world that threatened him, but being selfish shitbags, they also felt that he was in their debt for what they were doing for him, and so treated him like more of an indentured servant than a loved one, with the natural result that their wishes had no particular hold on him, and he jumped at the chance to be something other than the unwanted second child and Dudley's punching bag.

I think the suffering he endured was the primary driver in how strong the blood protections were, but Dumbledore's sacrifice of his moral integrity, the Wizarding World's sacrifice of being able to know and love their champion in his early years, Mrs. Figg's sacrifice of having to be unpleasant to this child who has no one, and even Vernon and Petunia and Dudley's sacrifice of having to endure a hated magical child in their home, divide their resources, et cetera, all played a part in it.

I also think all of this functioned as giving him a subtle magical bond to the whole community, which ended the day he broke the protection early but which set the pattern for other bonds to grow around it in the same direction, brought to fruition in Harry's sacrifice to save the whole community at the final battle.

I also think Rowling's an absolute hack for missing this entire question, but what else is new?

[dumbledorefanboy]

Ooh yes, magic needing a price is an interesting thing to explore, not only do we have literal sacrificial magic, but we also have other examples of magic just taking a toll on you, such as the horcruxes and Voldemort's appearance.

Dumbledore paying with his absence for various happy accidents that defend the safety of Hogwarts students (such as the many coincidental items interrupting direct contact with the basilisk's gaze, leading students to be petrified rather than killed).

If I recall correctly, all the petrifications happened before Dumbledore left, with Ginny being the only event that happens after the fact, unless you mean that such happy accidents made an effect that forced Dumbledore to leave?

Also Dumbledore himself, who is giving himself a significant moral injury

!! I never thought about it this way, that Dumbledore too would have to pay for casting the charm! That his intent and emotions could affect the spell too! For a full minute the three of them stood and looked at the little bundle; Hagrid’s shoulders shook, Professor McGonagall blinked furiously and the twinkling light that usually shone from Dumbledore’s eyes seemed to have gone out.

Like you said, Dumbledore would have been forced to think of Ariana during this scene, one can only imagine how wretched he must have felt here.

I think the suffering he endured was the primary driver in how strong the blood protections were

I disagree with this part though, unlike with say, Dumbledore and Lily and Petunia, this is not a willing sacrifice that they're making for love and duty, it's suffering forced upon Harry. All of this is very obviously pure speculation so anything goes, but I don't think such a negative thing would empower magic as good as love. Especially since choices, and the power of love are the main themes of the books.

I think he very heavily guilt-tripped Petunia (less directly than through the memory of the sister Petunia once loved)

I also think that Dumbledore guilt tripped Petunia, but probably not in the way you'd expect. As in, he didn't do it with the letter, how can Dumbledore not write the letter in a way that doesn't make Petunia feel guilt? "Hey there, would you mind taking your sister's recently orphaned son in? I have reasons to think that this here may be the safest place to protect him from his parent's murderer..... But no worries though! I'm sure I could figure something out if you refuse!" Unless he very heavily downplays the danger Harry is in or outright lies, I can't see how the letter wouldn't be guilt trippy by default. (Not that I think Dumbledore would mind here.) And with Dumbledore appealing to Petunia about Lily, I don't see that as guilt tripping? Certainly it's Dumbledore trying to convince Petunia to take Harry in by stirring her lingering love, and it could very easily veer into guilt tripping territory, but I think Dumbledore would just try and leave that part by itself with love, since guilt tripping Petunia with Lily could risk increasing Petunia's jealousy and resentment (Would Dumbledore know about Petunia's jealousy? He must have, since he expected that Harry would suffer with the Dursleys, I assume he knew through passing remarks from Lily and James. Since Dumbledore basing it on Petunia sending him a letter 10 years ago seems a little too far-fetched) Back on topic, I think he guilt tripped Petunia by.... leaving Harry alone on her doorstep. Just the idea of baby Harry being left out in the cold, with no one there would make it especially hard to just shut the door on his face, and even if they just took him to the police... how would she explain the magical bullshit about Harry being in danger due to a super wizard? I think that Petunia assumes that Dumbledore and the wizards are watching from afar, but subconsciously, how would she really make sure of that? She can't see them, can she? Contrast that with Petunia considering her decision while baby Harry is snug in this very capable seeming old wizard's arms (whom she hates), who seems to know a lot about all this magical weirdness and Volde—whoever, and I can very easily see Petunia convincing herself that Harry will probably still live and then slamming the door on Dumbledore's face.

"beating it out of him," though it's been awhile since I've read the part in question.

Vernon had hoped that if they kept Harry as downtrodden as possible, they would be able to squash the magic out of him From POA, and in PS Vernon also mentioned swearing to stamp the magic out of him when they took Harry in. I think I am ambivalent on Dumbledore promising in his letter to keep the wizarding world away (Until Harry goes to Hogwarts), but I can see it as an added motivation for them keeping Harry. You're very right in that they were arrogant enough to believe they were doing Harry a favor after all.

I also think Rowling's an absolute hack for missing this entire question, but what else is new?

Oh tell me about it, I never understood how such a large question important to both Harry and Dumbledore's story got glossed over to that extent, s much Dumbledore bashing would have been mitigated if this was explained and even given proper consequences for!