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When Voldy had just killed Harry's parents, leaving Harry orphaned, and Dumbledore is speaking with Snape about needing to protect Harry...
Snape is refusing, telling Dumbledore that the Dark Lord is gone for good and that Harry does not need protection.
Dumbledore tells Snape, instead, that Voldy will be back.
Question:How does Dumbledore know that Voldy is not defeated for good?
It can't be the prophecy that Dumbledore heard, b/c Snape eaves-dropped on it and he is not convinced that Voldy is coming back.
Snape is refusing, telling Dumbledore that the Dark Lord is gone for good and that Harry does not need protection.
Dumbledore tells Snape, instead, that Voldy will be back.
Question:How does Dumbledore know that Voldy is not defeated for good?
It can't be the prophecy that Dumbledore heard, b/c Snape eaves-dropped on it and he is not convinced that Voldy is coming back.
geeky
I kinda read through DH, and got a bit quiet. Then these random things would filter into the brain, the brain would go think on them, and realize that the book did not answer them. From your response, I gather that there is no information for how Dumbledore could have possibly known.
Myself, I was going in the direction that Dumbledore took a look at Snape's undisappeared Dark Mark, and realized that Voldy was not vanquished.
If Dumbledore knew about Horcruxes this early, he'd've gotten to 'em before Harry even got to Hogwarts, way I figure it. Then he'd've gone over to the Dursleys with a big ole ax and chopped Harry to pieces, destroying him so that Voldy does not return. (this sounds like it'd make a rather wonky crackfic, tho, LoL).
I was actually leaning to him recognizing the curse on the DADA position, and just who cursed it. If the curse is still active, Voldy isn't gone. Problem with this is that it would have taken Dumbledore a year to figure it out (from October 1981 to June 1982), waiting for the DADA master to die some horrible death. That meant that Harry'd've stayed wtih someone other than the Dursleys, b/c Dumbledore'd've had no reason to *protect* Harry from Voldy if he weren't sure Voldy would come back.
Does that mean that this is a plot hole? O_o
There is also the Dark Mark, as you point out, which might have been another way of knowing that Voldemort was alive. If Snape didn't think it was reason to believe he'd be back, then it would be questionable for Dumbledore to base his conviction that Voldemort was alive on that, even if it would have turned out to be right.
As for the curse on the DADA position, you pointed to a scene well before the end of the school year in which Dumbledore's already convinced that Voldemort isn't dead. That scene sounds like the first time Snape talked to Dumbledore after that, so it's almost certainly in November. Probably only a day, or two at most, after Halloween.
Lynn
The prophecy gives hints. Severus only knew a small part, not the 'one has to die by the hand of the other' and not the 'neither can live while the other survives'. Both were not yet fulfilled, when Voldemort vanished. In addition Voldemort's looks when he applied for the DADA job, seemed to suggest a damaged soul. Both combined are enough for an educated guess that there was one Horcrux of whatever kind. Dumbledore usually acts on educated guesses.
If we trust Dumbledore's own words, he only started to suspect a Horcrux in Harry, when Harry came to Hogwarts and reacted on Voldemort's presence. Dumbledore explicitly says he was sure that there was more than one, because of the casual treatment and nature of the diary Horcrux.
Dumbledore certainly knew that there was something strange about Harry's scar, but that matches the prophecy (mark him as equal).
Dumbledore certainly knew that there was more than one after seeing the Diary; we know that because he doesn't say, "This is great! Now Voldemort is *really* dead!"
However, neither does he start looking for other horcruxes.
Between that and Dumbledore's words to Harry at the end of CoS about Voldemort having given him some of his powers, Dumbeldore had to have known by then, at least, that Harry was a horcrux. He doesn't make it sound like that in HBP, but he didn't want Harry to know yet that he was going to have to die.
If we trust Dumbledore's own words, he only started to suspect a Horcrux in Harry, when Harry came to Hogwarts and reacted on Voldemort's presence.
Under the circumstances, I don't think we *can* trust Dumbledore to be honest. The information we have from him comes from things he said to Harry, and he wouldn't want to tell Harry anything that would lead him to wonder about Dumbledore's actions -- since Dumbledore was, after all, setting Harry up to be killed.
That doesn't mean that Dumbledore was lying, but it means that he'd've said what he did whether or not it was true.
Lynn
It's probably this. Snape only heard a part of the prophecy, you're so right!!!!!! Forgot about that. But Voldy *did* spend a nice amount of time in Harry's 5th year trying to figure out what it was Dumbledore knew that he didn't. (LoL - what Dumbledore knows that Voldy doesn't can fill a book!^^).
As for knowing about Horcruxes... it seems that Dumbledore had figured the Horcruxes thing out in Harry's 2nd year, when Harry gives him a defeated Horcrux. I think if Dumbledore knew about Horcruxes earlier, he'd've started a bit earlier to find and destroy them, as in, before Harry is even in Hogwarts.
I like the 'full prophecy' explanation -- that'd probably do it. And it explains what it is Dumbledore knows that Snape doesn't. ;)
And Albus' entire treatment of Harry - from leaving him on the front steps on a November night, through leaving him with the Dursleys despite Arabella's reports, through choosing Hagrid to be the one to deliver the letter to Harry and everything else was done because Albus was planning for Harry to die and he needed to brainwash him into unquestioning obedience so that he would do so.
On another note: regardless of how Dumbledore came to the conclusion that Voldemort was still alive, in some state, it's interesting to think about how he convinced the Wizarding World. He can't have told them any details of the evidence, no matter what his reasoning was. No way would he tell them about horcruxes, or even the prophecy, and we know that the Dark Marks weren't well-known, since even Fudge didn't know about them when Snape showed him his in GoF.
So unless I'm missing something, the WW's whole belief of Voldemort is based on Dumbledore's unsupported word, plus the usual human fear that terrible things don't just go away that simply. It puts the WW's disbelief in Voldemort's return in OotP in an interesting light.
Lynn
Because the prophecy speaks of (at least) 2 encounters between Tom and Harry - in the first Tom will mark Harry as his equal and in the second 'either must die at the hand of the other'.
It is the prophecy that made Albus realize the meaning of Harry's scar - why does the scar make them equal? Because they both contain Tom's soul. And that is also why Harry was the one with the power to vanquish Tom - not because of any talent of his (he didn't have any that was relevant) but because his death could destroy Tom (well, once the other Horcruxes were gone, but Albus only learned of them later).
If Dumbledore knew about Horcruxes this early, he'd've gotten to 'em before Harry even got to Hogwarts, way I figure it.
Albus knew what Horcruxes were by the 1940s. Even before he became headmaster. He banned the topic and confiscated the books (Horace tells young Tom that it was specifically Albus who banned the teaching of the topic).
He knew about Tom's collection of trinkets whenever it was that he spoke to Morfin and Hokey, probably in the 1950s (because I can't see them surviving for many decades after their respective framings, and there were plenty of leads Albus could have followed). He did not know to what purpose Tom collected the objects until Harry returned from the graveyard and said that Tom spoke of multiple experiments in immortality, of going beyond anyone else before him down that path.
But he knew Harry was a Horcrux from day one. Because he saw the scar, and he figured out that Harry was saved because of Lily's sacrifice. So he knew Tom's AK couldn't have possibly hit Harry. Yet something did - hence the scar. He realized that what hit Harry was Tom's soul.
At that point of time Dumbledore hasn't seen Harry or his scar, yet. Hagrid may have sent a short report, but no more.
My problem with 'Dumbledore knew immediately' is that the Harrycrux accident is an extremely unlikely occurrence. Nobody has ever made more than one Horcrux before; never has anyone made so many that his soul became so instable that a broken piece splits from the main soul by itself and manges to settle in something/someone else.
I don't deny that Dumbledore can have figured it out very early, after he saw Harry himself and thought a bit about it, but not at the time he told Severus that Voldemort will return.
He doesn't really need to know about the Harrycrux to know that Voldemort had at least one and therfore will be back.
So, if Voldemort had been trying/planning to make a horcrux out of Harry's death, and Lily's sacrificial protection interfered... who knows what might happen just from that? Voldemort's soul wouldn't necessarily have had to be in tatters for a horcrux to be created, especially not if he was trying to make one anyway, and when he'd just killed two people, causing recent soul-shredding.
It may be tempting to assume that if Dumbledore reached a correct conclusion, then he must have followed the correct path to get there -- but he could easily have reached the right conclusion for partially wrong reasons.
Lynn
Well... Dumbledore knows, during this conversation with Severus, that Harry survived. So whenever that conversation took place, *someone* had seen Harry alive, and told Dumbledore. We're running into that "missing 24 hours" issue. Hagrid apparently found Harry in the ruins of his home, then spent a full 24 hours flying Harry to Surrey. And talked to Dumbledore by magic on the way, perhaps, so that he'd know where to take Harry in the first place?
But then, Dumbledore knows things by the time of the conversation with McGonagall on Privet Drive, things that he wouldn't've known if he didn't go to the Potters' house during those 24 hours. Specifically, Dumbledore knows that Lily died to save Harry. It isn't *just* that Dumbledore mentions this in PS/SS; this is the basis for the blood protection at the Dursleys, so he presumably knows it at the time he decided to have Harry live with the Dursleys. Since Dumbledore wasn't present at the time of the murder, he had to have based his conclusions about Lily's sacrifice on the positioning of bodies, or things like that.
So, possibility #1: The missing 24 hours thing is awkward no matter what, but it isn't any more awkward if Dumbledore saw Harry and his scar in person before his conversation with McGonagall on Privet Drive, *and* before his conversation with Severus. It wouldn't have to delay the conversation with Severus for very long, either; certainly no more than a day.
Possibility #2: Even aside from all of that, though, I don't find it hard to believe that Dumbledore would put off dealing with Severus' grief for a day (until after we *know* he saw Harry on Privet Drive) if he decided he had more important matters to deal with. Dumbledore would put off dealing with *Harry's* grief if he thought he had more important business. (Heck, doesn't he do just that, briefly, at the end of OotP, when he sends Harry to his office alone after Sirius' death?)
Lynn
1. Severus was there, and told him, or-
2. He used legilemency on baby Harry.
Either one would work. It's almost certain that he examined Harry at some point.
My two cents.
Sionna_Raven:
Thank you for this comment.
How could Albus have figured out about the blood protection without knowing *something* about the circumstances of Lily's death - that she (but not James) was near Harry when she died, and that she had no wand on her.
no,no,no!
No, no, no! He's not going to tear his *own* soul, when he could leave that to any random by putting baby-Harry somewhere that protects him only against *Voldemort*. Even if it's possible for anyone other than Voldemort to kill Harry - which is anyway doubtful because "Either must die at the hand of the *other*" - Dumbledore won't do it himself and he doesn't have anyone at his command who'd do it for him.
I would say that the prophecy itself indicates that Voldemort will return because
1) "the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal" comes *before* "either must die"
2) the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord" is said *twice*, once at the beginning and once at the end.
So the marking has to come before the dying, and the vanquishing has to happen twice.
Snape couldn't know that because he got caught after the first "born as the seventh month dies" so he didn't hear either of those points.
So no plothole. Just a ruthless Dumbledore who, IMO, thinks Harry is the *only* Horcrux and when Voldie AKs him they'll both die (like they did in DH, except without the coming back.)
duj
Psst. (I'd rather have the plothole.^^) *puts a tiny lantern up Dumbledore's bum so that light can shine out of one more orifice* LUMOS MAXIMUS!!!!!!! :P