Canon question (DH)...
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.
Re: Happy to disagree :)
I tend to think that Dumbledore isn't exactly truthful in his expressed distrust of the field of Divination. He very rarely acts immediately on one piece of information, but he hires Trelawney on the spot after the prophecy. He doesn't even care that this gives more credibility to the otherwise dodgy incident. Many around here believe that Severus didn't take the prophecy too serious and only reported it to have something to report. All Dumbledore does from that day suggests that he firmly believes in the prophecy, no matter what he later says to Harry.
Re: Happy to disagree :)
1) I don't think we know that creating a single horcrux changes your appearance. If it doesn't, then Dumbledore wouldn't have identified the change with the creation of horcruxes at all.
2) There could easily be other Dark Magic that causes the practitioner's appearance to change like that.
3) Not a problem on the same level, but if Dumbledore knew about Voldemort having a horcrux that early, we've *really* got to ask why Dumbledore didn't start looking for horcruxes earlier than he did. This was loooong before the prophecy suggested how things would play out. I'd excuse him for not going after horcruxes right after Voldemort's interview, because he apparently hadn't done much yet, but Idon't think Dumbledore would have had *any* excuse for not looking at least as soon as the war started.
Knowing about the Harrycrux from the start makes Dumbledore look bad in some ways, but at least he seems less incompetent.
Re: Dumbledore's views of Divination: I *think* there's speculation that the whole thing, including his decision to hire Trelawney, was a ploy of some kind. At least until the prophecy started to come true. The fact that he let Severus leave with part of the prophecy, rather than Obliviating him, has been used as one reason to believe this. I'm not especially familiar with the theories surrounding that part of the books, though, so here I'll defer to people who are.
Lynn
Re: Happy to disagree :)
Still, hard to know how he interpreted the prophecy before he had any additional facts, so hard to use that alone as an explanation of his decisions.
Re: Happy to disagree :)