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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
Re: Happy to disagree :)
Here I'm happy to agree with you. Our disagreement is only about how detailed. We know from canon that the Ministry can detect from a distance which spells are cast, if they want. I do believe that Dumbledore installed something similar at GH. I only doubt that this surveillance charms detected the accidental soul splitting. The Ancient Magic of Lily's sacrifice is a different matter. Voldemort says in GoF that he forgot about that possiblity. For him to forget about it, it must have been discussed somewhere as a theoretical idea before, even when it never happened.
So we have 3 AKs, two successful, one backfired; one case of Ancient (theoretical known) Magic and a weird accident. All these can be known to Dumbledore through his magic 'blackbox' attack recording device without going there.
BTW there isn't enough time - unless you consider the use of a time turner - for someone to have been there before Hagrid arrived. The Potters' cottage is in the village of Godric's Hollow, maybe on the outer rim, but still close to their Muggle and wizard neighbours. How long do you think it takes them to swarm the place of an explosion? It didn't happen in the middle of the night, twenty minutes at worst IMO.
Why don't we just agree to disagree on this tiny little detail which doesn't really influence the interpretation of the whole story or Dumbledore's character?
Don't get me even started on that. I've spent the last 12 months writing the Sirius-centered half of a post war AU fanfiction. In this fic Sirius spent his time beyond the veil thinking and the handling of the whole 'spy-in-the-order' business by Dumbledore gets him and me barking mad.
Unfortunately this is one of the reasons I don't think it's unusual for Dumbledore to have known Voldemort's Horcruxes for years without looking for them. That's what he always does. He waits, observes, gathers information and only at the last minute he acts. He doesn't act at all about Tom Riddle; he takes 5 to 12 years to confront Grindelwald; he probably knew about the spy for months, Order members are dying in the meantime, nothing....
Re: Happy to disagree :)
20 minutes are plenty. It takes Albus less than a minute to make himself a Portkey to wherever - we see it twice in OOTP. - so no need to go outside the Apparition wards. And we see that at least Albus can make Portkeys to/from Hogwarts as needed. (Though he doesn't do so in HBP when he takes Harry to the cave. More support to conspiracy theories regarding his expectations regarding Draco that night.)
I find it odd you don't find it OOC for Albus to not look for a Horcrux for decades but have an issue with him waiting one day to talk to Severus.
At this moment we can agree to disagree about the exact time Albus found out about the Harrycrux as long as we both agree it was within no more than days from Halloween. Though I think it matters regarding his character - I think it makes a difference if when he asked Severus to protect Harry he was talking in good faith or not. It is somewhat more understandable if he asked for Severus help believing he could destroy the Horcrux when he found it, then discovered what the situation really was and failed to inform Severus (perhaps believing such a revelation would be bad for him at the moment, ignoring the fact that it would be worse if delayed) than if he was insincere from the beginning.
Re: Happy to disagree :)
Not so much, when you consider that within that time Hagrid and Sirius have to arrive (not by Apparition), both discover what happened and Hagrid has to comfort a devastated Sirius. And 20 minutes is the most generous estimate; it could be as bad as 5 minutes. It took my neighbours about 2 two minutes to notice and get out on the street when a chimney caught fire in spring and that was certainly less noisy or spectacular than several green flashes and a house partially tumbling down.
OOC or IC is perhaps the wrong phrase. I'm generally ready to think the worst of Albus, but in this case I'm willing to give him the benefit of doubt. Whether he intended to raise Harry to a likely instead of an inevitable death right from the beginning, it doesn't make that much difference to me.
The initial question was how could Albus know that Voldemort wasn't gone for good. The red eyes convince me. He is the only one who's eyes turn red. No other Dark Witch or Wizard shows the same change and I count at least the 3 Lestranges among serious Dark Wizards.
Why I think letting Severus wait so horrible and also unwise from Albus POV is that Severus is a suicidal mood from the moment he knows of Lily's death untill he's given a new purpose in life. That's the main difference between the two other occasion Dumbledore takes his time to talk (Harry in Ootp and Hagrid in GoF). They are unhappy, in mourning, depressed, but not suicidal.
I agreed with that right from the beginning.
Re: Happy to disagree :)
Yeah Dumbly plots and waits and shit. But he's also shown to act on things he's not entirely certain about, act on hunches. Sometimes in the hope that'll reveal more information.
I think he puts more faith in true divination than he seems to let on. He hires Firenze the centaur and he's the one able to get Umbridge back from the centaurs, all by himself, even after they're all pissed off at the hyoomins. So I read that as him having perhaps a longer-standing relationship with the centaurs. There's hints that the centaurs, while not perhaps predicting even something as "specific" as Trelawney's prophesy (if her prophesy can even be called specific,) that they could've known the war would repeat itself again at least. Like the hints in PS when the one centaur is talking about Mars and such. Right? I think it's more that Dumbly doesn't have a lot of faith in Trelawney as a seer, but he knows enough to recognize a true prophesy when he sees one, and takes her on after that.
So not great info, about Voldy specifically, but he in theory could've had hints from the centaurs and then also from Trelawney's phrophesy that this war wouldn't be the only one.
If he had any chance to interact with baby!Harry directly, he could've used legilimency on Harry. This opens up other possibilities. I didn't think of a spell-blackbox thing but that's a good one too. And Hagrid telling him what he saw at the house. Dumbly could've already decided to send Harry to Petunia's (they technically had some sort of connection but near as I can tell one or maybe two gifts over their adult years? Not huge. Sirius might not've been known or thought to know where Petunia lived. And I find this also kinda odd 'cause like, when Hagrid brings Harry to Petunia's he's specifically borrowed Sirius' bike for this duty so somehow Sirius wasn't yet under suspicion for giving them away? Like that does bother me but if so it at least ties up the "need to hide Harry from Sirius and Sirius might know how to find Petunia" issue.) Legilimancy could've shown him exactly the process of events that night, if not flat-out relating that a piece of Mouldy Voldy was stuck in Harry's brain somehow. So, divination from perhaps two sources, description of how Harry was found, perhaps legilimancy if he gets to interact with Harry before the big meet-up at Petunia's doorstep. He wouldn't need to make the connection with horcrux stuff right away, even then, to make a pretty damn good educated guess that a chunk of Voldy got stuck in Harry. Or at least that Voldy'd be back.
Hell he could've talked to Severus before (possibly) seeing Harry prior to Petunia's doorstep, and still chose to speak confidently about Voldy coming back, as perhaps an (manipulative, yes) attempt to keep Severus from falling toward suicide. Tap into Severus' love for Lily ("he has her eyes") and his need to protect or help defend shit, give him something of a purpose. Figure out with more certainty later on. Wouldn't even need to convince the WW that Voldy's coming back, not convince them right away at any rate. Lotsa folk seem to think he's gone for good, some seem to think (among some ex-DE's so this could be reported to Dumbly by Severus himself) Harry might even be the next great Dark Lord himself. Black-box magic wards, description of the house when Harry was grabbed, and a potential for using legilimency on Harry to at least see the sequence of events that night would give all the certainty Dumbly needed about the blood sacrifice protection. Hell Dumbly could've had a two-way mirror in their house for all anyone knows, granted he'd have to be watching that but anyway.
I just... like he could've figured out the horcrux stuff by then, sure, at least the Harrycrux, if not others. Or had a suspicion. I think though there's also other equally plausible explanations and it's really difficult to say which is more likely over the other. I like the discussion though (even if I'm coming in to it some years late, oops.)
-Mirazh