The "Rehabilitation" of Tom RiddleoneandthetruthNovember 2 2014, 23:16:03 UTC
Further, the first thing Albus taught Tom was that if he wanted to succeed in the WW, Tom needed to disguise his proclivities.
Yeah, why would he do that? You're assuming that, if Albus recognized how dangerous Tom was, that Albus wanted to train Tom out of his badness. But what if he didn't?
When Tom came to Hogwarts in 1937, WW II had not yet started, and Albus's ex-flame Gellert had not begun his campaign to take over Europe. There were still plenty of people alive who either remembered or must have heard about the plans of Albus and Gellert to subjugate the muggles and take over the world for wizardkind. That kind of ultra-juicy gossip can never be kept secret, particularly (1) in a small, closed community, (2) when one of the people involved is the alleged superstar of his generation, and (3) when that person has a position of authority at one of the society’s most important institutions. Even 40 years later, people would still quite reasonably be suspicious of Albus's insistence that he had changed, he didn't want power, he was just interested in doing good, etc. So how could he prove what he was claiming about himself?
Answer: By setting up and defeating a somebody who was just like he once was: a ruthless, tyrannical, racist, wizard dictator.
This explanation fits all the facts. Consider:
1) It answers your questions about the Sorting Hat. Even if the hat had tried to warn that Tom was dangerous, it would have been ignored and/or overridden by Albus, He's a very slick con artist and could have persuaded anyone who had good sense was concerned about Tom that the boy's violent and predatory tendencies were just the result of corruption and mistreatment by those muggles who didn't understand and appreciate him. A few years in the more nurturing wizarding environment would cure all that. And since Tom was so obviously talented, it would be a real shame to lose that talent by binding his magic and casting him out of their society. This song and dance also accorded with the "noble, loving, forgiving" persona Albus was trying to establish for himself. 2) It explains why this violent boy was allowed the training he needed to maximize his dangerousness. 3) It fits with Albus’s being a narcissistic psychopath because it’s self-serving, dishonest, and manipulative.
Which brings me to another point: Several people have said Albus was most likely a Slytherin because he’s so manipulative. In fact, inordinate manipulativeness is one of the hallmarks of psychopathy. According to Robert Hare, PhD, the world’s foremost expert on psychopaths, it is impossible for a non-psychopath to out-manipulate a psychopath. It doesn’t matter how intelligent, well-educated, or experienced in dealing with these scum the normal person is. If the psychopath wants to manipulate you, they will, and there’s nothing you can do about it.
Albus’s inordinate manipulativeness doesn’t make him a Slytherin. It just makes him a psychopath. He would be like that no matter what house he belonged to.
Re: The "Rehabilitation" of Tom Riddleterri_testingNovember 6 2014, 05:52:06 UTC
You know, before I read DH for the first time I regarded Albus Dumbledore more or less as Harry did: as the wise, benevolent, utterly-to-be-trusted mentor figure. Even after my first reading of DH, I mistrusted his judgment sometimes and thought him ruthless. My first fictions, even, he mentored Sev. But the more deeply I considered his actions, and his probable motivations...
It's like falling off a cliff. You fall, and are terrified, and bang about, and then by some miracle you're at the bottom, battered but alive. And you stagger to your feet, only you're on another cliff-edge and are falling again.... Every time you think you MUST have hit bottom, there's an even worse interpretation of what Twinkles might have been up to.
I must hand it to you--it's hard to outdo me in Albus-bashing.
But you're correct, if you assume Albus is smart enough to have at least an idea of what he's doing, the implications are... horrendous.
Now to the next question: why didn't that Hat catch ALBUS? Because, in effect, you've just pushed the problem back a generation.
Or was there nothing to catch, back when Albus was Sorted? I've been re-reading Jodel's foundation essays, and hir theory of Dark Arts Dementia. We know Albus is a Dark Arts expert, and he is EXACTLY the sort of person who'd be quite sure he could handle the Dark Arts without being damaged by them. Lesser people, yes, might have their perceptions and empathy scrambled, but not he. Why, he later hid the Horcrux books from the Restricted Section IN HIS OWN OFFICE (one suspects that there are books which, like the locket, might be unwholesome to be around for long). Maybe he was fine at eleven, but just got in a little too much practice on his sub-specialty over his summer vacations...? Either those long years he was a teacher, or even back when he was a student?
Ouch--Jodel also posits that the Dark Arts are the source and inspiration of most important magical invention, and Albus was early famous for, what? His... creativity. (His OTP Gellert, of course, was notorious for HIS--that's what he was expelled from Durmstrang for, experiments.) And during Albus's student holidays, while Aberforth and Kendra spent most of their time and attention on Ariana, there was Albus, "always up in his bedroom when he was home, reading his books and counting his prizes, keeping up with his correspondance with 'the most notable magical names of the day.'" Only, y'know, maybe not just reading. Or writing.
(In fact--wanting to perform illicit experiments would be a very good reason TO come home for the optional holidays. Otherwise why not be like Hermione and claim he needs to stay and study where he has access to the school library?)
We always knew there was an element of projection in his treatment of Severus--maybe that's the reason he claimed to be afraid to let Severus near the Dark Arts. Twinkle, twinkle.
Re: The "Rehabilitation" of Tom RiddleoneandthetruthNovember 9 2014, 23:40:08 UTC
You know, before I read DH for the first time I regarded Albus Dumbledore more or less as Harry did: as the wise, benevolent, utterly-to-be-trusted mentor figure.
As I've said, I was pretty sure he was a bad guy from the first chapter of PS/SS. I'm always suspicious of characters the author tries to "sell" too hard. If they're really good, that should be revealed over time during the story. Yet there was Rowling, right there in the first chapter of the first book, telling us, not about the little boy who is titular focus of the series, but some old guy and how wonderful he is. Think about how weird it would look if, in chapter 1 of A Study in Scarlet, Watson had started raving about how great Inspector Lestrade was. It just doesn't fit.
I must hand it to you--it's hard to outdo me in Albus-bashing.
But you're correct, if you assume Albus is smart enough to have at least an idea of what he's doing, the implications are... horrendous.
As the Master said, "To the logician all things should be seen exactly as they are." (GREE) Telling the ugly truth about somebody is not bashing.
Now to the next question: why didn't that Hat catch ALBUS? Because, in effect, you've just pushed the problem back a generation.
Or was there nothing to catch, back when Albus was Sorted?
As I said above, he conned it. The Hat was no doubt designed to evaluate normal people. Since psychopaths are relatively rare (2-4% of the population), and the concept of psychopathy didn't even exist 1000 years ago, the Hat was never "programmed" to look for that and eliminate people who had it.
Re: The "Rehabilitation" of Tom RiddleoneandthetruthNovember 9 2014, 23:47:54 UTC
We know Albus is a Dark Arts expert, and he is EXACTLY the sort of person who'd be quite sure he could handle the Dark Arts without being damaged by them. Lesser people, yes, might have their perceptions and empathy scrambled, but not he.
No, no, you still don't get it! You're still assuming there was some impulse to good or decency in him. There was not! There was nothing to corrupt because he was already corrupt!
If you want to understand Asshole Scummywhore, you really need to read Dr. Hare's book, Without Conscience: The Disturbing World of the Psychopaths among Us. That book is absolutely priceless in understanding how these vermin think and operate.
One of the things he emphasizes, and which I brought up in "Chaos a Hundred Times," is that psychopaths have an extremely limited emotional range. There are degrees of psychopathy, but the really dangerous, hard-core ones--like Albus--feel only frustration, anger, and rage. That's it. They don't experience love, compassion, understanding, empathy, or forgiveness. When they talk about those emotions, they're lying to manipulate others. Because they lack empathy, they think everybody else is just like them. So when they hear other people talking about those emotions, they assume others are lying to manipulate them. In other words, Albus wouldn't have worried about being corrupted by the Dark Arts because he was already corrupt, and he assumed everybody else was, too!
We always knew there was an element of projection in his treatment of Severus--maybe that's the reason he claimed to be afraid to let Severus near the Dark Arts. Twinkle, twinkle.
It's far more likely he was afraid of the competition. Albus went out of his way to beat down Severus. You don't work that hard to crush somebody unless you regard them as a serious threat to your power.
Albus and the competitionterri_testingNovember 14 2014, 05:52:57 UTC
Beating down the competition.
Um.
NONE of the children Albus educated ever had a chance to outdo him, have you happened to have noticed? For one reason or another.
Albus once said Tom was smarter than he. Yet it's Albus whose creativity Griselda Marchbanks still gushes over (as Slughorn gushes over Snape's).
Albus's best students never got introduced via correspondance to international experts, like Phineas had arranged with Albus. (Sluggie could only twitch connections in the Ministry--a very poor second best for a real high-flyer. Albus was known internationally by the time he graduated--Tom was offered an entry-level position in the Ministry.)
But mostly, Albus's most-able students got swept up in extremist groups, of one stripe or another. And died very, very young.
Re: The "Rehabilitation" of Tom Riddleterri_testingNovember 9 2014, 16:16:56 UTC
Er. Here's another thought for you.
Sending a baby to be raised for a decade with no parental affection or any positive attention is a recipe for getting back a child so starved for approval and affection he'll latch on with unshakable loyalty to the first person who shows him any, yes?
Or, it's a recipe for producing a psychopath.
Producing the next generation Dark Lord (perhaps after killing this one) for Albus to stand up against as "The Only One He Ever Feared," and continuing the WW's State of Emergency.
What is it Bujold's Cavilo said? Not one path to victory, but ensuring that ALL paths lead to one's victory?
Re: The "Rehabilitation" of Tom RiddleoneandthetruthNovember 9 2014, 23:05:18 UTC
Good. You're learning to think with appropriate fiendishness. I like this. :D It also accords with what I said in "Chaos a Hundred Times," that psychopaths like Albus love chaos, and if it doesn't exist, they'll create it just to keep things interesting.
But once Albus had spent several years promoting Harry up the wazoo as the Savior of the Wizarding World, how would he then be able to turn on a knut and say Harry was too dangerous to live? Or are you assuming that psychopath Harry would automatically turn into a dictator himself once Tom had been removed from his way?
What would be really interesting would be if Harry killed both Albus and Tom, then used all that free "Savior" publicity to sell the public on the idea that their best bet was to make him their supreme leader. Not that he wanted such power, you understand--that ambition stuff is for those nasty Slytherins, and he's a good, wholesome Gryffindor--but, as someone with a track record of defeating evil, and with his intimate knowledge of muggle life, he'd be the ideal person to protect the wizarding world from both tyranny and muggles. And if he just happened to end up in power for the next hundred years or so, well, if you've chosen the right person to lead you, why would you change?
Re: The "Rehabilitation" of Tom RiddlesunnyskywalkerNovember 12 2014, 04:12:46 UTC
But once Albus had spent several years promoting Harry up the wazoo as the Savior of the Wizarding World, how would he then be able to turn on a knut and say Harry was too dangerous to live?
Well, did you see Albus doing anything to counter Rita Skeeter's claims that Harry was a disturbed young man? Of course not. That kind of doubt was a great insurance policy. Let's imagine a timeline where both Harry and Albus survived Voldemort's defeat. Yes, Harry was a good and wonderful boy who wanted nothing more than to save the wizarding world from the fiendish Voldemort... once. But alas, after several encounters with Voldemort during his tender early Hogwarts years, Harry did, indeed, become a little, well, troubled. Understandable after such trauma. And as some may have guessed, Voldemort did indeed briefly possess the boy during the battle in the Ministry. Albus was sure that defeating Voldemort would bring the boy some peace, and he has done everything he can to guide him in this new, peaceful world he has ensured... But alas, some wounds may be too deep for healing. *sorrowful sigh*
He might take a few months or a year to really set it up properly, of course. But if Rita (with the credibility boost from having interviewed Harry himself, at his own invitation) decides to rekindle her Dark And Disturbed Harry angle after the war, he doesn't even have to do most of the work himself. Convenient! He can make a big show of denying it and protecting Harry until the right moment, when something "convinces" him to "reluctantly" concede that she's right.
Turning on Harry should be easy, really. The harder part is how to handle Rita's bombshells about Albus's own past. I suppose he nobly learned his lesson way back in his teens (and hasn't he proven he's more pro-Muggle protection than so much of the WW, after all? see he's reformed!), and was trying to keep Harry from making similar mistakes--but tragically failed.
Turning on Harryterri_testingNovember 15 2014, 05:30:28 UTC
No, it's even easier than that. The seeds were sown way back when Harry was given Boy-Who-Lived status.
Which, I'd already argued, was not only factually false (Harry was never a Boy-Who-Lived, merely the son of the Girl-Who-Died), as was KNOWN to Albus (who claims he sent Harry to be raised by Petunia because his mother's sacrifice made ties of blood Harry's greatest protection), but was also a myth deliberately promoted by Albus. (Who else would've? That a fifteen-month-old could defeat this decade's most powerful Dark Lord would only even occur to someone who'd been listening in on some shady prophecy--and that's only Albus, Severus, and Tommy.)
But the corollary to Harry being the Boy-Who-Lived was that he himself was a very powerful and potentially dangerous Dark Lord in his own right.
Remember what Severus said to Bellatrix in Spinner's End, and compare that to what Ernie Macmillan said in CoS. If baby Harry vanquished Voldemort, he must have done so using his own Dark Powers.
Re: Turning on HarrydracasadiabloNovember 15 2014, 17:13:09 UTC
There's also people Harry's associated with in general (half giant ex prisoner with fascination to dark things, werewolf that endangered a lot of kids, escaped prisoner and mass murderer, petty criminals, well know cruel bullies . . .) and his main friends and love interest in particular.
Ginny can be easily shown as "tainted" after the diary and basilisks incident. Somebody could even constructs Harry's interested in her as not so much attraction to the girl but for the remaining touch of Voldy's soul / dark magic on her.
And then there are Ron and Hermione too. They started school as pretty okay kids. But DD's plans shaped them into something different. Seriously, trying to compare the first year trio with the people they become is eye opening. Even kid Harry with his stunted ability to feel wasn't nowhere near as horrible as the "All is well" Harry.
You have to wonder if the way they changed wasn't influenced by all Dark Magic they were exposed to. Oh, sure the things DD taught them about ignoring rules and doing what you want helped shape them into self-righteous and vicious people.
But DD let them (or even helped them into) explore and use some very Dark things. Just how good could it be for still forming kids (that had no training in resisting dark magic) to spend time under Death's cloak, look into not very nice mirrors, use maps full of dark magic, and have parts of Tom's soul influencing them?
Also, if it's very dangerous for people to get attached to a Horcrux, that what kind of a effect Horcrux!Harry had on his best friends?
All that could easily be used to discredit anybody who would defend Harry and show him off in even worse light.
Harrycruxterri_testingNovember 19 2014, 16:20:02 UTC
Ha! Yes, good points, that Harry's known associates are a bit dubious....
As to the Harrycrux, I speculated years ago that Dumbledore did expect that Tom's soul-fragment in Harry might flit out and possess those in contact with him--that's partly why he placed him with Muggles with only a Squib nearby to watch him, and why he set up for Harry's first-ever friends to be a half-giant and the youngest son of a family firmly in HIS thrall--all disposable people, if need be.
Dumbles was only really convinced that the soul in the Harrycrux, unlike other Horcruxes, couldn't flit out and possess others when he finally discovered that Ginny had been possessed by the DIARY's soul-fragment, not the one residing in her crush Harry.
Yeah, why would he do that? You're assuming that, if Albus recognized how dangerous Tom was, that Albus wanted to train Tom out of his badness. But what if he didn't?
When Tom came to Hogwarts in 1937, WW II had not yet started, and Albus's ex-flame Gellert had not begun his campaign to take over Europe. There were still plenty of people alive who either remembered or must have heard about the plans of Albus and Gellert to subjugate the muggles and take over the world for wizardkind. That kind of ultra-juicy gossip can never be kept secret, particularly (1) in a small, closed community, (2) when one of the people involved is the alleged superstar of his generation, and (3) when that person has a position of authority at one of the society’s most important institutions. Even 40 years later, people would still quite reasonably be suspicious of Albus's insistence that he had changed, he didn't want power, he was just interested in doing good, etc. So how could he prove what he was claiming about himself?
Answer: By setting up and defeating a somebody who was just like he once was: a ruthless, tyrannical, racist, wizard dictator.
This explanation fits all the facts. Consider:
1) It answers your questions about the Sorting Hat. Even if the hat had tried to warn that Tom was dangerous, it would have been ignored and/or overridden by Albus, He's a very slick con artist and could have persuaded anyone who had good sense was concerned about Tom that the boy's violent and predatory tendencies were just the result of corruption and mistreatment by those muggles who didn't understand and appreciate him. A few years in the more nurturing wizarding environment would cure all that. And since Tom was so obviously talented, it would be a real shame to lose that talent by binding his magic and casting him out of their society. This song and dance also accorded with the "noble, loving, forgiving" persona Albus was trying to establish for himself.
2) It explains why this violent boy was allowed the training he needed to maximize his dangerousness.
3) It fits with Albus’s being a narcissistic psychopath because it’s self-serving, dishonest, and manipulative.
Which brings me to another point: Several people have said Albus was most likely a Slytherin because he’s so manipulative. In fact, inordinate manipulativeness is one of the hallmarks of psychopathy. According to Robert Hare, PhD, the world’s foremost expert on psychopaths, it is impossible for a non-psychopath to out-manipulate a psychopath. It doesn’t matter how intelligent, well-educated, or experienced in dealing with these scum the normal person is. If the psychopath wants to manipulate you, they will, and there’s nothing you can do about it.
Albus’s inordinate manipulativeness doesn’t make him a Slytherin. It just makes him a psychopath. He would be like that no matter what house he belonged to.
Reply
It's like falling off a cliff. You fall, and are terrified, and bang about, and then by some miracle you're at the bottom, battered but alive. And you stagger to your feet, only you're on another cliff-edge and are falling again.... Every time you think you MUST have hit bottom, there's an even worse interpretation of what Twinkles might have been up to.
I must hand it to you--it's hard to outdo me in Albus-bashing.
But you're correct, if you assume Albus is smart enough to have at least an idea of what he's doing, the implications are... horrendous.
Now to the next question: why didn't that Hat catch ALBUS? Because, in effect, you've just pushed the problem back a generation.
Or was there nothing to catch, back when Albus was Sorted? I've been re-reading Jodel's foundation essays, and hir theory of Dark Arts Dementia. We know Albus is a Dark Arts expert, and he is EXACTLY the sort of person who'd be quite sure he could handle the Dark Arts without being damaged by them. Lesser people, yes, might have their perceptions and empathy scrambled, but not he. Why, he later hid the Horcrux books from the Restricted Section IN HIS OWN OFFICE (one suspects that there are books which, like the locket, might be unwholesome to be around for long). Maybe he was fine at eleven, but just got in a little too much practice on his sub-specialty over his summer vacations...? Either those long years he was a teacher, or even back when he was a student?
Ouch--Jodel also posits that the Dark Arts are the source and inspiration of most important magical invention, and Albus was early famous for, what? His... creativity. (His OTP Gellert, of course, was notorious for HIS--that's what he was expelled from Durmstrang for, experiments.) And during Albus's student holidays, while Aberforth and Kendra spent most of their time and attention on Ariana, there was Albus, "always up in his bedroom when he was home, reading his books and counting his prizes, keeping up with his correspondance with 'the most notable magical names of the day.'" Only, y'know, maybe not just reading. Or writing.
(In fact--wanting to perform illicit experiments would be a very good reason TO come home for the optional holidays. Otherwise why not be like Hermione and claim he needs to stay and study where he has access to the school library?)
We always knew there was an element of projection in his treatment of Severus--maybe that's the reason he claimed to be afraid to let Severus near the Dark Arts. Twinkle, twinkle.
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As I've said, I was pretty sure he was a bad guy from the first chapter of PS/SS. I'm always suspicious of characters the author tries to "sell" too hard. If they're really good, that should be revealed over time during the story. Yet there was Rowling, right there in the first chapter of the first book, telling us, not about the little boy who is titular focus of the series, but some old guy and how wonderful he is. Think about how weird it would look if, in chapter 1 of A Study in Scarlet, Watson had started raving about how great Inspector Lestrade was. It just doesn't fit.
I must hand it to you--it's hard to outdo me in Albus-bashing.
But you're correct, if you assume Albus is smart enough to have at least an idea of what he's doing, the implications are... horrendous.
As the Master said, "To the logician all things should be seen exactly as they are." (GREE) Telling the ugly truth about somebody is not bashing.
Now to the next question: why didn't that Hat catch ALBUS? Because, in effect, you've just pushed the problem back a generation.
Or was there nothing to catch, back when Albus was Sorted?
As I said above, he conned it. The Hat was no doubt designed to evaluate normal people. Since psychopaths are relatively rare (2-4% of the population), and the concept of psychopathy didn't even exist 1000 years ago, the Hat was never "programmed" to look for that and eliminate people who had it.
Reply
No, no, you still don't get it! You're still assuming there was some impulse to good or decency in him. There was not! There was nothing to corrupt because he was already corrupt!
If you want to understand Asshole Scummywhore, you really need to read Dr. Hare's book, Without Conscience: The Disturbing World of the Psychopaths among Us. That book is absolutely priceless in understanding how these vermin think and operate.
One of the things he emphasizes, and which I brought up in "Chaos a Hundred Times," is that psychopaths have an extremely limited emotional range. There are degrees of psychopathy, but the really dangerous, hard-core ones--like Albus--feel only frustration, anger, and rage. That's it. They don't experience love, compassion, understanding, empathy, or forgiveness. When they talk about those emotions, they're lying to manipulate others. Because they lack empathy, they think everybody else is just like them. So when they hear other people talking about those emotions, they assume others are lying to manipulate them. In other words, Albus wouldn't have worried about being corrupted by the Dark Arts because he was already corrupt, and he assumed everybody else was, too!
We always knew there was an element of projection in his treatment of Severus--maybe that's the reason he claimed to be afraid to let Severus near the Dark Arts. Twinkle, twinkle.
It's far more likely he was afraid of the competition. Albus went out of his way to beat down Severus. You don't work that hard to crush somebody unless you regard them as a serious threat to your power.
Reply
Um.
NONE of the children Albus educated ever had a chance to outdo him, have you happened to have noticed? For one reason or another.
Albus once said Tom was smarter than he. Yet it's Albus whose creativity Griselda Marchbanks still gushes over (as Slughorn gushes over Snape's).
Albus's best students never got introduced via correspondance to international experts, like Phineas had arranged with Albus. (Sluggie could only twitch connections in the Ministry--a very poor second best for a real high-flyer. Albus was known internationally by the time he graduated--Tom was offered an entry-level position in the Ministry.)
But mostly, Albus's most-able students got swept up in extremist groups, of one stripe or another. And died very, very young.
There. Is that cynical enough for you?
Reply
Sending a baby to be raised for a decade with no parental affection or any positive attention is a recipe for getting back a child so starved for approval and affection he'll latch on with unshakable loyalty to the first person who shows him any, yes?
Or, it's a recipe for producing a psychopath.
Producing the next generation Dark Lord (perhaps after killing this one) for Albus to stand up against as "The Only One He Ever Feared," and continuing the WW's State of Emergency.
What is it Bujold's Cavilo said? Not one path to victory, but ensuring that ALL paths lead to one's victory?
Reply
But once Albus had spent several years promoting Harry up the wazoo as the Savior of the Wizarding World, how would he then be able to turn on a knut and say Harry was too dangerous to live? Or are you assuming that psychopath Harry would automatically turn into a dictator himself once Tom had been removed from his way?
What would be really interesting would be if Harry killed both Albus and Tom, then used all that free "Savior" publicity to sell the public on the idea that their best bet was to make him their supreme leader. Not that he wanted such power, you understand--that ambition stuff is for those nasty Slytherins, and he's a good, wholesome Gryffindor--but, as someone with a track record of defeating evil, and with his intimate knowledge of muggle life, he'd be the ideal person to protect the wizarding world from both tyranny and muggles. And if he just happened to end up in power for the next hundred years or so, well, if you've chosen the right person to lead you, why would you change?
Reply
Well, did you see Albus doing anything to counter Rita Skeeter's claims that Harry was a disturbed young man? Of course not. That kind of doubt was a great insurance policy. Let's imagine a timeline where both Harry and Albus survived Voldemort's defeat. Yes, Harry was a good and wonderful boy who wanted nothing more than to save the wizarding world from the fiendish Voldemort... once. But alas, after several encounters with Voldemort during his tender early Hogwarts years, Harry did, indeed, become a little, well, troubled. Understandable after such trauma. And as some may have guessed, Voldemort did indeed briefly possess the boy during the battle in the Ministry. Albus was sure that defeating Voldemort would bring the boy some peace, and he has done everything he can to guide him in this new, peaceful world he has ensured... But alas, some wounds may be too deep for healing. *sorrowful sigh*
He might take a few months or a year to really set it up properly, of course. But if Rita (with the credibility boost from having interviewed Harry himself, at his own invitation) decides to rekindle her Dark And Disturbed Harry angle after the war, he doesn't even have to do most of the work himself. Convenient! He can make a big show of denying it and protecting Harry until the right moment, when something "convinces" him to "reluctantly" concede that she's right.
Turning on Harry should be easy, really. The harder part is how to handle Rita's bombshells about Albus's own past. I suppose he nobly learned his lesson way back in his teens (and hasn't he proven he's more pro-Muggle protection than so much of the WW, after all? see he's reformed!), and was trying to keep Harry from making similar mistakes--but tragically failed.
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Which, I'd already argued, was not only factually false (Harry was never a Boy-Who-Lived, merely the son of the Girl-Who-Died), as was KNOWN to Albus (who claims he sent Harry to be raised by Petunia because his mother's sacrifice made ties of blood Harry's greatest protection), but was also a myth deliberately promoted by Albus. (Who else would've? That a fifteen-month-old could defeat this decade's most powerful Dark Lord would only even occur to someone who'd been listening in on some shady prophecy--and that's only Albus, Severus, and Tommy.)
But the corollary to Harry being the Boy-Who-Lived was that he himself was a very powerful and potentially dangerous Dark Lord in his own right.
Remember what Severus said to Bellatrix in Spinner's End, and compare that to what Ernie Macmillan said in CoS. If baby Harry vanquished Voldemort, he must have done so using his own Dark Powers.
Reply
Ginny can be easily shown as "tainted" after the diary and basilisks incident. Somebody could even constructs Harry's interested in her as not so much attraction to the girl but for the remaining touch of Voldy's soul / dark magic on her.
And then there are Ron and Hermione too. They started school as pretty okay kids. But DD's plans shaped them into something different.
Seriously, trying to compare the first year trio with the people they become is eye opening.
Even kid Harry with his stunted ability to feel wasn't nowhere near as horrible as the "All is well" Harry.
You have to wonder if the way they changed wasn't influenced by all Dark Magic they were exposed to.
Oh, sure the things DD taught them about ignoring rules and doing what you want helped shape them into self-righteous and vicious people.
But DD let them (or even helped them into) explore and use some very Dark things. Just how good could it be for still forming kids (that had no training in resisting dark magic) to spend time under Death's cloak, look into not very nice mirrors, use maps full of dark magic, and have parts of Tom's soul influencing them?
Also, if it's very dangerous for people to get attached to a Horcrux, that what kind of a effect Horcrux!Harry had on his best friends?
All that could easily be used to discredit anybody who would defend Harry and show him off in even worse light.
Reply
As to the Harrycrux, I speculated years ago that Dumbledore did expect that Tom's soul-fragment in Harry might flit out and possess those in contact with him--that's partly why he placed him with Muggles with only a Squib nearby to watch him, and why he set up for Harry's first-ever friends to be a half-giant and the youngest son of a family firmly in HIS thrall--all disposable people, if need be.
Dumbles was only really convinced that the soul in the Harrycrux, unlike other Horcruxes, couldn't flit out and possess others when he finally discovered that Ginny had been possessed by the DIARY's soul-fragment, not the one residing in her crush Harry.
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