Does Dumbledore really give second chances because he believes the best of people?
I know, there's an obvious, cynical answer to this one. But I'm curious how it holds up under somewhat-methodical examination.
Snape sells Bellatrix and Narcissa the line that Dumbledore’s weakness is wanting to believe the best in people. Now, just because he’s giving them a “likely story” doesn’t mean this must be untrue. Certainly the wizarding world at large seems to believe Dumbledore is kindly and helpful to suspected and marginalized people.
So, is his reputation warranted? And-a different question, but also interesting-either way, does Voldemort believe it?
What the Public Thinks
I’ll start with one of the cases which may have helped shape his reputation: Hagrid.
Older generations probably remember that young Hagrid was caught raising some kind of monster at the same time something attacked several students, leading to one death. Obviously there wasn’t enough evidence to connect Hagrid’s monster to the death, or he’d probably still be in Azkaban today. (Draco believes so. This tells us what a wizarding-raised kid thinks the punishment for killing a student with a monster would usually be.) But “not enough evidence” isn’t the same as “definitely innocent.” As far as the wizard on the street knows, Dumbledore extended great trust to Hagrid in believing that his creature didn’t kill anyone and that Hagrid wouldn’t raise another killer creature. Hagrid himself seems to believe this, since he’s one of our other sources for the claim that Dumbledore looks for the best in people and gives them second chances.
Dumbledore claims to have given Tom himself a second chance by not telling the other teachers about Tom’s homemade proto-Imperius and proto-Cruciatus. In this case, the only “public” who hears this story is Harry. No one else knows Tom would need a second chance.
Moving up a generation: what about Remus Lupin? The public didn’t know about his lycanthropy until 1994, but Voldemort might have learned that Dumbledore admitted a werewolf to school whenever Snape joined the Death Eaters. Say 1979-ish. Or earlier, if he and Fenrir Greyback were already in cahoots. (I suppose we’ll have to assume that Voldemort was saving this bombshell for a dramatic moment, and his semi-death spiked the original plan.) Once the public found out, they might have felt that Dumbledore had been really trusting to hire a werewolf. Now, being a werewolf isn’t necessarily doing anything, so strictly speaking, the public shouldn’t see Dumbledore’s hiring Remus as giving him a second chance. But that is how Fudge seems to see it. At least, he feels that he took a risk in approving of Dumbledore’s decision, despite not knowing of any prior dangerous behavior on Remus’s part.
So after the public revelation, many people probably felt that Dumbledore hoped for the best in Remus. Anyone who remembered that Remus had been friends with Sirius Black would have thought Dumbledore was really trusting not to think that Remus might be aiding his escaped-convict Death Eater friend, even after that friend somehow broke into the school twice. And the Order knew that even after Remus forgot to take his potion, Dumbledore kept him as an Order member and asked him to spy on the werewolves.
Okay, what about Sirius Black? Maybe the public-or at least the Order-thought Dumbledore showed great trust to a repeat troublemaker (and member of the Black family). Almost no one knows about the time Sirius set up a school rival to nearly get eaten by a werewolf and then never admitted (or realized) that it was only due to incredible luck that the results weren’t really, really terrible for everyone concerned. But Remus might think that Dumbledore allowing Sirius in the Order shows his forgiving nature. And Remus knows Dumbledore is missing critical information about that incident, so he might well think that Dumbledore naively takes people’s word for it if they say they didn’t mean it and don’t know anything more.
What about the Marauders’ enemy, Severus Snape? The general public might well believe that Dumbledore extended great trust in hiring a young man whose only remaining friends were known Death Eaters or sympathizers. What an amazing chance he gave Sev to turn over a new leaf! McGonagall provides a little support for this when she says they had “always wondered” about Severus’s past.
Is the Public Right?
There’s a problem with all these examples: Dumbledore usually has crucial information that the public and the people involved lack, plausible alternate motives, or both.
In Hagrid’s case, Dumbledore probably knew more about the state of Myrtle’s body than those wizards on the street, and so knew a spaniel-sized spider couldn’t have done it. And when Tom happened to be the person to finger Hagrid? Well, Dumbledore probably started wondering exactly how a third-year got ahold of an Acromantula egg in the first place, and whether it was a coincidence that the boy kept his pet in the dungeons in a spot Tom Riddle knew about. He already had reasons to suspect Tom of being a cunning troublemaker. So in reality, it required no trust whatsoever for Dumbledore to believe Hagrid wasn’t responsible. He knew Hagrid wasn’t responsible, and had a good idea who the real culprit was.
As for the risk of Hagrid raising other monsters, well, if the Deputy Headmistress sending helpless first-years into the Forest to hunt a unicorn-killer isn’t a problem, why would Hagrid raising dangerous creatures be? So that didn’t require trust either, just indifference.
Whatever Dumbledore thought when Tom started school, what about after he’d seen a few of those nasty incidents he suspected were perpetrated by Tom’s gang? After a student died with no obvious cause of death and Tom fingered a suspect who couldn’t have been responsible? When Myrtle’s ghost might have said enough to suggest something reptilian, and Dumbledore knew Tom was a Parselmouth? Did Dumbledore really not speak up because he hoped Tom might reform if only Dumbledore gave him yet another chance and told him about the Power of Love a few more times? (“The old argument…”) That’s harder to believe. Any alternate motives I can think of are extremely unflattering to Dumbledore, unfortunately. (Trying to cover his ass, hoping to set up a rival to Grindelwald so they’d destroy each other, just plain not caring much until it was too late…) I’ll call this one “undetermined,” but I don’t think “Dumbledore gives second chances” is satisfactory as the sole explanation.
And speaking of dangerous young men, after the “prank,” did Dumbledore think that the Marauders seemed really sorry and he couldn’t believe such nice young men could do anything really wrong on purpose? He sure didn’t investigate very thoroughly. Or even increase security. It wouldn’t have killed anyone to post a house-elf guard every full moon night to make sure no more students wandered too close to the Whomping Willow. But he didn’t do anything like that, or the boys wouldn’t have gotten away with those monthly romps and many near-misses Remus mentions for another two years.
Or maybe Dumbledore wasn’t trusting, but arrogant: he didn’t believe they could manage anything as difficult or clever as they did without his knowing, or that they could keep it from him if he asked a couple of questions. He would have known if there were more to the story, and he didn’t know; ergo, there wasn’t more to the story.
Similarly, maybe during the 1993/1994 school year, Dumbledore believed Remus wasn’t helping Sirius because he was so overconfident that he would know if Remus was concealing anything important. Or, given that Dumbledore is the guy who set a complicated Dark Lord trap inside the school two years prior, and invited someone he knew or suspected to be a mind-violator to teach one year ago, maybe he did suspect Remus. After all, Dumbledore knew the DADA job was cursed and that therefore something bad would happen to Remus by the end of the year. That job offer wasn’t a kindness. What does that leave? It was his least bad option? Or maybe it was a test, or worse, a trap: an elaborate scheme to catch Remus in the act, student safety be damned. With the bonus that if Remus survived the year with his loyalty confirmed, he’d probably have a good cover story to set him up as a werewolf spy. Unfortunately, Dumbledore has plenty of ruthless, calculating reasons to give Remus that job.
As for Sirius, it depends on how much Dumbledore trusted Sirius during the first war. He presumably sent him on missions of some kind. How much information did he give Sirius? Based on his track record with the entire rest of the world, probably not much. What was he relying on Sirius to do, exactly? Succeed at a particular objective, or cause mayhem to distract the Death Eaters from some other scheme Dumbledore had going? Did he trust Sirius and was shocked when it seemed that trust was misplaced, or did he base his plans on the possibility of Sirius being a mole all along? Or at least on the possibility that Sirius would impulsively do something to reveal a secret or torpedo a plan, as he’d nearly killed Sev and destroyed his friend Remus’s life on impulse? (At least, everyone’s sticking to the story that it wasn’t planned, and Dumbledore probably believes it.) We just don’t know.
But we do know how he treats Sirius after Sirius proves his innocence by revealing Peter as the real spy. (At least, the kids accept it as proof. I think they got lucky that Sirius and Remus weren’t also Death Eaters who sacrificed Peter to save themselves. If you were Voldemort, wouldn’t you try to recruit as many Order members as possible instead of stopping at one?) And it is not consistent with Dumbledore trusting Sirius or believing the best in him: first, he sends Sirius out of the country; when Sirius returns anyway, Dumbledore essentially puts him under house arrest. Allegedly this is for Sirius’s own protection, but Dumbledore doesn’t hesitate to put his other followers at grave risk. They pass confidential government information, guard doors they know Voldemort or his agents will be trying to get through, and of course there’s the horribly risky Seven Potters plan… So, is he worried about the risk to Sirius, or the risk from Sirius?
And when Sirius dies, Dumbledore immediately starts talking about how it’s kind of Sirius’s fault for being nasty to Kreacher. He didn’t follow up the next year by making sure that Harry learned to treat everyone with respect, even people he didn’t like (Filch, for example), so it seems this wasn’t a poorly-timed lesson. If anything, it suggests that Dumbledore disliked Sirius so much that he couldn’t hide it even for a few minutes to comfort a grieving teenager. If Dumbledore ever saw the best in Sirius, Sirius used up all his chances by the end of the first war.
When it comes to Severus, as usual, Dumbledore knew a few things the public doesn’t. But Severus might have been faking his remorse over putting Lily in danger to get Dumbledore to trust him. If he only ever passed on information Voldemort wanted him to give Dumbledore to gain Dumbledore’s confidence, Severus wasn’t really risking torture and death by spying on the Death Eaters. I mean, if Dumbledore believed that Severus could fool Voldemort, then it should be possible for Severus to fool Dumbledore. So maybe, for once, Dumbledore really was gambling that a person was better than he seemed. But it could have been a purely strategic gamble with no sentimental motives.
Or maybe Sev did pass on something which Voldemort absolutely would not have authorized him to, and Dumbledore had solid reasons to think it wasn’t all a clever scam. I don’t know what this might be, but I can’t rule it out.
On the balance, I’d say that “Dumbledore gives second chances because wants to believe the best in people” is possible, but lacks solid, unambiguous support and is counterbalanced by at least two examples (Tom and Sirius) where he seems dead-set against seeing the best in them, meaning that isn’t why he gave either of them second chances. At best, he sometimes sees the best in people and gives them second chances, and sometimes does not. Most people can manage that much. Nice enough, but not exactly remarkable.
What Does Voldemort Believe?
It’s easy to see why the wizarding public (and Hagrid) would be misled about the Hagrid incident. But Tom Riddle knew how much Dumbledore knew or suspected. So this probably didn’t convince him that Dumbledore was a softie who loved giving people second chances.
Would Tom believe Dumbledore gave him a second chance because he was a trusting, forgiving soul? It was obvious in his memories that Dumbledore never trusted Tom, so why would Tom think that deep down, Dumbledore saw the best in him? Whatever the truth, Tom would probably think Dumbledore had some other motive.
He probably saw Dumbledore’s decision to allow a werewolf to attend Hogwarts as part of a long-term plan to gain a loyal spy. (It’s what he would do.) How much of that overheard confession in the Shrieking Shack did Severus pass on to Voldemort? Did he tell him that Remus knew about the secret tunnels and Sirius Black’s Animagus form all year and didn’t mention it? Did Voldemort think Dumbledore would have found out the boys’ Animagus secret if only he hadn’t naively trusted those charming young lads? Did he think that Dumbledore only trusted Remus not to be in league with Sirius because of his optimism and tender heart?
Or did Voldemort chalk it up to Dumbledore being overconfident and indifferent to suffering rather than tenderhearted? It’s easy to spot one’s own failings in someone else, after all… And Voldemort knows about the Quirrell trap inside the school, so he would have no trouble believing Dumbledore capable of pulling that kind of stunt a second time. The question wouldn’t be whether Dumbledore was setting a dangerous trap, but whom he hoped to entrap.
Because there are so many unknowns, it’s hard to guess what Voldemort thought Dumbledore thought about Sirius. Maybe he thought Dumbledore was a sucker who trusted an impulsive, unreliable kid with a cruel streak. Maybe he thought Dumbledore was trying to manipulate Sirius into becoming cannon fodder and solving a problem for both sides. Maybe something else. Who knows?
If Severus did pass on information Voldemort would never have authorized, not even to fool Dumbledore, then Voldemort must not have realized where Dumbledore got that information. So as far as Voldemort knew, Dumbledore was either taking an extremely risky gamble, or was swayed by a tragic story of true love and remorse. Perhaps both. At last, a reason for Voldemort to believe Dumbledore’s image! Well done, Severus!
On the other hand, maybe Voldemort, too, uses the “naïve fool” line on people while believing that really Dumbledore is just overconfident in his ability to suss out secrets and keep a firm hold on people. I mean, presumably he knows Dumbledore is a Legilimens. Or maybe Voldemort thought that Dumbledore was faking the whole “tender-hearted giver of second chances” routine to cover his coldly Machiavellian schemes.
Why Voldemort would give his followers bad information about the enemy leader’s weaknesses is not clear. I mean, what if Dumbledore caught a Death Eater up to no good, and that Death Eater tried to play on Dumbledore’s supposed foolish belief in second chances but failed because Dumbledore didn’t actually believe any such thing?
So perhaps Voldemort does believe Dumbledore’s PR. If so, then his main reasons for believe it seem to be Dumbledore himself (since however much he disliked young Tom, he apparently tried to persuade the kid at some point that love was very powerful) and Severus. If Voldemort wasn’t sure before, Dumbledore apparently accepting Sev’s tale of woe and remorse might be what finally convinced him. And so he operated on a faulty understanding of Dumbledore’s motives. Again: well done, Severus!
Can anyone think of additional examples that might support or undercut Dumbledore's reputation?
Snape sells Bellatrix and Narcissa the line that Dumbledore’s weakness is wanting to believe the best in people. Now, just because he’s giving them a “likely story” doesn’t mean this must be untrue. Certainly the wizarding world at large seems to believe Dumbledore is kindly and helpful to suspected and marginalized people.
So, is his reputation warranted? And-a different question, but also interesting-either way, does Voldemort believe it?
What the Public Thinks
I’ll start with one of the cases which may have helped shape his reputation: Hagrid.
Older generations probably remember that young Hagrid was caught raising some kind of monster at the same time something attacked several students, leading to one death. Obviously there wasn’t enough evidence to connect Hagrid’s monster to the death, or he’d probably still be in Azkaban today. (Draco believes so. This tells us what a wizarding-raised kid thinks the punishment for killing a student with a monster would usually be.) But “not enough evidence” isn’t the same as “definitely innocent.” As far as the wizard on the street knows, Dumbledore extended great trust to Hagrid in believing that his creature didn’t kill anyone and that Hagrid wouldn’t raise another killer creature. Hagrid himself seems to believe this, since he’s one of our other sources for the claim that Dumbledore looks for the best in people and gives them second chances.
Dumbledore claims to have given Tom himself a second chance by not telling the other teachers about Tom’s homemade proto-Imperius and proto-Cruciatus. In this case, the only “public” who hears this story is Harry. No one else knows Tom would need a second chance.
Moving up a generation: what about Remus Lupin? The public didn’t know about his lycanthropy until 1994, but Voldemort might have learned that Dumbledore admitted a werewolf to school whenever Snape joined the Death Eaters. Say 1979-ish. Or earlier, if he and Fenrir Greyback were already in cahoots. (I suppose we’ll have to assume that Voldemort was saving this bombshell for a dramatic moment, and his semi-death spiked the original plan.) Once the public found out, they might have felt that Dumbledore had been really trusting to hire a werewolf. Now, being a werewolf isn’t necessarily doing anything, so strictly speaking, the public shouldn’t see Dumbledore’s hiring Remus as giving him a second chance. But that is how Fudge seems to see it. At least, he feels that he took a risk in approving of Dumbledore’s decision, despite not knowing of any prior dangerous behavior on Remus’s part.
So after the public revelation, many people probably felt that Dumbledore hoped for the best in Remus. Anyone who remembered that Remus had been friends with Sirius Black would have thought Dumbledore was really trusting not to think that Remus might be aiding his escaped-convict Death Eater friend, even after that friend somehow broke into the school twice. And the Order knew that even after Remus forgot to take his potion, Dumbledore kept him as an Order member and asked him to spy on the werewolves.
Okay, what about Sirius Black? Maybe the public-or at least the Order-thought Dumbledore showed great trust to a repeat troublemaker (and member of the Black family). Almost no one knows about the time Sirius set up a school rival to nearly get eaten by a werewolf and then never admitted (or realized) that it was only due to incredible luck that the results weren’t really, really terrible for everyone concerned. But Remus might think that Dumbledore allowing Sirius in the Order shows his forgiving nature. And Remus knows Dumbledore is missing critical information about that incident, so he might well think that Dumbledore naively takes people’s word for it if they say they didn’t mean it and don’t know anything more.
What about the Marauders’ enemy, Severus Snape? The general public might well believe that Dumbledore extended great trust in hiring a young man whose only remaining friends were known Death Eaters or sympathizers. What an amazing chance he gave Sev to turn over a new leaf! McGonagall provides a little support for this when she says they had “always wondered” about Severus’s past.
Is the Public Right?
There’s a problem with all these examples: Dumbledore usually has crucial information that the public and the people involved lack, plausible alternate motives, or both.
In Hagrid’s case, Dumbledore probably knew more about the state of Myrtle’s body than those wizards on the street, and so knew a spaniel-sized spider couldn’t have done it. And when Tom happened to be the person to finger Hagrid? Well, Dumbledore probably started wondering exactly how a third-year got ahold of an Acromantula egg in the first place, and whether it was a coincidence that the boy kept his pet in the dungeons in a spot Tom Riddle knew about. He already had reasons to suspect Tom of being a cunning troublemaker. So in reality, it required no trust whatsoever for Dumbledore to believe Hagrid wasn’t responsible. He knew Hagrid wasn’t responsible, and had a good idea who the real culprit was.
As for the risk of Hagrid raising other monsters, well, if the Deputy Headmistress sending helpless first-years into the Forest to hunt a unicorn-killer isn’t a problem, why would Hagrid raising dangerous creatures be? So that didn’t require trust either, just indifference.
Whatever Dumbledore thought when Tom started school, what about after he’d seen a few of those nasty incidents he suspected were perpetrated by Tom’s gang? After a student died with no obvious cause of death and Tom fingered a suspect who couldn’t have been responsible? When Myrtle’s ghost might have said enough to suggest something reptilian, and Dumbledore knew Tom was a Parselmouth? Did Dumbledore really not speak up because he hoped Tom might reform if only Dumbledore gave him yet another chance and told him about the Power of Love a few more times? (“The old argument…”) That’s harder to believe. Any alternate motives I can think of are extremely unflattering to Dumbledore, unfortunately. (Trying to cover his ass, hoping to set up a rival to Grindelwald so they’d destroy each other, just plain not caring much until it was too late…) I’ll call this one “undetermined,” but I don’t think “Dumbledore gives second chances” is satisfactory as the sole explanation.
And speaking of dangerous young men, after the “prank,” did Dumbledore think that the Marauders seemed really sorry and he couldn’t believe such nice young men could do anything really wrong on purpose? He sure didn’t investigate very thoroughly. Or even increase security. It wouldn’t have killed anyone to post a house-elf guard every full moon night to make sure no more students wandered too close to the Whomping Willow. But he didn’t do anything like that, or the boys wouldn’t have gotten away with those monthly romps and many near-misses Remus mentions for another two years.
Or maybe Dumbledore wasn’t trusting, but arrogant: he didn’t believe they could manage anything as difficult or clever as they did without his knowing, or that they could keep it from him if he asked a couple of questions. He would have known if there were more to the story, and he didn’t know; ergo, there wasn’t more to the story.
Similarly, maybe during the 1993/1994 school year, Dumbledore believed Remus wasn’t helping Sirius because he was so overconfident that he would know if Remus was concealing anything important. Or, given that Dumbledore is the guy who set a complicated Dark Lord trap inside the school two years prior, and invited someone he knew or suspected to be a mind-violator to teach one year ago, maybe he did suspect Remus. After all, Dumbledore knew the DADA job was cursed and that therefore something bad would happen to Remus by the end of the year. That job offer wasn’t a kindness. What does that leave? It was his least bad option? Or maybe it was a test, or worse, a trap: an elaborate scheme to catch Remus in the act, student safety be damned. With the bonus that if Remus survived the year with his loyalty confirmed, he’d probably have a good cover story to set him up as a werewolf spy. Unfortunately, Dumbledore has plenty of ruthless, calculating reasons to give Remus that job.
As for Sirius, it depends on how much Dumbledore trusted Sirius during the first war. He presumably sent him on missions of some kind. How much information did he give Sirius? Based on his track record with the entire rest of the world, probably not much. What was he relying on Sirius to do, exactly? Succeed at a particular objective, or cause mayhem to distract the Death Eaters from some other scheme Dumbledore had going? Did he trust Sirius and was shocked when it seemed that trust was misplaced, or did he base his plans on the possibility of Sirius being a mole all along? Or at least on the possibility that Sirius would impulsively do something to reveal a secret or torpedo a plan, as he’d nearly killed Sev and destroyed his friend Remus’s life on impulse? (At least, everyone’s sticking to the story that it wasn’t planned, and Dumbledore probably believes it.) We just don’t know.
But we do know how he treats Sirius after Sirius proves his innocence by revealing Peter as the real spy. (At least, the kids accept it as proof. I think they got lucky that Sirius and Remus weren’t also Death Eaters who sacrificed Peter to save themselves. If you were Voldemort, wouldn’t you try to recruit as many Order members as possible instead of stopping at one?) And it is not consistent with Dumbledore trusting Sirius or believing the best in him: first, he sends Sirius out of the country; when Sirius returns anyway, Dumbledore essentially puts him under house arrest. Allegedly this is for Sirius’s own protection, but Dumbledore doesn’t hesitate to put his other followers at grave risk. They pass confidential government information, guard doors they know Voldemort or his agents will be trying to get through, and of course there’s the horribly risky Seven Potters plan… So, is he worried about the risk to Sirius, or the risk from Sirius?
And when Sirius dies, Dumbledore immediately starts talking about how it’s kind of Sirius’s fault for being nasty to Kreacher. He didn’t follow up the next year by making sure that Harry learned to treat everyone with respect, even people he didn’t like (Filch, for example), so it seems this wasn’t a poorly-timed lesson. If anything, it suggests that Dumbledore disliked Sirius so much that he couldn’t hide it even for a few minutes to comfort a grieving teenager. If Dumbledore ever saw the best in Sirius, Sirius used up all his chances by the end of the first war.
When it comes to Severus, as usual, Dumbledore knew a few things the public doesn’t. But Severus might have been faking his remorse over putting Lily in danger to get Dumbledore to trust him. If he only ever passed on information Voldemort wanted him to give Dumbledore to gain Dumbledore’s confidence, Severus wasn’t really risking torture and death by spying on the Death Eaters. I mean, if Dumbledore believed that Severus could fool Voldemort, then it should be possible for Severus to fool Dumbledore. So maybe, for once, Dumbledore really was gambling that a person was better than he seemed. But it could have been a purely strategic gamble with no sentimental motives.
Or maybe Sev did pass on something which Voldemort absolutely would not have authorized him to, and Dumbledore had solid reasons to think it wasn’t all a clever scam. I don’t know what this might be, but I can’t rule it out.
On the balance, I’d say that “Dumbledore gives second chances because wants to believe the best in people” is possible, but lacks solid, unambiguous support and is counterbalanced by at least two examples (Tom and Sirius) where he seems dead-set against seeing the best in them, meaning that isn’t why he gave either of them second chances. At best, he sometimes sees the best in people and gives them second chances, and sometimes does not. Most people can manage that much. Nice enough, but not exactly remarkable.
What Does Voldemort Believe?
It’s easy to see why the wizarding public (and Hagrid) would be misled about the Hagrid incident. But Tom Riddle knew how much Dumbledore knew or suspected. So this probably didn’t convince him that Dumbledore was a softie who loved giving people second chances.
Would Tom believe Dumbledore gave him a second chance because he was a trusting, forgiving soul? It was obvious in his memories that Dumbledore never trusted Tom, so why would Tom think that deep down, Dumbledore saw the best in him? Whatever the truth, Tom would probably think Dumbledore had some other motive.
He probably saw Dumbledore’s decision to allow a werewolf to attend Hogwarts as part of a long-term plan to gain a loyal spy. (It’s what he would do.) How much of that overheard confession in the Shrieking Shack did Severus pass on to Voldemort? Did he tell him that Remus knew about the secret tunnels and Sirius Black’s Animagus form all year and didn’t mention it? Did Voldemort think Dumbledore would have found out the boys’ Animagus secret if only he hadn’t naively trusted those charming young lads? Did he think that Dumbledore only trusted Remus not to be in league with Sirius because of his optimism and tender heart?
Or did Voldemort chalk it up to Dumbledore being overconfident and indifferent to suffering rather than tenderhearted? It’s easy to spot one’s own failings in someone else, after all… And Voldemort knows about the Quirrell trap inside the school, so he would have no trouble believing Dumbledore capable of pulling that kind of stunt a second time. The question wouldn’t be whether Dumbledore was setting a dangerous trap, but whom he hoped to entrap.
Because there are so many unknowns, it’s hard to guess what Voldemort thought Dumbledore thought about Sirius. Maybe he thought Dumbledore was a sucker who trusted an impulsive, unreliable kid with a cruel streak. Maybe he thought Dumbledore was trying to manipulate Sirius into becoming cannon fodder and solving a problem for both sides. Maybe something else. Who knows?
If Severus did pass on information Voldemort would never have authorized, not even to fool Dumbledore, then Voldemort must not have realized where Dumbledore got that information. So as far as Voldemort knew, Dumbledore was either taking an extremely risky gamble, or was swayed by a tragic story of true love and remorse. Perhaps both. At last, a reason for Voldemort to believe Dumbledore’s image! Well done, Severus!
On the other hand, maybe Voldemort, too, uses the “naïve fool” line on people while believing that really Dumbledore is just overconfident in his ability to suss out secrets and keep a firm hold on people. I mean, presumably he knows Dumbledore is a Legilimens. Or maybe Voldemort thought that Dumbledore was faking the whole “tender-hearted giver of second chances” routine to cover his coldly Machiavellian schemes.
Why Voldemort would give his followers bad information about the enemy leader’s weaknesses is not clear. I mean, what if Dumbledore caught a Death Eater up to no good, and that Death Eater tried to play on Dumbledore’s supposed foolish belief in second chances but failed because Dumbledore didn’t actually believe any such thing?
So perhaps Voldemort does believe Dumbledore’s PR. If so, then his main reasons for believe it seem to be Dumbledore himself (since however much he disliked young Tom, he apparently tried to persuade the kid at some point that love was very powerful) and Severus. If Voldemort wasn’t sure before, Dumbledore apparently accepting Sev’s tale of woe and remorse might be what finally convinced him. And so he operated on a faulty understanding of Dumbledore’s motives. Again: well done, Severus!
Can anyone think of additional examples that might support or undercut Dumbledore's reputation?