Allies the Order never made
We hear of several Order members’ missions-mostly unsuccessful-to convince various groups not to join Voldemort, and perhaps fight him instead. Remus tries “reasoned argument” with the werewolves, Hagrid and Maxime give gifts to the Gurg of the giants, and Charlie maybe talks to his dragon-handler friends. Dumbledore himself has apparently been talking to the centaurs for several years, judging by the way Firenze has surprisingly detailed information about the philosopher’s stone trap and the identity of the unicorn-killer.
There’s an interesting omission here. Did anyone try to negotiate with the goblins?
They’re one of the most numerous, well-organized, and powerful magical species, so they would be useful allies. Remus thinks that they won’t join Voldemort because Voldemort killed a single goblin family near Nottingham, but he killed a whole bunch of humans and that obviously didn’t stop humans from siding with Voldemort. You’d think Dumbledore would want a little more assurance of their position. We don’t know whether the Gringotts goblins speak for the rest of the species or whether they have a separate political structure, but there must be someone to negotiate with.
It’s possible that he tried but hit major snags. As Terri pointed out, in OotP, Dumbledore has no authority to make any promises on behalf of wizarding Britain. The giants in their isolated mountain refuge might not know that, but Britain-based goblins surely do. What would Dumbledore say-“Join me, or at least don’t join Voldemort, and I’ll write a letter to the editor of the Daily Prophet arguing that goblins should maybe be allowed wands eventually”?
Hagrid and Maxime take a goblin-made helmet to the giants as a gift. Did the goblins volunteer it? But if the gift was the result of successful negotiations, Griphook probably would have mentioned the agreement. Maybe Dumbledore commissioned the helmet specially and still had the right of use to it when he gave it away. Or maybe it’s a rare artifact he acquired by other means, from a follower or the Room of Requirement or who knows what, and the goblins would be very annoyed that he gave it away instead of returning it to its rightful owners.
And that’s probably the real reason negotiations with the goblins foundered, if he tried. Because there’s one thing Dumbledore could give them that they would want very much, and we know he didn’t: the Sword of Gryffindor.
Yes, wizarding law doesn’t give him the right to give that away, according to Scrimgeor. But as they say, possession is nine-tenths of the law. Dumbledore absolutely has physical possession of the sword. Better yet, few people come to his office, and fewer would tattle if the sword went missing, so he would have time to make up a story about how it returned to whatever magical limbo it was hiding in for a century before Harry pulled it out of the Sorting Hat.
But he knew Harry would need it to destroy Horcruxes, one might argue. Well, he could have agreed that the goblins would get the sword as soon as Voldemort was dead (giving them incentive to work toward that end), and got enough of his followers to swear to it that at least one would probably survive to hand it over. Maybe the goblins wouldn’t accept this, since nothing would stop Dumbledore and the Order from reneging. (I doubt anyone would be willing to make an Unbreakable Vow, since they might not be able to keep it if the Ministry got to the sword first.) Could he hand it over but have them agree to let Harry to pull it out of the Sorting Hat again at need? Snape could smuggle the hat to him as easily as the sword. But they might still worry that if wizards could take it back, they wouldn’t return it again.
Okay, what about teaching Harry the other ways to destroy Horcruxes? Then Harry wouldn’t need the sword, and Dumbledore could return it to the goblins. Harry can manage decent Unforgivable Curses after a couple of tries; surely he could manage Fiendfyre. Dumbledore could get Harry’s Parselmouth help retrieving the basilisk fangs and stashing them somewhere convenient so the kids could take them on the quest. He could always tell Harry who has the sword now and that Harry should politely ask to use it if necessary for some reason.
Except this would require telling Harry how to destroy Horcruxes, which Dumbledore didn’t do over the course of an entire year when he was supposedly telling Harry everything he needed to know about defeating Voldemort. A year when Dumbledore knew he was both dying of a curse and was in danger of being assassinated, so you’d expect him to teach that lesson sooner rather than later. Did he need to know exactly how many Horcruxes Voldemort wanted to make before he could teach Harry how to destroy them? Did he need one on hand before he could possibly explain? No, he didn’t. His difficulty sharing information was apparently more deeply pathological than the characters ever admitted. Or he wanted Harry to fail.
And maybe he also just didn’t want to give the sword up. It has a thousand years of history at the school and belonged to one of the Founders, so that would be a wrench. But it seems like a sacrifice worth making if it could help save the world from Voldemort.
Pity none of the characters agreed. That could have been interesting. But on the bright side, the goblins came out of the war in a pretty strong position overall while wizards took a lot of damage. And wizards know how good goblins are at rebelling. I’d say the goblins’ negotiating position is looking much stronger now, wouldn’t you?
There’s an interesting omission here. Did anyone try to negotiate with the goblins?
They’re one of the most numerous, well-organized, and powerful magical species, so they would be useful allies. Remus thinks that they won’t join Voldemort because Voldemort killed a single goblin family near Nottingham, but he killed a whole bunch of humans and that obviously didn’t stop humans from siding with Voldemort. You’d think Dumbledore would want a little more assurance of their position. We don’t know whether the Gringotts goblins speak for the rest of the species or whether they have a separate political structure, but there must be someone to negotiate with.
It’s possible that he tried but hit major snags. As Terri pointed out, in OotP, Dumbledore has no authority to make any promises on behalf of wizarding Britain. The giants in their isolated mountain refuge might not know that, but Britain-based goblins surely do. What would Dumbledore say-“Join me, or at least don’t join Voldemort, and I’ll write a letter to the editor of the Daily Prophet arguing that goblins should maybe be allowed wands eventually”?
Hagrid and Maxime take a goblin-made helmet to the giants as a gift. Did the goblins volunteer it? But if the gift was the result of successful negotiations, Griphook probably would have mentioned the agreement. Maybe Dumbledore commissioned the helmet specially and still had the right of use to it when he gave it away. Or maybe it’s a rare artifact he acquired by other means, from a follower or the Room of Requirement or who knows what, and the goblins would be very annoyed that he gave it away instead of returning it to its rightful owners.
And that’s probably the real reason negotiations with the goblins foundered, if he tried. Because there’s one thing Dumbledore could give them that they would want very much, and we know he didn’t: the Sword of Gryffindor.
Yes, wizarding law doesn’t give him the right to give that away, according to Scrimgeor. But as they say, possession is nine-tenths of the law. Dumbledore absolutely has physical possession of the sword. Better yet, few people come to his office, and fewer would tattle if the sword went missing, so he would have time to make up a story about how it returned to whatever magical limbo it was hiding in for a century before Harry pulled it out of the Sorting Hat.
But he knew Harry would need it to destroy Horcruxes, one might argue. Well, he could have agreed that the goblins would get the sword as soon as Voldemort was dead (giving them incentive to work toward that end), and got enough of his followers to swear to it that at least one would probably survive to hand it over. Maybe the goblins wouldn’t accept this, since nothing would stop Dumbledore and the Order from reneging. (I doubt anyone would be willing to make an Unbreakable Vow, since they might not be able to keep it if the Ministry got to the sword first.) Could he hand it over but have them agree to let Harry to pull it out of the Sorting Hat again at need? Snape could smuggle the hat to him as easily as the sword. But they might still worry that if wizards could take it back, they wouldn’t return it again.
Okay, what about teaching Harry the other ways to destroy Horcruxes? Then Harry wouldn’t need the sword, and Dumbledore could return it to the goblins. Harry can manage decent Unforgivable Curses after a couple of tries; surely he could manage Fiendfyre. Dumbledore could get Harry’s Parselmouth help retrieving the basilisk fangs and stashing them somewhere convenient so the kids could take them on the quest. He could always tell Harry who has the sword now and that Harry should politely ask to use it if necessary for some reason.
Except this would require telling Harry how to destroy Horcruxes, which Dumbledore didn’t do over the course of an entire year when he was supposedly telling Harry everything he needed to know about defeating Voldemort. A year when Dumbledore knew he was both dying of a curse and was in danger of being assassinated, so you’d expect him to teach that lesson sooner rather than later. Did he need to know exactly how many Horcruxes Voldemort wanted to make before he could teach Harry how to destroy them? Did he need one on hand before he could possibly explain? No, he didn’t. His difficulty sharing information was apparently more deeply pathological than the characters ever admitted. Or he wanted Harry to fail.
And maybe he also just didn’t want to give the sword up. It has a thousand years of history at the school and belonged to one of the Founders, so that would be a wrench. But it seems like a sacrifice worth making if it could help save the world from Voldemort.
Pity none of the characters agreed. That could have been interesting. But on the bright side, the goblins came out of the war in a pretty strong position overall while wizards took a lot of damage. And wizards know how good goblins are at rebelling. I’d say the goblins’ negotiating position is looking much stronger now, wouldn’t you?