When It Comes to Taking Care of Mistreated Magical Children, Third Time's the Charm
Anyway. NOW my theorizing goes somewhere that I give you free license to throw rotten tomatoes at me for, because it's the ultimate Manipulative!Dumbledore sick decision in canon. And it's not for the reason people thought. However, it's the damned closest thing canon!Dumbledore ever does to Sacrifices!Dumbledore...
Let me spell this out.
-Voldemort was gone, and with him, the evidence of Dumbledore's failure. (Assuming that until Quirrel came back from Albania, -Dumbledore knew nothing about the Horcruxes or that Voldemort had "survived".)
-There was a one-year-old who Dumbledore could legitimately control the future of. (At least, do so without raising suspicion. He had been the leader of the OotP, after all, and that was the key anti-Voldemort effort.)
-Dumbledore knew that Harry had the blood protection on him. (How he knew, I have no idea, but I'd suggest that as Dumbledore had been raised in Godric's Hollow, he knew the ghosts there and could interrogate them. In particular, a creature such as Voldemort sweeping through the night on All Hallow's Eve (which is supposed to be when spirits are closest to the living, right?) might have gotten the attention of a ghost normally too "vacant"/"scared"/what-have-you to pay much attention to the living, and she could have watched the events of that night unfold. But then, that contradicts Dumbledore so wanting to see Ariana again that he forgot how to properly work the Resurrection Stone, and then... bah. I suppose he just asked a ghost who watched.)
-So, he had to give Harry to the Dursleys for his own good. (Dumbledore had little confidence in his own ability to protect Harry for... obvious reasons.)
Now. Dumbledore could have kept watch on Harry and told the Dursleys to shape up or face the consequences (as he SHOWED he was capable of doing in HBP). He had Figg keeping watch, after all, and knowing the Dursleys would have stopped letting him go to Mrs. Figg's if they had any reason to believe Harry enjoyed said visits. But he didn't.
He knew, or he learned from McGonagall or Figg, that the Dursleys were Muggles that HATED magic. Doesn't it seem... a tad WEIRD that he let Harry grow up in such an environment, when abuse by Muggles had created Ariana and (in this theory) created Tom? Doesn't it?
Why? People have asked. The answer, they have concluded, is so that Harry would be an easier-to-manipulate BWL. But was Dumbledore really trying to create someone he could manipulate, or... was there another reason?
He'd failed twice, but he'd learned. Keep the child in sight. Pay attention. Make sure you're the child's favorite. MAKE SURE YOU'RE THE CHILD'S FAVORITE. If only he could have one more chance. Just one. (He was getting old enough to know he wouldn't get another at this rate.) Just one chance to show he could be responsible, he could do right. Yes. One. More. Chance.
And he had an excuse to leave this child with Muggles who hated magic. ...Would it be ethical to not intervene? No, but... he could monitor Harry. Yes. And he... just one more chance... if there was a third Ariana, he could fix the child, make the child sane... Yes... Show he was responsible... Such a temptation. All he had to do was sacrifice one child's happiness, and he would have the chance to redeem himself. Just... one child. What was one child, compared to all who had died for his previous failures? All he wanted was a chance to redeem himself... make his life not have been an exercise in utter and complete catastrophic failure...
Eh. I realize this section may be more of an AU possibility than an actual theory, but I think it's rather plausible for Dumbledore's... hidden character. Blah. No, don't just feel FREE to throw rotten tomatoes at me. PLEASE throw rotten tomatoes at me. *dies*
(And you must admit, Dumbledore probably saw it to be more prudent to accept "you have been raising him like a pig for the slaughter" than reply "Actually, no, I've been raising him as a substitute for my dead sister. Who was insane and died through my negligence. And I've done a better job than on the other child I saw as a substitute for my sister - he grew up to be Lord Voldemort." :D;;)
Why did Harry not go the same route as Tom and Ariana? Why was he still sane?
I'm not sure. But I'll point out something quite interesting. 13 years (and a few months) elapsed from the time Harry lost his loving family to the time that he became the raging master of PMS in OOTP. Under this theory, the sane Tom lasted until "a few years" before the creation of the Diarycrux when Tom was sixteen, so... sounds like 13 years, give or take a few months, right? Perhaps the sane Harry only lasted as long from the time he received the Horcrux as the sane Tom lasted? Hmm.
Anyway, I'll bet the Horcrux had something to do with Harry arriving sane at Hogwarts. (Please note - I am deeeeeeeeeeeeeeep into batshit country here. ;) I know. Hence why I invited the rotten tomatoes.) But alas, I cannot be sure. *twinkle*
Dumbledore treated Harry well - he let Harry break rules with near-impunity (and a smile and a wink), threw the House Cup over to Gryffindor in first year, etc. Let me quote from OOTP (using the HP Lexicon):
""I cared about you too much," said Dumbledore simply. "I cared more for your happiness than your knowing the truth, more for your peace of mind than my plan, more for your life than the lives that might be lost if the plan failed. In other words, I acted exactly as Voldemort expects we fools who love to act."
"Is there a defense? I defy anyone who has watched you as I have - and I have watched you more closely than you can have imagined - not to want to save you more pain than you had already suffered. What did I care if numbers of nameless and faceless people and creatures were slaughtered in the vague future, if in the here and now you were alive, and well, and happy? I never dreamed that I would have such a person on my hands." "
I believe (for the purposes of this theory) that everything is true EXCEPT FOR THE LAST LINE. He knew EXACTLY who he was making - remaking, more like - and was overjoyed that it had worked. And Harry, by the time of HBP, had gotten over his rage! The fits were over! There had been a hard year, but it was over. He had succeeded. Out of circumstances that could have produced an Ariana or a Tom, he had made Harry. Now, Harry was no saint, but he was sane. ("WHAT?!" cry canon-snarkers. Please, I'm talking about from Dumbledore's POV.) Huzzah! He was redeemed!
(Harry saying he was "Dumbledore's man" did indeed mean more to Dumbledore than Harry could ever know.)
Pity he couldn't tell Aberforth, but he couldn't for two reasons. First, Aberforth's methods (albeit on a far larger scale) had worked. Second, Aberforth just wouldn't understand the deliberate creation of an Ariana. (In fact, Albus might have died a good deal ahead of schedule if he had ever told Aberforth about what he'd done.)
The little Horcrux issue presented a problem. Now, he could always leave a request in his will that the Minister grab a Dementor and keep it under restraint and ask Harry to duct-tape his mouth shut and present his forehead to the Dementor... but then Harry wouldn't have VoldieVision (as deadlyhollow termed it). Ah, well. He bet that JKR's Goldberg machine would work, and - sorry. Anyway, he bet on the sequence of events we saw in DH, odd, confusing, and WTF as it was (are we SURE the blood protection works that way?!), and indeed it did. Huzzah again! And Harry didn't even yell at him this time. Beautiful. He could go to his reward happily.
...In case this part of the ramble made sense to anyone, and you're feeling vaguely murderous towards canon!Dumbledore, we can imagine that after Harry left King's Cross, a voice sounding rather like a fourteen-year-old girl's said from behind Dumbledore "A-HEM. Hem. Hem. ALLLLLLLLLL-BYYYYYYYYYYYYYY..." and THEN the screen faded to black. ;)
--
Bleugh. I suppose I'm getting tired, and my writing ability has decreased. But I'll note that the Harry in HBP and DH is a little bit less... human than he was in the first four books. He hexes for fun in HBP and manipulates Slughorn like a pro (under the influence of Felix Felicis, but still). Then, he progresses to Unforgivables in DH. What he lost in CAPSLOCKING ability, he gained in unpleasantness. And he's plenty resentful... and his sanity is beginning to fade by DH. He's certainly "strange" when dealing with the Hallows (HALLOOOOOOOOWS! POWERRRRRRRRR! OMNOMNOM.) and "dangerous" when he Cruciates Amycus. And perhaps there's a REASON why what his internal monologue he has tends to have a rather.... mentally off-kilter quality. (I HATE EVERYONE! DUMBLEDOOOOOORE, WHYYYYYYYYYYY?! WHY DOESN'T EVERYONE CARE ABOUT MY PAIN?! HOW CAN THE STARS BE SO UNCARING?! WHY DOES THE WORLD NOT STOP FOR MY ANGUISH?!) And Harry does seem to be a bit magically blocked-up in HBP and DH, inasmuch as he has Hermione or the Prince helping him out when he used to be able to handle classes and adventuring with only her help on essays, not the practical stuff. Perhaps Dumbledore will find out that whoops, Harry isn't as together as he thought...
Well, JKR says all his bad actions in OOTP, etc. were Horcrux-influenced. And who knows? Perhaps all the bad feelings that Harry should have had were dumped into the Horcrux - hence why he began to go nuts only when Voldemort returned and the Horcrux started acting up. So Harry only exists proper after Horcrux goes bye-bye... and he seems a bit dazed and strange in his internal monologue and speech after it's gone. (What do you mean, "JKR was just trying to be overdramatic?".) Perhaps Harry was just going to be permanently "strange" after the Horcrux was gone... Meh. I think JKR frankly was a bit Confounded when it came to writing Harry post-GOF, but... eh. Backstory seems to be her strongest point - too stressed about writing the present-day Wizarding World?
Blah. I've run out of energy, so here this ramble ends.
=Nineteen Years Later - no, not an analysis of the Epilogue, just my thoughts on random things tying into Theory Having To Do With The Ariana-Style Personality=
I'll just throw out that Ginny's personality shift between GoF and OotP may have its roots in the Diary Incident... poured a bit of yourself into Ginny, ay, Tom? And where else have we seen a girl whose personality shifted from timid to aggressive? (And a boy - no, not Tom. The other.) 'Course, it's not as extreme as it could have been... only a BIT of him, after all... and there was no magical suppression in Ginny and Harry's cases, so any power boost is due to slight insanity, not magic-induced insanity.
Like attracts like. I wonder if the insanity in the higher-class inbred Wizarding families (Blacks, etc.) is from magic naturally as wild as usually only crops up in witches and wizards who have tried to suppress their magic? Sirius was a wild 'un, and has the nastiness - a sane person doesn't try to feed a school rival to a werewolf, particularly when that werewolf's a friend and would have serious trouble, to say the least, if he mauled someone or killed them. Bellatrix - hell, we know Bellatrix. Methinks she'd get along great with "strange and dangerous" Ariana (though there would be vicious arguments over whether Muggleborns should be exterminated along with the Muggles, and whether Grindelwald or Voldemort was the greater Dark Lord). Sirius matured after his stay in Azkaban. Bella... meh. Lost her ability to be haughtily fanatical (instead preferring to be Batshit Fanatical).
Interesting quotes:
""I cared about you too much," said Dumbledore simply. "I cared more for your happiness than your knowing the truth, more for your peace of mind than my plan, more for your life than the lives that might be lost if the plan failed. In other words, I acted exactly as Voldemort expects we fools who love to act."
"Is there a defense? I defy anyone who has watched you as I have - and I have watched you more closely than you can have imagined - not to want to save you more pain than you had already suffered. What did I care if numbers of nameless and faceless people and creatures were slaughtered in the vague future, if in the here and now you were alive, and well, and happy? I never dreamed that I would have such a person on my hands." "
"You cannot despise me more than I despise myself, Harry."
"Did I know, in my heart of hearts, what Gellert Grindelwald was? I think I did, but I closed my eyes."
"[...] taunted Bellatrix, as mad as her master, capering as Molly's curses danced around her."
Let me spell this out.
-Voldemort was gone, and with him, the evidence of Dumbledore's failure. (Assuming that until Quirrel came back from Albania, -Dumbledore knew nothing about the Horcruxes or that Voldemort had "survived".)
-There was a one-year-old who Dumbledore could legitimately control the future of. (At least, do so without raising suspicion. He had been the leader of the OotP, after all, and that was the key anti-Voldemort effort.)
-Dumbledore knew that Harry had the blood protection on him. (How he knew, I have no idea, but I'd suggest that as Dumbledore had been raised in Godric's Hollow, he knew the ghosts there and could interrogate them. In particular, a creature such as Voldemort sweeping through the night on All Hallow's Eve (which is supposed to be when spirits are closest to the living, right?) might have gotten the attention of a ghost normally too "vacant"/"scared"/what-have-you to pay much attention to the living, and she could have watched the events of that night unfold. But then, that contradicts Dumbledore so wanting to see Ariana again that he forgot how to properly work the Resurrection Stone, and then... bah. I suppose he just asked a ghost who watched.)
-So, he had to give Harry to the Dursleys for his own good. (Dumbledore had little confidence in his own ability to protect Harry for... obvious reasons.)
Now. Dumbledore could have kept watch on Harry and told the Dursleys to shape up or face the consequences (as he SHOWED he was capable of doing in HBP). He had Figg keeping watch, after all, and knowing the Dursleys would have stopped letting him go to Mrs. Figg's if they had any reason to believe Harry enjoyed said visits. But he didn't.
He knew, or he learned from McGonagall or Figg, that the Dursleys were Muggles that HATED magic. Doesn't it seem... a tad WEIRD that he let Harry grow up in such an environment, when abuse by Muggles had created Ariana and (in this theory) created Tom? Doesn't it?
Why? People have asked. The answer, they have concluded, is so that Harry would be an easier-to-manipulate BWL. But was Dumbledore really trying to create someone he could manipulate, or... was there another reason?
He'd failed twice, but he'd learned. Keep the child in sight. Pay attention. Make sure you're the child's favorite. MAKE SURE YOU'RE THE CHILD'S FAVORITE. If only he could have one more chance. Just one. (He was getting old enough to know he wouldn't get another at this rate.) Just one chance to show he could be responsible, he could do right. Yes. One. More. Chance.
And he had an excuse to leave this child with Muggles who hated magic. ...Would it be ethical to not intervene? No, but... he could monitor Harry. Yes. And he... just one more chance... if there was a third Ariana, he could fix the child, make the child sane... Yes... Show he was responsible... Such a temptation. All he had to do was sacrifice one child's happiness, and he would have the chance to redeem himself. Just... one child. What was one child, compared to all who had died for his previous failures? All he wanted was a chance to redeem himself... make his life not have been an exercise in utter and complete catastrophic failure...
Eh. I realize this section may be more of an AU possibility than an actual theory, but I think it's rather plausible for Dumbledore's... hidden character. Blah. No, don't just feel FREE to throw rotten tomatoes at me. PLEASE throw rotten tomatoes at me. *dies*
(And you must admit, Dumbledore probably saw it to be more prudent to accept "you have been raising him like a pig for the slaughter" than reply "Actually, no, I've been raising him as a substitute for my dead sister. Who was insane and died through my negligence. And I've done a better job than on the other child I saw as a substitute for my sister - he grew up to be Lord Voldemort." :D;;)
Why did Harry not go the same route as Tom and Ariana? Why was he still sane?
I'm not sure. But I'll point out something quite interesting. 13 years (and a few months) elapsed from the time Harry lost his loving family to the time that he became the raging master of PMS in OOTP. Under this theory, the sane Tom lasted until "a few years" before the creation of the Diarycrux when Tom was sixteen, so... sounds like 13 years, give or take a few months, right? Perhaps the sane Harry only lasted as long from the time he received the Horcrux as the sane Tom lasted? Hmm.
Anyway, I'll bet the Horcrux had something to do with Harry arriving sane at Hogwarts. (Please note - I am deeeeeeeeeeeeeeep into batshit country here. ;) I know. Hence why I invited the rotten tomatoes.) But alas, I cannot be sure. *twinkle*
Dumbledore treated Harry well - he let Harry break rules with near-impunity (and a smile and a wink), threw the House Cup over to Gryffindor in first year, etc. Let me quote from OOTP (using the HP Lexicon):
""I cared about you too much," said Dumbledore simply. "I cared more for your happiness than your knowing the truth, more for your peace of mind than my plan, more for your life than the lives that might be lost if the plan failed. In other words, I acted exactly as Voldemort expects we fools who love to act."
"Is there a defense? I defy anyone who has watched you as I have - and I have watched you more closely than you can have imagined - not to want to save you more pain than you had already suffered. What did I care if numbers of nameless and faceless people and creatures were slaughtered in the vague future, if in the here and now you were alive, and well, and happy? I never dreamed that I would have such a person on my hands." "
I believe (for the purposes of this theory) that everything is true EXCEPT FOR THE LAST LINE. He knew EXACTLY who he was making - remaking, more like - and was overjoyed that it had worked. And Harry, by the time of HBP, had gotten over his rage! The fits were over! There had been a hard year, but it was over. He had succeeded. Out of circumstances that could have produced an Ariana or a Tom, he had made Harry. Now, Harry was no saint, but he was sane. ("WHAT?!" cry canon-snarkers. Please, I'm talking about from Dumbledore's POV.) Huzzah! He was redeemed!
(Harry saying he was "Dumbledore's man" did indeed mean more to Dumbledore than Harry could ever know.)
Pity he couldn't tell Aberforth, but he couldn't for two reasons. First, Aberforth's methods (albeit on a far larger scale) had worked. Second, Aberforth just wouldn't understand the deliberate creation of an Ariana. (In fact, Albus might have died a good deal ahead of schedule if he had ever told Aberforth about what he'd done.)
The little Horcrux issue presented a problem. Now, he could always leave a request in his will that the Minister grab a Dementor and keep it under restraint and ask Harry to duct-tape his mouth shut and present his forehead to the Dementor... but then Harry wouldn't have VoldieVision (as deadlyhollow termed it). Ah, well. He bet that JKR's Goldberg machine would work, and - sorry. Anyway, he bet on the sequence of events we saw in DH, odd, confusing, and WTF as it was (are we SURE the blood protection works that way?!), and indeed it did. Huzzah again! And Harry didn't even yell at him this time. Beautiful. He could go to his reward happily.
...In case this part of the ramble made sense to anyone, and you're feeling vaguely murderous towards canon!Dumbledore, we can imagine that after Harry left King's Cross, a voice sounding rather like a fourteen-year-old girl's said from behind Dumbledore "A-HEM. Hem. Hem. ALLLLLLLLLL-BYYYYYYYYYYYYYY..." and THEN the screen faded to black. ;)
--
Bleugh. I suppose I'm getting tired, and my writing ability has decreased. But I'll note that the Harry in HBP and DH is a little bit less... human than he was in the first four books. He hexes for fun in HBP and manipulates Slughorn like a pro (under the influence of Felix Felicis, but still). Then, he progresses to Unforgivables in DH. What he lost in CAPSLOCKING ability, he gained in unpleasantness. And he's plenty resentful... and his sanity is beginning to fade by DH. He's certainly "strange" when dealing with the Hallows (HALLOOOOOOOOWS! POWERRRRRRRRR! OMNOMNOM.) and "dangerous" when he Cruciates Amycus. And perhaps there's a REASON why what his internal monologue he has tends to have a rather.... mentally off-kilter quality. (I HATE EVERYONE! DUMBLEDOOOOOORE, WHYYYYYYYYYYY?! WHY DOESN'T EVERYONE CARE ABOUT MY PAIN?! HOW CAN THE STARS BE SO UNCARING?! WHY DOES THE WORLD NOT STOP FOR MY ANGUISH?!) And Harry does seem to be a bit magically blocked-up in HBP and DH, inasmuch as he has Hermione or the Prince helping him out when he used to be able to handle classes and adventuring with only her help on essays, not the practical stuff. Perhaps Dumbledore will find out that whoops, Harry isn't as together as he thought...
Well, JKR says all his bad actions in OOTP, etc. were Horcrux-influenced. And who knows? Perhaps all the bad feelings that Harry should have had were dumped into the Horcrux - hence why he began to go nuts only when Voldemort returned and the Horcrux started acting up. So Harry only exists proper after Horcrux goes bye-bye... and he seems a bit dazed and strange in his internal monologue and speech after it's gone. (What do you mean, "JKR was just trying to be overdramatic?".) Perhaps Harry was just going to be permanently "strange" after the Horcrux was gone... Meh. I think JKR frankly was a bit Confounded when it came to writing Harry post-GOF, but... eh. Backstory seems to be her strongest point - too stressed about writing the present-day Wizarding World?
Blah. I've run out of energy, so here this ramble ends.
=Nineteen Years Later - no, not an analysis of the Epilogue, just my thoughts on random things tying into Theory Having To Do With The Ariana-Style Personality=
I'll just throw out that Ginny's personality shift between GoF and OotP may have its roots in the Diary Incident... poured a bit of yourself into Ginny, ay, Tom? And where else have we seen a girl whose personality shifted from timid to aggressive? (And a boy - no, not Tom. The other.) 'Course, it's not as extreme as it could have been... only a BIT of him, after all... and there was no magical suppression in Ginny and Harry's cases, so any power boost is due to slight insanity, not magic-induced insanity.
Like attracts like. I wonder if the insanity in the higher-class inbred Wizarding families (Blacks, etc.) is from magic naturally as wild as usually only crops up in witches and wizards who have tried to suppress their magic? Sirius was a wild 'un, and has the nastiness - a sane person doesn't try to feed a school rival to a werewolf, particularly when that werewolf's a friend and would have serious trouble, to say the least, if he mauled someone or killed them. Bellatrix - hell, we know Bellatrix. Methinks she'd get along great with "strange and dangerous" Ariana (though there would be vicious arguments over whether Muggleborns should be exterminated along with the Muggles, and whether Grindelwald or Voldemort was the greater Dark Lord). Sirius matured after his stay in Azkaban. Bella... meh. Lost her ability to be haughtily fanatical (instead preferring to be Batshit Fanatical).
Interesting quotes:
""I cared about you too much," said Dumbledore simply. "I cared more for your happiness than your knowing the truth, more for your peace of mind than my plan, more for your life than the lives that might be lost if the plan failed. In other words, I acted exactly as Voldemort expects we fools who love to act."
"Is there a defense? I defy anyone who has watched you as I have - and I have watched you more closely than you can have imagined - not to want to save you more pain than you had already suffered. What did I care if numbers of nameless and faceless people and creatures were slaughtered in the vague future, if in the here and now you were alive, and well, and happy? I never dreamed that I would have such a person on my hands." "
"You cannot despise me more than I despise myself, Harry."
"Did I know, in my heart of hearts, what Gellert Grindelwald was? I think I did, but I closed my eyes."
"[...] taunted Bellatrix, as mad as her master, capering as Molly's curses danced around her."