Expecto il padrino

[sunnyskywalker]

A bit of silliness.

I stumbled across the blog post "The meaning of Expecto Patronum: From Hogwarts to Ancient Rome," which discusses the meaning of "patronus" in ancient Rome, and notes that a patron is more like a (legal) Mafia don bribing officials to protect you from the law than a sparkly representation of your soul protecting you against

Comments

[jana_ch]

Not silly at all. It sounds entirely accurate to me. And Slughorn is Maecenas, patron of the arts-such as the wizarding world has. Harry may think he's smarmy, but compared to Godfather Dumbledore, he's truly benevolent.

[sunnyskywalker]

Slughorn never abandoned a protegee to rot in Azkaban without trial, true. Dumbledore sets the bar really low.

[chantaldormand]

We learn so little about Dumbledore's position in Wizengamont (and about the Wizengamont itself) it's very hard to to tell just how much of his power is granted by political system and how much by his own machinations.
And there is no doubt in my mind that for majority of his tenure as Headmaster of Hogwarts, Albus had a lot of "incidents". Granted, most of incidents during pre-Harry era weren't anywhere as bad as not expelling student for major breaking of Statue of Secrecy (CoS) or helping student free escaped prisoner (PoA), but rampant bulling and favouritism during Marauders era would be wonderful argument for his political opponents.
And yet, during first few books everybody (but nasty Slytherins) sees Albus as either benevolent ruler or eccentric old man.
So what is his Secret?
Well, it's awesome PR combined with moulding young wizards and witches' minds during their stay in Hogwarts.
And it takes a lot to remove Dumbledore from his political positions

[sunnyskywalker]

Karkaroff disappearing right at the end of the Triwizard Tournament probably also looked suspicious. Was he in league with escaped Death Eater Barty Junior all along? Well, Dumbledore couldn't have known...oh, wait, he was there when Karkaroff admitted to being a Death Eater himself and sold out his comrades in exchange for freedom? And Dumbledore invited him to Hogwarts for most of the school year? The same year he didn't notice that his good friend Moody was actually a Death Eater in disguise? Um

[chantaldormand]

With Karkoroff situation is even worse- not only he is DE who sold out his fellow terrorists, but he is also a Headmaster of school located in another country. He is also a judge for the Triwizards Tournament. Just imagine if during one of Olympics one of judges or foreign representations' trainer went MIA and wasn't found. No matter in which country Durmstrang is located and how important Karkoroff is there, that country should make MOM's life difficult.

If it meets in summer then could be twice as interesting- perhaps it could be traditionally compatible with schoolyear so it won't interfere with Wizengamont members' education? Nowadays Hogwarts teaches mostly underaged students, but maybe in past there were classes for adults?

[sunnyskywalker]

And if Durmstrang holds a similar position as Hogwarts in its catchment area, the headmaster is also kind of like the Secretary of Education. Which makes his disappearance an even bigger deal. No wonder the Wizengamot members were so annoyed at Fudge and Umbridge for summoning them all to hear a case of underage magic a couple of months later--they were probably still scrambling to manage the fallout. Which was even more complicated by the questions about why the British Ministry hadn't particularly noticed or cared when their equivalent of the Secretary of State started calling in sick for months on end until he suddenly vanished too. (I don't care what the Weasleys say--they can't blame Percy for that. Crouch must have worked with a lot of people, both foreign and domestic, and evidently none of them worried about Crouch's uncharacteristic absence or the orders which looked suspicious in hindsight