Dumbledore had just managed to put Fudge, Dawlish, Shacklebolt, and Umbridge on the ground, unconscious, so that he can make his escape from Hogwarts. Harry, McGonagall, and himself remain conscious in the headmaster’s office, and the following occurs:
“Listen to me, Harry,” [Dumbledore] said urgently, “you must study Occlumency as hard as you can, do you understand me? Do everything Professor Snape tells you and practice particularly every night before sleeping so that you can close your mind to bad dreams – you will understand why soon enough, but you must promise me – ”
The man called Dawlish was stirring. Dumbledore seized Harry’s wrist.
“Remember – close your mind – ”
But as Dumbledore’s fingers closed over Harry’s skin, a pain shot through the scar on his forehead, and he felt again that terrible, snake-like longing to strike Dumbledore, to bite him, to hurt him –
” – you will understand,” whispered Dumbledore.
Harry is a wreck at this point, and Dumbledore knows it. He blames himself for Dumbledore’s having to leave Hogwarts, he’s having awful dreams, he’s seeing into Voldemort’s mind and emotions, and he’s forced to take lessons with a Professor who hates him.
Dumbledore reassures him, not once but twice, the second with a gentle whisper, “You will understand.”
I bring this scene up because this is, for me, a strike against the scar being a horcrux. When I first wrote, “Is Harry a Horcrux” last year, I was inclined against the idea primarily because of the fact that Dumbledore never told Harry that it was possible, and Dumbledore has done a lot of research into horcruxes and knows plenty about the oddity of Harry’s scar. I’ve since considered the possibility with more of an open mind, but I’m coming full circle on it again.
Based on this passage, if Harry’s scar is a horcrux, we’d have to conclude that by the time Dumbledore died, he still had not fulfilled his promise to Harry, “you will understand.” We’d probably have to conclude that Dumbledore tried to comfort Harry with words that were ultimately empty.
Of course, there may be some brilliant way for Rowling to write it that would counter this objection. The jury’s still out for me on this issue, and we still have the problem of there being no magic explained or even hinted at thus far in the series that would explain a mind-link except for horcruxes…but this dialogue, based on what we already know of Dumbledore’s character, is a damaging blow to the scarcrux theory.
Perhaps the most interesting issue raised by the afore-mentioned Red Hen article, Loyaulte Me Lie, is the apparently conflicting accounts we have of the night the fateful prophecy was delivered in a room above the Hog’s Head by Sybill Trelawney. I’ll state the problem, answer part of it, and leave the rest to you all in the comments. Have fun figuring this one out.
In Order, we are told by Dumbledore that the one who overheard the prophecy was apprehended only two lines into the prophecy and thrown from the building.
In Half-Blood Prince, Trelawney tells Harry that her interview with Dumbledore was “rudely interrupted by Severus Snape.” She goes on to explain that “there was a commotion outside the door and it flew open, and there was that rather uncouth barman standing with Snape….”
The problems with the two accounts are as follows:
- Trelawney is not aware of anything that is going on around her when she has a real prophecy.
- Snape was obviously still outside the door, then, at the end of the prophecy.
Or, as Joyce states the problem:
Question: if Snape was discovered halfway through the Prophecy and thrown from the building as Albus claims, how would Sybill have known that he was the person listening at the door?
Question: if Sybill — who is unaware of her surroundings while in the grip of a Prophecy — did not actually see or hear an eavesdropper, how could she even know that there was one?
Question: if the eavesdropper was discovered and ejected halfway through the Prophecy, how did Snape happen to still be standing outside the door after it was finished so Sybill could identify him?
Question: if Snape-the-Snoop was still at the door after the Prophecy was finished, how can Albus say so confidently that he only heard the first part of it?
I’ll admit it looks really suspicious, but I’m going to take a shot at answering it. We can fairly easily reconstruct the scene this way:
The prophecy begins, Snape is listening. Two lines in, Aberforth (the bartender), discovers Snape and pulls him from the door, so he can no longer hear the words being spoken. The prophecy ends, Trelawney comes to, and Snape is trying to get away from Aberforth, causing a commotion. The door swings open, revealing Snape, and he is ejected from the building having only heard the first part.
So we can at least harmonize that part of the account. What we still have trouble with is this: If Dumbledore knew it was Snape and saw Snape (which he must have when the door flew open), what could Snape have possibly said to Dumbledore to convince him he wasn’t snooping, especially when it is supposedly Albus’s own brother Aberforth who caught him? Even if Albus trusted Snape at the time, it is hard to imagine he would have not become exceedingly suspicious to find him listening at keyholes.
So the problem remains. The events of that night are a bit funny, and there’s some ’splainin’ to do. Ideas?
Update (7/02): Couldn’t sleep last night, and I did more thinking. Here’s what I came up with:
But then we have to ask ourselves: What, exactly, could Albus have done? Detain him? Throw him in Azkaban for snooping? An accomplished Occlumens like Snape could certainly pull off a lie. “I heard a strange/threatening voice. I thought someone was in danger.”
If we can harmonize both accounts (which I think we can), and both are truthful (even if not the whole story), I’m not really sure that Dumbledore could have prevented Snape from getting away and getting to Voldemort.
So, I think the problem can be answered, even if it still smells a little fishy overall. There may be much more to it than my harmonization of the accounts. But then, there may not.
The next question kind of follows up on my previous thoughts about Harry’s Anger in Order of the Phoenix.
Question: Near the end of Book 5, Harry states that he doesn’t want to be human. What do you think he means by that? Why is it a significant comment in the context of his development?
Tom Riddle, Jr. and Harry Potter have a lot of striking similarities: “both half-bloods, orphans, raised by Muggles…Parselmouths…[they] even look something alike.” (Chamber 317) Dumbledore teaches Harry that it is their choices that make them different. (333)
When faced with the question of life and death, Voldemort chose an existence less than human rather than death. The further he proceeded along his path toward “immortality,” the less human he became.
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