#Dumbledore Analysis
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Dumbledore is a Manipulative Piece of Shit: Part 1/?
Since I read the books for the first time at the age of 12, I knew I didn't trust Dumbledore. Back then, I couldn't put my finger on why. But now, a bit over a decade later, I can.
Not only can I explain why I thought something's fishy, but I can prove it is.
This is going to be a long series... but let's start at the beginning:
Halloween 1981
I'm going to go about this in chronological order of events according to book quotes I could track down.
Before the Prophecy
Circa October 24, 1979 - Lily gets pregnant with Harry. According to reverse calculating due date.
Sometime between March 1980 and October 1980 Peter Pettigrew starts spying for the Order.
"(Dumbledore) was sure that somebody close to the Potters had been keeping You-Know-Who informed of their movements...Indeed, he had suspected for some time that someone on our side had turned traitor and was passing a lot of information to You-Know-Who."
(Prisoner of Azkaban, page 205)
We know that there was a spy in the Order that fed Voldemort information before James and Lily went into hiding. Sirius mentions Peter being a spy for a long time again later in Prisoner of Azkaban:
âSirius, Sirius, what could I have done? The Dark Lord . . . you have no idea . . . he has weapons you canât imagine. . . . I was scared, Sirius, I was never brave like you and Remus and James. I never meant it to happen. . . . He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named forced me ââ âDONâT LIE!â bellowed Black. âYOUâD BEEN PASSING INFORMATION TO HIM FOR A YEAR BEFORE LILY AND JAMES DIED! YOU WERE HIS SPY!â
(Prisoner of Azkaban, page 374)
So we know Pettigrew spied for Voldemort for about a year, if not more, before October 1981. The reason I'm saying he might have spied for longer is that the Order noticed there was a spy during that year, there might've been months he spied but the Order was none the wiser.
The months leading up to the attack on the Potter
So, we know when Peter started feeding Voldemort information, but we need to know when exactly the prophecy was given and when James and Lily went into hiding under the Fideliulous Charm. Most fans I see, seem to think they were hiding for only a week, then Peter betrayed them and then they died that same night. I think it went a little different. I think they were hiding for much longer.
So, let's determine this from the Evidence we are given.
The picture of the Order of the Phoenix Moody shows Harry in book 5 is the final picture of the Order togather before the Potters went into hiding. Most fans date this photo to the summer of 1980. I think it has to be earlier than that for two simple reasons:
Lily isn't pregnant and Harry wasn't born
Alice isn't pregnant and Neville wasn't born
â...Thatâs Frank and Alice Longbottom ââ Harryâs stomach, already uncomfortable, clenched as he looked at Alice Longbottom; he knew her round, friendly face very well, even though he had never met her, because she was the image of her son, Neville....
...His mother and father were beaming up at him, sitting on either side of a small, watery-eyed man Harry recognized at once as Wormtail: He was the one who had betrayed their whereabouts to Voldemort and so helped bring about their deaths.
(Order of the Pheonix, page 174)
Remember, Harry and Neville were born at the end of July 1980, and pictures taken during that summer would show the pregnancy or taken after their births. So I think that picture was taken in 1979, although I'm uncertain exactly when. because, as I'll prove later in this post, the Potters went into hiding before Harry was born.
Next up to help us put a date to when they went into hiding is the Fidelious Charm itself, or more correctly, how it works.
The Fidelious Charm hides a piece of information within a person. It hides the phrasing of a secret, not a location.
an immensely complex spell ... involving the magical concealment of a secret inside a living soul. The information is hidden inside the chosen person, or Secret-Keeper, and is henceforth impossible to find -- unless, of course, the Secret-Keeper chooses to divulge it.
(Prisoner of Azkaban, 205)
It can be used to hide a location like we see the Order of the Phoenix do:
Dumbledore's Secret-Keeper for the Order, you know -- nobody can find Headquarters unless he tells them personally where it is
(Order if the Pheonix, 115)
With the phrase that Dumbledore hides being:
The headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix may be found at number twelve, Grimmauld Place, London.
(Order of the Phoenix, page 58)
They use a specific phrasing to hide the Order's headquarters. The moment the Order stops existing, the house will stop being a secret. I'd argue the moment Grimmauld Place stopped being the Headquarters it stopped being a secret because this phrase applied no longer.
This is what we see with the Potter residence. Once James and Lily die, the Charm breaks and muggles make their way to the house:
âNo, sir â house was almost destroyed, but I got him out all right before the Muggles started swarminâ around. He fell asleep as we was flyinâ over Bristol."
(Philosopher's Stone, page 13)
The fact muggles and Hagrid could arrive at the house and see it means the Charm broke.
We also see it in Deathly Hollows when Harry and Hemione visit the Potter's cottage:
He could see it; the Fidelius Charm must have died with James and Lily.Â
(Deathly Hallows, page 286)
"So what?" You may ask, "we know this already,"
True, but the reason it's important is because it hints at the phrasing used when the charm was cast. It means the phrasing of the secret Peter kept being along the lines of:
"James and Lily Potter are hiding in the Potter Cottage in Godric's Hollow"
Now, this makes sense to be the secret, right, but notice, Harry isn't mentioned. If Harry was part of the secret, the charm would not have broken with James and Lily's deaths, since the secret would still protect Harry. Now, why not protect Harry as well? The whole point of the Fidelious Charm was to protect Harry, was it not?
This means the Potters went into hiding and the charm was cast before Harry was born.
More that suggests they were hiding for quite a while is Lily's letter to Sirius:
Dear Padfoot, Thank you, thank you, for Harryâs birthday present! It was his favorite by far. One year old and already zooming along on a toy broomstick
(Deathly Hollows, page 158)
Meaning Harry's first birthday (July, 1981) happened when they were already under the protection of the charm. As this letter was sent a short time after it (early August 1981).
James is getting a bit frustrated shut up here, he tries not to show it but I can tell
(Deathly Hollows, page 158)
Also from Lily's letter to Sirius. James' restlessness definitely suggests they were hiding under the charm for a good few months before Harry's first birthday.
This dates the Prophecy and Trawlany's job interview around the first half of 1980 (January to May). This means the Potters were in hiding between a year and 4 months to a year and 9 months before their deaths.
All of this leaves us with two main oddities. Questions that just got me scratching my head:
If Peter was a spy since March 1980 at the earliest and October 1980 at the latest (but probably earlier), and the Potters went into hiding with him as the secret keeper in Earley in July 1980 at the latest, why not tell Voldemort immediately? And if he did, why did Voldemort wait a full year+ to go and kill the Potters?
It means that when Severus Snape came begging for Dumbledore to save Lily about a week before their deaths, Dumbledore already had the Potters in hiding. It means Dumbledore made Snape take an oath for him to do something he already did. So we see Dumbledore's first manipulations coming into play by fucking Severus over and taking him as a spy without actually giving anything in turn.
The first question is one I have somewhat of an answer for in my Voldemort character analysis, but this isn't this post. This is about Dumbledore's crimes.
The Night Everything Happened
Now we arrive at the night that changed the Wizarding World and the life of one Harry Potter. October 31st, 1981.
I time Voldemortâs arrival at Godric's Hollow at the late evening (around 8 PM). This is due to children being allowed outside still:
The night wet and windy, two children dressed as pumpkins waddling across the square, and the shop window covered in paper spiders, all the tawdry Muggle trapping of a world in which they did not believe
(Deathly Hollows, page 295)
And Harry (a year and four months old infent) still being awake, but clearly preparing for bed:
the tall black haired man in his glasses, making puffs of colored smoke erupt from his wand for the amusement of the small black-haired boy in his blue pajamas
(Deathly Hollows, page 295)
So, Voldemort arrives at Godric's Hollow around 8:00 PM, let's say, 15 to 20 minutes later, James and Lily are dead, Voldemortâs body is destroyed and he runs off to Albania. Baby Harry is crying and the Fidelious is broken.
Now, things get interesting. Well, more interesting.
We know the first on the scene is Peter Pettigrew, arriving around 8:30 PM, and retrieving Voldemortâs wand. We don't actually know when or if this happened beyond a quote from JKR, but as muggles and aurors searched the house, it's unlikely Voldemortâs wand was there and undiscovered.
Then Pettigrew ran away to the muggle street where he would meet Sirius.
The second on the scene is Reberus Hagrid.
Hagrid arrives sometime later when muggled started looking into what happened now that the Fidelious Charm is broken:
âNo, sir â house was almost destroyed, but I got him out all right before the Muggles started swarminâ around. He fell asleep as we was flyinâ over Bristol."
(Philosopher's Stone, page 13)
Around the same time Pettigrew arrived at Godric's Hollow, Sirius probably saw Peter wasn't home and realized the Fidelious was broken. So he heads to Godric's Hollow.
The night they died, Iâd arranged to check on Peter, make sure he was still safe, but when I arrived at his hiding place, heâd gone. Yet there was no sign of a struggle. It didnât feel right. I was scared. I set out for your parentsâ house straight away. And when I saw their house, destroyed, and their bodies . . . I realized what Peter mustâve done . . . what Iâd done. . . .
(Prisoner of Azkaban, page 365)
Sirius reaches the Potters and meets Hagrid there, outside the house, Harry already in Hagrid's arms:
âI met him!â growled Hagrid. âI musta bin the last ter see him before he killed all them people! It was me what rescued Harry from Lily anâ Jamesâs house after they was killed! Jusâ got him outta the ruins, poor little thing, with a great slash across his forehead, anâ his parents dead . . . anâ Sirius Black turns up, on that flyinâ motorbike he used ter ride. Never occurred ter me what he was doinâ there. I didnâ know heâd bin Lily anâ Jamesâs Secret-Keeper. Thought heâd jusâ heard the news oâ You-Know-Whoâs attack anâ come ter see what he could do. White anâ shakinâ, he was. Anâ yeh know what I did? I COMFORTED THE MURDERIN�� TRAITOR!â Hagrid roared.
(Prisoner of Azkaban, page 206)
Sirius then goes after Pettigrew, after failing to take Harry from Hagrid and figuring he'd rather chase the rat down before he disappears. We all know how that ends, as Hagrid takes Harry according to Dumbledore's orders.
âGive Harry ter me, Hagrid, Iâm his godfather, Iâll look after him ââ Ha! But Iâd had me orders from Dumbledore, anâ I told Black no, Dumbledore said Harry was ter go ter his aunt anâ uncleâs. Black argued, but in the end he gave in. Told me ter take his motorbike ter get Harry there. âI wonât need it anymore,â he says. âI shoulda known there was somethinâ fishy goinâ on then. He loved that motorbike, what was he givinâ it ter me for? Why wouldnâ he need it anymore? Fact was, it was too easy ter trace.
(Prisoner of Azkaban, page 206)
This quote has quite a few interesting things about Dumbledore, Hagrid and Sirius.
First, Hagrid says Dumbledore gave him orders to take Harry to the Dursleys. This order was given before Sirius went after Peter, before he was arrested and sent to Azkaban.
This is illegal. At this point in time Sirius was Harry's legal godfather and guardian, and yet Dumbledore gave Hagrid this order. And yes, you could argue it was because he knew Sirius was the Secret Keeper and was wary of him, but:
âHagrid,â said Dumbledore, sounding relieved. âAt last. And where did you get that motorcycle?â âBorrowed it, Professor Dumbledore, sir,â said the giant, climbing carefully off the motorcycle as he spoke. âYoung Sirius Black lent it to me. Iâve got him, sir.â âNo problems, were there?â
(Philosopher's Stone, page 13)
Dumbledore hears Hagrid met Sirius when retrieving Harry and shows no concern. Like he doesn't consider Sirius a threat to Hagrid and Harry. But then, why take Harry away? Why support Sirius' arrest? (More on that in a later post)
Not only is all this highly illegal but how did Dumbledore know when the Potters died?
JK explained he had some magical alarms in place, but that means at the earliest he would've known the moment Voldemort entered the premises. But he knew before. He knew James and Lily would die that day before they died.
How do I know that?
Simple, Hagrid can't apparate and didn't arrive via broom or floo.
Hogwarts, where Hagrid is during October as Grounds keeper, is in the Scottish Highlands (Higher up as they travel for about 9-10 hours by train from Kings Cross to reach Hogwarts as they leave at eleven and arrive for dinner). Godric's Hollow is in West Country, England. This distance is a 9-10 hour drive (672.03 km, 417.58 miles).
It means that for Hagrid to arrive by 9 PM at Godric's Hollow, Dumbledore told him to go fetch Harry, the order was given to Hagrid between 11-12 noon on October 31st.
This already paints Dumbledore in a bad light, it means he planned this. I'd argue he even planned for Voldemort to hear of the Prophecy (but that's a different post). But it means Dumbledore planned for the Potters to be killed that night.
Second, Hagrid is right about Sirius giving his bike being odd (But that's a different post about the Fidelious Charm). But, in short, something was up and Sirius knew, at least somewhat, that he was doomed.
The Boy Who Lived
Finally, we arrive at the first chapter of Philosopher's Stone. We follow Vernon Dursely throughout his day on November 1st. We know that because we see the Wizarding World celebrating the death of Voldemort:
Heâd (Mr. Dursley) forgotten all about the people in cloaks until he passed a group of them next to the bakerâs. He eyed them angrily as he passed. He didnât know why, but they made him uneasy. This bunch were whispering excitedly, too, and he couldnât see a single collecting tin. It was on his way back past them, clutching a large doughnut in a bag, that he caught a few words of what they were saying. âThe Potters, thatâs right, thatâs what I heard ââ â â yes, their son, Harry ââ Mr. Dursley stopped dead. Fear flooded him. He looked back at the whisperers as if he wanted to say something to them, but thought better of it.
(Philosopher's Stone, page 6)
So, McGonagall is watching over the Dursleys throughout November 1st. It means Harry arrived at the Dursleys around midnight between November 1st and November 2nd.
Hagrid and Harry left Godric's Hollow on Sirius' flying motorbike around 10 PM at the latest on October 31st. So what was Hagrid doing with Harry in these 26 hours?
The only information we have is that Harry: "fell asleep over Bristol,"
Thing is, if we go back to the map of the UK.
Bristol is not really on the way from Godric's Hollow to Surry.
But it is closer to the flight path between Godric's Hollow and Hogwarts.
(The locations are estimated for fictional locations but are based on what I know. Regardless, West Country to Surry won't pass over Bristol, while West Country to the Scottish Highlands is likely to, so the point stands)
In conclusion, Dumbledore manipulated Harry's life, his parents' deaths, Snape, Sirius, and Hagrid, and fucked them all over for the sake of his grand plan of defeating Voldemort.
What else went into his plan and who else he fucked over, will be covered in the next installments.
#harry potter#harry potter theory#harry potter thoughts#wizarding world#overthinking#hp theory#hollowedtheory#albus dumbledore#sirius black#james potter#lily potter#peter pettigrew#Dumbledore Analysis#lord voldemort#voldemort#first wizarding war#lily evans#severus snape
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Manipulative/Morally Grey Dumbledore? An In-Depth Canon Analysis
So when I look at Harry Potter, my goal is to separate what I think the books are intending to say, from what they actually say, from what the movies say⌠and what the common fan interpretation is. So today Iâm interested in Dumbledore, and specifically in the common headcanon of Manipulative/Morally Gray Dumbledore. Is that (intentionally or unintentionally) supported by the text?
PART I: Â Omniscient Dumbledore
âI think he knows more or less everything that goes on hereâ
In Book 1, yes Dumbledore honestly does seem to know everything. He 100% arranged for Harry to find the Mirror of Erised, publicly left Hogwarts in order to nudge Quirrell into going after the Stone, and knew what Quirrell was doing the whole time. It is absolutely not a stretch, and kind of heavily implied, that the reason the Stoneâs protections feel like a little-end-of-the-year exam designed to put Harry through his paces⌠is because they are. As the series goes on this interpretation only gets more plausible, when we see the kind of protections people can put up when they donât want anyone getting through.Â
Book 1 Dumbledore knows everything⌠but what heâs actually going to do about it is anyoneâs guess. One of the first things we learn is that some of Dumbledoreâs calls can be⌠questionable. McGonagall questions his choice to leave Harry with the Dursleys, Hermione questions his choice to give Harry the Cloak and let him go after the Stone, Percy and Ron both matter-of-factly call him âmad.â The ânitwit, blubber, oddment, tweakâ speech is a joke where Dumbledore says heâs going to say a few words, then literally does say a few (weird) words. I know there are theories that those particular words are supposed to be insulting the four houses, or referencing the Hogwarts house stereotypes, or that theyâre some kind of warning. But within the text, this is pure Lewis Carroll British Nonsense Verse stuff (and people came up with answers to the impossible Alice in Wonderland âwhy is a raven like a writing deskâ riddle too.)Â
This characterization also explains a lot of Dumbledoreâs decisions about how to run a school, locked in during Book 1. Presumably Binns, Peeves, Filch, Snape are all there because Dumbledore finds them funny, atmospheric, and/or character building. He's just kind of a weird guy. He absolutely knew that Lockhart was a fraud in Book 2 (with that whole âImpaled upon your own sword, Gilderoy?â thing after Lockhart oblivates himself. ) So maybe he is also there to be funny/atmospheric/character building, or to teach Harry a lesson about fame, or because Dumbledore is using the cursed position to bump off people he doesnât like. Who knows.
(I actually donât think JKR had locked in âthe DADA position is literally cursed by Voldemortâ until Book 6. )
Dumbledore absolutely knows that Harry is listening in when Lucius Malfoy comes to take Hagrid to Azkaban, and itâs fun to speculate that maybe he let himself get fired in Book 2 as part of a larger plan to boot Lucius off the Board of Governors. So far, thatâs the sort of thing heâd do. But in Books 3 and 4, we are confronted with a number of important things that Dumbledore just missed. He doesnât know any of the Marauders were animagi, he doesnât know what really happened with the Potterâs Secret Keeper, doesnât know Moody is Crouch, and doesnât know the Marauders Map even exists. But in Books 5 and 6, his omniscience does seem to come back online. (In a flashback, Voldemort even comments that he is "omniscient as everâ when Dumbledore lists the specific Death Eaters he has in Hogsmeade as backup.) Dumbledore knows exactly what Draco and Voldemort are planning, and his word is taken as objective truth by the entire Order of the Phoenix - who apparently only tolerate Snape because Dumbledore vouches for him:
âSnape,â repeated McGonagall faintly, falling into the chair. âWe all wondered . . . but he trusted . . . always . . . Snape . . . I canât believe it. . . .â âSnape was a highly accomplished Occlumens,â said Lupin, his voice uncharacteristically harsh. âWe always knew that.â âBut Dumbledore swore he was on our side!â whispered Tonks. âI always thought Dumbledore must know something about Snape that we didnât. . . .â âHe always hinted that he had an ironclad reason for trusting Snape,â muttered Professor McGonagall (...) âWouldnât hear a word against him!â
McGonagall questions Dumbledore about the Dursleys, but not about Snape. I see this as part of the larger trend of basically Dumbledoreâs deification. In the beginning of the series, heâs treated as a clever, weird dude. By the end, heâs treated like a god.Â
PART II: Chessmaster Dumbledore
âI prefer not to keep all my secrets in one basket.â
When Dumbledore solves problems, he likes to go very hands-off. He didnât directly teach Harry about the Mirror of Erised - he gave him the Cloak, knew he would wander, and moved the Mirror so it would be in his path. He sends Snape to deal with Quirrell and Draco, rather than do it himself. He (or his portrait) tells Snape to confund Mundungus Fletcher and get him to suggest the Seven Potters strategy. He puts Mrs. Figg in place to watch Harry, then ups the protection in Book 5 - all without informing Harry. The situation with Slughorn is kind of a Dumbledore-manipulation master class - even the way he deliberately disappears into the bathroom so Harry will have enough solo time to charm Slughorn. Of course he only wants Slughorn under his roof in the first place to pick his brain about Voldemort⌠but again, instead of doing that himself, he gets Harry to do it for him.Â
Dumbledore has a moment during Harryâs hearing during Book 5 (which he fakes evidence for) where he informs Fudge that Harry is not under the Ministryâs jurisdiction while at Hogwarts. Which has insane implications. Itâs never explicitly stated, but as the story goes on, it at least makes sense that Dumbledore is deliberately obscuring how powerful he is, and how much influence he really has, by getting other people to do things for him. But the problem with that is because he is so powerful, it become really easy for a reader to look back after they get more information and say⌠well if Dumbledore was controlling the situation⌠why couldnât he have done XYZ. Here are two easy examples from Harryâs time spent with the Dursleys:
1. Mrs. Figg is watching over Harry from day one, but she canât tell him sheâs a squib and also she has to keep him miserable on purpose:
âDumbledoreâs orders. I was to keep an eye on you but not say anything, you were too young. Iâm sorry I gave you such a miserable time, but the Dursleys would never have let you come if theyâd thought you enjoyed it. It wasnât easy, you knowâŚâ
Itâs pretty intense to think of Dumbledore saying âoh yes, invite this little child over and keep him unhappy on purpose.â But okay. Itâs important to keep Harry ignorant of the magical world and vice versa. fine. But once he goes to Hogwarts⌠that doesnât apply anymore? Iâm sure when Harry thinks heâs going to be imprisoned permanently in his bedroom during Book 2, it wouldâve been comforting to know that Dumbledore was sending around someone to check on him. And when he literally runs away from home in Book 3⌠having the address of a trusted adult that he could easily get to would have been great for everybody.Â
2. When Vernon is about to actually kick Harry out during Book 5, Dumbledore sends a howler which intimidates Petunia into insisting that Harry has to stay. Vernon folds and does exactly what she says. If Dumbledore could intimidate Petunia into doing this, then why couldnât he intimidate her into, say - giving Harry the second bedroom instead of a cupboard. Or fixing Harryâs glasses. In Book 1, the Dursleys donât bother Harry during the entire month of August because Hagrid gives Dudley a pigâs tail. In the summer between third and fourth year, the Dursleys back off because Harry is in correspondence with Sirius (a person they fear.) But the Dursleys are afraid of all wizards. Like at this point it doesnât seem that hard to intimidate them into acting decently to Harry.Â
PART III: Dumbledore and the DursleysÂ
âNot a pampered little princeâ
JKR wanted two contradictory things. She wanted Dumbledore to be a fundamentally good guy: a wise, if eccentric mentor figure. But she also wanted Harry to have a comedically horrible childhood being locked in a cupboard, denied food, given broken glasses and ill fitting/embarrassing clothes, and generally made into a little Cinderella. Then, itâs a bigger contrast when he goes to Hogwarts and expulsion can be used as an easy threat. (Although the only person we ever see expelled is Hagrid, and that was for murder.)
So, there are a couple of tricks she uses to make it okay that Dumbledore left Harry at the Dursleys.â The first is that once Harry leavesâŚÂ nothing that happens there is given emotional weight. When heâs in the Wizarding World, he barely talks about Dursleys, barely thinks about them. They almost never come up in the narration (unless Harryâs worried about being expelled, or theyâre sending him comedically awful presents.) They are completely cut from the last three Harry Potter movies, and you do not notice.Â
The second trick⌠is that Dumbledore himself clearly doesnât think that the Dursleys are that bad. During the Kingâs Cross vision-quest, he describes 11-year-old Harry as âalive and healthy (...) as normal a boy as I could have hoped under the circumstances. Thus far, my plan was working well.â Â
Now, this could have been really interesting. Like in a psychological way, I get it. Dumbledore had a rocky home life. Dad in prison, mom spending all her time taking care of his volatile and dangerous sister. Aberforth seems to have reacted to the situation by running completely wild, itâs implied that he never even had formal schooling⌠and Albus doubled down on being the Golden Child, making the family look good from the outside, and finding every means possible to escape. I would have believed it if Molly or Kingsley had a beat of being horrified by the way the Dursleys are treating Harry⌠but Dumbledore treats it as like, whatever. Business as usual.Â
But that isnât the framing that the books use. Dumbledore is correct that the Dursleys arenât that bad, and I think itâs because JKR fundamentally does not take the Dursleys seriously as threats. I also think she has a fairly deeply held belief that suffering creates goodness, so possibly Harry suffering at the hands of the Dursleys⌠was necessary? To make him good? Dumbledore himself has an arc of âlong period of suffering = increased goodness.â So does Severus Snape, Dudleyâs experience with the Dementor kickstarts his character growth, etc. Itâs a trope she likes.
Itâs only in The Cursed Child that the Dursleys are given any kind of weight when it comes to Harryâs psyche. This is one of the things that makes me say Jack Thorne wrote that play, because itâs just not consistent with how JKR likes to write the Dursleys. Itâs consistent with the way fanfiction likes to write the Dursleys. And look, The Cursed Child is fascinatingly bad, I have so many problems with it, but it does seem to be doing like ⌠a dark reinterpretation of Harry Potter? And itâs interested in saying something about cycles of abuse. I can absolutely see how the way the play handles things is flattering to JKR. It retroactively frames the Dursleysâ abuse in a more negative way, and maybe thatâs something she wanted after criticism that the Harry Potter books treat physical abuse kind of lightly. (i.e. Harry at the hands of the Dursleys, and house-elves at the hands of everybody. Even Molly Weasley âwallopsâ Fred with a broomstick.)Â
PART IV: Dumbledore and Harry
âThe whole PotterâDumbledore relationship. Itâs been called unhealthy, even sinisterâ
So whenever Harry feels betrayed by Dumbledore in the books - and he absolutely does, itâs some of JKRâs best writing - itâs not because he left him with the Dursleys. Itâs because Dumbledore kept secrets from him, or lied to him, or didnât confide in him on a personal level.Â
âLook what he asked from me, Hermione! Risk your life, Harry! And again! And again! And donât expect me to explain everything, just trust me blindly, trust that I know what Iâm doing, trust me even though I donât trust you! Never the whole truth! Never!â (...) I donât know who he loved, Hermione, but it was never me. This isnât love, the mess heâs left me in. He shared a damn sight more of what he was really thinking with Gellert Grindelwald than he ever shared with me.â
Eventually though, Harry falls in line with the rest of the Order, and treats Dumbledore as an all-knowing God. And this decision comes so close to being critiquedâŚÂ but the series never quite commits. Rufus Scrimgeour comments that, âWell, it is clear to me that [Dumbledore] has done a very good job on youâ - implying that Harry is a product of a deliberate manipulation, and that the way Harry feels about Dumbledore is a direct result of how he's been controlling the situation (and Harry.) But Harry responds to â[You are] Dumbledoreâs man through and through, arenât you, Potter?â with âYeah. I am. Glad we cleared that up,â and itâs treated as a badass, mic drop line.Â
Ron goes on to say that Harry maybe shouldnât be trusting Dumbledore and maybe his plan isnât that great⌠but then he abandons his friends, regrets what he did, and is only able to come back because Dumbledore knew he would react this way? So that whole thing only makes Dumbledore seem more powerful? Aberforth tells Harry (correctly) that Dumbledore is expecting too much of him and heâs not interested in making sure that he survives:
âHow can you be sure, Potter, that my brother wasnât more interested in the greater good than in you? How can you be sure you arenât dispensable (...) Why didnât he say⌠âTake care of yourself, hereâs how to surviveâ? (...) Youâre seventeen, boy!â
But, Aberforth is treated as this Hamish Abernathy type who has given up, and needs Harry to ignite his spark again. Thereâs a pretty dark line in the script of Deathly Hallows Part 2:
Which at least shows this was a possible interpretation the creative team had in their heads⌠but then of course it isnât actually in the movie.Â
So in the end, insane trust in Dumbledore is only ever treated as proper and good. Then in Cursed Child they start using âDumbledoreâ as an oath instead of âMerlinâ and itâs weird and I donât like it.
PART V: Dumbledore and his Strays
âI have known, for some time now, that you are the better man.â
So Dumbledore has this weird relationship pattern. He has a handful of people he pulled out of the fire at some point and (as a result) these people are insanely loyal to him. They do his dirty work, and he completely controls them. This is an interesting pattern, because I think it helps explain why so many fans read Dumbledoreâs relationship with Snape (and with Harry) as sinister.Â
Letâs start with the first of Dumbledoreâs âstrays.â Dumbledore saves Hagrid's livelihood and probably life after he is accused of opening the Chamber of Secrets - and then he uses Hagrid to disappear Harry after the Potters' death, gets him to transport the Philosopherâs Stone, and heâs the one who he trusts to be Harryâs first point of contact with the Wizarding World. Also, Hagrid's situation doesnât change? Even after he is cleared of opening the Chamber of Secrets, he keeps using that pink flowered umbrella with his broken wand inside, a secret that he and Dumbledore seem to share. He could get a legal wand, he could continue his education. But he doesnât seem to, and I donât know why.Â
So, Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality is a well known fix-it fic that basically asks âWhat if Harry Potter was a machiavellian little super genius who solves the plot in a year?â I enjoyed it when it was coming out, but the only thing I would call a cheat is the way McGonagall brings Harry to Diagon Alley instead of Hagrid. Because a Harry Potter who has spent a couple of days with McGonagall is going to be much better informed, better equipped and therefore more powerful than a Harry spending the same amount of time with Hagrid. McGonagall is both a lot more knowledgeable and a lot less loyal to Dumbledore. She is loyal, obviously, but she also questions his choices in a way that Hagrid never does. And as a result, Dumbledore does not trust her with the same kind of delicate jobs he trusts to Hagrid.
Mrs. Figg is another one of Dumbledoreâs strays. Sheâs a squib, so we can imagine that she doesnât really have a lot of other options, and he sets her up to keep tabs on (and be unpleasant to) little Harry. He also has her lie to the entire Wizangamot, which has got to present some risk. Within this framework, Snape is another very clear stray. Dumbledore kept him out of Azkaban, and is the only reason that the Order trusts him. He gets sent on on dangerous double-agent missions⌠but before that heâs sort of kept on hand, even though heâs clearly miserable at Hogwarts. Firenze is definitely a stray - he can't go back to the centaurs, and who other than Dumbledore is going to hire him? And I do wonder about Trelawney. We donât know much about her relationship with Dumbledore, but I wouldnât be at all surprised if she was a stray as well.
I think there was an attempt to turn Lupin into a stray that didnât⌠quite work. He is clearly grateful to Dumbledore for letting him attend Hogwarts and then for hiring him, but Lupin doesnât really hit that necessary level of trustworthy that the others do. Most of what Dumbledore doesnât know in Book 3 are things that Lupin could have told him, and didnât. If had to think of a Watsonsian reason why Remus is given all these solo missions away from the other Order members (that never end up matteringâŚ) itâs because I donât think Dumbledore trusts him that much. Lupin doubts him too much.Â
âDumbledore believed that?â said Lupin incredulously. âDumbledore believed Snape was sorry James was dead? Snape hated James. . . .â
 We also see Dumbledore start the process of making Draco into a stray by promising to protect him and his parents. And with all of that⌠itâs kind of easy to see how Harry fits the profile. He has a very bleak existence (which Dumbledore knows about.) He is pulled out of it by Dumbledoreâs proxies. Itâs not surprising that Harry develops a Hagrid-level loyalty, especially after Dumbledore saves him from Barty, from his Ministry hearing, and then from Voldemort. Harry walks to his death because Dumbledore told him too.Â
Just to be clear, I donât think this pattern is deliberate. I think this is a side effect of JKR wanting to write Dumbledore as a nice guy, and specifically as a protector of the little guy. But Dumbledore doing that while also being so powerful creates a weird power dynamic, gives him a weird edit. Itâs part of the reason people are happy to go one step farther and say that the Dursleys were mean to Harry⌠because Dumbledore actively wanted it that way. I donât think thatâs true. I think Dumbledore loves his strays and if anything, the text supports the idea that he is collecting good people, because protecting them and observing them serves some psychological function for him. Dumbledore does not believe himself to be an intrinsically good person, or trustworthy when it comes to power. So, of course someone like that would be fascinated by how powerless people operate in the world, and by people like Hagrid and Lupin and Harry, who seems so intrinsically good.Â
PART VI - Dumbledore and Grindelwald
âI was in love with you.âÂ
I honestly see â17-year-old Dumbledore was enamored with Grindelwaldâ as a smokescreen distracting from the actual moral grayness of the guy. He wrote some edgy letters when he was a teenager, at least partly because he thought his neighbor was hot. He thought he could move Ariana, but couldnât - which led to the chaotic three-way duel that killed her.Â
One thing I think J. K. Rowling does understand pretty well, and introduces into her books on purpose, is the concept of re-traumatization. Sirius in Book 5 is very obviously being re-traumatized by being in his childhood home and hearing the portrait of his mother screaming. Itâs why he acts out, regresses, and does a number of unadvisable things. I think itâs also deliberate that Petuniaâs unpleasant childhood is basically being re-created: her normal son next to her sisterâs magical son. It's making her worse, or at the very least preventing her from getting better. We learn that Petunia has this sublimated interest in the magical world, and can even pull out vocab like âAzkabanâ and âDementorâ when she needs to. Â She wrote Dumbledore asking to go to Hogwarts, and I could see that in a universe where Petunia didnât have to literally raise Harry, she wouldnât be as psychotically into normalness, cleanliness, and order as she is when we meet her in the books. After all, JKR doesnât like to write evil mothers. She will be bend over backwards so her mothers are never really framed as bad.
And I honestly think itâs possible that J. K. Rowling was playing with the concept of re-traumatiziation when she was fleshing out Dumbledore in Book 7. We learn all this backstory, that⌠honestly isnât super necessary? All Iâm saying is that the three-way duel at the top of the Astronomy Tower lines up really well with the three-way duel that killed Ariana. Harry is Ariana, helpless in the middle. Draco is Aberforth, well intentioned and protective of his family - but kind of useless, and kind of a liability. Severus is Grindelwald, dark and brilliant, and one of the closest relationships Dumbledore has. If this was intentional, it was probably only for reasons of narrative symmetry⌠but I think it's cool in a Gus Fring of Breaking Bad sort of way, that Dumbledore (either consciously or unconsciously) has been trying to re-create this one horrible moment in his life where he felt entirely out of control. But the second time it plays out⌠he can give it what he sees as the correct outcome. Grindelwald kills him and everyone else lives. That is how you solve the puzzle.
If you read between the lines, Dumbledore/Grindelwald is a fascinating love story. I like the detail that after Arianaâs death, Dumbledore returns to Hogwarts because itâs a place to hide and because he doesnât feel like he can be trusted with power. I like that he sits there, refusing promotions, refusing requests to be the new Minister of Magic, refusing to go deal with the growing Grindelwald threat until he absolutely canât hide anymore, at which point he defeats him (somehow.) I like reading his elaborate plan to break Elder Wandâs power as both a screw-you Grindelwald, the wandâs previous master, but also as a weirdly romantic gesture. In Albus Dumbledoreâs mind, there is only Grindelwald. Voldemort canât even begin to compare. I like the detail that Grindelwald wonât give up Dumbledore, even under torture. And, Dumbledore doesnât put him in Azkaban. He put him in this other separate prison, which always makes it seem like heâs there under Dumbledore authority specifically. Maybe Dumbledore thinks that if he had died that day instead of ArianaâŚhe wouldnât have had to spend the rest of his life fighting and imprisoning the man he loves.
And then of course, Crimes of Grindelwald decided to take away Dumbledore's greatest weakness and say that no, actually he was a really good guy who never did anything wrong ever. He went all that time without fighting Grindelwald because they made a magical friendship no-fight bracelet. Dumbledore is randomly grabbing Lupinâs iconography (his fashion sense, his lesson plans, his job) in order to feel more soft and gentle than the person the books have created. Now Dumbledore knows about the Room Requirement, even though in the books itâs a plot point that he's too much of a goody-two-shoes to have ever found it himself. He loved Grindelwald (past tense.) And Secrets of Dumbledore is mostly about him being an omniscient mastermind so that a magical deer can tell him that he was a super good and worthy guy, and any doubt that heâs ever felt about himself is just objectively wrong and incorrect. Also now Aberforth has a neglected son, so heâs reframed as a bit of a hypocrite for getting on his brotherâs case for not protecting Harry.Â
So to summarize, I think Dumbledore began the series as this very eccentric, unpredictable mentor, whose abilities took a hit in Books 3 and 4 in order to make the plot happen. He teetered on the edge of a âdarkâ framing for like a second⌠but at the the end of the series he's written as basically infallible and godlike. Iâve heard people say that JKRâs increased fame was the reason she added the Rita Skeeter plot line, and I donât think thatâs true. But I do think her fame may have affected the way she wrote Dumbledore. Because Dumbledore is JKRâs comment on power, and by Book 5 she had so much power. In her head, I donât think that Dumbledore is handing off jobs in a manipulative way. She sees him as empowering other less powerful people. That is his job as someone in power (because remember - people who desire power shouldn't wield it.)
Dumbledoreâs power makes him emotionally disconnected from the people in his life, it makes him disliked and distrusted by the Ministry, but it doesnât make him wrong. Thatâs important. Dumbledore is never wrong. Dumbledore is always good. Thatâs why we get the Blood Pact that means he was never weak or procrastinating. Thatâs why we get the qilin saying he was a good person. Itâs why we get the tragic backstory (because giving Snape a tragic backstory worked wonders when it came to rehabilitating him.) And that is why Harry names his son Albus Severus in the epilogue, to make us readers absolutely crystal clear that these two are good men.Â
#hp#jkr critical#albus dumbldore#albus dumbledore meta#harry james potter#the dursleys#gellert grindelwald#albus x gellert#anti jkr#minerva mcgonagall#petunia dursley#severus snape#draco malfoy#close reading#hp fandom#literary analysis
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Hi! Could you tell me your top 5 least favorite Harry Potter characters and why?
My 5 most hated characters in Harry Potter are:
5 - Molly Weasley: I canât stand this woman. I canât stand how she acts like a morally superior, pure-blood yet holds endless prejudices, especially (and mostly) toward other, younger women. I donât like her tradwife vibe, and I donât like how overbearing and suffocating she is. Seriously, in real life, Iâd feel the urge to tell her offâsheâs that typical annoying woman who doesnât know where the boundaries are.
4 - Remus Lupin: Zero sympathy for a man almost forty who got a 24-year-old girl pregnant and then abandoned her. Remus Lupin is a coward and a piece of trash, a bullying accomplice who keeps his head down regarding his own actions and needs a 17-year-old to teach him a lesson in manhood. I really wish Tonks had left him and taken off with Teddy to get as far away as possible from that pathetic excuse for a person.
3 - Dumbledore: Starting with the fact that the entire problem of the story basically stems from his irresponsibility with Tom Riddle, which already showed that he was a terrible teacher. He only shows concern for students who can serve his purposes or suck up to him, and his involvement throughout the story shows a moral stance I find nauseating. I mean, heâs a guy who has the nerve to lecture his former students who âchose the wrong path,â but when those same students were under his care, he constantly neglected and rejected them just because they didnât belong to a certain house. He had the audacity to call Severus Snape âmiserableâ when it was Dumbledore himself who allowed Snape to be bullied and almost killed without lifting a finger to stop it or punish the bullies. This same Dumbledore scolds Draco Malfoy for not trusting him when from Dracoâs first day at Hogwarts, all he saw from the old man was favoritism toward a certain house and certain students, completely ignoring the rest. Honestly, Iâd have banned him from teaching. Thereâs a lot said about Snape as a teacher, but Dumbledore was responsible for everything, allowed terrible things to happen, and turned his back on many vulnerable children and teenagers. Then he acted all surprised when they ended up in bad places. Screw him, hypocritical old man.
2 - Ginny Weasley: The âIâm not like other girls,â the âshut up, Hermione, you donât know anything about Quidditch,â the âeveryone look at me, I hex people, Iâm one of the boys, Iâm not vain but Iâm hot, but Iâm not prissy,â the âI make fun of girls who are pretty, flirty, and feminine because Iâm a textbook pick-me girlâ who is shoved into the end of the series. Sheâs a character who didnât matter at all throughout the story; sheâs barely mentioned in some books, but suddenly sheâs Harryâs love interest because J.K. Rowling needed all her characters to end up married with 468749284 kids, and Harry needed to be part of the Weasley family. So, they had to do something. Ginny is a terrible character, going from irrelevant to some sort of Mary Sue who even the Slytherins drool over and who, of course, is not a âtypical girlâ because being a âtypical girlâ in Rowlingâs world is somehow the original sin. So, sheâs great at sports, hexes people, pulls pranks because sheâs so cool, uh uh uh, sheâs not like the others, uh uh uh, but she has internalized misogyny that you can smell from here to China. Honestly, someone should have slapped her for being so damn stupid.
1 - James Potter: Thereâs nothing I havenât already said about James Potter. Heâs a character who really grinds my gears because they try to sell him as some kind of hero, but he was just a spoiled rich kid who decided to torment a poor, vulnerable boy simply because that boy was friends with his crush. He used his social power and status to get away with all the crap he pulled, attacked in groups, lied to his girlfriend saying heâd stopped bullying people when he really hadnât, and when he was supposed to be locked up in a house with his wife and son, he was off fooling around with his best friend. James Potter was an ass, and defending him is defending classism, elitism, and whitewashing social classes. Iâm not going to explain why.
#molly weasley#remus lupin#albus dumbledore#ginny weasley#ginny potter#james potter#harry potter#harry potter meta#harry potter critical#harry potter analysis#severus snape#draco malfoy#tom riddle#voldemort
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Iâve just recently started reading Snape: The Definitive Analysis of Hogwartsâs Mysterious Potions Master by Lorrie Kim, and Iâm really enjoying it so far! Itâs offering some great insights into Snapeâs character.
While looking into more character analyses, I came across Dumbledore: The Life and Lies of Hogwartsâ Renowned Headmaster by Irvin Khaytman. For those whoâve read it, is it worth checking out?
#I thinking of ordering it but Iâm scared itâll suck#character analysis#books#severus snape#albus dumbledore#pro snape#pro dumbledore#Lorrie Kim#Irvin Khaytman
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Reminder that Hagrid was just 13 years old when Riddle framed him and got him expelled. A 13 years old boy with a good heart that was already facing major discrimination from the Wizarding World.
Like out of all the things Riddle could have done in that situations he chose to target an already discrimated younger student.
Hagrid whose mother left him when he was 3. Hagrid whose father died when he was 12. Hagrid who by all means was also an orphan.
If not for Albusâs kind heart and good nature, who put his effort into making Hagrid the groundskeeper and allowing him to stay at Hogwarts, Hagrid would have nowhere to go, nobody to look for, no future due to his expulsion and half-gigantism and no ability to manage a life on his own.
#harry potter#hp fandom#hp#harry potter blog#hp blog#fandom culture#fandom things#hp analysis#rubeus hagrid#hagrid#tom riddle#tom riddle jr#voldemort#pro albus dumbledore#albus dumbledore
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âI donât think Snapeâs redemption arc was goodâ. Thatâs because it didnât happen. No, Iâm serious, Snape didnât have a redemption arc in the books. His redemption happened literally before the first book. We only hear about it, but we donât see it, because itâs not relevant. What is relevant, is the knowledge that he is on Harryâs side. The Princeâs Tale was not a redemption, it was a reveal. In the Princeâs Tale itâs revealed that Snape has redeemed himself, itâs revealed that he is on Harryâs side. We're not shown his redemption arc, we're shown why we - or more specifically, why Harry - should believe that he is on his side. Do you really think Snape cares if people think heâs good? He doesnât care about being redeemed in Harryâs or anyoneâs eyes, all he cares about is that Harry believes him. Thatâs why weâre shown Lilyâs and his relationship, so we understand what motivates him in the most raw, and bare level. Even if Harry doesnât believe that heâs good, heâll understand that Snape would do anything for Lily, and therefore anything to protect Harry. Weâre shown him and Dumbledore, so weâll know that he is following Dumbledoreâs orders and that Dumbledore trusts him. Again, Harry doesnât have to think that Snape is good, he just needs to trust that heâs following Dumbledoreâs orders.
Itâs not a redemption, itâs a reveal.
#severus snape#harry potter#lily evans#pro severus snape#professor snape#harry potter analysis#snapes not just gonna tell harry âhey you should go and let voldemort kill you dumbledore thinks its a good idea'#he needs to prove harry that he can be trusted#severus snape is a mystery#his character is a question of âwhoâs side is he on"#and the answer is; harry's
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what do u think of the portrayal of harry and ginny in the cursed child (i feel like it's so out of character, especially for harry) also that he works at the ministry and that ginny gave up her quidditch career (same goes for harry)
alright ive had this in my inbox for so long because i wanted to do this ask justice so i really hope that anon is still around to read this. in saying that harry was âout of characterâ in hpcc, i assume youâre talking about how he was a bad/flawed father, as MANY fans have argued the same. so i will address that first and then i will talk about ginny and hinnyâs careers.
disclaimer: when i say âyouâ im not talking specifically about anon but about fandom.
harry potter vs fatherhood
harryâs whole life resolved around being the chosen one and the prophesied saviour of the wizarding world. it was either being The Hero or being the unwanted, abused and scorned freak living with the dursleys. when thats your home life, then you tend to cling on to anything that is an escape from thatâ and in harryâs experience that was hogwarts.
if you really think about it, hogwarts was very nasty to harry as well. he was always getting picked on or bullied or in some life threatening danger that he got blamed for half of the timeâ but because it was better than living with the dursleys, his mind idolised it as a safe haven.
harry also reflects this idolising behaviour onto parental figures, especially paternal figures. he doesnt actually know his parents, only has an ideal of them in his head that was constructed as a coping mechanism to the abuse and neglect he went through at home. he projects The Perfect Father onto every one of his paternal figures (i think the only exception to this is arthur but i mayyy be wrong)â sirius and dumbledore are the biggest ones that come to mind, even though sirius only knew him for two years, and dumbledore would manipulate and use harry for the betterment of the world, which is unlike a parent who would put their childâs needs first (harry did not recognise these issues at length at the time as he was used to the idea of self sacrifice and probs understood that it came with the territory of being The Hero). harry even projected his father onto himself in PoA and nearly died from it.
in saying this, its reasonable to argue that thereâs a disconnect with harry and the idea of what a good father actually is. this is challenged in the books itself (with SWM, harry seeing that james was not the Perfect Man he built up in his head), but this is challenged the most in the cursed child.
throughout the play, harry acts as the personified ideal he grew up with. easygoing, confident, wiseâ when in reality he is the opposite of those attributes and albus can see right through it (ginny says this to harry in the play, i would find the line but alas, im on the train rn). hes not easygoing or confidentâ heâs fearful that he doesnât know what hes doing or how to be a father, and hes scared not knowing makes him a bad father. hes acted out in fear multiple timesâ the biggest moment is when he bans albus from seeing scorpius to keep him âsafe.â he has constant nightmares about his trauma as a child when living with the dursleys and not having the stability or love he craved. his âwiseâ advice is not applicable to his children because he is harry potter, The Hero, and they are just normal kids. this is why albus and harry get on each others nerves so badlyâ because they are constantly stomping on each others sore spots by accident. albus doesnât appreciate the facade that harry tries to uphold, and harry doesnât understand whyâ because heâs projecting that ideal onto all of his kids, and if it works for james and lily (presumably), why doesnât it work for albus? harry wouldâve done anything for a father figure like himself!! there must be something wrong with albus!! (đ)
now The Blanket SceneTM is very controversial and pissed off a lot of longtime fans into denouncing the entire play as canon. ive talked about it at length and since theres more to discuss in this post, i will shorten it down as best i can for you:
as a way of bonding, harry tries to give his precious blanket to albus. he believes albus may be more like him and may be able to understand the sacredness of the present unlike his siblings.
unknowingly, harry is still projecting his ideals onto albus. the blanket is only so extremely precious to him because it represents his parents, who he still views in an idolised light. therefore the blanket is the ideal.
albus scorns this ideal so he scorns the gift. however, because hes a confused and possibly depressed fourteen year old, he doesnât communicate the rejection of this in a healthy way and basically insults the blanket by calling it old and mouldy and comparing it to james and lilyâs presents, which outwardly could make him seem like a brat.
by attacking the blanket, he attacks harryâs parents and the ideal. and harry is very sensitive about this
albus then accidentally triggers very central fears surrounding being an orphan and being a father when he says âi wish you werent my dadâ
harrys first thought is that albus wants him dead. at this point, hes stopped listening to albus trying to explain himself as heâs already triggered, so heâs acting in complete defence when he responds âsometimes i wish you werent my sonâ
this was said with the intention to hurt albus, it was a mindless act with one goal. saying this is out of character for harry is ridiculous, because heâs done the exact same thing in the books multiple times to the people he loves.
another important note: these characters trigger each other accidentally. the intent to connect is there, but there are deep seated issues on harryâs side that was never confronted leading to these issues. and as albus is a young angsty teen who does get bullied and is a little self-centred (again, very normal for a 14yo), he canât really communicate these issues to harry effectively (harry being dismissive of the bullying (that he believes is normal for hogwarts students) albus goes through doesnât help the situation either), leaving harry stumbling in the dark and further emboldening that The Perfect Father he imagined as a child may not exist.
ok that wasnt very economical but anyways! those are the issues! what happens next is harry spiralling and confirming those fears, being forced to confront them and deal with them, and then the steps toward healing his relationship with albus.
im not defending how harry treated albus (dismissing his bullying, lashing out, the enmeshment abuse) but offering insight and trying to explain that he was certainly in-character. i think people simply had an emotional reaction to seeing their loved character being very realistically flawed, and decided they didnt like it without doing much analysis as to why harry was acting the way he was. trauma is very complex, and theres no expiry date for it if you simply refuse to confront it or heal.
a lot of harryâs journey with interrogating the Perfect Father concept was to confront and acknowledge his inner child. he has to recognise his childhood for the childhood it was without the flashy titles or impressed ideals. the confrontation with dumbledore is the pinnacle of itâ harry idolised dumbledore as a central father figure, and he realised when confronting the portrait that his relationship with dumbledore was much more complex and nuanced than he originally thought. suddenly dumbledore ceases to be an ideal, and harry sees him for the man that he was: conflicted, more uncertain in his own choices than he let on, heartbroken and self-sabotaging.
when harry presents himself at the end of the play to albus, he presents himself as humanâ an escapist, unsure in his decisions, insecure, and scared of the dark, small spaces and pigeons. and albus appreciates the flawed, real version of harry. those expectations and ideals that albus struggled to uphold in the face of harryâs projecting simply disappear, and he finally feels like he can adequately be harryâs son just by being.
another less obvious moment that shows this, is how harry and delphi mirror each other. delphi is the more extreme version of thisâ she is completely deluded in her worship for a father she never knew, so desperate for the love and respect shes built up in her mind that sheâs dedicated her life to it and feels empty without the ideal to go off of. its why harry defends her when albus asks him why they shouldnât just kill herâ because hes the only one who understands the pain of being an orphan, living in an abusive household, dreams of âwhat ifsâ and what it can do to a person.
whats important to take away is that harry and albus love each other immensely, which is why they are able to turn over a new leaf at the end. it speaks of incredible strength on albusâ half, and i really want to stress that albus LOVES harry, because i see so much content about him straight up butchering or slandering harry when that is sooo not them!! if albus saw the way some of yall were misinterpreting his relationship with his dad heâd be livid. whether or not you would do the same in forgiving harry is irrelevantâ albus has always wanted to have a good relationship with harry and the same goes both ways. people hurt each other, sometimes egregiously so, but when one promises change and is serious about it, than chances are there will be change. this is especially so in the case of family.
ginny weasley vs age
what is paradoxical is how self-centred harry is, despite also being very willing to sacrifice himself for other people. albus possesses a self-centredness similar to him. harry is so caught up in his own world and comparing it to albusâ situation, and vice versa. ginny is normally the middle man who can see both harry and albus for what they are and the individual worlds they inhabit, and tries to communicate effectively between them. the play mostly revolves around harry and albus, so what iâll have to say for her will not be as in-depth.
short answer: ginny matured with age. she is probably the most mature character alongside draco, although draco does let his emotions get in the way at times (funnily enough i think this is why ginny and draco get along so well in the cursed child and are able to recognise each other for who they are). she was very brash and courageous and wonderfully chaotic in the books, but she was also blunt and impatient, which is not something thats presented in the cursed child. instead, she is VERY patient and communicates extremely well, being able to navigate both harry and albus without prodding their weak spots like they do to each other.
she offers her own experiences to albus as her own experiences, not projecting them onto him as an unequivocal truth. this can be seen in how she opens up to him about how she was exploited by tom riddle, and she lets albus draw his own comparisons to himself and delphi without pushing his experiences into a box.
her relationship with harry is interesting, because she is the only one who sees him for him and the only one that harryâs not bothered by when she makes honest judgments on his actions. heâs only okay with her seeing him for the flawed man he is. she doesnât make him feel defensive, nor does she make him feel demonised for not knowing how to parent albus, or for messing up with him (though she does call him out when he is in the wrong, something her younger self would be quick to do too). one of the most heart wrenching scenes is when ginny blows up at harry and really screams at him about albus being missing and him being self-centred about it, making it out to be about himself and his issues surrounding fatherhood. despite this, harry does not get defensiveâ which shows that he trusts even her negative judgments of him because she knows him so well (very very similar to the library scene with scorpius screaming at albus over his self-centeredness as well btw).
she still possesses key qualities from her younger self, sheâs just ironed out the rougher ones as sheâs grownâ sheâs still impossibly brave, fiercely loyal, extremely devoted to those she loves and also very logical. you can tell harry and albus are more emotional than she is, which is part of the reason why she is able to construct her points so effectively. she puts her logical thinking to good use in emotional situations. i think people are forgetting that people arenât typically going to be the same as who they were as teenagers.
why has ginny been able to grow so much in comparison to harry? because sheâs recognised what she went through as a teenager and made peace with it. you can see it in the way she freely offers her own experiences about it. sheâs been able to build on top of what she went through in a healthy way, and was able to experience real, healthy change. and she is so much wiser and kinder for it.
hinny vs their careers
first iâll talk about harry because i think i have more stuff to go off of with him.
weâve already established that hes The Hero first and foremost. after he fulfilled the prophecy and saved the world i dont think its such a stretch to argue that he may have needed another similar purpose to latch onto, and that being an auror granted him that. quidditch was fun for him, but it couldnât give him the same purchase that being an auror could. heroes dont play quidditch, they save the world. the same could be said for neville and ron, who were also aurors at first. was it the healthiest road to go down for harry? i dont think so, but considering his characterisation in the cursed child, i think it works. ron ended up quitting to be a father, neville ended up quitting to focus on his real passion (herbology), and harry continued to cling onto The Hero image heâs used to presenting. yes, the ministry was impossibly corrupt and worked against him in his youth, but to harry that couldâve served as more of a reason to change the institution from the inside. this, i imagine, was most definitely the case with hermione, who was always an idealist.
that being said, i donât think continuing being an auror is such a great idea post-hpcc. he at least needs a break in order to continue his job in a healthy manner and not misconstrue his identity with it.
in terms of ginny, i donât believe sheâd still be playing quidditch in her 40s. if you think about real athletes, very few of them continue playing professionally in their 40s (i think the average age is 34 but i may be wrong), especially after birthing three kids. we dont know much about her retirement, but there are many reasons one can assume ginny retired for, kids and/or age being the most reasonable deduction. its not so much a question of characterisation but more about the reality of having to give up your passion earlier than most if its sports.
despite retiring, its clear ginny is still very passionate about quidditch as shes still working within the field, just not playing the sport professionally anymore.
#this took hours to write omg free me#expect typos bcuz my fingers started clamping up halfway#harry potter and the cursed child#harry potter#hp#hpcc#cursed child#ginny weasley#hinny#ginny potter#albus severus potter#albus dumbledore#scorpius malfoy#voldemort#james potter#lily evans#lily potter#draco malfoy#tom riddle#ron weasley#hermione granger#neville longbottom#hp golden era#hp nextgen#ccsquad#character analysis#rewriting#ask#anon#i apparently have a phd in defending hpcc harry im tired of the baseless slander đ
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The more I think about it the more I'm confused about Snape's so called "redemption arc":
We don't know much about his years at Hogwarts outside of the time James hanged him from his underwear and he called Lily a Mudblood, but we know that:
1. He had a disdain for Muggles ever since he was born or at least ever since he was 10 y/o bc that's when he meets Lily and Petunia and treats the latter like garbage.
2. He was friends with Mulciber and Avery- known death eaters, especially Mulciber who we know was particularly close with Baldy due to the time he came to Hogsmede with him for his job interview with dummydore.
From that we can assume that he was a witness and a participant in A Lot of hate crimes against Muggle Borns ever since he was a minor. One of which was the time Mary was the victim.
3. We know HE invented the spell James used to hang him from his panties, which must mean that he used it against others, probably muggle borns, and his DE friends must've used it as well.
4. We know he invented the spell Sectumsempra to use against his enemies?? (Sorry it's been a while since I read the books I don't remember the exact quote.) and his enemies are almost certainly the Marauders. Also maybe his dad but that's a discussion for another day.
5. We know he was one of Baldy's dearest death eaters, even tho he was a Half-Blood with no status and no connections, which means he definitely did a lot of horrific things to Muggles and Muggle borns and the members of the Order of Phoenix.
6. We know he heard Trelawney's prophesy after eavesdropping in a bar, and immediately ran to Baldy with it. He knew that by telling Baldy about the prophecy an innocent baby will be killed, and he didn't give a shit. I cannot stress enough how much that information in vital for his character. Taking a baby's life so that Baldy might give him a sit closer to him by the table. And nothing would've happened to him if he shut his mouth and didn't go to Baldy. He didn't have his life or even his status\loyalty on the line. He just sacrificed this anonymous innocent baby for kicks and giggles.
7. The only point in which he cared about his actions was when Lily's life was on the line. This wanker really didn't care that he just gave Baldy (a man who made it his life' mission to kill Lily and the likes of her) a reason to kill Lily's son and husband, who were practically her only source of joy while she fought against his people in the war. He just wanted the girl he slurred and stalked and mistreated in high-school to live with all her friends and family dead. And thought he was doing something good. I don't even know how to begin to describe how fucked up that is.
8. He went to Dummydore and asked him to save her. After he got her, her husband and her kid to be under an even worse constant death threat than they were before because of Lily's blood status and their participant in the order. And after he spent the last 3-4 years killing Lilyâs friends and the people who share her blood status.
9. That was also the point in which he offered himself to be a double spy right?? Again real heroic of him to risk his life after all the shit he did because he was in love with a girl whose life he ruined. He never cared about all the shit he did and all the people he murdered and he never actually wanted to help innocent people or do good by the world or even by Lily.
10. After Baldy died for the first time and the first war ended, Harry had nobody left, and Dummydore put him with Petunia and Vernon. Snape knew better than anyone else what the Dursleys will do to Harry. He knew everything, and he didn't do shit. Not only did he not do shit, but he also made things worse for Harry by bullying and harassing him since the moment he stepped foot in the castle.
11. Extending on the last point- Snape bullied, harassed, abused, mistreated and discriminated against students at Hogwarts ever since he started teaching there, I'm not gonna start elaborating on all the times he did those things because that would take a different essay of similar length.
12. If Voldemort chose to go after Neville instead of Harry, Snape would live and die as the most loyal Death Eater ever
So to conclude: am I really expected to forgive him because he loved Lily and had a hard time with James when they were 16 and he spied for Dummydore for a bit?? Being a loser in middle school and then becoming a double spy doesnât make up for⌠anything. Especially since he never stopped being a terrible person.
#stan bambi#Stan Lily Evans#Snape slander#redemption arc#marauders era#first Wizarding war#severus snape#Harry Potter#Slytherin#Snape hate#death eaters#character analysis#stan james potter#order of phoenix#Voldemort#Dumbledore
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I donât want it to seem like Iâm trying to be hateful towards you. I donât think itâs fair to blame James for his and Lilyâs death: whole victim blaming isnât right. Voldemort was winning the war and the walls were closing in. Peter wasnât just some friend - and it wasnât only Peter that James was trusting. Lily and Sirius agree to Peter. Sirius was the one who came up with the plan. I feel like that goes beyond James and his moral views. His brother and wife also agree to Peter, wouldnât that greatly impact Jamesâs opinion? Yes, Remus, years after and harden by grief, thinks James was too blind, but again, Peter is wasnât just some person - he had earned their trust, kept their secrets, and fought alongside them. I understand James had his flaws and Iâm not denying them, but it wasnât arrogance or black and white thinking that brought James down - love did. He loved Sirius and Peter.
this is about this post.
hi okay, i don't take this as hate lol, i am a bit frustrated bc i almost put a qualifier like "(of course their deaths are the fascists' fault)" but it felt unnecessary.
the idea of james' trust being a reason his family dies is thematically interesting to me. dumbledore's fatal flaw (fatal for a bunch of people, not just him) is not trusting people. he thinks lily and james trusted the wrong person. and they did.
but if just a few more people had known about the plan sirius never would have gone to azkaban. maybe peter would've been too afraid to go through with turning them over to voldy. so there's a narrative tension between trusting too much and not trusting enough. dumbledore is egotistical and should have created a more cooperative resistance rather than being the ultimate head.
i very much reject the idea that love brought james and lily down. again, this is bc it weakens the narrative. i really stand by:
his high self-regard and his loyalty meant he couldn't fathom someone he considered a best friend betraying him. if he sees someone as good, they must be good. he'd never been wrong before!
i have a lot to say about james potter and black & white thinking that's in drafts, so that's for another time.
the responsibility for james, lily, and harry's deaths falls on voldemort, peter, and arguably dumbledore. jily shouldn't have been having to make choices to save themselves from being murdered!!! however, that doesn't mean james and lily's choices had no impact.
giving james flaws that are normal, human flaws and relating them to his canon positive traits (trust & loyalty) and then seeing how the mix of those traits contributes to his and lily's death is interesting. it is complex and tragic, because no one is perfect, and that shouldn't be a death sentence.
i hc that james struggled a lot with how to be a husband and father since (in my hc) his dad died before he and lily married. i imagine that, as a man in the 70s, he feels like it's his job to protect his family (he doesn't think lily is weaker but damn these gender roles have hands) and not being able to do so bc his wife is in a group that is being genocided and they're both fighting a war eats him up
so i do imagine him making the call. he knows peter better than lily does, and sirius obviously doesn't get final say. so james makes the call that results in their deaths, and sirius comes up with the idea that results in their deaths, and lily is passive and allows these "wrong" choices.
this isn't a fair way of putting it, but it's how each character sees themselves. this isn't a real-world cause and effect, it's exploring themes present in the og books thru character analysis and hc
i talk fairly often about the DE being fascists so honestly i don't think i need to qualify my posts with "of course the DE are the villains and the order are just trying their damnedest"
#m#ask#Anonymous#james potter#analysis#text#albus dumbledore#like i fucking love james tbh sirius black has been my fave since age 10 so of course i love james potter
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I want to read more posts about the similarities between tom riddle/voldemort and harryâŚ
I mean:
1-both dark haired and light eyes
2-both are carbon copies of their fathers
3- only parseltounges to walk hogwarts (except for Salazar)
4-half-bloods
5-orphans
6-grew up in environments they hated and saw hogwarts as their true home
7-phoenix feather wands
8-Harry has Voldemortâs soul in him, Voldemort has Harryâs blood
9-Tom riddle recruited his original group when he was 15/16, Harry did the same with recruiting ppl in his 5th year
10-had a streak of knowing how to get ppl to actually follow and listen to them (Harryâs awkwardness is only his inner thoughts not what ppl see and hear) theyâre natural leaders
11-both their âfollowersâ were personally taught by them
12-could easily cast dark spells
And probably more that I forgot, but I find their similarities so intriguing đ¤
#what do you guys think?#these are the similarities that I could think off the top of my head#Iâm sure thereâs more#do u think the only thing that made the big difference is Harryâs ability to love?#if Harry didnât have it in him to love as strongly as he does would he have turned into a dark wizard as well??#would âdumbledoreâs armyâ be a darker group made by Harry?#harry james potter#tom riddle#voldemort#harry potter#character analysis
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Unweaving Canon Lily Evans: Parallels to Voldemort
To illuminate what JKR was doing with this dynamic, alongside several other dynamics across the text, and how she wove in Lily as Voldemort's symbolic sister the same way Voldemort and Harry are "brothers", see my metas âAnd Cain Repented Not Of What He Had Doneâ: Harry Potter As Retelling of Cain and Abel, and Lily and Harry as Voldemortâs Mirror of Erised.
*Note: not necessarily accepting the narrative's (or Dumbledore's) exact judgments in all these quotes (i.e. reactions to very different childhoods, etc.; but working with the general concept of them as foils and choosing different paths, which is relevant wrt Lilyâs experience of violence at and post Hogwarts during the war). Further fic recs, and notes on characterization are at the end. Much of this is to be elaborated in future metas, so excuse some of the loose threads here.
1. Muggleborn
Harry turned to the back cover of the book and saw the printed name of a variety store on Vauxhall Road, London. "He mustâve been Muggle-born," said Harry thoughtfully. "To have bought a diary from Vauxhall Road..." âYou live in a Muggle orphanage during the holidays, I believe?â said Dippet curiously. âYes, sir,â said Riddle, reddening slightly. âYou are Muggle-born?â âHalf-blood, sir,â said Riddle. âMuggle father, witch mother.â "No one knows why you lost your powers when you attacked me," said Harry abruptly. "I donât know myself. But I know why you couldnât kill me. Because my mother died to save me. My common Muggle-born mother," he added, shaking with suppressed rage. "She stopped you killing me." (CoS) - âI am here, as I told you in my letter, to discuss Tom Riddle and arrangements for his future,â said Dumbledore. âAre you family?â asked Mrs. Cole. âNo, I am a teacher,â said Dumbledore. âI have come to offer Tom a place at my school.â (HBP) âAnd will it really come by owl?â Lily whispered. âNormally,â said Snape. âBut youâre Muggle-born, so someone from the school will have to come and explain to your parents.â âDoes it make a difference, being Muggle-born?â (DH) - âThere he showed his contempt for anything that tied him to other people, anything that made him ordinary. Even then, he wished to be different, separate, notorious. He shed his name, as you know, within a few short years of that conversation and created the mask of âLord Voldemortâ behind which he has been hidden for so long." (HBP) âI canât pretend anymore. Youâve chosen your way, Iâve chosen mine.â âNo â listen, I didnât mean ââ ââ to call me Mudblood? But you call everyone of my birth Mudblood, Severus. Why should I be any different?â He struggled on the verge of speech, but with a contemptuous look she turned and climbed back through the portrait hole... (DH)
2. Magic
2.1 Controlling wandless magic before they knew about magic
âItâs... itâs magic, what I can do?â âWhat is it that you can do?â âAll sorts,â breathed Riddle. A flush of excitement was rising up his neck into his hollow cheeks; he looked fevered. âI can make things move without touching them. I can make animals do what I want them to do, without training them. I can make bad things happen to people who annoy me. I can make them hurt if I want to.â His legs were trembling. He stumbled forward and sat down on the bed again, staring at his hands, his head bowed as though in prayer. âI knew I was different,â he whispered to his own quivering fingers. âI knew I was special. Always, I knew there was something.â âWell, you were quite right,â said Dumbledore, who was no longer smiling, but watching Riddle intently. âYou are a wizard.â Riddle lifted his head. His face was transfigured: There was a wild happiness upon it [...] âHis powers, as you heard, were surprisingly well-developed for such a young wizard and â most interestingly and ominously of all â he had already discovered that he had some measure of control over them, and begun to use them consciously. And as you saw, they were not the random experiments typical of young wizards: He was already using magic against other people, to frighten, to punish, to control.â (HBP) - âBut Iâm fine,â said Lily, still giggling. âTuney, look at this. Watch what I can do.â [...] Lily had picked up a fallen flower from the bush behind which Snape lurked. Petunia advanced, evidently torn between curiosity and disapproval. Lily waited until Petunia was near enough to have a clear view, then held out her palm. The flower sat there, opening and closing its petals, like some bizarre, many-lipped oyster. âStop it!â shrieked Petunia. âItâs not hurting you,â said Lily, but she closed her hand on the blossom and threw it back to the ground. âItâs not right,â said Petunia, but her eyes had followed the flowerâs flight to the ground and lingered upon it. âYouâve got loads of magic,â said Snape. âI saw that. All the time I was watching you..." (DH)
2.2 Unsupported flight
Voldemort was flying like smoke on the wind, without broomstick or thestral to hold him, his snakelike face gleaming out of the blackness â He was gliding around the high walls of the black fortress â No, he was Harry, tied up and wandless, in grave danger â â looking up, up to the topmost window, the highest tower â He was Harry, and they were discussing his fate in low voices â â Time to fly... [...] â and he rose into the night, flying straight up to the window at the very top of the tower â [...] â as he forced himself through the slit of a window like a snake and landed, lightly as vapor, inside the cell-like room â A metal heart was banging outside his chest, and now he was flying, flying with triumph in his heart, without need of broomstick or thestral (DH) - There was undisguised greed in his thin face as he watched the younger of the two girls swinging higher and higher than her sister. âLily, donât do it!â shrieked the elder of the two. But the girl had let go of the swing at the very height of its arc and flown into the air, quite literally flown, launched herself skyward with a great shout of laughter, and instead of crumpling on the playground asphalt, she soared like a trapeze artist through the air, staying up far too long, landing far too lightly. âMummy told you not to!â Petunia stopped her swing by dragging the heels of her sandals on the ground, making a crunching, grinding sound, then leapt up, hands on hips. âMummy said you werenât allowed, Lily!â (DH)
(Given he calls himself "flight from death" at 15, I assume Tom could do something similar to Lily as a child, and his flight in DH the fully trained version; possibly Snape's is the same innate ability but showed up a few years later than Lily's that they trained together, or some learned variation with a spell/ritual.)
2.3 Potential Legilimency
Riddle had frozen, his face expressionless, but his eyes were flickering back and forth between each of Dumbledoreâs, as though trying to catch one of them lying. (HBP) âDid you make that happen?â âNo.â He looked both defiant and scared. âYou did!â She was backing away from him. âYou did! You hurt her!â âNo â no I didnât!â But the lie did not convince Lily: After one last burning look, she ran from the little thicket, off after her sister, and Snape looked miserable and confused... (DH) âProve it,â said Riddle at once, in the same commanding tone he had used when he had said, âTell the truth.â Dumbledore raised his eyebrows. âIf, as I take it, you are accepting your place at Hogwarts ââ âOf course I am!â âThen you will address me as âProfessorâ or âsir.ââ (HBP) âMaybe once Iâm there â no, listen, Tuney! Maybe once Iâm there, Iâll be able to go to Professor Dumbledore and persuade him to change his mind!â (DH)
(the word âpersuadeâ often used to refer to force via Legilimency) Mirrors the language around Dumbledore - who I assume is Legilimizing Snape in this scene, as he'd hardly trust a DEâs word without it, and makes a very specific accusation to manipulate Snape without Snape bringing it up (possibly Snape's opening up his mind on purpose). Similarly, Lily - said to be looking up at the canopy - brings up Snape's home life, then changes the subject when he starts to get agitated to something that makes him happy (talking about magic) that they've already talked about (despite this as only the 2nd/3rd time she's speaking to him), so she could be feeling bits of Snape's emotions throughout that scene, hence reacting so strongly when he drops the branch.
âHow are things at your house?â Lily asked. A little crease appeared between his eyes. âFine,â he said. âTheyâre not arguing anymore?â âOh yes, theyâre arguing,â said Snape. He picked up a fistful of leaves and began tearing them apart, apparently unaware of what he was doing. âBut it wonât be that long and Iâll be gone.â âDoesnât your dad like magic?â âHe doesnât like anything, much,â said Snape. âSeverus?â A little smile twisted Snapeâs mouth when she said his name. âYeah?â âTell me about the dementors again.��� (DH) âWell, Severus? What message does Lord Voldemort have for me?â âNo â no message â Iâm here on my own account!â Snape was wringing his hands: He looked a little mad, with his straggling black hair flying around him. âI â I come with a warning â no, a request â please ââ [...] âIf she means so much to you,â said Dumbledore, âsurely Lord Voldemort will spare her? Could you not ask for mercy for the mother, in exchange for the son?â âI have â I have asked him ââ âYou disgust me,â said Dumbledore, and Harry had never heard so much contempt in his voice. Snape seemed to shrink a little. âYou do not care, then, about the deaths of her husband and child? They can die, as long as you have what you want?â Snape said nothing, but merely looked up at Dumbledore. (DH)
2.4 Disillusionment/Invisibility
It would not do for Snape, or indeed anyone else, to see where he was going. But there were no lights in the castle windows, and he could conceal himself⌠and in a second he had cast upon himself a Disillusionment Charm that hid him even from his own eyes. And he walked on, around the edge of the lake, taking in the outlines of the beloved castle, his first kingdom, his birthright⌠And here it was, beside the lake, reflected in the dark waters.
(Lily implied as having the same ability to be explained in another post)
2.5 Conquering death
âNo one knows how he survived that attack by You-Know-Who. I mean to say, he was only a baby when it happened. He should have been blasted into smithereens. Only a really powerful Dark wizard could have survived a curse like that [...] Thatâs probably why You-Know-Who wanted to kill him in the first place. Didnât  want another Dark Lord competing with him." (CoS) âI miscalculated, my friends, I admit it.  My curse was deflected by the womanâs foolish sacrifice, and it  rebounded upon myself. Aaah... pain beyond pain, my friends; nothing  could have prepared me for it.â (GoF) âI, who have gone further than  anybody along the path that leads to immortality. You know my goal â to conquer death. And now, I was tested, and it appeared that one or more of my experiments had worked... for I had not been killed, though the curse should have done it.â (GoF) âCertainly,â said Voldemort, and his eyes seemed to burn red. âI have  experimented; I have pushed the boundaries of magic further, perhaps, than they have ever been pushed ââ (HBP)
Lily creates blood wards to protect her sister // the only other time we (explicitly) see a blood ward is outside Voldemort's Cave protections, protecting his mother's locket
4 examples of sacrificial magic, 3 Voldemort's, 1 Lily's - in CoS Tom is killing Ginny to gain a body; in GoF the "flesh blood and bone" rebody potion; and obviously horcruxes; Lily's sacrificial magic). Lily does sacrificial blood magic using a parent's sacrifice; LV does sacrificial blood magic using a parent's sacrifice (father's bone, blood of the enemy, etc). Twice when Lily's sacrificial magic comes up between Harry and LV, Voldemort's in the process of doing his own sacrificial ritual and also in the midst of a "rebirth" (in CoS and GoF)
"This is old magic, I should have remembered it, I was foolish to overlook it" // LV's own to counter her magic - "I knew that to achieve this - it is an old piece of Dark Magic, the potion that revived me tonight - I would need three powerful ingredients."
The only time "magical traces" are (explicitly) mentioned are LV seeing the traces of Lily's protective magic on Harry // and Dumbledore seeing the traces of LV's magic in the Gaunt house and the locket Cave (symbolic Gaunt shack), both horcruxes related to his family and to Merope
"His mother left upon him the traces of her sacrifice..." (GoF) "I stumbled across the ring hidden in the ruin of the Gauntsâ house [...] He hid it, protected by many powerful enchantments, in the shack where his ancestors had once lived (Morfin having been carted off to Azkaban, of course), never guessing that I might one day take the trouble to visit the ruin, or that I might be keeping an eye open for traces of magical concealment." (HBP) "How did you know that was there?" Harry asked in astonishment. "Magic always leaves traces," said Dumbledore, as the boat hit the bank with a gentle bump, "sometimes very distinctive traces. I taught Tom Riddle. I know his style." (HBP)
LV invents a concentrated dementor potion to symbolize Merope's murder in the Gaunt home and Dumbledore takes 13 sips in that cave (12 of the Drink of Despair, 1 of Inferi water) // when LV gets close to the house where he murdered Lily, it has the effect of a concentrated dementor on him and Lily vanquishes him for ~13 years (13 1/2 inches is also LV's wand length) - Lily described like a dementor in the memory of the Potters' deaths (to be elaborated in future metas)
"So Ginny poured out her soul to me, and her soul happened to be exactly what I wanted.... I grew stronger and stronger on a diet of her deepest fears, her darkest secrets. I grew powerful, more powerful than little Miss Weasley. Powerful enough to start feeding Miss Weasley a few of my secrets, to start pouring a little of my soul into her..." (CoS) âIf it can, the dementor will feed on you long enough to reduce you to something like itself... soulless and evil.â (PoA)
LV (more or less) kills Dumbledore who he can't beat in a duel with a curse that strengths with time // Lily kills LV who she can't beat in a duel without a wand and with obscure magic
Priori Incantatem (elaborated here) // Merope's locket // Resurrection Stone :
And she came⌠first her head, then her body⌠a young woman with long hair, the smoky, shadowy form of Lily Potter blossomed from the end of Voldemortâs wand, fell to the ground, and straightened like her husband. (GoF) Out of the locketâs two windows, out of the eyes, there bloomed, like two grotesque bubbles, the heads of Harry and Hermione, weirdly distorted. Ron yelled in shock and backed away as the figures blossomed out of the locket, first chests, then waists, then legs, until they stood in the locket, side by side like trees with a common root (DH)
Likewise, the shades out of the Resurrection are implied to be Lily's soul, creating those versions of James, Sirius, and Remus, the way the locket creates Riddle-Harry and Riddle-Hermione.
Lily's protective magic burns LV in front of the Mirror of Erised // Merope's locket horcrux with Riddle's eyes through mirrors burns Harry, the Dark Mark's burn (elaborated below)
2.6 Dark Arts, DADA, Potions, inventing spells and potions (extrapolated for Lily via Snape)
3. Childhood memories
Both show immense joy and wonder at magic, Snape and Dumbledore play similar roles: acknowledge them as unusually magically powerful, explain the laws of the wizarding world to two Muggleborns pushing boundaries before either even knew any existed (Snape, who ignores many of those laws himself, coming from a different angle than Dumbledore). Also note that we are meant to question Lily being too pure to end up in Azkaban - because she's implied to have ended up there, in a way, in a state similar to LV's imprisonment in Albania (to be elaborated).
âAt Hogwarts,â Dumbledore went on, âwe teach you not only to use magic, but to control it. You have â inadvertently, I am sure â been using your powers in a way that is neither taught nor tolerated at our school. You are not the first, nor will you be the last, to allow your magic to run away with you. But you should know that Hogwarts can expel students, and the Ministry of Magic â yes, there is a Ministry â will punish lawbreakers still more severely. All new wizards must accept that, in entering our world, they abide by our laws.â (HBP) â...and the Ministry can punish you if you do magic outside school, you get letters.â âBut I have done magic outside school!â âWeâre all right. We havenât got wands yet. They let you off when youâre a kid and you canât help it. But once youâre eleven,â he nodded importantly, âand they start training you, then youâve got to go careful.â [...] âTell me about the dementors again.â âWhat dâyou want to know about them for?â âIf I use magic outside school ââ âThey wouldnât give you to the dementors for that! Dementors are for people who do really bad stuff. They guard the wizard prison, Azkaban. Youâre not going to end up in Azkaban, youâre too ââ (DH)
- Riddle stared from the wardrobe to Dumbledore; then, his expression greedy, he pointed at the wand. âWhere can I get one of them?â (HBP) Lily had picked up a fallen twig and twirled it in the air, and Harry knew that she was imagining sparks trailing from it. (DH) - "Iâm not mad!" "I know that you are not mad. Hogwarts is not a school for mad people. It is a school of magic." There was silence. Riddle had frozen, his face expressionless, but his eyes were flickering back and forth between each of Dumbledoreâs, as though trying to catch one of them lying. "Magic?" he repeated in a whisper. "Thatâs right," said Dumbledore. (HBP) Then she dropped the twig, leaned in toward the boy, and said, "It is real, isnât it? Itâs not a joke? Petunia says youâre lying to me. Petunia says there isnât a Hogwarts. It is real, isnât it?" "Itâs real for us," said Snape. "Not for her. But weâll get the letter, you and me." "Really?" whispered Lily. "Definitely," said Snape, and even with his poorly cut hair and his odd clothes, he struck an oddly impressive figure sprawled in front of her, brimful of confidence in his destiny. "And will it really come by owl?" Lily whispered. (DH)
3.1 Alienation from the Muggle world/family
(to highly different degrees, but outsiders shows up as connection even in dynamics where the specifics are very different - Tom using Ginny's alienation from her brothers, Dumbledore and Doge, etc)
âI donât â want â to â go!â said Petunia, and she dragged her hand back out of her sisterâs grasp. âYou think I want to go to some stupid castle and learn to be a â a ââ [...] ââ you think I want to be a â a freak?â Lilyâs eyes filled with tears as Petunia succeeded in tugging her hand away. âIâm not a freak,â said Lily. âThatâs a horrible thing to say.â âThatâs where youâre going,â said Petunia with relish. âA special school for freaks. You and that Snape boy... weirdos, thatâs what you two are. Itâs good youâre being separated from normal people. Itâs for our safety.â (DH) âHe was a funny baby too. He hardly ever cried, you know. And then, when he got a little older, he was... odd.â [âŚ] âHeâs definitely got a place at your school, you say?â âDefinitely,â said Dumbledore. âAnd nothing I say can change that?â âNothing,â said Dumbledore. âYouâll be taking him away, whatever?â [...] âI donât think many people will be sorry to see the back of him.â (HBP)
4. Brilliant students
Prefects, Head Boy/Girl, Slughorn's favorites, charming, charismatic, good-looking, well-liked but with few close friends
"Brilliant," he said softly. "Of course, he was probably the most  brilliant student Hogwarts has ever seen [...] Very few people know that Lord Voldemort was once called Tom Riddle. I taught him myself, fifty years ago, at Hogwarts [...] Hardly anyone connected Lord Voldemort with the clever, handsome boy who was once Head Boy here." (CoS) "You shouldnât have favorites as a teacher, of course, but she was one of mine. Your mother," Slughorn added, in answer to Harryâs questioning look. "Lily Evans. One of the brightest I ever taught. Vivacious, you know. Charming girl." (HBP) Riddle laughed, a high, cold laugh that didnât suit him. It made the hairs stand up on the back of Harryâs neck. "If I say it myself, Harry, Iâve always been able to charm the people I needed." (CoS) - "Your mother was Muggle-born, of course. Couldnât believe it when I found out. Thought she must have been pure-blood, she was so good." (HBP) âI donât know that politics would suit me, sir [...] I donât have the right kind of background, for one thing.â A couple of the boys around him smirked at each other. Harry was sure they were enjoying a private joke, undoubtedly about what they knew, or suspected, regarding their gang leaderâs famous ancestor. âNonsense,â said Slughorn briskly, âcouldnât be plainer you come from decent Wizarding stock, abilities like yours. No, youâll go far, Tom, Iâve never been wrong about a student yet.â (HBP)
- "I forgot," lied Harry, Felix Felicis leading him on. "You liked her, didnât you?" "Liked her?" said Slughorn, his eyes brimming with tears once more. "I donât imagine anyone who met her wouldnât have liked her... Very brave... Very funny... It was the most horrible thing..." (HBP) "As an unusually talented and very good-looking orphan, he naturally drew attention and sympathy from the staff almost from the moment of his arrival. He seemed polite, quiet, and thirsty for knowledge. Nearly all were most favorably impressed by him." (HBP)
Lily as Ideal of a Gryffindor with a Slytherin streak (like Harry) vs. Tom as Ideal of a Slytherin
Then Professor McGonagall said, "Evans, Lily!" He watched his mother walk forward on trembling legs and sit down upon the rickety stool. Professor McGonagall dropped the Sorting Hat onto her head, and barely a second after it had touched the dark red hair, the hat cried, âGryffindor!â (DH) âWell, the start of the school year arrived and with it came Tom Riddle, a quiet boy in his secondhand robes, who lined up with the other first years to be sorted. He was placed in Slytherin House almost the moment that the Sorting Hat touched his head." (HBP) "I used to tell her she ought to have been in my House. Very cheeky answers I used to get back too." [...] "I was Head of Slytherin," said Slughorn. "Oh, now," he went on quickly [...] "donât go holding that against me! Youâll be Gryffindor like her, I suppose? Yes, it usually goes in families." âYouâd better be in Slytherin,â said Snape, encouraged that she had brightened a little.
5. They Even Look Something Alike
Just as this is pointed out for Voldemort and Harry, and Voldemort and Snape, in DH it's Voldemort and Lily that look alike and are revealed as reflections - and Lily as Voldemort's symbolic sister the same way Voldemort and Harry are "brothers".
5.3 The Same Eyes
And all of a sudden, for the very first time in his life, Harry fully appreciated that Aunt Petunia was his motherâs sister. He could not have said why this hit him so very powerfully at this moment. All he knew was that he was not the only person in the room who had an inkling of what Lord Voldemort being back might mean. Aunt Petunia had never in her life looked at him like that before. Her large, pale eyes (so unlike her sisterâs) were not narrowed in dislike or anger: They were wide and fearful.
The barman grunted. Harry approached him, looking up into the face, trying to see past the long, stringy, wire-gray hair and beard. He wore spectacles. Behind the dirty lenses, the eyes were a piercing, brilliant blue. âItâs your eye Iâve been seeing in the mirror.â Dumbledoreâs long silver hair and beard, the piercingly blue eyes behind half-moon spectacles, the crooked nose: Everything was as he had remembered it. And yet... Dumbledore was wearing his familiar, kindly smile, but as he peered over the top of his half-moon spectacles, he gave the impression, even in newsprint, of X-raying Harry He met Aberforthâs gaze, which was so strikingly like his brotherâs: The bright blue eyes gave the same impression that they were X-raying the object of their scrutiny, and Harry thought that Aberforth knew what he was thinking [...]
The burn of Lily and LV's eyes through the mirrors is repeated in the description of their eyes, and additionally both Snape and Lily's gaze described like LV's:
Voldemortâs expression did not change. The red eyes seemed to burn in the firelight. Slowly he drew the Elder Wand between his long fingers. But the lie did not convince Lily: After one last burning look, she ran from the little thicket (The Prince's Tale, DH) His red eyes fastened upon Snapeâs black ones with such intensity that some of the watchers looked away, apparently fearful that they themselves would be scorched by the ferocity of the gaze. (Dark Lord Ascending, DH) âIâm just trying to show you theyâre not as wonderful as everyone seems to think they are.â The intensity of his gaze made her blush. (The Prince's Tale, DH)
Likewise in OoTP, Voldemort (when Harry is in his head) and Snape described as having slits for eyes (Other Death Eaters - Lucius and Bellatrix - described similarly via their hoods - "her mad eyes staring through the slits in her hood" etc); then in DH, it's only Voldemort, Nagini (symbolic Merope), Harry, and Lily described with slits for eyes - Harry in the Malfoy Manor mirror, face blurred like LVâs in HBP, unrecognizable as himself and Draco unable to look at him (it's significant that Hermione's the one to make him look like LV - see this post); the same mirror LVâs in front of with slits for eyes tormenting his DEs, and Draco and Snape (parallel to Lily and LV and the Mirror of Erised in PS); Lily while looking at Snape in his memories:
Was this why Dumbledore would no longer meet Harryâs eyes? Did he expect to see Voldemort staring out of them, afraid, perhaps, that their vivid green might turn suddenly to scarlet, with catlike slits for pupils? (OoTP) âHe was possessing the snake at the time and so you dreamed you were inside it too...â âAnd Vol â he â realized I was there?â âIt seems so,â said Snape coolly. âHow do you know?â said Harry urgently. âIs this just Professor Dumbledore guessing, or â ?â âI told you,â said Snape, rigid in his chair, his eyes slits, âto call me âsir.ââ (OoTP) A cracked, age-spotted mirror hung on the wall in the shadows. Harry moved toward it. His reflection grew larger and clearer in the darkness... A face whiter than a skull... red eyes with slits for pupils (OoTP) Harry let out a hastily stifled gasp. Voldemort had entered the room. His features were not those Harry had seen emerge from the great stone cauldron almost two years ago: They were not as snakelike, the eyes were not yet scarlet, the face not yet masklike, and yet he was no longer handsome Tom Riddle. It was as though his features had been burned and blurred; they were waxy and oddly distorted, andthe whites of the eyes now had a permanently bloody look, though the pupils were not yet the slits that Harry knew they would become. He was wearing a long black cloak, and his face was as pale as the snow glistening on his shoulders. (HBP) [...] his face shone through the gloom, hairless, snakelike, with slits for nostrils and gleaming red eyes whose pupils were vertical. He was so pale that he seemed to emit a pearly glow. The huge snake [...] rose, seemingly endlessly, and came to rest across Voldemortâs shoulders [âŚ] its eyes, with their vertical slits for pupils, unblinking. (Dark Lord Ascending, DH) Harry clutched at his excruciatingly painful face, which felt unrecognizable beneath his fingers, tight, swollen, and puffy as though he had suffered some violent allergic reaction. His eyes had been reduced to slits through which he could barely see; his glasses fell off as he was bundled out of the tent Harry was facing a mirror over the fireplace, a great gilded thing in an intricately scrolled frame.Through the slits of his eyes he saw his own reflection for the first time since leaving Grimmauld Place. His face was huge, shiny, and pink, every feature distorted by Hermioneâs jinx. His black hair reached his shoulders and there was a dark shadow around his jaw. Had he not known that it was he who stood there, he would have wondered who was wearing his glasses [...] yet he still avoided eye contact with Draco as the latter approached. âWell, Draco?â said Lucius Malfoy [...] âIs it? Is it Harry Potter?â (Malfoy Manor, DH) Lilyâs bright green eyes were slits. Snape backtracked at once. (The Prince's Tale, DH)
In HBP, only Morfin, Tom Riddle, and Harry are described as remorseless; in DH only Harry, Voldemort, and Lily are described as pitiless:
âSo you smashed my prophecy?â said Voldemort softly, staring at Harry with those pitiless red eyes (OoTP) Harry could see it happening. He watched Voldemortâs white, snakelike face vanishing into darkness, those red eyes fixed pitilessly on the thrashing elf (DH) âSlipped out?â There was no pity in Lilyâs voice. âItâs too late." (DH) --- âThis discussion is getting us nowhere,â said Ogden firmly. âIt is clear from your sonâs attitude that he feels no remorse for his actions.â (HBP) âDidnât you tell them, sir, what heâd been like when you met him at the orphanage?â asked Harry. âNo, I did not. Though he had shown no hint of remorse, it was possible that he felt sorry for how he had behaved before [...]" (HBP) âHe told her to get out of the way,â said Harry remorselessly. âHe told me she neednât have died. He only wanted me. She could have run.â (HBP) ââ Kingsley and Mr. Weasley explained it all as well,â Harry pressed on remorselessly. âOnce Iâm seventeen, the protective charm that keeps me safe will break, and that exposes you as well as me.â (DH)
5.1 Halloween, 1981
In the scene where he goes to murder the Potters - LV and Lily both enter through a door ("identical movements"; the Veil described as an "ancient doorway" - because sin is crouching at their door), both sneaking up on the enemy they're about to kill, and while Harry and James are described as "black-haired", LV and Lily have their faces covered ("matching hairstyles"; and because I show not your face but your heart's desire), and identical laughs - because the laugh that for six books were told was LV laughing as he killed Lily wasnât him laughing, it was Lily laughing. (Explanation/closer analysis of this scene to come.)
âNice costume, mister!â He saw the small boyâs smile falter as he ran near enough to see beneath the hood of the cloak, saw the fear cloud his painted face: Then the child turned and ran away And he made less noise than the dead leaves slithering along the pavement as he drew level with the dark hedge, and stared over it A door opened and the mother entered, saying words he could not hear, her long dark-red hair falling over her face. Now the father scooped up the son and handed him to the mother. The gate creaked a little as he pushed it open, but James Potter did not hear. His white hand pulled out the wand beneath his cloak and pointed it at the door, which burst open. He was over the threshold as James came sprinting into the hall.
5.2 The Mirrors
âHow did you get this?â Harry asked, walking across to Siriusâs mirror, the twin of the one he had broken nearly two years before. - Behind both of the glass windows within blinked a living eye, dark and handsome as Tom Riddleâs eyes had been before he turned them scarlet and slit-pupiled. (DH) A woman standing right behind his reflection was smiling at him and waving. He reached out a hand and felt the air behind him. If she was really there, heâd touch her, their reflections were so close together, but he felt only air â she and the others existed only in the mirror. She was a very pretty woman.She had dark red hair and her eyes â her eyes are just like mine, Harry thought, edging a little closer to the glass. Bright green â exactly the same shape, but then he noticed that she was crying; smiling, but crying at the same time. (PS) - Then a voice hissed from out of the Horcrux. âI have seen your heart, and it is mine.â [...] âI have seen your dreams, Ronald Weasley, and I have seen your fears. All you desire is possible, but all that you dread is also possible...â [...] âLeast loved, always, by the mother who craved a daughter... Least loved, now, by the girl who prefers your friend... Second best, always, eternally overshadowed...â (DH) âIt shows us nothing more or less than the deepest, most desperate desire of our hearts. You, who have never known your family, see them standing around you. Ronald Weasley, who has always been overshadowed by his brothers, sees himself standing alone, the best of all of them. However, this mirror will give us neither knowledge or truth. Men have wasted away before it, entranced by what they have seen, or been driven mad, not knowing if what it shows is real or even possible." (PS) - âRon!â he shouted, but the Riddle-Harry was now speaking with Voldemortâs voice and Ron was gazing, mesmerized, into its face. [...] âPresumption!â echoed the Riddle-Hermione, who was more beautiful and yet more terrible than the real Hermione: She swayed, cackling, before Ron, who looked horrified yet transfixed. (DH) He tore his eyes away from his motherâs face, whispered, âIâll come back,â and hurried from the room. (PS)
Lily's bright green eyes look at Harry from the Mirror of Erised; LV meets Harry in front of that mirror (there was a face, the most terrible face Harry had ever seen. It was chalk white with glaring red eyes and slits for nostrils, like a snake // The evil face was now smiling); LV describes Harry's parents' deaths and especially Lily's death/sacrifice; then Lily's protective magic burns LV in front of the Mirror of Erised when he tries to touch Harry.
Riddle's dark eyes that gleam red look through the mirrors in Merope's locket, the dark twin of the Mirror of Erised (the connection also implied in it being Tomâs mother's locket and the only horcrux to have a mirror; and Ron coming with Harry to the Mirror of Erised and destroying the locket); Merope's locket horcrux burns Harry - right after he and LV see the full memory of Lily vanquishing him, after trying to kill him.
I show not your face but your heart's desire // The locket showing distorted faces of Ron's "family" - not their real faces but his heart's fears
Voldemort screamed âSEIZE HIM!â and the next second, Harry felt Quirrellâs hand close on his wrist [...] and to his surprise, Quirrell let go of him [...] he looked around wildly to see where Quirrell had gone, and saw him hunched in pain, looking at his fingers â they were blistering before his eyes [...] âMaster, I cannot hold him â my hands â my hands!â And Quirrell, though pinning Harry to the ground with his knees, let go of his neck and stared, bewildered, at his own palms â Harry could see they looked burned, raw, red, and shiny. âThen kill him, fool, and be done!â screeched Voldemort. Quirrell raised his hand to perform a deadly curse, but Harry, by instinct, reached up and grabbed Quirrellâs face â [...] Quirrell rolled off him, his face blistering, too, and then Harry knew: Quirrell couldnât touch his bare skin, not without suffering terrible pain [...] - âI couldnât get the Horcrux off you [...] It was stuck, stuck to your chest. Youâve got a mark; Iâm sorry, I had to use a Severing Charm to get it away. The snake bit you too [...]" He pulled the sweaty T-shirt he was wearing away from himself and looked down. There was a scarlet oval over his heart where the locket had burned him. He could also see the half-healed puncture marks to his forearm. the figures [....] swaying over Ron and the real Harry, who had snatched his fingers away from the locket as it burned, suddenly, white-hot. [...] while the contents of the locket rattled like a trapped cockroach. It would have been easy to pity it, except that the cut around Harryâs neck still burned. (DH)
Harry's curse scar likewise described as burning and scorching - all echo the Dark Mark's burn: "Every Death Eater had the sign burned into him by the Dark Lord [...] When he touched the Mark of any Death Eater, we were to [...] Apparate, instantly, at his side [...] We both felt the Mark burn.â
Not taking the Love thing or Lily as inherently pure literally but - the prophecy says LV would "mark him as an equal"; Dumbledore says "love as powerful as your motherâs for you leaves its own mark. Not a scar, no visible sign [...] It was agony to touch a person marked by something so good" aka Lily marked Harry as her equal (evidently it left some sign, per LV seeing traces)
6. Personality traits
6.1 Curiosity, Cunning, Manipulation
Skilled at using people's weaknesses against them:
Slughorn pulled himself out of his armchair and carried his empty glass over to his desk as the boys filed out. Voldemort, however, stayed behind. Harry could tell he had dawdled deliberately, wanting to be last in the room with Slughorn. (HBP) Lily glanced toward her parents, who were looking around the platform with an air of wholehearted enjoyment, drinking in the scene. Then she looked back at her sister, and her voice was low and fierce. (DH) âYou didnât think it was such a freakâs school when you wrote to the headmaster and begged him to take you.â Petunia turned scarlet. âBeg? I didnât beg!â âI saw his reply. It was very kind.â (DH) She dropped her voice. âAnd youâre being really ungrateful. I heard what happened the other night. You went sneaking down that tunnel by the Whomping Willow, and James Potter saved you from whateverâs down there ââ (DH) Lily blinked. âFine,â she said coolly. âI wonât bother in future. And Iâd wash your pants if I were you, Snivellus.â (OoTP) "Messing up your hair because you think it looks cool to look like youâve just got off your broomstick, showing off with that stupid Snitch, walking down corridors and hexing anyone who annoys you just because you can â Iâm surprised your broomstick can get off the ground with that fat head on it." (OOTP)
- The text draws a very deliberate parallel between her, Tom Riddle, and Harry (and to an extent Dumbledore) regarding their cunning and manipulation in HBP - i.e. Slughorn calls Lily charming, charismatic, says that he used to tell her she ought to have been in Slytherin, which means she has Slytherin traits (cunning, ambition, resourcefulness, a disregard for rules) and which sounds like the kind of thing he'd say specifically when she was displaying those traits - akin to when Slughorn tells Tom Riddle that he'd "like to know where he gets his information", that he's "more knowledgeable than half the staff" and has an "uncanny ability to know things he shouldn't".
- Lily calls Snape an affectionate nickname ("Sev") three times. Lily addresses people by name a lot, it's a part of her speech patterns; but it could also be read as having a slight manipulative edge to it - the way Harry and Dumbledore use "Lily Evans" to manipulate Slughorn and Snape, and LV uses names to simulate intimacy (especially given Lily uses Snivellus later, and if Lily's using Legilimency on Snape in this scene - "Severus?" A little smile twisted Snapeâs mouth when she said his name - she'd be extra aware of it).
- Not super difficult to fake given Lily could do magic at Snape's house, but the Dursleys not knowing Harry can't do magic at home implies that Lily hid the Underage Magic rule and kept up a lie to likely all three of her family members for a while; like Harry threatening Dudley ("it was only their terror that he might turn them all into dung beetles that stopped them from locking him in the cupboard [...] Harry had enjoyed muttering nonsense words under his breath and watching Dudley tearing out of the room as fast as his fat legs would carry him.")
- Sneaks into Petunia's room with Snape to read her mail - she has the same curiosity and penchant for solving mysteries and sneaking that others have (i.e. parallels Harry reading Filch's mail in CoS). Her knowing about the Prank, dynamic with Slughorn and Bathilda Bagshot (gets the same "best kept secret" info out of her that Rita Skeeter gets using Veritaserum) may also imply this trait.
Rulebreaking and Bravery
âYes, I speak it,â said Riddle. He moved forward into the room, allowing the door to swing shut behind him. Harry could not help but feel a resentful admiration for Voldemortâs complete lack of fear. His face merely expressed disgust and, perhaps, disappointment. âItâs obvious, isnât it?â Snape could no longer contain himself, but had jumped out from behind the bushes. Petunia shrieked and ran backward toward the swings, but Lily, though clearly startled, remained where she was. Snape seemed to regret his appearance. A dull flush of color mounted the sallow cheeks as he looked at Lily. âWhatâs obvious?â asked Lily.
âOf course, if you would rather not come to the school, nobody will force you ââ âIâd like to see them try,â sneered Riddle. (HBP) âLet me? Let me?â Lilyâs bright green eyes were slits. Snape backtracked at once. (DH)
- "Lily, don't do it!" "Mummy told you not to!" "Mummy said you weren't allowed, Lily!" "But I'm fine" She only obeys when Petunia appears genuinely freaked out ("Stop it!" Petunia shrieked / "It's not hurting you").
- Lily laughs and takes a selfie while James runs after Harry; thinks it's hilarious when Harry breaks Petunia's vase; goes on "little excursions" under the Cloak while in hiding; goes "I'm not sure he'd be pleased if he knew!" wrt Bathilda spilling Dumbledore's secret then proceeds to gossip to Sirius about it.
#reposting this now that my posts are showing up in tags#some snape and dumbledore and harry analysis in here as well bc they're all intertwined etc.#snape and lily looking at each other with voldemort's eyes... yeah.gif#some of these may seem strange to emphasize but jkr repeats specific words to illuminate parallels in certain ways#lots of this is to be elaborated so sorry if this is disorganized#lily evans#lily evans meta#tom riddle#lord voldemort#tom marvolo riddle#tom riddle meta#voldemort#severus snape#voldemort meta#lily evans potter#severus snape meta#albus dumbledore#harry james potter#hp meta#my meta
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Dumbledore is a Manipulative Piece of Shit: Part 4/?
(part 1, part 2, part 3)
He knew and allowed Harry's abuse
Well, this is a pleasant subject, isn't it? Harry's abuse at the Dursleys' hands. And the worst part about it is that no adult in his life really seems to care.
I'll talk about the Weasley parents in a different post. This one is dedicated to Dumbledore and how he always knew about Harry's abuse and allowed it to persist. For years. Not just once, Harry started Hogwarts. No, I think Dumbledore knew what was going on at Number 4 Privet Drive long before Harry stepped foot in Diagon Alley.
And more importantly, I can prove it.
So, I'll cover my evidence according to the order of the quotes that appear in the books since there is quite a bit to cover.
And yes, I know Dumbledore calls the Dursleys out in Half-Blood Prince:
âYou did not do as I asked. You have never treated Harry as a son. He has known nothing but neglect and often cruelty at your hands. The best that can be said is that he has at least escaped the appalling damage you have inflicted upon the unfortunate boy sitting between you.â
(Half-Blood Prince, page 55)
But this scene is the definition of "too little, too late" considering how long this has been going on.
So, let's start:
âNah. Dumbledore gave me the day off yesterday ter fix it. âcourse, he shoulda sacked me instead â anyway, got yeh this.âŚâ It seemed to be a handsome, leather-covered book. Harry opened it curiously. It was full of wizard photographs. Smiling and waving at him from every page were his mother and father. âSent owls off ter all yer parentsâ old school friends, askinâ fer photos⌠knew yeh didnâ have anyâŚdâyeh like it?â
(Philosopher's Stone, page 218)
Hagrid can't keep a secret to save his life, we know that, and he isnt the brightest, with all his good intentions. Yet, even he noticed something's wrong with Harry's home. He knows Harry doesn't have photos of his parents, he knows he never got any gifts.
"But that's not Dumbledore,"
True, but Hagrid tells Dumbledore everything. So if Hagrid knows, Dumbledore knows.
âI told you, I didnât â but itâll take too long to explain now â look, can you tell them at Hogwarts that the Dursleys have locked me up and wonât let me come back, and obviously I canât magic myself out, because the Ministryâll think thatâs the second spell Iâve done in three days, so ââ âStop gibbering,â said Ron. âWeâve come to take you home with us.â
(Chamber of Secrets, page 31)
âIt was cloudy, Mum!â said Fred. âYou keep your mouth closed while youâre eating!â Mrs. Weasley snapped. âThey were starving him, Mum!â said George. âAnd you!â said Mrs. Weasley, but it was with a slightly softened expression that she started cutting Harry bread and buttering it for him.
(Chamber of Secrets, page 39)
Both these quotes from Chamber of Secrets show Fred, George, Ron, and Mrs. Weasley clearly knew what was happening. That Harry was being locked up and starved.
Harry really, never kept his abuse a secret and is quite open about informing anyone who'd listen to him about it. He is just used to it being brushed off as something unfortunate that nothing can be done about. The Weasleys, McGonagall, Dumbledore, Remus, and the entire Order of the Phoenix treat it as such.
In OOP, Harry references needing to duck from Vernon's beatings as a joke to Ron and Hermione. He wasn't keeping it a secret.
On the same vane:
She had no idea that Harry was not following the diet at all. The moment he had got wind of the fact that he was expected to survive the summer on carrot sticks, Harry had sent Hedwig to his friends with pleas for help ⌠Hagrid, the Hogwarts gamekeeper, had obliged with a sack full of his own homemade rock cakes. (Harry hadnât touched these; he had had too much experience of Hagridâs cooking.) Mrs. Weasley, however, had sent the family owl, Errol, with an enormous fruitcake and assorted meat pies.
âWhy didnât you tell me youâre a Squib?â Harry asked Mrs. Figg, panting with the effort to keep walking. âAll those times I came round your house â why didnât you say anything?â âDumbledoreâs orders. I was to keep an eye on you but not say anything, you were too young. Iâm sorry I gave you such a miserable time, but the Dursleys would never have let you come if theyâd thought you enjoyed it. It wasnât easy, you know. . . . But oh my word,â
(Goblet of Fire, page 28)
Harry wrote everyone he knew he was being starved. He wrote Hagrid and the Weasleys, and they all sent him food. The adults sent him food without bothering to ask him the important question: "Why aren't you being fed?"
(Order of the Pheonix, page 22)
This is the most damning evidence against Dumbledore.
He knew. He knew how Harry was treated his entire childhood because he had someone spy on him for years.
Mrs. Figg knew how Harry was treated by the Dursleys. She calls it: "miserable". She knew.
And she was sent there on Dumbledore's orders, meaning she was a spy. because let's be real, a squib, who can't do magic and doesn't own a gun can't do anything to protect Harry. She can only be there to spy. To report everything to Dumbledore.
This proves, more than any other quote here, how okay Dumbledore is with Harry suffering at the hands of the Dursleys.
Next moment he jumped as the lock gave a loud click and his door swung open. Harry stood motionless, staring through the open door at the dark upstairs landing, straining his ears for further sounds, but none came. He hesitated for a moment and then moved swiftly and silently out of his room to the head of the stairs. His heart shot upward into his throat. There were people standing in the shadowy hall below, silhouetted against the streetlight glowing through the glass door; eight or nine of them, all, as far as he could see, looking up at him.
(Order of the Pheonix, page 46)
The entire Order was there, at Number 4, Privet Drive. They've been following Harry since he got there. Tonks has seen Harry's bedroom. I don't think they missed something is definitely wrong. (I think this is why they tell the Dursleys off at the end of the fifth book and Dumbledore again in the sixth because someone else finally knew and Dumbledore had no choice but to address it)
And to make sure the Order is aware something's wrong between him and the Dursleys (that being an understatement), Harry outright tells Lupin:
âExcellent,â said Lupin, looking up as Tonks and Harry entered. âWeâve got about a minute, I think. We should probably get out into the garden so weâre ready. Harry, Iâve left a letter telling your aunt and uncle not to worry ââ âThey wonât,â said Harry. âThat youâre safe ââ âThatâll just depress them.â ââ and youâll see them next summer.â âDo I have to?â Lupin smiled but made no answer.
(Order of the Pheonix, page 54)
Harry makes it very clear the Dursleys don't care for his safety and that he never wants to return to literally everyone he can.
Why then? Why would Dumbledore want Harry abused?
âSheâs evil,â said Harry flatly. âTwisted.â âSheâs horrible, yes, but . . . Harry, I think you ought to tell Dumbledore your scar hurt.â It was the second time in two days he had been advised to go to Dumbledore and his answer to Hermione was just the same as his answer to Ron. âIâm not bothering him with this. Like you just said, itâs not a big deal. Itâs been hurting on and off all summer â it was just a bit worse tonight, thatâs all ââ âHarry, Iâm sure Dumbledore would want to be bothered by this ââ âYeah,â said Harry, before he could stop himself, âthatâs the only bit of me Dumbledore cares about, isnât it, my scar?â âDonât say that, itâs not true!â
(Order of the Pheonix, page 277)
Harry said it best here: "for his scar"
In the previous posts, I covered how desperate Dumbledore was at the end of the war for a win, so much so, he might've forged a prophecy. And I explained he needed Sirius Black out of the picture for the same reason he wanted Harry at the Dursleys and wanted him mistreated â confident boys with a good support network and emotional regulation don't make very good martyrs.
In part 2, I mentioned how Dumbledore knew since the night the Potters died that Harry is likely a Horcrux. He has been manipulating Harry's life since then to achieve his grand plan of killing Voldemort. Even if it comes at the price of Harry having anything resembling a childhood and a life.
#harry potter#harry potter theory#harry potter thoughts#hollowedtheory#hp theory#overthinking#wizarding world#albus dumbledore#dumbledore analysis#the dursleys#petunia dursley#vernon dursley#hogwarts school of witchcraft and wizardry#harry james potter#the order of the phoenix#order of the phoenix#harry potter analysis#first wizarding war#second wizarding war#hogwarts
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Guys who Cry in the Harry Potter Books (and Why)
Men do 30% of the crying in the Harry Potter books, even though they represent 66% of the characters (and that's pretty much as expected).* Iâm interested in why the crying happens though, and what it says about the characters. For the ladies, crying is neutral - they all cry, and for all sorts of reasons (tired, frustrated, stressed, emotionally overwrought...) Bellatrix, Augusta Longbottom, Ginny, Tonks⌠all cry. *Hermione* cries thirty separate times over the course of the books.Â
Male crying though, that's something that gets mocked (usually by Slytherins.) Pansy calls Neville a âfat little cry baby,â and after Ritaâs article (falsely) describes Harry crying, Draco comes in with âWant a hanky, Potter, in case you start crying in Transfiguration?â Of course thereâs also âDâyou think [Hagrid]âll cry when they cut off his hippogriffâs - â right before Hermione slaps him. So making fun of guys for crying is bad right?Â
Letâs get into it.Â
1 : Crying because of a death
The most âacceptableâ reason for male crying. This happens a lot, we are definitely not supposed to think any less of the guys who do it. Mostly it happens *right* at the moment of death, or maybe at the funeral. The exception is Harry, who cries in Book 3 after talking about hearing his parents dying (although the narrative voice DOES let us know that heâs kind of embarrassed about this...)
âHarry suddenly realized that there were tears on his face mingling with the sweat. He bent his face as low as possible, wiping them off on his robes, pretending to do up his shoelace, so that Lupin wouldnât see.âÂ
Then he cries again in Book 7, while visiting his parents' graves. But itâs definitely still crying over a death. Just one that Harry takes a little bit longer to process.Â
Crying over a Death: Full Breakdown:Â
Amos Diggory: 1 (Cedricâs death)Â
Arthur Weasley: 1 (Fredâs death)
Harry Potter: 3 (Hedwig, Lily, James)
Rubeus Hagrid: 4 (Dumbledore, Buckbeak, Aragog, Harry)Â
Argus Filtch: 1 (thinks Mrs. Norris is dead)Â
Xenophillius Lovegood: 1 (thinks Luna is dead)Â
Fillius Flitwick: (thinks Ginny is dead)Â
Ron Weasley: 1 (Dumbledoreâs funeral)Â
Elphias Doge: 1 (Dumbledoreâs funeral
2: Crying because of Pain
Youâd think this one would also be acceptable. But⌠it really isnât? Dudley cries when Vernon hits him (but Harry doesnât.) Peter Pettigrew cries when he cuts off his own hand, Saw style, but it gets framed as blubbering weakness. Pettigrew framed SO pathetically for the entire resurrection scene - and honestly, for the entire rest of the series.
(Which is strange when you think about it. Like objectively, Pettigrew did GOOD. Sure he only likes Voldemort because heâs powerful, but so do most of the Death Eaters, thatâs nothing special. Peter found Voldemort, resurrected him single-handedly (ha.) Found Bertha Jorkins, i.e. the reason Voldemort was able to plan his comeback. Obviously he has god-tier bluffing and lying abilities, as well as enough willpower to cut off a limb. Being able to turn into a rat would make him a really useful spy. Also his spell, the one that killed thirteen muggles and destroyed a street? Most magic we see does not have a blast radius like that. Peterâs formidable. But somehow his job is to hang out and be Snapeâs servant? (Is it because heâs not cute? Is this JKRâs fatphobia rearing its ugly head? Unclear.)
Our last guy crying in pain is Book 1 Neville, after he breaks his wrist during flying lessons. He also âsniffs,â while walking into the Forbidden Forest for detention, which *might* count as crying? But really, Neville cries surprisingly little. We get a lot of âlooked as though he might cryâ and âon the verge of tearsâ... but that's not actually crying. And I think thatâs becauseâŚÂ early-books Neville, yes weâre supposed to see him as a little pathetic. But definitely not as pathetic as Dudley or Pettigrew.Â
3: âChildlikeâ Crying
Sometimes the people who cry are literally little boys. This is also okay. No one is going to judge infant Harry for crying when Voldemort is in the house, or little Severus for crying when his parents are fighting. Interestingly, when Myrtle is talking about Draco crying in her bathroom, Harry assumes sheâs talking about someone much younger:Â
âThereâs been a boy in here crying?â said Harry curiously. âA young boy?âÂ
But of course, when an adult is crying in a childlike way, it immediately becomes⌠pathetic. Again we have Pettigrew, who âburst into tears. It was horrible to watch: He looked like an oversized, balding baby, cowering on the floor.â In the Horcrux cave, crying Dumbledore is described âlike a child dying of thirst.â Which is also meant to be pathetic, but in more of a âHarry has to be the adult nowâ sort of way. Also, the potion seems to have made Dumbledore mentally regress back to his youth, so itâs *closer* to a literal âchild cryingâ moment.Â
(I considered putting Dumbledore drinking the potion in the âpainâ section, but at least in the book I think itâs clear heâs mostly in emotional rather than physical pain.)
Where this gets messy is with the house-elves. House-elves are not children, but they are presented as childlike. They are small and in-your-face, direct even though their problem-solving tends to be very convoluted/not especially logical. I like the present-tense, no pronouns way they speak, but I canât deny it is kind of baby-talk adjacent. And⌠house elves are *really* emotional. Dobby, Kreacher (and Winky) cry a LOT. If I had to guess, I would say JKR likes treating house-elves as childlike so itâs more of a surprise when it turns out that one of them was behind everything. But considering that they are slaves, it is gross - considering that one of the main real-world justifications for slavery was âslaves are childlike, and unable to take care of themselves.'
Thereâs also Hagrid. With seventeen separate instances of crying, Hagrid easily cries more than any other guy in the Harry Potter books. And⌠well⌠heâs also presented as oddly childlike. He seems much more like Harry and Ronâs contemporary than a peer of the other professors - which is weird, since if he went to school with Voldemort fifty years ago, heâs in his sixties now. But still, heâs helpless in the face of criticism, heâs comically out of his depth whenever he deals with the Ministry, heâs constantly letting things slip or drastically misjudging danger levels. The first three books all use âHagrid gets in trouble, the gang has to bail him outâ as a plot point, and in Book 4 his sideplot with Madame Maxime gets treated like a schoolboyâs first crush, with all these jokes about him wearing suits that donât quite fit, and trying and failing to style his hair. Not to mention, we know sheâs flattering him because she wants insider info on the Tournament. But he doesnât know that.Â
4. Crying because of Sports
Oliver Wood cries when Gryffindor wins the Quidditch cup. That's all.
And that brings us to our stragglers. The only non-childlike guys who cry for reasons other than death, pain, or sports are as follows:Â
Harry Potter: 1 instance of crying
Draco Malfoy: 2 instances of crying
Severus Snape: 2 instances of crying
Albus Dumbledore: 4 instances of crying
Horace Slughorn: 1 instance of crying
Letâs see whatâs going on here.Â
Harry Potter
Dumbledore had weakened himself by drinking that terrible potion for nothing. Harry crumpled the parchment in his hand, and his eyes burned with tears as behind him. Fang began to howl. He clutched the cold locket in his hand so tightly that it hurt, but he could not prevent hot tears spilling from his eyes
Thereâs a lot going on in this moment: Harry is tired, frustrated, disappointed, overwhelmed. But even though it is a complex moment, probably the main emotion is still Harryâs attempt to process Dumbledoreâs death, now that he finally has a second to do so. So this honestly could have gone in the âCrying because of a deathâ category. Itâs just different enough that I want to specially call it out.Â
Draco Malfoy
We hear about Draco crying once from Myrtle, and then see it first hand:Â
Malfoy was crying â actually crying â tears streaming down his pale face into the grimy basin.
The narrative takes a second to let us know that he was ACTUALLY CRYING, just to hammer in that this is something unexpected and not-normal. I think I want to attribute Dracoâs tendency to cry - and cry because heâs overwhelmed, scared, lonely - to the characterâs slight femme coding. What can I say, he cries for ""girly"" reasons. And so does Snape!
Severus SnapeÂ
âSnivellusâ is clearly a nickname meant to evoke the idea of âcrybaby,â since âsnivelingâ is a synonym for crying. We also get this:Â
Snape was kneeling in Siriusâs old bedroom. Tears were dripping from the end of his hooked nose as he read the old letter from Lily.Â
Crying over Lilyâs letter could count as crying over a death⌠but since heâs crying over a letter, not over a grave or her body (like in the movie), Iâm going to say that heâs probably crying because of guilt, emotional overload, or love (especially because he rips the âlove Lilyâ off the end of that letter.) Like Draco, Snape might be getting little bit of femme-coding here. Heâs the mean-girl type of bully (versus the mean boy) He cries, he threatens to poison people - which is something we only see women (and Draco) actually doing in these books. Idk, heâs an odd one who JKR clearly has very complicated feelings about.Â
Albus DumbledoreÂ
I was actually really surprised that Dumbledore cries as much as he does, and at such unusual times! He cries when he sees Snapeâs doe patronus - because of love or just because heâs emotionally overwhelmed. He cries all through the Horcrux cave, primarily because of guilt. He cries twice during the Kingâs Cross Station vision-quest, once because of his complicated feelings about Harry while he asks for forgiveness, and once over ⌠Grindlewald.
âThey say he showed remorse in later years, alone in his cell at Nurmengard. I hope that it is true. I would like to think he did feel the horror and shame of what he had done. Perhaps that lie to Voldemort was his attempt to make amends . . . to prevent Voldemort from taking the Hallow . . .â â. . . or maybe from breaking into your tomb?â suggested Harry, and Dumbledore dabbed his eyes.
And okay. JKR announced that Dumbledore was gay just a few months after book seven was published, and I think she was folding in deliberate queer-coding as early Book 6. My proof of that is Dumbledore's increased emotionality - as we can see, itâs pretty unusual for men to cry in the Harry Potter books because of âsofterâ emotions like love, regret, stress etc. Itâs something she associates with femininity, and Iâm sure she associates gay guys with femininity as well (I mean, thatâs a very common thing to do.)
Thereâs also this interesting passage from Book 6:Â
This younger Albus Dumbledoreâs long hair and beard were auburn. Having reached their side of the street, he strode off along the pavement, drawing many curious glances due to the flamboyantly cut suit of plum velvet that he was wearing. âNice suit, sir,â said Harry, before he could stop himself, but Dumbledore merely chuckled.
Now, this is subtle. Wizards out and about in the muggle world often wear unusual colors like purple and emerald green. However. That adjective flamboyantly is only used one other time in the entire series, to describe Fudgeâs hand gestures. But here, it is used to describe an outfit, a purple velvet suit which is honestly more than a little bit Oscar Wilde. And âflamboyantly gayâ ⌠those are two words often heard together.Â
Also, correct me if Iâm wrong, but I am pretty sure this is the only opinion about clothing Harry ever expresses aloud. And, I think @niche-pastiche hit the nail right on the head, saying that Harry's "Nice suit, sir" is "SO the response of a young adhd boy in the early 2000s trying not to say "thats gay."Â
Horace Slughorn
Horace Slughorn cries at Aragogâs funeral, not really out of grief for Aragog, but mostly out of a maudlin sense of togetherness, nostalgia, and camaraderie. And⌠I do think we have one more slightly morally ambiguous femme-coded guy on our hands? Like Dumbledore, Slughorn is very much a flashy dresser, with shiny hair and gold buttons on his waistcoat. He loves treats and candies (hey⌠so does Dumbledore. Theyâre the only adults with a sweet tooth like that.) He loves fancy dinner parties, and is well-connected without being ambitious the way Lucius is. He also (like Draco) is aligned with pureblood-supremacy, but hyper avoidant of violence and confrontation. Except for the Harry example, I think Iâd be comfortable with calling all of these last few instances âFemme-Coded Crying.âÂ
* Methodology - My list of 208 Harry Potter characters comes from TV Tropes, which had the most complete list. I am excluding characters from Cursed Child and the Fantastic Beasts Films.Â
In order to find instances of crying, I searched for the words âcried/cry/cryingâ âtearsâ âsobâ and âsniff.â I counted each crying episode as one, even if crying was brought up multiple times throughout the scene. I made the fairest call I could whenever I hit a âthe crying intensifiedâ or the âthe tears restarted,â but I mostly judge pretty conservatively when Iâm ringing up data.
#hp#hp queercoding#hp close reading#literary analysis#albus dumbledore#horace slughorn#rubeus hagrid#house elves#draco malfoy#severus snape#crying#peter pettigrew
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i would talk about harry potter on here but no one agrees with my headcanons i fear
#rose rambling#mostly bc i hc like 90% of the main cast as poc - neurodivergent - etc#mixed/arabic harry potter.... black hermione.... dyslexic ron.... autistic luna lovegood + neville longbottom.... the list goes on...#they're also all queer in some way#i enjoy harry potter not in the canon way but in the fanon way#GOD does anyone want to hear my character analysis'#i could write an entire essay on why draco (a literal child!!) shouldve been redeemed instead of snape (incel nice guy)#like draco is actually such a nuanced character#hes not an innocent sweetheart hottie whos done no wrong (tiktok characterization) but he's not like. fucking. idk. satan#i think he deserved redemption is what im saying#more than snape anyway#im more of a marauders person too#SIRIUS BLACK I LOVE YOU SIRIUS BLACK#i love them all#hp is precious to me in a âive been obsessed with it since my formative yesrs and it is a comfort pieve of mediaâ way#also this has to be said#fuck dumbledore
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Master Post : Tom Riddle
A Master Post for anyone who wants to find specific/look at any of my Tom Riddle analyses/posts in general. ( in all honesty I made this so I can find posts I need to reference quickly )
Analyses
Tom Riddle : Narcissism, Heritage and Mental Breakdown
Tom Riddle : Views on Pure-Blood Supremacy
Tom Riddle : Significance of WWII
Tom Riddle : Psychopath or Sociopath?
Tom Riddle : Is he Aromantic?
Asks / General Posts
Tom Riddle : Opinion on Fanon Tom
Tom Riddle : What made him want to finally be a Dark Lord?
#harry potter#harry potter fandom#hp fandom#lord voldemort#tom marvolo riddle#slytherin#tom riddle#voldemort#tom riddle analysis#tom riddle fanfiction#master post#harry potter meta#hp meta#death eaters#knights of walpurgis#dumbledore#tom riddle meta#analysis#hp master post
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Iâm just gonna say this once and Iâm not going to repeat myself, âcuz the amount of people who shit at Dumbledore and the Hogwarts staff for this is irrational
The reason Harry didnât get a teachers visit at first like other muggle-born/muggle-raised kids do, and instead was sent letters was because THEY ALL THOUGHT HE ALREADY KNEW! We see how Hagrid reacts when he hears that Harry doesnât know anything and we are told that the Dursleys didnât tell Harry on purpose even though they were supposed to
Everyone thought that Harry already knew about the Wizarding World, so the only missing thing was to send him his letter. About Hogwarts. Which he should have known about because the Dursleys were supposed to explain it to him.
Hermione was muggle-born into a non-magical family , her parents were dentist. Nobody there knew anything about magic. She had a teacher visit to gently introduce her and her parents to the Wizarding world.
Tom Riddle was muggle-raised. He was born to a wizard but he didnât have any idea about it because he was raised in a muggle environment where nobody knew about magic. He has a teacher visit to explain and introduce the Wizarding World to him.
But the Dursleys ( mainly Petunia ) knew about the existence of magic. Knew about the Wizarding World. And they chose to not tell Harry against what Dumbledore asked them for.
#harry potter#hp fandom#hp#harry potter blog#hp blog#fandom culture#fandom things#harry potter movies#harry potter fandom#harry potter books#petunia dursley#dursley family#albus dumbledore#professor dumbledore#hp analysis#harry potter analysis#canon compliant#analysis#hp books#hp movies
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