The Life and Lies of Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore by Irvin Khaytman (ereader with dictionary txt) 📕

in Half-Blood Prince was to keep Harry happy. However, the way in which Harry is finally told is so convoluted that I can only assume it was designed to be intentionally so. Anything else is an insult to Dumbledore’s intelligence, because there are a million ways in which he could have told Harry. But this is what Dumbledore chooses to do instead, as dictated to Snape:

“Harry must not know, not until the last moment, not until it is necessary, otherwise how could he have the strength to do what must be done? [. . .] There will come a time when Lord Voldemort will seem to fear for the life of his snake. [. . .] If there comes a time when Lord Voldemort stops sending that snake forth to do his bidding, but keeps it safe beside him under magical protection, then, I think, it will be safe to tell Harry.” (DH685-686)

The step of telling Harry about the Scarcrux should have been wholly independent of whatever else was going on. Instead, Dumbledore slows it down by falsely necessitating three things, in a separate Plan C:

Voldemort has to find out that Harry is hunting Horcruxes. Otherwise, he will not fear for Nagini and keep her close, so Snape will not know to alert Harry.

After Voldemort is worried for Nagini, Snape has to become aware of this.

Snape then has to find a way of getting to Harry and letting him know about the sacrifice.

Ignoring the problem of how Snape will get Harry to listen to him, these three points are a dangerous gamble, but not an absurd one. . . upon making several assumptions.

Voldemort will only find out about Harry’s Horcrux hunt after Harry has destroyed all the Horcruxes but Nagini. Otherwise, Harry is royally screwed. But since the whole plan goes to pieces if Voldemort finds out about the Horcrux hunt, and it’s extremely unlikely Harry will be able to kill Nagini without alerting Voldemort, this seems like a fair assumption to make.

After learning of the Horcrux hunt, Voldemort will have an opportunity to chat with Snape. Also reasonable, since Voldemort will likely start marshalling all his Death Eaters in his paranoia about Harry hunting Horcruxes.

After learning of the Horcrux hunt, Voldemort will not have the opportunity to make additional Horcruxes. This is the biggest logical flaw in all of this, since it seems like Voldemort would immediately start making more Horcruxes upon finding that the existing ones have been destroyed. It appears that here, Dumbledore was counting on Voldemort’s vanity and weakness for drama to save the day. . . he counted on Voldemort wanting to make grand and powerful objects into Horcruxes, using significant deaths, and this would have slowed Voldemort down considerably. Still, it seems like a risky assumption.47

After Snape has seen Nagini’s new protected status, he will have the opportunity to talk to Harry before things come to a head. Tricky, since Snape and Harry won’t be spending lots of quality time together, but feasible considering Snape’s resourcefulness.

In other words, Dumbledore is relying on a very precise sequence of events occurring within a fairly narrow timeline for all of this to work. But evidently, Dumbledore was willing to deal with the risk if it meant prolonging Harry’s happy obliviousness. Dumbledore is risking everything just to buy Harry that peace of mind while he’s hunting Horcruxes, orchestrating it so he does not find out about the Scarcrux until the very last possible moment.

However, this plan nearly falls apart because the first assumption is false. You know what they say about assuming. . . safe to say, this is as good a cautionary tale as any. Assumption (i) was that Voldemort would find out about Horcruxes after only Nagini was left. . . however, he finds out when the Diademcrux is still in play. In other words, the timeline narrows exponentially because Harry now must locate and destroy the Diademcrux before Voldemort has the chance to make new ones, amidst everything else going on.

As if that isn’t bad enough, something completely unforeseen happens: the final Horcrux ends up residing at Hogwarts. . . where Snape is! Thus, the timeline of Dumbledore’s carefully crafted plan narrows to mere hours. I’m sure Dumbledore never, in his wildest dreams, thought that Harry would be destroying the last Horcrux and Nagini and sacrificing himself the very same night.

From here on out it’s just incredible luck that things work out so Snape ends up delivering the information to Harry, albeit via Pensieve, which I don’t think Dumbledore intended (and it was certainly very silly if he did). This plan of Dumbledore’s to stall until the moment Harry had to find out about the Scarcrux very nearly sent all of his plans up in flames. . . But that wasn’t the only questionable plot brewing in Dumbledore’s brilliant mind.

Enter the Hallows

There is a curiosity about Deathly Hallows—namely, why bother with the titular Hallows at all? After all, the Hallows don’t have much bearing on the battle between Voldemort and Harry, with the exception of the Elder Wand. Harry unites them and becomes master of Death, but that does not turn out to mean much. As Dumbledore explains, “the true master does not seek to run away from Death. He accepts that he must die, and understands that there are far, far worse things in the living world than dying.” (DH721)

So finding the Hallows turned out to be about Harry accepting he must die? Sorry, this reader doesn’t buy it. If we know anything about Harry, it’s that he would be willing to die with or without Hallows. It seems like there isn’t that much special about being master of Death—after all, Lily and James both accepted they must die, and so did Dumbledore, and so did many other people. . . are they all masters of Death? And if so, then the Hallows are indeed superfluous.

I’ve yet to find any other theories on why the Hallows are even there, except a few cynical fans who ascribe their presence to Jo’s desire for an eleventh-hour MacGuffin. We have dived too far