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

Leave the Elder Wand in Dumbledore’s tomb. Hope that Voldemort won’t seek it out for a while, and that it will take Voldemort considerable time to trace the Elder Wand back to Dumbledore.

Bequeath the Resurrection Stone to Harry, but encased within the Snitch, ensuring he cannot get to it until the time is right.

During their heart-to-heart about Harry having to die, Snape also allows Harry to Disarm him, thereby making Harry the master of the Elder Wand. While the wand itself is still hopefully safe in Dumbledore’s tomb, Harry will open the Snitch, and therefore be master of all three Hallows.

These are the four steps Dumbledore had in mind to make Harry Master of Death before he is about to die. I will admit the last one is pure conjecture, but it makes sense when put along with everything else. After all, how else was Harry supposed to master the wand, if the working theory was that Snape would be its master upon killing Dumbledore?48

Note that Dumbledore did not plan for Harry to actually use the Resurrection Stone, or the Elder Wand, only to own them. In this new plan, the wand is better off in Dumbledore’s tomb, where it will hopefully stay forevermore and cease causing havoc.

HufflepuffSam wrote otherwise in their essay “The Master of Death,” that to be Master of Death one had to possess all the Hallows, not just be their rightful owner. They claim that for all we know, being Master of Death would render one immortal just as Xenophilius says—but since no one actually possesses all three Hallows at any point, no one ended up being Master of Death.

The only issue with this theory is the question of why the Elder Wand ended up in Dumbledore’s tomb. If the plan was for Harry to be given it by Snape, why wouldn’t Snape remove it from the tomb? Since there seem to have been no plans in place for Harry to actually have the wand, it appears that Dumbledore thought being the wand’s master would suffice.

Step 4—making Harry the Master of Death—may be the least provable part of this section, but it seems to me to be the only thing that makes sense. Dumbledore talks in the “King’s Cross” chapter as if his plan all along has been for Harry to be Master of Death, but he certainly did not plan for Draco to ever be the master of the Elder Wand, and he definitely didn’t count on Harry wrestling Draco for wands. Also, considering all the trouble Dumbledore went to in order to have the Trio pursue the Hallows, it seems a waste if Harry wasn’t meant to master the wand in the end—then the only added benefit would be Harry’s moment of comfort on the way to death. While I think Dumbledore intentionally delayed the Trio to put off the moment Harry has to sacrifice himself, he would not send them on a wild goose chase at so pivotal a time.

Of course, the implications of Step 4 are enormous. The biggest one is that Dumbledore essentially scrapped the last part of Plan B—where Snape is exonerated by defeating Voldemort with the Elder Wand. The rest of Plan B was still in place—where Snape hopefully defeats Voldemort, or at any rate someone does. But Dumbledore took away Snape’s most important tool for the job so Harry would stand a slightly better chance of surviving.

The Tragedy of Snape

The timing of when Plan D was formed is a touch unclear. We know Plans A and B (defeating Voldemort) were formed pretty much immediately after Dumbledore got the Ringcrux; we know that Plan C (procrastinating the Scarcrux) was formed in early 1997 because Dumbledore probably gave Snape his instructions soon after he thought of them. Plan D—mastering the Hallows—could have been formed at any point between the two.

We know it was some time after Plan B was formed, because Dumbledore definitely intended Snape to end up with the Elder Wand at some point as we’ve discussed, and now no longer did. The wand would only be useful to Snape if he was still its master when the dust settled. Since he was no longer intended to be, there was no reason for him to keep custody of it, since then Voldemort might find it more easily. Thus, the wand was to stay in Dumbledore’s tomb.

This means Snape has the worst of both worlds. By killing Dumbledore and mastering the wand, the bulls-eye is still on Snape’s back. However, he now no longer even gets the benefit that accompanies mastering the wand, since he is to relinquish that to Harry. Dumbledore is once again displaying the enormous faith he has in Snape, since my guess is that Snape is still meant to defeat Voldemort should Harry die, but he is now expected to do so armed with an ordinary wand.

Let’s assume that Dumbledore had come up with this by February and informed Snape about allowing Harry to Disarm him along with his other instructions to tell Harry about the Scarcrux—we have no guarantee of this, but it makes things more poetic. Because if one keeps all of this baggage in mind, the scene becomes even more heart-breaking than it already is:

Dumbledore took a deep breath and closed his eyes.

“Tell him that [. . .] while that fragment of soul, unmissed by Voldemort, remains attached to and protected by Harry, Lord Voldemort cannot die.”

[. . .]

“So the boy . . . the boy must die?” asked Snape quite calmly. [. . .] “I thought . . . all those years . . . that we were protecting him for her. For Lily.”

“We have protected him because it has been essential to teach him, to raise him, to let him try his strength,” said Dumbledore, his eyes still tight shut. “[. . .] If I know him, he will have arranged matters so that when he does set out to meet his death, it will truly mean the end of Voldemort.”

Dumbledore opened his