Harry Potter

• Harry: Have you been grooming me to die all this time?
• Dumbledore: If there was any other way, I would have taken it, but there's not. You carry a piece of Voldemort's soul within you.
• Harry: Why didn't you ever tell me? Why have you never trusted me?
• Dumbledore: Allow me to explain. You carry. A piece. Of Voldemort's soul. Within you.

Which book was it where everything went to Hell because Harry found something out, and Voldemort learned of it like thirty seconds later because of their connection?

Now, we can argue that it was a bad move on Rowling's part to craft her plot in such a way that it required keeping her main character ignorant, but I think the justification was reasonable enough.

The point is the risk was too great...Dumbledore already took a big risk telling Harry about the Horcruxes without him knowing Occlumency. He did that because he's dying (of his own mistake), that Voldemort wouldn't use that connection to spy on Harry again.

I also think Dumbledore didn't tell Harry for humanitarian reasons. If he had told Harry outright he was gonna die...he would put him in a Death Row mentality for two or three years, it would poison his friendships and relationships and that's not a mentality you want to foster in someone driven by The Power of Love, especially since Dumbledore guessed all along that he had a chance to survive, but only if he believed that he really was going to die. So he made it as short a window as possible for Harry to do it, get over it and come back to life.

...and let's not forget, ultimately this was all Snape's fault. He told Voldemort that prophecy knowing fully well that some kid and their parents was going to be on the firing line. It was Dumbledore's intention to hire Trelawney, it was not his decision to tell Voldemort that prophecy. Snape did that so ultimately he and Voldemort are to blame.

So to me that scene where Snape tries to morally criticize DD is pure projection on his part, typical of a man who has been incapable all his life, taking responsibility for his actions and always blaming other people for the horrible choices he made.

Order of the Phoenix?

no, it was the fact that for someone who said "you disgust me" dumblodore plan was pretty much "well, that poor boy will die someday...but I care a lot you see?" it take a really sense of detachment in order to do that.

Also, dumblodore also project himself into Snape which is one reason he have it around, as he have first have experience with having radical ideas and making bad choice that let people die, the diference here is that Snape dosent regreat things because he is too obsess with himself

edited 24th Oct '16 7:18:27 PM by unknowing

I have always wondered just how much the soul fragment Harry had mattered in the end. It's an incomplete Horcrux (it does involve a ritual of some kind, after all), but what does that mean? Is it easier to destroy? Does it keep Voldie alive like it should?

So, another question, if all the Horcruxes were destroyed in between the Events of Godric's Hollow and POA, you know, when the snake faced baddie didn't have a body, what would happen?

He'd still be alive until someone killed Harry.

Now would Dumbledore Old Yeller him?

Would the Potter horcrux die with Harry if he died of old age or would Harry's corpse become a horcrux? Or would the horcrux keep Harry from dying of old age?

Harry was actually not a 'real' Horcrux as there is all sorts of extra work to be done. Voldemort certainly didn't intend for a bit of his soul to attach itself to his nemesis-to-be, although he did find ways to make it work for him later. I would presume that Harry's corpse (or maybe just his skull, given the scar's location) would be the pseudo-horcrux, though without all the extra rigmarole and ritual it might be relatively easy to destroy compared to horcruxes proper.

Well yes, Snape's a dick. That's not really in question.

• Dumbledore: I care about you and want you to have a good life, up until the point that unfortunately you are going to have to die.
• Snape: I don't care about you and am bitter that you're alive today. Though we are aligned in the enemy we oppose, the thought of dancing on your grave gives me a sense of physical pleasure. I describe myself as tingly.

Only one of these is a decent mentor.

Snape didn't want the role.

Neither did DD, really. There wasn't exactly a point where he was jumping for joy at the prospect of mentoring Harry. It was just a thing that had to be done so he stepped up to do it. That's Dumbledore in a nutshell: there is a thing that must be done and no one else is doing it so I'm going to. From his dogged pursuit of the young Tom Riddle to his hunt for the Horcruxes, his adult life was defined by an inability to quiet his conscience and just let an unjust matter be.

As an adult, he didn't always make the best choices, but he always had the best intentions behind them. He meant well.

Snape, on the other hand, was driven predominately by bitterness, obsession, and one hot mess of an inferiority complex. The one quasi-positive trait he had was that Lily's murder put him on Dumbledore's side and, as I've mentioned before, his relationship to Harry betrays the depths of his "love" for Lily. The way he belligerently treats Lily's son as James Potter Jr. demonstrates that he hated James more than he ever loved Lily.

Snape didn't love Lily. He was attracted to her. He was a little boy with a crush, and his fundamental problem is that he never grew up past that. To the end of his days, he clung to this fantasy of Lily he'd constructed in his head and refused to grow beyond it. He faithfully devoted his existence to a corpse, but refused to extend that devotion to that which Lily loved more than anything in the world because he didn't really love her. He barely even knew her after so many years apart. He was just addicted to the loss.

edited 25th Oct '16 10:19:50 AM by TobiasDrake

She was the only person who ever remotely cared about him.

His father and mother were worthless, no one else at school paid him any attention,

Lily was the only person who was ever more than "passing indifferent" to him. Snape was just so incredibly thick-skulled he wound up driving her away.

I'd say his attraction to her was more than a pre-adolescent crush.

This doesn't mean I don't think he's a vicious egotistical asshole. I just disagree with the sentiment that the "explanation" of his being a "good guy" makes him even less of a "good guy"

edited 25th Oct '16 10:26:26 AM by blkwhtrbbt

It doesn't make him less of a good guy, because he was already not a good guy. He's on the side of the good guys. That's different.

Throughout the entire series, Snape is a cruel, petty, and abusive teacher whose awful behavior constantly places him in an antagonistic role despite both sides being against Voldemort. From start to finish, he is an abhorrent man who only seems to repent that he got Lily killed; not any of the behaviors that drove her away from him or led to her death in the first place, behaviors that he is more than happy to continue perpetuating even as he helps work against Big V.

In the Order of the Phoenix, Snape is driven solely by his obsessive devotion to a dead woman he knew for a few years when he was a child, and in his role as a Hogwarts instructor, he's driven by his deranged projection of Harry and Malfoy being the next generation of James and Snape. He lives entirely in the past and is completely incapable of divorcing reality from the deluded fantasies of his youth, wherein he was the put-upon victim whose true love for Lily would have been eternal had she not been stolen by that wicked Potter boy.

And everyone around him constantly suffers for it. Snape may help serve an ultimately good cause even to the point of dying for it, but he is as much a "good guy" as Gollum.

Also, I question the logic that Lily was the only person in his entire life who ever treated him as anything but a scum stain. Snape was recruited into a hate group. People like him are popular targets for recruitment because they're desperate for belonging and are more than happy to adopt anything you feed them if it means you'll accept them. He wouldn't have gone half as deep into Death Eater philosophy if they weren't being nice to him.

Hell, even Voldemort himself agreed to spare Lily on no grounds other than Snape asking him to. And he made a legitimate effort to keep that promise, because he respected and valued Snape as much as a nightmare person like him was capable. Snape was welcome and accepted within the Death Eaters - which, itself, was a point of contention in his friendship with Lily.

edited 25th Oct '16 11:29:34 AM by TobiasDrake

Yeah, Snape fundamental flaw is that he never let go anything...like, ANYTHING, Lily is still that girl he mock, James the one who bully him and so own, is that obsession with the pass that drive him to do what he does even if is unpleasent to him.

dumblodore is instersting in that he CARES about people....but it also can detach himself of whatever situation surrond him, which can be jarring to hear or read "I care about Harry" with "But you have to die"

edited 25th Oct '16 11:33:40 AM by unknowing

That's exactly his problem.

However on some low level, I'm fairly certain he knew this deep down as well, that the DE wouldn't have been half so "kind" were they not craving his talents for dark magic rather than appreciating him as a person. And that's why he still clings to this Lilly myth, the idea that there was someone who genuinely, unconditionally respected him and loved him.

And you know the saddest part of the whole Harry/Snape conflict? Harry may be James's son, and might have more than a few of his qualities, but he resembles Snape himself quite a bit (abusive family, bullying, skill at DADA, even their teaching styles are similar, even if Harry was a lot less of a dick), but where Harry is a decent guy and more or less let go of a lot of his grudges and make a few friends, Snape... didn't. And he is too obsessed to realize it.

Hell, the teenager who is hated for no good reason is the mature one in this relationship, even if the forgiveness was too much.

Problem is, she was just a friend whose relationship he read way too much into, and there was nothing unconditional about it - as he found out when he finally crossed one too many of her conditions.

Snape spent his childhood overly obsessing on this one friend he had for a few years and his adult life continuing to do so rather than actually making new friends and building new relationships. Yes, he was dealt a shitty hand, but it's not life that declared that he should spend every waking moment creepily worshipping the vague memory of a dead woman he barely even knew. That was Snape's choice, and it's a really creepy one.

As I said earlier, he's stalking a corpse.

When exactly do you think that Dumbledore realized that Harry would need to die?

edited 25th Oct '16 2:43:11 PM by KarkatTheDalek

That really depends on when he found out that Big V had horcruxes. I'm honestly not sure if he knew about that when he first delivered Harry to the Potter residence. He later affirms that he put Harry there so he'd be safe from Voldemort, which means he must have at least suspected right then and there that V's death was not the end of him.

If that didn't clue him in, Harry's Parseltongue was probably an alarming red flag.

edited 25th Oct '16 2:44:52 PM by TobiasDrake

Not to mention the visions he had at fourth and fifth year, then again a human Horcrux is something new.

Even before the visions, Harry had a Voldemort-detecting scar. It burned any time Big V was near.

Plus, there's the fact that he even had a scar. AK doesn't scar you. It just kills. It doesn't burn, it doesn't slice, it doesn't do anything that would leave a scar. You just drop dead on the spot. Harry has a scar. Why does Harry have a scar?

Even if DD understands how the Love Barrier works, that alone warrants investigation. Harry should not have a scar, but he does. The scar, in and of itself, is proof that something happened other than No Selling an AK. Which we know to be Harry becoming a horcrux.

edited 25th Oct '16 3:03:03 PM by TobiasDrake

"Harry is a decent guy and more or less let go of a lot of his grudges and make a few friends, Snape... didn't. And he is too obsessed to realize it."

I think he know how much a pathetic being he is....he just cant let his nature go which is his on tragedy, he is trap in is own nature, incapable of moving away for every decision he made "I like lilly, she is nice to me, I drive her away, that jerk of Jame have it, is my fault she is dead, now I have to deal with James jr" that is pretty much Snape thoughts over and over and over, is not a surprise how mess up he is

What I meant was basically, "Harry and Snape are alike, and Snape refuses to see it", but Harry, in the end is the better person of the two.

Harry is alike to Snape in the same way that he's alike to Voldemort. Similar origins but very different people.

I know that the Diary was definitive proof for Dumbledore that Voldemort had created at least one Horcrux. I'm guessing he at least suspected that Voldemort had done so by that point.

The question is whether he figured out that Harry was a Horcrux before then, at that time, or later. I definitely think he knew by ''Goblet of Fire", if that "gleam of triumph" is anything to go by.

If I had to guess, I'd say he figured it out sometime during the first book.