Thoughts on the Nature of Dumbledore & Secret-Keeping

February 2004

I wanted to mention an issue I’ve been mulling over with some people... Dumbledore. I have a hard time believing he’s really evil… and the line in Goblet of Fire where he has a look of triumph on his face as Harry mentions Voldemort’s rebirth using Harry’s blood. All right, there’s a million good reasons he could be looking triumphant- that the furthering bond between them will allow Harry to defeat Voldemort in the end, etc. But the fact is, he *did* know a lot about the Potters and other things that were important to Voldemort. Dumbledore suggested they use the fedalias charm and offered to be their secret keeper. James entrusted him with the invisibility cloak, they were friends, and I’d like to think much more than that as they were all working together and apparently on the same side. So why did James insist on Sirius? Wouldn’t Dumbledore be a more logical choice? What did Sirius have that Dumbledore did not? I realize Siri was his best friend and best man and Harry’s god daddy and so James and Lily both must have loved and trusted Sirius above anyone else… but wouldn’t trusting this bit of info to Dumbledore make more sense if they knew someone in their Order/group was a spy?

Ok, so my thought is, if Dumbledore is indeed evil or power hungry or working above/along with Voldy… and he got the info on the Potters, great. Work is done. If it was entrusted to Sirius, then there’s a problem. Something *made* Sirius shake it off onto Peter as the least obvious choice. Something very, very important in that they didn’t even tell Dumbledore about the switch- why not? Why couldn’t they trust Dumbledore? And knowing now that if they had, Sirius wouldn’t have been sent to Azkaban, there must have been some big reason why they couldn’t tell Albus. If Dumbledore somehow planted doubt/cause/reason in Sirius’ mind… and Dumbledore knew he would switch to Peter who worked for Voldy, the job is done as well. Either way, the Potters would be destroyed… So why then was their bond with Sirius so strong as to refuse Dumbledore but be able to accept doing bluff without Dumbledore’s knowledge? And Remus.. well… maybe there are ways of making werewolves talk, but I don’t exactly have any idea why they would or wouldn’t confide in him, either.

I just find their choices very interesting… and I’d like to hear thoughts about this. No, I don’t think Dumbledore’s evil… but if he were, it all seems like he’d know he’d be coming out on top in the end, whatever they did. All very hypothetical, though. :-)