The Life and Lies of Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore
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Then, as soon as the school year starts, Dumbledore proceeds to set Quirrell (if Quirrell is indeed Voldemort’s agent) on the trail of the Stone. At the Start-of-Term Feast, Dumbledore makes a very public announcement that “the third-floor corridor on the right-hand side is out of bounds to everyone who does not wish to die a very painful death.” (SS127)
Honestly, he might as well have whispered in Quirrell’s ear, “Psssst! That’s where I’m hiding the Stone!” Even Percy notes how strange this announcement is, “because he usually gives us a reason why we’re not allowed to go somewhere.” (SS127) But Quirrell takes the bait—hook, line, and sinker. The very next morning, Harry and Ron are rescued on the third-floor corridor “by Professor Quirrell, who was passing.” (SS132)
Dumbledore notices this, and tells Snape, “Keep an eye on Quirrell, won’t you?” (DH679) We don’t know precisely when this “Prince’s Tale” flashback takes place, but since Snape is ranting and raving about Harry, we can assume it was around the second or third week of the term. Dumbledore’s plan is working beautifully, since a week into the school year, he has already confirmed that Quirrell is the one after the Stone.
Meanwhile, Dumbledore drops another hint to Harry in the form of the news article about the Gringott’s break-in that Harry finds at Hagrid’s. Isn’t it odd that Hagrid would have a five-week-old news clipping lying around? I’m betting Dumbledore put it there for Harry to find—clearly, Dumbledore is using Hagrid to unwittingly feed Harry information.
Hagrid has also provided the first line of defense for the Stone. Fluffy has a very specific role to play—otherwise, as Ron says, “What do they think they’re doing, keeping a thing like that locked up in a school?” (SS161) The Stone was perfectly safe within the Mirror, so why have a murderous three-headed dog sitting in the school, behind a door that’s susceptible to a basic Alohomora charm?
This is the first time we see that Dumbledore very much likes to control when things happen to suit his purpose, and that’s where Fluffy comes in. Keep that tendency in mind, as it will be an absolutely crucial concept when we get to Deathly Hallows. Fluffy is there to slow everything down, to allow Dumbledore to set the stage for Harry to go after Quirrell. He wants Harry to learn some magic, and he also wants to learn more about the boy before sending him to face Voldemort. If Quirrell got right to the Mirror, he would take it and scamper, and there goes Dumbledore’s plan for the Harry vs. Voldemort showdown. But trying to figure out how to get past Fluffy would keep Quirrell busy for quite some time.
Keep in mind that at this point, none of the other protections are in place. We only learn of protections other than Fluffy in February, when the Trio assumes there must be other things guarding the Stone (SS227), and it’s not confirmed by Hagrid until weeks later (SS232), which is in April, according to the HP Lexicon’s timeline.
The fact that the protections are tailored to the Trio means that they had to be put in place once Dumbledore actually knew who Harry’s closest friends would be. Therefore, the very earliest the protections could have been constructed is November, since Hermione wasn’t even friendly with Harry until Halloween.3 Allow a few weeks to learn that Hermione really had become Harry’s friend for good and for Dumbledore to learn more about Hermione, and it seems unlikely the protections were put in place earlier than December. But I think it may have been later than that.
We know that between September and December, Fluffy was in place, and protections two through six were not. But was the Mirror, with the Stone in it, in place at this time? No.
Dumbledore would not have wanted to risk Quirrell getting past Fluffy and fleeing with the Mirror before Harry had a chance to face him. Dumbledore, while making fanfare about Fluffy and what it’s guarding, actually kept the Mirror and the Stone elsewhere. It doesn’t matter where, since no one would know that the Stone was hidden inside the Mirror. . . for all we know, maybe it was in Dumbledore’s office the whole time! And meanwhile, he let Quirrell get on with trying to get past Fluffy, perhaps chortling at the thought of how peeved Voldemort would be if they did get past Fluffy and found nothing there.
Either way, after four months of this, it’s the Christmas holidays—Quirrell still hasn’t figured out how to get past Fluffy, and Dumbledore believes he knows enough about the Trio to start setting up the obstacles. But before that can happen, Harry needs to be told about the Mirror of Erised—having his first encounter with the Mirror happen during his faceoff with Quirrell could be disastrous! (Picture Voldemort convincing the naïve eleven-year-old that what he sees in the Mirror will come to pass if Voldemort is resurrected). As Dumbledore tells Harry, “If you ever do run across it, you will now be prepared.” (SS214) So Dumbledore takes the Mirror out of hiding, wherever it was, to show to Harry.4
I don’t think there’s any doubt that Dumbledore followed Harry on Christmas night. That was the day Harry got his Invisibility Cloak, and Dumbledore would have known that Harry would take it for a spin—the timing of Dumbledore giving it to him, like everything else, was deliberate. Let’s face it, the odds of Harry stumbling onto the one room with the Mirror are astronomical. Counting on Harry’s adventurous nature, Dumbledore probably waited outside the Gryffindor common room for Harry to emerge, followed him invisibly, and put the Mirror into the room that Harry was about to enter. Then, he likely watched with tears in his eyes as Harry looked into the Mirror and saw his family—the same vision that Dumbledore himself sees.5
Dumbledore may have hoped that Harry would figure out what the Mirror did on his own, but Harry doesn’t, not even when he brings Ron the following night. And Dumbledore sees that Harry is consumed by what the Mirror shows him, so on the third night he finally shows himself to Harry and explains what the Mirror does. Then he says, “The Mirror will be moved to a new home tomorrow.” (SS213) Note that it’s a “new” home—I believe that this is when the Mirror was put underneath Fluffy’s trapdoor for the first time. And after the Mirror was in place, Dumbledore had McGonagall, Flitwick, Sprout, Snape, and Quirrell put their protections in place in early January.
Things then quiet down for a while, until Quirrell gets Hagrid drunk and finds out how to get past Fluffy. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to Dumbledore, the Trio has been sleuthing and made the Nicolas Flamel connection, realizing that the Sorcerer’s Stone is what Fluffy is guarding. We know that Dumbledore is unaware of this because he is surprised by Harry’s knowledge of Flamel (SS297).
After Quirrell finds out about Fluffy, his behavior likely tips Dumbledore off, and Dumbledore now needs to let the Trio know about the Stone. But Dumbledore doesn’t want his involvement to be known, so he waits for an opportunity to let Harry know in an inconspicuous way. And just such an opportunity presents itself when Harry and Hermione land themselves in detention!
At this point, something has been killing the unicorns in the Forbidden Forest, and Dumbledore has likely put two and two together and realized it’s Voldemort. Dumbledore sees this as a good opportunity to tip Harry off about the Stone and about the fact that Voldemort is after it. He decides that the detention will take place in the Forbidden Forest.
This is the only plausible explanation for that detention. Even by Hogwarts’s very lax standards, sending four first years into the Forest at night, when they realistically are no help in finding a dead unicorn, is absurd. It’s certainly not McGonagall’s style, and until Dolores Umbridge comes along, the detentions mostly consist of cleaning and other sensible things. The idea for this detention was almost certainly part of Dumbledore’s plan.
One thing that always struck me as odd was that Firenze knew about the Stone. He is the one who helps lead Harry to the conclusion that Voldemort is trying to steal the Sorcerer’s Stone—after explaining what unicorn blood does, he asks Harry, “Mr. Potter, do you know what is hidden in the school at this very moment?” (SS259) Why would Firenze, a centaur who has nothing to do with anything, know about it? Unless the meaning of “Mars is bright tonight” is “There’s a Sorcerer’s
Stone hidden at Hogwarts,” there’s no way for Firenze to know about it. . . unless Dumbledore tipped him off. After Dumbledore planned Harry’s excursion into the Forest, he likely sought out the most approachable centaur and instructed Firenze to watch over Harry and tell him about the Stone and Voldemort at an opportune moment.6
Did Dumbledore plan the meeting in the forest between Harry and Quirrell? I’m leaning towards no, because that would needlessly endanger Harry and the other students. Also, Dumbledore doesn’t really have a way of knowing which nights Quirrell goes to drink the unicorn blood. I think we can give Quirrell enough benefit of the doubt to not drink it on a regular schedule. That run-in was a coincidence, but luckily Firenze was watching over Harry, and no harm was done.
Another subtle clue of Dumbledore’s involvement is that he returns the Invisibility Cloak to Harry that night. Why that night, of all of them? Because Dumbledore counted on Harry now knowing what’s going on and equipped him with the Cloak to go after Quirrell.
Now the only thing for Dumbledore to do is to leave and allow events to unfold. Perhaps Quirrell just happened to choose the last day of Harry’s exams to send Dumbledore away, or perhaps Dumbledore waited until the exams were done so as not to interfere with Harry’s education. Either way, about a week after the incursion into the Forest, Dumbledore gets an urgent owl from the Ministry and “leaves,” allowing Quirrell and the Trio to go after the Stone.
Here we get evidence that Dumbledore’s staff is not privy to the plan for the Trio to go through the trapdoor. When Harry reveals he knows about the Stone, “Whatever Professor McGonagall had expected, it wasn't that. The books she was carrying tumbled out of her arms, but she didn't pick them up.” (SS267) So unless McGonagall is just having a laugh and doing a bit of acting (there is a theory that she carries a stack of books around just so she can keep dropping them for dramatic effect), this means that the staff was not aware that the protections they were creating were custom-made for the Trio. This is very much Dumbledore’s style; he will employ a similar lack of disclosure in Order of the Phoenix, when he assigns tasks to his allies.
Did Dumbledore actually go to London? Perhaps, but if he did, he certainly got back much sooner than he leads us to believe. Hermione tells Harry, “I brought Ron around—that took a while—and we were dashing up to the owlery to contact Dumbledore when we met him in the entrance hall—he already knew—he just said, ‘Harry’s gone after him, hasn’t he?’ and hurtled off to the third floor.” (SS302)
Dumbledore is all about timing. He wanted to give Harry some time to face off against Quirrell but would then dash in to end things. So he carefully planned it. After the potions puzzle, Harry would go to fight Quirrell, while Ron and Hermione would return. Dumbledore watched them go, waited for Ron and Hermione to emerge, which would be his cue to go after Harry—that would give Harry enough time.
What Dumbledore hadn’t counted on was Ron getting injured and Hermione having to take time to revive him. He was frantic by the time Ron and Hermione got to him: he knew that they should have emerged sooner. That’s why Dumbledore “feared [he] might be too late.” (SS297) He also must have received quite a shock when he arrived and saw the Sorcerer’s Stone was no longer in the mirror! That was his first sign that he was dealing with an extraordinary boy.
Upon reflection, Harry was quite right—Dumbledore did orchestrate much of what happened that year at Hogwarts. All the protections surrounding the Stone were meticulously planned by Dumbledore for the Trio. Some parts of the plan went wrong—like Harry getting the Stone out of the mirror and Ron getting injured. And there were quite a few coincidences—Quirrell trying to steal the Stone just after it was taken, Harry meeting Quirrell in the Forest, and Harry finding out about Nicolas Flamel.
But on the whole, this plan turned out all right. Throughout the year, no one was really the wiser about Dumbledore’s scheming, and Harry now has his first victory over Voldemort. To be sure, this all seems like a lot of effort for Dumbledore. But Dumbledore has the luxury of having time to set up such elaborate plots, because the wizarding world is at peace. Now that it’s all resolved, Dumbledore can relax. . . until the next crisis rears its head.
Chapter 2:
Albus Dumbledore and the
Chamber of Secrets
After the events of Sorcerer’s Stone, Dumbledore must have been optimistic that he (and Harry) would have some time to relax. Voldemort just got trounced by an eleven-year-old and is off haunting Albania again. Nothing for Dumbledore to worry about besides Fudge pestering him. He is not even concerned about telling Harry about the prophecy yet: “I was too happy to think that I did not have to do it on that particular day. You were too young, much too young.”7 (OP838)
For the first two months of the school year, Dumbledore does remain relatively worry-free, give or take an incident with a flying car. But his serene existence comes crashing down on Halloween with a Petrified cat and some dramatic graffiti, declaring that “The Chamber of Secrets Has Been Opened.”
At this point, Dumbledore knows that Tom Riddle is the last remaining descendant of Salazar Slytherin (CS333) and is fairly confident that Riddle opened the Chamber the last time, fifty years ago. So he knows that Voldemort is somehow behind it, but a quick check of his sources will reveal that Voldemort is still in Albania. So, as he says to McGonagall, “The question is not who. The question is how. . . .” (CS181)
Foiled by a Malfoy for the First Time
Dumbledore is very rarely at a loss as to what’s going on, but he is tripped up (rather hilariously) by Lucius Malfoy’s spite. As most fans who have delved into HP theorizing have come to accept, Lucius’s original plan was to plant the diary on Harry, which would lead to Harry’s expulsion, at the very least. However, Lucius gets so angry at Mr. Weasley at Flourish & Blotts that instead, he impulsively plants the diary on Ginny in an act of pure spite. I won’t bother expounding on this theory, as many other writers have already done so.8
This is the crucial piece of information that Dumbledore is missing. He watches Harry and his friends very closely but does not extend the same scrutiny to Ginny Weasley. If Lucius had proceeded with the original plan, Dumbledore would have figured it out in a heartbeat, and Chamber of Secrets would have been a much shorter book. But the elder Malfoy’s impetuosity proved to be the biggest factor in his limited success; Dumbledore can reason his way out of any situation, but he has a harder time dealing with people being irrational.
The irony is that Dumbledore may actually be responsible, in a roundabout way, for the headache Lucius Malfoy causes him that year. Lucius Malfoy does care for his son, and Draco came home from Hogwarts rather upset about how things were going.
When we meet Draco at Borgin & Burkes after Harry has a Floo Powder mishap, he is sullenly complaining about favoritism at Hogwarts (CS50). Lucius’s responses to Draco indicate that this topic has come up frequently over the summer. While the initial impression given is that of Draco being a whiner, his grievances are not without merit.
Under the veneer of being far removed from the day-to-day life of Hogwarts,9 Dumbledore is no less partisan towards his house than Snape or McGonagall. In Sorcerer’s Stone, for example, McGonagall “speak[s] to Professor Dumbledore [to] see if we can’t bend the first-year rule” (SS152) to allow Harry to join the Gryffindor Quidditch Team. Given that Harry winds up on the Quidditch team, Dumbledore must have given the okay. As Hermione puts it, this is “a reward for breaking rules” (SS166) that is horribly unfair to just about the entire student body.10 Would it really have been so terrible if Harry waited another year before joining the Quidditch team?
But the event that irredeemably ruined Dumbledore’s image for all Slytherins was the Leaving Feast in Sorcerer’s Stone, where Dumbledore goes out of his way to crush the Slytherins’ hopes. Dumbledore is perfectly within his rights to award points to the Trio for going on an adventure, and to Neville for standing up to friends. However, the way he does it is unnecessarily cruel to a q
uarter of the school.
Dumbledore lets the entire school go into the Leaving Feast, thinking Slytherin had won the house cup. The Great Hall
was decked out in the Slytherin colors of green and silver to celebrate Slytherin's winning the house cup for the seventh year in a row. A huge banner showing the Slytherin serpent covered the wall behind the High Table. (SS304)
Is that enough of a fake-out? No. Dumbledore then lists the points totals, all but announcing that Slytherin had won. “A storm of cheering and stamping broke out from the Slytherin table.” Harry isn’t happy about it, but one has to imagine that this meant an awful lot to the Slytherins—especially the first years, who’d never won the house cup before, and had spent a year being instilled with the belief that winning the house cup is of paramount importance.
“Yes, Yes, well done, Slytherin,” said Dumbledore. “However, recent events must be taken into account.”
The room went very still. The Slytherins' smiles faded a little. (SS305)
Dumbledore has a flair for the theatrical, and he draws this out for maximum effect. He announces the points for the trio, one by one. He makes sure to give just enough points to tie Gryffindor with Slytherin, for maximum drama. There are no guidelines for how many points are awarded for playing chess or for “pure nerve,” so this is Dumbledore choosing point totals purely to stage a spectacle for an audience. At that point, the Slytherins are surely thinking, “Fine, even if we tied, at least we still won.” And then Dumbledore goes ahead and crushes the Slytherins by awarding Neville ten points.