Lord Voldemort’s Propaganda
There’s a reason I’m writing a book about Dumbledore’s modus operandi when it comes to plotting against Voldemort, and not the other way around. Between Voldemort’s Evil Overlord Syndrome making him constantly expound upon his evil plots, and Dumbledore’s propensity to psychoanalyze Voldemort, we have a very good idea of how Voldemort’s mind works. In addition, Voldemort’s plots are usually very straightforward compared to Dumbledore’s. He wants something (the Sorcerer’s Stone, the prophecy, Dumbledore’s death), so he gets someone to go after it for him (Quirrell, Harry, Draco and Snape) through a mixture of coercion and deceit.
Now that Voldemort is back, Dumbledore’s plans will depend a lot on what he does. To fully understand Dumbledore, we must briefly examine how Voldemort operates. And this proves to be the antithesis of how Dumbledore operates. Voldemort is constantly proclaiming to everyone how awesome his plans are, how all-powerful and clever he is, and how Harry Potter does not stand a chance against him. Everyone always knows what his plans are and what he’ll do.
Contrast this with Dumbledore, whose plans no one knows. Dumbledore does not seek recognition for his triumphs, he commands respect without demanding it—Dobby is allowed to call him “a barmy old codger.” (GF380) In fact, no one but Harry, Ron, and Hermione even knows the extent of what Dumbledore has done to combat Voldemort. This is why I have spent years unraveling Dumbledore’s plans: one of their main features is that no one knows what they are. That is why, with the exception of the events of Goblet of Fire, he manages to stay two steps ahead of Voldemort. Voldemort, through his theatrics, becomes predictable; Dumbledore remains unknowable.
However, in Goblet of Fire, Dumbledore fails to stay ahead of Voldemort. So I would like to zero in on Voldemort’s most elaborate scheme: the year-long plot in Goblet of Fire that culminated in his resurrection. This is the first and last time that Voldemort is executing his plans with Dumbledore being none the wiser. As Hagrid says, “Worried! I dunno when I seen Dumbledore more worried than he’s bin lately.” (GF563)
Why is it this plan that tripped up Dumbledore? I believe it’s for the same reason readers so often roll their eyes at Goblet of Fire: from a logical standpoint, Voldemort’s plan seems ludicrous. To recap Voldemort’s plan:
- Have Barty Crouch Jr. pretend to be Alastor Moody at Hogwarts, right under Dumbledore’s nose. Have him keep this up for an entire year, teaching the children and everything.
- Imposter Moody will manage to Confund the Goblet of Fire into accepting Harry Potter as a Triwizard Champion.
- Imposter Moody will surreptitiously assist Harry in the Tournament, getting a fourteen-year-old through tasks that challenge the most prodigious seventeen-year-olds, while ensuring Crouch’s hand in it cannot be seen.
After all that, after a year as a Hogwarts professor and the entire Triwizard Tournament, Imposter Moody will transform the Triwizard Cup into a Portkey to spirit Harry away from Hogwarts, setting the stage for Voldemort’s resurrection.
This all begs the question: why not have Imposter Moody give Harry a Portkey on the first day of classes in the form of a textbook or something, and bypass all the tournament shenanigans altogether?
A brief aside about Portkeys:
The mechanics of Portkeys are rather confusing, based on some conflicting evidence that stemmed from plot necessity. As near as I can figure, anyone can make Portkeys out of Hogwarts, but only Dumbledore—or the current headmaster at any given point—can create Portkeys into Hogwarts. This checks out with Dumbledore creating a Portkey for Harry at the end of Order of the Phoenix and does not contradict all the magical protections surrounding Hogwarts. After all, that would be a pretty big gaping hole in Hogwarts’s defenses if anyone could Portkey in.
This leads to the conclusion that the Triwizard Cup was made into a Portkey by Dumbledore to take whoever touched it back onto Hogwarts grounds. That’s further supported by the logistics of the Third Task, since any other way for the champions to emerge from the maze would feel distinctly anticlimactic. When Crouch Jr. says he “turned it into a Portkey,” (GF691), that’s probably shorthand for adding an intermediate stop to the existing Portkey. The Portkey was always going to go back to Hogwarts grounds, but Crouch made sure that first it went to the graveyard and Voldemort. This explains why the Cup returned Harry to Hogwarts, since no one seemed surprised by him Portkeying in. But this reinforces the idea that Fake Moody could have Portkeyed Harry away at any time; the tricky part would have been getting him back.
So, the main question: why a plot that is so needlessly elaborate, where so much can (and nearly does) go wrong?
Because Voldemort fears Dumbledore. Lupin says, “the very last person [Voldemort] wanted alerted to his return the moment he got back was Dumbledore,” (OP92) and I think that is the answer to all of this. If Harry suddenly disappears one night, Dumbledore will immediately suspect Voldemort’s involvement, and will use all of his considerable resources and ingenuity to find out what’s going on. Then Voldemort, with no more than a score of Death Eaters, will have Dumbledore after him.
However, if Harry disappears during the Third Triwizard Task, it can be disguised as an unfortunate accident. That is why the Triwizard Cup was left a Portkey twice over: once to bring Harry to Voldemort, a second time to send him back to Hogwarts. Crouch Jr. intended for Harry’s corpse to return to Hogwarts after Voldemort killed him.
Note that no one can see what’s happening inside the maze. But everyone knows there are lots of deadly things in there (acromantulas, sphinxes, etc.). So assume Harry’s dead body and the Triwizard Cup arrive on the Hogwarts grounds. The immediate conclusion would be that he was mauled to death by a sphinx or something, managing to grab the Cup at the very last second. For added effect, Voldemort can have Nagini bite Harry’s corpse to give the illusion of death by magical creature. To be sure, Dumbledore would be suspicious, but he wouldn’t know for certain that Voldemort was responsible. Then Voldemort can run amok in the world, recruiting and wreaking havoc while no one is the wiser.
It was just Voldemort’s bad luck that neither of the first two tasks was conducive to such a ruse. The first task, the dragons, was done in full view of everyone, so Harry could not be spirited away unobtrusively. The second task was unseen by spectators, but there was nothing in the lake that would actually kill Harry. If his dead body floated to the surface, there will have been no question of foul play. But the third task was perfect—invisible and deadly, so Voldemort had to bide his time until June.
Why didn’t Dumbledore pick up on this? I think because he did not realize how much of a priority secrecy was to Voldemort. Voldemort is a master of publicity and propaganda, because he realizes how effective those tools are. He fashioned himself a new name, then made the entire world afraid to speak it. He created a logo, the Dark Mark, that he burned into his followers’ skin, and that he cast into the sky to signify murder. “Just picture coming home and finding the Dark Mark hovering over your house, and knowing what you’re about to find inside. . . .” Mr. Weasley winced. “Everyone’s worst fear. . . the very worst. . .” (GF142) This is the kind of branding that most companies would kill for. So Dumbledore does not realize how badly Voldemort wants to preserve his anonymity here, and therefore can’t figure out what Voldemort’s planning.
It’s also worth noting that, contrary to all precedent, Voldemort actually wants Harry alive for his revival potion. Considering all the energy expounded to kill Harry in previous years, this further trips up Dumbledore.
Give Voldemort this: he is an absolute master of theatricality. It is one of his most important tools in maintaining control of the Death Eaters. And it also serves to foil his plans time and time again. Voldemort hits every Evil Overlord cliché head-on: he loves to hear himself talk, and he always plays with his food, to his detriment.26
While there is much to recommend using Harry Potter for his resurrection, I believe that Voldemort’s primary purpose was t
o make a point to the Death Eaters. At the end of Goblet of Fire, Voldemort is essentially giving a show to the Death Eaters; he stops just short of a big musical number. He uses Harry’s blood to show that if there is anything special about Harry, Voldemort now has it. He drones extensively about his awesome evil plots, showing off how he pulled off such a cool thing right under Dumbledore’s nose. And then, to show the Death Eaters once and for all who’s boss, he lets Harry attempt to duel him. He tortures Harry, forces Harry to bow to him, and does everything in his power to prove to the Death Eaters how powerless Harry is against him. This is all smart image control by Voldemort, up until the part where Harry gets away thanks to an unforeseen Priori Incantatem.
However, give Voldemort this: his plan in Goblet of Fire is a masterstroke. He deals with two issues at once: regaining the Death Eaters’ respect and leaving Dumbledore none the wiser. While he rather fails at the second point, it is due to “luck and chance, those wreckers of all but the best-laid plans.” (DH7) But imagine, if you will, that Priori Incantatem had not occurred. The Death Eaters are in awe of Voldemort, Dumbledore and the Ministry know nothing and let Voldemort run amok. When Voldemort does finally come out into the open, there is no Harry Potter to be a figurehead for the rebellion.
We will see how much Voldemort values his anonymity in the Ministry’s eyes based on his behavior in Order of the Phoenix. Because although Harry manages to warn Dumbledore in time, Voldemort is aided in keeping his cover by a rather odd pair of people: an unscrupulous journalist and a career politician who loves his job too much. And this will leave Dumbledore fighting battles on multiple fronts for the next year.
Chapter 5:
Albus Dumbledore and the
Order of the Phoenix
The Sluggish Memory
Before we get into what Dumbledore was doing in Order of the Phoenix, it’s necessary to take stock of what he actually knew at this juncture in the series. Let us first revisit the question of what Dumbledore knew about Horcruxes at this point. If you’ll recall, Dumbledore had his first breakthrough at the end of Chamber of Secrets, where the weaponization of the diary indicated that Voldemort might have made more than one Horcrux. But as we’ve discussed, Dumbledore had a rather hectic two years since then, and even if he started doing his research into Tom Riddle’s history, it was not at the top of his priority list. However, at the end of Goblet of Fire, there is another breakthrough, and this one’s a game-changer.
As Harry is once again relating his adventures in Dumbledore’s office, he reports that Lord Voldemort has risen again and that Voldemort gave a very insightful monologue to his Death Eaters. Dumbledore later tells Harry his thought process at the moment.
“[Voldemort] made a most illuminating and alarming statement to his Death Eaters. ‘I, who have gone further than anybody along the path that leads to immortality.’ That was what you told me he said. ‘Further than anybody.’ And I thought I knew what that meant, though the Death Eaters did not. He was referring to his Horcruxes, Horcruxes in the plural, Harry, which I do not believe any other wizard has ever had. Yet it fitted: Lord Voldemort has seemed to grow less human with the passing years, and the transformation he has undergone seemed to me to be only explicable if his soul was mutilated beyond the realms of what we might call ‘usual evil’ . . .” (HBP501-2)
An interesting point to consider is that this passage seems to indicate that Dumbledore used Legilimency on Harry as Harry related the events in the graveyard. It is wholly implausible that a severely traumatized Harry would be able to recite Voldemort’s speech word-for-word after the night he’d just had—after all, he’s not Hermione! It’s curious to consider how many times Dumbledore performed Legilimency on Harry over the years, but we now have two instances that are almost certain.
Anyway, now Dumbledore’s two-year-old theory is confirmed: that Voldemort did indeed make multiple Horcruxes. And now Dumbledore has to do research! What are the other Horcruxes? Dumbledore already has some solid candidates for what might be a Horcrux—Slytherin’s locket, the Peverell ring, and Hufflepuff’s Cup.27 With the diary, that’s already four.
But Dumbledore has one huge unanswered question here: how many Horcruxes are there total? Would Voldemort have dared to make four Horcruxes? Or did he make even more than that? This is the most important piece of information that Dumbledore needs. After all, wouldn’t it be awful if Dumbledore destroyed ten Horcruxes and attempted to kill Voldemort, only to find out that Voldemort had made an even dozen? Or inversely, what if Dumbledore wasted time hunting for a sixth and seventh Horcrux if Voldemort only made five, and innocent people died in the meantime? Dumbledore needed to know exactly how many Horcruxes there were! And in the meantime, he could start researching what and where the Horcruxes might be.
Of course, this is all easier said than done. How could he find out how many Horcruxes Voldemort made? Short of asking Voldemort himself, there seems to be no possible way. Unless. . . what if, when Tom Riddle was learning about Horcruxes, he decided on a certain number? Eventually, this line of thinking would lead Dumbledore straight to Slughorn.
I believe Dumbledore got the altered memory from Slughorn that very summer in 1995. Upon seeing that Slughorn had made it useless by excluding the only information Dumbledore needed—the planned number of Horcruxes—Dumbledore attempted to lure Slughorn to a job at Hogwarts.
Didn’t it ever strike anyone as odd that Dumbledore was completely unable to find a D.A.D.A. professor in 1995? Sure, the applicant pool is rather thin after a four-decade-long curse. But we’ve seen that Dumbledore has no objection to hiring substandard professors when he needs them there (see: Hagrid, Trelawney, etc.). And keeping Umbridge out of Hogwarts would seem like a pretty big priority, so why wouldn’t Dumbledore just ask Kingsley or someone to fill in for a year?
Because Dumbledore was keeping a position open for Slughorn, that’s why. He wanted Slughorn to come back to Hogwarts, where Dumbledore could work on extracting that much-needed memory from him. And then Snape would be put in the D.A.D.A. position, because Snape is still needed at Hogwarts as well. Dumbledore was so desperate to get Slughorn that he did not even make a back-up plan, which is how Umbridge got foisted onto Hogwarts at the very last second.
The Scar
When Dumbledore received confirmation of his theory about Horcruxes, this allowed him to make another important deduction: the likelihood of Harry’s scar containing a bit of Voldemort’s soul. When I first wrote about Dumbledore and Horcruxes, many of my readers took issue with the theory that Dumbledore did not know everything about the Scarcrux prior to Order of the Phoenix, based on the conversation he had with Harry at the end of Chamber of Secrets.
“Unless I'm much mistaken, he transferred some of his own powers to you the night he gave you that scar. Not something he intended to do, I'm sure. . .”
"Voldemort put a bit of himself in me?" Harry said, thunderstruck.
"It certainly seems so." (CS333)
The interpretation here hinges on whether Dumbledore means “a bit of himself” literally—I believe he does not. He merely refers to the transfer of powers as a bit of Voldemort, instead of referring to a bit of soul. We must keep in mind that Harry and Voldemort are delving into unknown realms of magic. Dumbledore did not even know that Voldemort had split his soul until the end of Chamber of Secrets. He would not have made the leap that Voldemort’s soul was so unstable as to have bits flying off it, not until he received confirmation at the end of Goblet of Fire about Voldemort’s multiple Horcruxes. We are not privy to Dumbledore’s vast knowledge of obscure magic, so there may well have been another possibility for Harry receiving Voldemort’s powers through the curse.
This helps exonerate Dumbledore from the charge Snape levelled at him, of raising Harry like a pig for slaughter. Up until Harry was fifteen, Dumbledore did not know that Harry would need to die. He was only keeping the prophecy from Harry, not the knowledge that Harry may have to sacrifice himself. Dumbledore was raising
Harry to be a Voldemort slayer—the morality of that can still be debated, but it’s not quite as morally repugnant.
Note that even Voldemort, the one who actually made Horcruxes and is probably the world’s leading expert on them, did not realize that Harry’s scar had bits of soul in it. Voldemort didn’t realize this even after he found out about the mental connection he shared with Harry. If Voldemort didn’t come to the realization, with all the knowledge he’s privy to, it’s small wonder that it took Dumbledore a while.
Another slight point in favor of Dumbledore not knowing is a line from the very first chapter of the series, when McGonagall asks if he can do something about baby Harry’s scar: “Even if I could, I wouldn’t. Scars can come in handy.” (SS15) I believe Dumbledore truly did not suspect Harry’s scar of containing Voldemort’s soul, or he would not have been so glib about it—this is a case of irony coming from the author, not from Dumbledore himself.
Towards the end of Goblet of Fire, we see that Dumbledore is closer to figuring it all out. He says, “I have a theory, no more than that. . . . It is my belief that your scar hurts both when Lord Voldemort is near you, and when he is feeling a particularly strong surge of hatred. [. . .] Because you and he are connected by the curse that failed. [. . .] That is no ordinary scar.” (GF600)
The Life and Lies of Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore Page 8