Crime and Punishment

[terri-testing.livejournal.com]

I was just rereading HBP, “Lord Voldemort Request,” and the final interchange floored me when I finally paid it adequate attention. Twinkles said, and a great sadness filled his face, “The time is long gone when I could frighten you with a burning wardrobe and force you to make repayment for your crimes. But I wish I could, Tom…. I wish I could….”
Excuse me?



The Dumb One had forced Tom to make repayment for his crimes? When had that happened, precisely?

I can only presume that this is Albus’s interpretation of the scene in Tom’s orphanage when the wise visiting wizard cast a charm that made Tom’s private wardrobe first seem to be engulfed in flames, and then to “rattle” from the stolen trinkets hidden within. Finally Tom was forced to display his mean trophies. And then The White Wizard displayed his morality:


“You will return them to their owners with your apologies,” said Dumbledore calmly, putting his wand back into his jacket. “I shall know whether it has been done. And be warned: Thieving is not tolerated at Hogwarts.”

Tom did not look remotely abashed; he was still staring coldly and appraisingly at Dumbledore. At last he said in a colorless voice, “Yes, sir.

“At Hogwarts,” Dumbledore went on, “we teach you not only to use magic, but to control it. You have—inadvertently, I am sure—been using your powers in a way that is neither taught nor tolerated at our school. You are not the first, nor will you be the last, to allow your magic to run away with you. But you should know that Hogwarts can expel students, and the Ministry of Magic—yes, there is a Ministry—will punish lawbreakers still more severely. All new wizards must accept that, in entering our world, they abide by our laws.”

“Yes, sir,” said Riddle again.

Let’s assume for the moment that Tom did in fact return his sordid trophies to those still able to reclaim them, i.e. to those of Tom’s victims still alive, sane, ambulatory, and resident at the orphanage.

Now, suppose Tommy had caught me showing off my yo-yo skills to admiring fellow orphans, and used the yo-yo itself in various creative ways to torment me. Perhaps he first made it entangle my hands while my former admirers laughed at my ineptness, and then tripped my feet while they stopped laughing in fear, and then strangled me almost to death with my own toy…. Suppose he then confiscated the toy as a souvenir of the encounter. Had he done some such, I might not, in fact, want the yo-yo back. It would be a memento to me of the encounter, as much as to my tormentor.

Or perhaps the yo-yo was little Billy’s, and its string was what his pet rabbit had been hanged with…. Let’s not even think about what Tom could do with a girl’s thimble. (I can make bad things happen to people who annoy me….)

But leaving such considerations aside, Albus seriously believed that returning a few stolen trinkets would, to Tom’s orphanage fellows, constitute full repayment for his many crimes against them? For years of terror?

Um. You know. That’s a rather unique viewpoint. Really, it gets more unique, the more one imagines what it must have been like to live at little Tommy’s mercy. It gets to be quite a view without compare.

Well, Albus does believe he can’t be understood by the rest of us. In this matter, he's right.

*

What exactly were Riddle’s crimes by the time the Dumb One visited Tom in that beleaguered orphaniage? Mrs. Cole told Albus, “He scares the other children."

"You mean he is a bully?" asked Dumbledore.

"I think he must be," said Mrs. Cole, frowning slightly, "but it's very hard to catch him at it. There have been incidents…. Nasty things…..

"Billy Stubbs’ rabbit… well, Tom said he didn’t do it and I don’t see how he could have done, but even so, it didn’t hang itself from the rafters, did it?... All I know is he and Billy had argued the day before. And then on the summer outing…. well, Amy Benton and Dennis Bishop were never quite right afterwards, and all we ever got out of them was that they’d gone into a cave with Tom Riddle…. And, well, there have been a lot of things, funny things….”

This is as indefinite as it is sinister (and it’s an abrogation of responsibility that the Hogwarts representative chose not to explore more precisely how the child had been misusing his magic), but two definite crimes have been mentioned: killing a pet rabbit, and driving Amy Benton and Dennis Bishop insane.

(See my essay “Accessory after the Fact” for my parsing of the clues that Dennis and Amy had been sent to the lunatic asylum for their “not quite rightness”.)

But even if you don't accept my reading that they'd been transferred to the loony bin, we have Mrs. Cole's statement that they never recovered from whatever Tom did. Tom inflicted long-term, possibly permanent, mental damage on them.

Then there’s Tommy’s own confession to Albus: “I can make things move without touching them. I can make animals do what I want them to do, without training them. I can make bad things happen to people who annoy me. I can make them hurt if I want to.”

Tom says, “I can,” which is to say that he had already tested these powers. So he’s confessed to having coerced or possessed animals, used magic to harm people, and caused pain magically.

Further, he told Dumbledore “with ringing force” to “Tell the truth!” and it’s clear that he expected Dumbledore to obey unthinkingly. That was a homegrown version of the Imperius Tom deployed, and he’s clearly experienced at it; when Dumbledore doesn’t react properly, Tom was shocked, wary, and instantaneously demanded, “Who are you?”

Which establishes that Tom has must have used his spell repeatedly, enough at least to know that there has to be something special about Dumbledore if he can resist it.

Tom has thus confessed to or demonstrated homemade, wandless versions of two of the three Unforgivable Curses, folks, and he had already at least one death (of a pet) to his, ah, credit.

To summarize: in the orphanage Albus learned that young Tom had used magic deliberately and repeatedly to cause pain, fear, mental damage, and probably physical harm (“bad things happen”) to his fellow orphans; he had used magic to coerce both animals and humans; he had taken trophies, souvenirs of his most memorable successes in tormenting his fellows. This child had invented and perfected crude (wandless) versions of both the Cruciatus and the Imperius. He had, almost certainly, tortured other children into insanity. He had killed, if only a pet so far.

The other children were scared of him. Gee, why?

And Albus knew all this.

And the Dumb One’s response at the time was to lecture the budding psychopath, “Thieving is not tolerated at Hogwarts.”

Torture, possession, mind-control, telekinesis to hurt people, ARE? Just not theft?

Evidently.

*

But Albus’s attitude makes sense when we adjust for one additional variable.

Twinkles has many admirable intellectual attributes (just ask him, he’ll list them!), but there’s one we readers in this forum seldom grant him:

Empathy for those without his resources. For the weak.

*

And now it all falls into place.

From when Albus was a little boy, he was smarter and more powerful than most of his peers. And he internalized this, accepted this as normal, at a very young age.

And Albus now is emotionally divorced enough not to care much about public opinion—being regarded as mad, so long as he’s simultaneously granted to be brilliant is fine with him. “Nitwick. Blubber. Oddment. Tweak,” and donning a vulture hat at Yule.

If this attitude goes back a long ways, his peers couldn't even have ganged up on him and used humiliation effectively against him. (Compare young Severus's jealousy of his dignity.)

So Albus may have been nearly untouchable by anything others could do even as a child. He certainly is now, and has been for decades at least.

So now circle around to the point when above-it-all Albus met with that orphan. No one around Albus NOW—no one perhaps since Al’s first or second year as a student—perhaps no one EVER—can really bother Twinkles. No one can cause Dumbles serious physical or emotional pain. No one can coerce or possess him.

He fears no person, and perhaps never seriously has. (The one thing he says he fears is confronting his responsibility for killing Ariana.)

But Albus was the custodian of innumerable interesting secrets and trinkets. Whether or not anyone ever succeeded in penetrating his defenses, OF COURSE he expected people sometimes to try.

By the time Twinkles visited Tom’s orphanage, no sane person even tried to harm Albus. But optimistic sorts might still try to steal from him.

So, when he tries to understand that a miscreant might have offended against persons, theft is the only possibility that can actually register for Albus. It’s the only one Twinkles can relate to.

So yeah, Tom caused pain and terror to his fellow orphans, killed their pets, drove two of them insane…. Yawn.

But, horror of horrors, he also successfully stole from them!

Make restitution for that crime, sirrah, and know that some things are not to be tolerated!

Comments

[oryx_leucoryx]

Well, Albus arrived at Hogwarts with the scandal of his father's arrest for Muggle-maiming over his head. And his mother's caution over revealing Ariana's condition. He schooled himself not to care, so as not to be hampered by public opinion. He did it too well.

But thanks for pointing out the outcome - what Dumbles did and did not care about as a grown man, in charge of many children.

There were only 2 people who had any kind of emotional power over Dumbles - Gellert and Aberforth. He put Gellert in prison and made Aberforth look like a fool who shouldn't be listened to. No more worries on that front!

[the-bitter-word.livejournal.com]

So yeah, Tom caused pain and terror to his fellow orphans, killed their pets, drove two of them insane…. Yawn.

True, Dumbledore's lack of empathy was on a par with, if not far worse than, Tom's, but you forgot one other factor! Those Tom harmed up to that point were Muggles (and non-magical animals). For all the lip service paid to Dumbledore as a Muggle-lover, I doubt he ever cared at all about the fates of Muggles... again, not that he really cared about anyone's. The bottom line at the orphanage was that it was far more important that a magical person be given a magical education than it was to address any harm done to mere Muggles. Presumably, other magical children could take care of themselves.

With this said, and given that Dumbledore gave Tom the stink-eye while Tom was a student at Hogwarts, but apparently did nothing more, I wonder about Dumbledore's impetus to bring Tom down. Was he personally offended at this upstart trying to grab the world, especially when he warned about theft? Was it atonement for his mistakes with Gellert and Ariana -- but if so, why did he wait until Tom had amassed so much power? Did he believe Tom would never be better than him and he could always counter him, and that was fine until ... what changed? Did he twig that Hogwarts could be compromised when Tom came looking for a job?

I know we are supposed to think Dumbledore opposed Riddle because of freedom, justice, and the Greater Good. He doesn't seem to be engaged in assuring social good in society, however. He doesn't even seem engaged in scholarship while at Hogwarts. Was Riddle a Moriarty-type obsession for him? For all his cheery, hand-wavy "love" speeches -- and where did those come from? --it's amazing that Dumbledore could accept that a gormless boy would be Riddle's downfall, but of course, he actually engineered that boy's mindset to a fine point, even after death. Why didn't he try that with Tom?

[oryx_leucoryx]

Was he personally offended at this upstart trying to grab the world, especially when he warned about theft?

The upstart was stealing trinkets. Including the ring with the Resurrection Stone that Dumbles wanted.

[the-bitter-word.livejournal.com]

He was also seeking to master Death, which was Dumbledore's original thing, along with Grindelwald. Maybe Riddle was stepping too far into Dumbledore territory, so Dumbledore decided he had to "act."

Funny, I tried posting this earlier and was sent to a screen in Russian! I'm surprised the Russian elections didn't shut down LJ, actually.

[oryx_leucoryx]

Silly Severus, thinking that nearly causing his death would get the Marauders expelled. He should have accused James of stealing the Snitch.

I wonder if Dumbles brought up the matter of the flaming closet because he found out that Tom had been stealing magical trinkets?

[dracasadiablo.livejournal.com]

But Albus was the custodian of innumerable interesting secrets and trinkets. Whether or not anyone ever succeeded in penetrating his defenses, OF COURSE he expected people sometimes to try.

I wonder was DD thinking about the way Grindelwald got the Elder Wand.
And later when the wand was his was he worried about Tom steeling it?
I'm horrible with years so I'm not sure when DD got the wand and was Tom in Hogwarts at the time. But if he was?
It wouldn't surprise me if a big part of "Tom watching" and later refusal to let him teach at Hogwarts was DD's paranoia that the Elder Wand will be stolen again.

Why be concerned about Tom hurting kids when you can worry about your precious Deathstick?

[terri-testing.livejournal.com]

Albus defeated Gellert (and took his wand) in 1945.

Tom graduated Hogwarts, requested and was turned down for a job there, in 1945.

We don't know the order of events.

So Albus's watching Tom wouldn't be part of his guarding his prize (though that could potentially be a reason for advising Dippet not to hire him).

But how's this for a conspiracy theory, then?--

Albus had seen Tom with that ring and concluded that Tom was on the same quest he and Gellert had interested themselves in at a like age. And Albus had figured out that Gellert had come up with the Deathstick.

What if what made Albus finally get up off his arse and fight Gellert was the fear that if he didn't, Tom soon would--and get mastery of two of the three Hallows?

Albus. Our Hero.

[dracasadiablo.livejournal.com]

It works for me.
But then I enjoy all DD conspiracy theories. XD

Btw, do we know when DD found out about Grindelwald having the Elder Wand?
If I remember correctly Gellert was very young when he stole it. Is there any chances he owl-ed DD about it? Or that DD found out from somebody else?
Maybe he found out just a short time before he talked with Tom?

[malic-ba.livejournal.com]

Oh yes. This makes better sense than anything else I've heard.
Tom got the ring in 1943, but maybe Albus wasn't worried about it until he graduated - particularly if Tom went overseas straight away. Albus may have thought he was already on the case ...

[oryx_leucoryx]

And when Albus reminded Tom of the flaming closet he was hinting: 'Don't even try to add my wand to your collection of stolen goods'. (Finally I know why he allowed that interview, rather than set the Aurors on Tom.) But since Tom had no idea about the Hallows and the Elder Wand it went completely over his head.

[danajsparks.livejournal.com]

----To summarize: in the orphanage Albus learned that young Tom had used magic deliberately and repeatedly to cause pain, fear, mental damage, and probably physical harm (“bad things happen”) to his fellow orphans; he had used magic to coerce both animals and humans;

Something I'd been thinking about (before you made this post) is whether Albus truly understood at the time the extent to which Tom was deliberately using his magic to harm others. Looking back, Albus could certainly see that eleven-year-old Tom had already mastered wandless magic, but I'm not sure how clear this was to him in 1938. Likewise, looking back, Albus could see that eleven-year-old Tom was a budding psychopath, but, again, I'm not sure how clearly he saw this in 1938.

Tom was obviously a troubled kid. Albus learned that Tom didn't get along with the other children in the orphanage and that Mrs. Cole thought Tom was insane. But this has long been the experience of most wizards among Muggles. As the examples of the Dursley family and the attack on Ariana show, Muggles often believe that wizards are freaks; they don't understand magic, and they fear what they don't understand. Thus, Albus could have easily attributed Tom's problems to the fact that he was a misunderstood magical orphan living in the midst of Muggles rather than to Tom's innate personality. He may have believed that things would improve once Tom was at Hogwarts with his own kind. (And, in fact, Tom did appear to be just fine once he was at Hogwarts).

Moreover, very few children are able to control their magic before they start at Hogwarts, and very few wizards ever learn how to perform wandless magic. Therefore, Albus may have assumed that, like the vast majority other magical children, most of the magic which Tom had performed had been accidental magic due to emotional outbursts or due to the need to protect himself from the intolerant Muggles.

Indeed, Albus says to Tom, We teach you not only to use magic, but to control it. You have—inadvertently, I am sure—been using your powers in a way that is neither taught nor tolerated at our school. You are not the first, nor will you be the last, to allow your magic to run away with you.

This may be why Albus focused specifically on Tom's thievery; he didn't realize how much control Tom already had over his magic. Thus, he was less concerned about the pain, fear, mental damage, coercion, etc. because he believed that, unlike the thievery, those incidents were mainly accidental in nature. He didn't understand at the time how the thievery was just a small part of much larger problem.

Albus may claim that he knew all along that Tom was a bad seed, but I'm not sure if he recognized just how dangerous Tom actually was in 1938. Hindsight is 20/20.

[malic-ba.livejournal.com]

That would be nice. A lot better than what it looks like to me, which is offering the kid a ready made excuse to cover his crimes at the orphanage if anyone else ever asked about them (and incidentally giving him a pointer as to how he will need to hide his intentions in the future).

Tom's actual words make his magic use sound very deliberate - I can do this, I can do that, I can make them do what I want. Maybe Albus was not really listening to the kid?

I can believe that Albus thought that Tom would be ok when living with wizards, as you say, but I find it hard to believe that he really thought his magic use was accidental.

Albus himself was surely in control of his magic before 11 (if Lily was, surely Albus was!). Even if Aberforth wasn't (and how many other kids younger than 11 would Albus know?), surely he wouldn't believe that was unique?

[danajsparks.livejournal.com]

----Albus himself was surely in control of his magic before 11 (if Lily was, surely Albus was!). Even if Aberforth wasn't (and how many other kids younger than 11 would Albus know?), surely he wouldn't believe that was unique?

Albus was the exception to the rule, though, or at least he probably saw himself that way. Plus, Albus grew up in a magical family, so he knew about the existence of magic before he got his Hogwarts letter. Presumably (from a wizard's perspective) a Muggle-raised child would not even know that magic existed.

[the-bitter-word.livejournal.com]

A lot better than what it looks like to me, which is offering the kid a ready made excuse to cover his crimes at the orphanage if anyone else ever asked about them (and incidentally giving him a pointer as to how he will need to hide his intentions in the future)

This is interesting. Dumbledore educates Harry by example about the value of lying, and he looks the other way when Harry invades another's privacy or leads others into danger. If he heard about Harry suddenly becoming a Potions genius, it probably didn't bother him enough to ask Harry about it. The only thing he lectured Harry on was not being tricksy enough to convince Slughorn to give up his memory.

I am trying to remember if Dumbledore encouraged Harry to steal. I guess he nudged Hermione in the direction of taking Buckbeak. She may have been the most theft-prone of the Trio, anyway -- all for the greater good, of course. Maybe Dumbledore has a double standard when it comes to girls, or maybe the fact that she fervently worshiped him counted in her favor.

The only time I remember Harry wanting to steal was his prevaricating conscience vis-a-vis the Sword of Gryffindor and Griphook. He also stole credit for the Prince's work. Everything else, like Helga's cup, was probably for the greater good, of course. I've forgotten so much by now.

Albus himself was surely in control of his magic before 11 (if Lily was, surely Albus was!). Even if Aberforth wasn't (and how many other kids younger than 11 would Albus know?), surely he wouldn't believe that was unique?

You mean sort-of the way Tom Riddle thought he was the only one who'd discovered the Room of Requirement? Dumbledore may have not known about Lily, and he may have not been able to give credence to Tom's innate talent. I wouldn't be surprised if a wizard's hubris knows no bounds.

[oryx_leucoryx]

But he experienced Tom attempting to use magic on him while they were having their conversation, when Tom commanded him to tell him the truth. Also, hanging a rabbit is a bit hard to do unintentionally. There are several required steps, much more complex than shrinking a sweater or turning a teacher's hair blue.

[oryx_leucoryx]

Several lines of thought here:

If we ignore the bit about the rabbit - was it possible for Albus to sincerely believe all the other things Tom did were the result of accidental magic? And was there a reason Albus would *want* to believe this is what happened?

We know several examples of accidental and controlled but untrained magic in the series. Neville's magic caused him to bounce when he fell from great height. Also caused random accidents such as vanishing a table leg when he learned exams were approaching, caused his broom to take off before he was ready. I don't count accidents that may have been legitimate spells hitting the wrong objects due to bad aim nor Potions accidents that may have been caused entirely by not following instructions correctly.

Harry - shrank a sweater he didn't like, regrew his hair overnight, turned teacher's hair blue, levitated himself out of range of Dudley's gang. Also vanished the glass to enable the snake to go to Brazil. And inflated aunt Marge.

Lily - 'flew' off the swing, opened and closed a flower.

Severus - caused a branch to fall on Petunia.

Ariana - killed her mother.

It is pretty obvious Neville's magic was the result of his panic. The assorted accidents were a reflection of his mental state. The bouncing was at most a reaction to 'I don't want to hit the ground!'

Harry's assorted events were often a translation of a simple desire 'I don't want this sweater', 'I need to escape' - but also 'I hate Marge, she's going to pay for what she just said'. We have his thought process - he didn't plan the specific punishment he ended up inflicting on her, but he was angry and he wanted to hurt her. The amorphous emotion turned into an action without detailed planning. (Also, he may have wanted to humiliate his teacher, but didn't expect it to actually happen.) How many events of unplanned action against people who annoyed him would it have taken for him to realize he could do it deliberately?

Lily's 'flying' may have started like Neville's bouncing or Harry's levitation, as a reaction to danger - but Lily took it further to deliberate action. The stunt with the flower was clearly deliberate and shows Lily had been experimenting with her powers.

Severus - fans are split as to the level of deliberation in the branch incident. He clearly was mad at Petunia. Did he intend the branch to break (as Harry interprets it) or did he just lash out in anger (perhaps thinking 'I hate Petunia! I wish she suffers!') and the branch broke in response? Being wizarding-raised, even if he did not intend the exact action he would have recognized the connection between the cause and the effect, so his guilt is no indication either way.

In any case, we see both Harry and Severus causing bad things to happen to people who annoy them. So maybe it could have been a legitimate interpretation Tom was not referring to planned, deliberate actions if Albus only heard Tom's version.

And maybe he wanted to believe that. Because he didn't want to think Ariana killed Kendra on purpose? Or maybe there is something we weren't told about the fate of the three Muggle boys who had attacked Ariana? Terri has a fic (link in separate post) where Albus was supposed to watch his younger siblings but got carried away in magical experimentation. He found the boys attacking Ariana and hit them with something random with the wand he was using illegally. And then his father took the blame. But it's possible no wand was involved. That Albus punished the boys with wandless, accidental, but very powerful magic. He was angry, he lashed out, he wanted to hurt them - and his magic did. He made something bad happen to those that angered him, he made them hurt. And he didn't like thinking how much intent he had put in his magic. Maybe he wanted to think Tom was also referring to that kind of thing, because if he believed Tom was acting deliberately he would have to re-examine his own thought process that day.

But how does he reconcile all that with the story of the bunny that got hung from the rafters?

[corycides.livejournal.com]

Tom was just PLAYING with the bunny? Maybe he wanted to make it fly and then, oops, such a sad accident.

Or are we being unfair - to an extent - to Albus here? Is there any reason why he - as a magical educator - should recognise Tom as a dangerous child rather just a rather unpleasant one?

There is a certain determined obliviousness to childhood that appears to be part of the Wizarding World mindset. Other than making a best faith kind of effort that children don't kill themselves, they don't really seem to interfere much or be concerned. Children seem to be generally be treated as morally and psychologically neutral.* They get away with bad behaviour and, more notably, they aren't expected to be traumatised by being the subject of the bad behaviour.

Severus was raking over the past by not just getting over someone trying to get him eaten. Percy was a pill for not enjoying the twins reign of 'fun'.

So, did the Wizarding World have any concept of a child being damaged like Tom? Sure he killed animals - so did the twins with Ron's pet. He did something to Muggle children but a: they'll bounce back and b: Wizarding folk do things to Muggle minds all the time.

The stealing is more serious because it inconveniences/disrespects an adult? (Maybe?)

* Probably not the best term, but just assumed immune to psychological ramifications?

[sunnyskywalker]

Or maybe he ran across the rabbit (which had escaped from Billy, as pets do), and still fuming about whatever it was, wished ill on the rabbit - and oops, it hopped a little too high into this noose his powerful accidental magic conjured up. Doesn't mean he intended to kill the rabbit, right? (Right, Albus?)

I agree that by ww standards, accidentally killing pets and causing various forms of non-fatal harm to humans might not seem as worrisome as it would to us. The one thing we know made Arthur truly angry at the twins was the time they almost got Ron to do an Unbreakable Vow - something which could have killed him for certain, not just maybe-kinda-sorta if they had bad luck (and we don't know what the Vow was about... could have been something he'd be bound to break, like "I promise to hold my breath for ten minutes"). The one thing that will make them consider shutting down Hogwarts is the actual death of a student - Myrtle's death meant maybe no one could stay over holidays, at least, and Ginny's disappearance and presumed death was going to lead to a real shut-down. Mere murder attempts don't merit such attention, since hey, no one died! Montague's disappearance and long-term illness/injury, Katie's encounter with the necklace, Ron's poisoning, and Draco's near-evisceration didn't seem to raise much concern even among non-Albus staff members who knew about them (we don't see Slughorn freaking out for the rest of the year after Ron's poisoning, anyway, just a moment of "eep! that was close!"). So, a strangled rabbit and traumatized kids? Meh.

[malic-ba.livejournal.com]

All true. And that makes the Marauder's attitude to letting a werewolf run around an unsuspecting town seem less egregious. It would also fit with Dumbledore not changing anything after the Prank (except for preventing Severus from talking about it).

Everything short of death can easily be fixed, so people should just get over it?

Maybe that's part of the unspoken definition of Dark? Dark magic, Dark creatures, are just anything that causes injuries that aren't easily fixed, and is therefore actually a bit scary?

Another thing, too - if this is the WW attitude to risk and trauma, why are the Cruciatus and Imperious curses Unforgivable at all? Other spells can do the same thing after all, and IIRC only the AK has the special advantage of being unblockable?

[sunnyskywalker]

Maybe the "ublockable" part is the key? Other spells can kill you, but there's a chance you could block them, or be healed since they don't necessarily kill instantly, or something - no harm, no foul. Whereas if you get hit by an AK, unless you're Harry Potter, it's the end. Similarly, the Unbreakable Vow will kill you instantly, no chance of healing (we don't know that it's considered Dark, but it freaks an ostensibly Light wizard out like nothing else).

Good question about the other two Unforgiveables. My best guess for Cruciatus would be that it can cause incurable damage if used long enough (the Longbottoms), and maybe it has long been known to do so (unlike, say, Montague's damage, which no one is sure about and so which they can believe will be fixed any day now). Imperius is especially odd since other spells are so similar in effect. And aren't memory charms more or less permanent, unless you are Voldemort and can rip a person's mind apart to find a hidden memory? Why don't they count? Maybe it's just an exception they make for a spell they use so often to maintain Secrecy.

[corycides.livejournal.com]

Hogwarts is a bit of a loosely supervised Lord of the Flies isn't it?

Even the teachers behave in a fairly callous manner by our standards. I mean, Slughorn giving Harry that Felix Felicis potion was convenient for the plot, but also fairly dangerous. Even if the potion can't have a direct ill-effect on the user - since that would be unlucky - it could be addictive or used against another student.

And if Fred and George had ended up in that orphanage - through some misuse of a time-turner - I can't imagine that they would have been any nicer to be around. Their idea of funny would probably be just as traumatising as Tom's cruelty.

[nx74defiant.livejournal.com]

Hogwarts is a bit of a loosely supervised Lord of the Flies isn't it?

The scary thing is how JK and so many people think that Hogwarts would be a wonderful place to go.

[aasaylva.livejournal.com]

Of course they do. They imagine themselves as the good guys, meaning they are the ones to get away with bullying the lesser beings. And be praised for it.

[malic-ba.livejournal.com]

"and shows Lily had been experimenting with her powers"

You're right! And we see very few other wizards actually doing that, do we? Experimentation seems to be very rare (although that could just be the suppressed Hogwarts atmosphere) and scientific thinking certainly doesn't seem to be taught. Maybe it just doesn't occur to wizards that kids could work out how to use their powers deliberately, since very few would think to try?

I wonder if Severus picked up some of that experimental approach from Lily? (To go with his natural brilliance and curiosity of course :) )

[majorjune.livejournal.com]

(flashing images of Young!Sev reading secondhand Billy Bunter and Enid Blyton novels, having no access - apart from his dysfunctional mother's scarce and bitter stories - to Wizard culture)

Rowling gives us so little regarding Eileen Snape that it is rather a stretch to imagine whatever stories of the wizarding world that she told her son would have been "scarce and bitter".

We know she was captain of the Gobstones Team, so that gives us a clue that her time at Hogwarts couldn't have been completely unpleasant for her, and might have overall been a quite pleasant 7 years for her.

I rather believe that her tales to Severus of her own days at Hogwarts made it seem not only a nice place to be, but somewhere where he'd feel both safe and welcomed for what he was, where he could feel free to be himself.

What bitter disappointment, then, when even before he got to the school he encountered the same mean-spirited bullying he'd gotten from nonmagikal people before.

But I agree that the value system he carried, his sense of justice and of what was right and what was wrong, HAD to have come from the Muggle world and not the wizarding one...

[sunnyskywalker]

She might have hoped right along with Sev that Hogwarts would make it all better, yeah. Especially if she was feeling this whole "marry a Muggle" thing was a mistake and was otherwise to stressed or depressed or something to do much else for him except tell him that she was sorry but if he could just hang on until he turned 11, things would get better.

[oneandthetruth.livejournal.com]

I think it's important to remember that Eileen went to Hogwarts under a different headmaster than Severus. It's entirely possible that when she was there, the school was run with a lot more attention to academics, discipline, student protection, and fairness than it was when Scumblebore was using it as a trolling ground for brainwashed child soldiers. So if Eileen gave her son the impression that he would be well-treated, accepted, and happy there, she wouldn't have been lying, as far as she knew. She'd been cut off from her own culture for years, so she wouldn't have been aware of how badly the school had deteriorated under its superstar headmaster.

I work as a substitute teacher, and I can tell you that the quality of the principal has an ENORMOUS impact on the quality of a school--far more impact than most people realize. For example, where I live, the schools are divided sharply into three groups: (1) high-quality schools in well-to-do neighborhoods with well-socialized, well-behaved children who come from middle-class families that usually have two parents; (2) poor-quality schools in poor neighborhoods with poorly-socialized and -behaved children who come from families that usually have one parent, or no parent at all (i.e., the kids live with relatives, usually grandparents); (3) good-quality schools in poor neighborhoods with kids from bad backgrounds.

Where principal quality comes in is with the schools in poor neighborhoods. Having a strong disciplinarian as principal doesn't matter a lot when the kids come from stable backgrounds and learned how to behave well at home, but with poorly-socialized kids, strict behavior demands are vital because if the kids won't behave, you can't teach them anything. With a strong, determined principal, the schools in poor neighborhoods can enforce discipline standards as high as the standards in the good neighborhood schools. Consequently, those poor kids have a chance to get an education that's about as good as that at the high-quality schools. In the poor neighborhoods, it's easy for me to tell from the way the students behave whether the principal is strong or not. Strong principals will have students who behave as well or almost as well as the kids in the high-quality schools, and the academic rigor is high, also. Weak principals will have students with a screw you attitude who act like thugs or maniacs, who don't care about learning anything and don't care if you know it.

The fact is, we don't know enough about Hogwarts: The History, to know how good or bad a school it was under anyone other than Fumblesnore. Without other heads to compare him to, we can't know if the schools suckiness in all areas was normal, or the result of his atrocious lack of leadership. I'm inclined to believe it was the latter.

[sunnyskywalker]

I went to a well-funded suburban school up through sixth grade, and the principal definitely made a difference there - in a bad way. A lot of those kids were spoiled rotten or essentially neglected (apart from getting all the candy and toys they wanted), and the principal did nothing to encourage better discipline. She spent all her time making rules about how girls couldn't hold hands (I suppose so we wouldn't magically become lesbians or something? or so people wouldn't think we were?). So the kids learned that slacking off and calling other kids names and just generally being little monsters was fine, so long as everything looked okay (ie no physical fights, but making someone cry verbally? pfff, we don't even see that... and just act like the work is hard even if you're really tuning out). This extended to the teachers, too - some were good and tried to counteract this, but the teacher who singled out a couple of kids every year to verbally bully and punish according to special, impossible standards wasn't touched (even after some parents strongarmed the school into switching kids out of her class) until one year she finally hit a kid and the principal had to address that or it would look really bad. There was a different principal the first couple of years I was there, and I don't know if it was coincidence or if I just didn't notice any problems when I was six and they didn't affect me yet, but the new principal's first year there was awful for me, and I always wondered if the change in school climate was real (not just my bad luck) and sudden thanks to the new leadership.

And she was nowhere near as bad as Dumbledore. It's hard to guess what Hogwarts was like before he took over. We knew Tom and his crew terrorized the school in various ways for years, but I wonder whether Dumbledore's comment about how it was never traced back to them mean Dippet and other faculty had tried to trace it back to someone? All the unexplained nasty incidents, I mean, not just the basilisk thing. (Which I'm not sure they did blame on Aragog and Hagrid, since it's kind of obvious when a dead girl has or hasn't been poisoned by a giant spider if you have anyone with any remotely relevant expertise, you would think... but keeping Aragog was illegal regardless, and since the attacks stopped there was nothing else they could do and they probably wondered if maybe they had gotten the right culprits after all.) Maybe Tom aside, Hogwarts was less dangerous in general. At least in not having death traps and murderous teachers every year, which is a good start. On the other hand, if Dumbledore already had a lot of influence and Dippet was a "moron," as Rita put it, maybe not. Maybe Phineas Nigellus was (reportedly) so hated because he did enforce discipline - and if that's the case, it sounds like it wasn't the norm before him either. Hm. Maybe it was just because he was snarky and didn't like kids? Or maybe Hogwarts has been a Lord of the Flies kind of place for centuries, with only brief lulls in the chaos. Scary thought.

[sunnyskywalker]

Percy is an anomaly! It might be partly due to an odd combination of circumstances - he wasn't one of the two oldest boys to get all the excited first-time parent attention, but he was old enough to be put in charge of the younger kids, maybe especially being tasked with watching Fred and George for a few minutes while Molly fed Baby Ron or something. His early formative years were basically the worst stage of the war (he would have been, what, five or six by the end?), when his parents would have most emphasized being obedient and helping out (Charlie and Bill would have gotten some of that too, though they were a bit older when it would have started so it might not have "stuck" as much). But the twins had each other to help resist any attempts to make them be quiet and listen, and if Molly did have little Percy watch over them in the corner or another room while she took care of Ron and then Ginny, they wouldn't exactly have had an experienced disciplinarian to keep them in line and would have learned they could get away with things and Percy would get blamed. So he internalized the "be good" rules and had plenty of reason to feel that kids being chaotic was awful and an unfair way to blame him for stuff that wasn't his fault.

Also, Percy took Muggle Studies. He even recommended it to students choosing their electives. Whatever his expectations when he first signed up for the class (and maybe he took it initially because his dad was just getting interested in Muggle stuff and he wanted to have something special just he and his dad could talk about? plus wanting more OWLS eventually, I suppose), I suspect he was very thorough about studying Muggle culture - that's just the kind of student he is - and might just have understood some aspects better than other kids. It clicked for him.

[malic-ba.livejournal.com]

I don't think Percy is unique. I think we just don't get to see any of the pockets of wizards like him because they are not 'interesting'.

Fair enough, I don't think we see much evidence for 'reason', but Percy isn't driving the whole Ministry himself, and it seems that his attitude is valued there. There must be at least a few other people who care about things like cauldron thickness. Order has some support (just not at Hogwarts!) The law might be a popularity contest but Crouch for example seems to believe you need to pay for what you do (even if in the end he made an exception for his son, against his principles).

Parts of the WW must be less chaotic than we see. All those Hufflepuffs have to go somewhere, after all.

Severus, though - yes. And majorjune, sunnyskywalker and oneandthetruth - yes, yes, and yes.

I love the idea of little Sev reading Muggle school stories :) Would that have been too early for the Worst Witch, do you think?

What about Searle? Could he have read Down with Skool - or hey, St Trinian's? They would have been closer ...

Tom Brown's Schooldays probably wasn't on his reading list, though.

[oryx_leucoryx]

Parts of the WW must be less chaotic than we see. All those Hufflepuffs have to go somewhere, after all.

Yes! Percy detractors say he should have been A Slytherin, but his alternate House is Hufflepuff.

[sunnyskywalker]

He definitely is loyal and hardworking. He might have been happier there.

[sweettalkeress.livejournal.com]

"I was always more flabberghasted about Percy, who shares the 'mugglish' values of order, responsibility and reason with Snape, since Percy grew up in a Pureblood Wizard family that is pure Chaos. Where did that kid get his values from? Is Percy a spontaneous mutation?"

Interestingly, I remember Terri Testing's essay (one of them, anyway) saying that Percy was "socially-insensitive" by the standards of the Wizarding World, and this made him more comfortable with law and order and less with the chaotic life at Hogwarts. I suppose it could be the same as how there are quiet and withdrawn people in a society (such as that in the US) that values salesmanship and being very outgoing and charismatic to large groups. And we see that the Ministry of Magic, at least, takes its laws relatively seriously (barring a few individuals like Bagman or Mr. Weasley) even if it doesn't do a good job of enforcing them or occasionally lapses into tyranny.

[sunnyskywalker]

It doesn't seem particularly more corrupt than your average Muggle government, anyway, and is probably less so than some. And Crouch's War on Terror does sound like a turning point toward a somewhat worse situation, again something not unfamiliar to Muggles. But yeah, knowing a few state workers myself, Arthur and Ludo don't stand out one bit. Nor does Umbridge, at least before she got free reign at Hogwarts. Which doesn't say much for us Muggles (there, a place where we aren't tons better than wizards for a change).

The Dementors do seem worse than your average Muggle prison guard, however, and they predate Crouch's rise. Muggles have also invented prisons with different levels of security, so the people awaiting trial for shoplifting aren't thrown in with the serial murderers. Muggle prisons are no picnic, but I'd venture to say Azkaban is up there with the worst, when you consider how many of the prisoners literally die of depression or go insane within a relatively short time. Fudge was shocked that Sirius could have a normal conversation. We wouldn't be shocked that someone who'd spent a decade in San Quentin could still form sentences well enough to ask for a newspaper (and have the energy to read it). Whose bright idea was it to make a deal with the Dementors in the first place? And when? And why don't they have lower-security cells somewhere for people who haven't been convicted yet, or whom they expect to release in a while? Were they more careful about whom they threw in there before Crouch's speed trials, or did the ww just stick with 17th-century conceptions of justice and assume guilty until proven innocent all along? (So to Azkaban with you to await trial! You're probably guilty anyway, so think of this as an advance on your sentence.)

[oryx_leucoryx]

We know Marvolo Gaunt was sentenced to Azkaban for several months for attacking Bob Ogden and Morphin was sentenced to a few years there for cursing Tom Riddle Sr and attacking Ogden. Both seem to have returned with diminished mental capacity.

[sunnyskywalker]

It does seem like the Dementors have been around for a while. Little Sev probably heard about them from his mom, after all. Whether they got tossed into Azkaban immediately to await trial or thrown in some Ministry basement holding cell, I don't know... their courts probably aren't as overburdened as a lot of Muggle ones, so maybe they could just drag them directly to a courtroom, offer up the evidence that they spontaneously confessed to the crimes and attacked Bob, and be done with it by afternoon.

But it still seems like a terrible idea to put anyone into Azkaban that you intend to let out. So if they were doing that in the 1920s, maybe it was a holdover from the days of "everyone rots in Newgate (and pays for the privilege)."

For the sake of argument, though, maybe Morfin and Marvolo, being already someone, er, mentally troubled, would have cracked a bit more even in a Dementor-free prison. Solitary confinement can do that to people, and maybe they were tossed in cells like those underground cave-cells in Alcatraz or something. The Dementors could have been brought in in the 1930s or '40s, in time for Eileen to come to think of them as fixtures of the prison system. Grindlewald doesn't seem to have troubled Britain much, so we might not be able to blame him as the excuse some Crouch-equivalent used to make that particular deal with the devil. But maybe some British wizards were perpetrating minor attacks or instigating teeny riots in sympathy with Grindlewald's movement, hoping to get the Ministry to declare for him? Or maybe originally the Dementors were only for captured foreign spies trying to stir up trouble?

[oryx_leucoryx]

The link to Terri's story: Second Chance: A Harry Potter fanfic

[borg-princess.livejournal.com]

Okay, I'm pressed for time atm so I'm only just quickly scanning this through til I can return later, but this? "Thieving is not tolerated at Hogwarts"- riiiight. Tell that to Luna Lovegood. Her possessions go missing to the point where she has to put up posters requesting their return apparently on a yearly basis. (The hell kind of Head of House is Flitwick that nothing ever happens to the girls bullying her?) I'm guessing this is another case of Informed Attribute, as is common with HP.

[malic-ba.livejournal.com]

Less of an Informed Attribute and more of an in-character lie from Dumbledore, I think. Plenty of thieving goes on - from the school itself (food from the kitchens, Potions ingredients) as well as from other students, and no attempt to find the thieves seems to happen at all. It seems to be winked at just like going 'out of bounds' in the Forbidden Forest.

Dumbledore may just have been warning Tom not to try stealing from him.

BTW, what kind of Head of House is Flitwick? Exactly the same as all the others that we see with bullied (or bullying) kids ...

[nx74defiant.livejournal.com]

I wonder if Dippet was more concerned and tougher on stealing than Dumbledore?

It annoys me when people say that Snape is such an evil, mean teacher, yet they overlook the fact that the "good" teachers do things just as bad or worse.