A Prejudiced Examination of Dumble’s First End-of-book Exposition

[terri-testing.livejournal.com]

I recently wrote a fiction based on the end of PS, which required me to look very closely indeed at Albus’s first end-of-book exposition to Harry. This started as author’s notes to that story, but I reworked it because I think a close reading is of more general interest than just to those who read my fictions.

We’ve talked here and on Snapedom about how Twinkles deliberately misled Harry in this first debriefing about Snape’s true reasons for protecting Harry and about Harry’s father (and Snape’s relationship with James).

But I’ve not seen anyone explore at length whether Dumbles was deliberately misleading Harry on other matters. And he was.




**

In the debriefing scene in the Hospital Ward, Albus made exactly one statement that could be checked directly against the previous text, i.e. Harry’s own experience of what was happening:

“I arrived just in time to pull Quirrell off you—”

“It was you.”

“I feared I might be too late.”

“You nearly were, I couldn’t have kept him off the Stone much longer—”

“Not the Stone, boy, you—the effort involved nearly killed you.”


Harry took this to mean that his last memory, of hearing someone calling and feeling Quirrell’s arm being “wrenched from his grasp,” was of Dumbledore rescuing him and the Stone from Quirrell.

Only, it hadn’t been Quirrell holding onto Harry; it had been Harry desperately clinging to Quirrell. Here’s what actually happened:

Harry jumped to his feet, caught Quirrell by the arm, and hung on as tight as he could. Quirrell screamed and tried to throw Harry off—the pain in Harry’s head was building—he couldn’t see—he could only hear Quirrell’s terrible shrieks and Voldemort’s yells of, “KILL HIM! KILL HIM” and other voices, maybe in Harry’s own head, crying, “Harry! Harry!”

He felt Quirrell’s arm wrenched from his grasp, knew all was lost, and fell into blackness, down… down… down…


So if Dumbledore had been responsible for wrenching Quirrell’s arm from Harry’s grasp, he had been rescuing Quirrell—or trying to—from being burnt alive by Lily’s Love™, not rescuing Harry. At the last moment that Harry was conscious, it was Harry who was the aggressor deliberately causing his foe unbearable agony and grievous bodily harm—Quirrell was merely struggling to escape.

Of course, it could indeed be the case that Twinkles realized that “the effort involved nearly killed” Harry as well as Harry’s victim, and intervened to save the boy’s life, not the man’s.

But if so, Dumbledore would more accurately be said to have pulled Quirrell away from Harry, not off him. Or to have pulled Harry off Quirrell. Claiming you pulled someone off another, A off B, indicates that the first, A, was the aggressor attacking B.

Only it was Quirrell who was shrieking terribly and trying to throw Harry “off.”

Twinkle’s claim to have pulled Quirrell off Harry, if Albus were indeed responsible for pulling Quirrell’s arm out of Harry’s grasp, would then have been a misdirection intended to imply that Quirrell had been the attacker responsible for Harry’s injuries and [almost] death, not Harry the agent of Quirrell’s actual death in agony.

*

Now it could instead have been the case that Harry fainted when Quirrell wrenched himself free of Harry’s grasp, that Quirrell recovered enough to search for the Stone and to attack Harry again, and that Dumbledore did indeed enter just in time to stop the villain in the act. (Making Albus quite possibly his employee’s killer.)

In which case Twinkles was misleading Harry slightly by letting him think that the last thing Harry remembered was his rescue by Albus the Great; the actual rescue would have come later, after Harry was fully unconscious.

But in that scenario, the very last thing Quirrell would have done would have been to touch Harry physically again, to need to be pulled off him. Not after the lesson Q. had just had. He wouldn’t have been throttling the boy with one hand and rifling his pockets with the other—he’d have tried a nice, safe (Quirrell thought) Accio and Avada Kedavra.

Or maybe Tom would actually have been bright enough to remember the last time he’d directed the Killing Curse against Harry, and also that the broom-jinx had worked without rebounding on its caster, and put two and two together. In which case Quirrell!mort might have just dropped several tons of ceiling on the boy after he’d secured the Stone to himself.

But either way, Dumbledore would not have stopped him by “pulling him off” Harry.


So the one verifiable statement Dumbles made, “I arrived just in time to pull Quirrell off you—” was false. Which must make his other statements automatically suspect.

*

Let’s look at Albus’s other direct statements about what happened that night.

“Very well, the Stone. Professor Quirrell did not manage to take it from you. I arrived in time to prevent that…”

This might be true, but if so it wasn’t done by “pulling Quirrell off Harry.” It could have been done by immobilizing Quirrell, by killing Quirrell, or by destroying the Stone before Tom could abscond with it.

Or it might have been unnecessary, because Quirrell was already dead or dying (killed by Harry) and Tom as Vapor!mort couldn’t seize it.

All we can know for certain is that, whatever really did happen, Dumbledore didn’t want Harry to know the truth about it.

Minor diversion here: had Harry not obligingly removed the Stone from the Mirror, could Quirrell or Tom ever have done so? Or was the original plan, the one for which the Flamels loaned their Stone, to trap Voldemort and/or his agent before a Mirror which showed them getting exactly what they wanted most, while holding the reality perpetually out of reach?

*

“—the effort involved nearly killed you. For one terrible moment there, I was afraid it had.”

Probably true, except for the part about the moment of thinking Harry and Tom to have died together having been “terrible” to Twinkles. Indeed, it seems Dumbles still “was afraid” that Harry might be killed by his “effort” long after that “one terrible moment.”

We have Hermione’s testimony on that. “Oh, Harry, we were sure you were going to—Dumbledore was so worried—“

So the ever-knowledgeable Miss Granger had thought Harry to have been in danger of dying, and she was given to think that by Dumbledore AFTER he’d examined Harry’s unconscious but living body and brought him out of the trap to deliver him to Madam Pomfrey’s care. Further, that impression was not contradicted by any other adult.

Hermione’s reaction and words, that “we were sure—,” suggests a belief that endured for some period of time, not a transient fear that was quickly quelled by the brisk reassurance, “Harry will be just fine, Miss Granger. He’ll sleep for a few days while he recovers from his ordeal, but after that he’ll be right as rain.”

Madam Pomfrey’s being such a dragon about letting even the headmaster or Harry’s best friends visit also suggests still-lingering fear on her part. Contrast her ease, one month earlier, about letting in Draco to visit Ron during his three-plus day sojourn (the same time to recover, or more, as Harry here), or letting Harry’s Quidditch team visit in PoA after Harry had succumbed to Dementor-influence and knocked himself unconscious falling from his broom.

Indeed, Hermione’s “Dumbledore was so worried--” rather strongly suggests that Twinkles was, in fact, broadcasting on all bands to Harry’s fans that the valiant attempt to protect the Stone might have doomed the brave child.

Either our omniscient Albus was a damned poor diagnostician, or someone had intervened to save Harry when Albus and Poppy hadn’t fully credited that it could be done.


*

“As for the Stone, it has been destroyed.”

This is really the key statement. WHAT a weaseling way of putting it! Mary Daly wrote in Gyn/Ecology about how academics can use abstract language and the passive voice (in the guise of being objective) to distance themselves and their readers from horrors they don’t want fully to acknowledge as such or assign criminal responsibility for.

The Stone has been destroyed?

By whom, how, when, and for what reason? And why did Dumbledore want Harry (and us) not to know exactly what had happened?

Dumbledore suggested strongly to Harry that “the destruction” had been done with the Flamels’ full consent and was no very great loss to them anyway. He nattered on philosophically about “the next great adventure” and established to his own satisfaction, if not Ron’s or ours, that “the Stone was really not such a wonderful thing.”

Back when I first read PS, when I still saw Twinkles as a wise, beneficent, and trustworthy character, I assumed that either Nicholas and Perenelle had destroyed the Stone themselves, or that Dumbledore had done so on their explicit orders, after their “little chat” about the matter. I assumed further that they had decided to do so because of how close the Stone had come to falling into Voldemort’s grasp; better to die themselves than risk someone like the Dark Lord ever getting hold of it.

So the only actual connection between the Stone’s destruction and little Harry’s adventure was that the latter brought vividly to the Flamels’ minds the danger the very existence of the Stone posed to the WW. If it weren’t destroyed, sooner or later some Dark Lord who coveted immortality would steal and misuse it….

And this is still a possible interpretation. However, it seems to me that Albus protests too much. Look at what he tells Harry when Harry recoils in horror at the news:

“But that means he and his wife will die, won’t they?”

“They have enough Elixir stored to set their affairs in order and then, yes, they will die.”

Dumbledore smiled at the look of amazement on Harry’s face.

“To one as young as you, I’m sure it seems incredible, but to Nicolas and Perenelle, it really is like going to bed after a very, very long day. After all, to the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure. You know, the Stone was really not such a wonderful thing….”

Harry lay there, lost for words. Dumbledore hummed a little and smiled at the ceiling.

Okay, death of Socrates and all that. But while Socrates was stoic (oops, wrong school!) about his impending death, Socrates’ friends were not all so accepting. Where’s Dumbledore’s decent grief over the loss of his partner? It’s one thing to be philosophical about one’s own demise, but the imminent death of a friend should call forth some reaction besides humming and smiling.

Oh wait, this is Twinkles, whose reaction to his young disciples’ tragic murders was to go about chuckling, his eyes sparkling, until reminded by Minerva’s outburst of grief to assume a decorous gravity.


But even so, if the Flamels destroyed the Stone themselves or directly ordered Albus to do so, why didn’t Albus just say so, instead of weaseling about suggesting as much without stating it?


And after all, it’s noticeable that the Flamels and their presumed agent hadn’t simply initially destroyed the Stone to keep it out of Voldemort’s hands. They hadn’t just baited the trap-Mirror with a fake (or with the mere rumor that the Stone could be found there, if one could reach it). If they were willing to die rather than let the Stone fall into a Dark Lord’s hands (and why is the current one more of a danger than the last six?), why wait to destroy it UNTIL THE IMMEDIATE DANGER WAS PAST? What sense does it make to destroy it then?

So it rather seems that the Flamels did originally hope and expect to get their Stone back and to enjoy another 600 years of life.

And the little Dumbledore reported about his actual conversation with Nicolas rather suggests that the Flamels accepted (if they did accept) a fait accompli presented to them by their protégé Albus: “Well, Nicolas and I have had a little chat, and agreed it’s all for the best.”

We agreed that it’s all for the best.

As in, it’s too late to kick up a fuss after the fact, and you two—who’ve already had 500 years more of life than any of the rest of us—will just look churlish if you try. There’s nothing, after all, to be done about the matter now—we can’t get it back. It’s all for the greater good, anyhow—you agreed to take this risk. Hadn’t you better start putting your affairs in order?


When I put my mind to it, I can think of several excellent reasons why Twinkles might not want Harry to know exactly how, when, by whom, and why the Stone “has been destroyed.”

Indeed, I can come up with a number of mutually exclusive scenarios, each more plausible than “The Flamels decided to destroy the Stone the moment they knew it was no longer in immediate danger of being stolen, having coincidentally also just decided that six hundred and sixty-six years of life would be one too many.”

The first scenario, of course, is that the Flamels DID destroy the Stone as soon as they realized it had become a target for someone of Tom’s particular abilities and ambitions. They brewed up some Elixir to store, made a big public display of moving the Stone, and destroyed it in utter secrecy, baiting Albus’s trap with a fake.

In which case gallant little Harry risked his life for absolutely nothing, and he might have felt very foolish if he ever found out. Harry might, indeed, have been deterred from flinging himself headlong at the next life-threatening crisis if he’d been embarrassed in such a manner. Albus would certainly not want THAT.

The second reason Albus might want to hide from Harry exactly what had happened was if the Stone’s destruction was actually Harry’s fault. I can think of several ways this might work, going back to the fact that neither Quirrell nor Tom had found a way to remove the Stone from the Mirror. But Harry did.

So what if Harry had crushed the thing in his pocket when he collapsed on top of it? (Shades of the Prophecy globe.) Or if Quirrell did, thrashing in his death throes? Or what if Tom managed to destroy it in pique when he realized he couldn’t obtain it? Or, even, what if Dumbledore had run up and seen Quirrell reaching into Harry’s pocket, and blasted the Stone in a panic, to keep Tom from getting it? Either way, the Stone’s destruction—and the Flamels’ consequent deaths—would be Harry’s fault. His well-meaning attempt to save the Stone by removing it from the Mirror resulted in its destruction. (A nice parallel to book 5, where his well-meaning attempt to save Sirius resulted directly in Sirius’s death.)

The third reason why Albus might want to hide exactly what had happened to the Stone is if it was Albus who had made the decision to destroy it. Unilaterally. For the Greater Good, of course, because wiser-than-thou Albus felt that so close a call indicated that the continued existence of the Stone posed a long-term threat to the Wizarding community. Or, alternatively, for less palatable reasons (one of which I imagined in my fic).

At which point Albus’s lack of grief over his (senior) partner’s impending demise might even look a little sinister. Cui bono, where the Flamels’ deaths are concerned?

At the very least, Albus will no longer be pointed out as the less-than-best living alchemist.

Technically, destroying the Stone would count as assisted suicide if ordered by the Flamels and as murder if done deliberately at anyone else’s whim (like a nurse deliberately withholding life-supporting medication from a patient). I doubt that purely accidental destruction would be classed as manslaughter, however, if not done in commission of another crime. (Accidentally crushing someone’s Epi-pen while fumbling to get it out, versus doing so incidental to a mugging.) At any rate, I shouldn’t imagine any Wizarding court would try The Boy Who Lived for his tragic error. If that’s how the tragedy happened. But better not to risk it….

Anyone want to come up with other reasons why Albus should want to conceal the exact circumstances of the Stone’s destruction?

*

Finally, what about Twinkles’ statement, “He [Voldemort] left Quirrell to die; he shows just as little mercy to his followers as his enemies.”?

More weaseling. How, exactly, did Quirrell die, and why doesn’t Albus want Harry to know?

Well, that one’s probably easy, isn’t it?

(Only, if killing rends the soul and only remorse can heal it, keeping the killer in ignorance of his crime means his soul can never be healed. Right? Shouldn’t Dumbledore worry about that?)

(I mean, if I assaulted someone and s/he died a week later of the injuries, my crime would be officially reclassified from assault to murder. But if I hadn’t been caught and didn’t catch the news, I might not know that I’d become a murderer. Yet I still would be, whether or not I realized it, and if caught I’d be tried as such. And surely, morally I was before I knew it?)

Moreover, how on earth could Quirrell’s death have illustrated the maxim (which, oddly enough given that the source is Albus, seems to be true) that Tom showed as little mercy to his followers as his enemies?

It might perhaps be inferred from Dumbledore’s words that it was the shock of Tom’s leaving, his dis-possession, that actually finished Quirinus. But the phrasing more strongly suggests that Tom could perfectly well have saved his injured follower, but instead selfishly abandoned him and fled.

Presumably, fled from Dumbledore, the coward and—compared to Dumbledore—weakling. Pause for the audience to sneer in contempt at how poorly Voldemort measures up to Albus.

Er, since we’ve stopped to sneer, let’s also stop to get this straight. Tom could easily have saved Quirrell if he’d chosen to, but the merciful and more-powerful Dumbledore could not have? Because surely Albus WOULD have saved the misguided young man if he could have, even though Quirrell was unworthy of his mercy.

Wouldn’t he have?

But anyway, we are assured that the death was no one’s fault, in the end, but Voldemort’s. Who mercilessly left his own follower to die.

That Quirinus had been killed, by either Harry or Albus, and Tom forcibly made discorporate again by the murder of his host—nah, those are the only scenarios we can conclusively rule out on the strength of Albus’s testimony.

No killers in that chamber but Lord Voldemort and his follower! Just ask Albus.

Comments

[robina1984.livejournal.com]

Wouldn't telling an eleven year old boy he was directly/indirectly responsible for the deaths of three people be rather...extreme? Just because something IS a KID'S fault doesn't mean you saddle them with the grief and blame. Wouldn't this be more on par with Dumbledore telling this same eleven year old boy that what HE saw in the mirror was him getting socks? Something you could look back on and see that maybe you weren't told the truth, but that's because no child should go through that much grief? Harry was fighting for his life, considering Voldemort yelling to kill him, and self-defense is generally excusable, legally.

Now, the question on killing ripping your soul and all... Hm. But there's a lot of soul ripping in the last book, so maybe it becomes a moot point on how much damage killing without knowing about it does?

[terri-testing.livejournal.com]

Likewise, wouldn't telling an eleven year old boy that he was directly responsible for the lifelong, incurable insanity of two of his schoolmates be rather... extreme?

Aren't we all glad Albus took it upon himself to save little Tommy from the consequences (legal, moral, AND emotional) of that dreadful knowledge?

Such a crushing burden, for a growing boy.

I'm so happy that Tom Riddle was forever spared that awareness.

And could make his future decisions happily ignorant of the full cost.

Or more precisely, of the full cost being paid by others outside Tommy's awareness.

Which awareness (Tommy's) extended almost exactly so far as to me, myself, and I.

We'd hate to have it extend farther. That would have caused Tommy to feel hurt at his own actions!

Bad empathy!

[aasaylva.livejournal.com]

I'm not quite sure I get your drift in this answer, but certainly there is a difference between a boy fighting in self-defence and a boy setting out to torture fellow kids?
Which doesn't mean I feel Dumble's reaction as depicted above is the only sensible one - in fact, it would have been better to break it to Harry - gently and making it clear there was a difference between killing and hurtin/ killing in self-defence. As it is it makes Dumbles seem like Molly.

[condwiramurs.livejournal.com]

Except, given that Harry was actively hanging on to Quirrell, who had given up trying to hurt Harry and was simply trying to escape, the line between self-defense and murder isn't exactly clear-cut here. Indeed, as written it shows Harry, newly aware of his power to hurt but at that moment no longer in Quirrell's grasp, taking the initiative and acting aggressively. (The moral question of the surrounding circumstances and Harry's precise duty are somewhat arguable, which is why I'm saying the line is not clear-cut, rather than just saying murder. But there's no question that *Harry* makes the decision to *go after* Quirrell when he realizes he can burn him, so that act of aggression IS his choice, and thus his morally to bear the consequences of, once a conclusion as to the exact nature of this has been made. The difference between manslaughter and murder would be one example where circumstances can nuance the severity of the act without removing consideration of the aggressive nature of the act the way self-defense would - self-defense extends only as far as getting an attacker to stop, not chasing him down to kill him, Florida law aside. I'm suggesting that Harry's act lies, at the very least, in a similar gray area as acts that usually end up considered manslaughter.)

[aasaylva.livejournal.com]

See my reply to condriwamurs below.

I don't quite follow your reasoning here:
- The reason for Tom's presumed torture of his fellow orphans is, of course, nebulous. It is generally supposed to have been an exaggerated reaction on his part to some real or perceived slights - in if that is the case, it certainly was different from someone acting in self-defence. If there should be a whole story there that never came to light - this might be different but it's hardly probable to base any discussion on pure speculation.

As to Harry - what does acceptance of legitimate self-defence have to do with Dumbles' favouritism as cited by you? I don't think there can be any argument about those instances - they were wrong, mean-spirited and above all idiotic because they served to alienate a quarter of the student population and at least helped to make Harry into a nasty self-righteous prick. But telling a boy who had been assaulted and whose life had been threatened he did wrong a morally questionalble things by defending himself in the only way he had?

[oryx_leucoryx]

It is hard to apply Muggle law from a country where people are generally unarmed to wizarding society where almost everyone is armed. An adult (or even an older teenager) wizard holding a wand has a versatile lethal weapon at hir disposal, which s/he can use with little warning. And some wizards don't even need a wand to kill magically at a distance. Quirrell, even when injured, was still armed.

That said, I agree it was wrong of Dumbles to sweep the fact that Harry's choice of action caused Quirrell's death under the carpet. Even if Harry had no way of being safe without incapacitating Quirrell, and he did not have the knowledge how to incapacitate Quirrell in a non-lethal manner, it was important that he realize the consequences of his choice.

[aasaylva.livejournal.com]

Thank you.

[aasaylva.livejournal.com]

See, I think this whole argument centers around the question whether or not Harry's action was self-defence. You say it wasn't and if that was so you'd be right in your deductions.
But as I said, IMO, it was.

If translated to Muggle terms, Harry was attacked by Quirrell, Harry pulled out an unexpected weapon and hurt Quirrell, badly. Quirrell, shocked with pain, tried to flee, and Harry then ran after him and shot him in the back.
No. The Muggle equivalent would be: you are attacked by someone much stronger than you, trying to strangle you. Unexpectedly to your assailant, you have a knife with you, manage to draw it and stab him with it. It's not a very big knife, so there is neither hope nor risk for you to land just one decisive blow, you need to go on stabbing. Of course, your assailant will try to get away from you. Now my question is: Will you release him, knowing full well, that
a) he really wants to kill you
b) he's got a gun with him, which - contrary to your knife - works perfectly at a distance of about two meters
c) there is nobody else nearby who could possibly intervene with him shooting you at his leisure?
I'm not a Dutchwoman, but I sincerely doubt Dutch citizens are required to let themselves be shot in these circumstances.

[aasaylva.livejournal.com]

Whew! You are right - the Dutch laws do seem bizarre, even to my decidedly non-American ears.
Just out of curiosity, when you say a hypothetical woman who'd managed to kill her would-be rapist would be prosecuted for second degree murder - does that just mean she will have to stand trial for it (that's the same over here in Germany, because, after all, there was an unnatural death and it has to be decided by the official authorities why it happened and who was responsible). Or would she be convicted for it? Over here she wouldn't because it would be deemed justified because of self-defence. Of course, there has to be a reasonable relation between the two: So killing someone in self-defence to escape being killed yourself, raped or seriously harmed is okay. Killing someone to prevent him from shop-lifting certainly isn't.

As to the aftermath, I agree with you (that's what I said to condwiramurs, only less eloquently than you). I'm not sure (because after Deathly Hallows I'm not sure anymore as to where JKR stands morally speaking anyway), but I suppose this was mainly due to a Doylist reason. I THINK maybe she shirked the whole issue because of the kiddies - Quirrel just had to be "away" without delving too deeply into the question how that blessed awayness had come about. As far as I can see, it's not even clear, who killed him in the end - was he burned to death by Harry, meaning Dumbles just picked Harry off a corpse or were they still locked and Dumbles finished him off himself?

Whatever the case, I agree this should have been adressed - not only out of moral consideration but for authorial purposes as well. It would have been an excellent way of characterization. Why not distinguish Harry from the more callous Weasley approach to causing bodily harm to others by his shock over what he had done (if he had). Or (in case it was Dumbles) over the fact that once again someone had died because of him - at least if Quirell as Voldy's victim was stressed. Why not laying the groundwork here for Harry's voyage towards passivity - if that was where she wanted to head him all along? I mean, that could have been a thread: first book: he killed a person because he meddled with things, no matter how good his intention was. Second book: he trusts Tom Riddle of all people; when he takes action he nearly gets Ron killed in a collapsing tunnel and his real salvation comes from pulling a hat over his eyes and chanting for help! Etc.
As it is, it starts a thread of shoving uncomfortable truths under the carpet. Which, mind you, could still have worked if it had come to light in some later book, adressing precicely what it does to people. In fact, Molly's idiotic attitude in this respect made me think this was where the author was going. But alas, it wasn't meant to be.

[oryx_leucoryx]

My parents tell me of cases where a woman was convicted for killing a would-be rapist in Israel in recent years, as well as a police detective that was convicted of shooting at point blank a suspect that was stabbing him with a screw-driver while attempting to escape. Both convictions were highly controversial, but as far as I know were let to stand.

[aasaylva.livejournal.com]

That seems incredible. The Law should be there to protect the peaceful (and I consider someone peaceful who doesn't commit an infraction against another person's rights). For it to protect a criminal against possible risks while committing his/ her crime turns it upside down.

[oryx_leucoryx]

I didn't have enough information for the first case, but the detective's situation, his name is Shahar Mizrahi. The information you find depends strongly on the source you read. Right wing sources always have him as a martyr who was in great danger and was being punished for defending himself, left wing sources have him as a rogue policeman who unnecessarily escalated a situation (the person he was following got into a car, the detective broke the windshield and this allowed him eventually to shoot point blank). He was originally sentenced to 15 months in prison, he appealed, which resulted in doubling his sentence. Eventually the sentence was commuted to 20 months. He has since completed his commuted sentence.

[charlottehywd.livejournal.com]

Wow, that's all kinds of creepy when you put it like that.

[aasaylva.livejournal.com]

Sorry, but no. Quirrel stopped trying to hurt Harry because he was burning him, yes. There is no reason to assume he would have run from that chamber as soon as Harry had let up - so this most definitly is not a question of "chasing poor little Quirell down the street to show him". On the contrary, there is every reason to assume he would have gone for his wand as soon as Harry had stopped holding onto him and then Harry would have had no reasonable defense against him. In fact, Quirrel couldn't afford to let Harry out that chamber alive because Harry would have told Dumbledore about the whole event. Not to mention there was Voldemort who didn't care one whit about anything apart from getting the stone.
So - we have a wizard in his first year against his duelling instructor. What exactly was he supposed to do to get away once he had released Quirrel? So - your definition of self-defence doesn't hold water, IMO. Self-defence is valid as long as there is good reason to think the threat is still there which it most certainly was.

[oryx_leucoryx]

Regardless - even if Harry, due to his lack of knowledge, had no other way to escape alive, it was wrong of Dumbles to deny Harry the responsibility of his choices. Harry needed to learn that sometimes there aren't good choices, that even the best choice available has nasty consequences. And Albus was wrong to speak of Quirrell as 'full of hatred, greed and ambition' when he was Tom's victim like so many others.

[rotkaeppchen16.livejournal.com]

Regardless - even if Harry, due to his lack of knowledge, had no other way to escape alive, it was wrong of Dumbles to deny Harry the responsibility of his choices. Harry needed to learn that sometimes there aren't good choices, that even the best choice available has nasty consequences.
That's what I said in my comment to condwiramurs.

As to Quirell being full of hatred etc. - I don't think we are actually in any position to know about this. Maybe he was, maybe Voldy just jumped his bones and would have done so with St. Francis as well. As far as Dumbles is concerned - I have no idea if he could have known about it. Quirrel was on his staff, so maybe he knew him. On the other side, he didn't realize Moody wasn't Moody, so...
Anyway, being full of hatred, greed and ambition doesn't negate someone being a victim as well.

[rotkaeppchen16.livejournal.com]

Umm, I've no idea, how this happened, but I'm aasaylva, not rotkaeppchen16.

[oryx_leucoryx]

Even if true there should have been balancing information. Dumbles' message to Harry is that people serving one's enemy don't deserve compassion of any kind, at any level. They deserved their fate, they had it coming, let's enjoy the feast. Dumbles is doing what I would expect from someone who is raising a fanatic terrorist, not someone who is raising a civilized person.

[oryx_leucoryx]

OK, I have somewhat revised my opinion. When Quirrell looked in the mirror he saw himself giving the Stone to his Master. He didn't see himself free of his Master. Assuming he was being truthful (was he capable of hiding his thoughts from Tom when the latter was sharing his head?) by the end of the year Quirrell had internalized Voldemort's temporary goal, whatever his beliefs when he was first taken over by Tom. But still, there is the question of how willing Quirrell was about the arrangement while still in his right mind and how much autonomy did he maintain once he became bodily possessed.