deathtocapslock | Dumbledore and the Spy in the Order

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Dumbledore and the Spy in the Order

An idea sparked by Oryx's "Appendix B" post on the Order of the Phoenix during VoldWar I.

Why didn’t Dumbledore figure out who the spy was, if he’s even a halfway decent Legilimens? Was Peter a fantastic Occlumens? Was Dumbledore actually a total failure at Legilimency?

Or did he think he knew exactly who it was, and so didn’t realize he needed to look again? More to the point, why do we assume there was only one spy in the mix?

A while ago on her Red Hen site, JOdel floated the possibility that Remus started spying on the werewolves for Dumbledore during the first war, and returned to the job in HBP (or had been doing it off and on all along, but started living with them full time in HBP). Fenrir Greyback and co. would hardly have let Remus hang around if he came on openly declaring that he was there to persuade them away from their evil ways. No, that would be slowly introduced, one-on-one, in secrecy. To be accepted, he would have to prove he belonged. Partly this would be some story about his hypocritically lycanthrophobic friends who hang around with each other being rich and not helping him or trusting him, but still thinking they can call him up for an adventure if they're bored, the two-faced jerks. Running with the pack at full moons, quite possibly.

But what else do spies often do to gain trust, again? Right. They pass on legitimate information occasionally.

Fenrir and his band want Voldemort to win so they can gain power. But Voldemort doesn’t help you out of the goodness of his heart — it’s quid pro quo. So one obvious way for Remus to prove his worth and loyalty to the werewolf cause is to provide information on his anti-Death Eater friends. He'll be their mole in the Order to further the bright future of werewolves everywhere!

Maybe Dumbledore totally meant for the Order members he outed via the Remus channel to get rescued just in the nick of time. Maybe he underestimated how many DEs Voldemort would send the first time or two. I’m sure whatever messed up his plans, it was someone else’s fault.

And if a few Order members he hadn’t compromised also got hit, well, Voldemort was targeting lots of people by that point, and their family associations alone might be reason enough. No reason to think one of his followers is passing along names without his say-so. Coincidences do happen.

Oops.

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I REALLY wish I could buy this. It makes the suspicion of Remus much more sensible.

Unfortunately, I really got the feeling from his apparent bitterness and complaint about being the 'ready-made' spy in bk6 that this is the first he has ever done it.

I unfortunately think that the only reason to suspect Remus was merely because they couldn't believe Peter capable enough to pull it off.

This also unfortunately leaves us with the question of just WHY Albus couldn't figure it out from a peek into their brains? I can only guess that ALL the Marauders gave off the impression that they were hiding something (which they were - being animagi and letting Remus run free).

Alternatively we never see Albus apparently legilmenize Order members in VW2 either, so perhaps he never did in VW1 either? It really messes with the idea that he's this great general, but.... I suppose it works with the idea that these are all people he 'trusts', which then makes it all the more reasonable that Sirius still distrusts Snape, After all, he knew HE could hide things from Albus, so naturally Snape must do so as well (in Sirius' mind)

BTW - while I don't think JKR hints at what you are suggesting, I really WOULD prefer it. The bit about hypocritical friends fits well with what I see as the info that James supported Sirius, but she never says he funded Remus.

Actually we do see Albus performing Legilimency on Harry twice (at least). In COS ch12, when he asks Harry if he had anything to say - I'm pretty sure he intended to elicit Harry's stream-of-consciousness thoughts, and he did glimpse them. (The goal was to know whether Harry's recently revealed ability as Parselmouth had anything to do with releasing the basilisk.) The second time was in GOF ch17, when he questions Harry about putting his name in the goblet of fire. (As for Order members - how many interactions do we see between Albus and Order members other than Severus?)

I don't think he would dare to perform deep Legilimency on free adults without their consent because he'd fear they would notice an external interference with their minds (he doesn't object to it morally, but he doesn't want to get caught at it), but I think he routinely checks people for sincerity, consistency between their internal and projected emotional state.

The problem with the Marauders is that all 4 of them were hiding secrets from him - the Animagus transformations, releasing Remus - which meant he couldn't find out who was hiding additional secrets. The only way to really find out was to use Legilimency more brutally - and that would be noticed. By all 4.

Re: Legilmenzing Harry - I didn't count him because he wasn't an actual Order member, not to mention that the Order wasn't even around in bk2 or bk4.

Good point about how little WE see between Albus and other Order members than Severus, altho' I would presume that he is there for at least a few meetings and since Harry cannot listen in I assume he loses interest in hanging around the door.

Still, not-canon that there are numerous incidents that give the opportunity for Albus to take a look - especially if the only opportunities are meetings with other Adults around who would also see him doing it.

But IF Albus is not often in the presence of Order members (except possibly group meetings) then one has to ask if that was the same duding VW1? If so, that also fives a reason why he didn't just legilmenize the Marauders to see why they felt suspect. Even outside of the meetings they were probably rarely alone and so would notice Albus staring.

The question then is whether or not they knew anything about the 'rare art' of Legilmency. Presumably, IF Remus really is a 'Defense Whiz' (not exactly proven in-canon since the other DADA teachers than Snape were so bad), then he might have known, but I doubt it was part of any of their lessons at Hogwarts.

We know Remus knows about it by bk5 since he speaks of Snape's talent with Occlumency, and he might possibly have known by bk3 since there are a few mentions of him staring intently, but we don't really know whether he knew back in VW1.

This also brings up the question of why Albus didn't legilmens Remus in bk3. He was obviously not telling Albus 'everything' and since most of what he wasn't telling had to do with Sirius you would thing that feeling that Remus was holding something back would occur to Albus.

I suppose the 'out' there is that Remus had convinced himself that telling the secrets wouldn't help, that Sirius was getting in thru ways he learned from Voldy. IF Remus is throughly convinced then presumably he not only doesn't worry over the memories that suggest otherwise (making it less obvious to Albus that he is hiding anything), but he also 'feels' sincere, as you mentioned.

You're all overlooking something. It's not the case that Dumble's only choices were to use Legilimency surreptitiously and hope it wasn't noticed, or not use it at all.

He could have asked permission of his followers and interrogated them quite legitimately, especially once there was evidence for there being a leak from within the Order.

Hell, if I were a member of a vigilante group risking death from another guerilla group and imprisonment by the government, and I trusted my leader and knew him to be a Legilimens, I'd be DEMANDING that he Legilimize me and my fellow conspirators once I thought there might be a leak (whether betrayal, carelessness, or involuntary).

It wouldn't be immoral (and probably not illegal) if it were done with full permission. And any member of the Order could freely choose not to give that permission--of course, assumptions would be made by their fellows, and maybe they'd be dumped out of the Order and Obliviated if they did refuse....

The only reason why I can think why Scummy didn't suggest that is that he was playing some double game that took precedence over protecting his followers. Either Dumbles knew (or thought he knew) the source of the leak, and wanted Tom to think he hadn't figured it out (being too noble to use Legilimency against his followers like Tom does)....

Or, just possibly, Twinkles expected someone to react to such a suggestion by taking their gobstones and going home, and it was someone Albus wanted to keep tied to him more than he wanted to keep his followers safe. (I could see James-and-Sirius as contenders for this--if you don't trust us you don't have to have us!)

Can you think of other reasons why Scummy shouldn't suggest openly Legilimizing his loyal followers? I mean, other than the fact that telling ANYONE the truth and asking permission to do ANYTHING is probably so foreign as to be actively painful to them man?

Yes - this makes much more sense. However, I do think you are correct that James and/or Sirius (in VW1) might take offense about being asked or even about their friends being asked. It isn't as if when Albus suggested Sirius wouldn't be a good SK that James responded 'why not check him out to be sure', but just that he knew Sirius would never betray him.

There is also the possibility that James/Sirius (and other Order members) had never even heard of legilimency at that point in time.

One thing that must be considered is that several of the 'old' Order members rejoin and do not immediately demand everyone be legilmenized, even tho' it is known that there was a leak/mole in the previous Order. Not even a demand for it to be done to Sirius whom they all thought was the spy. They just accept that he is innocent without proof?

Of course, we have no idea whether or not Albus DID take a look into Sirius' mind while he had him alone in Flitwick's office before he had Harry and Hermione rescue him.

I guess it depends on how easy it would have been to manipulate James and Sirius, or at least on how easy Dumbledore thought it was.

For instance, if he was discussing the possible leak with them and maybe a few others, and instead of asking them, he lamented how he couldn't use the ancient art of Legilimency on the few unnamed persons (implied to be someone not present) he suspected. James and Sirius protest that he can just ask those people, and if they refuse, well, there's your proof! Oh no, he couldn't possibly single out people like that - showing such mistrust would irreparably damage his relationship with the ones who proved innocent and would justifiably feel that he was prejudiced against them somehow. (Not that this would necessarily be true, but he thinks it's how they would feel, and so they'd believe others would too.) Then, hopefully, one of them comes up with the idea on his own that Dumbledore should Legilimize everyone. Then no one can complain! My dear boys, I wouldn't want to subject you unnecessarily to such an uncomfortable procedure... Then they're really have to, because what are they, cowards?

It might not have worked, since they all did have things to hide. But then he would have had one more foolish decision to hold over them, which it doesn't seem like he did. And I doubt using it wouldn't have occurred to him at all, since he does use it on Harry. So either he didn't think of either outright asking or manipulating his followers into asking (Dumbles, pass up an opportunity to manipulate?), or he was confident he could catch the spy by other means or already knew who it was and had reasons for not tipping them off.

Which still provides for many different possibilities, of course.

The options I find believable:

1) It never occurred to him. (Asking for permission? What's that?)
2) It didn't occur to him people would agree (because he would never have).
3) He believed he could catch the leak anyway and didn't want to alert the traitor or Voldemort that he was aware of the leak's existence.

I like your points they are certainly true.

I brought up Harry to show that Dumbles did not have a principled objection to performing Legilimency on people he considered on his side.

Albus' presence at 12GP - there is mention of people Harry saw coming in and out of 12GP during August, and it did not include Dumbles. The evening before the hearing Molly says Albus had been over the previous night. It seems that at least from the time Harry arrived at 12GP Albus only ever showed up after Harry's bedtime.

Before that - Ron said he and Hernione only saw Dumbles twice since their arrival at 12GP. Nor did he show up anytime Harry was awake during Christmas break - he sent Sirius a letter about the planned Occlumency lessons and Severus delivered the news to Harry personally.

However, this was the year Albus was specifically avoiding Harry, so there is no necessity to assume he avoided meeting Order members in the first war to the same degree. For all we know, when the trio wasn't around Dumbles was always having chats with Dedalus Diggle and the rest.

You know, if Remus had been spying in VWI I would have expected it to come up in that conversation in POA. When Sirius asked for his forgiveness - it would have made sense for Remus to say that since he actually was spying (just not in that way) he wasn't surprised that Sirius suspected him. As he did not, I think Remus realized the suspicion was not based on any evidence.

Good point. I had overlooked that.

Though he is good at compartmentalizing and rationalizing, so I wonder if it could still work with the modified scenario I proposed in the comment to Hwyla, where he had only "started making contact" with the werewolf contingent in VoldWar I and had let slip a few identifying details (not names, just "my friend mentioned that they'd been talking to someone who worked at ___ and then wouldn't say why? I don't know, maybe they're involved?"). Then he could tell himself he hadn't really done anything, so it's not like it was reasonable to suspect him. Mostly he'd just had a drink with a fellow werewolf and talk about how transforming hurt but running through the forest was fun, and what's wrong with that?

Still a stretch, I admit, but maybe?

--the idea that he's this great general,---

I think it is very obvious as you look at his actions that Dumbledore is NO General.

Look at his words to Harry in DH in King's Cross:

"But while I busied myself with training of young wizards, Grindelwald was raising an army. They say he feared me, and perhaps he did, but less, I think, than I feared him"

and

"I think he knew it, I think he knew what frightened me. I delayed meeting him until finally, it would have been to shameful to resist any longer"

So Dumbledore avoided any active participation in the fight against Grindelwald. He stayed out it as much as he could without making himself look bad.

How much did his Order matter in the fight against Voldemort? What great success of their's do we hear of? Earlier Remus talks of how they were outnumber and how this time they are prepared. Which sounds like they didn't do very well the first time.

Than once Voldemort is defeated, knowing that he will return what does Dumbledore do? Places Snape and Sybil at Hogwarts. Raises Harry to be a sacrificial lamb.

Notice what Dumbledore doesn't do. He does nothing to undermine Voldemort's support. He isn't grooming people to be prepared for Voldemort's return. When we look at the Order, Tonks seems to be really the only new recruit from the generations between the time of the first Order and the New one.

From canon, before Godric's Hollow it seems the most significant contribution by Order members was the fact that Alastor and Frank arrested or killed some DEs (which they would have done anyway, in their capacity as Aurors). Beyond that, all we know is that some Order members went down fighting, so perhaps they may have injured or killed a few DEs between them all. And we know the Potters may have had 3 close encounters with Tom, but we don't know if any of that had any impact whatsoever.

That the first war was won in a way that strengthened Albus' position was more the result if luck than anything he did.

My summary of Albus' life and achievements:

Brilliant student.
Failure as a brother.
Some success as researcher, though failed alchemist.
Performance as teacher - unknown.
Failed headmaster.
Accidentally successful leader of private army.

Don't forget head of the Wizangamot and Supreme Mugwump, possibly absentee in both positions.

I really, really wonder if JKR knows that the latter title means Supreme Fence-sitter. It's an old American political term referring to someone with his 'mug' on one side of the fence and his 'wump' on the other.

Dumbledore - a man with a very promising future in his past.

Sorry it's taken me so long to respond - one of those weeks!

Alas, you're probably right about him not having dabbled in spying all along and only stepping it up in HBP. (Too bad, since Remus the spy-awaiting-full-reactivation would parallel Snape so nicely. I like patterns.) I wonder if a modified version could work? Say, in VoldWar I Dumbledore asked Remus to make contact with - not move in with, just start chatting up - the werewolves and try to gain their trust so as to eventually, hopefully, be able to get more information out of them. (Or possibly Dumbledore told him to get as close as possible, and he reported back that alas, they don't quite trust me yet, will see what happens after a few more encounters... The wolves don't seem to survive by hunting and foraging alone so far as we know, so presumably they sneak into town for groceries to multiply and maybe a pint every now and then.) He gave up a few incriminating details (not the names themselves) which allowed the werewolves to identify a couple of Order members as part of this process, but hadn't gotten very far before the war ended.

And that was that, he was free of those unpleasant reminders - or so he thought, until fifteen years later Dumbledore told him nope, this time you're going to do it properly. Not only is he dragged back into something he thought he was out of forever, but this time he's stuck with it all day, every day, except for holidays. And after having his one single chance at a real job destroyed just a couple years earlier, this time around it isn't a youthful experiment, it feels like the universe is telling him, "Sorry, no, it won't get better EVER, this is all you'll ever be good for."

Would that work better at least as far as his emotions at Christmas go?

The difference in Remus' attitude to Severus' brewing of Wolfsbane between POA and HBP suggests to me that something very dramatic happened in Remus' experience of being a werewolf. Based on this, I don't think he had much contact with feral werewolves prior to POA. Definitely not on or around the full moon.

Do we have any evidence that werewolves other than Fenrir were involved with Voldemort in the first war? or the second?

Another, somewhat related question: How many Order members knew Remus was a werewolf during the first war? By the second his status was widely known, or course. In POA Remus said 'most' of the teachers knew, not all. Does Hagrid's response to Remus' outing sound like he had been in on the secret earlier?

I would say that Hagrid knew at least before the actual 'outing', whether or not he knew before the night before isn't known. However, Hagrid asked Remus whether or not he might have eaten Buckbeak.

That doesn't seem like something that he might bring up 'calmly' at breakfast immediately upon learning Remus is a werewolf. Of course it IS possible that he did just that, but Hagrid seems more to me to be the type to respond by yelling if he was surprised by the fact that a werewolf was on the premises when one of his critters disappeared.

Of course, I really tend to believe that since Remus said he resigned 'first thing' that it's more likely that Hagrid asked Remus this question before he ever made it inside after his night on the loose.

It only makes sense that Hagrid would need to be warned that a werwolf who didn't take his potion is running around the forbidden forest loose that night. Unlike the rest of Hogwarts' residents, Hagird lives alone in a hut on the edge of that forest. He needs to be told to stay inside.

Even so, I'm not sure however exactly how well known Remus' lyncanthropy might be among most of the Order during the books. Obviously the Weasleys all know, as well as Sirius and his cousin Tonks. But did Dung know? How about Emmaline Vance? or Sturgis? I kust cannot tell from the books.

I got the impression that Fenrir always had at least a few hangers-on in his camp, who might not have been on call as active agents for Voldemort but who would have pitched in now and then for the cause and to help a friend. Now I'll have to re-read and see what I was basing that on, or if I was mixing up the books with Harry Potter Wiki stuff that wasn't actually confirmed.

Modified scenario: in the first war, he only had orders to "try to make contact and gain trust," which boiled down to an occasional drink in a pub with a werewolf who hung out with Fenrir sometimes, and it didn't get very far before the war ended. So he didn't have the visceral daily experience of living with them or running with them at full moon, and HBP was still a big adjustment.

But back then he had let a few details accidentally-on-purpose slip as something the werewolf drinking buddy might take back to Fenrir to curry favor with the Dark Lord, which Remus and Drinking Buddy would both agree might be advantageous, and here was a way to help without actually signing any contracts. So Dumbledore might figure that Remus, not being a master spy, had let slip a little more than he realized, but it was still a worthwhile avenue to pursue.

I think the main reason I have trouble with the idea that Remus was asked to make contacts with other werewolves in VW1 is that unlike Snape and the DEs, the werewolves do not go back to 'normal' life when Voldy fell. To me, that means that it would be very suspicious for Remus to drop contact and then pick it back up later.

It isn't as if Snape ever 'drops' his cover in the intervening years either. But I think that Remus either needed to have been in contact all through the years or he needed a really good excuse for why he dropped them and now wants to return.

Of course, I think Remus DOES have a good reason to give them for joining up in bk5/6 - his loss of a job and the complaint that Albus has dropped him like a hot potato. I'm just not sure it would be enough to explain away his period of being away for so long. It might work however if he really was still in contact over all those years and was only away from them during bk3 when he had a chance at a job?

Hwyla: This is off-topic, but I want to be sure you got my private message about HPN. Please check your messages. The first one I wrote has the wrong email address for Nicc - sorry! - so check the last two. He is the only one who can give you a new password. Also try to make a new account with another email address if he doesn't respond. You can use a similar name such as hwyla2 or hwyla_

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Dumbledore and the Spy in the Order

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