death to capslock

Friendly with the local barman

Sat, 04 Dec 2021 19:31:00 GMT

Posted by: sunnyskywalker

One bit in the memory of Voldemort's job interview that has always bothered me is Dumbledore's statement that he knows which Death Eaters are waiting at the Hog's Head because he's friendly with the local barman. Voldemort has just returned to Britain, no doubt planning terrible things...and Dumbledore immediately outs his brother as a spy? WTF? And then Voldemort continues to let his followers gather in the spy's pub?

I'm sure you could make a good story out of a Cold War-esque game where Voldemort is sending his followers in with false information to mislead Dumbledore while Dumbledore tries to filter out the misinformation to get at the real information they inadvertently reveal, and they both know the other knows... But it seems odd for Dumbledore to choose that option instead of trying to maintain his spy's cover first.

There's another possibility: maybe Aberforth wasn't the barman yet. Maybe the proprietor at the time was a Voldemort sympathizer, or at least a potential one, and Dumbledore wanted to oust them so he could put his own agent in place. Either he tricked or coerced them into telling him about the Death Eaters, or they wasn't involved and it was Willy Widdershins or his predecessor hiding under a veil who really reported to Dumbledore.

Voldemort shouldn't be so easy to manipulate that he immediately believed the proprietor was Dumbledore's agent. But the suspicion might have grown over time, no doubt nurtured by other "clues" Dumbledore helpfully planted, until Voldemort decided it was time the proprietor found a new job. (Possibly that job was "inferius.")

And he should have been deeply suspicious when Aberforth Dumbledore took over the pub, no matter how public the brothers' estrangement was. Aberforth couldn't just indignantly protest his hatred of Albus and all his works and give the Death Eaters a load of intelligence to prove his loyalties--that would be too much, too soon. But letting a few things slip over time, and griping about his brother just often enough to sound natural (well, it was--he just secretly hated Voldemort even more), and Dumbledore deliberately not acting on information Voldemort deliberately leaked via Hog's Head patrons to make it look like he never got the intel, might eventually convince them that he was on their side, not his brother's. Or at least that he was genuinely neutral.

A third possibility is that Aberforth was already the barman, but not yet Dumbledore's spy--again, it would really have been Willy Widdershins reporting on the gathering. Instead, this was Dumbledore's overly-complicated scheme to force Aberforth into becoming his spy. ("If I get Voldemort to suspect him, the means Voldemort will use to try to get the truth will convince Aberforth that Voldemort is dangerous and must be opposed. He's smart enough to realize that the best way to do this is to convince Voldemort that he doesn't trust me or report to me, then turn around and report to me. I'm a genius!") But that's even more convoluted and risky than most of Dumbledore's usual plans. I think it works more smoothly if Aberforth wasn't the barman yet, and this was Step 1 in Operation: Trench Coat Goat.

No wonder Aberforth is so cynical about how many people his brother is willing to sacrifice.

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That one really interesting DH subplot

Sat, 11 Mar 2017 09:03:00 GMT

Posted by: star-dragon5.livejournal.com

We all know that DH is an unholy mess of stuff being dropped on the readers' heads that were neither mentioned nor hinted at anywhere in previous books. But there's one subplot I wish had been introduced earlier, because it carries a lot of potential for conflict, and with conflict comes plot and character development and all that. I am referring, of course, to Dumbledore's backstory.

What if Harry had found out about Ariana and Gellert and the rest while Albus was still alive? Would he be able to look his Headmaster in the eye, knowing young Albus had once plotted world domination with the future Dark Lord Grindelwald? Would he realize how narrowly he'd escaped going mad, like Ariana, after living with magic-hating Muggles for ten years--Muggles that Albus placed him with, no less? (Seriously, why did no one catch that plot hole? Even I didn't see it until guardians_song pointed it out.) How would this change things?

But we can't have any of the above, since the plot of DH depends on Harry obeying Dumbledore absolutely. (I've been meaning to write something about how post-GOF Harry fails at the Hero's Journey. Remind me, will you?)

There's also so much potential for fanfic, and I don't mean just the Grindledore variety (though one can never have too much of that! *Grindledore shipper*). We've all seen those dreadful fics tagged "Powerful!Harry", "Independent!Harry", "Super!Harry", "Dark!Harry" or whatever, in which Harry becomes a Gary Stu of the highest order, usually with super-powerful wandless magic. Well, guess what? Thanks to Ariana, you can still have a Harry with super-powerful wandless magic, he'll just be mad. And I don't know about you, but I'd LIKE to read about mentally-ill!Harry.

So what do you think? The possibilities are endless!

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Harry Potter Abridged! DH Chapter 28

Thu, 20 Aug 2015 10:51:00 GMT

Posted by: sweettalkeress.livejournal.com

Since Chapter 27 is so short, I decided to also post Chapter 28.

( Time for Dumbledore's backstory! Bum bum buuuuuuum! )

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Deathly Hallows, Chapter 28: The Missing Mirror

Sun, 16 Feb 2014 20:10:00 GMT

Posted by: oneandthetruth.livejournal.com

Or, Dishing the Dirt on Dumbledore, Part 4

While the first sentence in this chapter is only four words long, the second is the run-on sentence from hell:

He saw the achingly familiar Hogsmeade High Street: dark shop fronts, and the outline of black mountains beyond the village, and the curve in the road ahead that led off toward Hogwarts, and light spilling from the windows of the Three Broomsticks, and with a lurch of the heart he remembered, with piercing accuracy, how he had landed here nearly a year before, supporting a desperately weak Dumbledore; all this in a second upon landing--and then, even as he released his grip upon Ron’s and Hermione’s arms, it happened.

That’s ninety words long. Ninety! When I was in second grade, I turned in a book report that contained a sentence that was not nearly that bad. I just listed characters in the book: this and that and the other and another, instead of saying this, that, the other, and another. My teacher wouldn’t let me get away with it, and I was eight. Did Rowling not go to second grade? Did she never have to write papers in school?

( Read more... )

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Harry Potter Abridged! OotP Chapter 9

Wed, 18 Sep 2013 22:46:00 GMT

Posted by: sweettalkeress.livejournal.com

This ought to be good….

( Read Chapter 9 )

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Deathly Hallows, Chapter 8: The Wedding, Or, Dishing the Dirt on Dumbledore, Part 2

Sun, 24 Mar 2013 20:20:00 GMT

Posted by: oneandthetruth.livejournal.com

Harry takes some of that new, super-strength DH Polyjuice that lasts for several hours. He now looks like a Weasley cousin, even though Fred stole the hair from a local non-magical boy. This makes me wonder if, besides the accountant cousin, there are other non-magical Weasley relatives the family doesn’t know about, or at least acknowledge.

( Read more... )

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Fifteen Years: Reflections on Aberforth

Thu, 21 Mar 2013 09:06:00 GMT

Posted by: terri-testing.livejournal.com

In a response to the sporking of DH C2 by oneandthetruth, Hwyla wrote:

Although I think we were meant to believe Aberforth has an unhealthy relationship with his goats, my very favorite theory I ever heard on his inappropriate charms was that he had invented one to make the goats expel bezoars (rather than having to be killed to harvest them) and so had basically a bezoar farm on the side.

One thing I had not noticed until this sporking - the date of this accusation. For some reason, I had just always thought this happened in his youth - probably because it was connected in my mind with Albus saying he didn't think Aberforth could read.

However, fifteen years ago when Harry has just turned 17 means roughly just as Harry turned 2 or so. I've never wondered before what the 'inappropriate charms' might have had to do with the year after of the fall of Voldy. And just WHY, with all the DEs to round up, were the aurors concentrating on Aberforth's goats!

I somewhat wonder whether they thought he was a DE based on the reputation of the Hogs Head and the goats were the only thing they could arrest him on.

*

( I started )

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Deathly Hallows, Chapter 2: In Memoriam, or Dishing the Dirt on Dumbledore, Part 1

Sun, 17 Mar 2013 19:07:00 GMT

Posted by: oneandthetruth.livejournal.com

Through his own stupidity and sloppiness, Harry badly cuts his finger on broken glass in the school trunk he hasn’t bothered to thoroughly clean out for six years. I guess I should hope he’s had his tetanus shot, but all I can think is that if he has lockjaw, he won’t be able to whine and pout. (Although usually associated with rusty metal, tetanus is caused by a common bacterium that is found many places. I once read an article written by a woman who got it by stepping on a broken nutshell in her yard.) ( Read more... )

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