Dumbledore/Voldemort (first thoughts)
Sometimes, fanfictions can make you understand bits of canon you hadn’t previously appreciated. Despite my openess toward slash, I’ve never given a damn about Dumbledore’s homosexuality, for example, or about his relationship with Grindelwald, probably because I found it so alien from HP’s main plot line, or because it was simply badly written. In any case, I’m not one who actually cared for Dumbledore’s past.
Now a fic makes me reconsider my positions. I’m talking about In Infinite Remorse of Soul by perverse_idyll, from the recent snapecase. It’s a Snape/Dumbledore/Harry, and it’s actually the first time I read a Snape/Dumbledore (and maybe the second time for a Snarry). It’s an uber-angst tale of love masked as hatred, bleak and bare as a waste land, beautifully written.
On one side, In Infinite Remorse of Soul made me consider the freudian implications of Snarry (something I never did before): Harry as a replay of his mother, having her eyes, desired and hated for being an imperfect copy of a perfect original, now lost.
On the other side, I thought about Dumbledore, Grindelwald and Voldemort. What about Voldemort working as a repetition for Grindelwald? Dumbledore is attracted to young Tom Riddle, who, as everybody knows, is a charming lad. But he keeps him at distance, because he’s been too burnt with Gellert to try another relationship, and will stay closeted for the rest of his life. There’s something going on between Riddle and DD, however, a kind of UST, as Tom senses that his professor looks at him in a strange way. Dumbledore denies everything, even to himself. Riddle takes the same Dark route as Gellert, but that’s also a revenge against Dumbledore. In fact, the nickname he adopts echoes Dumbledore’s surname. Dumbledore / Voldemort (O, M, R, L, E, D, a D for a T, an U for a V).
In 1945, Dumbledore was able to beat Grindelwald. In the late Seventies, he was unable to defeat Voldemort. Too old? Too rusty? Who knows. In any case, he didn’t grasp an immediate victory. And he set all the mess we more or less know.
He’s jealous of Voldemort. He doesn’t want other people to defeat an enemy who’s targeting at him specifically. The game is between Dumbledore and Voldemort, old mentor/pupil, unrealised lovers. Dumbledore prevents the Order of the Phoenix (plus Snape) from organising a plot against Voldemort. He forbids Snape to chase the Horcruxes.
Then he has an idea. A very old idea. A Prophecy. He actually writes one, makes that old fraud of Trelawney learn it by heart, lets Snape listen to it, invites Snape to refer it to Voldy. Snape overhearing the Prophecy while looking for a job is a screen, of course; Snape was already working for Dumbledore (the timetable of the Prophecy leaks like a sieve). Snape did’t understand that the Prophecy would be applied to the Potters. Did Snape actually know that Lily was pregnant, after all?
Through the Prophecy, Dumbledore creates a perfect nemesis for Voldemort: someone as powerful as him, yet completely prone to be manipulated. Dumbledore lets Harry live with Muggles during his childhood, so that he couldn’t have any idea about the wizarding world, Voldemort and the like; at Hogwarts, he always reveals him the bare essentials. The truth is rarely pure and never simple.
Dumbledore wanted Harry to be his weapon against Tom Riddle, a weapon with as less personal ideas as possible. Lily’s death and Snape’s reaction were incidents in the process. Of course, I’m still elaborating this theory, so not everything is settled. I still have (so many) problems with Dumbledore’s death, which is simply absurd. In any case, much of this will probably be featured in A Summer in York.