Very interesting story, you managed to get a Dumbledore willing to make sacrifices(I dislike the term gray, seems to be black and white would be opposed to colored instead) but not evil or manipulative as some people like him to be.

Unfortunately this is as far from canon as most those stories tend to be. This Dumbledore is way too competent for the HP world, he would have long since done a lot of things he never got around to doing and solved things he did a lot more easily. To make him fit it would require making all other characters more competent which would break most remaining ties with canon.

Very nice dissection of the usual trope, both in the story and the notes afterward.

When I first read JKR's series I read it with naive acceptance up until Deathly Hallows. DH began to rip away the facade for me and I realized just how contrived all the events were. In practically every chapter I was saying to myself "Oh, come on! Is everyone in this series a blithering idiot?" And then I began to look back over the entire series and discovered to my horror that I'd been taken in. I'd been had. Nothing was as it seemed. JKR manipulated us all, time after time, mercilessly. And since Dumbledore was the one character most in charge (and he's indisputably in charge of every facet of Harry's life) he is the most culpable in the context of the Potter universe.

In the end, you must judge him by his results. And the results in the case of Albus Dumbledore are extraordinarily bad. Under his watch the level of governmental corruption reached epic proportions. The criminal justice system was in shambles and completely ineffective. Prejudice was at an all-time high. Education was at an all-time low. Ironically, he was the head of government, yet he felt the need for his own vigilante organization! It seemed that the man had the reverse-Midas touch. Everything he put his had to turned to dust.

Closer to home, Harry's life could have been improved in at least 1000 different ways, all of which were invariably thwarted by one Albus Dumbledore. Yes, he supposedly had good intentions. Yes, he appeared to love Harry. Yes, he appeared to be apologetic about the decisions he made. The fact of the matter is that he made those decisions and he made them CONSISTENTLY poorly. Everything else was just a cover, an illusion, a manipulation.

Probably the worst thing of all is that despite the horrific sacrifices of everyone that sided with Dumbledore, the epilogue left the political climate primed for a repeat. Not one prejudice had been banished, not one social ill had been righted. Yes, a horrible bad guy had been killed, but the next generation was all set to produce a dozen more to rise to the top in Slytherin house and try to take over the world once again. That is the most damning thing of all. Albus Dumbledore had completely failed to educate the next generation so that they were doomed to repeat his mistakes.

Thank you! I am truly relieved to find someone writing on this, it seems every other story involves some form of evil or senile Dumbledore. Whilst Dumbledore does indeed manipulate some events from behind the scenes, a lot of fanfic writers take that as an immediately terrible thing. But even if Dumbledore knew exactly what went on in privet drive, and if JK was purposefully leaving subtle clues about what was happening, it still doesn't make any difference. Child abuse is a truly hideous thing, but if you thought that the only way to stop a sadistic mass murderer becoming tyrant of Great Britain and possibly the world, for an indeterminate period of time (he is immortal remember? No dying of old age or accident for him) would you leave one boy to abuse or hundreds of millions dead? Its a horrible choice but many people would make it. Having said that JK clearly wrote Albus as a character with strong moral values learned later in life, however badly she may have done with consistency, and we do not need thousands of stories explaining to us exactly how clever mr author is for seeing through Dumbledore's cunningly hidden plots to take over the world in a number of fumbling ways. He is already in 3 of arguably the most powerful positions in the world and repeatedly turned down the ministerial position. So thank you for writing a well conceived interpretation of cannon that fills in the plotholes.

A very interesting take on this cliche.

Nice story, the ideas in it are very rare. Manipulative Dumbledore is usually evil Dumbledore. I can also actually see Dumbledore acting this way in canon... well, actually, I can't but it would make up for a few plot holes. Canon Dumbledore wasn't very manipulative at all, but whatever. The ending is open-ended (I'm beginning to think all your endings are) but still alright.

truly unique and very interesting

i also like the line where he mentions "I do not wish to live forever, but I have often wanted someone to pass on my responsibilities and knowledge' makes me wonder if he has contingincys for living forever if he can't find an apprentice?

i find this version of manipulative Dumbledore far more believable though i enjoy many of the dark/manipulative Dumbledore stories

Two words?

Avada Kedavra?

I haven't liked a piece of fanfiction so much in a long time, Jeram :D

Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. I am glad to have read this one-shot.

1. For what it is, an enjoyable parody. Pokes fun at a huge number of disturbingly similar fanfics

2. I have to agree with the reviews below on your definition of abuse. Seriously, what?

3. The thing most people seem to fail to take into account is that Rowling was writing a /Childrens' book/, and creating an entirely cohesive magical universe with laws completely consistent with each other and logically motivated individuals whose actions would stand up to the critique of large numbers of older teens and adults was not her main concern. That would have been to have fun creating an enjoyable story for children that would hopefully sell well. There were plot holes galore, but that was okay. This is in no way an attempt to invalidate the point of view of any sort of fanfic, but when in an argument over the author's motivations over cannon I feel it is important to point this out.

I love it! :D I can't really come up with anything else to say, 'cause it's really late and I've just spent an hour (!) reading this! And let me tell you, I don't stay up for every story. I certainly don't usually bother reviewing them! :)

Fascinating, absolutely fascinating.

I completely agree with what you've said about Dumbledore, true, he was one manipulative *astard, but he had a good heart and honestly cared about Harry and Hogwarts.

This was rather long for only one chapter though, my eyes hurt now...lol

again we can talk about dumbles being manipulative bastard till were all blue in the face the facts are their the stone could of been better protected the fidiloues destroying it before voldie got there putting it under his bed there are many different ways. u could go thorughtout the years an pick where he could of done things better he is a manipulative person not evil but this is fanfiction an we like to explore all options i think jkr should have let dumbles act like the dumbledore in ckils my life an adventure that is how dumbles should have been not ready to fully take harry under his wing but helping him by getting the right tutors till he is giving him the info he needs etc

Eh, the only one I really disagree with is the abuse thing. The canon level of emotional abuse is almost worse than if he had been physically beaten every day.

Other than that its pretty good.

"- Dumbledore knew that Harry was being abused (No, he wasn't actually. And we don't really know how much Dumbledore knew)."

Your definition of abuse needs to be checked. What the Canon!Dursleys were doing was an extreme form of child abuse alright. Namely emotional mistreatment and neglect on a massive, deliberate, decade-long scale. If you don't think that that counts as abuse, perhaps read up on it a bit. :) Canon!Harry also suffered from periods of forced starvation and occasional physical violence (he certainly wasn't surprised one bit about having to dodge frying pans or about Dudley being encouraged to hit him - and don't tell me Vernon never spanked him for perceived misbehaviour). It's not conjecture. It's in the books! Of course, many fanfic authors for some reason insist on overdoing it and make Harry's homelife even more cruel than it already was. That doesn't change the simple truth that Harry was abused by the Dursleys in canon, too.

As to how much Dumbledore knew - he had a spy installed at Privet Drive who had one purpose and one purpose only: Keeping an eye on Harry! And that spy knew that she needed to mistreat Harry, otherwise the Dursleys would search for another babysitter. She actually felt guilty about it and apologized when her cover was blown. Surely such a blatant sign of abuse warrants a report to Dumbledore? It all boils down to two options: Either Dumbledore knew that Harry was abused and was okay with that, or he is incompetent/senile/insane/whatever, since either his chosen spy was so unfit that he never received these reports, or he dismissed them.

Additionally, in Book 5, Dumbledore already admitted to Harry that he knew that he 'was condemning him to ten dark and difficult years' and that Harry arrived at Hogwarts 'unhappy, but alive' or something like that, and, even more telling, Dumbledore laments that he has fallen into the trap of caring too much for Harry since he arrived at Hogwarts (in the context of later books this becomes especially meaningful - he feels guilty about his long-since hatched plans of setting up Harry as a martyr). And in Book 7, after the true extent of his plans becomes known, that he knowlingly pushed Harry into suicide at the hands of Voldemort so that the Horcrux was destroyed, he also begs Harry not to see him as a dark wizard because of it. So, based on canon evidence, he knew very well what he was doing.

-

Don't get me wrong, I'm also a bit tired of manipulative!Dumbledore-stories, and every author has the right to write him however he wants to. I certainly agree with your general idea: He was manipulative, but he wasn't evil as such, he had good ideals and tried to achieve a better future for everyone. Of course, realistically, he turned out to be the Light Side's own worst enemy in the books (don't tell me his absolute failure as headmaster, and chief warlock, and supreme whatever hadn't anything to do with the quick collapse of the ministry against a rather pathetic villain who was little more than a psychopatic mass murderer).

It is a fact of life that in the original books, Dumbledore really was the callous bastard who knowingly destroyed a child's life in order to achieve victory over Voldemort, with the help of a ridiculously over-elaborate master plan which should never have worked. The ends justify the means, I guess. He seems to have felt genuine remorse about what he was forced to do, but that remorse falls a bit flat when you consider just how needlessly hard his overcomplicated plan was on Harry.

I certainly don't like Canon!Dumbledore's character one bit because of that. It's an extreme low point to sacrifice one's ideals to the point of fucking up an innocent's baby's entire life just for some convoluted master plan, all the while you yourself enjoy unprecendented political power, and wealth, and influence on the minds of entire generations, but fail to actually do any good with it.