I admit that when I read this latest chapter, Dumbledore's manipulative/arrogant side was a little more accentuated than before.

It's a little annoying reading two pages where Dumbledore says "Harry you made this or that mistake" and Harry retorts "And I wouldn't have done this if you didn't do this or that in the first place".

I mean once or twice it's fine, but this lasted 2 pages and it annoyed me a little.

Otherwise I liked the Azkaban scene; well thought that the Daemon should be his greatest fear; especially some kind of transdimensional sentient fear or whatever. And the Dementor's message.

I hope the next chapter won't take as long as this one and... well, that's it.

 

I thought the conversation with Dumbledore was a little flat. They were talking like they were making speeches at each other to try to score points with the audience instead of actually trying to persuade each other. If Dumbledore is supposed to be some kind of master manipulator, I would expect a better performance out of him.

For example, why not try to co-opt the Chilotha plan? Admit to Harry that he may have lost his taste for action as he's gotten older, the plan could succeed, and oh by the way the order of the phoenix could do x, y, and z to help out... That opens up the possibility of a bit of power politics over how the plan will be carried out without degenerating into the "reckless brat"/"doddering old fool" argument that plagues the Indy Harry genre.

Also, even if Dumbledore doesn't feel like he's done anything wrong, he should realize that Harry thinks he's done something wrong, and be trying to make it up to him. After all, you can't really manipulate somebody who doesn't trust you. I've been expecting Dumbledore at some point to try to take Harry under his wing and show him some pensieve memories of old duels with Voldemort. He could earn some brownie points and maybe get Harry to be a little more aware of Voldemort's abilities.

ETA: I think the basic problem is that Dumbledore never owns his behavior. I'd like to see a little more "yeah, I did it, and I'd do it again, for the greater good, and I don't care that you're angry with me" and less "I did it for the greater good, so don't be angry with me". I'm not saying he has to go the whole few good men route, but I like Dumbledore better when he's a Magnificent Bastard and not just a misguided manipulator. If he's going to be a borderline villain here, I'd like to get as much insight into him as we got with Voldemort in TFtCD.

 

Agreeing with above statement concerning Dumbledore.
The Luna scene was a tad... then again thats just I'm not a big Luna person, I just thought it was a bit rushed.

 

@Andromalius
Definitely, he's entitled to a good deal of pride as I mentioned in my post. Pride is one thing, arrogance is another. He's facing the most powerful Dark Lord of the century, who, despite his charades and theatrics, is in fact an opponent Dumbledore could not take down, and who had Britain on the edge of anarchy in 1981. That's not a small thing.

@rj_stone
Valid points. As I mentioned, Dumbledore hasn't lasted 150 years as the icon of power and goodness without being a smart man. I really believe jbern should have Dumbledore come back to his senses rather than make it go all cliche-indy-Harry when Harry blasts his ass verbally and literally and leaves him boohoo-ing over his failures or some such.

 

“If you’re looking for a gesture of good faith, I’ll forego any charges against Remus and continue to fund the Order. However, he’ll have to pass everything through Bill for approval."

I hate that.

 

It seemed to me like he was going for the carrot and the stick approach.

 

Doesn't mean I have to like it. Its Harry's money that Dumbledore is stealing with the help of Remus. I think Harry should bring Remus up on charges of theft even now or constantly remind the back stabbing traitor of what he could do to him.

 

The thing is, Harry is Livid, but he doesn't want Lupin to end up in Azkaban. Bill laid out the possibilities very clearly: as a werewolf, Remus is very much a second class citizen. He will be facing a stint in Azkaban, or even execution (considering the current mood of the Wizarding World.) Lupin will NEVER be able to pay back the money, so Harry's only options are to ignore it, and move the money as soon as possible, or have Remus treated as a major felon. We said it before: Dumbledore set it up so that Harry would HAVE to swallow it - he knows how Harry thinks, and he's using Harry's loyalty and sense of justice to force him to accept it.

And the money IS being used to fight the DE, which helps ameliorate the injury. Sirius would have wanted that.

 

I agree. Harry doesn't want Lupin killed or jailed for being a dumb pawn. And what's galling Harry the most is that Dumbledore is continuing to use his friends to do things that he should just be coming to Harry and asking for his help.

That's the thing, it's like some jackass of a neighbor coming over and taking your tools and supplies out of your garage, without asking, or by having your kid bring it over to him... when if he'd just have freaking asked you'd have been glad to lend him the stuff. It's Dumbledore's presumption that just because he's doing what he considers the "right thing" that it entitles him to just take and use things as he wants... without asking or even asking permission.

Plus it's the fact that he's using Harry's good nature against him. Basically saying... hey, I'll just do this.. Harry might mind, but he won't stop me because if he does then It'll hurt people he cares for.. Ha HA!

 

Thanks for all the feedback. This was a difficult chapter to get going. It's tough to make a transitional chapter interesting, but I did my best. The other big issue was to tackle Harry and DD's relationship in this chapter by having them work closely alongside each other without a battle.

The problem with those conversations is when is enough too much. Too little and it's a gloss over. Too much and it becomes a long drawn out angsty whine. The trick is finding a happy medium. It's probably one of those scenes that doesn't satisfy everyone, but had to be written anyway.

The Omake from Garret PI has gotten rave reviews - International Troll of Mystery indeed.

As for Dumbledore, so many stories have him being a bastard for the sake of being a bastard. I strive to have him be a bastard with an agenda.

At times Harry will struggle with his own success.

Jim

 

Jim you have one of the best stories featuring a SMART arrogant bastard in Dumbledore. But Dumbledore is one of these guys who has earned the right to be arrogant to a point and he obviously crosses the line a good bit. But really who besides our favorite scar head and snakeface is gonna tell him off? Maybe Moody but thats about it.

You also have Harry being a smart, arrogant, self confident Harry who has earned the right to be arrogant to a point. He is also a bastard at times but hey who can blame him? Harry isnt the little boy from OotP anymore. He has people try to kill him and finally he has started to kill back. He just has to realize that as good as he is; he is in no way, shape, or form in Dumbledore or Voldemort's league yet.

 

I am probably one of the few right now disappointed in Dumbledore. Everyone's right that he is written well, you do write him as a bastard with an agenda. However, I find him evoking absolutely no emotion in me. In fact, the only time some sort of emotion comes out with Dumbledore in the scene is when Harry's picking on him or rubbing his nose in something.

Your Dumbledore, while well-written, I can neither hate nor like. He's done some real shitty things to Harry. But with how smart you write Dumbledore at times, he almost develops his own justification. In the end, he doesn't, but it's still enough to just make me want to disregard the man entirely and focus solely on scenes concerning everyone else, meaning this chapter was only mediocre for me (though, let me be clear mediocre in JBern's TML universe exceeds expectations in nearly every other ongoing fic, especially at the moment).

In the end, your Dumbledore isn't some grandfather, he isn't an asshole like Snape, and he's now running so fine of a line between manipulative and controlled by Harry's leverage that I just find him tough to read and really enjoy.

 

What I meant was, Harry is fucking 17, hes thwarted Voldemort like 5 times, why the fuck does he have to fund the war?

He's lost all his family and friends because of it, hell, if the people that want him to sacrifice his life to save them wont cough up a few galleons why the fuck should he?

No, I reckon he should of just walked up to Dumbledore and said "Fine, faggot, if you dont release my half of the oath I'm just going to sit here until Voldemort destroys the place, then change my identity and live a normal life."

 

Dumbledore is still playing him because he knows, just as well as Harry knows, that even after all of the growing up he's done, he's still not going to let an innocent person die if it can be avoided. That's not to say he's going to jump in their place and sacrifice his own life, but I honestly can't see him letting Ron and Hermione (even after all the bullshit they put him through) be tortured for weeks without him at least trying to find a way to save them. I've got friends that I don't speak to anymore and that I feel have wronged me in some creative and fucked up ways, but if they were about to be killed and I thought I could help them in some way, I would certainly throw the grudges aside.

The problem is how hard he's going to take it if someone who used to be close to him died and how much he'll blame himself. As you said, he is 17 (and he certainly wants to help seeing as how he's funding most of the defense of the Wizarding World out of his bank accounts) and still has a number of ideals that have yet to be crushed. At least, that's how I think Harry should be written--powerful certainly, arrogant maybe, but idealistic to a fault.

 

My issue with the Dumbledore scene is similar to Joschneide's in that I get nothing out of reading his parts in the last few chapters. But it isn't so much that Dumbledore's character isn't well written or that he's toeing the line between controlled and controlling, either. I think it has more to do with the fact that no matter what Dumbledore says, I can skip his dialogue and read Harry's counter-arguments or thoughts and know exactly what's supposed to be going through the old man's head. Sure, he's controlling, manipulative, and self-righteous...but he isn't supposed to be totally predictable, especially to Harry. Maybe if we saw a few assumptions (on Harry's part about Dumbledore's actions/thoughts/plans) go the other way, or leave him totally wrong on something, it would interest me more. But right now I'm bored with Dumbledore entirely.

 

This Dumbledore is ssmmmooooth... He's intelligent, he's sophisticated. He knows Harry, and how Harry thinks. Dumbledore has spent decades gaining practical experience in moulding/manipulating adolescents, and he's had a degree of control over Harry's development that's truly frightening, when you think about it.

Seeing JUST how controlling AD is, how competent in his plots and plans, is anyone else starting to wonder exactly HOW much AD really knew about Harry's life pre-Hogwarts? Does it seem likely that THIS man would just drop off someone who he Really Believes is going to be vital to Riddle's final destruction? I'm having dark thoughts about Harry's childhood.

Edited to add:
By the way, isn't Harry sixteen this year? He's still a minor, because he can't control the Trust fund. Hermione is almost a year older than Harry (I think she's already had her seventeenth birthday,) so she's accountable for her actions from now on.

 

Thats the problem with Dumbledore. He is over 100 years old (does canon ever say exactly how old?). He has had decades to learn how to manipulate people and he knows how to use his position in society to his full advantage.

 

He's not that smooth really. If he were smooth, Harry would be 90% of the way towards trusting him again. Instead, his role in the story is to be an obstacle to Harry's plans and to make completely unpersuasive arguments, and then to be shocked when they don't work. I personally would prefer it if he was either a lot more in-your-face ("I know you're upset about the vow now, Harry, but I think on reflection you'll realize you've learned a valuable lesson today: don't fuck with Albus Dumbledore. Lemon drop?") or a smoother operator (Drop the disappointed grandfather shtick, give Harry the wizard's perspective on love potions directly, impose some meaningful punishment on the Weasleys for the obliviations, praise Harry's accomplishments, etc.). Obviously it's jbern's call on how he handles his story, I just feel like he isn't getting full value out of Dumbledore.

It will be interesting to see how Harry's plan works out. The problem that I see with it is that at some point Voldemort must have been a young up-and-comer in the evil wizard community, and he could only have gotten where he is today by beating a lot of guys like Chilotha. He's on a bit of a losing streak with Harry, but maybe taking out a rival dark wizard is just what he needs to get back into his comfort zone.

 

He's close enough to forgiveness to get Harry to work with him. He's close enough to forgiveness to get Harry to show him A Lot of information about Harry's combat skills.
He's close enough to forgiveness to have suckered Harry (again!) into that vow AND returning to Hogwarts before the ward spells failed...

 

None of that is so much Dumbledore winning Harry's good graces, but Harry realizing that even though he mistrusts the man, he needs him in order to further his own plans. But I do agree that the slightly one-dimensional Dumbledore needs a little change in tactics--he's clogging up Jbern's story with the same repetitive arguments when he could be, as he is in many Fanfictions, one of the most intriguing characters in the story. Instead he's just an annoyance for the sake of an annoyance--or at least that's how his character feels thus far.

Honestly, I think the best thing for Jbern to do is push Dumbledore into the background. He was rarely ever seen in Bungle, owing to Harry's excursion out of the country, but I, as a reader, felt his presence in every chapter. Of course Harry has to communicate with him now that he's at Hogwarts, but summarizing the situation would go a long way for the making the story more fluid.

But then again, I am pretty high.