Film Theory: Dumbledore Was Secretly Weaponising Harry Potter
1. Why Dumbledore’s Plan “Failed”
JK Rowling has specifically explained why Harry didn’t become an Obscurial in the past:
“The Dursleys were too frightened of magic ever to acknowledge its existence to Harry. While Vernon and Petunia had a confused hope that if they were nasty enough to Harry his strange abilities might somehow evaporate, they never taught him to be ashamed or afraid of magic. Even when he was scolded for ‘making things happen’, he didn’t make any attempt to suppress his true nature, nor did he ever imagine that he had the power to do so.”
In short, Harry wasn’t forced to suppress his magic, because it was entirely denied. It’s a bit of a twee explanation, because as Aberforth states in the Ariana story, no kids at her age could control their magic. It seems unlikely that Harry’s magical incidents were as rare as we’re led to believe and it’s even less likely that he wasn’t punished for them. Whether the Dursleys acknowledged his abilities or not, there was a direct cause and effect between his actions and their reactions: between magic and abuse.
Dumbledore knew this would happen. What he didn’t account for was the difference in Harry that stopped him from developing an Obscurus. He was no mere boy with magical powers, he was a vessel containing TWO other rogue elements: the slither of Voldemort’s soul and the love charm protection provided both by his mother’s sacrifice and placed upon him by Dumbledore. They worked against the usual effects that would have led any other child to become an Obscurial.
But that doesn’t necessarily mean that Dumbledore didn’t still believe that he could turn Harry into an Obscurial to be unleashed the moment the charm wore off. As qualified, he simply did not intend for Harry to be unleashed as his weapon until the right moment, either when the abuse by the Dursleys drove him to leave permanently (by which stage he’d be more likely to become an Obscurial) or when he was 17. By that stage, his own preparation of Harry’s condition would surely have been enough to weaponise him.
As Snape so caustically puts it to Dumbledore when he finds out the truth of his intention to send Harry to his death:
“You have kept him alive so that he can die at the right moment?... You have used me… I have spied for you and lied for you, put myself in mortal danger for you. Everything was supposed to keep Lily Potter's son safe. Now you tell me you have been raising him like a pig for slaughter…”
Snape knew. Snape was right.
But it didn’t work because the protective love charm had another lasting effect on Harry: it drew friends to him. It embossed a charisma into him that drew a whole new family around him, made of Weasleys and Hermione and the Order Of The Phoenix and the DA and everyone who eventually turned up to fight in his name in the final battle. Eventually, it even drew Dudley Dursley and Draco Malfoy to him.
In essence, while Dumbledore sought to turn Harry into a bomb, he actually helped turn him into the ultimate flagbearer. A weapon of positive propaganda. He became an entirely different kind of weapon against Voldemort's power with as irresistible a draw as the Dark Lord himself.
So, the headmaster got his way in the end - it just wasn’t necessarily how he set out to do it. But then, he was always about the results, rather than the journey.
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