ladypolaris:

my-sun-is-gone:

since1938:

marauders4evr:

not-a-bit-good:

marauders4evr:

bonnini:

wizardtowizard:

lbibliophile:

Just like Slughorn, Albus Dumbledore collects people. Only, instead of focusing on those with influence, he looks to the outcasts.

The expelled half-giant.
The young werewolf.
The repentant Death Eater.

He protects them and gives them a second chance. All he asks in return is their loyalty.

And, if on occasion he requests that they undertake a certain task, invoking their debt of gratitude – well, that is no more than he is owed.

He once thought to add a certain disowned Black to his collection, but quickly realised his mistake.

Sirius is not an outcast, but a rebel. He knowingly chose his path, and chooses what price he is willing to pay for it. He refuses to be used.

So Albus Dumbledore abandons him.

Who gave you the RIGHT?

Dumbledore knows Sirius’s loyalty lies with Harry instead of him, and he has no use for someone who is not willing to follow his orders without question. 

Ooooohoo if there’s ever a post that fits my aesthetic…

okay but then where does Harry himself fit into this collection? Is he an outcast because he is “the Boy Who Lived”?

Nooonono, my friend, that’s what makes this post so beautiful. Because it fits the meta I’ve been trying to get people to accept for years. 

Harry was an outcast due to a childhood filled with abuse and neglect. 

Vernon made him an outcast by dismissing his claims of magic, berating him, locking him in a CLOSET and putting bars on his window, and let’s face it, even though her editor made her cut it out, Jo intended for there to be physical abuse. 

Petunia made him an outcast by enabling and contributing to this abuse, as well as making Harry do dozens of chores while doting on Dudley. 

Dudley made him an outcast by bullying him and threatening any students at school who wanted to be his friends. 

And the rest of the wizarding world made him an outcast when they bullied him for being an outsider.

Harry James Potter became an outcast the moment he was placed with The Dursleys.

And who put him there in the first place?

I’m here for this Anti-Dumbledore discussion.

It’s not even anti-Dumbledore, although I’m not a fan of old Albus at all. He was genuinely the lesser of two evils. If I had to throw in with Dumbledore or Voldemort, I’d pick Dumbledore every time. But he’s not good. He’s not.

He cultivated trauma not just in Harry, but in Snape. He allowed them to be abused when in both cases he could have alleviated the abuse or stopped it outright. He forced them on each other when he knew they didn’t get along. He fostered that resentment between them instead of moving to heal it. And why? Because he couldn’t risk Snape caring for Harry the way Sirius did. He was already on thin ice with Snape because Snape’s loyalty was to Lily’s memory more than Dumbledore. So Dumbledore had to keep Snape stewing in guilt and self-recrimination to keep him in line. He needed Snape broken and bitter and miserable, because Snape was smart enough to see through him if he ever pulled himself out of his own misery.

Snape was horrible in a lot of ways, but sometimes that’s what happens when a person is inundated with unrelenting pain and retraumatized their entire adult life. Snape should not ever have been in a position to hurt children; he wasn’t capable of seeing himself as an adult, and reacted to them like a peer. A bully on a power trip. Who gave him the ability to hurt those kids? Dumbledore.