HE-WHO-DOES-WITHOUT-DOING

Wisdom is the vertex of conscience. Wisdom is an ingredient to brew glory. Wisdom is the guiding light in the grave darkness and wisdom, most certainly and irrevocably, is indomitable.

Wisdom is most resilient. Wisdom is the silence before the gale.  Wisdom is pure knowledge. Wisdom is the music that comes from the deepest fathoms of our heart. Wisdom is the truth we already know.

Wisdom is the answer that presents itself. Wisdom is noble and embracing. Wisdom is kind, even to those who condone it.  Wisdom is the pleasure radiating from beauty. Wisdom is the patience of the unperturbed sea. Wisdom is apparent to those who revere it and is, perhaps, the most precious thing to behold. Wisdom is sacred; wisdom is holy. Wisdom is the calmness of the sleeping dragon. Wisdom is like the words in the pages of the books – desperate to be understood. Wisdom, like words, is the ultimate and perpetual source of magic. Wisdom is the choice to be made.

Wisdom is the solemnity buried in the subtle brevity.

Albus Dumbledore is the most venerable character – he is all-the-above-guff personified. He was most remembered for his duel with his friend Gellert Grindelwald, a dark wizard (perhaps one of the worst in the history). In his own words, it takes a great deal to stand up to our enemies but even greater to stand up to our friends. He had humble and faithful company encircling him. He was immensely kind, Dumbledore, and terse, oh yes – impossible to comprehend for those who never attempted to seek the gravity of the words. He could see the truth behind the most persuasive tones; he knew it was not Hagrid who opened the chamber of secrets during his years at Hogwarts as Professor of Transfiguration. He knew he was prized and he knew power was his weakness. This is why he is to be revered – he was brave enough to acknowledge the frailness that, once is the past, gave him the memories he dearly wished to change.

Dumbledore’s methods are questionable to those who do not labor to be prudent or, better be this way, to those who are turbulent. His habit that strikes me as the most curious one is his taciturn tactics that involves magnificently arranged prudent strategies that force a reader to hypothesize if he was skilled at divination. Since the latter speculation is discarded by Rowling herself, it leaves him, by default, as uncommonly wise and, you must be tired of reading this word, prudent. He is, indeed, prudence personified. In other words he does things without actually doing it. Many of them, including Voldemort himself, believed that Dumbledore left the boy alone to face the dark lord himself. I believe that Dumbledore, with sufficient measures adopted, wanted the child to be ready, and all that “for the greater good”.

In the following lines I shall attempt to elucidate the prudence behind doing-without-doing formula of Headmaster Dumbledore. I shall mainly focus “Harry Potter and the half blood prince” with occasional references from the other books as well.

Dumbledore got the ring, which was a horcrux, and (I do not think it is strictly correct to put it as fortunate) fortunately, he found the resurrection stone – one of the deathly hallows. Now here is the crucial event – Dumbledore tries to use the stone to bring his family back to life. He was blindfolded by curiosity; he was defeated by his weakness – he was deceived by false hope; he was deceived by death. Dumbledore failed to see the other side of reality – he was marred by his desperate desire of his heart to such an extent that he overlooked the subtle nature of creation.

But, when it is Dumbledore, there is always ‘however’; in other words, he saw the light in the gravest of the darkness. He knew how foolish he was to not see the foolishness he may be lured by. Great as he was, he did not moan a bit about it; he revered the death – he hallowed the hallows; he re-understood that the best suited for the powers is the one who never attempted to seek for the same. He decided to save it for the greater good. He had the elder wand, he had the resurrection stone and Harry had the cloak. If he so desired, he could have mastered the death; he could have deceived the death. But, he understood that the fear of death is a cowardice and the best suited to master the death is someone with greater purpose, which in our case is Harry Potter. He respected death; he was prepared to embrace it. This is what makes him wise. He considered death as a great adventure and that; he did what he was meant to do – not to defeat Voldemort but to defeat the death itself. The prophecy said that Harry was the one to defeat Voldemort but then there was something engraved in the grave of Jams and Lily in the Godric’s Hollow – “The last enemy that shall be defeated is death”. Dumbledore knew it was a powerful hint that could prove useful when absolutely needed. It was not meant for Dumbledore to be credited with the fruits of the action, however, he could “act”. His action was purely for the reasons of the “greater good”; his deeds were heroic. He did something without expecting anything. He did something what HE, the same unknown formless almighty, was meant to do. His deeds were selfless – the purest form of action possible. Despite his death; Dumbledore was the one who later defeated the death.  

Every “aspects” of Dumbledore contributed something in the victory of the battle of Hogwarts. He did not tamper with the grand design of fate; he went along with it and made Harry sufficiently prepared to accept his destiny. Dumbledore knew the severity of the trouble Harry had to undertake. He wanted to prepare him for his true fate of being the Chosen One. One of the wisest things he did was ignoring the ignorance of Harry towards the Occlumency. He was wise enough to see that the connection was bilateral and the attempt of the dark lord to invade the mind of Harry would make him vulnerable. Besides, when absolutely essential he had hinted “It is not why you are similar; it is why you are different”

He also summoned Harry in his own cabin to show him the memories of the past – his attempt to hunt the horcrux, his first encounter with Tom Riddle, the memories that led him to find the cursed ring and so on. Despite other vitality, it gave a hint of severity and nature of finding horcrux and its structure respectively. Dumbledore knew it would not be too much difficult for Harry to find the Horcrux after the vision – not that it gave the clue as where it would be but the confirmation of the fact that Voldemort was obsessed with power and rarity. This firmed his confirmation when discovering Helga Hufflepuff’s cup and Ravenclaw’s lost diadem. Dumbledore had physically and mentally prepared Harry. Harry had accepted the fate and as the time progressed, he was certain of the occurrence.

Dumbledore’s next great achievement is beautifying his death which was a superb and inevitable plan. Dumbledore knew he would be defeated by Voldemort, for he possessed the dark qualities Dumbledore never dared to possess. His death was, one way or the other, quite inevitable. So, at the end of the day, it was Snape who had to hint Harry that he was the horcrux Voldemort never meant to make. He knew it was Severus Snape who had to stay there until the end. He knew it would be “convenient” and I repeat again, prudent to keep Snape alive until the end and to do that he had to win the trust of the dark lord. Dumbledore cleverly asked Snape to kill him instead of Draco because Snape had to deceive the dark lord and killing Dumbledore was the last thing Voldemort could expect from anyone.

Now, the last and the most crucial plan of Dumbledore was the resurrection of Harry Potter. Dumbledore was the first to deduce that Harry Potter had to die if the dark lord was to be vanquished. He also knew that even though he dies, it is Harry who has to kill him (because of the prophecy). So he went along with the fate. He then endeavored to defeat the immortal enemy, Death, through Harry Potter. Harry was destined, or rather “chosen” to vanquish the Dark Lord. But for that he had to sacrifice his own life. He was the Horcrux, that Voldemort never meant to make. But then, we have Albus Dumbledore, the wisest of the wise. It would have been unjust for Harry, a kind brave boy, to be killed by the Dark Lord, who was evil. Fate would not allow evil to triumph. So then there is always however! There is more to understand the Hallows than it appears. Hallows choose the one, who can accept the death. To win the death, one has to revere it. And fate knew that Harry was the only one who could accept the death. But, interestingly, fate did not choose Dumbledore, who, in turn, had sacrificed his life for the sake of “trust” that Severus Snape had to earn from the dark lord. How could it choose itself! Albus Dumbledore chose Harry as the master of Death; fate chose Harry as the master of death. He “had to be” the master of death because he was meant to vanquish the dark Lord and to do that, he “had to” accept the death. So, Dumbledore, the kindest of the kind, ‘knew’ that fate had planned something big for Harry; something so big that it would allow Harry to die but return to tell the tale. There were two options, Hallows and Horcrux. Horcrux is extremely dark and evil. So good old Dumbledore knew it had to be Horcrux. So he arranged it for Harry, because he was meant to do so.

Now fate is a curious thing. Fate connects the dots and knows every dot to be connected. Fate knew it was Harry who had to unite Hallows. In other words, fate knew Harry had to win the death in order to vanquish the dark Lord. So the fate of Harry Potter to unite the Hallows, led the event of Lily Potter casting herself before Voldemort when he tried to kill Harry. When she did that a part of Voldemort’s soul latched itself on to Harry and then, at that very moment, Harry became the inevitable to-be-master of the Deathly Hallows. Her love is merely the “way” through which the dots were connected. It was the way through which the fate-of-Harry-to-unite-Hallows chose to resurrect Harry Potter.

Let me summarize it in even easier way – Fate was Dumbledore and Dumbledore was fate; and perhaps, Dumbledore knew it, which is why he never “acted” – he merely allowed action to take place. In other words, he ‘did’ without doing, apparently.

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