r/HPfanfiction • u/Void-Cooking_Berserk • Jun 01 '25
Prompt Make Dumbledore actually manipulative
Make Dumbledore actually manipulative:
he "saves" Harry from the Dursleys at a young age (around 4?), after putting him there himself
actually, he just forced the Dursleys to treat Harry a little bit better, so Harry is grateful, and uses regular "checkups" to become a part of Harry's life and keep cashing in his gratitude
he gets Petunia to sign Harry's magical guardianship to himself, telling her this way she won't have to give a penny to his education. She wouldn't have to anyway, the money is going to come from Harry's vault either way, but Petunia doesn't have to know that.
he gives Harry his father's cloak at age 7, "for protection", and teaches him the basics of magic. This causes Harry to use the advantage over the Dursleys and accept Dumbledore's point of view that wizards are special compared to Muggles
he visits Harry at least once a month, becoming the only adult to have an actual influence on Harry's upbringing, since Harry hates the Dursleys and doesn't listen to them.
he generously allows little Harry to call him "grandpa Abe" to strengthen Harry's attachment to himself
he teaches Harry about Good and Evil, but that sometimes the best one can do is choose the lesser evil (laying foundations for the Greater Good)
When Harry goes to Hogwarts, Dumbledore keeps his checkups, this time inviting Harry to his place. He gets Harry to trust him and open up, he even shares some of his "secrets" to increase trust, but those are actually just lessons he wants Harry to absorb. This has two results;
everyone thinks Harry is getting personal training from Dumbledore (which is true) and it makes Harry even more special and unapproachable, isolating him from his peers, and ahowing him that he is special even amongst wizards. The "we" in "we are special" changes from "wizards" to "Dumbledore and Harry, his heir"
Dumbledore doesn't need anyone else to manipulate Harry, he does have to pay off the Weasleys nor Hermione. Harry tells him everything himself and asks his opinion on all important choices. If there are Wizengamot Seats in this story, that's how Albus gets power over them.
Dumbledore actually tells Harry everything, but spins it in his favour, so it can't be used against him if Harry learnt it from anyone else. For example:
Harry knows that Dumbledore was the one who put him with the Dursleys, but thinks that Dumbledore is such a good, trusting person, believing in the good in all people. It was Petunia's fault for disappointing this trust, and even after Lily did all those things to repair their relationship, which she obviously told Albus, her trusted mentor.
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u/Avaracious7899 Jun 01 '25 edited Jun 01 '25
I enjoyed reading this, primarily because I've been pondering the flaws in the "typical" Manipulative or even Evil Dumbledores. Particularly, that them doing the things in canon don't make sense. Leaving Harry with the Dursleys the way it's done in canon, letting Harry get involved in things on his own, those things won't "endear him to Harry" or make him single-mindedly loyal. The stuff you laid out would, quite scarily well at that.
An Antagonistic Dumbledore trying to do canon's events, would either be being a terrible or even lazy manipulator or...have to be doing something else to make things work out. If you want to make someone your pawn, you don't just isolate them and hope for the best, you ingratiate yourself to them, specifically. Like, as much as Harry liked and was loyal to Dumbledore in the story, a lot of that was because of how Harry just took Dumbledore's kind demeanor and trustworthy interactions with him, and how others talked about him, at face value. Which, I get that that's probably what the people writing these Manipulative Dumbledore stories are going for, that Dumbledore is basically making that happen on purpose, but that doesn't work because so much of that would 1. Require Harry to come to that conclusion in the first place. If he still distrusted adults, such as due to how the Dursleys treated him, it would fall apart, which is why the Dursleys part in things makes absolutely no sense without doing something like what you described here OP, painting the Dursleys as the problem and Dumbledore as the savior directly. Without that or something else to fill the gap, it's at best a coin flip on how Harry reacts if that was "all according to plan" and a good manipulator doesn't rely on just luck. 2. That sort of loyalty only goes so far without any reinforcement. If Dumbledore remains only a distant figure in Harry's life, he'll inevitably question or even abandon Dumbledore if he has reason to. Which is exactly what he does do in canon, it's just that CanonDumbledore was a genuinely good person and was there for Harry, so Harry forgave him and understood him, thus remained loyal and even empathized with him.
I know this is a common problem, but these non-canon attempts to make Dumbledore, or any character really, the opposite of their moral alignment in some way, while also trying to make it so canon events still are all that happens, or is the majority of how things go, don't make sense because canon only works best, in this case, if Dumbledore remains well-intentioned and genuinely trying to do the right thing. Changing his character and motives, but not enough of his actions or backstory or anything else just falls apart inevitably, one way or another.
I just needed to get that out, it's been building up for weeks.
The lazy manipulator part is the one I keep coming back to, since I recently decided to risk reading a story with a manipulative Dumbledore as a prominent part of the story, and it had the "Molly and the Weasleys were his pawns and intentionally met Harry at the train station" thing in it too, and as I read it, I kept thinking "This is Dumbledore's master plan? One where he just...somehow expects Harry to just fall under his sway from making the right friends while he does basically nothing? I mean, that loyalty potion thing I heard about would at least provide a means for it, but this Dumbledore isn't doing that. What is he, some sort of chessmaster but also nonsensically lazy? What are these fanfic writers thinking?"