And digging deeper, it becomes evident that the Order does not even know what it is they are guarding!
[Sirius said,] “In any case, gathering followers is only one thing [Voldemort]’s interested in. He’s got other plans too, plans he can put into operation very quietly indeed, and he’s concentrating on those for the moment.”
“What’s he after apart from followers?” Harry asked swiftly. He thought he saw Sirius and Lupin exchange the most fleeting of looks before Sirius answered.
“Stuff he can only get by stealth.”
When Harry continued to look puzzled, Sirius said, “Like a weapon. Something he didn’t have last time.” (OP96)
This passage is Jo at her finest—misdirection galore! She makes it appear as if the Order knows all there is to know. But if one looks at the information given, it seems like the only thing the Order knows is that they are guarding something in the Department of Mysteries. . . and that this is Voldemort’s focus at the moment.
For years, this passage bothered me. Why on earth does Sirius refer to the prophecy as a “weapon?” This term is emphasized quite a bit throughout the rest of the book as a red herring for us and for Harry. But Sirius is always direct with Harry and would not intentionally deceive him. And I doubt he would view it as Dumbledore did, where the “weapon” is the knowledge of how to destroy Harry.
The only logical conclusion is that Sirius—and, by extension, the Order—truly believes that they are guarding a dangerous weapon from Voldemort. And this is just blatantly untrue. But it’s also classic Dumbledore.
Aberforth says of his brother, “Secrets and lies, that’s how we grew up, and Albus . . . he was a natural.” (DH562) Dumbledore never trusted anyone completely and kept all his cards extremely close to his chest, particularly after Voldemort was reborn. He would not trust the Order with the information that they were a mere distraction for Voldemort. Rather, he allowed them to believe that they were doing something worth risking their lives for, thereby ensuring the ruse was complete. And he was willing to let members nearly die just to keep Voldemort occupied a little longer.
A Livejournal user, Sophierom, wrote that a central theme in Order of the Phoenix is that hierarchical relationships are bad, whereas relationships built on commonality and equality are good. This is an important lens through which to view Dumbledore’s actions here: Dumbledore’s relationship with the other members of the Order is not equal, and his deception of them is an abuse of power. This is in sharp contrast to Dumbledore’s Army, where the leader is a fellow student, and is even democratically chosen (OP391).
Considering the very high price Dumbledore was willing to pay, one just hopes that whatever he was taking this time to do was worth it. . .
In Essence Divided
With the time that the decoy bought him, Dumbledore digs deep into Tom Riddle’s past. This time period, the latter half of 1995, is when Dumbledore did his most intense research. He is still missing the crucial number of Horcruxes, but Dumbledore is not sitting idly by while he figures that out. No, he is reviewing memories of Tom Riddle to figure out what the Horcruxes might be.
When he has lessons with Harry in HBP, the memories have been carefully curated to display the Horcruxes. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg—Dumbledore did not get Tom Riddle’s past pre-packaged into a half-dozen memories that perfectly display relevant information. He had to peruse all possible data about Tom Riddle—and first, all those memories (useful or useless) had to be obtained, sometimes with great difficulty. He must have looked through dozens or hundreds of memories, including his own, of Riddle’s seven years at Hogwarts, keeping an eye out for potential Horcruxes and their possible hiding places. He must have found myriad false clues as he worked on connecting the dots. This would have taken him most of Harry’s fifth year at Hogwarts.
It’s no wonder Dumbledore seems stressed out in Order of the Phoenix—he’s fighting three battles at once! He has the Order pitted against Voldemort and the Death Eaters to keep everyone busy with the prophecy, he is battling Umbridge and Fudge’s meddling at Hogwarts, and he is attempting to research the Horcruxes.
By the end of 1995, Dumbledore has perused the memories enough to be reasonably confident in the locket, ring, and cup as Horcruxes. He is developing a rather sinister theory about Harry’s scar being an unintentional Horcrux. (This is a separate line of questioning for Dumbledore, since Harry was obviously not intended to be a Horcrux among Voldemort’s fixed set.) And he also begins to have some niggling suspicions about a less conventional Horcrux candidate: Voldemort’s snake Nagini seems to be strangely obedient to Voldemort, even given that he’s a Parselmouth. Hmm. . .
Suddenly one night, Harry is in Dumbledore’s office again, saying he had ventured into Voldemort’s mind while Voldemort was in Nagini’s mind. Dumbledore taps one of his instruments, which emits a smoky snake. Dumbledore asks, “But in essence divided?” and the snake splits in two, which confirms whatever Dumbledore is thinking (OP470).
This tiny passage caused more speculation than almost any other in the first six books. Finally, after Deathly Hallows was released, Jo told us what it meant in an interview on Bloomsbury.com.
“Dumbledore suspected that the snake’s essence was divided—that it contained part of Voldemort’s soul, and that was why it was so very adept at doing his bidding. This also explained why Harry, the last and unintended Horcrux, could see so clearly though the snake’s eyes, just as he regularly sees through Voldemort’s. Dumbledore is thinking aloud here, edging towards the truth
