Voldemort's age a coincidence?

[Hagger 9003]

well, theres a lot of slightly dodgy info about hitler on the net, but yeh, i think that sounded about right, from my understanding of it.

hehe, i kno exactly what you mean athena. ive had a few of the same problems since i started higher maths: im being brainwashed into some maths computer!

[Athena Appleton]

If only my loss of intelligence had to do with higher learning...

For some reason, instead of my children moving up in intelligence, I seem to be moving down to match them. And they're 3 & 4 years old.

[FawkesthePhoenix]

Good spot. Two things I would like to add:

I think when Dumbledore says "I know exactly how you feel" to Harry at the end of OotP, he may be giving a possible clue to his fight with Grindelwald. Perhaps Grindelwald killed his parents? Perhaps Dumbledore was prophesised as the only one who could defeat him? Also thinking about the death of Grindelwald, no-one seems to discuss him at all. You would think that the characters may draw parallels between the two "reigns of terror".

On another thread, perhaps Tom was on Grindelwald's side, perhaps he was there when Dumbledore defeated him and that's when he knew that he would have to go away and master the darkest magic to truly defeat DD?

BTW What was DD before he became Headmaster? Was he an auror?

Seriously... some people simply look too far into things. Grindelwald was mentioned in PS, which was designed as a childrens book believe it or not.

Also it says that Dumbledore was Transfiguration teacher in HBP (maybe mentioned before, I can't remember).

when harry was in the chamber of secrets, tom said,
'Only the Transfiguration teacher, Dumbledore, seemed to think that Hagrid was innocent. He persuaded Dippet to keep Hagrid and train him as a gamekeeper. Yes, I think Dumbledore might have guessed.... Dumbledore never seemed to like me as much as the other teachers did...."

[Athena Appleton]

Yeah, there's been no indication that Dumbledore was an auror, but he was the Transfiguration teacher before he was headmaster.

I think people look up to the Aurors so much that we can tend to believe every good powerful wizard or witch was an Auror.

Dumbledore probably saw it as his calling to teach youngsters, and to protect him, which seemed to be a large part of what he considered his job to be. He certainly felt personally responsible for the safety of his students.

Besides, Dumbledore was Headmaster before there was even a great need for Aurors. Wasn't he Headmaster when Tom/Voldemort came to him the first time to try to be allowed to teach? That was before he even got a good group of people together to be his Death Eaters officially (he probably did have his old Hogwarts buddies who supported him, but not outwardly).

[Snow_Crystal]

Besides, Dumbledore was Headmaster before there was even a great need for Aurors. Wasn't he Headmaster when Tom/Voldemort came to him the first time to try to be allowed to teach?

I'm not sure I agree with you the bit about the need for Aurors. I think that need was always there as Azkaban prison appears to have been around for a very long time but also I'm sure there was an incident with Grindelwald and DD helped defeat him. There must have been other bad wizards out there.

[Athena Appleton]

Maybe it was misunderstood, I said "great need".

Of course there was always a need for Aurors, just like in our Muggle lives, there's always a need for a military or a police force.

In general, though, in times of peace, there's not a major surge of people being recruited for those forces, but in times of unrest, people step up to take care of that need.

Voldemort was not the only bad wizard, but he was the worst wizard in a long time. This leads me to believe that before he started terrorizing the magical world, there was a certain sense of security. When the killing, torturing, and other crimes started happening, there was probably more pressure and more encouragement for people to become Aurors.

At the time the problem because apparent, Dumbledore was already Headmaster at Hogwarts.

[.:.Lily.:.]

Is it at all possible that the times of TR's years in Hogwarts being matched with the years of the World War, and the "German" (I'm taking you guy's word for that being German...) Name Grindewald (Sp?) are a throw in to one of the over all themes of the book that prejudice and genocide are the most evil of all evils?

Hitler's genocide of the Jewish was one of the most appalling and disturbing crimes of all times. Is that crime any less malicious then the purge of the "Mudbloods" and the Half Bloods led by LV and the DEs?

I wish that in years of Hitler, the Jewish had had their own "Chosen one" Their own "Boy who lived".