"Okay," she said. "In a nutshell then, King Laius was given a prophecy that said that his son was going to kill him and marry his mother. So after Oedipus was born, Laius pinned the baby's ankles and then abandoned the baby who was found by Polybus the King of Corinth. Oedipus grows up in Corinth, brought up as the son of the king and at some point is given the same prophecy. He is of course horrified at the thought of killing his father, let alone marrying his mother, so he decides he can never go back to Corinth. On the road, he meets and gets into an argument with Laius and kills him. He then travels to Thebes, defeats a monster - a sphinx, and ends up married to his birth mother, Jocasta, and made King of Thebes. Years later, the whole story comes out, everyone is horrified, Jocasta kills herself and Oedipus ends up blinding himself."
"Okay, well Laius sounds like a lovely chap, really pinning a baby's ankles was of course the only solution but..."
"No need to be sarcastic Harry. While some people say that the story is about how you can't escape your destiny, I think they're forgetting one rather important point - What if either Laius or Oedipus had simply ignored the prophecy? Remember, that Oedipus was so horrified at the thought that he might kill his father that he refused to go home to Corinth. If Laius had simply ignored the prophecy and brought Oedipus up in a loving home - Do you really think Oedipus would ever have killed him. For that matter, if Oedipus had ignored the prophecy and gone home to Corinth he would never have met Laius. This means, he would never have killed him. Do you see the point I'm making?"
"Yes, but... I don't know... That's just a story after all. Maybe..."
"And secondly, you know you can't trust Dumbledore. How do you know this isn't just some... some trickery or invention of his? For all you know the entire prophecy might have been a fake," stated Luna.
Harry stared at Luna. Considering the regard in which most members of the British Wizarding fraternity held Dumbledore in, or at least those who weren't aspiring to wear silver masks and prostrating themselves daily before Voldemort, it was quite surprising to hear her say something against Dumbledore.
"Okay... Now I know why I don't trust Dumbledore but why don't you trust him?" he asked.
Luna gave Harry one of those looks that women reserve for when their significant others are acting particularly brainless.
"Lots of reasons, really. The first would probably be the fact that he was an absolutely terrible Headmaster. Half the teachers at Hogwarts were bloody incompetent. Snape may have known his potions but he couldn't teach worth a damn. Trelawney was a joke. Binns put everyone to sleep, Flitwick and McGonagall were decent teachers but Flitwick turned a blind eye to all the bullying going on in Ravenclaw and everyone knows that McGonagall hardly ever visited the Gryffindor tower despite being the head of House, Hagrid..."
"Hey, Hagrid was really nice and..." interrupted Harry. His defence of Hagrid was nowhere near as heated as it might have been once upon a time. Too many years had passed for that, but he still fell somewhat obligated to defend the first adult that had ever given him a gift.
"And he was expelled from Hogwarts in his third year which means he never sat for his OWLs or NEWTs. He may have known his animals but how was he supposed to prepare us for exams that he had never taken himself? And let's not forget about the Blast Ended Skrewts," asked Luna.
"You may have a point there," Harry reluctantly agreed. Quite frankly once the Skrewts were brought into the argument it became almost impossible to defend Hagrid.
Luna giggled a bit which made Harry look at her quizzically. "Sorry, I was just remembering all the kids in my year. The older Ravenclaws had told us that Creatures was an easy course. That all we'd have to do is look after some flobberworms. Then in our first class, Hagrid brought out the Skrewts. Most of the kids were scarred for life and in some cases, quite literally."
"But anyway, back to the main topic - Dumbledore. His failings as a Headmaster are not the main reason I don't trust him. No, the main reason I don't trust Dumbledore is his wand," stated Luna.
"Huh?" said Harry. "What does his wand have to do with anything?"
"Well, oddly enough today was the first time I ever got a good look at it. He never flashed his wand around that much at Hogwarts, you know. But today, when we were looking at him on your viewing mirror, I managed to get a really good look at it. Now I'd like you to look at some photos I pulled out of my father's old research files. They're photos of portraits of some rather infamous wizards. This one's of Hereward, here's one of Barnabas Deverill, then Loxias, one of Godelot and finally we have a rare photograph of Gellert Grindlewald taken sometime in the 1930's. Do you notice anything similar about all these photographs?" asked Luna as she heaped photo upon photo in Harry's hands.
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