i see dumbles as a more open character not open as in he shares information easily but open as in how much do we really know about him? how much do we really know that he knows?
how closely does fig watch the house? how much does she really report to dumbles? how much of that report does he really comprehend? take into account how old he is both into figuring the possibility of senility and how much more common corporal punishment was when he was growing up not that it's right but he might not see anything wrong with a little corporal punishment but be aware enough that the younger generation might see what was in his day a mild spanking as abuse these days and you have a recipe for someone who just doesn't comprehend that real abuse has taken place when told in anything less than the most graphic details on the one hand dumbles could be the master manipulator who not only knows of the abuse but purposely engineered it casting spells on an other wise harmless dursley family to make them abuse harry on the other end of the spectrum as i pointed out he could be senile and the reports could have been vague enough for him to underestimate what they were really saying and both options fit cannon dumbles fairly well as far as i can tell
Author's response
I’ve seen Dumbledore written every way from merely dotty to outright psychotic. There is so very little known about him, that we as authors, have to write his history ourselves. That’s the thing I most love about the HP series. There are so very many loverly plotholes. She left us with two-dimensional characters, that we cam fill in nearly any way we choose.
I normally write Dumbledore as the manipulative, evilly benign ‘hidden dark lord’, because there is enough to support it in canon. As a matter of fact, I have a hard time writing him as anything but. The thing is, I was abused nearly as badly as Harry, and so, I instinctively fall back on what I experienced.
Figg: Either she watches and does nothing, or she watches and reports. From what little is known in canon, she is there to keep an eye on him, and does report the abuse to Dumbledore. Recall what he said at the end of Book five; “Harry, when you appeared here five years ago, safe and whole as I planned and intended…well not quite whole. I knew you had suffered. I knew when I placed you on your aunt’s doorstep, I was condemning you to ten dark and difficult years.” That tells me he knew exactly how Harry was treated, and either condoned it, or facilitated it. The abuse may not have been as severe as I’ve made out in my stories, but there are many instanced of abuse described in canon, including at least one murder attempt, in the years before he got his Hogwarts letters, and Vernon tried to strangle him, in the summer before his fifth year.
Now, why would he try to do that unless he knew he wouldn’t have to deal with the fall-out?
Alorkin