Harry Potter: How Did Dumbledore Predict Quirrellmort's Stealing The Sorcerer's Stone?

Summary:

• Dumbledore somehow knew when to retrieve the Sorcerer’s Stone from Gringotts despite Quirrellmort’s reveal happening months later.
• The Headmaster knew Voldemort’s shadow lurked in Albania and kept a close eye on the wizards who returned from that country.
• When Quirrell came from his trip acting weirdly, Dumbledore had his suspicions and played Voldemort into revealing himself.

Albus Dumbledore was a wise and powerful wizard, and his schemes far exceeded Voldemort’s. While often watching instead of taking actual action, the Hogwarts Headmaster was keenly aware of his archnemesis’s state long before Voldemort revealed himself to the world again, but some things still seemingly don’t add up.

Dumbledore Protected The Sorcerer’s Stone In Advance

When Hagrid picks young Harry Potter to take him to the Diagon Alley for the first time, he already has a very secret task from Dumbledore. The half-giant is supposed to take the Sorcerer’s Stone from the Gringotts vault and secretly take it to Hogwarts since according to both him and the Headmaster, it’s the much safer option.

The very next day, the vault where the Sorcerer’s Stone used to be stored is robbed.

This happens before Quirrell even arrives at Hogwarts, and long before the true nature of his schemes — in the form of the insidious parasite on the back of his head — is revealed. How could Dumbledore have possibly learned about the attack on Gringotts in advance? He didn’t even know Voldemort was back then, or did he?

Albus Dumbledore Never Lowered His Guard

As Hagrid tells Harry, unlike most wizards, the Hogwarts Headmaster never believed that Lord Voldemort was truly gone. However, it’s very much not enough to predict an attack on a bank vault, let alone so accurately — so how did Dumbledore do it?

In Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Dumbledore tells Harry that he knew about Voldemort’s lurking in Albania. This alone proves that he kept a close eye on the shadow of his enemy, but this goes further: the Headmaster also kept track of all the British wizards who traveled to that general area, apparently.

Ever since Professor Quirrell, a pretty famous person in the Wizarding World, returned from Albania acting weirdly, Dumbledore knew something was off. It just so happened that he and his old friend possessed an item that could have allowed Voldemort to be easily reborn — so when Quirrell reached London, he gave Hagrid the order to retrieve the Sorcerer’s Stone.

Most likely, Dumbledore invited Quirrell to teach at Hogwarts for the same reason, to keep him close and in check. He hid the Stone in the castle and put the easiest protection imaginable to lure his enemy out in the open, and the plan worked: Voldemort came for the Sorcerer’s Stone, confirming Dumbledore’s suspicions.