Voldy's scope of power, pre-downfall (was Pre-Godric's Hollow)

[rachelrenee1]

No: HPFGUIDX 31938

Heather wrote:
> >  *we* don't have much of a clue how dark those days "really" 
were. 
> > Apparently they weren't so dark that the larger society has any 
clue what 
> > was going on in the magical subculture; they're still willing to 
send 
> > their kids to Hogwarts if circumstances work so that they find 
out about 
> > it. They may well have not been as very dark as would turn the 
stomach of 
> > an elitist prat like young Draco Malfoy.
> >I mean, there's what normal people like us would consider dark 
(say 
> >antebellum South), and then there's summer-of-sam dark, and then 
there's 
> >me-and-the-droogies-out-for-a-bit-of-ultraviolence dark, and then 
there's 
> >jews-in-the-Secret-Annexe dark. Somehow I'm suspecting that nobody 
had 
> >reached the secret annexe phase as of 1981.

Then Catherine replied: 

> I've been wondering for quite awhile how well Voldemort's rise to 
power was 
> known outside of the UK.  Karkaroff was a DE but was he living in 
England 
> at that time?  Did V recruit from the continent?  I keep turning it 
over 
> and have half convinced myself that it was a very local problem and 
that 
> the rest of the world either didn't know about it, didn't care 
about it or 
> didn't perceive it as a problem that affected them yet.  (Very WW 
II)
> 
> I've been going through the series again (along with everyone else 
who's 
> impatiently waiting for OotP) and I haven't seen anything that 
makes me 
> believe that there were any foreigners involved in helping rid the 
UK of 
> Voldemort and his DEs.  Sounds like a smallish local conflict that 
the MoM 
> was able to deal with all by itself.  It certainly seemed to take 
them long 
> enough to do it, too.

I'd like to point out that in one of the scholastic interviews (not 
sure which, so very sorry) Rowling pointed out that Voldemort's plans 
were purely European...so far.  She seemed to hint that he might 
expand to from European domination to World domination. (Ok, that is 
frighteningly Hitler, as is most LV stuff...wonder if he'll set 
Wormtail up as a puppet dictator in Mexico...;).)  Anyhow, I think 
that he might have just been getting his feet wet on the continent, 
as far as power goes, when he stumbled upon Harry.

So how does Karkaroff and the Durmstrang students seem to know all 
about Harry Potter?  Well, they spend quite a lot of time on Dark 
Arts, right?  Well, LV and Harry Potter are quite a large part of 
Dark Arts World Studies, I would think.  I mean, I am sure that LV 
would be studied as a prime example of a Dark Wizard, and you can't 
discuss LV without Harry Potter cropping up.  (I think that the 
Beauxbatons emphasis would be on something like, say, charms, so they 
would not know as much about LV or Harry.  Not enough to really care, 
anyway.)

Rachel