Albania/DISHWASHER/SPYGAMES

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 40064

Why Albania?

I thought the choice of Albania as Voldemort's hiding place was 
meant to reflect the real world situation at the time when Rowling 
was planning her tale. Albania was politically isolated. There 
was almost no trade or  tourism with other countries.

I got the idea that though  magical Albania has a ministry of 
magic and  is  nominally a member of the International 
Confederation of Wizards, it is  controlled by the vampires and/or 
other beings hostile to wizardry.  Only a few wizards can get both 
authorization from their own ministries to visit and permission 
from the Albanian ministry of magic to enter. Bertha probably 
called on her family and  ministry connections (they do seem to 
have wanted to get rid of her) while Quirrell gained admission as 
a scholar. 

 As we know, non-human magical beings are not allowed the 
use of wands, so maybe there aren't a lot of wands available in  
Albania in the first place.  (The fact that non-humans as powerful 
as centaurs, goblins and vampires have agreed to  the ban  has 
always suggested to me that wands must be a mixed blessing.) 
It could be that visiting wizards  aren't normally allowed to bring 
their wands with them. That wouldn't have bothered Quirrell, who 
is an expert on wandless magic as shown by the scenes at the 
end of PS/SS, but it would explain why Bertha didn't have a wand 
on her.

This makes Albania a good place for Voldemort to hide from the 
Aurors, but not a good place to encounter  a wandering wizard 
who might be persuaded to use his wand for Voldemort's benefit 
or to  allow himself to be possessed.  There is no canon that 
Voldemort can take over an unwilling wizard (Ginny willingly 
poured out her soul) and it seems unlikely. Otherwise Voldemort  
could just take over Dumbledore or even  Harry himself. Perhaps 
Harry's first  dream in Gryffindor tower, where he hears a voice 
telling him to transfer to Slytherin, was a failed attempt to 
possess him. 

The SPYGAMES/DISHWASHER theories present the battle as a 
contest of wits rather than good vs. evil, but so far we actually 
have the characters, for all their intricate plotting, making dumber 
mistakes   than their surface reading counterparts. It would be 
grossly foolish of Dumbledore to offer Pettigrew to Voldemort for  
the MAGIC DISHWASHER unless Dumbledore knew  that 
Voldemort had no easy alternatives to using Pettigrew for the 
spell. But as Voldemort himself says, the task is one that many 
of his followers would give their right hands to perform. 

It is just as foolish for SPYGAMES!Voldemort not to realize that, 
having expended his one irreplaceable resource, his immortality, 
for the sake of killing Harry, he has committed himself to a fight 
to the finish.  He gains nothing by letting Harry get away. Time is 
now on Dumbledore's side not Voldemort's, because though 
Dumbledore may be weakening with age, Harry is growing 
stronger. And now Voldemort will be aging too. 

Ultimately, SPYGAMES leaves us back where we started, with a 
battle of good vs. evil. Voldemort plans to allow  Harry to escape 
the graveyard because he, Voldemort, is not willing to face death. 
Harry is going to win, not because Dumbledore has been more 
clever than Voldemort, but  because unlike Voldemort, Harry and 
his friends don't consider their personal survival  the highest 
cause.

Pippin