The Triwizard Portkey (WAS: Killing Harry, Smart!Voldemort )

[ssk7882]

No: HPFGUIDX 40412

Cindy wrote:

> Nah, I'm sticking with my prior view of why the Cup is round-trip. 
> Crouch Jr. blew it. The Cup was always set to be a round-trip from 
> the center of the maze. Otherwise, the winner would have to grab 
> the Cup and battle his or her way past these life-threatening  
> obstacles back to the entrance of the maze to claim the thousand 
> galleons, which doesn't make sense. 

But that would still make it only one-way, surely?

The Cup is already *in* the center of the maze.  It was, I agree, 
probably originally set to carry the first person who touched it out 
of the maze and back to the entrance, where they would then 
presumably be lauded as the winner of the Tournament and presented 
with their thousand galleons.

But that's still just a one-way ticket.  It's not round-trip.  It 
takes you from the center of the maze to its periphery -- and that's 
it.

So Crouch Jr. didn't just mess with the Portkey's original 
destination. He also, whether intentionally or not, changed it from a 
one-way Portkey, designed only to carry its user from the center of 
the maze to its periphery, to a duel-use Portkey, designed *first* to 
carry its user to the graveyard and *then* back to the periphery of 
the maze.

The question then becomes whether this was intentional, or a Great 
Big Fat Mistake on arrogant young Barty's part.

Cindy suggests the latter:

> Crouch Jr., being talented but rather new to the art of programming 
> Portkeys, didn't know about this round trip feature, or more 
> likely, didn't care. 'Cause Crouch Jr. had every reason to think 
> that the only thing that might be returning via the Cup was Harry's 
> corpse.

So rather than substituting one destination for another, Crouch 
tampered with the Portkey by adding a *new* destination and ranking 
it higher in the "queue" than its original one, which he never 
bothered to delete and which was therefore still active, although 
relegated to a secondary function?

That works.  It means that the first time that the Portkey is 
touched, it will follow its new orders ("take user to graveyard"), 
while the second time it is touched, it reverts to its original 
programming ("take user to periphery of maze.")

If that's the case, then I assume that had the Cup been touched a 
third time, it would have done nothing at all, as it would then have 
run through all of its "orders."  After fulfilling its second (and 
original) function, it reverted to an inactive object, just like the 
old boot at the beginning of GoF did.

That's certainly a possibility, although I think that I still prefer 
the idea that the plan was originally to *use* the Portkey's 
secondary destination, either to descend on Hogwarts or simply to 
send Harry's corpse back as a nice little message for the wizarding 
world.  The former is Bangier, to be sure, but I find the latter far 
more likely.  

Even if we assume Stupid!Voldemort, rather than Pip's Scheming!
Voldemort, I still don't think that he'd make such an amazingly
disastrous error as to attempt a strike on the Triwizard audience
when there is no way to Disapparate from Hogwarts grounds.  Even 
Overconfident "Oops, I forgot!" Voldemort isn't quite so daft, I 
don't think, as to consider it a good idea to try pitting his thirty 
some-odd Death Eaters against the cream of the wizarding world, 
element of surprise or no element of surprise.  It would make sense 
if they could appear, fire off a bunch of curses, and then 
Disapparate, but since they wouldn't be able to do that, I can't see 
it as a feasible plan.

Although you know, maybe Voldemort had just forgotten about that 
aspect of Hogwarts?  Heaven knows that everybody else does. 

"You can't Disapparate from Hogwarts?  Oops.  I forgot!"

In which case Harry really saved some unfortunate Death Eater a whole 
lot of grief, didn't he?  Because I'm sure that *one* of those guys 
would have been willing to point out to Voldemort the flaw in his 
cunning plan.  I'm equally certain that whoever did so would have 
suffered for it.  Evil Overlords just *hate* being told about flaws 
in their cunning plans.


-- Elkins, who thinks that once somebody breaks that Memory Charm 
that Voldemort's got blocking all of his happy childhood memories of 
flowers and puppy dogs and all the maternal hugs and kisses from that 
nice Muggle lady at the orphanage, things are really going to 
*change* in the Potterverse.