The Gleam Revisited - now with MAGIC DISHWASHER

[Grey Wolf]

No: HPFGUIDX 45133

Jaye wrote: 
> I think it's more a matter of the gleam being what Dumbledore 
> _thinks_.  Voldemort says: "His mother left upon him traces of her 
> sacrifice. . . . This is old magic, I should have remembered it, I 
> was foolish to overlook it . . . but no matter."  (GOF, US addition, 
> pgs. 652-3).  Later on he says of the spell that resurrected 
> him "(cut)--it is an old piece of Dark Magic, the potion that revived 
> me tonight--(cut)"  (GOF, US, pg. 656)  and later on, of Harry's 
> home, "Dumbledore invoked an ancient magic, to ensure the boy's 
> protection (snip)"  (GOF, US, pg. 657).  It seems to me that all of 
> these are powerful spells and workings that are not done very often, 
> or at all in recent times, so simply not much is known about them.  
> Therefore, Dumbledore may _think_ that Voldemort is human, but how 
> can he be sure?  And what if Harry acts on it?  I really wouldn't 
> want to hear 'oops, sorry, well, guess I was wrong; tricky thing this 
> whole old-magic thing.'  It could also be that Dumbledore is sure, 
> but that he doesn't know what to do with the information yet.  
> 
> just adding fuel to the fire
> 
> ~Jaye

OK, I feel a re-examination of MAGIC DISHWASHER coming up, this time in 
the theme "who knows what". Now, as some of you who have actually 
manged to follow MAGIC DISHWASHER (as obscure as it has become) might 
now, information plays a *very* important part in MAGIC DISHWASHER. In 
fact, from a certain point of view (the original), there really is 
nothing more to it. Which is part of the problem, of course, since 
Dumbledore is as easy to read as a closed book, and those of us who 
like to think about conspiracy theories and counter-spionage tend to 
actively dis-believe what the bad guys (i.e. Voldemort) says. So, in 
conclusion, MAGIC DISHWASHER establishes some very tenous lines on 
who-knows-what in the Potterverse.

Of course, what Filch (for example) might or might not suspect about 
Voldemort and his plans is really quite irrelevant (except if he 
happens to be the insider agent in one of the next three books, in 
exchange for magical power -i.e. FIE: Filch Is Evil), so MAGIC 
DISHWASHER concentrates on the big players. So far, those have been the 
two heads (Dumbledore and Voldemort) and their best agents (Snape and 
Lucius). And this is the point were things get tricky, since there is 
almost no canon to tell us exactly what each of them (1) knows, (2) 
let's others know he knows (3) doesn't know and it shows (4) doesn't 
know but simulates knowing and (5) knows but fakes not knowing. There 
can be a few more cathegories, if you start to include whether the 
people who know what is going on are only in his side, or on both, etc, 
but this is complicated enough as it is, and I'm going to forget to 
many details anyway, so I can introduce further complications in future 
posts if this thread gets interesting.

(Please note that I'm only going to examine what my version of MAGIC 
DISHWASHER states about the knowledge around Harry's magical 
protection. It's not necesarily equal for other followers of MAGIC 
DISHWASHER, but it probably will come quite close unless I happen to 
put my foot in -in which case, as always, whatever I write will be open 
to correction)

So, starting with Dumbledore. He seems to know quite a bit of what 
going on, although he keeps to himself most of that knowlegde (for 
reason which I'm not going to discuss here, mainly because they are 
irrelevant to this rant). Especifically, he seems to know quite a bit 
about Harry's magical protection, and he possibly is the one that knows 
most about it. Also, according to MAGIC DISHWASHER, he is the one who 
engineered the flawed potion in the first place, so he does know 
-better than Voldemort- what are the exact consequences of preparing 
the potion with -let's say- muggle bones, blood from a love-protected 
wizard and flesh of a life-indebted servant. We can safely assume that 
those consequences are bad for Voldemort. And of course, he knows what 
is the purpose of the potion because the one who originally presented 
it to Voldemort is now working for him: Snape, the Potion Master. MAGIC 
DISHWASHER relies heavily on this master-plan: Dumbledore made other 
options so unapealing that Voldmort took the flawed!potion by default 
(although he did try to go for the best solution, the PS, even if it 
was suposed to be well guarded). Dumbledore also knew that he'd need a 
Voldemort follower with a life-debt (preferably to Harry, since he's 
also part of the plan), which is were the marauders come in (see my 
previous post on the matter - I repeat myself enough as it is). 
Evidence suggests that he suspected that Sirius was inocent, possibly 
because Hagrid may have reported hearing rumours about Pettigrew being 
the traior while he was in Azkaban (we know from Sirius that those 
rumours might have been pretty common between the DE prisoners).

Now, Voldemort has a totally different set of knowledge to go by. For 
one thing, he plays the offensive position, whilst Dumbledore plays the 
deffensive. Since the Reign of Terror was (and is) and information & 
terrorist war, one of the major advantages of Voldemort has is that 
only he knows who all his DE are (never mind the most prominent ones 
that Dumbledore probably knows about too, and that are the ones named 
by Voldemort in the Graveyard Gathering - I mean the ones that *didn't* 
get named and those that didn't even *attend*, those are the important 
ones). He's the only one who knows his inmediate, short-term and medium 
term plans (the long-term ones, becoming inmortal and ruling the world, 
are pretty obvious, unless we've missed something). He probably 
believes that his idea of the potion is infalible, since he has (after 
four years trying) managed to advance that small step in his plans: 
recorporate (it's actually a step *back*, in his own words, but he was 
in a blocked alley anyway, so it's the correct step to take). He does 
*not* realise that the potion is flawed (or wouldn't have used it). 
Also, he suspects that Harry's protection is some kind of spell he can 
pass onto him by means of Harry's blood (this is probably been 
missinformation from Dumbledore's side), even though it's probably not 
that easy. Finally, he knows who his insiders are, while Dumbledore, so 
far, has not been able to tract until the very end (although he might 
have guessed about Quirrelmort, as some listees have pointed out 
lately).

Now, the other two players. Snape seems to have all the information 
Dumbledore has, even though prudence would probably drive *me* to 
withold any information that is not vital to Snape's job. The fact is, 
of course, that Snape seems to be the wild-card (aka Joker) in 
Dumbledore's deck: he's the one that's thrown into the danger without 
full information on what he's going to face, and is expected to come up 
with a way to do it. Some points in the Shack Scene seem to point out, 
however, that Snape's ideas doesn't always coincide with Dumbledore's 
(especially in what Sirius Black's inocence is concerned), and as I've 
mentioned, it is possible that Dumbledore has not informed him of 
details that do not affect him, but in general lines he seems to know 
as much as Dumbleodre does.

Finally, we have Lucius. This is the most obscure of the four (mainly 
becouse he gets less screen-time), but we know he might be an 
independent plotter (if the riddle diary was his idea alone), or that 
he has been in contact with Vapour!Voldemort for a long time (if the 
diary idea was Voldemort's). As described by Pip in the spying game 
part II[1], he is possibly the most confident of all the DEs gathered 
and, if my prediction of Voldemort's plan proves to be correct (though 
is not canon-based, just logic-based), he's the one who will be 
selected as Minister of Magic after Fudge's downfall. All this suggests 
that he knows quite a bit of what is going on... even if Voldemort 
doesn't want him to. I picture Lucius as the sort of intelligent, cold 
man who is painfully aware of the risky position he is in. Although he 
might get a lot out of it (power, influence, revenge, etc.), he's also 
very close to being destroyed by *either* side. So, he's probably been 
fortifying his position, getting every scrap of information he could 
lay his hands on and form as many back-room alliances as he could 
manage to try to ensure that, whatever happens, he comes out in top 
(whether he succeds or not is, of course, out of his hand, but he *is* 
trying).

Some people have objected to MAGIC DISHWASHER by saying that Harry is 
not important enough. Apart from the fact that that is metathinking, 
which I do not approve, and which MAGIC DISHWASHER is certainly NOT 
built upon, Harry is not important so far because he has not reached an 
age were he can cope with this sort of situation. I'd imagine that, as 
the trio gets older, they will be inroduced to the world were 
information and strategy rules over magic and raw force (and THEN Ron 
is going to be more useful than "the hero's sidekick" position he know 
has).

Hope that helps,

Grey Wolf, who doesn't seem to manage to express his ideas in less than 
500 words, no matter how *small* those ideas might be!

[1] see post 40044. Anyone intersted might want to check posts 39662 
(spying game part I), 39854 (MAGIC DISHWASHER: the re-cap) and 40059 
(in this one I examine who knows what too, but at a much lighter level. 
I haven't recommended this one before, either, so some of you who are 
already familiar with MAGIC DISHWASHER might want to check it, since 
it's -relatively- "new" material).