The diary and apologies to Carol

[Julie]

No: HPFGUIDX 86582

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "justcarol67" 
<justcarol67 at y...> wrote:
>>>> I think you've blended Constance V's scenario with mine and
overlooked our respective main points. I was solely concerned with how
Lucius obtained the diary, which I thought and still think must have
been left at Hogwarts. She suggested that he obtained it from LV
during VW1 ... The key point (for me) was that LV would
not have taken it with him while he was traveling the WW during
1945-1970. He must have left it behind him somewhere . . . I think 
we're looking at a different time sequence here. I'm assuming that 
the diary was left at Hogwarts, so it was either picked up by Lucius 
long before Godric's Hollow or by Dobby long afterward. The first 
assumption seems much stronger at this point, as I've already 
indicated. Whether there were any other possessions, I don't know, 
>>>>>but they're not really relevant to my argument.<<<


Julie:  
Oh dear, me.  I've flubbed my first `join in the
conversation' post. 
Yes, Carol, you are entirely correct, my apologies, I went back and 
reread the scene as I should have done instead of relying on memory 
(pause while irons fingers and twists ears).  It does look like Tom 
Riddle left the diary at Hogwarts ("I decided to leave behind a 
diary, preserving my sixteen-year-old self
.") intending it
to be found by someone through which Tom could reopen the Chamber of 
Secrets and "finish Salazar Slytherin's noble work,"which Tom sees 
as eliminating/killing muggle born wizards (pg. 312 of CoS)   

Since Rowling doesn't say how Lucius obtained the diary before
that day in Diagon Alley, I only meant to offer a possible 
*alternative* scenario as to how Lucius obtained the diary.   I'm 
sorry I took your discussion out of context. 

Someone did remove the diary from Hogwarts between 1945 and 1992, 
from where Tom left it to be found again.  Somehow Lucius obtained 
the diary.   It could very well be as you say, that he obtained it 
either at LV's request as a young student DE or post-Godric's
Hollow as an adult.  He was after all a governor of the school so one 
presumes that he would have gone there occasionally for meetings or 
used the school library or even a guest room in Slytherin while 
visiting Draco who says (pg. 223 CoS) Lucius knows all about the 
Chamber opening 50 years before.

But Lucius probably wasn't the only Hogwarts student to find Tom 
Riddle's ideas appealing. And since Tom was already calling himself 
Lord Voldemort to his intimates while in school there is a whole 
generation of friends/allies/afraid-not-to-follow wizards that 
predate the 1970s and Lucius or even the younger Snape.  Perhaps 
there's a Malfoy Grandmother or Grandfather who went to school
with Tom?   I suspect that from the moment Tom created the persona of 
Lord Voldemort, he used his charm and existing anti-muggle prejudice 
to recruit supporters, even if only someone he could cadge lodging 
from so he didn't have to go back to the orphanage in the summer, or 
a possible future patron to help finance his Dark Arts studies. 

Your points for Lucius are all well made.  My point was only an 
attempt to offer a "what if Lucius didn't remove the diary, but 
obtained it otherwise" type of point.  Who else besides Lucius could 
have removed the diary from Hogwarts.  Perhaps even accidentally.  
Madame Pinch perhaps sent off a seemingly blank diary in a lot of 
duplicate, worn-out-and-replaced books for the St. Mungo's benefit 
book sale? Lucius could have used magic to detect the nature and 
providence of the diary somehow to know was Tom's.  Or an adult 
Voldemort could have told Lucius (during a pre-Godric's Hollow talk) 
about opening the chamber, and even told him about creating the diary 
so that when he did come across it he recognized it.
 
We don't know what caused Peter Pettigrew to join the Death-Eaters.  
Could odd-man-out-Peter have been in the Hogwarts library one day, or 
exploring in the dungeons, and found a hidden compartment with a 
certain diary?  A diary that whispered that his so-called friends 
James and Sirius and Remus didn't appreciate him like Tom could?  
What caused Wormtail to go back to Voldemort --besides the obvious--
instead of hiding again as he had successfully for 12 years?  How 
long does charming diary-Tom keep his hold on those he possesses?

The diary is a charming, manipulative bomb with a delayed trigger 
left behind at Hogwarts.  It's a unique entity, everything Tom/LV 
thought and knew and wanted at age 16.   But its plans and 
motivations belong to a 16 year old Voldemort.   If it goes off fine, 
but the "real" adult Voldemort has moved on from his youthful
plan, to a bigger scale—cleanse the whole wizarding world.  Does it
matter to him if anyone knows about or even uses the diary?  Probably 
not.  It's a youthful exercise that I suspect the adult Voldemort has 
forgotten or disregards.  

<<<Carol said:  [snipped] As for stunned Death Eaters mournfully 
wandering around Godric's Hollow, that could account for LV's wand 
being found (presumably by Peter Pettigrew, who's the only one who 
could have returned it to him before the graveyard scene), but no 
other possessions would have been found there, least of all the 
diary.>>>>>

Julie:
Apologies, apologies.   Again I've been unclear.  I didn't mean they 
were milling around Godric's Hollow, or that the diary or other 
possessions were found there.  Its just that unless Voldemort only 
owned his wand and the clothes he stood in, he would have left some 
possessions -–many or only few-- behind when he "died" unexpectedly 
which I suspect the DEs divvied up.  I would expect that even when he 
was "traveling" around in his study of the dark arts between 1945 and 
1970, that Voldemort has some type of home--even if only temporary--
despite moving frequently in his search for power.  One must have an 
owl address for those orders to Knockturn Alley.

I don't read travel and wander to equal homeless as in I've no money, 
no belongings, no place to call my own.  Young Tom learned that being 
without his own place left him vulnerable—hence his attack on Hagrid 
and his abandonment of the Chamber to avoid loosing his right to stay 
at Hogwarts.   1945-1970ish Tom is searching out ways to increase his 
power, and render himself invincible to any threat.   He is now an 
adult.  Somehow he's obtaining money (or was there money in trust 
from his mother/ dad and grandparents? or getting it illegally) to 
support both his daily living and his research into the Dark Arts--I 
bet the cost of supplies is shocking.  I would imagine that financial 
stability and a safe lair would be of primary importance to his 
success in becoming a Dark Lord.  Its such a pain to be up all night 
and half way through conjuring a demon and suddenly realize its time 
to go to work—and you still have to shave, dress, put the cat out, 
and apparate over to the Jiffy-mart.

Julie
who apologies profusely for not reading all the way up the message 
thread and promises to read properly in the future