[HPforGrownups] Re: The Diary

[Kelly Grosskreutz]

No: HPFGUIDX 57454

Valky:
> I am not, per se, "sure" that Dobby wasn't baited by Mr Malfoy.
Thus
> causing his pursual of Harry. In fact I am willing to concede that
it
> is very likely that he was. Although,.. what is your take on that?
> Did he bait Dobby to keep Harry away from Hogwarts during that year
> or was that an unplanned anomaly?
> Honestly, I dont believe that Lucius wanted Harry to be absent
during
> the opening of the Chamber, and, failing any faith in a possibility
> of Lucius making such an early blunder in his plot, as to have his
> elf almost prevent Harry attending Hogwarts at all...............
> I would have to say that two large loopholes just appeared in this
> other wise applicable argument.

Maria:
My take? I also can't see why Lucius would feel the need to trick
Dobby into warning Harry about his "plans" for Hogwarts. If anything,
Harry would die, which wouldn't grieve Lucius, I'm sure. OTOH, I can
easily imagine *Draco* having a little joke and feeding Dobby this
tidbit of information in hopes of scaring Harry away from the school.
Do I believe it? Maybe, but I don't think it matters at all.

Kelly (me):
My take:  I always got the impression that Lucius was afraid Harry would
somehow ruin his plans, so wanted him out of the way so his plans would go
off without a hitch.  Harry defeated Lucius's master.  Lucius probably heard
about Harry thwarting Voldemort the previous year, so was doing everything
in his power to make sure Harry wouldn't screw him over.  Lucius isn't going
to try to outright kill Harry.  That's been tried before by one more
powerful than Lucius and failed.  So, his plan is to keep Harry away from
Hogwarts.

Valky:
> It is reasonable to say, we havent seen him use magic yet so how
can
> we judge? However, there has been at least one occassion in the
books
> where he could have used magic, but, appeared to run like a coward.
> One would be at the resolution of COS, when Dobby threatened to use
> magic on him. Did he attempt to continue, beyond the threat of a
> HouseElf, to do his worst? No, he ran.

Maria:
Well, what did you want him to do? Avada Kedavra Harry and/or Dobby,
like he tried in TCTMNBN II? I found that bit in the movie
ridiculous. Using an Unforgivable curse on the Boy Who Lived? I mean,
*honestly*.

Kelly (me):
Don't even get me started on that scene.  He would've been doing it not only
on The Boy Who Lived, but about five paces away from the entry to
Dumbledore's office.  Lucius isn't dumb enough to do anything there unless
he *really* wants to go visit Azkaban.

Valky:
> Why would he use the diary at 'Hogwarts?' to, primarily, bring upon
> Arthur Weasley? a downfall of his muggle protection act?
> Hogwarts and Wizard homes are very separate things. The Diary
applied
> at Hogwarts, the protection act applied in Wizard Homes. How did
> Lucius correlate the two? I ask.

Maria:
It's very simple. Ginny was the one sic'ing the Basilisk on Muggle-
borns. People care about that sort of thing.

<snip excellent arguments>

You know, here's where our disagreement is only superficial.

What's the number-one item on Lucius's agenda? Ridding the whole WW
of Muggles and Muggle-born wizards. Weakening Arthur Weasley, the
biggest (known to us) proponent of Muggles, and his Muggle Protection
Act is one way of taking a step towards accomplishing his goal. The
other way is getting rid of Dumbledore, and, consequently, of Muggle-
born students. Lucius killed two birds with one stone.

The only thing is, we've no way of knowing what was more important to
Lucius. IIRC, the Muggle Protection Act was only mentioned in the
very end of CoS, but the Malfoys-hate-Dumbledore drum was being
beaten throughout the whole book. So, I suppose, the latter is more
important. Unless it's a red herring. <g>

Kelly (me):
Here's my read on this whole thing.  Arthur Weasley's department has been
stepping up the number of raids they have been conducting.  It was to a
point where Lucius felt threatened by them and so started selling some of
his dark objects.  He is confident that Arthur's raiders won't find his
secret compartment (which they didn't the first time Malfoy Manor was
raided), but he is not liking this turn of events at all.  He also hears
that Arthur is trying to get a Muggle Protection Act passed, which runs
contrary to Lucius's beliefs.  He decides to take action.

He has Voldemort's school diary lying around the house.  I believe Lucius
knew what was inside it, so therefore knew the Chamber of Secrets did exist,
and the personality inside the diary knew how to get in.  He doesn't want
his son to be the one opening it because it would make the Malfoys look bad
and ultimately not do him much good, so he needs someone else to open it.
Again, Lucius knew what was in the diary.  He decides, as Maria says, to
kill two birds with one stone.  He will have a Weasley open the Chamber and
unleash the monster that will kill some Muggle-borns.  This will not only
send a message to all Muggle-borns (that they don't belong in the WW), but
will also incriminate the Weasley family.  Arthur's Act will fail because
his daughter was the one behind the killings.

The potential foil to his plan is, I said earlier, Harry.  Even knowing that
Voldemort's younger self is in the diary, Lucius knows that Harry, as an
infant, somehow managed to defeat Voldemort once before.  This was a
Voldemort at the height of his powers.  If a baby Harry could do that,
Lucius has got to figure that a teenaged Harry has a possibility of figuring
out what's going on and taking out a teenaged Voldemort.  This is why I
don't believe Lucius had ever planned for Voldemort/Riddle to try to kill
off Harry.

As for removing Dumbledore, Lucius might have had that in his calculations
as well, but I see this attack as being directed more at Arthur Weasley and
Muggle-borns in general.

Kelly Grosskreutz
http://www.idcnet.com/~ivanova