Malfoy, Diary and Dark? Sirius (was: what were Malfoys) (longish)

[macfotuk at yahoo.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 114398

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "justcarol67" 
<justcarol67 at y...> wrote:
> Mac wrote: 
> > > No, No, No, not his 'new' target: I'm sorry to KEEP 
belabouring 
> > this 
> > > point, BUT why oh why does everone seem to keep 
ignoring 'Dobby's 
> > > warning'? when it is so strongly a cannon point? Dobby *knew* 
the 
> > > plot was about HP from the start. *HOW* we don't know. Even 
so, 
> > > there just doesn't seem to be any other explanation of Dobby's 
> > > behaviour in CoS.
> > 
> > Geoff responded:
> > If I might take up Hannah's case and belabour a different point, 
Tom 
> > Riddle himself says 
> > 
> > "For many months now, my /new target/ has been - you."
> > 
> > (COS "The Heir of Slytherin"p.230 UK edition) - my emphasis.
> 
> Carol adds:
> Which seems to indicate that Lucius Malfoy's target (Harry, based 
on
> Dobby's protestations) was different from Tom Riddle's initial 
target
> (Muggleborns). Tom has switched from his original intention of
> "carrying on Salazar Slytherin's noble work" to confronting Harry,
> whom he has somehow learned was able to defeat his own future self.
> Although I originally thought that Lucius had somehow communicated
> with Tom through the diary, informing him about Harry, it appears 
from
> the quotation Geoff cites that Tom learned about Harry from Ginny.
> 
> That simplifies Tom's motivation but does nothing to clarify 
Malfoy's.
> Mac is right--Malfoy's plot apparently centered around Harry from 
the
> beginning. But how could it? How could he know what the diary 
would do
> if he hadn't written in it, and if he *had* written in it, why 
would
> he think that killing "mudbloods" had anything to do with Harry?
> 
> Yes, I know. Others have asked the same questions. All I'm saying 
is
> that we have two sets of motives here and the connection between 
them
> is anything but clear.
> 
> Carol, who is beginning to think that CoS has more plotholes than 
any
> other book in the series

Mac: There's something to be said for an earlier post (sorry for not 
being able to quote it) that Draco would have told Lucius about 
Quirrel!Mort - he was in the forest remember when the evil thing 
that drank unicorn blood was abroad and he may well have 
heard 'rumours' (not least from Hermione and/or Ron as originators, 
though not I'd suspect directly) about what Harry did in the chamber.

Lucius never misses a trick - he is far from stupid (though some 
things he's done seem so - e.g. he's part of the almost slapstick DE 
incompetence in the MoM at the end of OotP). I'm with Siriusly 
Snapey Susan that he has an agenda to bring back a Tom Riddle he 
might manipulate where he cannot do this with LV proper. But maybe 
he thinks Diary!Tom *CAN* take over Harry and Harry *WAS* his target 
(after all, Dobby thinks so). I don't think it's insignificant that 
Harry contains enough of LV (e.g. parselmouth skill) to be a perfect 
physical (i.e. his body) vessel for LV's reincarnation and he even 
looks like a young TMR to boot (dark hair etc). Perhaps 
LV's 'agenda' with James was to gain back a better body than what 
he'd ended up as (Snakey!Mort) after the measures (whatever *they* 
were) he'd taken to try to secure immortality. This all reminds me a 
little of the horror film Hellraiser if you've seen it.

Anyway, as I said in post 113632, if each book is in some way an 
attempt by LV to return (early books) and/or take revenge on Harry, 
then the TMR approach is one in a series. Book 1 - try to get him by 
possessing another wizard - doesn't work. 2. Try to get him by 
direct possession - doesn't work. We'll come back to book 3 later. 
Book 4 - get reincarnated but try to break the blood thing - doesn't 
work (all this btw highly influenced by better and more well argued 
posts by kneasy). Book 5 now I'm back use ALL my powers to try 
reposession - doesn't work. What is the other thing in book 5 that 
might explain the necessity for book 3? Apart from being a cracking 
book (in my opinion easily the best of the series so far), PoA 
introduces Sirius - an extremely ambiguous character but who we are 
supposed to love, like Harry (and James).

Harry's view of Sirius by the end of PoA and through much of GoF and 
OotP is of adulation. No wonder he's clutching at straws since he 
has NO-ONE, literally, to love or that he can consider really cares 
about him apart perhaps from DD, but then maybe not him even. So why 
must Sirius have an entire book (PoA) and then be so suppressed and 
even 'necessarily' killed? Where does it fit? 

Lots of characters in the books and lots of HPfGU posters read 
Sirius very differently than I had always done, namely they see him 
dark: I saw him misunderstood and good: He's James' best mate, 
Harry's godfather, even DD trusts him (or does he?) - flawed, 
reckless, but esentially good. 

Hmmmm .... Sirius comes from an arcehtypically pureblood family (how 
far can we escape our roots?), he *hates* (always has) Snape who, 
awful though he is to Harry (I think its an act as much as based in 
justifiable dislike) works tirelessly to protect Harry, he is 
accused again and again as a DE (but we ignore it/forgive Sirius - 
he's *always* got a 'reasonable' explanation - even comes across as 
persecuted), he breaks rules, is a loose canon, instigates terrible 
(if you think about it) and risky behaviour by the Marauders (how 
did DD possibly *not* know?) and, one way or another, knew enough 
about the Potter's demise to be on the spot straight after it 
happened (if only that late). Why does JKR say that in early drafts 
of GH a DE met Sirius there? Sirius is not stupid enough to be 
duped, so why is he associating with DE's? Especially at GH.

So, please, it must have been discussed. Point me towards posts that 
accuse Sirius of being much darker than the books let on at times. 
has anyone ever suggested he was a DE?: more the person that Stan 
Shunpike, Ernie Prang and that always ammbiguous character Fudge 
think he is (Voldy's right hand man, 2nd in command), as opposed to 
the noble 'wouldn't touch them with a 10-foot wand' saint we have so 
far been led to believe in.

I can give some quotes from the books which, if reinterpreted, could 
support a theory I am trying to get to work (but can't yet) that yes 
Sirius was a DE all along and, moreover, they (DE's) now hate him - 
the reason he was lured to MoM and killed there by them. He, not 
Snape, I can imagine (sorry Sirius fans), just might be the one who 
LV says 'has left me forever - he will be killed'. 

So, please help me to either redeem Sirius (I really really would 
like to be able to do this while understanding why he 'had' to die) 
or else drive nails into his coffin (of course he had to die). My 
chief problem is that while his being in hiding between PoA and the 
end of OotP makes sense if not only the MoM but also the DE's 
are 'after him' (as they killed his brother), his ability in this 
position to do anything useful at the end of GoF isn't clear to me, 
yet DD dispatches him to do *something* (and no I don't think it was 
just to open up Grimmauld Place as an OotP HQ, though it makes sense 
that he did that too). If it assumed that Sirius was once a 'major' 
DE, but betrayed LV at GH for his friend James, is there anything 
Sirius could do by the time of GoF to get back 'in' with the DE's, 
bearing in mind he *must* be killed at the end of OotP?