What were the Malfoys DOING there?

[cubfanbudwoman]

No: HPFGUIDX 113027

Hannah: 
> The real question here is what Lucius Malfoy was hoping 
> to achieve with the diary.  I can think of three possibilities:
> 1. Restore LV to power through diary Tom
> 2. Kill off as many mudbloods as possible, and get the school shut 
> down.
> 3. Discredit Arthur Weasley, hopefully killing some mudbloods along 
> the way.
> 
> If 1 or 2 were his ultimate aims, it wouldn't have mattered which 
> student he used.  If 3 was his goal, he had to use Ginny (none of 
> the boys would have written in a diary).
> 
> I doubt that 1 was his aim.  Lucius doesn't seem to be suffering 
> from LV's absence, and if he really wanted him back, he could go 
> and find vapour!mort in Albania or wherever he is (Pettigew manages 
> it, so I'm sure Lucius could).
> 
> 2 is a possibility; death's of non-purebloods, removal of 
> Dumbledore, chance to get his way and have Draco sent to 
> Durmstrang.  OTOH, I doubt that shutting Hogwarts would really have 
> meant no school for British wizards ever again - it was really the 
> castle that was the problem.  All they need do is set up another 
> school elsewhere.  Inconvenient, and might take a year or two, but 
> sooner or later, muggle-borns would be setting off to another 
> school, without the fear of a monster, and maybe with DD as head 
> again.  
> 
> I think he was motivated by a combination of 2 and 3.  The timing 
> suuggests that killing off muggle-borns was not his only aim - why 
> not do it beforehand if so?  But at the start of CoS he has a 
> problem; Arthur Weasley's muggle protection act, and this is going 
> to affect the one thing that Lucius *really* cares about - 
> himself.  He realises he has an ideal opportunity to prevent the 
> muggle protection act, remove DD, and maybe even kill off some 
> children (you can see why it was so appealing).  
> 
> Also, he couldn't give the diary to just anyone.  It needed to be 
> someone who would be likely to write in a diary (probably female), 
> and someone young and vulnerable enough to pour out their heart and 
> not be suspicious of the diary, at least until it was too late.  
> This did restrict him somewhat.  He either always intended it for 
> Ginny, or at least had her on a shortlist of possible candidates to 
> be slipped the diary. DD's comments at the end of CoS suggest that 
> he believes discrediting Arthur Weasley to have been Lucius' aim.
> 
> The problem with motivation 3 is how he intended to let the WW know 
> it was Ginny.  Was he planning to set her up, perhaps by tipping 
> off a student (probably not Draco), or his favourite staff member, 
> Severus Snape?  He was leaving it a bit late, since there'd already 
> been 4 attacks by the time Ginny was taken, and they were already 
> threatening to shut the school. Maybe Lucius was waiting for DD to 
> get thrown out, or for there to actually be a death.  And then Tom 
> Riddle spoilt everything by taking matters into his own hands, and 
> making Ginny a victim.  I reckon if Riddle hadn't acted 
> unpredictably, and Ginny opened the chamber again to attack another 
> student, someone would have caught her in the act, or suddenly 
> found some evidence to prove it was her.  I've no idea how or what, 
> though.


SSSusan:
Ooooh, one of my favorite topics!  

I am convinced that #1 is not what was going on with Lucius.  I don't 
believe that he understood the mechanism of the diary well enough to 
have anticipated its ability to bring Tom back.  As support for this, 
I point to the graveyard scene of GoF, when Voldy was chastising his 
DEs for the little they did to help him in the previous years.  
Lucius was one of the ones chastised.  Yet he did NOT speak up and 
say anything along the lines of, "But, Master, remember what I did 
for you two years ago, when I tried to bring you back via the 
diary!"  The fact that he DIDN'T defend himself in this way makes me 
believe that his goal or goals were something other than restoring 
Voldy to power.

Personally, I'm going for #2, with the change from yours that Lucius 
simply wanted to bring about DD's OUSTER from Hogwarts.  I'm not sure 
that he really wanted to shut down Hogwarts, at least not beyond the 
time it would take to get DD kicked out.  Then he probably hoped that 
HE [or someone he hand-picked] would be called upon to take over at 
Hogwarts

My gut reaction is that he did intend to try to set up Ginny.  
Perhaps to discredit Arthur, perhaps because of the Weasley ties to 
Harry, perhaps because she was, as you say, young & impressionable.  
But I certainly can't prove it.

Siriusly Snapey Susan