What were the Malfoys DOING there?

[carolynwhite2]

No: HPFGUIDX 113620

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Mandy" <ExSlytherin at a...> 
wrote:

> 
> The question I have (which is unanswerable at this point with no 
> canon)is exactly what sort of conversation did Lucius Malfoy have 
> with LV via the diary? And just how much did LV reveal to Lucius 
> about the diary's power?  One the one hand if LV was that desperate 
> to come back he would have jumped on the chance to tell Lucius 
> everything, but then again keeping one of your more untrustworthy 
> followers in the dark can be a prudent decision.  Diary/LV may have 
> decided to use Lucius to get the diary in the hands of a 
> impressionable, young and easy controlled little girl to open the 
> Chamber of Secrets, and kept quite on the whole reserrection bit. 
> 
Carolyn:
I think you are right that Lucius only knew part of Tom's intentions, 
but how would Diary!Tom know that Lucius was potentially 
untrustworthy? Lucius was not even born when Tom created the diary. 
Tom would have to find a way of checking whether Lucius was a loyal 
supporter of Tom's future self, and whether anything he (L) said was 
true. It is possible, of course, that Tom was at school with Lucius' 
father, and the Malfoy family have always been long-term supporters 
of the Dark Arts, so he may have had that history to go on.

However, if Diary!Tom had had this conversation with Lucius, surely 
he would have discovered the key facts about Harry that way, and 
would not have had to extract most of the story from Ginny? 

'Well, you see, Ginny told me all about you, Harry.' said 
Riddle. 'Your whole fascinating history.'...'I knew I must find out 
more about you, talk to you, meet you if I could.' (Ch 17, CoS).

Ginny would only have known the hearsay story about Godric's Hollow; 
Lucius would have been in a far better position to speculate on 
exactly what might have happened/gone wrong at Godric's Hollow. Yet 
Tom seems to have needed to get the details from Harry.

This is also a problem if we speculate that Diary!Tom and LV have 
full knowledge of each other's memories, and are one and the same 
person through time. If that were the case (and it is hinted at by 
the 'odd red gleam' in Tom's eyes), then why does he say 'that 
killing Mudbloods doesn't matter to me any more.. for many months 
now, my new target has been - you.'? If he has the adult Voldie's 
memories available to him, he knows all about why Harry has to be not 
a new, but an enduring target.

I agree that Lucius must have had some inkling about the powers of 
the diary, or there would have been no point in the plot, and part of 
what he must have been told by Diary!Tom is that giving it to a 
student would enable a monster to be unleashed once again to kill 
mudbloods. DD makes it clear that he assumes this was Malfoy's 
intent, and Malfoy's reaction confirms it.

But if Lucius knew this much, why did he not take more steps to 
protect his son? Did he not know that the monster was a Basilisk? 
Draco evidently did not have any idea - 'father won't tell me 
anything...he says that it was all kept quiet and it'll look 
suspicious if I know too much about it.' (Ch 12). Did Lucius not have 
any concerns that his son might accidentally walk into the Basilisk? 
Being pure-blood would not have saved Draco if he had looked into its 
eyes.

Whilst Draco is not really worth losing much sleep over, I assume 
Lucius has the usual dynastic aspirations for his only son and heir. 
And he did do his best to have Hagrid sacked, and Buckbeak executed, 
just because Draco got a well-deserved nip on the arm in PoA.

So Lucius was partly duped, and may not have gone along with any of 
the plot at all if he had thought it would lead to LV's return. In 
turn, he perhaps partly duped Diary!Tom, and did not fully explain 
that LV was, to all intents and purposes, dead? Instead, all he asked 
for was a little light murder and mayhem to help wrest control of 
Hogwarts from DD? But surely Tom would have wanted to know what 
happened to him in the future, and found a way of extracting that 
from Malfoy, once he found a DE sympathiser writing to him?

Questions, questions.

Carolyn