Finding the Cave

[saraquel_omphale]

No: HPFGUIDX 136676

Jen wrote:
> I'm still puzzled how someone could locate the cave before
> Dumbledore.

Saraquel:
Me too, Jen. The whole cave incident is a mystery to me.  There are 
so many questions and too many possible scenarios.  But how anyone 
knew about the cave is really the most difficult one to come up with 
an explanation for.  I've posted a few ideas about the cave, most 
recently, it came up in my "slughorn – hiding more than meets the 
eye" post 136478.

I read through all your options, and really thought you covered it 
very well.  But even so, to me, none of them are quite satisfactory, 
which I think you think too (correct me if I'm wrong).

Three other explanations which are not entirely satisfactory either 
really need to be addressed, however. They are:

1) Voldemort planted the locket
2) Dumbledore planted the locket
3) The locket Harry found at Dumbledore's side was not the locket 
which came from the cave.  

If any of these are true, we do not need to explain how, a young and 
apparently unimpressive wizard (no-one has ever mentioned him except 
Sirius) managed to 1) find the cave and 2) find how to get to the 
centre of the lake and steal the Horcrux.  The problem with this 
ideas, is finding any justification for them.  Oh well – here goes – 
don't expect anything except ramblings which eventually stumble to a 
blibbering humdinger of a halt. It may just be that we can eliminate 
them as possibilities ;-)

1) Voldemort planted the locket: Well he might of planted it as a 
decoy for anyone who cottoned on to his Horcruxes.  Lure them to a 
place they would think was important to him, then get them to join 
the inferi army and pretend RAB got there first.  Hmmmm, no, I don't 
think that one works.  Any other ideas why Voldemort might plant a 
fake!Horcrux?

2) Dumbledore planted the locket. Funnily enough, this one did occur 
to me really early on.  There was and still is, something that I 
can't put my finger on, about the cave scene being not quite right.  
Although I'm really doubtful that DD planted the locket, I did 
originally wonder if the whole cave scene was in fact a test of 
Harry by DD to see just how far he could trust him to follow orders. 
Did DD want to know if Harry would follow his orders, even if DD was 
going to die because of them.

Assuming that DD *didn't* set this up and DD believed that LV had, 
then before DD drank that potion, he did not know what was going to 
happen.  Although DD felt sure that he wouldn't die immediately, he 
pretty well knew he was going to be incapacitated and that there 
could be no guarantee that they would get out of the cave alive.  
Therefore, this could have been the last moment he was lucidly with 
Harry, *ever*.  There was no apparent time pressure, nothing was 
going to kick off if DD didn't drink the potion immediately, yet he 
almost hurried into doing it.  He didn't take stock, or use that 
time to say any famous last words, or impart important information 
to Harry.  If he suspected he was going to die, which let's face it, 
he should have taken into account – otherwise, he's supremely 
arrogant – then wouldn't he have wanted to pass on everything he 
knew?  Wouldn't he have wanted to suggest to Harry the best way to 
bump off Voldemort, in the event of finding and destroying all the 
Horcruxes?  Wouldn't he have mentioned how his hand got duffed up? 
But no – he just drinks the potion. Or was it just that JKR didn't 
want to give future bits of the plot away ;-) So did DD know what 
was in the potion because he had set it up?

Another, lesser thing that's iffy for me, is the description of the 
location of the cave, with it's shear cliff face.  Tom took those 
kids there before he had any training as a wizard.  I know that he 
had discovered his talent and was using it, and can believe he got 
himself down the cliff, but brought 2 kids with him?  So that was 
the first thing that made me uneasy about the cave.

However, there is plenty of stuff to the contrary to imply that DD 
genuinely believed that this was Voldemort's hiding place.  For 
instance, why if it was just a training exercise, would he have made 
a point of adding the touch about the crudity of the archway.  Also, 
if DD had set it up as a training exercise, what was in the potion?  
It definitely had an effect.  Also, there is no way that DD would 
use inferi in any way whatsoever.

So on the whole, I can't think that DD planted the locket and set up 
the cave scene.

3) The locket Harry found is not the locket which came from the 
cave.  Now, there is some sort of case that can be made for this. I 
posted on this very early on and then decided that it was too off 
the wall.  But the original post is 132910, which basically says 
that DD and Harry recovered the real Horcrux!Locket from the cave, 
but Aberforth planted the Fake!Locket beside Dumbledore's body for 
Harry to find.  Note that Harry did not really register which locket 
it was in the basin at the cave.  According to my previous theory, 
this would mean that the Horcrux!locket is still in Draught-of-
living-death-potioned!Dumbledore's pocket inside his tomb – yes I 
know, but I'm still rather fond of that theory 
..

If, as we are speculating, that the Horcrux!Locket was in the cave, 
then what is my explanation for Aberforth planting the fake!locket.  
Well the justification for Aberforth having the locket from Grimauld 
Place, which in this scenario, is *not* the Horcrux!locket, but the 
Fake!Locket runs something like this:

>From message 135132 – (which argues something completely different 
btw, so don't get confused here, I'm just quoting this bit about why 
I think Aberforth has a locket.)
"I've seen speculation that Mung and Snape/Draco had the Grimauld 
Place locket.  Imo Aberforth has it.  In UK ed ch12 p230 when Harry 
et al come across Mung outside the Three Broomsticks, it says there 
were two people,"one was very tall and thin; squinting through his 
rain-washed glasses Harry recognised the barman who worked in the 
other Hogsmeade pub, the Hog's Head.  As Harry, Ron and Hermione 
drew closer, the barman drew his cloak more tightly around his neck 
and walked away, leaving the shorter man to fumble with something in 
his arms."

<snip strong evidence that we know the barman at the Hogs Head is 
Aberforth, DDs brother>

So what was Mundungus doing with Aberforth outside the Three 
Broomsticks?" <quote ends here> Especially as according to Lupin or 
Sirius, Mung was banned from the Hogs Head 20 years ago and that's 
why he was dressed as a witch to spy on the DA recruitment meeting.

So there is a strong possibility that Aberforth has the Grimauld 
Place locket which could have been made by Regulus in preparation 
for going to destroy a Horcrux.  The Horcrux he was intending to 
destroy was not necessarily the Locket Horcrux, it could have been 
one of the other Horcruxes that Voldemort made and hid.  Maybe 
Regulus just used a locket to contain his message.  After all, even 
if Regulus could have found the cave, how did he know that the 
Horcrux was going to be a locket?

Why Aberforth would place the locket next to DDs body, is another 
question entirely and to be honest with you, I'm written out for the 
moment.  Time to go.  Tell me what you think.

Saraquel