Lucius & the diary (was: Voldemort's recruitment)

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 128929

Tonks wrote:
<snip>
> This whole thing about LM having Tom Riddles "old things" is quite a 
> mystery to me. <snip> It would seem that unlike all the 
> other DE'er including LM's very own sister-in-law,  LM knows that LV 
> and TR are the same.  Or does he?  How can this be?  <snip> Didn't
the diary have Tom's name on it??  
> Was LM LV's right hand man and that is how he got everything.  And 
> even then how did he get these things and when?  And how does LM 
> know what the diary will do?  Has he tried to use it?  Surely he 
> knows better than to do that if he doesn't know what it will do. Did 
> LV tell him?  Why?  Wouldn't LV not want anyone to know that he was 
> Tom? And Dobby must have overheard something more than just LM and 
> NM talking.  There are just too many unanswered questions here.
<snip> What did LM know or not know? 
> What did he expect to happen? And the second question would depend 
> on the answer to question 1.  I don't think that we can really know 
> anything for sure.  
> 
> Let's look at the facts and questions:
> 1. Ministry raids and ML must get rid of things that would 
> be "dangerous" to him if found.  (I forgot if it would be because he 
> had items of "dark magic", or LV things.  Why was the ministry 
> raiding when they did not think that LV was around??  Who initiated 
> the raids and why? )
> 2. Dobby knows something.  We really don't know what he knows, how 
> he found it out and if he really came on his own.  It seems that he 
> came on his own, but why would he do something so out of character 
> for a house elf?
> 3.  LM sells some items at Knockturn Alley.  He still has the diary 
> when he meets the Weasley's at the bookstore.  Now we do not really 
> know what LM planned to do with the diary. It could be that giving 
> it to Ginny was done on the spur of the moment out of anger.  Maybe 
> he only intended to have an item of Dark Magic show up in the 
> Weasley home where Arthur would get in trouble. Maybe LM didn't know 
> it would end up at school.  Maybe only Dobby knew, sort of a seer 
> himself. 
> 
> I just can't see a direct cause and effect here.  Granted it has 
> been awhile since I read the 2nd. book.  I did see the "other media" 
> last week, but I know that it doesn't always match the book.  There 
> just seems to be some gapping holes in this whole "plot".  Holes 
> that JKR hopes that we will fill in with the wrong information I am 
> sure.  
> 
> Again some part of the "plot" that we as a group have explored just 
> don't fit quite right with other information such as Bella not 
> knowing.  Yes, she was in Askaban until book 5, but even so it still 
> seems strange. LM would have had to get the stuff just after LV 
> turned to vapor and when Bella went to prison and what?...   figured 
> out that LV was Tom then?  I just can't figure it all out.  How 
> would LM have known what the diary would do?  Just too many loose 
> ends here. ???????????


Carol responds:
I've been asking myself some very similar questions. Clearly Lucius
knew that the diary belonged to Tom Riddle (it did have his name on
it), and I think that as a Slytherin at Hogwarts he would have learned
about his house's most illustrious member, who had been Head Boy and
had earned a special award for (ostensibly) freeing the school from a
monster. It's quite possible, and I think quite probable, that he knew
a lot more--that the real monster was a basilisk, that Tom Riddle was
a Parselmouth who controlled it, and that Tom was the Heir of
Slytherin who had taken on himself the duty of continuing Salazar
Slytherin's "noble work" (ridding Hogwarts of Muggleborns). I think he
knew that Tom's diary was full of Dark Magic and that it was the key
to releasing the basilisk again. I also think he knew that Tom Riddle
and Lord Voldemort were one and the same.

How could Malfoy know all this? My hypothesis is that Lucius Malfoy's
father, who would have been about Tom Riddle's age and a Slytherin,
was one of the close friends to whom Tom revealed his new name and his
heritage as Heir of Slytherin. These friends would have known that Tom
was releasing the basilisk, and being his devoted followers and
believers in the pureblood ethic, would have approved of what he was
doing. Later, before Tom disappeared to consort with "the worst of our
kind" to learn the secrets of immortality, I think he left his diary
(and possibly most of his worldly possessions except his wand) with
his friend Malfoy, the future father of Lucius. 

I'm guessing that Malfoy Sr. was among the first to become a Death
Eater after Voldemort returned and that he was one of the few who knew
Voldemort's true identity (everything except Voldemort's status as a
halfblood who had murdered his Muggle relatives at seventeen).
Probably Malfoy Sr. revealed these secrets to young Lucius at some
point, so when Malfoy Sr. was killed or died in Azkaban some time
during Voldemort's eleven-year-reign of terror or soon afterwards (he
doesn't seem to be alive at the time of CoS), Lucius had a good idea
of what he was inheriting. Quite possibly he wrote in the diary as
Harry did and was told how it could be used to open the Chamber of
Secrets and release the monster to kill Muggleborns. (Even Draco knew
that the Chamber had been opened fifty years before, and it was Lucius
who told him.) Whether he also knew that it could be used to resurrect
Voldemort in the form of a teenage boy is harder to determine. It
would depend on how much Tom had told his Hogwarts friends and how
much Diary!Tom confided to Lucius if he did indeed write in the diary. 

Why use the diary at the beginning of Harry's second year? Because the
MoM is snooping around and Lucius has to get rid of his Dark
artifacts--but this one he wants to use rather than sell. Voldemort is
stirring in the WW and trying to make a comeback by possessing people:
Why not aid him by striking a blow against his worst enemies, the old
Muggle-lover and the Potter boy--and just possibly providing Voldemort
with his own former self to house his seemingly immortal spirit? 

Anyway, I seriously doubt that Lucius's chief motive was to get the
Weasleys into trouble; it was just a felicitous little coincidence
that Ginny Weasley happened to be on hand to be the recipient of the
diary. The scenes with Dobby and Draco strongly suggest that Lucius 
wanted to kill or injure Muggleborns. He almost certainly wanted to
disgrace Dumbledore and engineer his removal. He also seems to have
wanted to hurt Harry, though how that was possible if the basilisk
killed only Muggleborns is hard to say. Maybe he thought that with
Diary!Tom controlling the monster, it would change its target once Tom
knew who Harry was and that he was in the school. And I don't rule out
a desire on Lucius' part to bring Voldemort back to life as a teenage
boy. If Vapormort were to possess his own teenage body, he would be
twice as powerful as before, not to mention youthful and beautiful
instead of snakelike--and indebted to his loyal servant, Lucius Malfoy
for this glorious state of affairs. (So, *if* that's the case, why did
Malfoy remain quiet in the graveyard about his attempt to restore
Voldemort through the diary? Because his grand plan failed and instead
of gratitude, he would have been the recipient of Voldemort's wrath
for botching the job. You don't boast about your failures to a tyrant.)

Again, all we know is that the diary had Tom Riddle's name on it;
Lucius told Draco that the Chamber of Secrets had been opened fifty
years earlier and that a Muggleborn died; Dobby knew that terrible
things were about to happen at Hogwarts and knew or feared that Harry
was in danger; Dobby also knew that Tom Riddle and Lord Voldemort were
the same person. Dobby's source of information was the Dark wizards
(plural) who were his owners (i.e., Lucius and Narcissa); what he
knew, they knew.

How could Lucius know that Riddle was Voldemort and that he had opened
the Chamber of Secrets fifty years ago, releasing the monster that
killed the Muggleborns, and that the diary would set the whole process
in motion again? From his DE father, Riddle's friend and the first
keeper of the diary, and from the diary itself. Or that's what makes
sense to me.

Carol