[HPforGrownups] LV: Where'd He Go and How did Frank Know "Something"

[Magda Grantwich]

No: HPFGUIDX 150935

> Rebecca wrote: re:the Longbottoms
> but not to kill Neville. They  specifically were the ones the
> DE's wanted.
> (Another question: who the  hell *sent them* if LV was MIA? Don't
> blame me for asking, blame Rowling  for her site's answer to the 
> question of the choice.)
>


Some people have ruled out Lucius Malfoy but I do think it was him
for the following reasons:

1.  Assuming Bellatrix was the leader of the hit-squad, it would have
had to be someone whose authority to give orders she recognized or
whose opinion she respected.  Otherwise she wouldn't have done it. 
Can you see Bellatrix taking orders from non-U wizards, pureblood or
not?  Not if she imbibed the "Blacks are practically royalty" ethos
that Sirius ascribed to his family.  

Lucius was her brother-in-law, someone she was in contact with
regularly and someone who she either respected enough to obey with a
minimum of fuss or someone who knew how to manipulate her to get her
to do what he wanted (probably a combination of both).  

2.  The motives of the hit-squad were likely not the motives of the
individual who sent them.  Bellatrix et all thought they were finding
out info about their beloved Leader missing in action; the sender was
more interested in causing a crisis that would stymie the MoM in its
efforts to clean-up the DE's.  I believe Red Hen's theory that the
attack was an effort to discredit Barty Crouch Sr. who was about to
unleash a *ahem* witch-hunt (couldn't resist the pun; so many layers
of irony!) against Voldemort's supporters.  Crouch Sr. was a
megalomaniac dictator who wanted to exterminate Voldemortism root and
branch.  Revealing his son as a DE would cripple his moral authority
and and ensure that he wouldn't become Minister of Magic.  Thus
someone more pliable would get the job, someone who might be
persuaded that it was more important to get the WW back to normal
rather than drag out the unpleasantness for the years it would take
to prosecute everyone.  No way would Barty Crouch Sr. have let so
many people successfully claim they were imperiused.

3.  Lucius Malfoy is the one DE we've seen who seems capable of
harbouring personal ambitions under the cloak of his loyalty to
Voldemort.  Once the unthinkable happened and Voldemort was
apparently destroyed, I think Lucius was quick enough to see the
possibilities for his own interests in the aftermath.  I'm betting
that the die-hard older DE's went to Azkaban (and were proud to do
so, for the cause) while Lucius worked hard to save as many of his
own friends and contemporaries as possible from incarceration.  The
older loyalists probably sneered at the imperius defense but they
sneered from the wrong side of the prison walls.  Thus did
Voldemort's organization turn into a smaller but still potent Malfoy
organization within a short period of time.  

So, in summary, Lucius Malfoy is the logical instigator of the attack
on the Longbottoms since IMO the purpose wasn't to find out where
Voldemort was (that was only the pretext).  The true purpose was to
stop the MOM and Barty Crouch Sr. from hunting down every DE and
sympathizer in the WW.  And it worked perfectly.

Magda (who thinks Lucius Malfoy was quite dismayed at the return of
Voldemort in the graveyard in GOF)

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