Ginny Haters/ a bit of Draco

[Steve]

No: HPFGUIDX 152220

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Magpie" <belviso at ...> wrote:
>
> Carol:
> > ...edited...
> >
> > It must have been the other way around; Draco told LV about
> > thepassageway and volunteered to fix the cabinet, after which 
> > Voldemort gave him the additional assignment, or ultimatum, 
> > of killing Dumbledore, with the DEs as back up.
> >
> > At least that's how the evidence reads to me.
> 
> 
> Magpie:
> I definitely see another sequence of events ... Voldemort gives
> Draco an assignment to kill Dumbledore. It's the only assignment
> anyone ever talks about throughout the books. ....
> 
> The Vanishing Cabinets are the thing that raise it to another
> level, and those were Draco's idea entirely. They are the thing 
> Draco thinks will let him surprise everyone by actually 
> succeeding.  He may have told Voldemort about them immediately
> or told him later, but we never see any hint that Voldemort has
> any plan involving DEs in Hogwarts except killing DD. 
> ...
> 
> ...edited...  There's no evidence at all of Draco coming up with
> a plan to get DEs into Hogwarts for some other reason, presenting 
> that to Voldemort and then having the killing added on as a 
> surprise. I think that would have come out with everything else
> on the Tower if it was important to his story.
> 
> The book's theme centers around killing ...edited... Voldemort's
> not passive.  He's the man with the plan.
> 
> -m

bboyminn:

You have an interesting take on this matter, Magpie, but I don't think
I can agree. Of course, I can't say that you are wrong, only that I
don't /think/ you are right.

Of course, Voldemort wants to kill Dumbledore; always has, always
will, but why hasn't he attempted or done it before? I say because a
vast majority of the time Dumbledore is hold up in the heavily
protected near impenitrable Hogwarts Castle. With no viable way to
attack Dumbledore, he, Voldemort, has been unable to act.

But Draco finds the loophole that Voldemort needs, he find a way to
enter the Castle undetected. I suspect that Draco, eager to win favor
and status with Voldemort, directly or indirectly, approached
Voldemort with his knowledge of how to get into the Castle. 

While deep down, Draco knew this could lead to killings, I think he
divorced himself from that idea. In otherwords, he was in denial about
the consequences of bringing this information to Voldemort. Like all
inpulsive shortsighted teens, Draco was not willing to look past the
short-term events and see the consequences of his actions.

Voldemort, being the evil, vindictive, spiteful, generally deranged
person that he is, compounded Draco's proposed task to a level that
Draco never imagined by telling him that Draco himself would
personally kill Dumbledore. I'm sure he presented this to Draco as
quite a treat. Now Draco can't deal with potential deaths in the
abstract and romantic way he had always viewed being a Death Eater.
Now 'death' is dropped on Draco like a bolt of lightening from the sky. 

It could have been at that time, though I suspect it came later when
Draco started to falter, that Voldemort compounded the pressure on
Draco by pointing out that he doesn't tolerate failure, and that if
Draco fails, it's not only his death at stake, but the death of his
family. 

I really can't see Voldemort initially telling Draco to kill
Dumbledore, then later Draco comes up with a plan. Why would he do
that? He couldn't possibly expect Draco to accomplish such an
impossible task. 

So, once again, I say that Voldemort has always wanted to kill
Dumbledore, but he has never acted because he never felt he had an
effective plan. Draco provides the seed from which Voldemort's plan
grows. 

In my view, it seems too irrational and pointless to start the plan by
initially telling Draco to kill Dumbledore. That is a plan with no
hope of success. Voldemort could just as easily picked someone at
random and told them to kill Dumbledore, but Dumbledore is not an easy
man to kill. All Voldemort would do with a plan like that is waste his
DE's like so much cannon fodder; waste the precious few DE's that he
has. It's pointless. Draco 'gateway' into the Castle has to be, in my
opinion, the seed that starts a plan to get Dumbledore. 

You are right, there is an element of vengence in Voldemort's plan.
Voldemort is using Draco as a way of punishing Draco, and tormenting
Draco's parent. But Voldemort also knows that if only the first part
of Draco's plan works, Voldemort will still have DE's as well as Snape
in the Castle. If they have Dumbledore in a vulnerable position then
any of them can perform the coup de grâce. So, Voldemort really only
needs Draco to half succeed in order for his plan to succeed. Further,
if the opportunity is there to kill Dumbledore, I think Voldemort can
afford to lose Snape as a spy. Reasonably with Dumbledore gone the
Resistance will fall apart.

So, while you do raise some interesting and valid points, it makes, to
my mind, far more sense to start with entrances into the castle and
build from there, rather than start with the wholly impossible task of
killing Dumbledore, and proceed from there. 

Of course, that's just one man's opinion, but it make much greater
sense to me.

bboyminn