Draco and Dumbledore/ Molly and Harry-Treated like Family

[a_svirn]

No: HPFGUIDX 160081

> Carol:
> How? I still don't understand what you expected them to do, 
especially
> given the restraints that the UV placed on Snape (and on DD, who
> couldn't confront Draco directly). 

a_svirn:
You built your argument on the fact that Snape was incapacitated by 
the vow. But that's hardly a consideration that should have weighted 
against danger to the students. While Dumbledore thought it was only 
his life in danger it was up to him to try to save Snape; once it 
became evident that students' lives are at stake it shouldn't have 
been an option any longer. 

> Carol:
We have Snape preventing Draco from
> engaging in any more amateurish stunts that randomly injure 
students
> (as opposed to the three people actually in danger from Draco's as 
yet
> unknown plan), 

a_svirn:
How do you estimate the degree of danger unknown? Draco could have 
planned the destruction of the entire Hogwarts population for all 
they know. 

> Carol:
the Order in Hogsmeade and (I think) Tonks tailing
> Harry in an Invisibility Cloak, locks on the gates, the known 
passages
> watched, no owl correspondence, the usual spy network in the Hogs 
Head
> and maybe the Three Broomsticks, students searched coming from and
> even going to Hogsmeade, an anti-flying charm, and perhaps extra
> protections we don't know about. And we have the Order actually 
inside
> Hogwarts when DD leaves for the Horcrux hunt. 

a_svirn:
And all of the measures above were pointless, weren't they? 
Precisely because they didn't know what Draco was up to. You can't 
prevent something you know nothing about. 

> Carol:
What more could they
> have done, short of arresting Draco, which they couldn't do without
> triggering the UV even if they didn't care about such matters as
> choices and civil rights.

a_svirn:
I've yet to know that launching a genuine investigation of murder 
attempts is an infringement of civil rights. As for his choices, he 
made them quite clear by carrying out two separate murder attempts 
and working assiduously on the third. 

> > a_svirn:
> > By no means. Dumbledore could console himself with this 
reflection 
> > until Katie almost died, but not after that. 
> 
> Carol:
> I disagree. That's why Snape cornered Draco and talked to him about
> amateurish tricks. It was too late to stop the mead, which Slughorn
> had already purchased, but there were no more blundering attempts 
that
> could go astray after that.

a_svirn:
No, he didn't blunder after that. He very efficiently smuggled half 
a dozen hit-men and a rabid werewolf into a castle full of children. 

> Carol:
> Which leads me to believe that he knew the confrontation with Draco
> was inevitable 

a_svirn:
Of course, it was inevitable since he did nothing that could really 
stop it. 

> Carol:
and that it was urgent to find this one Horcrux while
> DD was still alive. (Yes, it was a fake, but he didn't know that, 
and
> finding the fake Horcrux is a step toward finding the real one, 
not a
> dead end.) And the Order did protect the school. No students other
> than the DA five were in danger. 

a_svirn:
Every student in Hogwarts was in danger while death eaters ran free 
in the castle. And if it weren't for the DA members the phoenixes 
would have been overpowered. They already lost Bill when the junior 
league joined the fray. 

> Carol:
> Most of the Death Eaters were focused on getting Draco to kill
> Dumbledore. Those who were left behind were contained by the Order
> (having helpfully AKd one of their own people. I don't see that 
having
> Neville, Ron, and Ginny in the fight made much difference. 

a_svirn:
Numerical advantage? It tends to be a decisive factor in battles. 

> Carol:
If it
> weren't for Felix, they might have been dead. 

a_svirn:
True. Kudos goes to Harry, though, not to Dumbledore. 

> Carol:
And once Greyback came
> down from the tower, an Order member (Snape?) petrified him. 
Granted,
> he did mutilate Bill's face earlier, and I don't know why he wasn't
> stunned or petrified then. 

a_svirn:
For the same reason that death eaters weren't stopped at all – they 
were better fighters.