What Came First: Task or Cabinet? - The Plan v1 & v2

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 157710

Julie:
> Great points, Anna. This is my first foray into the What Came First:
> Task or Cabinet?" debate also, and I do agree with you. I don't see
> any evidence that Voldemort is aware of or behind fixing the cabinet.
> If he knew of its existence, you'd think he would have assigned 
> someone a lot more reliable than Draco to work on it! 
> 
> And what about Draco's first two attempts on Dumbledore's life? If
> it is all about the cabinet, and getting the DEs in as his "back up",
> then why is Draco bothering to make these attempts on Dumbledore's
> life, and on his own no less. Wouldn't the ineptness of it all 
> annoy Voldemort a great deal? And we know Voldemort isn't very nice
> when he's annoyed (you know, as opposed to when he's not 
> annoyed...erm, yeah...) 
> 
> Anyway, if Voldemort knew about the cabinet all along, it seems 
> to me he'd have additional priorities besides killing Dumbledore,
> as this is his chance to get in and take over Hogwarts. (Which 
> begs the question why he sent a band of second-stringers through 
> cabinet with Draco, when he could have sent a truly powerful 
> force--in fact he could have gone himself--and actually taken over
> the school. Just another unanswerable question, I suppose ;-)
> 
> The faith version it seems to me is that Draco is making legitimate
> attempts on Dumbledore's life the first two times, albeit inept and
> half-hearted attempts. Clearly his main goal is to kill Dumbledore,
> which relegates the cabinet to second priority. *If* he can get it
> working, so much the better. If not, well, he still has to complete
> his real task and kill Dumbledore. Hence the sleeplessness, the 
> tears to Myrtle, etc. Not because he can't get the cabinet fixed,
> but because he is steadily realizing he can't kill Dumbledore, and
> even getting the cabinet fixed is not going to change that fact.
> It's simply going to force him finally into the face-to-face 
> situation against Dumbledore that he desperately tried to avoid
> in his previous and deliberately distanced attempts. (If he can't
> even make a decent go at it from an anonymous distance, how will
> he ever succeed when he has to look the man in the face? He won't,
> he knows it, and he's steadily falling apart because of it.)

Carol responds:

I hate to disagree with you, Julie, but it's clearly his plan to fix
the cabinet that's holding up matters and causing him to lose sleep,
not to mention wandering the hall at all hours (and provoking snape's
wrath), spending all the time in the RoR, having Polyjiced!Goyle warn
him when people are coming, etc. It's also fixing the cabinet that
causes him to whoop with joy and triumph when Trelawney accidentally
intrudes on him. The necklace and the mead were desperation efforts
when the cabinet fails to work, but from at least the confrontation
with Borkin in "Draco's Detour" (and probably before) through the
confrontation with Snape, the "plan" he's working on is clearly the
cabinet. It's just taking longer than he thought, as he tells Snape,
one of the few instances in which he levels with him. And he's still
working on it up to that last minute just before Harry and Dumbledore
leave.

Snape and Dumbledore know that Draco is planning to kill Dumbledore.
What they don't know is the crucial information that Draco knows a way
to get his DE back up into Hogwarts. And even as he stands facing
Dumbledore, he keeps repeating that he's going to kill Dumbledore. It
isn't fear of committing murder that's upsetting him. It's fear of
failure and being murdered, along with his family. Only when he stands
there on the tower talking to Dumbledore does he finally realize that
he doesn't want to kill the "stupid old man."

If it weren't for Draco's plan, of which he is so proud, the DEs would
never have gotten into Hogwarts, Draco would never have faced
Dumbledore, and Snape's UV would never have kicked in.

Carol, believing that it's all about the cabinet