Draco's task (For Magpie and those who agree with her)

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 157723

Rather than quoting from the Draco thread, which has become rather
tangled lately, I'd like to ask Magpie and those who agree with her a
question. Do you think that Voldemort never intended for Dumbledore to
die and that his only intention was to kill Draco or have the DEs kill
him for failing to kill DD? Or do you think that LV has such a limited
understanding of DD that he assumed that DD would kill the boy?

I think, regardless of whether Draco went to LV or LV came to him,
that the Vanishing Cabinet plot was in place from the beginning. Draco
would fix the cabinet, allowing the DEs into Hogwarts. The DEs would
set off the Dark Mark over the Astronomy Tower, fight off or kill
anyone who got in the way, and force Draco to do the task. (Unknown to
him, at first, they'd kill him if he failed.) They are acting under
Voldemort's orders, and I think those orders have been in place since
the beginning. I also think that having Fenrir Greyback check up on
Borgin is part of the plan. How else ensure that Borgin does his part?
And since Draco, despite his bluster, has no authority over Greyback,
it must be LV who sends him.

Draco buys the Peruvian Darkness Powder in Diagon Alley on the same
day as the confrontation with Borgin. To me, that indicates that his
plan is already in place and the DEs are aware of it. The pressure on
Draco begins when he hasn't finished his seemingly minor repair job
before the Christmas holiday (he panics and resorts to the mead and
necklace ideas) and intensifies throughout the year, with death
threats to his family by the time that Harry finds him crying in the
bathroom.

My point is that surely Voldemort knows about the cabinet and expects
Draco to repair it so that he can get his DEs into Hogwarts to set the
trap. Also, even though he certainly expects Draco to fail to kill DD
once they're face to face, the DEs are there to ensure that both Draco
and Dumbledore will die. And failing that, there's Snape, who'd
"expected to do it in the end," whether or not LV knows about the
Unbreakable Vow.

I get the idea that people think LV has just sent in his goon squad
and expected all of them to fail, with Dumbledore winning the day. I
don't think that was the plan. For one thing, Brutal-Face (Yaxley?),
at least, is not an idiot, and he expects the others to follow orders.
And it's clear that they *do* have orders. And Fenrir Greyback is evil
to the core. He'd love to kill DD himself if he has the chance.
Granted, they didn't expect to find a Dumbledore weakened and perhaps
dying from a potion, but they did expect Draco to surprise him and
deprive him of his wand. They would be there as back up to make sure
he did the job, sealing off the stairs to be sure they weren't
followed. And they'd kill both the boy and the wandless Dumbledore.
It's quite possible that LV didn't expect them to get back out again,
but I think he did expect them to do their job.

So the job was always to kill Dumbledore, but the *means* was getting
the DEs into the castle as back up. If Draco failed, fine; he would
die, too, and Lucius would be punished. But one way or the other, DD
was supposed to die.

Carol, wondering if this is how Magpie and others see it, and if not,
why not