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

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 157734

Carol:
> 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?

Magpie:
I believe Snape's line "He expects me to do it in the end" in the 
context of the scene and what happens could mean that Snape is 
saying he believes Voldemort expects Snape to kill Dumbledore "in 
the end."  Meaning whenever LV makes his actual plan to kill 
Dumbledore, he means for Snape to be the one to do it.  Could be 
years from now.

I think within this story LV's intention, based on things said by 
Narcissa, Snape, Dumbledore, Draco and perhaps some others, is that 
Voldemort's goal here is for Draco to die either by being killed 
somehow in trying to kill Dumbledore (by someone on the other side, 
or as the result of someone defending themselves against him--could 
be Dumbledore whose compassion I think may be incomprehensible to 
LV), or, if that doesn't happen, by Voldemort or a DE as 
punishment.  

Carol:> 
> 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.)

Magpie:
I think the Cabinet plan is in place in Draco's head in Draco's 
Detour for sure, where he acts on it, and at some point before that, 
and that the method of killing DD was left up to Draco, his choice 
being to use the Cabinets for back-up.  

Carol:
 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.

Magpie:
Draco's having the authority to have Fenrir checking on the Cabinet 
means that someone is enforcing that for him, yes.  But it doesn't 
necessarily mean that LV is instructing DEs to get the Cabinet fixed 
etc. I can think of different scenarios where Draco is working far 
more independently under a more distant protection from LV.

Carol: 
> Draco buys the Peruvian Darkness Powder in Diagon Alley on the same
> day as the confrontation with Borgin. 

Magpie:
I don't recall that being made clear.  Fred and George introduce the 
powder to Harry in their store, and Malfoy walks past their store to 
Borgin's.  But regardless, he is stocking up on special "school 
supplies" for the year.:-)  And the powder has uses other than its 
final one as well--it's what he uses when Trelawney comes into the 
RoR.

Carol:
To me, that indicates that his
> plan is already in place and the DEs are aware of it.

Magpie:
Clearly he is moving on his plan and he's got other people involved 
already too.  But I don't know how much they know. We know that 
Snape, for instance, is aware of the plan to kill DD and that he 
tries to get Draco to tell him what he's up to.  If Draco went to 
Bellatrix with more specifics she might arrange for back up with 
Voldemort's blessing--that might even be what Draco means by Fenrir 
being a family friend.

Carol:
 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.

Magpie:
Draco has not yet fixed the Cabinet by--is it October, the first 
Hogsmeade weekend?--and he puts the necklace plan into motion.  The 
mead, too, must be put into motion before Christmas.  We see Draco 
deteriorating, Harry notices he looks pale and ill at the Xmas party 
(post-Katie) and thin, like Tonks, in the Spring some time after 
Ron's birthday (post-Ron). He is exclusively concentrating on the 
Cabinet since pre-Xmas and getting more panicked and desperate as 
the Cabinet isn't getting fixed. I think given the themes of the 
story and the ultimate scene on the Tower, however, that the 
attempted murders (and his own near-death) are also a factor.  
Dumbledore's pointing out that Draco's "heart wasn't in" the 
attempted murders indicates, imo, an awakening awareness that all 
this isn't for him that he isn't able to acknowledge until the last 
scene.  But his worries about failure, imo, have significance beyond 
the practical, the realization that he's not a killer more painfully 
arrived at and struggled with.  That's why his panic doesn't lead 
him to try other attempts at murder.  The Cabinet plot is great 
because it gives him a way of telling himself he's working towards 
killing DD without having to actually kill anyone else.  

Carol:> 
> 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.

Magpie:
Or Draco could screw up at any time during the year and be carted 
off or killed. If Dumbledore gets killed LV would of course be fine 
with that, but I don't think he's counting on Dumbledore being dead 
as a result of this caper.  If Snape is expected to do it as part of 
the Cabinet plot I think LV would tell him about it. He doesn't need 
the Cabinets to get that particular assassin candidate inside 
Hogwarts. It also undercuts Snape's UV being his own decision if 
doing it for Draco is Voldemort's orders anyway.

Carol:> 
> 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. 

Magpie:
I don't think intentionally sacrificing DEs to Dumbledore was a 
priority, no.  The orders repeated throughout the scene are that 
Draco's got to do it, with DEs thinking it's important to stop 
anyone who tries to do it instead.  Snape knows this much in 
Spinner's End, and is able to take over ordering them around when he 
arrives.

Carol:
> 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. 

Magpie:
That's what I think is more important in terms of the story, 
thematically.  He's underestimated a kid again, in such a way as to 
give one a little window of opportunity to find his own strength and 
break free of his clutches-like making Harry duel with him in GoF. 

Carol: 
> 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.

Magpie:
Right.  The job was always to kill Dumbledore, and the means that 
Draco was getting DEs into the castle.  However, Draco could have 
done it any other way.  He could have gotten caught poisoning 
someone with mead early in the year and carted off to jail and 
hopefully murdered and that would be that.  So, imo, the plan to 
kill Dumbledore by using Draco was primarily about revenge against 
the Malfoys.  If finding out about the Cabinet plot was the genesis 
of the plan instead because LV is a better strategist, I think would 
continue being a better strategist and make the Cabinet a priority 
for him.  It's a priority for Draco for his own reasons, but 
Dumbledore's not sending any polyjuiced people to help him fix it, 
or letting Snape in on it.  And if he means Snape to kill Dumbledore 
in the end (Snape's line could be intentionally ambiguous and refer 
to Snape saying Dumbledore means him to kill him in the end as 
well), he's already in the castle and could kill him without use of 
any Cabinet.  

And of course, I also think that Draco's going to LV first is a huge 
thing for him to be dealing with as part of his arc and would 
therefore be in the text.  Draco has a well-supported arc starting 
with the order flung at him by LV possibly on a whim but which 
becomes the focus of Draco's life.  It just seems that giving 
Voldemort a good plan starts leading into destroying the more 
important story. 

-m