Was Snape asleep? (was Re: What Came First: Task or Cabinet?...

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 157819

Carol earlier:
> Surely, if it's a suicide mission, [the DEs in the Tower's] orders
wouldn't be to let the boy kill Dumbledore.
> 
> Magpie:
> Why wouldn't they be?  Voldemort wants Draco to try first.  It's a
suicide mission because the idea of this kid killing Dumbledore is
ridiculous. Ultimately everyone's surprised to find the kid standing
over a wandless, weak Dumbledore.  It's not a suicide mission due to
the orders being "Tell Draco to kill Dumbledore, but make sure he
doesn't do it."   If Draco fails to kill Dumbledore and is still alive
and free he can be killed as  punishment any time (I'd imagine
Voldemort would do it along with his mother to make it more fun.)
> 
> You seem to think "suicide mission" refers to Draco thinking he's
supposed to kill DD but really he's ordered to fix the cabinets and
the DEs will show up and kill him and DD.  But the idea actually seems
to be that it's suicide because it's impossible and Draco will be
killed by somebody else.  Then there's the added fact that if he fails
as punishment he can be killed with  Narcissa at any time after that.

Carol responds:
I see. Thank you for finally explaining your interpretation. However,
as I've said, we don't know Voldemort's motivation, and I've never
denied Draco's character arc though I see a larger role for
Dumbledore's mercy than you seem to.

However, IMO, this business about the job being to kill Dumbledore by
any means possible is inaccurate. It's definitely about killing
Dumbldore with the DEs as backup, which is only possible if he fixes
the cabinets. The meas and the necklace are not part of the plan; they
are desperation measures, and once Snape warns him off using such
clumsy and amateurish measures and lets him know that he's already
suspected in the necklac incident, he stops. He can't do anything
about the mead, which doesn't appear until March 1, but he doesn't try
anything else of the sort. He concentrates on the cabinet. Why?
Because that's the plan. that's what Voldemort expects him to do.

And here's the canon. The "Sectumsempra" chapter takes place in May
(not April 21, as I said earlier, sorry), at least two months after
Ron's recovery and seven months after Katie's encounter with the
necklace. Katie has just returned to school. Draco has no reason to be
concerned with either of them. The cabinet is still broken after all
these months. Harry passes it on his way to hide the HBP's Potions
book, but of course, its importance doesn't register. (Nice ironic
touch, by the way. He's been trying all this time to get into the RoR
the way it looks when Draco is in there, and here he is, but he
doesn't know it. Lovely the way JKR works.) Draco is crying in the
bathroom. Here's what he says to Moaning Myrtle:

"No one can help me. I can't do it. . . . I can't. . . . It won't
work. . . and unless I do it soon . . . . he says he'll kill me" (HBP
Am. ed., italics in original).

Read those words any way you like to fit your theory. I read them as,
"I can't fix the cabinet and Voldemort says that if I don't fix it
soon, he'll kill me."

Voldemort's motives are open to interpretation. At the moment, he's
probably enjoying torturing the boy. But as I said, he very likely
wants to have his cake and eat it, too. Here's this possibly workable
plan with the cabinets, a chance to get DEs into Hogwarts and just
possibly succeed in killing Dumbledore once he's caught off guard and
wandless, and, if not, he can kill the boy for failing. (I do think
that the DE's orders were botched, whatever Voldemort's plan.)

But regardless of how we interpret Voldemort's motives, my point is
that Voldemort not only knows about Draco's cabinet plan, he's in on
it and is pressuring Draco to keep up his end of the bargain. Nothing
about killing Dumbledore by any means possible. I'm surprised that he
gave Draco till may before he started personally issuing death
threats. (I realize that I'm interpreting here, but there's a lot of
difference between crying hysterically in the bathroom and defying
Professor Snape. He was under pressure before, but it couldn't have
been death threats from Voldemort himself or he'd have broken a lot
sooner. Just IMO.)

Anyway, I really am dropping the subject now as I'm tired of the "more
canonical than thou" tone of this thread