[HPforGrownups] Re: Cabinet FIRST! One last time. (Long--sorry!)

[Magpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 157825


> Pippin:
> The trouble is, if Voldemort just told Draco to kill Dumbledore in some
> way and left the means up to him, then Draco would have come up with
> some half-baked plan like the necklace and gotten himself caught (and
> killed, as Voldemort would expect) immediately.

Magpie:
Why would Draco have done that?  (Especially when Canon, imo, suggets he 
doesn't.)  The Cabinets are something Draco realized were a secret way into 
the castle when Montague told the story, so why doesn't it follow that he 
thought to use that in his plan to kill DD?  That's the way I thought he 
presented it in the Tower.

Pippin:
> Fixing the cabinets is ideal for Voldemort's purposes, assuming that
> he thinks it can't be done. Draco will struggle forever, which means
> Voldemort can keep the game going as long as he likes, or end it
> whenever he chooses. It isn't in Draco's hands at all.

Magpie:
Which gets back to the main point of the Cabinet First theory, which is to 
always take as much out of Draco's hands as possible and make Voldemort's 
strategic planning dominate events. But to me this is the opposite of what 
the story is suggesting.  I think the Cabinets need to be Draco's thing 
because they are what throws all the adults for a loop.  They are also the 
thing that gives Draco confidence when he completes them--he is not able to 
do what Voldemort wants him to do, but he completed an impressive feat with 
this plan that was all his.  I think that's why Dumbledore praises him for 
that.  He was the one who realized what Montague's story meant, he was the 
one using it to his own ends, he was the one fixing it.  If you give that to 
Voldemort it becomes less about Draco thinking of himself as an individual 
with something to offer and a more about Draco being able to fulfill some of 
Voldemort's impossible orders, just not all.  I believe, as I said, that 
this is why Dumbledore instinctively praises the Cabinet plan, because it's 
a great way of driving home to Draco that he's worth something outside of 
being able to fulfill Voldemort's wishes.

-m