Cabinet FIRST!

[horridporrid03]

No: HPFGUIDX 157842

> >>Sydney:
> > This does indeed make sense and would make a good plot... 
> > but it's just plain not in the book.  Despite endless 
> > opportunities to have someone mention it.  It's not like 
> > this is a documentary, and JKR just didn't have the 
> > footage!  

> >>bboyminn:
> Tremendous amounts of the story are not in the book. The
> author is aways expecting us to fill in the backstory 
> with references she makes in the fore-story.

Betsy Hp:
Exactly.  And there is nothing - not one single solitary thing that 
points to the cabinets coming first. JKR gives us nothing to work 
with. 

> >>bboymin:
> In fact the story at ('at' not 'of') Spinners End is not in the   
> book. 
> Spinners End is NOT Draco and Voldemort face-to-face, and 
> it is not an eye witness account of the Draco/Voldemort 
> meeting, which means we can't actually know what happened 
> there. We are both (you and I) filling in the backstory 
> with assumptions made from our read of the fore-story. 

Betsy Hp:
Right.  And the reader doesn't know what task Draco has been 
assigned at that point in time.  But we do know when the story is 
done because Dumbledore explains it all.  And once again, there is 
nothing, nothing at all, to suggest that the cabinet is was started 
this whole ball rolling.  And there's certainly nothing to suggest 
that Draco approached Voldemort.

> >>bboyminn:
> Like it or not there is a huge off-page backstory here,
> so what is it? Draco and Voldemort had a meeting, how 
> and why did that come about?

Betsy Hp:
Well, yeah.  And those questions get answered at the end of the 
book.  As per usual.  Voldemort told Draco to kill Dumbledore with 
the thought that Draco would die in the attempt.  That's all we need 
to know.  There certainly isn't anything hinting that there's more 
to the story -- which if there were more to the story we'd get.  
(Witness Snape's tale.)

> >>bboyminn:
> Revenge for revenge sake falls short for me, Revenge as a nice    
> juicy bonus of a real plan to accomplish something makes more     
> sense.

Betsy Hp:
And that's a personal issue.  Voldemort isn't a satisfying villain 
for you.  So you're making up this AU plot.  But it *is* AU.  Just 
like folks unsatisfied with the Harry/Ginny story in HBP make up 
stories about Ginny still being possessed or something.  Which is 
fine.  But it's not canon.

> >>bboyminn:
> Yes, but I will remind you that you can't see the 
> painting either. You are taking as absolute fact 
> someone's fear that there might be an apple in a 
> painting that you can't personally see, and in a 
> painting that the 'fearful' person has never seen 
> in it's entirety.

Betsy Hp:
Which means HBP was a waste of a story that will be thrown out 
completely when JKR tells us what *really* happened in book 7.  
Which could happen, but I doubt it.  Dumbledore has summed up.  It's 
like the fat lady singing.  This part of Draco's story is done and 
we won't be revisiting it. Everything we need to know we've been 
told.  There is no fig. :-)

> >>Pippin:
> <snip>
> Bella teaches Draco occlumency. That must have taken place before 
> Draco's visit to Borgin and Burkes, and could be the reason Sydney 
> wants for Draco not going there sooner.
> <snip>

Betsy Hp:
Why?  Draco pretty much tells Borgin that he's doing this for 
Voldemort.  What would Draco be protecting?  Do we even have reason 
to suspect Borgin is a legilimens?

It seems like a really weak excuse for waiting so long to check that 
the second cabinet was still avalible and the first cabinet even 
fixable.

> >>Pippin:
> IMO, if Voldemort wanted the cabinet fixed, he would certainly have
> instructed Snape to help Draco fix it.
> <snip>

Betsy Hp:
Yes.  Combine that with the lack of big mission attached to the 
Death Eaters who actually invade Hogwarts and it goes a long way to 
suggesting the cabinets really weren't a big deal to Voldemort in 
the first place.

(I mean, come on.  It's not like Hogwarts is impregnable.  Anyone 
who's wished to has managed to find their way inside.)

Betsy Hp