Fawkes possible absence (was: Magical animals in canon/ Fawkes and Snape)

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 166320


> Carol:
> Dumbledore's chief concern throughout the books has been Harry and/or
> the defeat of Voldemort, and, IMO, Fawkes's role reflects these
> concerns. Except for acting as a messenger when Mr. Weasley is injured
> and providing DD himself a means of escape from Fudge et al. in OoP,
> Fawkes has served primarily as a means of helping or saving Harry.

Pippin:
I think Fawkes may have been on messenger duty that night. Although
we tend to treat Spinner's End as if it were the opening chapter and
the plan to attack Hogwarts/punish Draco as if it were Voldemort's
main objective, it's really a sideshow. As the real opening chapter 
announces, Voldemort is trying to take over the Ministry. I believe 
Fawkes' mission may have been to  put the rest of the Order on 
high alert if there was an attack on Hogwarts, in case it turned out 
to be a decoy.

But the reminder that Fawkes was able to enter the Chamber of Secrets
and would have been useful in a place like the cave made me realize 
that he might  have entered the cave earlier. If Dumbledore 
sent Fawkes ahead to reconnoitre and then examined
his memories in the pensieve, he could have learned the things he
seems to be discovering so effortlessly, like the presence of the boat, the
location of the basin, and the possible nature of its contents.

 In fact,  since discovering the location of hiding places has so far
been  relatively riskfree compared to retrieving and destroying the
horcruxes themselves, wouldn't it have made sense for Dumbledore 
to survey *all* the potential hiding places  first, before attempting 
to extract  and destroy  the horcruxes within? That would mean
that his absences during the year were spent discovering *all*
the horcruxes.  Perhaps he went after the cave  first because it
seemed to be the one which would be most difficult for Harry 
to tackle without him.

If Fawkes has the locations of other horcruxes in his memory, then
Harry's task in the next book is going to be *much* more manageable
than we think it is.

Pippin