LV's bigger plan (was:Fawkes possible absence)

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 166334

Carol earlier:
> > In SS/PS, Quirrel!mort is defeated, not by Harry, who would have
died if it weren't for DD's timely arrival, but by the spell DD has
put on the Mirror of Erised preventing anyone who wants to *use* the
stone from getting it out of the mirror.
> <snip>
> 
Dana responded:
> Granted Dumbledore saved him in PS/SS but he did still face LV alone
and to get to Harry, Dumbledore was not a real obstacle.  Besides,
Harry was not LV's main focus when Harry walked in on him. But give
the kid some credit will you? ;) Quirell not being able to touch him
was good to hold him off enough for help to arrive. The kid was 11
years old.

Carol again:
LOL. Of course, I give Harry credit (even though he thought he was
going after Snape, not Quirrell!mort, and Quirrell!mort would have
been stopped by the mirror if HRH hadn't interfered). I also give Ron
and Hermione credit for their parts; Harry could not have gone through
to the last chamber without them. But my point is that he need not
have gone there at all and that without Dumbledore, he would not have
survived. (the blood protection is not Harry's own doing; it's the
result of his mother's sacrifice.) You were, I thought, implying that
Harry doesn't need Dumbledore, and I'm disputing that.)
> 
Carol earlier:
> > In CoS, Fawkes arrives with the Sorting Hat containing the Sword
of Gryffindor because of the protections Dumbledore has set up: "Help
> will always be given at Hogwarts to those who ask for it" (CoS Am.
ed.264)
> <snip>
> 
Dana:
> In CoS he gets help from Fawkes, but it was Harry who called Fawkes
to him by showing true loyalty to DD.  

Carol:
And if it weren't for Dumbledore, Fawkes wouldn't have come. He
wouldn't even be at Hogwarts. He's part of the protections that
Dumbledore set up, probably anticipating that Harry would try to enter
the CoS.

Dana:
He could get the sword because he is a true Gryffindor, not because DD
sent it to him. 

Carol:
I disagree. Yes, he could pull it out because he's s atrue Gryffindor,
but how do you think that the sword got into the hat in the first
place, or that Fawkes knew to bring it with him? It has to be part of
the protections that DD set up: "Help will always be given at Hogwarts
to those who ask for it."  The help didn't just happen. DD has to have
arranged it, and that's what he was telling HRH before he left.

Dana:
<snip>
> The help that Harry was given is still there and is not dependent on
a living DD or even a present one as we see in CoS.

Carol:
But it *is* dependent on DD's having set it up in the first place. I
can think of no other reason for DD's words to HRH when he saw them
under the Invisibility Cloak, and no other way that the particular
help he needed--Fawkes and the Sword of Gryffindor--happened to
magically arrive. It was certainly not *Harry-s* doing.

> Carol:
> > In GoF, admittedly, Harry fights Voldemort alone, but it's the
Phoenix-feather wand core that causes the Priori Incantatem effect
> > and saves his life, so in a sense Fawkes, an extension of
> > Dumbledore,keeps Harry alive.
> <snip>
> 
> Dana:
> And getting Harry there was not a real problem, either. Harry keeps
Harry alive by holding on even if he is inspired by Fawkes. It is also
he who gets himself back to Hogwarts. Having help does not cancel out
Harry's own efforts in staying alive. He was brave enough to even try
to face LV head on.

Carol responds:
I never said that having help cancels out Harry's efforts. (I actually
prefer his having help and being to some extent part of a team.) Nor
am I questioning his bravery. I'm just saying that he *did* have help,
and a large part of it came from Dumbledore (and Ron and Hermione in
SS/PS and CoS). There's also the matter of Harry's blood protection,
his ability to speak Parseltongue, and a large share of luck. (We
should even credit Barty Jr., without whom Harry would never have made
it through the TWT.) Yes, Harry always faces LV alone, but he always
has help to get there, and he wouldn't even be alive to make the
attempt if it hadn't been for his mother's sacrifice. Harry is not a
Wonder Boy. He's Everykid with a few special powers in a situation not
of his own making, and he would be dead if it weren't for Dumbledore
(and snape, for that matter). As for getting himself back to Hogwarts
in GoF, he had the help of the wand echoes, who held off LV and told
Harry what to do.
> 
> Carol:
> > In OoP, as you say, it's definitely Dumbledore who rescues him
(Snape has requested Sirius Black to stay behind and fill him in;
Kreacher does it instead). Voldemort's humiliating defeat at
Dumbledore's hands gives him additional reason to want Dumbledore
dead, if not to make DD's death his number-one priority.
> <snip>
> 
> Dana:
> It is Harry's heart and his feelings for Sirius that saves Harry in
the end as well, but getting Harry to the DoM was no real problem, no
DD obstacle there and if LV's main objective had been different (not
getting the prophecy, but killing Harry right away) then he might have
succeeded.

Carol: Nevertheless, had Dumbledore not been there to save him, he
wouldn't have been possessed in the first place. Bella and Voldemort
together would have tortured and killed him. The possession was only
an attempt to get Dumbledore to kill the boy in hope of killing LV at
the same time. (It didn't work, of course; DD would not have killed
Harry even if he didn't know about the Horcruxes.) What OoP shows, in
my opinion, is that Harry, even with his DA friends, is not ready to
face the DEs and Voldemort without the help of the Order and
Dumbledore. And it was, of course, Dumbledore, who rounded up all the
DEs and made sure they couldn't Disapparate out of the DoM. (Side
note: The protections on the MoM seem so inadequate that it's a wonder
LV didn't just get in there and take the Prophecy orb himself.)
Dana:
> I am not saying DD's death would not be a big bonus to LV, but the
way he chose to do it might very well have caused the necessary
diversion to execute a larger plan. 

Carol:
Larger than killing the only wizard he ever feared, the one who's
protecting Harry and training him to be a threat to LV? The only thing
bigger than killing DD is killing Harry himself.

Dana:
By giving the task to Draco everyone was busy with preventing Draco to
become a murderer.  I think LV knows DD as much as DD knows him. <snip>

Carol:
I don't think that at all. LV doesn't understand the power of love,
doesn't understand the compulsion to protect Draco. He might think, as
Draco does, that Snape might want to compete with Draco for the
"glory" of killing DD, but the idea that either of them would want to
save Draco's life or prevent him from becoming a murderer wouldn't
occur to him. He would think exactly what DD says in the American
version of HBP, that Dumbledore would kill Draco--as he himself
intends to do if Draco fails.

Carol, snipping the rest because she doesn't want to go back over old
ground