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

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 166402

Magpie wrote:
> Huh??? What do you mean they didn't seem to have a mission? They 
> stated their mission several times and did it. Their mission was to 
> get Draco to Dumbledore so that Draco could kill him. Their being 
> second-stringers goes along well with that as well. The death of 
> Draco Malfoy is not an important mission!
> 
Carol responds:
While I agree with most of Magpie's points, I differ on this one. the
mission was the death of Dumbledore, as Snape's "It's over!"
indicates. (*His* mission, which is at least in part to get Draco out
alive, isn't over, nor is the danger to Draco which he still has to
protect him from.) The DEs have done their job, serving as backup and
making sure that DD is killed (if not by Draco) and Snape makes sure
they know it's time to go. No one runs off to get Trelawney; he stops
them from Crucioing Harry and orders them off the grounds after one of
them sets Hagrid's house on fire. The mission has been accomplished.

As for second-string DEs, Draco has brought along the Peruvian
Darkness Powder and Hand of Glory to sneak them in, and only a few
Order members are stationed at Hogwarts (Snape, who's out of the loop
and is supposedly a loyal DE, and the recently injured McGonagall,
along with Tonks, whom Draco has probably seen prowling around--though
she may be using an Invisibility Cloak considering how she pops out of
nowhere). Still, LV probably thinks that Fenrir, at least, presents a
real threat, and I'm not sure that Brutal-Face (Yaxley?) is a
second-string DE; we never see him fighting because Harry hits him in
the back with a Petrificus Totalus. And Gibbon is killed by "friendly
fire" after setting off the Dark Mark, so his capabilities as a
fighter are also unknown. (Amycus and Alecto and the big blond are,
admittedly, second- or third-string, but they're not in charge of the
operation.)

However, I'm wondering--just who does Voldemort have left, with
Lucius, Dolohov, Mulciber, Rookwood, et al. in Azkaban and Bellatrix
being excluded from his plans as punishment for her failure to
retrieve the Prophecy? *Are* there any first-string DEs? I'm sure he
had good reason for not sending Wormtail, who probably fits into his
later plans for invading Hogwarts. But who else is left? Goyle, who
was evidently too stupid to send on the MoM mission?

If there were only a dozen Death Eaters at the graveyard (and JKR is
inconsistent here--in one place she says thirty, but elsewhere it's a
dozen) and that dozen includes Malfoy, Avery, Nott, Macnair, and
Crabbe, all now in Azkaban along with the Lestrange brothers, Dolohov,
Mulciber, Rookwood, and Jugson (*Jugson*?), who else could he have sent?

Ten DEs escaped from Azkaban. Six or seven of these ten--Rodolphus
Lestrange, Rabastan Lestrange, Bellatrix Lestrange, Antonin Dolohov,
Augustus Rookwood, ? Mulciber, and possibly Jugson--were at the MoM.
Of these seven, all but Bellatrix were arrested. Three others are
unaccounted for.

Twelve DEs (approximately) were in the graveyard. Aside from Wormtail,
who may not be included in the dozen, they include Malfoy, Avery,
Nott, Macnair, Crabbe, and Goyle. Five of the six have been arrested.
The others probably include those mentioned by Snape in Spinner's End:
Fenrir Greyback, the Carrows (Amycus and Alecto?) and Yaxley
(Brutal-Face?), along with Gibbon and the big blond. That's twelve.

By my count, Voldemort sent the only DEs he had available, other than
Bellatrix, Wormtail, Goyle (unless Goyle was the big blond), and the
wildcard Snape, who was already at Hogwarts.

And with Gibbon dead, Yaxley/Brutal-Face and possibly Greyback
arrested (both were Petrified at Hogwarts), he's down to Amycus,
Alecto, Goyle, Bellatrix, three unknown escapees from Azkaban, and
Snape (whose loyalties, I'm pretty sure, lie elsewhere). And, of
course, the newly recruited and badly disillusioned Draco Malfoy.
(Will theo Nott come into the picture in DH? His father, too, was
arrested after the MoM plot failed. And what will become of
CrabbenGoyle Jr. without Draco at Hogwarts?)

Carol, who thinks that the Draco plot was *very* important to
Voldemort, but not because of Draco himself and certainly not because
of Trelawney, who has nothing to do with it