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

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 166407

> Carol responds:

> However, we don't know why Snape thinks "he plans for me to do it in
> the end"--clearly, he hasn't been told so but is only deducing what
> Voldemort (or Dumbledore?) wants.

Pippin:
I'm not sure why  you're  convinced of this.  Why assume that
Snape is telling the truth about this one issue when everything else he 
says is open to question?

As he says himself, to speak of anything which the Dark Lord has ordered
kept secret would be a great treason. Assuming that the Dark Lord has,
unbeknownst to the sisters, secretly  ordered Snape to kill Dumbledore
once Draco has definitely failed makes the whole thing much simpler. 

It explains Snape's inability to decline the UV, it gives Dumbledore a 
definite reason to plot his apparent demise, and it explains his
apparently reckless decision to let Draco's plot play out as long as
possible, even at some risk to students' lives. 
 
Dumbledore knows that once Draco gives up the status quo will
no longer be tenable. Snape's double agent role will be through, 
finished, kaput. If he has any further role to play for the Order, it can 
only be as a sleeper agent in Voldemort's camp, and that only
if Dumbledore himself is dead or appears to have died.

In this scenario Dumbledore  might be able to continue
as headmaster once Draco has failed if he were willing to  sacrifice
Snape or take him out of action. But either way, once Draco has
failed, either Dumbledore, DDM!Snape, or both will have to leave the
school, and that will put the students in more danger than 
anything Draco could possibly devise, especially given 
that Dumbledore doesn't think Draco can actually get Death Eaters 
into the castle. So it behooves Dumbledore to keep the Draco
plot going as long as possible, not only for Snape's sake or
Draco's, but for the students themselves.

 I don't think Dumbledore ever intended to die in order to preserve 
Snape's life and his potential role as a sleeper agent in Voldemort's 
camp.  But IMO, when events required it, he was willing to.

Pippin