LV's bigger plan / Trelawney at the funeral or not?

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 166466

Ceridwen wrote:
<snip>
> If Draco did tell LV about the Vanishing Cabinet, why didn't LV use
it for something besides a plot to get rid of DD via Draco's hand, 
which he didn't expect to succeed?  He could have used this cabinet 
idea to sneak his own people into Hogwarts, even to come himself if he
wanted, and wreak mayhem in the middle of the night, some night when
such a thing was least expected.  Reading along in this thread, I am
slowly coming to the conclusion that if LV had known about this very
secret way into Hogwarts, he would have given Draco a much different
sort of assistance, at least as far as the cabinet was concerned. <snip>

Carol responds:
I can't agree, Ceridwen. While *Snape* obviously doesn't know about
the Vanishing Cabinet plan, only about Draco's assignment to kill
Dumbledore (which he may think is what Narcissa means by "the plan"),
that doesn't mean that *Voldemort* doesn't know about it. Both
Narcissa and Bellatrix speak about "the plan," which appears to be
Voldemort's, not Draco's. 

When she's trying to discourage Narcissa from going to Snape,
Bellatrix says, "In any case, we were told not to speak of *the plan*
to anyone. This is a betrayal of the Dark Lord's [trust?]--" (HBP Am.
ed. 21).

Later, Narcissa says, "The Dark Lord has forbidden me to speak of it.
He wishes no one to know of the plan. It is . . . . very secret" (32).

And so on. No one attributes this very secret plan to Draco. It's the
Dark Lord's plan. And it has to be something more than a simple order
to a sixteen-year-old boy to kill Dumbledore by any means possible,
which would hardly qualify as a plan.

And although even Dumbledore states that Voldemort probably expected
him to kill Draco (592), which is evidently what Narcissa, who thinks
like a DE, also expects, that's no reason to believe that Vodemort
would not want "the plan" to succeed, with Dumbledore *and* Draco dead.

Certainly, "the plan" is in operation by the time of "Draco's Detour,"
in which Draco threatens Borgin with Fenrir Greyback ("He'll be
dropping in from time to time to make sure you're giving the problem
your full attention," 125), hardly something Greyback is likely to do
without authorization, or orders, from Voldemort. Clearly Voldie and
at least one DE are in on the plan from the beginning. Later, the DEs
speak about their orders from Voldemort, orders they wouldn't have if
he weren't privy to, or in charge of, the cabinet plan. The
brutal-faced Death Eater says, "We've got orders. Draco's got to do
it. Now, Draco, and quickly" (594). (Greyback and Amycus, at least,
would be perfectly happy to do it themselves, but my point is that
their orders are from Voldemort, not from Draco, and Brutal-Face is
ordering Draco, not the other way around.)

I've already shown that Voldemort does indeed want Dumbledore dead
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/166397 which ought
to be obvious in any case after the humiliating defeat in the MoM. We
all know that he's angry with Lucius, so if the plan fails, he'll take
revenge on Draco for his failure. But if *all* he wants is revenge,
why not kill Draco sooner? Draco tells Snape in December that his plan
is taking longer than he expected (323), and evidently he's already
receiving threats of some kind or he would not have resorted to
desperation measures (the necklace and the mead), but not until April
is he crying in the bathroom, and it's May when we hear him tell
Moaning Myrtle about the death threats, which appear to result not
from his failure to kill Dumbledore but from his failure to fix the
cabinet: "I can't do it. . . . I can't . . . It won't work . . . . and
unless I do it soon . . . . he says he'll kill me" (522). What won't
work? Killing Dumbledore? That makes no sense. Can't do what? Clearly,
fix the Vanishing Cabinet, which he's been trying to do since the
first of the year, complete with polyjuiced guards on the RoR. Draco's
whoop of triumph (542) indicates that he's finally succeeded in fixing
the cabinet and "the plan" (getting the DEs into Hogwarts, etc.) can
finally get underway. He's not thinking about "the job" at this point,
only about "the plan." And the DEs are there, ready and waiting for
him to summon them. Why? Because they're under orders from Voldemort
to do so.

Draco isn't killed despite the increasing intensity of the threats.
Why not? Because, IMO, Voldemort wants his plan (or their plan) to
succeed. He wants the DEs to get into the castle as backup for Draco
and make sure that Dumbledore dies. And if Draco dies, too, all the
better.

The alternative to killing DD is to lose six of his remaining dozen or
so DEs, killed or defeated by Dumbledore. So unless Pippin is right
and Voldemort is deliberately thinning the ranks of his Death Eaters
(including the loyal and reasonably competent Brutal-Face, who is only
put out of action because Harry Petrifies* him from behind), I think
he *must* have believed Snape's story that DD was getting old and his
reactions were slowed. (Note Snape's telling Bellatrix that DD *has
been* a great wizard, as if he is no longer a threat. I think that's
what Snape and DD want Voldemort to believe. Neither, of course, can
anticipate the potion that will fatally weaken Dumbledore and actually
make his death possible.)

The Death Eaters are not following Draco's orders. The Hand of Glory
and Peruvian Darkness powder are part of "the plan," as is the Dark
Mark to lure DD to the Astronomy Tower. But their orders are to see
that Draco murders Dumbledore. It's clear from their reactions that,
had Snape nor arrived, most of them would have been eager and willing
to do the job themselves. It's possible that Voldemort wanted Draco to
fail, but I doubt that he wanted the DEs to fail as well.

Bellatrix does *not* expect Draco to fail, and she's giving him what
help she can (mostly to thwart Snape). Clearly, some DE has Imperio'd
Rosmerta, and there's no indication that it's Draco himself (though
the coins are his invention, copied from Hermione, whom he must have
overheard in the library in OoP). Narcissa expects Draco to fail, not
because she doesn't think he can fix the cabinet and bring in the DEs
but because she thinks that Dumbledore will kill him. Snape, who
doesn't know about the Vanishing Cabinet plan, does knows that DD
won't kill Draco, but he also knows that Voldemort is angry with
Lucius and apparently starts to think that Narcissa is right; Draco's
life is in danger, but from Voldemort, not from Dumbledore.

Voldemort, however, *does* know about the Cabinets, as Draco tells DD
himself: "I had to mend that broken Vanishing Cabinet that no one's
used for years" (586). Not "I had to kill you so I figured out that
the best way was to smuggle in Death Eaters by fixing the Vanishing
Cabinet." He *had to* fix it, having figured out that the two cabinets
formed a passage between Hogwarts and B&B and informed Voldemort about
it. That was "the plan." That was what Voldemort wanted him to do, and
the only reason for doing so was to bring Death Eaters into Hogwarts
as backup to force Draco to kill DD or die trying. Obviously,
Voldemort knew about the cabinet and had assigned Death Eaters
(including Greyback) to be on the alert, ready to invade Hogwarts. And
we know their orders. For them, at least, the job was to get Draco to
kill DD. Failing that, they were perfectly willing to kill DD
themselves, orders or no orders, as Voldemort would know. Even Snape
says, "He wants Draco to try *first.*" That doesn't mean he (LV)
doesn't want someone else to try if Draco fails.

We really don't know what Voldemort expects. JKR has carefully kept
his thoughts concealed from us throughout HBP. All we have is the
deductions of other characters: Dumbledore, who is trying to persuade
Draco that he's not a killer; Snape, who doesn't know about the
Vanishing Cabinet plan and evades a direct answer regarding whether LV
wants Draco to fail; Draco himself, whose views and emotions change as
"the plan" fails or succeeds and seems not to think about "the deed"
at all until he's actually faced with killing Dumbledore. LV may or
may not expect Draco to fail in killing Dumbledore, but he certainly
wants him to succeed in bringing DEs into the castle. That's what the
death threats are all about. And once the DEs are inside and DD is
trapped on the Astronomy Tower, it's inconceivable that he would want
not only Draco but the DEs to fail. Surely, once they're there and DD
is disarmed, Dumbledore is *supposed* to die.

Possibly Snape is right that "he intends me to do it in the end" (34).
Perhaps LV is counting on Snape's trying to "steal [Draco's] glory"
yet does not trust him enough to confide the details of "the plan."
And obviously, it is Voldemort's plan as well as Draco's or the DEs
would not have their orders from LV himslef.

In any case, there can be no question that LV hates Dumbledore, no
question that Dumbledore is "the only one [Voldemort] ever feared," no
question that Dumbledore is an obstacle to killing Harry (as Snape
points out to Bellatrix in "Spinner's End"), no question that, with
Dumbledore gone, Hogwarts will be more vulnerable to attack. And we
know how Voldemort feels about Hogwarts and its secrets.

Why on earth would Voldemort want "the plan," which he clearly does
know about and probably engineered along with Draco, to fail? I can
see him wanting Draco to die, killed by Dumbledore, but surely he
wants Dumbledore dead, too, and his few DEs returned to him. (I
disagree that his new allies, the Dementors, will take their place. He
needs the DEs to do what only wizards can do.)

Carol, who confidently expects an attack on Hogwarts in DH now that
its chief defender is gone

* Scrimgeour says that the DE was Stupefied, but either he's mistaken
or JKR is, in which case, Scrimgeour's words are a Flint. Brutal-Face
(Yaxley?) is clearly Petrified (597), as is Greyback (598).