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

[Ceridwen]

No: HPFGUIDX 166477

Carol:
> 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.

Ceridwen:
Sure.  There is a plan to kill Dumbledore.  It's set up from chapter 
two.  That doesn't show that Voldemort thought of the Vanishing 
Cabinets.

I know we've made fun of the Evil Overlord checklist, and we've even 
suggested that LV ought to read it.  But this, *to me*, would be just 
too big of a thing for him to pass up.  He could get into Hogwarts.  
He could get all of his DEs into Hogwarts.  He could kidnap Trelawney 
for the prophecy, he could hunt down and capture Harry.  He could 
grab children and relations of prominent Ministry officials.  But all 
he wants to do is send in the third-string brutes to back Draco's 
attempt at Dumbledore?  This would be a new one for the list, I 
think, and Voldemort, to my mind, would become just a bumblingly 
stupid airhead whose only claim to fame is intimidating a bunch of 
playground bullies.

Carol:
*(snipping)*
> 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.

Ceridwen:
It qualifies as a plan to me.  Imagine ordering a student to kill the 
headmaster.  This isn't something you want to broadcast, even if you 
tell the people who will be working with him.  You don't want the kid 
captured and taken to prison.  You want him to get his shot, because 
you believe the headmaster will have to defend himself, which means 
killing the kid.

And you know this will devastate the headmaster.  He wouldn't kill 
another student the summer before, not even for the noble cause of 
getting rid of the biggest threat to the world that he knows.  Now, 
the kid and his back-up are there, threatening other students, one 
has to be sacrificed, the headmaster will *have* to do it, to save 
the rest.  It's just those darned variables that screw things up.

If Draco killing Dumbledore doesn't qualify as much of a plan, then 
Dana's and Jen's conviction that other DEs were kidnapping Trelawney 
while everyone else was otherwise occupied would fill in nicely.

Carol:
*(snipping)*
> 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.)

Ceridwen:
This is Voldemort's way of leading Draco down the garden path.  He 
has assigned him a team and made him the leader.  He has given Draco 
his assignment: Kill Dumbledore.  He gives him some particulars: Get 
your team into Hogwarts to assist you (and cover your retreat?).  Now 
go out there and *do it!*  Win one for the Dark Lord!

It's Draco who remembers what Montague said.  He goes to Borgin and 
Burkes and arranges for the cabinet.  He mentions Greyback, the 
obvious team member to use to threaten Borgin.  This is Draco's 
contribution.  He is proving himself valuable.  And since he mentions 
Greyback in this scene, I do think he has already been assigned his 
team.  Up to this point, no one knows if the Vanishing Cabinet at 
B&B's is still available, but the team has already been assigned.

(No wonder the kid's so grandiosely serious on the train!  He's 
bypassed the starting phase and been promoted directly to team 
leader.  He has the important job of showing the protections of 
Hogwarts to be nothing but smoke and mirrors, *and* he's been given 
the important task of killing Dumbledore.  And, he has come up with a 
fail-safe plan to get his team into Hogwarts and prove himself to 
LV.  He's moving right up the ranks like Percy Weasley did at the 
Ministry.)

I think, though I have no canon to back this up, just a feeling from 
reading, that the team is let in on LV's larger plan, to kill Draco 
if Dumbledore doesn't.  They are also on notice that until that 
event, they are under Draco's command.  I think they are the ones who 
are hiding out in Hogsmeade and Imperio-ing Rosmerta, bringing the 
cursed necklace, and so on.  They are on alert to come when Draco 
calls them with his coins.  They are the help Draco mentions when he 
talks with Snape.

I don't think Snape has been assigned to Draco's team, so he isn't in 
on the details of the plan, such as DEs in Hogsmeade.  I don't think 
Bellatrix is part of the team, either.  She does her part for her 
nephew, with the added allure of spiting Snape.  But she doesn't show 
up at Hogwarts in the end, either.  She, too, as well as Narcissa, I 
think, are not in on LV's plan of Draco dying.  In fact, Narcissa 
suspects it in Spinner's End, but has to rely on Snape's say-so.  So, 
aside from knowing generalities, I believe that only the Ugly Twins, 
Brutal-face, Big Blond, Greyback, and Gibbon knew.

Carol:
*(snip)*
> 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). 

Ceridwen:
Right.  If Draco can't get the DEs into Hogwarts, and if he can't 
kill Dumbledore, then he will die.  LV is telling him to hurry it 
up.  And since Draco's way of getting the DE backup into the castle 
is to fix the cabinet, then not succeeding with that is leaving him 
crying to a Muggle-born ghost in the bathroom.

I don't see any evidence of LV setting up this plan about the 
Vanishing Cabinets from Draco's crying to Myrtle.  I do see that 
Draco is not meeting LV's time table, but that's all.  This still 
reads to me that the cabinets are Draco's contribution, not LV's.

Carol:
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.

Ceridwen:
No, it isn't clear that the order is to fix the Vanishing Cabinet.  
It is clear that the order is to get on with Draco's plan, get the 
DEs in, and kill Dumbledore.  Yes, this is Draco's plan to get the 
DEs into Hogwarts.  I see nothing saying that this is LV's 
contribution.  LV's contribution is to give the orders, and to assign 
a team to back Draco up (or kill him if Dumbledore doesn't).  So, 
yes, the DEs will *obey Draco*.  LV told them to.

I do see evidence that the cabinet is not LV's contribution, though.  
If LV had ordered the cabinets to be fixed, then Draco has 
deliberately gone against him by trying to get around his inability 
to fix the cabinet early on and sending the necklace and the mead.  
Then, there's the whole 'Evil Overlord Goofs Again', such a glaring 
goof that I just can't buy it.  

The plan is as simple as killing Dumbledore.  The necklace and the 
mead, to me, are overwhelming evidence.  If fixing the cabinet was 
LV's order, then Draco has gone against him very early on by trying 
to kill Dumbledore with the necklace and the mead.  If the plan is to 
kill Dumbledore, then Draco hasn't gone against LV's orders, he just 
went about it in a bad way.  If either had killed Dumbledore, there 
would have been no need to fix the cabinet.  If the cabinet was LV's 
idea, where would that leave Draco?

And, why would Draco's outside contacts provide either the necklace 
or the mead, or Imperio Rosmerta to give the necklace to Katie Bell, 
if the cabinet plan was LV's plan?  They would be going against LV's 
orders, too.  I can see Snape, Narcissa and Bellatrix sneaking around 
behind LV's back for Draco's sake, but I can't see the nasty crew we 
meet in The Lightning-Struck Tower doing anything of the sort: 
certainly not for Draco!

Carol:
*(snipping)*
> 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."

Ceridwen:
Draco doesn't say this is "the plan."  He is responding to 
Dumbledore:  "But, why?  I don't think you will kill me, Draco.  
Killing is not nearly as easy as the innocent believe. . . .  So tell 
me, while we wait for your friends . . . how did you smuggle them in 
here?  It seems to have taken you a long time to work out how to do 
it."  (586, ellipses in original)

How did Draco smuggle his 'friends', the DEs into Hogwarts?  Why did 
it take him such a long time?  Because he had to mend the broken 
cabinet.  Otherwise, no DEs in the castle.  Period.

I see no evidence that Voldemort ordered the use of the Vanishing 
Cabinet.  If he did, then why didn't he do so many other things that 
would have benefitted him?

Ceridwen.