House Elves / Chapter 7 / Lucius, Lucius, Lucius

[Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)]

No: HPFGUIDX 179152

Miles wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/179013>:

<< For all we know, goblins and elves *could* have the same ancestors
and at some point their way parted - associating with humans, and
living on their own. >>

It could be -- many of us thought Professor Flitwick was part House
Elf until Rowling revealed that he was part Goblin. Imagine wizards
kidnapping a few goblins and putting such powerful spells on them that
they and their descendents would fawn all over humans! Kind of like
breeding wolves into dogs.

Kathryn Jones summarized Chapter 7 in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/179017>:

<< Ginny ignores this change of subject and continues. She does not
know what to give him, and decides to give him something to remember
her by. She then kisses him. They are still well involved, as Ron
barges into the room. >>

Ginny was obviously determined to have sex with him. She wasn't going
to take 'No' for an answer, and he had no idea what was happening, so
I wonder if it could count as rape. I didn't understand why she had
such a foolish plan -- some romantic notion that two virgins figuring
out sex by trial and error would be glorious? she'd been reading
Eggplant's pre-DH posts and wanted to have a baby to remember Harry by
after his heroic death?

<< From this scroll he reads,"To Ronald Bilius Weasley, I leave my
deluminator in the hope that he will remember me when he uses it". He
then took an object from the pouch, which resembled a silver cigarette
lighter and leaned forward to hand it to Ron. >> 

It was called a put-outer in PS/SS and OoP, so why does it suddenly
have a new name?

<< Writing appears on the snitch, which says "I open at the close."
None of them is able to form any ideas or conclusions as to the
meaning of this message. >>

I wondered why not, as I was able to form several erroneous ideas as
to the meaning. I knew one noun meaning of 'close' is part of a garden
... here's the definition from American Heritage Dictionary
http://www.bartleby.com/61/53/C0415300.html "4. An enclosed place,
especially land surrounding or beside a cathedral or other building.
5.  Chiefly British A narrow way or alley." So I expected them to
sneak to some 'close' on the Hogwarts grounds to try it, probably
unsuccessfully.

I also thought of the phrase 'the close of day', and the inscription
in THE HOBBIT that could be seen only for a short time, at twilight,
when allegedly both one's seeing in the light ability and one's seeing
in the dark ability are active. So try, unsuccessfully, to open it
while holding it up to the setting sun. While in the garden at Hogwarts...

And I imagined it opening with a hinge in the back, so the top lifts
up at an angle rather than being pulled off or having a sliding door,
so the hinge would be 'the close' (well, it made sense when I thought
it) and there would be something on the hinge that has to be touched
for it to open (maybe mechanical rather than magical, like some kind
of latch holding the hinge down until the latch is pushed aside).

But I suppose she thought the book was quite long enough without
having them dream up and try out all these unsuccessful methods.

Pippin wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/179050>:

<< He thinks his blood status entitles him to the best of everything
(peacocks!) >>

Peacocks aren't that expensive. Some years ago a woman in APA-L who is
far from rich said she bought a pair of peafowl for her front yard (in
Pacoima) and IIRC they cost $75 for the male and $50 for the female.
That was my reaction as soon as that DE commented on the peacock. I've
just wasted too much time searching around for current prices, and it
seems one can buy an adult pair for $300 (and up and up for newfangled
colors) and chicks for $30 each. Most of the people selling them don't
seem to be rich, either.

a_svirn wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/179057>:

<< [Voldemort] was quite simply too dangerous to trifle with. >>

Lucius had an exaggerated sense of his invulnerability.

<< More importantly, it was *Lucius's* job, not Voldemort's to weed
out the undesirables. I don't see how Lucius could have been
delusional enough to believe that Voldemort would do the dirty work
for him, when it was exactly the other way round. >>

I see the specific 'dirty work' that Voldemort would do for Lucius was
to be the figurehead, the name and face of the coup/ conquest/
revolution, and Lucius would be hidden/invisible in that context.
Voldemort would terrify all and sundry; Lucius, in Voldemort's name,
would recruit some people to be Death Eaters, and Lucius's recruits
would recruit enough bruisers and spies to overthrow the opposed
government and subdue the population. The Death Eaters would respect
Lucius as a high-ranking Death Eater and the Ministry, until
overthrown, would respect Lucius as a rich man who was not on
Voldemort's side. 

I'm sure that Lucius expected that when Voldemort ruled the wizards,
he would do and command what Lucius flattered and manipulating him
into doing and commanding. 

I'm sure Lucius expected that he would be able to build himself such a
secure situation, right under Voldemort's nose, that at some point he
could arrange for Voldemort to die or be eternally imprisoned in a
lead bottle sealed with the sign of a seven pointed star and thrown
into the sea. And, as Steve bboyminn wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/179107>: 
<< then later Lucius would take over and /claim/ a new age of
enlightenment. Which translates into a whole new dictator, but the
same old tyranny. >> (Steve, it would be good if he did it before
Voldemort completely destroyed the economy!)

I used to be sure that Voldemort knew what Lucius was thinking, and
intended to keep Lucius around as long as he was useful, and then off
him just before he made his move. Which one of them killed the other
would depend on how good was Voldemort's timing. I used to wonder
which it would be -- the killed one would be so surprised!

<< But he was ok with having an upstart half-blood as his Master? >>

He was okay with calling that upstart half-blood 'Master' as long as
that half-blood was the strong horse on which he was riding to
victory. I'm sure he viewed it as play-acting.

I've had a couple of different speculations about how Lucius and
Voldemort got together. One is if Lucius's father or older brother or
uncle or whatever was one of Tom Riddle's original gang -- in those
days, Riddle was perfectly good at seducing people by being so
charming and likeable and all that, so he might even have made that
Malfoy think he was offering for them to be co-leaders because Tom had
the ideas but Malfoy had the status to have followers. And then Tom
might have spent some time studying old books of Dark Magic at Malfoy
Manor before going to seek 'the worst of our kind' in other countries.
And he might have been Lucius's godfather, so Lucius grew up
accustomed to him. And maybe the reason that Lucius is Lord of the
Manor at such a young age is that he killed his father and older
brother and that was the first time that the Dark Mark was seen in the
sky over a murder ...  

If Voldemort, on his return to Britain, newly recruited the adult
Lucius because he would be useful, he would have had to dredge up his
Tom Riddle memories of how to be charming. That might not have been so
difficult ... in the graveyard circle, it seemed that Voldemort
actually felt a drop of affection for Lucius, enough to let him get
away with being 'slippery'. I thought it might be that enough of the
boy from the orphanage remained inside Voldemort that he was quite
impressed with himself for hanging with a toff. Alas, he got over it
in later books.