Moody's death (was: Dumbledore's authority WAS: Re: Fees for Harry)

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 179492

Dana wrote:
> <snip>
> 
> Although we do not actually know how a cunfonding charm works, it 
> does seem very reasonable to me that Dung actually knew that he got 
> the information from Snape, who is at that time believed to have 
> killed DD and thus a loyal DE. So in this sense it seems to me that 
> Dung's actually hesitations came from this knowledge although he 
> probably doesn't know what he was specifically agreeing to when he 
> offered the Order this specific plan but that he did know that this 
> actually might be a trap but could not get out of it because it
would put the suspicion on him directly. 
> 
> Or at least I believe that JKR wrote Dung's hesitations to give 
> notion to the idea that Dung was the traitor to later show that
Snape actually had cunfunded him to do so and not to the notion that
the Order coerced him to partake in this plan. <snip>

Carol responds:

I agree with your (snipped) points that Mundungus joined the order of
hiw own free will, surely knowing that it could cost him his life, and
that it's perfectly reasonable for the Order to expect him to
participate in a plan that he himself suggested. (They can't possibly
know that it was Snape, under orders from DD, who implanted the notion
in his head.)

It's also true that we don't know exactly how a Confundus Charm works
(though we've seen a lot of them) or how it differs from an Imperius
Curse. It's odd that the Confundus Charm would be perfectly legal
(Hermione uses it on Cormac McLaggen in HBP) while the Imperius Curse
is illegal Dark magic. Possibly, the Confundus Charm only *confuses*
the victim but can't be used to control him (make him commit murder,
for example). And yet Snape not only makes Dung believe that the
polyjuiced Potters idea is his own; he orders Dung to present it to
the Order as his own.

What he does not say is that Mundungus is not to mention that he's
meeting and talking with Snape himself. Naturally, Mundungus is
unlikely to do that out of self-protection, but why is he meeting with
Snape in the first place?

*Is* he a traitor to the Order whom Snape is using for his own and
Dumbledore's ends and pretending to use for Voldemort's? Why would
Dung betray the Order?

Or does he not know, having been in Azkaban, that Snape "murdered"
Dumbledore? Maybe he has always served as one of Snape's contacts and
continues to do so, believing (rightly, as it turns out) that Snape is
under deep cover as a DE but is really loyal to the now-dead
Dumbledore? Perhaps Snape has confessed as much, telling Dung to keep
his secret, but that seems unlikely since Dung could not be trusted
not to talk. Or maybe this isn't the first Confundus Charm Snape has
placed on him. ("You will meet me at such and such a bar and tell me
the Order's plans.") Snape can't have Imperiused him or he wouldn't
need an additional Confundus Charm. Dung would just do as he was told
without needing to be Confunded. (I suspect that, like Dawlish, he's
"known to be susceptible.")

At any rate, unless Dung is a traitor, willingly consorting with a
former Order member he believes also to be a traitor, I doubt that he
knows that Snape has (nonverbally) Confunded him or that the idea is
not his own. And note that it's only the idea of using Polyjuice to
produce multiple Potters that Snape suggests. He does not say how many
there will be or who will take part or how they will leave 4 Privet
Drive. He leaves that up to the Order itself. And meanwhile, he tells
LV only what Mundungus must have told him: that the Order is laying a
false trail and the time and date at which Harry will be leaving 4
Privet Drive (before the blood protection spell breaks on its own). He
also says that Harry will not be Apparating or using Floo powder
because the Order are aware of Pius Thicknesse's restrictions. IOW,
snape is passing what seems to be valuable information but withholding
the key fact, the one he suggested himself rather than having obtained
it from his source (who can only be Mundungus).

At any rate, I don't attribute Dung's hesitation to be involved in the
plan to knowledge that it came from Snape, a supposedly loyal DE. Why
one earth would a loyal DE supply a plan that would offer additional
protection to Harry (making him less of a target through the use of
decoys)? I think Dung hesitates because he knows that the plan is
dangerous and because he's a scummy coward. It's one thing to obtain
important information for the Order from the lowlifes in Knockturn
Alley or to take a turn at guard duty (guarding Harry or the entrance
to the DoM) if he doesn't have a deal involving dodgy cauldrons in the
making, and another thing altogether to risk being killed by Voldemort
by transforming into the double of the very person Voldemort most
wants to kill (now that DD is dead). Dung at first hesitates to line
up to take the polyjuice because "I've toldjer, I'd sooner be a
protector," to which Moody responds, "As I've already told you, you
spineless worm, any Death Eaters we run into will be aiming to capture
Potter, not kill him. . . . It'll be the protectors who have got the
most to worry about, the Death Eaters'll want to kill them." Although
Dung doesn't "look particularly reassured," he takes his polyjuice
with no further arguments (DH Am. ed. 50-51) other than "Why'm I with
you?" ("Because you're the one that needs watching," 52), which leads
me to believe that he's participating in what he thinks is his own
brilliant plan. If he reacts when Snape is mentioned 53), we don't see
it. Snape has told him to forget that he has suggested the use of
decoys and Polyjuice potion. Chances are, he's forgotten that he's met
with Snape at all. The only question for me is how Snape convinced
Mundungus to meet with him in that unfamiliar tavern in the first
place. Maybe he followed him there and Confunded him before speaking
to him. 

But that doesn't explain why Snape would refer to him to LV as "the
source we discussed" (4). Maybe they had only discussed the
possibility of Snape's waylaying Mundungus at a tavern he was known to
frequent and Confunding him to obtain information. so Snape would have
followed through on the plan and obtained the information before the
meeting in chapter 1 and then Confunded Mundungus to get him to claim
the Polyjuiced Potters plan as his own after he had learned everything
he needed to know. And yet DD's order to Confund Mundungus and plant
the decoy plan (688) seems to occur *after* Snape has obtained the
information about the date and so forth, which suggests that he met
with Mundungus more than once. BTW, since DD only states that Snape
must plant the idea of decoys with no details, either he and Snape
have already discussed the plan or the details (polyjuice, etc.) are
Snape's own.

Carol, thinking that JKR has left us free to make up our own
explanations, rather freer than Confundungus, who can't weasel out of
what even he believes to be his own plan