A Flaw in the Plan (was: DD and LV)

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 178340

Montavilla47 wrote:
> > I know this is off-topic, but can someone please explain to me how
Severus's death was a flaw in the plan?
> > 
> > As I understand it, the plan was for Dumbledore to die undefeated,
so that the wand would lose its power.
> > 
> > <snip DD's plan for the Elder Wand>
> > 
> > So, how was Snape getting killed not part of the original plan?
> 
Pippin responded:
> 
> We don't know what Dumbledore's original plan was, but we know he
wanted Snape to live, both to protect Hogwarts and to pass the
information about the soul fragment to Harry. 
> 
> It was by no means inevitable that Voldemort would decide that the
elder wand had to pass by murder. In fact, he should have known by the
very fact that Dumbledore became master of the wand while Grindelwald
was still alive that mastery of the wand did not have to pass by
murder at all. But while Voldemort was capable of logic, in this case
he gave into his murderous urges and didn't think of that.   

Carol responds:

Exactly. I've responded to this point in various posts, but the main
point is simply that Snape had to be alive to pass on the message to
Harry after seeing Nagini magically protected. Ergo, Nagini's magical
protection, which related to LV's discovery that Harry was finding and
perhaps destroying his Horcruxes, should not have been an automatic
death sentence for Snape. (DD, not being omniscient, could not
possibly have anticipated that Snape would be bitten by Nagini in
Harry's presence and that he would give Harry his memories as his
final act. And if Snape had been AK'd, he could not have given him his
memories, and, especially, that critical message about the soul bit,
at all.)

I take Dumbledore's regret that Snape died (it is not remorse; there's
no indication that he planned Snape's death as a sacrifice) to be
genuine. (If it isn't, he's a foul and contemptible hypocrite and that
certainly isn't the impression that Harry receives). Moreover, when
Harry asks whether DD intended for Snape to end up with the Elder
Wand, DD says, I admit that was my intention, but it did not work out
as I intended, did it?" to which Harry responds, "No, that bit didn't
work out" (DH Am. ed. 721). Ergo, Snape's death was not part of the
plan. It came about because of the flaw in the plan, Draco's
Expelliarmus (which ultimately works to Harry's advantage, but,
unfortunately, not to Snape's).

Exactly what DD *did* anticipate is not clear, but it seems that in
HBP (both at Hogsmeade before he sees the Dark Mark and on the tower),
he wanted Snape to kill him, with only Harry present. (He starts to
send Harry in his Invisibility Cloak to find Snape, tell him what
happened, and speak to no one else. The reader thinks that he wants
Snape to cure him, or at least, that's what I thought, but "The
Prince's Tale" makes it clear that he had no such intention.) Once
Draco appears and disarms DD, part of the plan literally flies out the
window, but DD still needs Snape to kill him for the reasons he had
stated to Snape in "The Prince's Tale" (and because of the UV) and he
still needs Snape alive to become headmaster and protect the students
and to help Harry secretly, especially by delivering the message that
will lead to Harry's self-sacrifice. 

In any case, while DD expected LV to find out about the Elder Wand and
go looking for it, he didn't necessarily expect him to *find* it. Nor
would he have done so had it not been for two incidents that DD could
not have anticipated: the backfiring wand in "Seven Potters" that
sends LV searching for the wand (after torturing Ollivander) and
Harry's dropping the photograph of Gellert Grindelwald at Bathilda's
house, enabling LV to discover the identity of the merry-faced thief,
whose whereabouts he still has to determine.

And then, once LV has found Grindelwald and stolen the wand from DD's
grave, he still has to discover that the wand doesn't work properly
for him (odd that he would even think that, considering how
effectively he uses it to kill people and conjure Nagini's protective
bubble) and arrive at the conclusion that Snape is the wand's master
*before* Snape sees Nagini in her bubble. There was some risk to
Snape, but his death was by no means inevitable, and had he been
killed without imparting that key message to Harry, DD's plan would
have failed altogether.

I think that Pippin must be right--DD intended for Snape to destroy
the wand or hide it so that LV could never get it. (Snape could use
Occlumency and cunning to protect himself from detection.) It's even
possible that DD wanted Snape to kill LV if Harry failed though,
admittedly, there's no direct evidence to support that particular
speculation. Certainly, DD didn't want the wand buried with him where
LV could obtain it by grave robbery.

Potioncat askded for links to earlier posts on the subject. Here are
two of mine:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/177716 (scroll to
the last section; it's a long post) and

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/174484

Carol, certain only that Snape's death was not part of DD's plan, as
indicated by his words and attitude in "King's Cross" and the
necessity for Snape to be alive to deliver his message to Harry

which has a slightly different take on what DD's plan might have been.