GoF CH 27-29 Post DH look/ Snape and Harry redux

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 182277

Carol earlier:
> > <heavily snipped> Ron and for that matter, DD, have access to a
Sword of Gryffindor steeped in Basilisk venom because of Harry.
> 
> Magpie:
> That's not the point. Of course any action that happened in the
story is going to follow earlier events and so come back to Harry. But
if you just remove what needs to happen from this story, so we're not
trying to keep the story exactly the same without the central
character, obviously there are other ways to get Basilisk venom than 
via Harry Potter. <snip>

Carol again:
I think you're missing my point, which is that the Sword of Gryffindor
could not have been used to destroy Horcruxes had it not been steeped
in Basilisk venom, nor could the Basilisk fang have been used to
destroy the cup if Harry hadn't killed the Basilisk. Granted, a
Basilisk existed whose venom could be used to destroy the Horcruxes
even after it was dead, but only Harry, a Parselmouth, had access to
it to kill it because only he (and possessed Ginny, who doesn't count
because she was under Horcrux!Tom's control) could open the Chamber of
Secrets.

As I've already established by quoting Professor Binns, Dumbledore
tried and failed to find the Chamber of Secrets. Had he been a
Parselmouth, he could have done so (but even then, he would only have
killed the Basilisk and possibly imbued the Sword of Gryffindor with
venom, but he would not have destroyed the diary, whose existence he
didn't know about and which was only at Hogwarts during Harry's second
year because Lucius Malfoy thought that Voldemort was dead--which
would not have been the case without Godric's Hollow and Harry's
accidental vaporization of Voldemort).

While Dumbledore could have found and destroyed some of the Horcruxes,
he only knew for sure that Voldemort's altered appearance was caused
by the creation of at least one Horcrux when Voldemort didn't actually
die at Godric's Hollow. (How DD knew that, I don't know. He clearly
*suspected* the existence of Horcruxes already, as I intend to discuss
in another post.) And he only knew for sure that LV had made more than
one Horcrux after Harry destroyed the diary.

So DD, with the help of Order members, could perhaps have found the
cup (how they'd do that without alerting LV, I don't know) and the
fake locket (how they'd do that with either one or two adults, I don't
know--you need one qualified Wizard and one person whose powers don't
register in the boat) and the ring (which DD would need to resist the
temptation of putting on because without Snape' help, he's a dead
man), but without access to the Basilisk's fang or a Sword of
Gryffindor that has been steeped in Basilisk venom, they'd have no way
of destroying it.

As for Nagini, who could have been killed by a powerful Wizard, she
probably would not have been made into a Horcrux if it hadn't been for
Godric's Hollow.

IOW, it took Harry as the Chosen One (who could speak Parseltongue and
had access to LV's mind through the scar connection) to find most of
the Horcruxes, to discover the existence of the diary and destroy it,
to kill the Basilisk making it possible to use its fang to destroy the
cup Horcrux and for Ron (or any non-Parselmouth capable of mimicry) to
enter the Chamber, and to give the Sword of Gryffindor (otherwise just
a powerful magical weapon useful for killing gigantic magical snakes
<g>) into a means of destroying Horcruxes. (And it took Harry as
Lily's on, victim of Godric's Hollow and the Chosen One) to get the
memory from Slughorn that told DD how many Horcruxes there were.

Obviously, without Dumbledore's tuition, Harry wouldn't even have
known what a Horcrux was, much less which objects to look for and
where to look. But DD needed Harry to find and destroy them, or make
their destruction possible. It's a shame, though, that DD didn't allow
Ron and Hermione to go along with Harry on his Pensieve expeditions. I
think they'd have found the Horcruxes more quickly. Hermione might
even have recognized the locket the Merope wore as the locket they'd
seen when they were cleaning house at 12 GP, which would have saved
all sorts of grief related to the fake Horcrux in the cave. But still,
it took Harry, and only Harry, to have access to LV's thoughts and to
create the means of destroying most of the Horcruxes. (Even Crabbe's
Fiend-Fyre wouldn't have come into play if he hadn't been following
the Chosen One to turn him in to Voldemort.)

Carol, hoping that her meaning is clearer this time around