Who needs Harry? (was: GoF CH 27-29 Post DH look/ Snape and Harry redux)

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 182313

Bruce Alan Wilson:
> > I got the impression that Crabbe's conjuration was sheer dumb luck
on his part.
> 
> Betsy Hp:
> Right.  So if a barely literate boob (stunning comment on the state
 of education at Hogwarts is our Crabbe) could stumble across a means
 to destroy a horcrux, imagine what an Unspeakable or an Auror or a
Dark Arts expert could have thought up.  Harry had nothing to do with it.

Carol responds:

Except that Crabbe was trying to capture Harry, the Chosen One, to
turn him in to Voldemort for a reward. Otherwise, Crabbe would have
had no reason to be in the RoR. Harry, OTOH, had found out about the
diadem from Helena ravenclaw, a feat that neither DD nor Flitwick had
succeeded in accomplishing, figured out that the diadem was the tiara
that he had placed on the bust of the wizard so that he could find the
HBP's Potions book again, and could have destroyed the tiara/diadem
with the basilisk fang that HR had retrieved (thanks to Harry, who
opened the Cos in the first place, killed the Basilisk, and used
Parseltongue to open the locket Horcrux, enabling Ron to mimic the
word "Open!" and get into the CoS a second time so that Hermione could
destroy the cup Horcrux, which they could not have done without Harry).

Yes, it's complicated and JKR has made sure that it all comes back to
Harry, but without Harry, the Sword of Gryffindor would not work as a
means of destroying Horcruxes, the Basilisk would not be dead nor its
venom available, and the Ravenclaw Horcrux would not have been
identified, much less found. Crabbe's presence was fortuitous (or
felicitous for everyone except himself), but it was by no means
necessary. HRH would have destroyed the diadem without him.

The scene provides a way of having a different Wizard destroy each
Horcrux (as well as serving other character-related purposes), but it
could not have happened without Harry's presence or his discovery of
what and where the Horcrux was.

Carol, wishing that the HBP's Potions book could have been saved and
his notes published posthumously, with Snape getting full credit for
his brilliant discoveries and inventions (minus Sectumsempra!)