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

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 182316


> Magpie:
> <snip>
> > There's also Voldemort's obsession with Hogwarts that leads to 
the 
> objects, or with his own ancestry, which leads to Slytherin.
> 
> Carol responds:
> Who knew about that obsession? No one except Dumbledore. He didn't
> advertise it, even to his DEs. 

Magpie:
I didn't say I knew who knew about the obsession(though you just 
pointed out that Dumbledore did and that should have been enough), I 
said that he had it, and anything he had could be discovered. 
Voldemort's a very flawed leader. He actually did advertise some of 
his obsessions with some of these things. Everybody knew in DH that 
Slytherin was the house he liked, they all wound up at Hogwarts. I 
wouldn't be surprised if Snape or Lucius knew about some of these 
things. Or Bellatrix.

Carol:

Nor did he apparently collect
> "trophies" (other than the diary, which was already his) of his 
crimes
> at Hogwarts. Nor would anyone have known that the ring was a trophy
> representing his murder of his father and gradparents. I doubt that 
he
> told even his Slytherin dormmates. 

Magpie:
My point was the trophy collecting wasn't the only path to the truth. 
I said that all the actions he took to get these particular trophies 
were things he did, and so things that might be found out. The thread 
made me start thinking about the movie The Fugitive where, iirc, 
Harrison Ford and Tommy Lee Jones both wind up at the same place by 
following completely different evidence and ideas that reflect their 
personal expertise. Or Raiders of the Lost Ark where although it's 
not common knowledge, due to the actions Hitler takes to find the 
Lost Ark, the spy network picks up that he's searching for the Lost 
Ark. (His interest ih the occult also not being total common 
knowledge, but known.)

Carol:
LV was as secretive in his way as
> Dumbledore. 

Magpie:
The focused investigation would assume that the guy might be 
secretive. Few people ever tried to find out any of their secrets. 

Carol:
Now, yes, that knew or suspected that he was the Heir of
> Slytherin and viewed his ability to speak Parseltongue as proof, but
> they wouldn't have known about the memory in the diary. (As for its
> being a Horcrux, not even Lucius, to whom he finally entrusted it,
> knew that.)

Magpie:
It would not be impossible for the events of the diary to be 
discovered by other means. A couple of the main players were still 
around to tell their stories. But I didn't say that Lucius knew it 
was a Horcrux. I said that Lucius was entrusted with an object. A 
potential plot didn't have to start with the idea that there were 
Horcruxes and then have that lead to them being these objects. It 
could also go the opposite direction: why would objects be important? 
If we get one and examine it, we might discover what it is. All of 
these things are potential vulnerabilities. Nobody's ever trying to 
exploit any of them.

Magpie: 
> > Or there's also what he did with those objects after they got 
them.
> Every aspect of creating a Horcrux could leave a trace of what you 
> were doing. 
> 
> Carol:
> 
> I'm not sure what you mean here. 

Magpie:
I mean that when you do something, you may leave evidence of your 
actions. Anything he had to do to make a Horcrux might be an action 
that could be tracked through evidence or witnesses or whatever, even 
if you didn't at first know where the evidence or reports were 
pointing. You seem to be just writing off any possibility that anyone 
could put two and two together except in exactly the way Dumbledore 
did here. I think committing a string of murders and robberies might 
give a great investigator (or investigators) ideas. As might evidence 
of whatever "disgusting" things one does to create the Horcrux out of 
those two things. Everybody knows he wants to live forever, you'd 
think that alone would lead them to study up on known ways of 
prolonging one's life.

Carol:
The murders could perhaps have been
> traced to Tom Riddle, which is what DD was trying to do by tracking
> down the memories before the very old Hokey and the already crazy
> Morfin died in Azkaban. But no one would know that he used those
> murders to make Horcruxes because he conveniently disappeared. And 
he
> might have stolen the cup and the locket because they were 
beautiful,
> powerfully magical, and historically significant (one of them
> connected with his Slytherin heritage) without intending to make
> Horcruxes out of them. Even if, say, Caractacus Burke (not the most
> scrupulous of Wizards and unlikely to care about anything except his
> own failure to acquire those valuable objects) had voiced his
> suspicions regarding the theft and murder to the Aurors and those
> suspicions had been confirmed (which required DD's ability as a
> Legilimens to extract the memory from Hokey in any case), Tom Riddle
> had fled the country and no one could see the difference in his
> appearance caused by the making of the two new Horcruxes. And they
> probably wouldn't have made the connection between the theft/murder
> and the altered appearance, anyway. 

Magpie:
So even if people had found out that he'd committed a string of 
murders, and also that he'd stolen a series of important objects, and 
even if they saw that his appearance was changing in a way that 
suggested he had performed some black magic that effected his 
fundamental self, nobody could ever have thought he might have made 
Horcruxes...just because they wouldn't? On the contrary, I think 
somebody might very well have come to the conclusion that he'd 
created Horcruxes to give himself immortality based on these kinds of 
facts (along with the focus on immortality he has). I just don't see 
why Dumbledore must be the only person who'd ever consider the idea. 
He might even have gotten killed and didn't die.

Carol:
That had to be the result of some
> Dark magic, but they'd never known anyone who'd made even one 
Horcrux
> (the only other Wizard I know of who made one was the ancient Greek
> Wizard Herpo the Foul). <snip>

Magpie:
How come Dumbledore could consider the possibility? There are people 
who know Horcruxes exist, there must be. They're an obvious way to 
make a Wizard impossible to kill. There are books with information 
about them. Why must we just assume nobody could ever have come up 
with the idea? Horcruxes are the type of thing people would imagine 
even without knowing that they existed or what they were called. 

 
> Magpie:
> We didn't know Horcruxes existed, but Wizards do 
> > because magic is part of their world. It's surprising nobody else
> made Horcruxes, to be honest. But the information was there for the 
> taking. There was no information in the one library at Hogwarts, but
> even Hermione was able to just look the things up in books once she 
> figured out who had taken them all out. 
> 
> Carol:
> 
> I'm having trouble following your reasoning here. The information on
> Horcruxes was in the restricted section of the library, accessible 
to
> NEWT DADA students with permission from an instructor until 
Dumbledore
> removed the books from the library while Tom Riddle was still at
> school. Tom must have discovered it just in the nick of time.
> Obviously, Voldemort didn't share that information with his 
Slytherin
> friends. He wanted the power over death to be his own. He didn't 
want
> them in on the secret.

Magpie:
I thought the reasoning was simple: I think the idea that no one can 
know about a particular subject because it was once in the restricted 
section of the school library which is only open to NEWT level 
students, and then those books were removed to the Headmaster's 
office, is a bit silly. The information exists in the world. It's 
even in books. People could know it. I don't think information is 
entirely restricted to books Dumbledore readily shares with students 
at Hogwarts. They might have to dig a bit, but digging is what they 
should be doing.

Carol:
> Anyway, I doubt very much that even highly skilled, intelligent
> Wizards knew about Horcruxes except for a few rare cases. Snape
> probably would have if DD hadn't confiscated the books, but, as it
> was, no British Wizard under seventy would know about them, and few 
of
> those would have the incentive to explore Dark magic not taught at
> Hogwarts in that depth. )

Magpie:
I'd think Voldemort would provide an obvious incentive for doing just 
that.

Carol:
Durmstrang might have been a different
> matter, but LV never got the chance to take over the European WW,
> thanks to his own mistakes and failings. And Godric's Hollow and 
Harry
> and all that.)

Magpie:
So having information available at Durmstrang would be like it not 
existing at all? To me something being at Durmstrang makes it barely 
more out of reach than having it in the restricted section at 
Hogwarts.
 
> Magpie:
> Then there seemed to be a pretty clear list of things that could
> destroy them including basilisk venom (and why wouldn't that be
> obtainable on the black market along with other stuff that's 
dangerous
> to get like dragon's blood and giant spider poison?) 
> 
> Carol:
> Because you have to be a Parselmouth to control one, so only a
> Parselmouth would hatch one (unless the Dark Wizard doing so wanted 
to
> be killed by his own creation). And Parselmouths are extremely rare.
> Dragon's blood, however dangerous to acquire, is commonly available.
> And Acromantuals are only thought to be rare; the black marketeers
> don't know about the colony at Hogwarts!

Magpie:
However hard you imagine it is to get the venom of a basilisk, it 
sounds like just the type of thing that would be sold in Knockturn 
Alley to me. However they got it--I don't think you'd have to be 
raising one from an egg. And given how important this would be to 
their entire country, I'd think that rare as it is, some would be 
gotten. In canon we are of course restricted to things that three 
teenagers would have easy access to at Hogwarts, because nobody else 
in the entire country is part of the fight.

 
> Magpie:
> and fiend fire (that dumb 17-year- olds can make) or whatever other
> things exist. 
> 
> Carol:
> Fiend-Fyre that kills its own caster? I'll take Basilisk venom,
> conventiently made available by the accidental Parselmouth, Harry
> Potter, thank you!

Magpie:
We're talking about options outside of Harry and whether it's 
possible. The country's being terrorized by an allegedly really bad 
guy and you're rejecting options like a picky eater who just isn't 
that hungry anyway rejecting desserts. Release the fiend fire in a 
controlled environment to destroy the Horcruxes. You don't have to 
set it off willy-nilly like Vincent Crabbe in a crowded room with 
other people and no plan (and most people got out of that too).

 
> Magpie: 
> > And that's going the route of assuming you have to kill him rather
> than considering taking away his power in other ways--Dumbledore's
> careful guarding of Tom Riddle's underwhelming origins being an 
> example where he seems to be helping him weild superstitious power
> over the population. 
> 
> Carol responds:
> Superstition aside (and the WW may be wiser than DD if the name was
> jinxed in VW1 as well as VW2), I don't see anyone able to "take away
> his power in other ways." Are you forgetting the duel with Voldemort
> and his ability to possess people, not to mention his horribly
> invasive Legilimency that only Snape (and possibly DD) can resist? 

Magpie:
No, I'm looking at the many people in the WW and thinking they really 
ought to have been able to take more decisive action a lot better 
than they did if they'd gotten organized. He can't possess everybody 
at once, nor can he read everybody's minds at once. I know it's a bit 
of a challenge, but frankly, people have risen to worse challenges. 
He's one guy with magic, with some followers who also have magic, and 
he's fighting a country of people who also have magic, many of whom 
are supposed to be quite accomplished--and had the same basic formal 
education. They know he has these powers, I think they can come up 
with something besides "He can possess somebody and read their minds. 
I guess there's no way we can beat him." They could also develop 
those same powers themselves--they already have most of them.

Carol:
Now
> granted, JKR could have done more to show us the "great and 
terrible"
> deeds that LV performed with his yew-and-Phoenix-feather wand in 
VW1,
> but he gets Dementors and Giants to do his bidding and persuades
> werewolves to obey him. Even animals do what he wants them to do.
> Remember his description of the powers he had as an eleven-year-old
> before he even owned a wand?
> 
> "I can make things move without touching them. I can make animals do
> what I want them to do, without training them. I can make bad things
> happen to people who annoy me. I can make them hurt if I want to" 
(HBP
> 271). He hung a rabbit from the rafters without a wand, and, more
> impressive in a dark way, he not only climbed the cliff to the cave
> but forced two Muggle children to come with him.

Magpie:
Sounds like Wizarding powers to me. He's a prodigy, but he's just a 
wizard. Didn't Fred Weasley turn a teddy bear into a spider as a 
child? We see Voldemort in a battle at the end of DH and other books 
and he's not invincible. 

Carol:
> 
> Other Wizarding children made bad things happen to people when they
> were angry through accidental magic (Severus's tree branch and 
Harry's
> inflating of Aunt Marge), but LV at eleven was already controlling 
his
> wandless magic, controlling objects, animals, and people.

Magpie:
He's a child prodigy. That doesn't make him so awesome the entire 
country should give up because there's no hope. He's even got glaring 
personality vulnerabilities and plenty of magic that he doesn't use 
or has cut himself off from that weakens him.

Carol:
> 
> When DD told Tom that no one would force Tom to attend Hogwarts, Tom
> responded: "I'd like to see them try." Dumbledore says something
> similar of himself much later with regard to Azkaban:'I could 
escape,
> of course." We're talking about powerful Wizards here. You're not
> going to Stupefy Voldemort and force him to spill his guts by 
pouring
> Veritaserum down his throat. 

Magpie:
Zacharias Smith scoffed at the idea that regular spells could be 
effective against Voldemort and Harry shut up him fast. (Though Harry 
seemed to forget that the exact scenario he was describing was a 
special case.) Voldemort isn't the only powerful Wizard in his world. 
Sure Veritaserum might not work, but it wouldn't work with plenty of 
other Wizards either. I don't think that makes him invincible. Most 
spells work against him just like anybody else.

Carol:
In the unlikely event that you can
> outduel him (see OoP), he could possess you. And there's always the
> Imperius Curse, which may not work on Harry (or a superb Occlumens
> like Snape) but works just fine on ost people.

Magpie:
Our teenaged wizards also can control people with Imperius. I think 
other people besides Harry and the Superb! Occlumens!  Snape could 
learn to throw off Imperius. It's a discipline. You can learn to do 
it. So is dueling. It being unlikely you can outduel a particular 
Wizard doesn't mean that you might not outduel that particular Wizard 
(we've seen that happen). And if there's many excellent duelers and 
maybe some clever strategy, it becomes a lot more likely. 

-m