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

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 182317


> 
> Magpie:
> How come Dumbledore could consider the possibility? 

Carol:
Because he, unlike most other people in the British WW, knew about
Horcruxes for the reasons that I've already given.



> 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. 

Carol:
Thank you very much. I, on the contrary, think that it's perfectly
reasonable that information found only in the restricted section
accesible only to a very few people, most of whom would not be
interested in committing murder so that souls would be anchored to the
earth, and then accessible to nobbody would be generally known, and
the few people, such as Caractacus Burke or Horace Slughorn, who know
such things (but don't act on them) keep the knowledge to themselves.
Perhaps we'd better just agree to differ. I've already given my
reasoning here and see no need to do so again. 

Magpie:
The information exists in the world. It's even in books. People could
know it. <snip>

Carol: People could learn how to fly, too. Snape did. Certainly, it's
remotely possible that books written before Tom Riddle went to school
by people who are probably already dead (or "gaga" like Bathilda
Bagshot) could be read by somebody who had both the opportunity and
the motive, but the problem is, there aren't any Wizarding circulating
libraries, and the only books on the subject (except possibly books in
the Black family home that Regulus somehow found) that we know of are
now in Dumbledore's office, accessible to no one (Hermione has the
advantage of knowing about Horcruxes and knowing that those books are
there, information that no one else except Harry and Ron has and they
aren't as sneaky as she is). I personally think that Regulus finding
out about Horcruxes under these circumstances is a lot harder to
believe than no one else knowing about them. If *Snape* didn't know
about them, no one would. (I'm sure he suspected that Dark magic of
some sort was responsible for LV's altered appearance. He may even
have suspected that it was the same magic that made him to all intents
and purposes immortal. I did. But I never thought about putting a soul
bit in an object. (Perhaps I haven't read enough folklore.) And
Karkaroff at Durmstrang apparently didn't know, either.

Okay, so it's remotely possible that someone somewhere in the British
WW (other than DD and the recalcitrant Slughorn and the dead
Caractacus Burke knows about Horcruxes. Maybe one of the Unspeakables
does. But it doesn't look like it, does it? It may be possible, but
it's not remotely likely. And even if it were, it takes Dumbledore's
early research into people's memories, conducted before even *he*
suspected Horcruxes, and his skilled Legilimency to obtain the
memories, to determine what the objects are. Even if Caractacus Burke
stepped forward with the theory that Riddle murdered Hepzibah to steal
those two objects, there are plenty of other reasons to steal
powerfully magical, beautiful objects associated with famous people,
one of them LV's ancestor, than to make them into Horcruxes. DD could
not have suspected the Horcrux idea until he saw Tom again ten years
later.

Carol earleir:
> > 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:
Can you explain how they're supposed to explore magic whose existence
they don't know about? ("Dumbledore, old man, we know you're holding
out on us. You must have confiscated the books that we need. Or can't
you just tell us, old man? it would be a lot easier than making us
look through the indexes of those books for a term we've never heard
of.") I don't think so. I really don't think so. So I suppose they're
just supposed to go out into the world and find the books that
somebody must have written that must exist somewhere. that, if I may
borrow the word you used to describe my idea earlier, is just plain silly.

Carol earlier:
> 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.

Carol:
Sigh. I didn't say that Durmstrang definitely had such books. I said
that it *might* have been a different matter since the Dark Arts are
reputedly taught there. But headmaster Karkaroff clearly didn't know
about the Horcruxes, and Great Dark Wizard Grindelwald, who knew about
the Deathly Hallows, never made one, so we can't know whether he knew
about them or not. And even Durmstrang has its limits or GG would
never have been expelled. I doubt that they teach the Unforgiveables
to students under the equivalent of NEWT level (it would be utterly
stupid to do so), and probably Horcruxes, which, after all, require
both murder and the mutilation of the soul, probably aren't taught at
all, but information about them might be accessible to upper-level
students doing research. The thing is, you have to have heard of a
Horcrux to look it up, or you have to be diligently searching for a
means of obtaining earthly immortality, as Tom Riddle was, to stumble
upon the knowledge accidentally. (How Slughorn, who was not interested
in such things, knew about them, I can't guess. Maybe they were still
occasionally mentioned by teachers when he was in school in the early
twentieth century. Or JKR needed him to know about them as a plot
device. Note that he didn't know the spell used to create them unless
he was lying.)

> 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. 

Carol:
To you. To me, Basilisks seem much more rare than dragons or even
Acromantulas and their venom unobtainable unless you can control the
Basilisk through Parseltongue. Harry could never have killed the
Basilisk unless Fawkes had blinded it first. They kill you by looking
at you, rember? Maybe Wormtail could milk *Nagini* (lucky him!), but
the only person who could possibly milk a Basilisk would be its
Parselmouth master. And we don't know of any Parselmouths in the
British WW other than the Gaunts (who seem not to have attended
Hogwarts) between Salazar Slytherin and Tom Riddle. Parselmouths,
we're told, are extremely rare, and only a Parselmouth can control a
Basilisk per FB.) So you are free to believe that, like Acromantula
venom surreptitiously stolen by Slughorn from a freshly dead
Acromantula, Basilisk venom occasionally shows up on the black market
to be bought by people intending to destroy the Horcruxes that nobody
knows about (if they're intent on murder, there are easier and cheaper
methods.) i, however, see no reason to think that Basilisk venom is
even that easily obtainable.

Magpie:
However they got it--I don't think you'd have to be raising one from
an egg. 

Carol:

Okay, then. They just find one that's been holed up somewhere living
on rats for a thousand years like the one in the CoS? If it were
loose, it would be Petrifying people, or rather, killing them with its
stare (or its venom if it's feeling vicious). Do you think there are
Basilisk reservations to match the dragon preserves? I very much doubt
it. Again, only a Parselmouth can control a Basilisk. If one's around,
you'd better have a rooster handy.

Magpie:
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.

Carol:

*If* they knew about Horcruxes and how to destroy them and *if* they
knew that Tom Riddle had created them. And even then, they'd need to
know how many there were, what they were, and how many there were and
how to get past the protections on the locket and the ring.

And what do you mean, easy access? If Harry hadn't spoken
Parseltongue, they'd never have gotten in to the Chamber of Secrets.
Dumbledore tried repeatedly and couldn't do it. and once he got in, he
nearly died from the Basilisk venom. Had DD not sent Fawkes, who A)
brought the Sword of Gryffindor (which conveniently absorbed the venom
and became a potential Horcrux destroyer itself), B) clawed out the
Basilisk's eyes so that it couldn't kill Harry if he looked at it, and
C) used his tears to heal the otherwise fatal wound, Harry would be
dead. Easy? Ask CoS!Harry if it was easy. And they wouldn't have had
"easy access" to the dead Basilisk's fangs if Harry didn't speak
Parseltongue (and Ron weren't a pretty good mimic), either. *No one
else could get in* even after the Basilisk was dead.

> 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).

Carol:
You're talking generalizations and very remote possibilities, which
I'm discounting as unlikely *using canon*. I guess I shouldn't even
respond to this thread as we seem to be on different intellectual plains.

*Can* Fiend-Fyre be released in a controlled environment? Where's the
canon for that? It destroys everything in its path and Harry, Ron,
Draco, and the unconscious Goyle escaped only because there were two
brooms handy. (A bit of a coincidence and authorial manipulation, I
concede.)

Carol, who is *not* rejecting options like a picky eater but is
answering your very generalized and hypothetical speculations using
canon-based arguments and would appreciate seeing some canon on your
side of the argument (with a cessation of adjectives like "silly" and
"nitpicking" regarding my arguments, which are anything byt)