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

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 182358

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Lynda Cordova" <moosiemlo at ...>
wrote:
>
> Carol responds:
> Who knew about that obsession? No one except Dumbledore.
> 
> Lynda:
> 
> Umm. . .I did.  From the little tidbits throughout the series, from
the diary to Dumbledore's visit to the orphanage which gave TR his
eventual escape from the muggle world (including his almost immediate
if somewhat shallow change of demeanor while talking to Dumbledore in
his room at the orphanage) to his momentous success as a student at
Hogwarts through to his applications for work at Hogwarts, sending his
lackeys back to Hogwarts time and again, etc. I *knew* that Voldemort
had an obsession with the place.
> 

Carol responds:
I meant, who among the characters in the book knew about it besides
Dumbledore. Of course, the reader did because we learned along with
Harry. No character other than Harry saw the memory in the diary (if
there was more than one memory, we didn't see it), and I'm not sure
how that memory or the encounter with Memory!Tom in the CoS indicates
an obsession with Hogwarts. No character other than Harry via the
Pensieve witnessed Dumbledore's encounters with the child Tom Riddle
(not yet a Hogwarts student but excited about being a Wizard and
learning to use a wand: "Where can I get one of those?") or the
interview for the DADA position, nor did any other character overhear
DD's explanation about LV's obesession with Hogwarts. (Possibly
Caractacus Burke, whom we glimpse in a partial memory, guessed that
his former employee had stolen the cup and the locket, but, if so, we
don't know about it, and there were other reasons for stealing
powerful magical objects than their connections with the Hogwarts
Founders.)

I'm not sure what you mean about "sending his lackeys back to Hogwarts
time and again." He ordered young Severus Snape to apply for the DADA
position to spy on DD, but since Snape was already working for
Dumbledore, of course he would hire him as a teacher (just not for the
DADA position).

In any case, I'll reask the question. Which *character* other than
Dumbledore (and Harry under his instruction) knew that Tom Riddle had
an obsession with Hogwarts? And who among them would have guessed that
he would try to obtain objects related to the Founders (other than his
own ancestor, Salazar Slytherin) to use as Horcruxes?

I don't think that anyone other than Dumbledore, who had been watching
Tom Riddle from the time he met him and collecting memories related to
Tom since he suspected the boy of murdering his Muggle relatives,
would have figured it out.

Carol, conceding that DD could have told some other than Harry (Snape
seems the obvious candidate) what he suspected, but, as Hagrid says,
"That's Dumbledore, innit?"