Caring about people

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 184550

Alla wrote:
> <SNIP>
> So your argument is that Moody who thought that they should
transport Harry without actually **telling DE** when they are going to
be doing it is wrong? Okay, so here is my question then.
> 
> What purpose did the Dumbledore's order to Snape serve? <snip> I
still do not understand what legitimate purpose it would serve.
> 
> By legitimate purpose I mean how exactly telling DE about their plan
would protect Harry more than, **not telling** DE about the day of the
operation.

Carol responds:
But you're defining "legitimate purpose" differently than Portrait!DD
does. For him, it's of the utmost importance not only to save Harry's
life but to get Snape into Hogwarts as headmaster to protect the
students to the best of his ability.

Snape's revelation serves what DD considers to be a legitimate purpose
in that it makes a difference to *Voldemort*, who will be ready to
reward this seemingly loyal follower with any thing he asks ("The
headmastership at Hogwarts, my lord?"). that Snape has already killed
DD supposedly on LV's orders is insufficient. He has to *remain* in
LV's good graces. He cannot slip up by failing to provide information
from his unnamed "source" (surely Mundungus). Not telling LV would
arouse LV's suspicions about Snape, and even if he weren't killed, he
would lose that essential position as LV's favorite, continuing to
earn what passes for LV's trust while really serving DD's cause and
Harry's.

The revelation, thoug it seems to increase the Order's danger,
actually makes *no* difference to them or to Harry, whose escape will
be detected and LV notified instantly whether Snape reveals the time
and date or not. What makes the difference for Harry and the Order is
the Poly-juiced Potters plan.

Alla wrote: 
> Because you see, I am just not seeing how Dumbledore's plan was 
better. It just seems to me to be a plain common sense that when one 
does covert operation, it is better NOT to tell the enemy what you are
doing.

Carol responds:
You don't see how the Seven Potters diversion is better than a single
Harry? *That's* what makes the different. A covert operation is
impossible when you're being watched. (I won't get into Invisibility
Cloaks and all that. We're just comparing the original plan, which
would have been instantly detected and reported to LV and the waiting
DEs, with the revised plan, with Snape revealing the date and time but
*not* the key element, the Poly-juiced Potters.) There was no chance
for a covert operation. The enemy would have known what they were
doing in any case.

The Dursleys' house would have been watched, as Moody knew and stated,
just as we see 12 GP being watched later. The moment they broke
through the protective barrier, they would have been seen and attacked
by the watching DEs, and Voldemort and the other DEs would have been
summoned and appeared instantly, brooms in hand. (It's clear from the
messages sent between LV and the DEs later in DH that real
information, such as "Potter will be coming to the Ravenclaw common
room," can be communicated via the Dark Marks.) Many people were
likely to be killed, and one of those people was likely to be Harry,
as far as the Order knew. (They had no way of knowing that Harry's
borrowed wand, on its own, would destroy Voldemort's borrowed one.)
Dumbledore, Snape, and Moody (no doubt echoing the Confunded
Mundungus, who is echoing Snape) all state that the *only* way the
Order's plan will work (whether or not Snape reveals the time and date
to remain in Voldemort's good graces and appear to be his diligent and
loyal and most valuable servant) is to use the Poly-juiced Potters.
*That*, not a "covert operation," makes the difference.

It's a dangerous business escorting Harry to safety, and only a
diversion with a six-out-of-seven chance that LV will follow the wrong
"Harry" will protect him. The original plan, to escort Harry without
decoys, will *not* work, as Snape makes clear to the Confunded
Mundungus and Mundungus dutifully repeats to the Order, who adopt the
modified plan because if they don't, they're likely to lose not only
their own lives but, more important, Harry's. The decoy plan *might*
work. Snape gives no guarantees. The original plan definitely will
not, even if the time and date are kept secret, as the Order realizes
or they would not have adopted Mundungus's suggestion. (What's the
point of Poly-juiced Potters if they don't anticipate pursuit? What's
the point of anticipating Voldemort's assumptions about who will guard
Harry and what form of transportation "Potter" will be using if they
don't anticipate that Voldemort himself will be there? What's the
point of reassuring Mundungus that the "Harrys" will be safer than the
guards because the DEs will be trying to kill them but not Harry if
Moody doesn't anticipate a lot of DEs and very real danger?)

The point is, Snape's revelation *seems* to increase the danger for
the Order for Harry and for the Order, but it doesn't. It's clear from
Moody's words that they would have been pursued by multiple DEs and
Voldemort himself no matter what. And, BTW, the incident when Harry
says "Voldemort" later in the book shows just how quickly DEs (or
Snatchers) can show up. JKR wants Snape seems to the reader to be
betraying the Order and Harry with his revelations. DD wants him to
seem to be Voldemort's most reliable and valuable DE. Both purposes
are beautifully served through Snape's revelation. But Snape has an
ace up his sleeve that makes his seemingly disastrous revelation of 
no consequence. If he'd revealed the Poly-juiced Potters plan, OTOH,
the element of surprise really would have been lost and the danger to
the Order and Harry would have been greatly increased.

Thanks to the Seven Potters diversion, only one person dies and the
injuries are minimal. Harry would have gotten away undetected if he
hadn't cast Expelliarmus, an incident that is no fault of
Portrait!DD's plan. Moody would have lived if Mundungus hadn't
panicked and Disapparated, leaving him to be hit by the AK. (True,
Mundungus would have been killed, but he's their least useful member.)
George's injury was an accident, again no fault of the plan; Snape was
aiming at a DE and saving Lupin's life. No one else was injured
(unless you count Hagrid's fall, which he survived because of his
strength and size, as he would have done with or without DD's plan).

Had they followed the original plan, whether or not Snape revealed the
time and date--which made no difference because the DEs can
communicate instantly through their Dark Marks, all of them can
Apparate, and LV can fly though Apparating is quicker for a short
distance--it's unlikely that any good guys (other than undercover
Snape) would have survived (except that Harry's wand would have kept
LV from killing him and destroying the soul bit at that point, but the
Order members couldn't know that and neither can the first-time
reader). As it was, the casualty count was very low--only one death,
and that one was Mundungus's fault).

If Snape had said nothing, they would still have faced Voldemort and
thirty DEs because of the instant communication and transportation
available to the DEs. The Seven Potters plan, "the only thing that
*might* work," gave them their only chance of survival. They knew
their risk, none better than Moody, and they chose to take it. And
those in most need of protection, the youngest Order members (and the
inept, unreliable, and cowardly Mundungus) were the least likely to be
killed. The fighting was left to the older and more expeienced members
(Tonks, though young, was an Auror). There was nothing for it but to
make the best of a bad situation, to risk death to protect Harry. And
that would have been the case whether Snape had revealed the time and
date (on DD's orders) or not.

If we're going to point a finger of blame here, maybe we should blame
JKR for coming up with both the original plan and DD's modification,
which serves her plot purposes in making Snape look like a traitor and
keeping him with LV long enough to be appointed headmaster; allowing
Harry to lose Hedwig and his Firebolt (both symbols of his connection
to Hogwarts and both dangerous to use while he's in hiding) and his
wand to go off on its own, prompting LV to begin his pursuit of an
all-powerful wand; and killing off Mad-Eye Moody (which begins the
casualty count and signals the intensified danger while enabling his
eye to play a role of its own later). George's ear has its own little
darkly ironic subplot made possible because he's identical to Harry
rather than Fred, from whom he is permanently differentiated--again,
not possible without the Seven Potters subplot. It may serve other
purposes that I can't think of right now. But puppetmaster Dumbledore
is himself a puppet, as are all the other characters, who are
instruments of JKR's will. Character serves plot in this instance as
in many others--which does not make it wrong, of course, to debate the
characters' motivations and values and to try to determine for
themselves just who and what they are. I'm only saying that if the
plan to have Snape reveal the time and date but not the key point, the
Poly-juiced Harrys, or the Poly-juiced Potter plan in itself is bad,
if a better plan could have been devised using, say, side-along
Apparition and the Invisibility Cloak, the ultimate blame lies with
the author, who needed all these things to happen (along with the
introduction of Andromeda and Ted Tonks) in the first, fourth, and
fifth chapters of DH to move her plot along rather than with
Portrait!DD, who makes the best of a bad plan by coming up with the
Poly-juiced Potters and having Snape reveal seemingly key information
exactly as he has always done to maintain the illusion that he's on
LV's side, or with Moody, who comes up with a fatally flawed plan only
because the Floo Network can't be hooked up to the Dursleys' house and
Apparition is being monitored (if that's inconsistent with what we've
already read or heard, blame JKR, not Moody). He has to get Harry out
somehow, and his plan is vastly improved (but by no means made
fail-safe) by the addition of the decoys as suggested by Mundungus via
Snape via Portrait!DD.

If you really think that the DEs would not have attacked in force,
along with Voldemort himself, if Snape hadn't revealed the time and
date (on DD's orders), we're at a stalemate. But look again at "A
Place to Hide" and see just how quickly the two DEs, dressed as Muggle
workmen, appear after Harry says "Voldemort" or at "The Deathly
Hallows" and see how quickly Fenrir Greyback and his Snatchers show up
under the same circumstances--when none of them had any clue as to
Harry's whereabouts before he spoke the name. There's no reason why
the DEs can't show up just as quickly when summoned by LV's Dark Mark,
especially if they already know the approximate location and are
anticipating the summons (in contrast to GoF where the summons to the
graveyard takes them by surprise and they presumably have to conjure
up DE robes and masks before Apparating to the graveyard a few minutes
later. LV himself can certainly Apparate rather than fly if Apparition
is faster and, of course, he would be waiting for the summons with or
without Snape's revelation, as would the thirty or so on-call DEs (by
which I mean robed, masked, and ready to Apparate at a second's
notice, with brooms and wands in hand).

Carol, still wondering just how much of DD was in that portrait and
whether it worked like the Sorting Hat, with a bit of DD's "brains" in
it so that it could think for itself using DD-style logic