Snape and Lucius was James and Intent And Snape

[montavilla47]

No: HPFGUIDX 187100

> Pippin:
<snip>
> "No doubt he thought that Lucius would not dare do anything with the Horcrux other than guard it carefully, but he was counting too much upon Lucius's fear of a master who had been gone for years and whom Lucius believed dead. Of course, Lucius did not know what the diary really was. I understand that Voldemort had told him the diary would cause the Chamber of Secrets to reopen because it was cleverly enchanted. Had Lucius known he held a portion of his master's soul in his hands, he would undoubtedly have treated it with more reverence--but instead he went ahead and carried out the old plan for his own ends: By planting the diary upon Arthur Weasley's daughter, he hoped to discredit Arthur and get rid of a highly incriminating magical object in one stroke."
> 
> According to Dumbledore, then, Lucius only knew the diary would open the chamber,  not that it would possess or sap the life of the person he gave it too, which only a horcrux could have done.  Incidentally, this shows that Lucius knew that TM Riddle was Voldemort and expected other people to know also -- otherwise there wouldn't be anything incriminating about an old diary.

Montavilla47:

My understanding was that Lucius intended for someone to open
the Chamber of Secrets.  Unless he thought that Ginny was going
to read the *blank* pages of the diary and thus get the instructions
for opening the Chamber *and* be motivated on her own to do so,
I think Lucius must have known that the diary was capable of 
at least persuading people to do its bidding.

That's not to say that Lucius knew it was a Horcrux.  He obviously
didn't.  It's possible that he knew how to communicate with it (as
Harry and Ginny discovered by writing in it), and the diary persuaded
Lucius to smuggle it into the school, knowing it could then open
the Chamber.

It's possible that Voldemort, in giving the diary to Lucius, expected
the then infant Draco to be the one possessed into opening the 
Chamber and Lucius came up with the switch in order to safeguard
his son--although it's possible that Lucius didn't understand all
that much about it--other that it was a way to embarrass 
Dumbledore and embarrassing Arthur was an added bonus.

It's even possible that the diary did more than "persuade" Lucius.
If it could possess Ginny, it could possess Lucius.  It might have
wanted to get into that school and used Lucius's hatred of Arthur
as a motivator.

That's all speculation, of course.  My point was that, the way
I read it, the incrimination was to come from Ginny opening
the Chamber, not from Ginny having the diary in her possession.