A dastardly Voldy plan - was: Re: Lockets

[dungrollin]

> Kneasy:
> You stopped before coming to the punch-line.
> Bella killed Reggy.
> With Sirius fitted up for the Potter murders, languishing away in 
> durance vile, plus having been disinherited, who then gets the 
loot?
> Bella. Darling Bella.
> >
> 
> Carolyn:
> This makes a very rational sub-plot, since it is clear from Ch 2 
that 
> the DEs know all about the Fidelius charm that is preventing Snape 
> from telling them the OOP HQ location. But you do have this odd 
> situation that Bella knows she is due to inherit 12 GP, and can 
> remember and know about that address and possibly even visit it, 
> without being aware of it being OOP HQ. So, presumably she could 
have 
> gone straight there after the death of Sirius and had a rummage 
about 
> looking for the locket, which presumably would not necessarily 
have 
> been protected by the Fidelius?

Hang on. Regulus died the year Harry was born (1980), Sirius was 
banged up November 1981, and Bella was caught being horrid some time 
after that. And Sirius's mother was (old and mad but) still alive.

If I've understood this correctly, Voldy set up all those 
enchantments in his special cave, his blood-thirsty walls of rock, 
legions of inferi, magic golden boat and all, so that Bella could 
let Regulus think he'd got one over on the Dark One.

Then what? Bella gives Regulus a chance to stash the locket in 12GP, 
and then kills him on Voldy's orders. So the locket is waiting where 
Voldy wants it to be picked up by some passing wizard so it can 
possess him and ... do something. 

Voldy falls and Sirius is captured ten months to a year and 10 
months later, and Bella soon after.

15 years later the Dark Lord comes back, frees Bella from Azkaban, 
and (what?) decides it was a rubbish plan all along and now he wants 
the locket back? Or has Bella decided she wants it for some other 
reason?

Bella decides the easiest way to do it (now that Ma Black has 
snuffed it) is to bump off Sirius and inherit the house (despite the 
fact that the entire DoM plan hinges on the close relationship 
between Sirius and Harry, and that she knows full well how much 
Sirius hates her and the rest of the Blacks).

But Sirius isn't allowed out to play by DD, so she doesn't get her 
chance until the DoM fiasco, when she takes it. Now she's either 
screamingly cross that Harry's got 12GP, or she's managed to sneak 
back and get the locket just after the Order cleared out pronto.

If that's right, questions arising: 

Why go to so much trouble to let Regulus think he was clever? If 
he's being hunted by Voldy because he tried to back out of the DEs, 
why doesn't Voldy capture him, force-feed him something nasty, 
and watch and laugh while he takes three months to die? Why the 
elaborate hoax?

Why go to such circuitous (I'm going to run out of synonyms, I know 
it) lengths to get the locket into an ordinary wizarding family's 
home? Even Malfoy came up with a better scheme than that. Imperio 
someone, make them plant it, then memory charm them.

Why has Voldy changed his mind about where he wants the locket to 
be? Or, if it's Bella acting on her own, what does she want it for?

Jen wrote:
> I just realized it doesn't fit the timeline of the story to say 
> Regulus or any of the younger generation DE's were involved in 
> hiding the locket. 

<snipping nice summary of evidence>

Dungrollin:
I think you're absolutely right. But I'm also convinced R.A.B. is 
Regulus, and I'm suspicious of Regulus finding the cave and getting 
the locket out by his own and on his self. I think he had help from 
a senior DE (who tricked Regulus into thinking it was his idea, 
showed him where the cave was, made him drink the potion and then 
either saved him with an antidote and then handed him over to Voldy 
to be eliminated, or got him out of the cave, but left him to die of 
the effects of the potion at 12GP while ostensibly going for help
– someone not nice was using him, in other words). The question
is, who was it?

I'm looking for a DE who was ticked off with Voldy, but who didn't 
necessarily want him to know that they were (hence the "No, Regulus, 
I'm just helping you out, this is *your* revenge, you sign the note, 
go on, don't you worry about me..."). Someone within the DEs then, 
but not someone who has had any contact with DD since (at least not 
in an information-sharing sense). Perhaps someone who knew what 
Voldy was like with DEs that didn't live up to his expectations, and 
thought they might need a bit of leverage later on.

Obviously, it can't have been Snape, because if he were Good, and 
out to destroy Voldy's hipkitches from such an early time, he would 
have told DD all about it yonks ago, and DD would never have 
bothered going to the cave to get a fake. If he were ESE (as if!), 
why would he have helped Regulus pinch one of his master's trinkets? 
Perhaps someone with a penchant for ESE!Snape could think this one 
through, (I'm afraid my doublethink abilities are too limited).

Bella (nice as the "I'll bump off both my cousins so I can inherit" 
ideas go) doesn't seem to fit - she hasn't got enough against Voldy, 
she's a mite too devoted. Could all be an act, of course, with the 
best years of her life sacrificed to Azkaban (was she round the 
twist beforehand?) but don't think it fits with the timeline.

Barty Crouch Junior? 12 OWLs and certainly thought he was a Voldy in 
the making. Must have been fresh out of Hogwarts, though, or even 
still there – same year as Regulus, possibly. Unfortunately, we
saw nothing but loyalty to Voldy from him in GoF, so I'm not sure 
that's a fruitful line of enquiry. 
(Ooh, but I've just had a thought - what happens if you make someone 
who's been dementor-snogged into a Hedgecrampon? Will we be seeing 
Barty Crouch Junior (v.2) with the help of a bit of Voldy's soul?)

Nott, Rosier, Mulciber, Dolohov, Lestrange (presumably Rodolphus, 
Rabastan or their father) and Avery were the earliest DEs, mentioned 
either in Slughorn's memory, or by DD when Voldy came to ask for a 
job circa 1960. But we know almost nothing about them.

Yaxley and the Carrows interest me greatly (HBP:ch2, p32 UK ed), yet 
they are simply names for now.

Crabbe and Goyle are portrayed as far too thick, like their sons.

How about Karkaroff? Did he do more than just blab some names at his 
trial? Pity he's dead too, that could have been fun.

Basically, I can't decide between ESE!Aberforth and 
MoreResentfulThanHeSeems!Lucius, for the moment. 

If Voldy was really as secretive about his Hedgecrumpets as DD 
thought, Lucius was the only DE with any opportunity to find out 
about them, having been given the diary. We don't know exactly when, 
but it was 'shortly' before Voldy fell. How short is 'shortly'? A 
month? A few months? Actually, let's rephrase that: how short 
is 'shortly' when you're 150 years old? We only need 'shortly' to 
mean 'just under a year' for the timeline to be plausible.

It would mean that (assuming Lucius supposed the locket had been 
destroyed by Regulus) he really wasn't expecting Voldy back after 
GH. Or he didn't know how it was meant to work, and assumed that it 
hadn't, that the diary now contained only memories, and no soul.

Lucius has had a year in Azkaban to reflect on just how pleased he 
is that Voldy *did* come back. He's now *really* ticked off with his 
boss (or will be when he finds out what his son's been put through), 
and has good incentives to defect. Is he the helping hand that Harry 
and co will need?

Aberforth... Oh, well, I'll leave that for another post, I've had 
too much beer tonight already.

Dungrollin

BTW, over in the maelstrom that is HPfGU, there was an intermittent 
thread about favourite scenes, but nobody seems to have nominated 
Snape doing his I-have-the-patience-of-a-saint bit from chapter 24 
(UK ed/ p493). Am I alone in having found this the funniest bit of 
the whole book?

"This is your copy of Advanced Potion-Making, is it, Potter?"
"Yes," said Harry, still breathing hard.
"You're quite sure of that, are you, Potter?"
"Yes," said Harry, with a touch more defiance.
"This is the copy of Advanced Potion-Making that you purchased from 
Flourish and Blotts?"
"Yes," said Harry firmly.
"Then why," asked Snape, "does it have the name 'Roonil Wazlib' 
written inside the front cover?"
Harry's heart missed a beat.
"That's my nickname," he said.
"Your nickname," repeated Snape.
"Yeah ... that's what my friends call me," said Harry.
"I understand what a nickname is," said Snape.

Also note the very low adverb:verb ratio.