A dastardly Voldy plan - was: Re: Lockets

[dungrollin]

> Dungrollin:
> ...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 <snip>
> 
> The question is, who was it?
> <snip>
> 
> 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).
> 
> <snip further cast of suspects>
> 
> Basically, I can't decide between ESE!Aberforth and
> MoreResentfulThanHeSeems!Lucius, for the moment.
> 
> Carolyn:
> This is where I've come to a dead end as well. Snape seems to me 
> the most likeliest of the whole bunch, because it is clear from 
the 
> Sluggy evidence that  it is not unusual for very advanced students 
> with an interest in the Dark Arts to be interested in Hxs. But I 
> cannot figure out how he found the location of the cave, and if he 
> did do it, why he would not have told DD (since naturally, he is 
> Not Guilty as charged <g>).
> 
> Carolyn


Dungrollin:
While trying to clear some of the inch-thick slick of duckweed from 
the pond yesterday morning (a satisfying, if tedious job which 
allows the mind to wander and the frogs to breathe), I found myself 
reasoning this way:

The problem with postulating Snape (aside from the fact that he's 
*obviously* still working for DD) is that he's hardly more plausible 
than Regulus. Snape too was only a handful of years out of Hogwarts. 

Slughorn's drunken stutterings ("I am not proud ... I am ashamed of 
what – of what that memory shows ... I think I may have done
great damage that day ...") lead me to think that had anybody come 
to him asking about Hipreplacements after Tom did, he'd have told 
them to bugger off.

Which suggests to me that there's no way Regulus could have found 
out about them. There was nothing in Hogwarts library, DD had 
forbidden all discussion of them, Slughorn doesn't even want to 
revisit the memory of talking about them. Voldy apparently trusted 
no-one. Who could have suspected that he was making a High-hat?

Perhaps someone who didn't go to Hogwarts at all, someone who didn't 
have the benefit of a Headmaster like DD to excise all references to 
unmentionably evil magic in the library. Someone like Karkaroff, who 
went to Durmstrang and learned the Dark Arts there.  Actually, 
Karkaroff makes a lot of sense – it explains why he was so
surprised to find that the Dark Marks were coming back in GoF, it 
explains why he blabbed as soon as he was caught by the ministry – 
he never thought he'd have to beg for Voldy's forgiveness because he 
thought that Voldy was gone for good, not realising that he had more 
than one Howcryptic.

It's still a stretch, really, because we also need to explain how 
whoever it was found out about the cave. The only people who knew 
for certain are Tom and Amy and Dennis. Mrs Cole and DD know/knew 
that *something* happened, and anyone who knew that Voldy was really 
Tom Riddle could have tracked down the Muggle Orphanage and (with a 
bottle of gin) induced Mrs Cole to tell the story. But why would 
anyone think to do that?  It still requires that Voldy had let slip 
something about a really great bit of Muggle torture he did before 
he even owned a wand. Which runs contrary to what DD says about him:

"He was very guarded with me; he felt, I am sure, that in the thrill 
of discovering his true identity he had told me a little too much. 
He was careful never to reveal as much again, but he could not take 
back what he had let slip in his excitement, nor what Mrs Cole had 
confided in me."

Though we could assume that Tom was much less guarded with his proto-
Death Eaters in the Slytherin common room.

Then, yesterday afternoon (while re-sealing the bath) I thought: 
wait a moment... Sluggy didn't tell Tom about the spell needed to 
make a Horseblanket, so where did Tom find out? 

How about Grindelwald? Could Karkaroff have also been a Grindy 
acolyte? Is that how he and Tom met? I should think Grindy would 
have been somewhat suspicious of Tom, and, perhaps through 
legilimency picked up the memory of Amy and Dennis in the cave. 
(This would undoubtedly have angered Tom no end, so he'd have 
dedicated himself to becoming the best Legilimens in the world). 
Thus, it could have been Grindy who let it slip to Karkaroff before 
DD nobbled him.

Or is someone going to tell me that we know when Karkaroff was born 
and it doesn't tally?

Just a thought or five.

Dungrollin