A dastardly Voldy plan - was: Re: Lockets

[dungrollin]

Dung:
> 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? 

Jen: JKR was mum about Grindelwald in that last interview, guess
we're finally due for some answers. I'm not sure about the Karkaroff 
connection; I'm still figuring on Amy Benson as either a mistaken 
identity character (one we already know) or a new character we'll 
meet. But Grindelwald must be the Horcrux connection.
<snip>

So what do you think Dung, was Riddle an apprentice or did he
secretly discover GW's work on Horcruxes and learn that way? Somehow 
I can't see Loner!Tom admiring anyone else enough to apprentice with 
them.


Dungrollin:
Tom was still in his "I can charm the birds from the trees" phase at 
this point. He knew how to carefully flatter people to get what he 
wanted, and I'll bet if he did have contact with Grindelwald he 
spent a good amount of time watching and learning and deciding not 
to make the same mistakes. Like only having one Hoesharpener. 

In fact... We only have Tom finishing Hogwarts in 1945 because of 
the "50 years ago" stuff in CoS, don't we? If that's a vague date, 
(perhaps a couple of years out) then wouldn't it be possible that 
Tom met up with Grindy, learned about Hotcroutons (and possibly made 
his first), and then, after DD had finished Grindelwald off, Tom 
decided to ask Slughorn what would happen if you made more than one? 
It could all be DD's fault for demonstrating so clearly that one 
Hatbox is never enough.


Jen, thinking Dung has a pretty cool job if she gets to think about
HP while she's working.

Dungrollin:
Not *work* work, housework; own pond, own bath. Though I admit to 
gazing out of the window a lot when I *am* at work, too (but that's 
normal, isn't it?)

Dungrollin, previously:
> 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 
<snip>
>
Entropy:
Yes, the initials plus the locket found at Grimmauld place in OOP 
was enough to convince me that the author of the note was Regulus. 
But who helped him? What about Kreacher?

Harry mentions that the boat "doesn't look like it was built for two 
people" and is worried that the boat will support both of their
weights. Supposing that Regulus was an average-sized man, Kreacher's 
small, somewhat emaciated frame would not have added any significant 
amount of weight to the small craft.

Dumbledore's response to Harry's concern is that "Voldemort will not 
have cared about the weight, but about the amount of magical power 
that crossed his lake. I rather think an enchantment will have been 
placed upon this boat so that only one wizard at a time will be able 
to sail in it." One *wizard*. We already know that house elves have 
strong magical powers of their own, but it seems to be separate from 
the type of magic that wizards possess (we have seen that they are 
immune to Hogwart's enchantments against apparating and 
disapparating and such). Just as Kreacher's weight was insignificant 
to the sailing of the boat, so were his magical powers undetected by 
the enchantment.

Dungrollin:
Ye-e-ess... Though it seems to me that Voldy didn't care about 
weight *or* magical power for crossing the lake, since DD with his 
stupendous magical power plus Harry still got across with no 
problem. Neither did it apparently occur to Voldy to simply count 
the number of people in the boat (which would be the easy way of 
doing it, really – don't tell me he couldn't enchant it to capsize 
when the second person gets in, no matter how heavy/powerful they 
are). 

I don't really understand all that obfuscation of DD's between 
raising the boat and getting in it, frankly. All that happened is 
that DD and Harry got in a small boat and crossed a scary lake. Why 
did JKR bother having DD suspect that the boat was enchanted so that 
only one wizard at a time would be able to sail in it, and then get 
round it by saying that Harry doesn't count? I'd have preferred to 
have seen DD do something clever to get around Voldy's protections, 
than just have him describe the obstacles and why they don't matter. 
Makes Voldy look a bit thick and incompetent again.

Entropy:
Finally, if the locket found at Grimmauld Place turns out to be the
HorseCrax locket, we could easily connect the dots that Kreacher was 
able to get his hands on the locket and tuck it away at Grimmauld 
Place before Regulus had a chance to figure out what to do with it.

Dungrollin:
Yeah, it could have been Kreacher, but it doesn't explain how 
Regulus knew Voldy was making Horlicks in the first place, nor does 
it explain how Regulus knew about and found the cave. (Or are you 
suggesting that Kreacher is first and foremost Voldy's elf?)

And what's Kreacher's motivation in all this? Did he go to the cave 
with Regulus because Reg ordered him to? If he did, why would he 
hide the locket from Reg afterwards? 

Unless Regulus ordered Kreacher to keep it hidden, I'm doubtful that 
Kreacher's got it, since he was hoarding Black family heirlooms 
which had presumably been around for centuries. The Slytherin locket 
would have been a newly-acquired possession of Regulus's, it would 
be less important to Kreacher than that tapestry, or the goblets 
with the black family crest for example.  

I reckon ESE!Aberforth got the locket off Fletcher. Mundungus was 
supposed to be barred from Aberforth's pub, so what were they doing 
in cahoots in Hogsmeade?

Dungrollin