[the_old_crowd] Hoax? (Re: That Bloody Man Again )

[susiequsie23]

Pippin:
> But when did it go wrong? Would it take  Dumbledore any
> longer to realize this was the wrong locket than it did Harry? He
> would know he'd been decoyed, or at least that there was a good
> chance
> of it. Which, as I've said in another post, almost guarantees that
> the potion has no antidote. Voldemort doesn't need to find out how
> the drinker managed to find his way to the cave. He already knows.
> 
> His victim will be  allowed to live just long enough to realize
> that he's been snookered. I suspect only Dumbledore's great magical
> power allowed him to survive as long as he did. 

Jen: You make an interesting point here, Pippin, that the entire 
cave set-up was a hoax meant only to kill the person finding it. And 
that he or she would only discover the truth while being dragged 
down into the Inferi or slowly poisoned to death! Is that right?

My first thought was--'but that can't be, Only a handful of people 
know about the cave and we're lead to believe all were Muggles. 
Except Dumbledore.' Ding Ding Ding! One very important wizard knows 
about the cave and has the intelligence and skills to find it.

But if Voldemort set up the cave as a big gotcha for Dumbledore, or 
anyone else for that matter, why in the world wouldn't he take 
credit for it? Any person (un)lucky enough to find the cave would be 
going to the grave like we are, scratching his or her proverbial 
head--'hmmm, who is RAB and if it's *Regulus* how did he have the 
skills to do this? And if not....' glub, glub, glub down into the 
lake or death by posioning. No opportunity to know Voldemort won. If 
it's a hoax, Voldemort messed up big time. 

<snip>

Much as I love the idea of a hoax, I don't think the glimpses into 
Voldemort's psychology support it. We have extensive information 
about Voldemort's magic: He fears death & darkness, believes blood-
letting weakens the enemy, overlooks the obvious to feed his 
particular obsessions, trusts no one, and is over-confident about 
his strategy for immortality. He doesn't need to 'get' anyone else 
because he assumes no one can touch him.


SSSusan:
This may be an incredibly naive & suracey reading on my part, but in addition to the objections laid out by Jen, I can't quite figure out a way in which a cave-and-horcrux hoax would add to the story *at this point.*  While I could imagine Voldy being skilled enough to set it up, I can't quite imagine how this would move along a story which is heading into its final-of-seven-parts part.  

In HBP we have Harry learning from DD all that he can about what horcrowsies are, how many there likely are, and about how incredibly well-protected they are each likely to be.  We have DD now *dead* so that Harry is on his own to find at least 3 additional, if not 4, horsecrocks... and I think most of us believe this will be a fearsome task for 17-year-old Harry w/o DD at his side.  Additionally, even *if* Snape is (still?) on the side of good, Harry sure as hell doesn't believe it.  He's less likely than ever to listen to anything Snape might be able to tell him -- and, heck, quite likely to attempt to kill him on sight.  

So the task facing Harry is daunting, we're running out of time in this series, there is so much to do/so much to answer, and so little space in which to get it done.  Having the cave/locket scene turn out to be just a har-dee-har-har on Voldy's part would, imo, make Harry's ability to find & destroy all the hincapies still out there even MORE unbelievable.  As it stands now, either DD is right and the switched locket represents a substitute for the one *already* destroyed by RAB or, at most, the real locket horslut is still out there, but at least Harry would know what it looks like and have some notions about where to go find it (beginning with Kreachur and 12 GP).  Starting from *scratch,* though?  And not recognizing that DD was wrong about the locket's already having been destroyed?  It just puts too much MORE onto Harry, plot-wise, for my liking.  

I could very well be wrong, of course. :-)

Siriusly Snapey Susan


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