Best of Enemies. pt. 3.

[Barry Arrowsmith]

Right. Who's next?
Ah, yes.
But is it a 'who' or an 'it'?
Diary!Tom.

Very definitely anti-Harry, or at least it is once it realises that the 
Pestiferous Potter is at hand and can be got at. Sorting this one out 
has been a bit of a problem for fandom, too many unknowns and 
unanswered questions proliferate like ants at a picnic. Still, let's 
have a look, accepting that with all those lacunae we're reduced to the 
condition of WYSIWYG.

Firstly, just to make the position clear, IMO Diary!Tom is entirely 
separate from Voldy. Harry's scar doesn't react to the Diary or to the 
corporate Tom. We are also drawn to the conclusion that D!T had never 
heard of young Potter until Ginny enlightened him, but once the dog 
sees the rabbit whatever the construct was intended to do is put in 
abeyance while Tom investigates Harry. And investigate is the right 
word - D!T wants to know about Harry, to find out what's special about 
him and it's not until he decides that there's nothing particularly 
special there that he decides it's party time - hide and seek with 
Harry as 'it'.

Mind you, impressive though the Basilisk is, I'm not so sure about Tom. 
Either he exhibits a breath-taking ability to plan, foresee events and 
take the appropriate action, or he's lucky verging on the miraculous. 
Consider: he controls Ginny. Yet Ginny throws the Diary away in a 
disused toilet that just happens to be the one where the informational 
ghost of Tom's previous victim lurks and where the Trio just happen to 
be brewing a forbidden potion in complete secrecy. And no, Ginny wasn't 
following instructions, according to Tom she became suspicious and was 
disposing of it. Fortunate, or what? But then of course, once free of 
its effects she becomes unsuspicious and steals it back from Harry thus 
enabling her to become the innocent maiden in dire straits that needs 
rescuing.

Fine. OK. Needs must when the plot drives; most tales would get nowhere 
without a touch of serendipitous coincidence. I'll just swallow my 
incredulity and press on. We'll also pass over the flash-back episode 
where Tom stitches up Hagrid, except - did you notice? It might be 
directorial incompetence, but in the film version Tom was not wearing a 
Slytherin badge on his robe - it looked like Gryffindor to me. Isn't 
that interesting?

To the climax. Like all would-be Evil Overlords Tom has yet to learn 
that posturing, preening, bragging and striking poses are 
counter-productive and always premature. Throughout the books it's a 
dead give-away that whenever a character launches into paeans of self 
praise a deus-ex-machina will turn up, he'll fall flat on his face and 
end up spitting teeth. So it proves this time. Though I've never quite 
figured out why Ginny doesn't die too. If Tom turns up his toes because 
his life-force is destroyed by the deadly dentition being thrust into 
the Diary and the life force concerned has been extracted from 
Ginny....hmm. There is only the one life shared between them, isn't 
there? And if that life is killed by injecting poison....? Mind you, 
before that puzzling denoument, Tom's cause isn't helped by a sudden 
attack of Quirrellitis - he forgets he's a wizard. Stands there with 
Harry's wand in his sweaty mitt and it might as well be a 
back-scratcher for all the use he makes of it.
He'll get no sympathy from me.
Plonker.

There was somebody else associated with that Diary, and guess what? 
This one has all the potential to be a dyed-in-the-wool, 24 carat, 
deviously evil bastard of the first water.
Splendid!
A big hand please for Lucius Malfoy!

If you're of an age (or watch old films on late night TV) you might 
recall a character actor from the 30s, 40s and 50s who  played 
wonderfully nasty but suave villains - George Sanders. That's who came 
to mind when I read Lucius in the books. Ah, if only. Because the key 
word in the preceding paragraph is 'potentially' - there are some 
niggling worries that Lucius may not be as downright rotten as I for 
one would like him to be.

Voldy calls him 'slippery' - yes, yes, sounds promising, but DD goes 
remarkably easy on him after he was the proximate cause of all the 
mayhem in CoS. That's worrying. Just a mild warning as to future 
behaviour. There's a feeling that there's more going on than appears on 
the surface. Now I'm not a vindictive type, but if I'd been in DD's 
place I'dve had him down the  dungeons, hanging from chains while a 
cockatrice speculatively eyed his goolies before the study door had 
swung shut.

Then there's Dobby.
Unless the author is hiding a massive plot twist (or cheating), that 
little toe-rag does what Malfoy tells him to do. Yes, I know Kreacher 
managed to 'misinterpret' instructions from Sirius, but they were 
issued in hot blood and only once. Malfoy is cold and calculating, has 
been Dobby's master for years yet Dobby zips back and forth between 
Malfoy Towers, Privet Drive and Hogwarts like he's on elastic. And 
although his object is to warn Harry of a dastardly plot, he very 
carefully spills only a very few of the beans. And besides, I don't 
like him.

Unless.
Malfoy is not interested in Harry at all - or not directly. Let Potter 
duke it out with Voldy; what's that to Lucius, particularly as Voldy  
hasn't been impressive on the Potter front and could well lose? What if 
Lucius's goals are more mundane than Voldy's but none-the-less 
eminently desirable and achievable? Top dog after the dust has settled 
perhaps - and best advanced by playing both ends against  the middle. 
In those circumstances  he would want Harry out of the way while he 
prised DD out of the Headmaster slot and disgraced the name of Weasley 
in the Ministry. Harry would be a complication he could well do 
without. But Harry  was there, did interfere, and more or less 
single-handedly scotched the whole scheme when no-one else seemed 
capable of doing so. Curses! Foiled!
Hmm. Entertaining sub-plot.
And he's still around to try again. He's got no animosity of course, 
bet he'd even subscribe to a statue, or even better, a memorial to 
Harry - once he's Minister.

What would be really depressing would be the revelation that Malfoy has 
been DD's agent all along.  Or that he sees the light, reforms and 
joins the Band of Hope. Please, no - not that. Let  the combination of 
DE, Slytherin, cunning and ambition on the label actually mean that 
there's somebody irredeemably nasty in there.

Kneasy