A dastardly Voldy plan - was: Re: Lockets

[dungrollin]

Kneasy wrote:
I see what you're getting at, but the potential for a *really* big 
BANG becomes possible if DD's words aren't taken quite so literally.
And I do like bangs. Yummy!

Protection, when applied to Horscrax could be one of two types -
might even be both, but two can be posited:
What can be termed 'external' protection, intended to prevent
unworthy folk from laying hands on the item -- as per the Cave,
and 'Internal' protection that safe-guards the contents of the 
Hiscroks as per the Diary.

There was nothing to stop anyone handling the Diary, but Diary!Tom
was powerful magic indeed. It took a Basilisk tooth to destroy him.
It might be that this is what happened with the ring, that once found
anyone could pick it up but delving into it to get at the soul 
fragment would give you a really bad hair day.

As a sort of confirmation there're are strong hints that in the right
circumstances the contents of these Harecuts could develop into
something very like Voldy clones by hi-jacking the life-force of any
poor bastard who meddled too much - this being the planned fate for
Ginny when Diary!Tom was in his pomp. Seems reasonable to assume
that anyone finding the ring and wearing it would suffer a similar 
fate.
Of course Voldy would only be interested in leeching onto someone
with magical powers, he'd not be interested in snaring a Muggle, so a
searcher would need to demonstrate magical abilities to find the damn
thing in the first place, otherwise any stray bod from Little 
Hangleton might pick it up if they came across the Gaunt hovel while 
strolling through the woods.

Consequently giving the GP locket (if it is a Horsecrooks) to your
beloved to wear might be a very bad move. Dear oh dear. Not only
would she waste away but there'd be this very unfriendly stranger
wandering around the kitchen, planning world domination and who
knows what else. Breakfast would never be the same.

Supposedly, Voldy survives while even one of these split ends is
extant. But not only are they a safety feature they also have the 
potential to become new Voldys if the conditions are right. If so 
it'd be self-defeating to hide them in places where they're unable 
to come into contact with a victim. It's this line of reasoning that 
makes me wonder what all that stuff in the Cave was about.

Dungrollin:
Hmm. I'm not convinced that any of the other Horsepox could do what 
the diary did, which is why the diary was left (as a weapon) with 
Lucius, and why the others (locket/ring etc) were hidden and 
protected (if poorly). 

DD again:
"But don't you see, Harry, that if he intended the diary to be 
passed to, or planted on, some future Hogwarts student, he was being 
remarkably blasé about that precious fragment of his soul concealed 
within it. The point of a Hogtruck is, as Professor Slughorn 
explained, to keep part of the self hidden and safe, not to fling it 
into somebody else's path and run the risk that they might destroy 
it – as indeed happened..."
(Chapter 23: Hotduckses, p468 UK ed).

Tom didn't emerge from the diary because somebody was trying to 
destroy it, he was the weapon subroutine, not a defence. Neither did 
Harry get a withered arm (or a withered anything else ... withered 
withard wizard – there's a gag in that...) when he plunged the 
Basilisk fang through it.

Moreover, why would Voldy want a load of extra Voldys popping up all 
over the place when he'd put his Headstucks into circulation? The 
Diary had a specific purpose: to reopen the CoS and complete 
Slytherin's spring-cleaning. If he wanted someone (unspecified 
random wizards, by the sounds of it) to get hold of the ring and the 
locket and become possessed by slivers of soul, why didn't he just 
make living horsemucks in the first place?


Kneasy:
Now - the BANGY bit.
Cunning this, I think you'll agree.

If Harry is a Hearseclucks then if he ain't careful then he could 
become another Voldy - and Voldy planned it this way. There's this 
sprog who's equal to Voldy - fine, why not make him into another 
Voldy? Then if one day it's High Noon on Hogsmead High Street, wands 
akimbo, Harry wins and Voldy bites the dust, then Voldy still 
survives in Harry. Voldy wins no matter which corpse gets dragged 
off to Boot Hill. And he planned it this way right back at GH. Ooh! 
Nasty! Talk about hedging your bets! 'Bout time Voldy lived up to 
his reputation of a perverted mastermind, and this would do it with 
bells on.

Voldy is in a win-win situation. He can't lose - even if the other 
Hurskroks are destroyed - unless Harry can get the Voldy fragment 
out of his head. If he can't then Voldy will eventually take him 
over. DD knew this – hence the ".. in essence divided?" enquiry - 
there was a danger that it might have already begun when Harry was 
linked to the Voldy mind.

Since eliminating a Whorescluck seems to require nothing short of
destruction Harry would seem slated for the chop.
Poor Harry.

Kneasy


Dungrollin:
It is awfully tempting, now that we know about Hardlucks, to make it 
fit in with the powers transferred to Harry at GH, isn't it?

As I see it, our choices are:

1. Voldy decided to try to make Harry a Horsecrop, which is why he 
wanted to keep Lily alive (so he wouldn't have to do all that waking 
up in the middle of the night nonsense), but Lily wasn't 
cooperating, so he got rid of her. Turned his attention to Harry to 
perform the Headcrunch spell, which backfired due to Lily's 
protection, (mysteriously) managed to discorporate Voldy, and yet 
still worked, putting a bit of Voldy's soul into Harry. If Voldy 
*planned* to make Harry into a Hiprocks and succeeded, why does he 
keep trying to kill him? Makes even less sense than a back-firing AK 
IMO.

2. It didn't occur to Voldy that he could make Harry a Hornsnack, 
and just wanted to kill the one with the power to vanquish him, 
because that would be a stonkingly significant prophecy-defying 
murder, and his final Hercrudités would be very very special. (This 
is what DD thinks.)
If so, did he take the trinket he was going to use with him to GH? 
If he did, why was it not found in the ruins of the house? Or was he 
always planning for it to be Nagini, who slithered away when she 
realised things were not going according to plan?  
Anyway, Voldy AKs Harry, Lily's protection kicks in and the spell 
rebounds, destroying Voldy's body, loosing his shredded soul, a 
sliver of which (mysteriously) ends up in Harry, who is thus a 
Horsebox.

Neither makes any sense to me, yet Harry being a Herbgarden is such 
a tantalising idea...

Dungrollin
Hoping we're not going to spend the next few years discussing this, 
because she's running out of silly words.