David and I were poking holes in the theory that Voldemort planned to use the Triwizard Tournament Cup Portkey to transport himself and all of his Death Eaters right into the heart of Hogwarts and launch an immediate assault on the creme de la creme of wizarding society.
Little did we realize that a Geist was watching.
Amanda wrote:
Hrm. You two are laughing at one of my pet theories. **geist rolls up sleeves**
We are indeed, Amanda, but you know, the only reason that we're able to do that without even bothering to set forth the theory in question first is because everybody knows it already. Why, it's practically canon! It has achieved deuterocanonical status on this list. So take heart.
I'm glad you're here, though, because maybe you can help me out with some of my problems with this theory. I've always absolutely loved this one conceptually—in fact, it was one of the things that drew me to this list when I saw it cited on the Lexicon—but I have a few problems with some of its details. So maybe you can help me out with those.
(Way back in March I tried to ask you about this, actually, but that was when Yahoomort was doing its nasty thing of eating half my posts and delaying the other half for over a week.)
First off, I certainly agree that the Tournament audience makes an absolutely perfect audience for a really BIG "I'm back" terrorist message. As you wrote, it has:
(1) the heads of the three most prominent wizarding schools in that part of the world;
(2) the top officials of the Ministry of Magic;
(3) the children of probably the entire wizarding population of the UK;
and
4) the children of several wizarding families from France and wherever Durmstrang is.
Absolutely. It's perfect. And I also agree with you that the timing of the entire "how to abduct Harry" plot really does suggest that this was indeed the plan.
What I can't see, though, is quite how the plan would work.
You wrote:
I believe, therefore, that the whole plan was something along these lines:
(a) get Harry through the tournament as a winner
(b) get Harry to the graveyard for Voldemort's reanimation
(c) use the portkey to return to the grounds of Hogwarts
(d) make major offensive action against the gathered, unsuspecting might of the free world.
(e) sit back and mop up.
It broke down at (b).
That it did. But if it hadn't broken down at (b), wouldn't it have broken down at (c)?
Voldemort has thirty some-odd Death Eaters. They all need to be touching the Portkey simultaneously for this plan to work. The Cup just isn't that big. I have serious trouble imagining how thirty grown men and a newly reincorporated Snake Dude would manage to all cluster around the Cup and lay fingers on it at once. It just doesn't seem feasible to me somehow.
Even if they could manage it, they would hardly arrive in any condition to launch a credible attack. As David wrote:
And the thought of thirty DEs all landing in a jumble on the Quidditch pitch as they try to hold on to the portkey seriously endangered my reputation for sanity in the office
It is hard to imagine how that could work, isn't it? I mean, on the purely physical level, it's problematic.
But even if they did manage that, then there's the problem of (d).
Voldemort and his thirty some-odd Death Eaters all appear, right outside of the hedge maze. Preferably with Harry Potter's corpse, just for psychological effect.
Okay, so what then? Assassinating Dumbledore would seem an obvious first move. Dumbledore is a serious thorn in their side. You suggest that they could also have started taking the children of the assembled audience members hostage, just to forestall any attacks against them and ensure the compliance of Important People of the wizarding world. Fair enough.
But, but, but...but they wouldn't really be appearing in the immediate vicinity of any convenient hostages, would they? All of those important wizards, as well as their hostage-worthy children, are watching the contest from high up in the stands. They therefore have the advantage of both height and visibility over a group of DEs suddenly appearing right in front of the maze on the ground. And the audience would also be likely to have their attention utterly fixed on that particular spot. I assume that the audience knew that this was where the winner of the Tournament would appear.
While I certainly agree with you that the sudden appearance of the reborn Voldemort and a bunch of masked and cloaked Death Eaters would be likely to cause panic and dismay, I don't really know if I believe that the element of surprise would be quite enough to prevent some of the more competent members of the audience (members of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, for example) to take advantage of that height and visibility advantage to smack Voldemort and the Death Eaters down with curses before they'd even had a chance to take any hostages.
Just look at how quickly members of the Ministry manage to triangulate on the source of the "morsmordre" spell in Chapter 9 of GoF, for example. People are panicking at the sight of the Dark Mark too, but the Ministry guys still manage to keep their heads, and they hardly hesitate before firing off their "Stupefy" spells.
I also don't know if I agree that the Tournament audience wouldn't be armed. Wizards seem to carry their wands with them everywhere. The spectators at the QWC weren't anticipating trouble either, and yet even people like Arthur Weasley and Amos Diggory—not exactly Special Forces types—did have their wands with them.
It just seems like a very risky plan to me, particularly as Voldemort and the Death Eaters would have had no way of making an effective retreat should they meet up with competent resistance. They can't Disapparate away, and even if we assume that the Portkey was programmed to allow them to escape, we're left with an even more slapstick version of that humorous image that David proposed: over thirty people, in the middle of a combat situation, falling all over themselves in their effort to lay hands on that Portkey. For all of them to touch it at once would have been tricky enough in the no-pressure atmosphere of the graveyard. For all of them to touch it at once while under fire? Not likely. They'd be elbowing each other in the throats trying to get to the thing before being stupefied.
I really do love this theory, always have. But I just can't seem to make it work.
—Elkins
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