Misc. Conspiracy Theories

[black-dog.livejournal.com]

The Halloween/troll business made me think harder about canon parallels, especially regarding Quirrell and the Stone. These really aren’t fully-developed theories but just hypotheses to think about, and maybe areas to watch for further clues.

1. Assuming the Stone is hidden in the castle (which seems like a safe assumption), is the conspiracy to “steal” the Stone a bad conspiracy in this world? How might it be useful in supporting the Order or defeating Voldemort? What is Quirrell's role? McGonagall admitted to Arthur that the LP would be watching out for any insider who tried to steal the Stone. Maybe the Order -- or the Machiavellian Dumbledore -- needs someone independent to get it out. We know Quirrell was fired for pro-Muggle sympathies -- in this universe, could he be aligned with the good guys? Perhaps through Dumbledore, and without even the full knowledge of the Order?

2. I think it was lapin_agile who suggested the “borrowing” of Harry’s broom might be related to an attempt to penetrate the Stone’s defenses. Could any of the other temporary borrowings and thefts – Ron’s quill/notebook, Michael’s necklace, Pansy’s doll’s-head, Draco’s tea – be connected to the same plan? Honestly I can’t see how, but there’s a really odd pattern of objects disappearing and reappearing, in ways that sometimes fly just beneath suspcion but that may point to an intruder with an odd interest in particular students and their possessions. Would there be any point in returning these objects with some kind of enchantment on them?

3. Muggle music heard (maybe just in a dream) at 3 am – is someone trying to get past Fluffy?

4. Speaking of intruders -- is there an Invisibility Cloak in play in this Universe? If so, then presumably Dumbledore (and his allies) still have it. Is it being used to penetrate the castle?

5. I love Pansy’s creepy doll’s-head, and it’s kind of interesting to take its influence on Pansy at face value. There could be a loose parallel to Tom's Diary, as something that talks back to you when you least expect it, and messes with your head. The Players are steering us away from Imperio, at least from any specific suspicion about Pansy releasing the Troll, but I wonder if there are other ways that a student under Imperius (or something like Imperius) would be useful in penetrating the Stone’s defenses? Is it significant that someone tried to smash Pansy’s doll’s head – perhaps there a difference in tactics among the conspirators, maybe between a manipulative Quirrel and, say, a more sympathetic Lupin?

ETA: We have confirmation from Pansy that the doll's head was enchanted, but was Professor Acton telling the whole truth?

I really can’t work any of this out yet, but I figured I’d share my paranoia to see if it strikes any sparks. Thoughts?

Comments

[lapin-agile.livejournal.com]

McGonagall admitted to Arthur that the LP would be watching out for any insider who tried to steal the Stone.

I'm not sure I ever saw this exchange. It would fill a big gap in my thinking about events. I had a conversation with angstalaska where this may have been a root of my confusion. I didn't realize we had a clear sense of who knows the Stone is in the castle. If it is there as a result of the LP's actions, that's a big deal. (But why would he not keep it with him at the Palace and get to work on gaining immortality through its power? Why would Voldemort bother to warehouse it at Hogwarts. I get that Hogwarts is "safe," but safer than the place He Himself lives??)

[lapin-agile.livejournal.com]

Also.

Hi, BD!

[black-dog.livejournal.com]

Also. Hi, yourself! I'd fallen behind on the game, and finally had a chance to catch up this weekend. :)

[black-dog.livejournal.com]

I was thinking about this exchange (http://alt-molly.livejournal.com/1697.html?thread=4769#t4769), where the Order is talking about paying Xenophilus' fine, and Arthur wonders if "that little package" at Hogwarts could help.

You're right that it raises more questions than it answers about the LP's knowledge -- what exactly does it mean that the LP is "on the lookout for just such a thing"? Frankly, I hadn't completely thought through what that says about the LP's possible involvement in actually placing the stone at Hogwarts. But it does seem to imply that the LP would at least be aware of any activation of the stone. And it's reasonable that any elaborate effort to store the Stone at Hogwarts would involve a number of Professors, and would be a DE conspiracy rather than an Order conspiracy. Do you see an alternative possibility? Now that I think about it, it definitely is a big deal.

Please correct me on canon if I'm misremembering, because I can't find the damn Book, but -- in canon, the Stone was Flamel's possession, and was moved from Flamel's vault to Hogwarts to preclude an attempt on it from Voldemort's allies. Or am I confused? So in both universes V is after the stone though he may not know how to work it; in this universe, storing the stone at Hogwarts means it's fallen into V's control rather than out of it. Or do I have it completely backwards?

[lapin-agile.livejournal.com]

See, I'd taken that conversation to suggest that Minerva has the Stone at Hogwarts without DE knowledge: "Could we . . . well, take advantage of the special properties of that little package you have under guard, Minerva?" But maybe I'm very wrong about that. I took her, "Even if I knew how to exploit those properties, I fear it would do us no good: the Lord Protector is on the lookout for just such a thing," to mean that if it were used, he'd likely find out where it is and seize it for himself. (Again, I can't imagine why He would hide it at Hogwarts -- or hide it at all -- if He had it, he'd be busy trying to use it, I'd think.)

In canon, a group of Hogwarts professors have collaborated to design the protective spells that keep the Stone hidden and inaccessible. The obvious parallel would be for a group of professors in this AU to have similarly schemed to hide and protect the Stone, but which ones? It would seem certain that such a collaboration would indicate Voldemort's knowledge of the Stone's location (because there aren't a large number of Order members on staff with the skills to create much in the way of protective wards for the Stone -- the identity of McG's staff allies yields a very different skill set in game than in canon).

So I don't know.

This issue of who knows the Stone's location and who put it there seems very important.

Why are Bella and Lucius all fired up about a "Gringotts robbery" if they know perfectly well where the Stone is? That would only make sense if the public needed an explanation for the thing's having disappeared, but it wasn't public knowledge. So, it seems to me, that if the LP and Death Eater faculty of Hogwarts have conspired to move the Stone from Flamel's Gringotts vault to Hogwarts there would be no need of a cover story about a "robbery" cooked up for the papers. If, on the other hand, the LP and Death Eaters were on the verge of seizing the Stone when it turned up missing from Gringotts because somebody with permission to access Flamel's vault got there first (Dumbledore/Hagrid, in canon; McG/unknown agent?, in game), then there's a reason to shout to the papers about a robbery in order to explain why MLE is firing up all its resources to shake down the goblins and search for some missing property.

Am I just really missing something? Why should I think that the LP knows where the Stone is?

[black-dog.livejournal.com]

I think your version is plausible too -- I honestly don't know and have just started thinking about this. The argument seems to turn on Minerva's "on the lookout" comment, which may be ambiguous. But I'm not sure how V could know that the Stone was being used if he weren't somehow already watching it.

I think your point about the public cover story is a strong one. I can think of a couple of possible answers, though they're not absolutely compelling. Certianly V has a political interest in improving his political control of the goblins -- an embarassing breach of security at Gringotts, followed by an offer of V's protection, might create the right sort of context for this, and Bella is obviously undertaking some kind of negotiation with them. Bella might be in on the real story, or she might not -- does V trust all his colleagues on something so close to his personal obsessions, or would the quest for immortality creep out some of the more "mainstream" DEs? And finally, if V needs help in learning how to use the Stone, does he fully trust the Department of Mysteries, in London (we know Lucius has some issues with them) or does he prefer to put the problem in the hands of a more selective team at Hogwarts?

Does it make sense that Minerva would be hiding the stone under V's nose? But the Order has a reasonably effective network for moving in and out of England (see Alice, for example) and certainly the Stone would be even safer out of the country. And as a practical matter, could Minerva really block off the third floor corridor, keeping a whole section of the school off limits, without bringing the non-Order faculty into the secret? We know how anxious she is about the deceptions she undertakes for the sake of the students.

And is there any evidence that the Order has any kind of active plans for the Stone? Minerva talks about other conspiracies with the other members of the Order, but we really haven't seen any conversations about the Stone and what they might be planning to doing with it. It may be that the fact of the Stone's presence is a bit of intelligence Minerva learned from V because she is Headmaster, and she's shared the bare fact with the Order, but none of them have any immediate ideas or active plans that focus on the Stone. Sirius' comment about consulting Flamel seems offhand, as though it's something they hadn't previously given any thought to.

All this leads me in turn to think about Dumbledore as an independent agent. He's suddenly very interested in re-connecting with Hogwarts, and it may be about more than just the journals. D also seems to be very interested in Lupin, who has an uneasy relationship with the Order but seems to have D's respect. So I'm wondering if Lupin and maybe Quirrel represent a third force, aligned with Dumbledore, who are working on the same side but independently of the Order. There are lots of reasons why DD, as supreme puppetmaster for the order, might compartmentalize knowledge about the Stone. After all, Minerva and the known Order members might at some point attract aggressive scrutiny from a Legilimens like Voldemort.

It's a reach. But it's not obviously wrong. It seems plausible to me that having the Stone at Hogwarts may be V's plan, not the Order's. And if the Order isn't focused on the Stone, then DD & allies are plausible candidates for any effort to steal it. It needs more thought, and there are some problems with the theory, but it's not obvious that the Order is driving the Stone story.

[lapin-agile.livejournal.com]

So between us we've listed a bunch of stuff we need more information about. Guess we'll have to keep reading!

*waves at the players*

[black-dog.livejournal.com]

Guess we'll have to keep reading!

And re-reading, in case any old stuff turns out to be a clue, in light of later developments.

*looks innocently at players*

[longstrider.livejournal.com]

Remember that there were 2 attempts to access the vault at Gringott's in cannon. Hagrid and then Quirrel iirc. Quote from The Prophet in HP and the Sorcerer's Philosopher's Stone "Gringotts Break-in Latest... widely believed to be the work of Dark wizards or witches unknown. Gringotts goblins today insisted that nothing had been taken. The vault that was search had in fact been emptied the same day."

So, the Order took it out legitimately and are hiding the stone from V or V took it out to hide at Hogwarts for some reason and then someone, the Order, Quirrel, Regulus, whoever broke in to try and get to it OR someone staged a break in knowing it was already gone, V to discredit the goblins... er someone else for some unknown purpose?

[black-dog.livejournal.com]

Interesting. So under my theory, above, V's agents would also have had to have sneaked in once, undetected, to take the stone, and then created the second incident -- either by staging a fake break-in, or by just showing up and raising havoc when the stone was missing. It's a fair question how they could have pulled that off.

Or else, I wonder if maybe the roles are reversed. V's agents took the stone in the normal way, just like Hagrid did in canon, and then someone on the Order's side, maybe DD's hypothetical "third force," attempted an actual break-in and was unsuccessful. So now they have to figure out how to get it out of Hogwarts . . .

Not enough info to decide what, if any, of this is the most likely. Which is half the fun! :)

[lapin-agile.livejournal.com]

in this universe, storing the stone at Hogwarts means it's fallen into V's control rather than out of it

I've been thinking it meant that the Stone was being hidden under his nose.

[lapin-agile.livejournal.com]

4. Speaking of intruders -- is there an Invisibility Cloak in play in this Universe? If so, then presumably Dumbledore (and his allies) still have it. Is it being used to penetrate the castle?

Now there's a good question!

[black-dog.livejournal.com]

I agree! :)

[lapin-agile.livejournal.com]

And if there is an invisibility cloak in play, it would sure be nice if the Marauder's Map would turn up since it would "see" what others couldn't.

[black-dog.livejournal.com]

Canonically, Filch had the Marauders' Map before F&G stole it (years before they gave it to Harry). But where is Filch in this universe? Probably in a camp. So did F&G ever have the map? Is it still stored away somewhere?

Long-shot -- I'm thinking about the "very useful . . . little odds and ends" that F & G discovered in the compost heap (http://alt-gredforge.livejournal.com/980.html) during their detention in early September.

[wintercreek]

Just to add another wrinkle/line of speculation, how about Hermione's work/McG's gift for the LP? Pretiosissimum Donum Dei translates as "the most precious gift of God" and is an important alchemical work, according to this site. Wikipedia calls it Rosarium philosophorum sive pretiosissimum donum Dei ('Rose-garden of the philosophers, or most valuable gift of God'), assuming that the same work is referenced. In either case, it appears that the illustrations are the most famous part of it - poor Hermione, handcopying them.

Anyway, drawing from the first website: This famous work has a series of flasks in which the evolution of the white and red stones is described. Is the LP on the trail of a more different Philosopher's Stone?

[lapin-agile.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the links. Did you read the description of the illustrations (http://www.levity.com/alchemy/s_donum.html) ... a naked and then naked-and-coupling King and Queen. Interesting choice on McG's part to ask a child to reproduce this material! (Maybe she really has grown somewhat hardened to the sensibilities of Mudbloods.) D'you think Harry was just sorta shocked by what he saw and dropped his bottle of indelible ink in reaction? No wondered Sally-Anne was interested in having some of the leftovers of the first version! (Maybe this the magical equivalent of National Geographic as a source of sorta naughty pictures for curious pre-teens!)

[wintercreek]

I just skimmed it before, but I'm reading it all now! Not only the King and Queen but also "a naked man stands with various serpents" in Figure 6! I think you may be right about this being the magical equivalent of National Geographic.

Searching "Caput corvi," the text from the image of the man with serpents (somehow I'm guessing that this one might have special appeal for the LP) brings up a GoogleBooks hit for Nietzsche's Zarathustra, by Carl Gustav Jung and James Louis Jarrett in which it says "the alchemistic matter of materia in the state of darkness, a parallel to the human soul in the state of darkness, is called Caput corvi, the head of the raven..." Curiouser and curiouser!

[black-dog.livejournal.com]

This is so cool. First, fun subtext about the illustrations. Second, a hidden clue about the Order's plans re: the stone. Sounds like the Book would seem, to Voldemort, to be a help in learning how to use the stone. In which case, big points for McG! But consistent with her role as a spy/agent for the Order, maybe she's playing him, maybe the book is being mis-copied to mis-direct him. Or -- and I suppose I should have just looked this up before speculating -- maybe the book is notorious for not being "orthodox"? Do you know anything about how it fits into the tradition of alchemical literature? It seems likely that McG would not be doing anything that feeds so directly into V's quest to understand the Stone, without having some sort of twist or misdirection up her sleeve . . .

[black-dog.livejournal.com]

In addition to a description, there is also an actual facsimile, with English text, here. (http://www.esoteric.msu.edu/Archive/Spiegel.html)

[wintercreek]

a son whose like there is no other in the wide world.

Maybe the goal here is not an alchemical means to eternal life/restoration but instead a way to solidify the LP's connection to Harry?

[black-dog.livejournal.com]

Interesting. Do we have any sense of what the LP wants from Harry in this world? Is he a sort of trophy? Wasn't there some comment a while back about how the LP was interpreting the prophecy to mean that Harry needed to be protected?

[wintercreek]

If Harry's a trophy, he's a rather subtle one, given the concealment of the Potters' lives and deaths. He seems like the LP's way of thumbing his nose at the Order in this interpretation.

I'd love to know if there's been any speculation among the Wizarding world about how the LP came to have a son without (apparently) any consort or female companionship that we have heard about. Do people know Harry is adopted? Was this an altruistic act for the LP, to have taken in an orphan? Or has some story been spun about Harry's origins (perhaps a female partner killed by Muggles or similar, leaving the LP as a single parent)?

the LP was interpreting the prophecy to mean that Harry needed to be protected

Can't remember if there's been a comment to this effect, but it seems likely. I would assume the LP is interpreting the prophecy (he does know about the prophecy in this world, yes? Even without Snape spying?) to mean that he and Harry must both live to both survive.

[black-dog.livejournal.com]

Also an actual facsimile, with English text, here. (http://www.esoteric.msu.edu/Archive/Spiegel.html)

[heavenscalyx.livejournal.com]

Another weirdness that struck me this morning as I was listening to the HBP audiobook en route to work: why is the LP celebrating his birthday on Hallowe'en? Tom Riddle was born on New Year's Eve...

I suppose if one is the LP, one can make one's birthday whenever one wants to have it, but... did he decide years ago that his birthday was 31 Oct? Does he just declare some random day each year to be his birthday? Did I miss this discussion earlier?

[lapin-agile.livejournal.com]

Maybe he considers his birthday to be the day on which he "fulfilled" the Prophecy, killing the Potters and seizing Harry as his own. Maybe?

Or maybe he's following standard practice for denizens of Buckingham Palace and setting an official day of "monarchical" birthday observance that has nothing to do with his actual birthday. (!)

I'd accept an explanation that began with the assertion that Tom Riddle (who has long since dissociated himself from his birth name and birth family) has chosen to ignore his actual birthday as a distasteful reminder of his Riddle/Muggle heritage.

[wintercreek]

I'd combine all your ideas - that the day he killed the Potters is the day he ceased to be Tom Riddle and truly became the LP, which he was able to later carry off as his "monarchical" birthday.

It looks from Arthur's recent post that the LP's reign of terror over Muggles didn't start until 1985 (unless, of course, he asserted himself earlier and didn't bother to kill the political leaders until later - but this seems unlikely). So if my dates are right, that implies 3-4 years between Halloween 1981 when the Potters died and the point of 1985 in which the Muggle political leaders died. Plenty of time to firmly establish his new birthday.

Fascinating!

[lapin-agile.livejournal.com]

Meant to say what an interesting issue you've raised here!

[black-dog.livejournal.com]

Interesting. Maybe it's one of those little vanities of an autocrat -- changing his biography to make it more resonant with great events, in this case placing his birth on All-Hallows' Eve.

Or maybe he changed it so he could buy drinks in 1944.

[wintercreek]

Or maybe he changed it so he could buy drinks in 1944.

*sporfle*