What Lucius Knew About the Diary
Jun. 14th, 2021 11:17 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sunnyskywalker posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
deathtocapslock...and when he knew it.
I was reading through the comments to one of Terri’s old fics, and got sucked back into the probably-irresolvable tangle of questions about what Lucius was really planning during Chamber of Secrets. Piecing together some of the comments and one or two of my old speculations, we might at least be able to come up with a mostly-coherent hypothesis for one of those questions: what exactly did Lucius think the Diary was, and what did he think it would do?
It’s easy to assume that Lucius must have known what we know by the end of the book: that Tom Riddle was Voldemort’s original name, that he really had opened the Chamber of Secrets, that there really was a monster and the monster was a basilisk, and so forth. Lucius must have been a very important and trusted Death Eater to know all that!
But imagine it’s 1981, and you’re Voldemort. Just how much of that would you tell your slippery friend? Remember, Lucius doesn’t have to actually do anything except pass the Diary on to someone else. Maybe not even to a chosen victim, in the original plan; he might have been told to give it to Severus some weekend and let Severus plant it on a kid. If Lucius is just the delivery boy, how much does he really need to know?
By 1992, he clearly knows that it will at least seem that there is an Heir of Slytherin who has opened the Chamber of Secrets and released a monster. He knows this appeared to happen back in 1943, and told Draco as much. If he knows Hagrid was a suspect then, he didn’t tell Draco that part. (It’s possible that Fudge learned this from old Ministry records and told Lucius after the 1992 attacks started rather Lucius knowing all along.)
He doesn’t let on whether he knew from the start that the monster was a basilisk. And if he did, he was awfully reckless letting his only son and heir go to school with a basilisk roaming the halls. We know he strongly prefers that Draco stay alive, and basilisks don’t distinguish their victims based on blood status. But Draco doesn’t act like he’s been warned to keep safely in the middle of a crowd at all times and carry a mirror, does he? Well, maybe Lucius did warn him, and Draco ignored it… which Lucius could have predicted, easily, taking us back to Lucius being extraordinarily reckless. And Narcissa, if she also knew, because Draco says that his mother talked his father out of sending him to Durmstrang. Would she have done that if she thought Draco might run into a basilisk? Would Lucius have let her talk him out of it if he knew?
Also, if Lucius did know, what was his plan once he got the Board of Governors to oust Dumbledore? Was he going to tell Fudge, “Incidentally, I think the monster’s a basilisk—don’t ask me how I figured it out when no one else has—and I have also intuited who is controlling it based on no evidence whatsoever.” Somehow, I can’t see even Lucius thinking that was a good plan. He seems to have believed that he could appear to solve the problem once Dumbledore was gone without sounding as fishy as a seafood market.
So I’m inclined to think that he didn’t know it was a basilisk. What did he think it was, then?
And here’s where I think we should back up and ask whether Lucius thought there really was a monster at all. He knows the Diary is cursed somehow, yes. But we know there are books in the Potterverse which do things like compelling you to keep reading. Maybe he thought the curse was more on the order of Imperius-in-a-Book: the Diary would make the child write messages on the walls and curse other students (the Diary would impart the knowledge of whatever curses were required).
That would be a much easier problem for Lucius to handle. Draco would be safe, since the cursed student would know Draco was a pureblood. Lucius could arrange for an inquiry, make sure he was involved, and contrive to find something suspicious about Ginny which would “warrant further investigation.” They’d find a cursed Muggle diary in her belongings, and problem solved! Such a simple solution, and gosh, why didn’t Dumbledore figure this out if he’s so brilliant? Perhaps removing him from his position was an even better decision that we realized… old man’s obviously lost his touch…
What about the Heir business and the previous time the Chamber was supposedly opened? Dumbledore says that Voldemort acted through an intermediary “this time” as if everyone knows the Heir was on the spot last time, but is everyone sure the Heir didn't act through an intermediary last time too? If Lucius thinks the Diary is Imperius-in-a-Book, presumably it was enchanted back then and made some child (perhaps it was Hagrid after all!) curse their classmates. The person behind it used the legends of Slytherin’s monster waiting in the Chamber of Secrets to purge the school as symbols of the noble cause, but that doesn’t mean that the Chamber really was opened or that the monster was real. Intelligent people recognize that it’s a metaphor, Lucius might have nodded sagely to himself.
Or maybe he thought there was some non-basilisk monster in a real secret chamber which the book could Imperius the child into releasing and controlling. But that raises awkward questions about what Lucius thought the monster was and why he was so confident that it wouldn’t hurt purebloods even by accident.
And the Heir? Voldemort might have told Lucius that he was the Heir of Slytherin. But that doesn’t mean he also revealed that he was Tom Riddle. In fact, he might have implied the story I once posited he spread to the rest of the wizarding public: that he killed Tom Riddle because the boy was a potential enemy. (And Voldemort did kill Tom… from a certain point of view.) The Heir of Slytherin was behind the plot, yes… but from a distance, through an intermediary.
What Lucius might have gathered from Voldemort’s explanation was this: back in 1943, Voldemort took his first step in his rise to power by enchanting the Diary and giving it to Tom Riddle. Perhaps Tom was initially on board with the plan, and Voldemort hoped to recruit him. Tom, controlled by the Diary, put up a message that the Heir of Slytherin had arrived to cleanse the school, cursed several students, and set up Hagrid as a fall guy. If no one bought Hagrid as the culprit, Tom would be the backup fall guy (not that Voldemort told him that, but the boy was bright enough to work it out). That turned out not to be necessary. The test run frightened the school and killed a Muggle-born, but the time wasn’t ripe for a full-on takeover attempt—this was just the opening salvo. Voldemort retrieved the Diary to use again at a later date. He asked Tom which students were most supportive of the Heir’s campaign of terror, and recruited them a few years later. But the incident was too much for Tom, who refused to be involved in any further plots. Voldemort eventually killed Tom when Tom not only firmly refused to be recruited, but threatened to tell someone what he knew.
Whatever discussion Lucius and Narcissa had, and the incomplete scraps Lucius passed to Draco, might not make it clear to an eavesdropping Dobby that the Heir wasn’t actually around this time and that Lucius didn’t believe the Chamber held a real monster. Or maybe Dobby figured a student cursed to attack their schoolmates was just as dangerous to the Great Harry Potter (a half-blood, don’t forget) as a monster. As for his clue about the Dark Lord before he could be freely named… well, if Dobby knew that Voldemort originally gave Lucius the Diary, he might originally have meant that yes, Voldemort was connected to the plot, but no, he wasn’t behind it—one of his followers was. Once Dumbledore referred to the Diary as one of Voldemort’s old school things, Dobby figured out that Voldemort was Tom and revised accordingly in his explanation to Harry. Luckily the warning was still accurate, even if not the way he thought originally.
Whatever Voldemort told Lucius originally, Lucius might have worked out more during the decade he had the Diary and Voldemort was gone. Maybe he did float the idea to Narcissa that the Dark Lord hadn’t used and killed Tom Riddle, but had been Tom, and Dobby ran with that.
I still don’t think Lucius knew about the basilisk, though. That was probably a nasty surprise.
I was reading through the comments to one of Terri’s old fics, and got sucked back into the probably-irresolvable tangle of questions about what Lucius was really planning during Chamber of Secrets. Piecing together some of the comments and one or two of my old speculations, we might at least be able to come up with a mostly-coherent hypothesis for one of those questions: what exactly did Lucius think the Diary was, and what did he think it would do?
It’s easy to assume that Lucius must have known what we know by the end of the book: that Tom Riddle was Voldemort’s original name, that he really had opened the Chamber of Secrets, that there really was a monster and the monster was a basilisk, and so forth. Lucius must have been a very important and trusted Death Eater to know all that!
But imagine it’s 1981, and you’re Voldemort. Just how much of that would you tell your slippery friend? Remember, Lucius doesn’t have to actually do anything except pass the Diary on to someone else. Maybe not even to a chosen victim, in the original plan; he might have been told to give it to Severus some weekend and let Severus plant it on a kid. If Lucius is just the delivery boy, how much does he really need to know?
By 1992, he clearly knows that it will at least seem that there is an Heir of Slytherin who has opened the Chamber of Secrets and released a monster. He knows this appeared to happen back in 1943, and told Draco as much. If he knows Hagrid was a suspect then, he didn’t tell Draco that part. (It’s possible that Fudge learned this from old Ministry records and told Lucius after the 1992 attacks started rather Lucius knowing all along.)
He doesn’t let on whether he knew from the start that the monster was a basilisk. And if he did, he was awfully reckless letting his only son and heir go to school with a basilisk roaming the halls. We know he strongly prefers that Draco stay alive, and basilisks don’t distinguish their victims based on blood status. But Draco doesn’t act like he’s been warned to keep safely in the middle of a crowd at all times and carry a mirror, does he? Well, maybe Lucius did warn him, and Draco ignored it… which Lucius could have predicted, easily, taking us back to Lucius being extraordinarily reckless. And Narcissa, if she also knew, because Draco says that his mother talked his father out of sending him to Durmstrang. Would she have done that if she thought Draco might run into a basilisk? Would Lucius have let her talk him out of it if he knew?
Also, if Lucius did know, what was his plan once he got the Board of Governors to oust Dumbledore? Was he going to tell Fudge, “Incidentally, I think the monster’s a basilisk—don’t ask me how I figured it out when no one else has—and I have also intuited who is controlling it based on no evidence whatsoever.” Somehow, I can’t see even Lucius thinking that was a good plan. He seems to have believed that he could appear to solve the problem once Dumbledore was gone without sounding as fishy as a seafood market.
So I’m inclined to think that he didn’t know it was a basilisk. What did he think it was, then?
And here’s where I think we should back up and ask whether Lucius thought there really was a monster at all. He knows the Diary is cursed somehow, yes. But we know there are books in the Potterverse which do things like compelling you to keep reading. Maybe he thought the curse was more on the order of Imperius-in-a-Book: the Diary would make the child write messages on the walls and curse other students (the Diary would impart the knowledge of whatever curses were required).
That would be a much easier problem for Lucius to handle. Draco would be safe, since the cursed student would know Draco was a pureblood. Lucius could arrange for an inquiry, make sure he was involved, and contrive to find something suspicious about Ginny which would “warrant further investigation.” They’d find a cursed Muggle diary in her belongings, and problem solved! Such a simple solution, and gosh, why didn’t Dumbledore figure this out if he’s so brilliant? Perhaps removing him from his position was an even better decision that we realized… old man’s obviously lost his touch…
What about the Heir business and the previous time the Chamber was supposedly opened? Dumbledore says that Voldemort acted through an intermediary “this time” as if everyone knows the Heir was on the spot last time, but is everyone sure the Heir didn't act through an intermediary last time too? If Lucius thinks the Diary is Imperius-in-a-Book, presumably it was enchanted back then and made some child (perhaps it was Hagrid after all!) curse their classmates. The person behind it used the legends of Slytherin’s monster waiting in the Chamber of Secrets to purge the school as symbols of the noble cause, but that doesn’t mean that the Chamber really was opened or that the monster was real. Intelligent people recognize that it’s a metaphor, Lucius might have nodded sagely to himself.
Or maybe he thought there was some non-basilisk monster in a real secret chamber which the book could Imperius the child into releasing and controlling. But that raises awkward questions about what Lucius thought the monster was and why he was so confident that it wouldn’t hurt purebloods even by accident.
And the Heir? Voldemort might have told Lucius that he was the Heir of Slytherin. But that doesn’t mean he also revealed that he was Tom Riddle. In fact, he might have implied the story I once posited he spread to the rest of the wizarding public: that he killed Tom Riddle because the boy was a potential enemy. (And Voldemort did kill Tom… from a certain point of view.) The Heir of Slytherin was behind the plot, yes… but from a distance, through an intermediary.
What Lucius might have gathered from Voldemort’s explanation was this: back in 1943, Voldemort took his first step in his rise to power by enchanting the Diary and giving it to Tom Riddle. Perhaps Tom was initially on board with the plan, and Voldemort hoped to recruit him. Tom, controlled by the Diary, put up a message that the Heir of Slytherin had arrived to cleanse the school, cursed several students, and set up Hagrid as a fall guy. If no one bought Hagrid as the culprit, Tom would be the backup fall guy (not that Voldemort told him that, but the boy was bright enough to work it out). That turned out not to be necessary. The test run frightened the school and killed a Muggle-born, but the time wasn’t ripe for a full-on takeover attempt—this was just the opening salvo. Voldemort retrieved the Diary to use again at a later date. He asked Tom which students were most supportive of the Heir’s campaign of terror, and recruited them a few years later. But the incident was too much for Tom, who refused to be involved in any further plots. Voldemort eventually killed Tom when Tom not only firmly refused to be recruited, but threatened to tell someone what he knew.
Whatever discussion Lucius and Narcissa had, and the incomplete scraps Lucius passed to Draco, might not make it clear to an eavesdropping Dobby that the Heir wasn’t actually around this time and that Lucius didn’t believe the Chamber held a real monster. Or maybe Dobby figured a student cursed to attack their schoolmates was just as dangerous to the Great Harry Potter (a half-blood, don’t forget) as a monster. As for his clue about the Dark Lord before he could be freely named… well, if Dobby knew that Voldemort originally gave Lucius the Diary, he might originally have meant that yes, Voldemort was connected to the plot, but no, he wasn’t behind it—one of his followers was. Once Dumbledore referred to the Diary as one of Voldemort’s old school things, Dobby figured out that Voldemort was Tom and revised accordingly in his explanation to Harry. Luckily the warning was still accurate, even if not the way he thought originally.
Whatever Voldemort told Lucius originally, Lucius might have worked out more during the decade he had the Diary and Voldemort was gone. Maybe he did float the idea to Narcissa that the Dark Lord hadn’t used and killed Tom Riddle, but had been Tom, and Dobby ran with that.
I still don’t think Lucius knew about the basilisk, though. That was probably a nasty surprise.
no subject
Date: 2021-06-28 06:09 pm (UTC)Then in 1957, he died of Asian flu at the ripe age of 28. Truly an ironic tragedy.
Edit: Yeah it was over him specifically being French. The fake identity was moving out of France not long after WWII. Wanting to get away from painful memories and looking for job opportunities he had frontal collision with British bureaucracy and this particular official's xenophoby.
Now, now, Fortescue knows perfectly well that pointless violence and murder is bad for the Business TM. He won't murder his competition like that uncouth French pansy. He is a proud Brit after all! And proud British tradition is solving feuds by writing strong-worded letters to officials. And oh look it isn't his fault the new guy doesn't follow sanitary regulations. After all, why would he plant cockroaches and rats? He is just a humble ice cream salesman!
Jokes aside, I imagine Florean would operate more like Mafioso. His "Dark Crime Lord" persona has relatively good relations with other shopkeepers and business owners as long as they pay him small donations. It's all voluntary! When someone starts to sniff around or doesn't want to cooperate with him, he begins with legal measures (after all, why break the law if you can effectively and cleanly solve the problem with legal methods), then depending on the outcome, he escalates his methods.
He also has quite a profitable potion ingredients smuggling operation and annual auction of well-bred and trained House Elves- only for invited patrons.
As for his history knowledge- at young age Florean decided that knowledge is power, and what is the better way to make smart decisions than learning from someone's else mistakes? At one point, he applied for the History of Magic position at Hogwarts. Albus didn't hire him because it's much cheaper to keep his ghost slave and funnel Bin's salary into his alchemy research budget- Philosopher's Stone research isn't cheap! Florean understands, there are no hard feelings. Nonetheless, he keeps records of his more... interesting clients' purchases well documented just in case.
This was fun writing exercise (●'◡'●)
no subject
Date: 2021-06-29 03:43 am (UTC)Just think how often "legal measures" could mean an anonymous tip to the Aurors that someone seems to have some unsavory associates, and something they said about their purchasing procedures sounded really sketchy. Let them do the perfectly-legal intimidation! I expect a lot of people tried to settle feuds or speed up an inheritance this way during the first war, and a Dark Crime Lord could have made really good use of the DMLE's trigger-happiness and disregard for due process.
True story: I once had a nightmare about suffering Binns's fate, dying and then showing up for work as a ghost. I like my job and coworkers well enough, but that was depressing.
no subject
Date: 2021-06-29 03:14 pm (UTC)I mean, what Binns is going to spend his salary on? Ghostly brandy to drink during debates with his fellow ghostly scholars? Also, what is the legal status of ghosts? Are they treated like objects? Magical creatures? Fellow witches and wizards? Can you get your inheritance if your ancestor stubbornly refuses to move on?
I hope your nightmare-boss wasn't researching immortality ;P
I don't like the scenario where Tom is killed by Voldemort because he challenged him to a duel. Voldemort goes after Harry because a) he is a madman, b) it's personal and c) he is a drama queen. If early in his career he establishes he will humour any village idiot who wants to duel him instead of ordering his underlings to exterminate the pest, he undermines his reputation as a leader. You have underlings to do tasks below your standing.
no subject
Date: 2021-07-03 12:23 am (UTC)Ghost law must be a really weird specialty. I like it.
No, not challenging to a duel, knowing too much and being a potential future threat Voldemort wants to take out early! Like, if Tom took up Slughorn's networking offers, he might be the guy they called to settle their Dark Lord problem the way Dumbledore was last time. And if he was involved in the diary plot and later regretted it, he knows way too much. Can't have that. So threaten him, and he takes a job at a shop instead of starting his rise to Minister. Good. But then...well, know one knows exactly what happened next. Maybe Tom stumbled on something else Voldemort didn't want him to know while chatting up people with connections and cool ancient relics. Maybe Voldemort risked trying to use Tom in another plot, and it didn't turn out well. Maybe Tom had an attack of consciences and was planning to tell everything he knew, and Voldemort found out somehow. Regardless, Voldemort obviously doesn't want anyone asking questions, so probably best to leave the matter alone.
no subject
Date: 2021-07-03 12:53 am (UTC)One of the reasons I used muggle world for Tom's demise is just how easy it is for a wizard to adjust a group of muggles to the narrative he wants to weave. And how hard it would be for an average wizard investigating the deed to uncover the truth.
With Tom being an uneasy-associate-to-be-offed or uncomfortable witness, anyone investigating can hit the moment where the lead ends, and they switch to another source/theory. There would be no witnesses or evidence that could confirm Tom's death, so there is space for doubt.
no subject
Date: 2021-07-05 04:00 am (UTC)If Tom were the only person possibly connected to Voldemort who disappeared, that might look odd. But supposedly there were multiple early disappearances, possibly even many of them. If all of them have some possible connection to Voldemort, Tom doesn't stand out. So there's a diary with his name on it that was maybe involved in some plot, and some people think the Dark Lord wanted to take him out before he became a threat. But there's also that junior Wizengamot member from an old family who suddenly vanished--another enemy taken out early, or possible candidate for the Dark Lord's true identity? And there was that journalist who was digging into all the old families' dirt who also disappeared--obviously he had lots of enemies, but maybe he took his blackmail material with him when he forged a new identity and used it to manipulate and/or pressure those families in various ways as he built his following. And so on. If Tom's just one of a crowd, he doesn't stand out as the obvious candidate. Heck, Voldemort could have created fake backstory deaths for all of these people, not just himself, so that they all look equally like dead ends or cover-ups, depending on how suspicious someone is. He likes elaborate plots!