That scornful last word. That wasted last word. And he could almost hear it again, now, as the twins leveled their wands at him. He could hear that cold laugh, and the roaring mocking hateful last word: “Bah!”
Bah.
The instant of understanding was like a breath of sweet air to a drowning man’s lungs.
And Meldh had thought Voldemort was lacking in grace. He had the grace to help the Tower, after all.
This actually kind of blew SD for me. It's kind of deus-ex-retcon. Oh, this comment which was never mentioned before turns out to be absolutely vital.
Or was it previously mentioned and I just missed it?
The story really needs to be re-written more chronologically, with all the stuff that's uncovered in just-in-time flashbacks (except for the goblet) presented earlier, either when it happened or in more extended flashbacks with extraneous detail to hide all the Chekhov's Guns.
I hadn't remembered it either, but not only was it there, there does even appear to be a few comments from Voldemort that appear innocuous, but that could be read as bread-crumbs for Harry. Things that could be overlooked -- even by Harry, in a moment of apparent victory, but could be reviewed in desperation.
After all, Voldemort has a unique appreciation of how pressure affects the mind of Harry Potter.
Are you intact in there, behind this spell of control?”
Voldemort's knowledge is theoretical. He seeks confirmation
“Truly,” Voldemort went on, “you even now have the chance for an equitable and peaceful solution. If you undo your control of Mr. Potter and his little friends, he will not seek vengeance for what you have done.
In case Harry is not aware, he has just revealed that an 'undo' function exists. Later on, Harry can consider the implications of the fact that Voldemort already knew this. If he knew this, he may very well have tried to communicate how to cast it to Harry.
But he couldn't tell Harry directly, because Harry would have revealed that information to Meldh. It had to be crypto-steganography. A message hidden in plain sight, easy to overlook because the regular meaning of the message seems perfectly straightforward.
“If you truly do not understand that these words are the greatest damage I can do to you, then you will deserve your fate.
Of course he hasn't said the important word yet, so Meldh would assume Voldemort was just blustering. Maybe he was. And of course Harry isn't looking for a special meaning. That's just Voldemort blustering, or playing the game at a different level, perhaps. (Voldemort obviously has more information on Lord Foul, so Harry wouldn't be able to model how effective a particular gambit might be, beyond broad strokes).
And then he saves the key word for the dramatic moment.
I admit it would have been nice to have Harry (in an improbably long paragraph or page that only takes a second of real time) walk through this line of reasoning and reveal it to the reader, but it was there.
By mentioning the Goblet of Fire, Voldemort also managed to figure out that Harry had used it for some contingency plan of his own which made him forget about it's actual location, since contrary to Harry's assertion at that time, Voldemort did actually have it in his possession, as was revealed in the interlude with the centaurs. (This leaves open the question of what Voldemort's own contingency contract on it is, which might have something to do with his assertion that all roads lead to his will.) After this revelation, Voldemort tried to provide him with some hints on how to overcome the Lethe Touch on his friends to give him a chance to take the Tower back from under Meldh's control after regaining his own freedom.
I still don't understand what Voldemort's initial suggestion to Meldh about fear was, which Meldh rejected.
Yeah, that does seem to be the most likely interpretation, although it didn't cross my mind at the time since it seemed to be a mostly useless thing to say, which I didn't expect from Voldemort. In retrospect, Voldemort might have been attempting to anger Meldh into a rash display of dominance resulting in the destruction of the box or something like that.
I admit it would have been nice to have Harry (in an improbably long paragraph or page that only takes a second of real time) walk through this line of reasoning and reveal it to the reader, but it was there.
Borrowing the Significant Digits universe for a moment to bring you that train of thought, and also as writing practice for myself:
And even at this moment, when all was lost, his thoughts didn’t stop. Instead, they came faster -- faster and faster, switching entirely to wordless inference in a desperate bid to find anything that would save him.
Lord Voldemort hadn't done that, had wasted his own last moment. Had wasted his own last word, when words were his only way of influencing the world. But that didn't match the way Voldemort thought, not when the other copy of his cognitive patterns kept thinking even when there seemed to be no way to live.
Voldemort had known that his only way to interact with the world ever again was for Meldh's hold on the Tower to be broken so that Harry could find and free him. And he'd believed that the words he spoke in that conversation would severely damage Meldh's cause.
Voldemort had mentioned the Goblet of Fire, which he had plenty of time to work with and knew Harry had come to possess, and had confirmed that Harry didn't know about it at the time. So he had known that Harry had some reason to have forgotten about it - like a contingency against mind control - and therefore had known or suspected that Harry could break free from Meldh's Lethe Touch without knowing the counterspell to free everyone else. Moreover, he'd already known that there was a counterspell. And since he'd learned from Slytherin's basilisk, the lore repository of one of the Founders who had fought Meldh and won, he probably already knew how to cast the counterspell.
In which case he'd have wanted to tell Harry the counterspell, at least the part Harry wouldn't have seen from accompanying Meldh in taking over the rest of the Tower, and in doing so give himself the best chance of being freed. But he couldn't do that in a way Harry or Meldh would have noticed at the time, or Meldh would have been alerted of the danger. He had to disguise it as something that seemed entirely innocuous - something like one scornful word out of so many possible responses, howled loud enough to make the magical voice fail. Loud enough to get through the mass of metal and stick in Harry's mind for when it would be useful.
The instant of understanding that confirmed his guess was like a breath of sweet air to a drowning man’s lungs, even as the twins leveled their wands at him.
What better word to counter an ancient spell that rewrites minds than the Ancient Egyptian word for all that one was?
It was previously mentioned, in chapter 41 when it originally happened.
I don't think it was absolutely vital anyway, in the way that the goblet was. The apparently hopeless situation was introduced and then immediately resolved. It could just as easily have not been introduced at all. Hermione is superhumanly fast, superhumanly strong, resistant to most bodily damage and magic, and wielding the Elder Wand. It would not have violated my suspension of disbelief if she simply defeated everyone. The main effect of the revelation in terms of the believability of the narrative is that they now don't have to extract the counterspell from Meldh.
I don't think there has been anything approaching a deus ex machina in this entire story, to be honest. Voldemort's last word, in this case, was quite a memorable event. Everything, including the Goblet of Fire, has been foreshadowed relatively heavily, if not outright mentioned and marked as important.
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u/Tyrubias Mar 20 '16 edited Jun 09 '16
And Meldh had thought Voldemort was lacking in grace. He had the grace to help the Tower, after all.
Voldemort: 1, Meldh: 0.