Draco’s plan at the start of the chapter is entirely correct and Harry should have been doing it on his own. They will find out that Hermione was reading about the stone before she was killed.
In fact she was probably killed precisely because she was getting too close to the stone in her readings. She may even have said something out loud like “eureka” that gave away that she had gotten it. This, by the way, points to her being killed by someone other than QQ, since he would want her to succeed since she would tell Harry and harry would tell him.
It could be bait—the school is more secure than ever, and he may be keeping track of who knows that the books are being read. The wisdom of this is still questionable, but given how flashy Hermione’s murder was, Malfoy is probably assuming that the killer can’t just walk up to him and Avada Kedavra him when no one is looking.
That doesn’t make much sense. Villain watches Hermione getting closer and closer to the fatal information. Then she reaches it, and he kills her.
Why not just change the books, or steal them? “I’ll kill anyone who tries to read this” is like the worst imaginable way to keep information in a book from being popularly known.
Changing the books stealing them or altering library records may be harder than it seems. The day of Hermiones death QQ went to the library and added a number of additional wards, nominally around the restricted section, but who know what else they cover.
Maybe the books are so boring that almost no one wants to read them. Hermione was an unlikely exception, and under usual circumstances no one else would bother reading the books. On the other hand, the library might have magical protection against damaging books.
Draco’s plan at the start of the chapter is entirely correct and Harry should have been doing it on his own. They will find out that Hermione was reading about the stone before she was killed.
In fact she was probably killed precisely because she was getting too close to the stone in her readings. She may even have said something out loud like “eureka” that gave away that she had gotten it. This, by the way, points to her being killed by someone other than QQ, since he would want her to succeed since she would tell Harry and harry would tell him.
I question the wisdom of reading books that someone was potentially killed for reading without better opsec than Malfoy was demonstrating.
Malfoy did hand the books for someone else to read.
It could be bait—the school is more secure than ever, and he may be keeping track of who knows that the books are being read. The wisdom of this is still questionable, but given how flashy Hermione’s murder was, Malfoy is probably assuming that the killer can’t just walk up to him and Avada Kedavra him when no one is looking.
That doesn’t make much sense. Villain watches Hermione getting closer and closer to the fatal information. Then she reaches it, and he kills her.
Why not just change the books, or steal them? “I’ll kill anyone who tries to read this” is like the worst imaginable way to keep information in a book from being popularly known.
Changing the books stealing them or altering library records may be harder than it seems. The day of Hermiones death QQ went to the library and added a number of additional wards, nominally around the restricted section, but who know what else they cover.
Maybe the books are so boring that almost no one wants to read them. Hermione was an unlikely exception, and under usual circumstances no one else would bother reading the books. On the other hand, the library might have magical protection against damaging books.
Well, if they have access to the dorms, they could steal the books and replace them with altered copies.