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Voldemort mentions several times during the books (in particular at the ‘rebirthing party’ in the graveyard at the end of Goblet of Fire) that he has spent quite a lot of his time over the years plotting ways to get at Harry.

It is of course clear that Voldemort cannot get to or harm Harry while he is at 4, Privet Drive, because he is under the protection of ‘old magic’ there. It also makes sense that getting to him while he is at Hogwarts under Dumbledore’s protection would be rather more of a risk than Voldemort is willing to run.

The dénouement of Goblet of Fire describes Voldemort’s plan as hinging upon Harry being in a specific place at a specific time (at the Triwizard Cup), so that Voldemort could get him on his own, away from the protection of Dumbledore and old magic.

But there is one time when Voldemort (and everyone else) knows, basically, that Harry will be alone (apart from the Dursleys, and who cares about them?) and unprotected, in a specific place, at a specific time: when the Hogwarts Express has taken him back to London and the Dursleys are driving him back home to Surrey.1

We know from Deathly Hallows that the charm hiding Harry while at Privet Drive extends only to the boundaries of the house/property, so while the Dursleys and Harry are driving along the M3 (or whatever way they take home), he’s quite exposed.

Why not target him there?

 

1 There are other times when he’s unprotected, of course, but they’re less predictable and harder to plan for.

Janus Bahs Jacquet
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  • Do we know he's unprotected there? After all, there was someone on Privet Drive to keep an eye, and it seems at least plausible that Dumbledore/the Order stays quietly vigilant during these transition periods. – zeldredge Apr 21 '15 at 21:37
  • @zeldredge I suppose we don’t know for absolute certain that there wasn’t some kind of protection, somehow … but unlike Privet Drive, which is quite easy to stake out and put some level of protection in (when it doesn’t go off looking for stolen cauldrons), I really don’t see how any protection could work for a moving vehicle moving at high speeds through the landscape. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Apr 21 '15 at 22:07
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    I just like to see Harry suffer with the Dursleys. – Saturn Apr 21 '15 at 22:54
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    What makes you think any Wizards are even remotely aware of such a thing as "M3"? I ain't, and I'm clearly much more conversant with modern British life than any British wizards, that blood traitor Weasley included. – DVK-on-Ahch-To Apr 22 '15 at 03:12
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    Random speculation - Vernon is "like everyone else". So surely his car is like everyone else's. How would DEs know which car was Harry in? Also, I'm pretty sure Aurors keep an eye on Harry's travel years 5 and 6 (and there's no time for Voldemort to organize anything in year 4 after Triwizard disaster with the paired wands) – DVK-on-Ahch-To Apr 22 '15 at 03:14
  • @DVK yeah, that's all true. However, Harry always departs from King's Cross, so it may be possible to track his path from there. Of course, tracking somebody in a car moving within a muggle city may prove challenging, even for that blood traitor Weasly. – Saturn Apr 22 '15 at 05:16
  • Random speculation, but perhaps the "Dursleys property" includes their car. – Jaydee Apr 22 '15 at 10:58
  • Lilly's protection is in Harry's blood. Perhaps the protection offered by being at home extends to Petunia's blood? (Probably not all the Dursleys, though, as Harry was attacked by Dementors in the presence of Dudley. Then again, it could be that home offered protection against Death Eaters serving their master, but not Dementors serving their vile hunger.) – rojo Apr 24 '15 at 16:37
  • @rojo That's a different protection. Lily’s lingering protection only counted against Voldemort and didn't make Harry unplottable—it just meant Voldemort couldn't touch Harry. That protection disappeared when Voldemort rebirthed himself with Harry’s blood. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Apr 24 '15 at 16:39
  • @JanusBahsJacquet "“But she took you,” Dumbledore cut across him. “She may have taken you grudgingly, furiously, unwillingly, bitterly, yet still she took you, and in doing so, she sealed the charm I placed upon you. Your mother’s sacrifice made the bond of blood the strongest shield I could give you.” -- Order of the Phoenix Ch. 37 – rojo Apr 24 '15 at 16:49
  • @rojo Exactly. “The charm *I placed* upon you.” That charm was built upon Lily’s protection, but it was not Lily’s protection. Have a look at the answer linked to in Luna’s answer: it goes into more detail about this. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Apr 24 '15 at 16:52
  • Who placed the protection is not in debate. It's a question of mechanics. What, exactly, did Dumbledore's protection do? It's assumed that he placed the charm upon the house, but I haven't seen any canon evidence that expressly rejects the idea that he placed the charm upon the family instead. The "bond of blood" seems to suggest the latter more than the former. Usually it doesn't matter, as home and family are in the same location. But when the Dursleys are travelling, does the charm stay on the house or go with them? Why did no death eaters ever abduct Vernon from Grunnings, for example? – rojo Apr 24 '15 at 17:00
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    @rojo I would presume it stays with the house—otherwise it would be silly for the Advance Guard to take so many precautions in picking up Harry if they’d also just gotten rid of the protection by luring the Dursleys off to some fake lawn competition. But you're right, we don't know exactly how the charm worked or what it charmed. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Apr 24 '15 at 17:05

1 Answers1

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This is a good question, and as far as I know, not one that's been answered directly, in the books or by JKR, making it a bit of a gap in the canon. However, this is my speculative answer.

Voldemort needed a loyal servant to help him regain his body. Wormtail only escapes at the end of Azkaban, and I think we can assume it takes him a while to find his master. Therefore, not much time to hatch a plan to get Harry on his way back to the Dursley's. This leaves two potential "commute attacks" - at the beginning of GoF, and at the end (unless you leave it until OotP, which would make GoF a rather uneventful book).

At the beginning of GoF, Harry is staying with the Weasleys. They take a taxi to King's Cross, and at this point, Harry is with a bunch of competent wizards (Mr and Mrs Weasley, Bill, Charlie, etc). Not a good attack point. This leaves only the one commute, at the end of GoF.

So, Voldemort could have waited a whole school year, and charged Pettigrew and Barty Crouch Jr with a Dursley ambush. There are a few reasons why I think he may not have done so.

  • Ignorance: We don't know that Harry is protected enroute to the Dursleys, as you've pointed out. However, Voldemort would have little reason to assume he is not. He is not necessarily aware of how Harry gets to and from Privet Drive, and might think he gets there through any number of magical means (assuming that the Dursleys wouldn't bother to pick him up is, after all, a reasonable assumption). He knows that Dumbledore is an extremely bright wizard who would be unlikely to leave his charge unprotected.
  • Logistics: Voldemort, at this point, is a weak little thing wrapped up in a cloak. Let's assume they wouldn't do the whole potion/cauldron ritual at the side of the motorway - they would need to get Harry somewhere fairly isolated, like the graveyard. We can assume he had two available helpers (Pettigrew and Crouch). One would need to stay with Voldemort, leaving one of them to attack/kidnap Harry. However, this could be quite dangerous - Harry is pretty good at responding to random attacks, and they wouldn't be able to kill him (they need him alive, as least for a bit). He'd also have his wand with him, and even if the kidnapping succeeded, he'd arrive at the graveyard exceedingly alert and ready to fight. (Granted, there would be ways around this, by knocking him out and such.) We might think that Voldemort wanted a solution that would take Harry by surprise completely - he was already expecting the cup to be a Portkey (as was everyone else). It also fits in with making people disbelieve Harry - a stressed out boy at the end of a media-heavy year-long Tournament is less likely to be believed, as opposed to the Boy Who Lived getting snatched in front of his muggle family.
  • Impatience: He wants to be doing something to get his body back, and doesn't want to wait for a whole year.
  • Superiority: A recurring theme in the books is Voldemort's reticence to accept that there are things more powerful than magic. He doesn't seem like the kind of person who would "stoop" to admitting that he couldn't attack Harry in the wizarding world and would have to settle for a roadside attack. I suspect he would want to show off his power and cunning, which sending accomplices to a road they're unfamiliar with would not accomplish. By getting Barty Crouch Jr/Moody to infiltrate Hogwarts, and hijacking the Triwizard Tournament, he gets a trusted spy in Hogwarts with constant news from the Wizarding World and the teachers, gets the trust of Harry (who does trust Moody, for a bit), and uses a variety of magical means to get what he wants (Harry in the graveyard). Although, like you say, there is a lot that could go wrong with this plan, I suspect a magical plan would have been far more attractive to Voldemort than admitting that he couldn't attack Harry in a magical place.

EDIT:

There's a comment, and a previous answer that was deleted, suggesting that it has something to do with the magical protection afforded to Harry by his mother's sacrifice.

The comment suggests that the protection extends from the Dursley's house to their car. I guess it's possible, but it seems a bit far-fetched. Harry has the standard protection given to him by his mother's death regardless of where he is, but the further protection spells that Dumbledore placed, seem to be placed only on the house. The difference between Lily's sacrifice and Dumbledore's enchantments is explained in this excellent answer by Joe White. For the car to have the same enchantments as the house, Dumbledore would have had to extended the spell specifically to the car. This would seem an odd decision - after all, he's only trying to protect the house. Protecting Harry whenever he leaves, for a walk, drive or train journey, is far more tricky.

The previous answer suggested that his mother's protection extends to any location as long as he still calls Privet Drive home, so he would have been protected. He was protected, but the comment about calling Privet Drive home refers to Dumbledore's spells on the house, not his mother's protection on him (again, see Joe White's answer). His mother's protection protects Harry wherever he is - we know this. However, it also means that he had the same protection when he was at the graveyard - which didn't stop Voldemort's plan.

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Luna
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    All very good and well-thought-through points. +1 points for Ravenclaw (I am guessing, based on your user name)! – Janus Bahs Jacquet Apr 22 '15 at 09:27
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    Ravenclaw according to pretty much every quiz ever, yes ;) – Luna Apr 22 '15 at 09:28
  • I think it’s very likely that the enchantments “linger,” in some sense, as it were, after Harry leaves the house. Otherwise Harry would have been vulnerable to Voldemort’s supporters every time the Dursleys took him shopping. Conversely, Voldemort could have attacked him any time he left the house. – Adamant Jan 08 '17 at 06:28
  • Of course, the protection certainly applies against agents of Voldemort (else Voldemort could simply order his Death Eaters to attack Harry at Privet Drive), but Dumbledore briefly suggested that the Dementors in OotP might have been ordered there by Voldemort (surely he would not have done so if he knew that Voldemort could not touch Harry, say, three streets away). But it nonetheless seems extremely improbable that Dumbledore would have placed a spell that could have been subverted by any Death Eater willing to crouch in the bushes outside Privet Drive and wait for Harry to emerge. – Adamant Jan 08 '17 at 06:36
  • +1 although 1 thing to remember is that the Houses protection cast by Dumbledore would probably extend to the car. The spell goes to the boundary of the property, and presumably the car was on the drive/in the garage at the time the spell was cast (within the bounds of the property): so the car could have been unintentionally given the same protection by simply being inside the area when the spell was cast – Matt Oct 02 '17 at 14:35