Mrs Figg, and her broken leg....

[blpurdom at yahoo.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 26543

> --- In HPforGrownups at y..., devika261 at a... wrote:
> > In a message dated Sat, 22 Sep 2001 11:20:58 AM Eastern Daylight 
> Time, vheggie at y... writes:
> > 
> > > Early on in PS/SS, she breaks her leg, supposedly from tripping 
> > > over one of her cats.  As a consequence of this, Harry gets to 
> > > go to London Zoo, and have his first conversation in 
> > > Parseltoungue.
> > > Several weeks later she's still on crutches, since Dudley 
> > > nearly runs her over with the racing bike he gets for his 
> > > birthday.  Why did she not mend it/have it mended with magic?
   
> > Well, I'm supposed to be writing an English paper, but I like 
> > this question, so I'll take a break to answer it.
> > 
> > I think Arabella Figg is a witch who has for some reason been 
> > living in a sort of exile from the wizarding world--probably self-
> > imposed, and for the sake of Harry's safety.  She may or may not 
> > have actually broken her leg, but I think that she knew it was 
> > Harry's last full year with the Dursleys since he would be 
> > turning 11, and she wanted him to enjoy himself for once.  The 
> > broken leg was a good way for her to get out of watching him, so 
> > it was likely that the Dursleys would take him to the zoo.  And 
> > Harry did have a good time until the snake incident.  I don't 
> > believe that the whole Parseltongue thing was part of any master 
> > plan on Mrs. Figg's or Dumbledore's part, but you never know.
[snip]
> > Devika, who should be thinking less about Harry Potter and more 
> > about virgin martyr legends...

This is partly me-tooism but not completely...

I don't think anyone suspected Harry was a Parseltongue; even 
Dumbledore seems genuinely surprised by that in CoS (although he 
immediately has a theory about WHY Harry is a Parseltongue).
I think Arabella Figg's "exile" is not self-imposed; IMO she is doing 
Dumbledore's bidding (voluntarily, though).  I think it is possible 
that she did only pretended to break her leg so that Harry would have 
a chance to do something fun for once.  And then the reason why she 
wouldn't have mended it with magic is a) it wasn't broken to begin 
with, so no mending required; and b) even if it had been broken, 
Muggles now thought that she had a broken leg, and it would have been 
highly unusual for an old woman to suddenly have her leg in perfect 
condition again immediately.  Thus, here are some possible scenarios:

1- Mrs. Figg did not break her leg, but had to pretend to hobble 
about on crutches for appearances' sake, since Muggles were under the 
impression she had broken it.

2- Mrs. Figg really did break her leg and had it magically mended, 
but still had to hobble about on crutches for appearances' sake.

Either way, she had to appear for a number of weeks to be working on 
mending her leg still.  If she is a witch (as i believe) IMO it must 
have been dreadfully difficult to restrain herself from hexing Dudley 
whenever she saw him mistreating Harry.  (Or when he ran over her.)

Slightly OT to Devika...Have you looked into St. Cecilia for your 
virgin martyrs paper?  While writing about her it would also give you 
a good excuse to sit around listening to Benjamin Britten's Ode to 
St. Cecilia...

--Barb