SHIP: LOLLIPOPs & Taking The Trelawney Challenge (WAS Trelawney and still

[cindysphynx]

No: HPFGUIDX 37695

Good Heavens!  This fine post has just been *sitting* out here for 
weeks and no one has taken up the challenge to find some romance for 
Professor Trelawney?  

Well, it's an ugly job, but someone has to do it.  ;-)

****************

Tabouli wrote:

>I have yet to witness a ship which rustles up some romance for the 
>slender, sultry Sibyll.  Come now, listmembers, even Wormtail has 
>had some action lately.  Don't skinny fortune-telling frauds deserve 
>love too?  

Funny you should ask.  

>From time to time, it has occurred to me that Trelawney really ought 
to have a love interest.  I mean, other minor female characters seem 
to manage little romantic adventures.  There's Florence, who was 
definitely kissing someone behind the greenhouse.  There's Bertha, 
who got to watch Florence kissing someone, which is the next best 
thing, I guess.  And Bertha probably thought she was going out on a 
date with Wormtail in GoF, so we can count that as romance that, uh, 
didn't work out for her.  Even Lily wound up with James (and yes, I'm 
lumping Lily in with the other minor female characters here because 
she only has a few lines, most of which consist of pleading for her 
life).  And according to Porphyria, even Gran may have felt her blood 
boil over Lucius Malfoy.

And then there is poor, dear, spindly Professor Trelawney.  Sybill 
Trelawney, who isn't ever described as unattractive or anything.  (I 
mean, she's graceful enough to glide instead of just clomping around 
the castle, right?)  Poor Sybill, who dines alone in her solitary 
tower.  Poor Sybill, who probably doesn't even want to *bother* with 
romance because her crystal ball tells her all wizards are cads 
anyway.  

Actually, there's reason to believe that Trelawney has had a romantic 
interest in the past.  See, I think Trelawney has been pursuing Snape 
lately, perhaps hoping to re-kindle what they once shared.  Heck, 
their romance might go back many years, even back to Snape's DE 
days.  It is quite possible that Snape loved not Lily, but 
*Trelawney*.  But first, a detour through the Voldemort years.

We all know about and have speculated endlessly about Professor 
Trelawney's first real prediction.  In PoA, Fudge tells us that 
Dumbledore had "a number of useful spies" and "one of them tipped him 
off" that Voldemort was after the Potters.  It is entirely possible, 
I think, that Trelawney's first prediction was simply that Voldemort 
was after the Potters, and that this prediction was the sole source 
of Dumbledore's information.  

Why is that?  Well, Dumbledore didn't really do all he could do to 
protect the Potters if he truly believed Voldemort was a threat to 
them, did he?  I mean, if Dumbledore had reliable, first-hand 
information, he could have given the Potters safe haven at Hogwarts, 
where Voldemort would never attack them.  Dumbledore also could have 
been the Potters' Secretkeeper himself.  Instead, he cooked up this 
wacky Fidelius Charm plan and, though suspecting there was a spy in 
his organization, just left it up to the Potters and Sirius to go off 
on their own and perform this complex charm.  Not smart, I think.

So there must be *some* reason Dumbledore did not take the threat to 
the Potters as seriously as he might have.  That reason could be that 
the source of the information was one of Trelawney's predictions.  

Now, I figure that if Dumbledore had been present when Trelawney made 
that prediction (and if her voice changed, etc), he would have taken 
it quite seriously indeed.  But perhaps he heard about this 
prediction second-hand -- through his useful DE spy Snape.  Maybe 
Snape reported that he was with Trelawney and she made this 
prediction, and Dumbledore discounted it a bit.  After all, by this 
point, Trelawney had no track record at all with real predictions.

Why would Dumbledore discount it, and why would Snape be in a 
position to hear one of Trelawney's real predictions in the first 
place?  Well, that's where the romance comes in.

Snape and Trelawney are both important characters in the series, yet 
they have almost no interaction.  This is so even though they sit 
*right next to each other* at Christmas dinner in PoA:  "And 
[Dumbledore] did indeed draw a chair in midair with his wand, which 
revolved for a few seconds before falling with a thud between 
Professors Snape and McGonagall."  

Indeed, the moment that Dumbledore seats Trelawney between Snape and 
McGonagall, McGonagall becomes waspish with Trelawney.  During 
Christmas dinner, no less. Snape, on the other hand, doesn't converse 
with either McGonagall or Trelawney for the rest of the dinner.

Could it be that McGonagall dislikes Trelawney not because McGonagall 
dislikes Divination, but because she doesn't approve of Trelawney's 
sly efforts to lure Snape to the North Tower?  After all, Trelawney 
and Snape do appear to be a match.  Both have dimly-lit classrooms, 
with Trelawney preferring to keep the curtains closed and the lamps 
draped, and Snape teaching in a dungeon described as "creepy."  Both 
of them glide, and both speak dramatically, with Snape's voice 
described as silky and Trelawney's described as misty.  

Then, of course, there is the fact that Trelawney chose to doll 
herself up in *green sequins* for the Christmas dinner.  Really, 
now.  Can she be more obvious than wearing a flashy outfit in Snape's 
house colors?  She's practically *chasing* Snape there, isn't she?  
Oh, sure, one could say she wore green for the holiday.  But isn't it 
more likely that she chose green in a last-ditch effort to re-kindle 
what she once had with her dear Severus?  

Also, Trelawney seems to have some disdain for magical specialties 
other than Divination:  "Many witches and wizards, talented though 
they are in the areas of loud bangs and smells and sudden 
disappearings, are yet unable to penetrate the veiled mysteries of 
the future."  She seems most unimpressed with Transfiguration and 
Charms.  Yet she does *not* criticize the fine art of brewing 
potions.  Well, she certainly wouldn't want to say anything negative 
about Potions that might get back to the Potions Master she so 
desperately desires, now would she? Similarly, Snape sneers at Charms 
and Transfiguration in his first Potions class speech in PS/SS:  "As 
there is little foolish wand-waving here, many of you will hardly 
believe this is magic."  He doesn't slam Divination, though, does 
he?  Professional courtesy?  I think not.

*********

Now, where does all of this fit into LOLLIPOPS?  

Right smack in the middle, that's where.   See, the central premise 
of LOLLIPOPS, as we all know, is that Snape loved Lily.  But where is 
it written that Snape is a one-witch man?  I haven't seen a thing in 
the LOLLIPOPS backstory or canon that means that Snape loved Lily to 
the exclusion of Sibyll.  I think he loved Lily (which explains his 
dislike of Harry), but he loved Trelawney, too.  There was more than 
enough Severus to go around for all the witches, I think.  

It all just makes sense.  In fact, I think it is high time to 
establish a deck on LOLLIPOPS devoted to those who believe that Snape 
had a bevy of beautiful magical women.

Cindy (relieved that she doesn't have to find her own SHIP and can 
simply stow away on LOLLIPOPS)