Evil!McGonagall revisited (briefly)

[wynnde1 at aol.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 48407

Hello, Everyone,

Earlier today, in reading Eloise's TBAY post about Fudge (who is, of *course* 
Ever So Evil!), I noticed her mention at the end about the Evil!McGonagall 
discussion, which took place back in June or thereabouts. In an amazing 
Trelawnyesque cosmic conjunction of events <g>, I happened across a tiny 
little Evil!McGonagall canon tonight, while reading Goblet of Fire. I took a 
look through the archives, and didn't find this one mentioned anywhere, so I 
thought I'd toss it out (my apologies if someone did mention it before; I 
didn't read *every single* post on the subject):

Chapter 12 (the Triwizard Tournament)

(The students have just arrived in the castle, and Peeves is pelting them 
with water balloons. McGonagall arrives . . . )

       "PEEVES!" yelled an angry voice. "Peeves, come down here at ONCE!"
       Professor McGonagall, deputy headmistress and Head of Gryffindor 
house, had come dashing out of the Great Hall; she skidded on the wet floor 
and grabbed Hermione around the neck to stop herself falling. "Ouch - sorry, 
Miss Granger -"
       "That's all right, Professor!" Hermione gasped, massaging her throat.

****

Clearly, this can be taken as evidence for Evil!McGonagall. So, is it 1) an 
actual murder attempt? Did McGonagall fake skidding and hope to actually 
break Hermione's throat in an apparent accident? "Grabbing" Hermione by the 
neck hardly seems accidental to me. When I'm stumbling and trying to catch 
myself, I'm much more likely to grab an arm or a shoulder. Perhaps McGonagall 
even coerced Peeves into throwing the balloons, in order to create the proper 
conditions for such an attempt. Or maybe McGonagall is just canny enough to 
sieze the opportunity for an attack on Hermione when she noticed the wet 
floor.

Or, is it 2) just a clever bit of foreshadowing by the author, looking ahead 
to the time when McGonagall will make an attempt on Hermione by strangling 
her (and perhaps be successful?). Or perhaps it won't be strangling, but 
decapitation? That's a theme in these books, after all, and it would 
definitely effect Hermione's throat! <G>

What? A third possiblity, I hear some of you say . . . it was really an 
*accident*? 

Oh, no, of course not. What fun is there is that? <G>

:-)
Wendy
(Who thinks her option 2 is the most likely, and who really liked the 
Evil!McGonagall theory first time around, and now actually does think of her 
as an evil character most of the time. For details about the theory in it's 
entirety, the most comprehensive posts that I uncovered in the archives were: 
#39470 by Elkins; #38783 by Porphyria; and #39495 by Cindy). 


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]