SHIP: CUPID'SBLUDGER & Cupid's Snitch

[charisjulia]

No: HPFGUIDX 35375


Sigh! I knew this was going to happen. I turn my back from my 
favourite SHIP for one day to attend to responsibilities elsewhere 
and all hell breaks loose! I return to find what? Winged delinquents 
are sending Quidditch balls of all sorts whizzing around on deck left 
right and centre and the crew's in uproar led by a mutinous Elkins! 
Right, must take action.


Ah—hemm! Captain (unfortunately looking a great deal like Captain 
Pugwash in own mind and therefore not remotely threatening) clears 
throat, puts on ugliest scowl, glares darkly round at unruly sailors 
and thunderously booms out:


--EXCELLENT! Brilliant, Amazing! Elkins where did you come up with 
all of that? Astounding! I take my hat of to you, really I do!


Unfortunately however I don't buy a word of it. No, not one! I'm 
afraid Cupid's Snitch has me utterly unconvinced. That oughtn't 
affect you of course. C.U.P.I.D.'S.B.L.U.D.G.E.R. is a fully 
democratic SHIP and freedom of opinion is the wind in it's sails. So 
you're free to think what you will and say what you think and I to 
hope I won't be made to walk the plank for not agreeing.


(For those poor nonplussed souls out there who just joined the group 
or this thread of conversation and therefore don't have the foggiest 
what I'm going on about (I've been there—in fact I still am there a 
lot of the time) C.U.P.I.D.'S.B.L.U.D.G.E.R. stands for Contrary to 
Unrequited Passion Infelicitously Devouring Severus, Black's Love of 
Unknown Damsel Gets Expected Response (from said damsel that is to 
say). Cupid's Snitch is a variant on this idea cooked up by Elkins.)


Before I attend to Cupid's Snitch however one thing:


Cindy wrote:

>I'm having trouble with the idea that Sirius would be so upset by 
>being caught kissing his own girlfriend, Dead Sexy Florence of 
>Slytherin, that he would hex someone, carry a grudge for decades, 
and 
>hate Snape even after he and Florence drifted apart.

and:

>I have trouble with the idea that a high-school 
>crush can motivate otherwise balanced people to behave in bizarre, 
>hateful ways years later and can mold whether they become Good or 
>Bad. No, I think we need something Really Big to explain the 
>Sirius/Snape/Florence/Bertha grudge match.

You're right. It isn't logical that Sirius should hate Snape for life 
solely because Snape came between him and a girl at Hogwarts. But I 
don't see that there ever was a problem explaining Sirius's post PoA 
abhorrence of Snape. Isn't the Shrieking Shack scene enough for that? 
Snape messed up Sirius's chance to clear his name and live a quiet 
life with his godson and was about to hand him over to the Dementors. 
If Sirius holds a bit of a grudge for this in GoF who can blame him? 
What needs explaining is not this so much as the Prank. What could 
Snape have done that got to Sirius so much he thought that only 
sending him on a blind date with a werewolf would be adequate 
payback? The way I see it post—Hogwarts and till the Shrieking Shack 
Sirius doesn't give much thought to Snape whatsoever. But he didn't 
like him too much in the first place, for whatever reason, and after 
the Shrieking Shack his schoolboy grudge resurfaces with a vengeance. 
Hence as far as Sirius is concerned that Really Big something is 
already given by Canon and whether they turned Good or Bad is 
determined solely from them themselves ("It's our choices, Harry, 
that show what we truly are far more than our high school crushes.")


And now to business:


I have various objections to Cupid's Snitch, some fair and a great 
deal completely unfair. I'll start with the fair.


I agree that there must be a reason Mrs Lestrange's first name is 
omitted. It struck me as odd from the very first time I read the 
book. But it seems to me that it's more JKR trying to hide something 
than Sirius. He passes by the name too flippantly for me to think it 
means anything to him. Not a pause, not a frown, not the slightest 
sigh, even when he tells of her ending up in Azkaban. Remember that 
when Harry asked Lupin whether he knew Black at Hogwarts during the 
anti—Dementor lessons if you stopped to think about it it was pretty 
obvious Lupin's acquaintance with Black was going to turn out to be 
major. He's all like "Or, at least I thought I knew him
" weep, weep. 
Sirius just ticks off the Lestranges along with the rest of them. 
They're not even significantly placed: not first, not last, just 
middle.


As for Dumbledore and the Pensieve, I agree with Cindy. You say:

>He remembers asking her: "But why, Bertha, . . . why did you have to 
follow him in the first 
>place? The anguished tone seems rather out of keeping for a simple 
matter of 
>a fast hex, doesn't it? No, Dumbledore's agony there arises from his
>wise suspicion that this entire Sirius Black affair is going to 
prove 
>the last straw for the unstable young Florence, that it will be the 
>catalyst which will push her right over the edge into Darkness.


But Dumbledore doesn't * remember* saying that phrase. He says it for 
the first time there in front of Harry. His anguish arises from his 
contemplation of Bertha's dangerous combination of faults that was 
evident already from her Hogwart's years and the fear of where they 
might have led her in latter life, a fear that's been weighing 
heavily on his mind since he heard of her disappearance.


If Dumbledore really had at that stage simply by being informed of 
Bertha's spying on Sirius and Florence kissing realized how 
detrimental this would prove to be for all parties concerned, then he 
should fire Trelawney (he should do that anyway) and take over 
teaching Divination himself, for if that doesn't mark a true seer I 
don't know what does. How was Dumbledore to know that Sirius and 
Florence were really serious about each other and not just fooling 
around behind the greenhouse like every other couple caught there? 
(The greenhouse is the Hogwart's students' making out hideout). How 
was he to know that their relationship is clandestine? How was he to 
know that Bertha's nosiness would end up in the couples splitting up 
due to lack of support from friends? How was he to know Florence 
would then be led to gloomy ponderings resulting in twisted appetite 
for Cruciating Aurors all the way to cuckoo land? How's he... you 
know what Elkins? There's just too many of these so I'll just stop 
here.


Another problem is a great inconsistency of character exhibited by 
Sirius and Florence. Are they strong or are they weak? Would Sirius 
really let his friends rule his love life? I really can't see James 
and Remus forcing him to break it up with Florence anyway and as for 
Peter's irritating piping, well, the obvious answer's : "At least 
I've got a * girl*, Wormtail, so shut up". And if Florence's brooding 
spell is due to a lack of a safety net of friends, then why give up 
on the one guy who cared for her in the first place? Because people 
she wasn't too close to anyway took the mickey out of her for it?


Another thing that occurred to me is, is it likely that Slytherin 
would have acquired it's evil reputation yet? When Hagrid says that 
there hasn't been a wizard that went bad that didn't come from 
Slytherin, did he mean ever or just in Voldemort's era? If it's the 
latter then perhaps Slytherin doesn't have a bad name yet, for all 
the Death Eater's identities and therefore their house origin were 
not revealed till after his fall. So why should Sirius and Florence's 
love be Forbidden?


On to the next objection. Cupid's Snitch does not explain what all 
these theories set out to explain in the first place, namely why did 
Snape cross over to the sunny side of the street after all? What's 
the big, hush—hush reason Dumbledore trusts Snape so much? Did 
Dumbledore tell Harry that that was between himself and Professor 
Snape because the alternative was to make a fool of himself by 
saying "Well, Severus thought that as he doesn't happen to have the 
hots for any Death Eaters at the moment he might as well do the right 
thing, so I took him on at Hogwarts as long he agreed to let me know 
as soon as he develops another crush on a Voldemort supporter". 
Doesn't really work somehow.


And one more thing: Florence must have been a splendid actress. 
Sirius was so into her and never realized she was heading right down 
the path that leads to You—Know—Who's front door? Maybe Florence 
didn't have a chance to elaborate on exactly what form of torturous 
death she thinks would be the most enjoyable way of wiping out 
Mudbloods while Sirius's tongue was stuck down her throat, but if he 
didn't really know her and hadn't really looked any deeper than how 
hot she looked in her drop—dead sexy, midnight blue, very tight dress 
robes, then could he really continue caring so much for over a decade?


I think that's all. Phew!!! It'd better be all I can hear you 
thinking
 But I'll give it to you Elkins. It took me almost a day to 
come up with these arguments, and I guess they're not completely 
foolproof either. One can always come up with counter arguments. I 
guess it all comes down to what your own personal tastes are. It goes 
against all my instincts to accept that Sirius had a girlfriend that 
went Wrong and that's really what my objections boil down to.


You might be wondering what became of my unfair arguments. Well they 
get a post of their very own (this one's getting far too long) that 
will appear after I've had a good night's sleep. They're unfair 
because they expect Cupid's Snitch to answer questions 
C.U.P.I.D.'S.B.L.U.D.G.E.R. and it's mother theory 
E.L.G.I.N.M.A.R.B.L.E.S. do, even though I have not yet presented 
these questions, or for that matter E.L.G.I.N.M.A.R.B.L.E.S.

Ah! Before I forget! Abigail wrote:

>(Hence, by the way, my objection to 
>naming said sister Florence - somehow, Florence Snape doesn't quite 
work, you
>feel as though her name ought to 
>start with an S.)

But Florence didn't appear out of thin air you know. That is in fact 
the name of the girl Bertha caught kissing whoever—it—is. It says so 
in GoF. As a matter of fact however I myself have serious issues with 
naming Sirius's or Snape's or anybody's girlfriend Florence: I don't 
like the name (my apologies to any Florences out there). But thinking 
about it and what it might mean lead me to this sequence of thoughts: 
Florence - -> Italy- -> the Renaissance - -> Art. Maybe Florence will 
introduce the magical world of Art to the series! After all JKR does 
draw herself. Oh, blimey!!! Tidal brainwave just 
C.U.P.I.D.'S.B.L.U.D.G.E.R. on the star board bow sending Captain 
reeling and leaving her slumped against cabin wall dazed by own 
brilliance! How about this: Florence indeed very artistic. In fact 
passionate with painting since Hogwart's days. And Harry wandering 
around castle in his fifth year unknowingly comes across one of her 
works, stops to admire it and – wait for it— gets sucked once more 
into alternate universe of another's thoughts, where following 
Florence around he comes across his Mum and Dad thus learning much 
more of their lives as we know he must in OoP!!! Plausible?


Charis Julia, who has at long last finished her exams and can happily 
divide her time between partying and Harry Potter at least for the 
next couple of days. Hooray!!!