TBAY: Minerva McGonagall and Sybil Trelawney are Ever So Evil!

[elfundeb at aol.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 39585

It is nighttime on Theory Bay, and Debbie is lounging in the Memory Charm 
paddleboat, her head sinking down on a pillow of canary feathers that Charis 
Julia left.  All week she has been relaxing among the feathers, watching the 
nightly spectacle unfold.  For night after night, Debbie has seen a fireworks 
display on the Bay like she has never seen before.  First, the incantation, 
"[somebody] is Ever So Evil!" followed each time by a green flash and the 
appearance of a vast glittering hedgehog in the sky.

Debbie has company tonight, as Dogberry has come to join her on the Memory 
Charm paddleboat (at least until WINCHed away), and is sitting on the bow of 
the boat contemplating Evil! Gran and Evil! Uncle Algie dolls while awaiting 
tonight's spectacle.  

But all is quiet on the Bay.  Does that mean every suspect has been outed?  
Debbie consults Cindy's handy list.  No, they have missed one!  Katherine 
tried hard, but couldn't get there:

I'm not sure you can call Trelawney a minor teacher. And you can 
imagine Evil!Trelawney, if you try hard enough. But unless she's 
unbelievably twisted, (Hmm...I just got a picture of Trelawney as 
Mrs. Lestrange. ::shudder:: That's taking it a little far.) she won't 
betray Dumbledore.

Au contraire!  Debbie thinks this one is the most obvious of them all, so 
obvious that she wonders if it would even rate a hedgehog.  Surely someone 
has outed her before?  Clearly there's more to Trelawney than the traveling 
carnival charlatan that she appears to be.  But, looking through her 
Omnioculars, Debbie notices that everyone else seems to be picnicking and 
playing lawn games over at Diana's castle.  Well, then, it's up to her to 
provide today's fireworks.  She plunges deep into the pile of feathers, and 
finally uncovers her wand at the bottom of the paddleboat.  Lifting it into 
the air, she shouts, 

"Sybil Trelawney is Ever So Evil!"

    #,##,#">

Yes, the hedgehog sparkles quite nicely in the dark sky, and immediately 
thereafter, a soft little hedgehog plops down onto the feathers, bearing a 
parchment in its mouth.  It appears to be an application for the Order of the 
Flying Hedgehog, with instructions to return to Eloise, c/o Diana's castle.  
(Debbie reminds herself that she never filled out a proper application for 
Fred Weasley; one more thing for the to-do list.)  Debbie gets out her quill, 
and begins to fill it out.  After answering the usual questions about one's 
name, place of residence in Theory Bay, and name of Hedgehog candidate on the 
front of the application, she turns it over and reads:  "Explain your reasons 
for proposing the candidate.  Be specific.  You must include at least one 
can(n)on to support your theory."  Debbie sharpens her quill again, and 
begins to write:

You see, Trelawney is a charlatan, but not the kind everyone thinks.  In 
fact, she's quite skilled at divination, and has one particular talent in an 
advanced area, far beyond the "basic methods of Divination" that she covers 
with the third years (PoA ch. 6):  She is a medium who not only can, but 
frequently does contact the dead.  In fact, she's been in contact for quite 
some time with a particular dead person.  Unfortunately for her, the spirit 
chose Harry's final exam to pay his friend Sybil a visit.  

You want can(n)on?  Notice how when she makes her prediction (PoA ch. 16) she 
is "rigid in her armchair; her eyes were unfocused and her mouth sagging."  
She seems to be having a seizure, as if she's possessed by a spirit.  Then 
she speaks in "a loud, harsh voice . . . quite unlike her own"  -- the 
spirit's voice, of course.  Who is it?  Why, it has to be the spirit of a 
dead DE.  Who else could it be, given the kind of language that the spirit 
uses?  "The Dark Lord lies alone and friendless . . .his servant has been 
chained these twelve years . . . The servant will break free and rejoin his 
master . . . the Dark Lord will rise again . . ."  This is vintage Barty Jr. 
talk.  It can only be a DE speaking through her.  

And then, afterwards, she tries to cover up, telling Harry it was so hot she 
drifted off.  Right.  She just wanted to cover up who she's been talking to.  
In fact, she keeps it that hot on purpose, so she can make excuses.  And then 
she tries to cover herself by pretending righteous indignation at the very 
idea that she would have spoken of the Dark Lord:  "The Dark Lord?" and she 
then corrects herself quickly - "He -Who-Must-Not-Be-Named?  My dear boy, 
that's hardly something to joke about.  I would certainly not presume to 
predict anything as far-fetched as that!"  Ha!  Yes, that's right in 
character, as Trelawney-the-fraud would not do such a thing.  But 
Trelawney-the-Medium?  The fact is that she *is* a competent seer but is 
unwilling to admit it.  It's because she doesn't want him to believe she 
knows what happened.  She doesn't want him to know that she's in contact with 
a DE, because that would reveal that she's a DE herself, and that she keeps 
in touch with what's going on vis-à-vis Voldemort.

And it works, of course, because by GoF, Harry "had long since come to the 
conclusion that her brand of fortunetelling was really no more than lucky 
guesswork and a spooky manner."  Only briefly does he remember her prediction 
about Voldemort.  (GoF, unlucky ch. 13)

Who is this spirit Trelawney keeps in touch with?  It has to be a loyal, dead 
DE.  Well, how about Rosier?  Rosier and Wilkes were "killed by Aurors the 
year before Voldemort fell," according to Sirius (GoF ch. 27).  Crouch tells 
Karkaroff that Rosier preferred to fight than be captured quietly-- he sounds 
pretty loyal to me.  And, assuming for this purpose that Trelawney's first 
accurate prediction (or at least the first accurate prediction anyone else 
heard) was that the last Potter would defeat the last remaining 
ancestor/descendant of Slytherin, then it all fits.  Because Rosier could 
easily have died and had time to be summoned by Trelawney before that 
prediction was made.  

And this explains, too, why Trelawney seems to be such a fraud.  She needs to 
hide that she knows anything about divination at all.  And she plays her part 
to the hilt.  It's all there - the costume, playing the odds, betting on the 
obvious winners, right in her first class (PoA, ch. 6).  Who's most likely to 
break a teacup?  Why, that would be Nervous Neville.  Voldemort is after 
Harry?  Well, then, his death is the odds-on favorite in the class.  In fact, 
she might get the privilege of doing him in herself!  No wonder she gives 
Harry and Ron top marks for their fake predictions and commended them for 
their "unflinching acceptance of the horrors."  (GoF ch. 15)  (Note that 
since Ron might have gotten up first at Christmas dinner, she may have to 
kill them both to fulfill the prophecy.)  They're highly likely to come true! 
 But not this month?  Those are just details -- like Lavender's rabbit - that 
make her look like a fraud, which is good for her cover.  That way she won't 
be believed in the event she slips up and speaks in front of someone.  Harry 
claims to see a Hippogriff in the crystal ball?  Well, Trelawney herself 
knows what's going to happen to him.  She just saw her good friend Macnair 
arrive at Hogwarts with his trusty axe.  And she goes it one better, with the 
ridiculous predictions that she controls herself.  ["I have been crystal 
gazing . . . and to my astonishment I saw myself abandoning my solitary 
luncheon"  (PoA ch. 11), or how about "the Fates have informed me that your 
examination in June will concern the Orb." You know, that whole traveling 
carnival routine is simply inspired. 

Yes, Trelawney's a mite bit dangerous to be keeping around Hogwarts.  But 
Dumbledore thinks it's rather helpful to keep someone on hand who seems to be 
a medium for some dark wizard.  That's why he hired her after she made the 
first prediction.  It's a good thing, he thinks, to have that line of 
communication; in fact, it's just like having a little spy network.  That's 
why he makes jokes about her little Pettigrew prediction.  "I should offer 
her a pay raise."(PoA ch. 22)  But he also keeps her locked in the North 
Tower on purpose, so nobody else can hear her predictions.  She escaped that 
one Christmas; Dumbledore was so surprised he stood up when she entered, even 
though dinner had begun.  (PoA ch. 11)  That's why he's so calm when Harry 
tells him about her prediction.  But once he's dead, and no one knows what 
she's about . . . well, Trelawney (with her companion Rosier/Wilkes) is just 
biding her time.  She's right where she needs to be.  As we know now, even 
Dumbledore can be fooled by an exceptionally clever Dark wizard.

The devil, of course, is in the details.  But the details are there.  
Trelawney wears a green, sequined dress to Christmas dinner in PoA, the only 
time we are told the color of her attire.  And when Harry has the dream about 
Voldemort putting the Cruciatus Curse on Wormtail in her classroom, she knows 
exactly what happened and presses Harry for details of what he saw.  She 
says, "You were rolling on the floor, clutching your scar!  Come now, Potter, 
I have experience in these matters."  She knows it had something to do with 
Voldemort, and she tries to keep him in the classroom.  "If you leave now, 
you may lose the opportunity to see further than you ever . . . ."  But Harry 
goes off to Dumbledore.

And Evil! Sybil also explains Trelawney's little feud with McGonagall.  
Because, as Porphyria and Elkins make clear, McGonagall is also Ever So Evil. 
 Both of them are Voldemort's loyal servants, and both want to deliver Harry 
to Voldemort when the time is right.  But each of them wants Voldemort to 
reward *her* -- they don't want to share this.  So Minerva puts down Sybil at 
every opportunity.  ("Tripe, Sybil?")  But at the same time she protects 
Trelawney's cover by dissing divination and telling Harry that Sybil predicts 
someone's death every year.  (PoA ch. 6)  She knows whose death is being 
predicted, even before Harry tells her.   She's planning to bring it about 
herself.  And that mad axe-man comment at the end of Christmas dinner?  Well, 
McGonagall thinks that was a faux-pas by Trelawney, predicting Harry's death 
yet again, so she protects Trelawney yet again by distracting everyone from 
the obvious fact that Harry hasn't avoided his fate merely by not dying 
immediately.  After all, both of them intend that Harry will be the first to 
die.  McGonagall even encourages Trelawney to sit down at the table, so the 
number will be 13.

As an afterthought, Debbie also notes the following additional evidence of 
Evil! Minerva:

In CoS, she lets Harry and Ron go visit Hermione in the infirmary when 
everyone else is being personally escorted about because the Basilisk is on 
the loose.  Another Oscar-caliber actress, she fakes the soft spot rather 
well.  Nice try, Minerva, but the Basilisk just didn't happen to be in the 
Infirmary corridor at the time.

The application complete, Debbie picks up the little brown hedgehog and puts 
the completed application back into his mouth.  Then she transfigures her 
paddle into a catapult and heaves the hedgehog over to Diana's lawn.  
Transfiguring the catapult back into a paddle, Debbie once again reclines on 
her bed of canary feathers and watches the night sky, contemplating whether 
she should make some of the feathers into a new FEATHERBOA.  

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

Debbie, noting that a mad axe-man does appear later in PoA.  It's Macnair, 
and he was quite mad when he saw Buckbeak was gone so it's a good thing Harry 
was out of sight.  And, of course, Macnair is also a DE.

For an explanation of the acronyms and theories in this post, visit
Hypothetic Alley at 
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/files/Admin20Files/hypoth
eticalley.htm 

and Inish Alley at 
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/database?
method=reportRows&tbl=13




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