[HPforGrownups] Re: TBAY: Minerva McGonagall and Sybil Trelawney are Ever...

[Edblanning at aol.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 39599

The game of hedgehog croquet is progressing nicely, despite the failing 
light. Eloise is just lining up her shot, ready to knock Porphyria's 
McGonagall hedgehog out of the way with Fudge (her own favourite), when she 
is distracted by a whooshing sound before being knocked to the ground by yet 
another hedgehog, launched this time from a catapult aboard the Memory Charm 
paddleboat. 

Eyeing the little creature, who is sticking its snuffly nose in her face, she 
observes a little label around its neck,
'Sybil. Please look after this hedgehog',
and the parchment in its mouth (Debbie's completed application for membership 
of the OHF).

By now, the hedgehogs have all unrolled and hidden themselves in the darker 
recesses of the garden and the flamingo has inconsiderately flapped off to 
the top of the highest turret. The game having thus finished, the members of 
the OFH adjourn inside for drinks, and Eloise reads out Debbie's application 
for approval.

There is muttering and head nodding and satisfied whispering,
'I never trusted that Sybil'; 
'Always gave me the creeps, that one, with her constant predictions of 
Harry's death.' 
'All that about the Grim - perhaps *she* was trying to frighten him to death'.

'Elkins, didn't you once have something to say about Divination as a Dark 
Art?'

Eloise dashes to her office opens the filing cabinet drawer devoted entirely 
to Elkins' voluminous writings and pulls out a sheet ruthlessly snipped from 
file 35373. Yes, here it is. You were talking about the second prediction, 
when she seems to be posessed, 

>I just don't know about that voice. Its sympathies seem to lie 
>rather strongly with Voldemort, if you ask me. It doesn't even sound 
>much like it's delivering a warning at all; it sounds far more to me 
>as if something out there is *exulting* over what's about to happen.

>The possibility has occurred to me that really effective divination 
>(for human beings, at any rate, as opposed to, say, Centaurs) might 
>necessitate opening oneself up to outside influence as a regular and 
>conscious practice -- actually *inviting* whatever is out there to 
>use you as its horse -- and that far too many of the things that 
>might choose to answer such an invitation could well be, like 
>Trelawney's prophetic voice, Not Very Nice. And while I can't claim
>to know for certain what effects galloping around with Not Very Nice 
>Things riding on your proverbial back might be, I strongly suspect 
>that it wouldn't be very good for you. Even aside from the obvious 
>perils involved in allowing an unknown entity to hold your reins like 
>that, it might also be somehow intrinsically corrupting.

>Perhaps spiritual possession is the only truly reliable and effective 
>form of Divination that human beings can manage? The Centaurs 
>obviously use astrology to great effect, but we've seen no evidence 
>yet of any wizards doing so. Perhaps all of the means of Divination 
>that Trelawney favors -- crystal-gazing and tea-reading and astrology 
>and the like -- are very weak tools in the hands of humans, while all 
>of the more effective tools available to them involve dealing in one 
>way or another with spiritual entities about which not very much is 
>known and which are therefore highly suspect?


Yes, Sybil Trelawney has been *inviting* that dead DE to share her 
consciousness and has been corrupted by it, even if she was not on the side 
of Darkness to begin with. No wonder she tries to pass off the incident; 
she's all too happy for Harry to think she's an old fraud. No wonder she 
dislikes Hermione and takes avery opportunity to belittle her: she's far too 
close to blowing her cover.

But *has* she only just been corrupted?
Eloise noticed another file which was out on her desk, # 36757, which 
contains a suggestion by Ama that Sybil Trelawney, Minerva McGonagall and Tom 
Riddle may all have been at school at the same time. Now I don't think that 
McGonagall can have been (or at least, she'd have been at the top of the 
school when Riddle started)
but Trelawney? Well, we don't know her age, do we? Or what house she was in. 
Was she one of handsome, popular Riddle's groupies? Is her solitary life up 
in her tower one of single-minded devotion to her former love?

The meeting agree the application. Sybil the hedgehog miraculously sprouts 
wings 
                                    ///                
                               <'<<<<         
                                  " \\\"           
and flies back to Debbie with her acceptance, badge and an invitation to join 
the rest of the OFH for dinner.   

But wait, what does Eloise overhear? Is that Elkins?

>You know what does sometimes trouble my sleep though?  Wondering how 
>all of those Death Eaters actually got *home* from the graveyard.  I
>do worry about that sometimes.  After all, how well can you apparate 
>if you don't even know where you *are?*  And it's hard to imagine a 
>more awkward circumstance under which one could get oneself 
>splinched, isn't it?   

What's this, is there a mole in our midst? 
Why is Elkins so concerned about these DEs? Worried enough that it disturbs 
her sleep, even. Is her supposed sighting of a Cheshire Hedgehog none other 
than a ruse to infiltrate the OFH? 

Eloise is profoundly glad that Elkins is not a ficitional character. 
Otherwise the evidence would lead to only one possible conclusion: that 
Elkins Is Ever So Evil. ;-)

Eloise
(beginning to think that she's been doing this job for too long)




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