SHIP: A Captain's work is never done

[Tabouli]

No: HPFGUIDX 36422

Observing some baffled newcomers on shore, Captain Tabouli (well known for her kindly didactic spirit) feels a twinge of conscience.  How thoughtless of her, leaving hapless newbies stranded on the beach without offering them a brochure on her SHIPs!  Pausing for a moment in her negotiations with Elkins, she reaches into her blazer and takes out a chic, lollipop pink mobile phone.  Her first call is to her LOLLIPOPS fighter pilot, currently circling over Theory Bay on the lookout for enemy fleets.  She instructs him to write the following messages in the sky for the purposes of education:

The Good Ship LOLLIPOPS = Love Of Lily Left Ire Polluting Our Poor Severus
The Daring Dinghy FLIRTIAC = Filch's Lover Is Regretting Transformation Into A Cat

Being ever opportunistic, she then makes a call to her Judy, her marketing manager, and organises to set up a stall on the pier selling badges and berths.

Pleased with her morning's work, Captain Tabouli flips her phone closed and returns to negotiations with Elkins, attempting to forge a compromise between Elkins' desire to give Snape a romantic liaison with the new DADA teacher and her own central LOLLIPOPS tenet, which states that Snape was definitely, unquestionably in love with Lily.  Privately, she does not think a future romance for Snape is at all likely.  In her view, Snape's scars run so deep in the Land of Love (valleys gashed into his heart, grown over with lilies) his heart is never likely to stray there again.  However, in the interests of inclusiveness and fair play, she has always been willing to accommodate anyone who adheres to the central tenet of Snape loved Lily.  She feels that her altruistic, accommodating demeanour reached its peak with the building of the LOVESLAVE (League Of Violently Enamoured Snape/Lily And Vampire Enthusiasts) wing, where she provided Pippin and her fellow love slaves with prosthetic fangs, fake blood and hydroponically grown garlic bulbs to assist them in the development of theories to support their dark faith.

By comparison, giving Snape a post-Lily love interest seems positively benign.  However, just as Captain Tabouli is forging a contract with Elkins, whereby Snape develops a Pygmalionesque attachment to the newly human Mrs Norris which helps him recover from his grief regarding Lily, she hears a howl of protest from the LOLLIPOPS deck:

Eileen:
> UGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
>
>I bought into the flamingo in the Gothic Cathedral idea, but two 
flamingos? Are we redecorating the ship in flamingos? Should we bring 
in Captain Charis to do some colour co-ordination? 
>
>If you and Elkins want to do it, I'll leave it to you. But I'm 
begging leave to pack up and visit Cindy on her "Big Bang Destroyer" 
for a bit. I'm taking George, the fair-faced cabin boy, with me. 
(golden-eyed face indeed?)<

Captain Tabouli pauses, a frown congealing under her hat.  While she is of course happy for her crew to take leave, she feels that Eileen's rationale is somewhat against the inclusive atmosphere she is trying to foster aboard LOLLIPOPS.  As Captain, she secretly thinks Elkins' S.E.C.O.N.D. F.L.A.M.I.N.G.O...

(Snape Eternally Covets Ogleworthy Norris' Damsel Form, Like Argus: Mrs "Inaccessible" Norris Generates Obsession!)

... deserves to be stripped and converted into pretty pink FEATHERBOAS, but then, she also secretly thinks that Pippin's LOVESLAVEs deserve to succumb to the deadly S.I.A.M.E.S.E. V.I.R.U.S... 

(Snape Is Already Mysterious Enough, So Extra Vampiricism Is Rendered Utterly Superfluous)

...along with all the other theories proclaiming *more* half-blood/unregistered Animagi.  Perhaps when Eileen returns from the Big Bang Destroyer, she needs to have a little interview with her Captain about her attitudes.  Nodding grimly to herself, Captain Tabouli signs the peace treaty with Elkins, and ascends once more to the deck of her Ship.  Just as she is about to return to her desk chair, she overhears a comment made by a passenger:

Cindy:
> The truth, my friends, is that Florence is *Florence Norris*.  (The 
name just rolls right off the tongue, doesn't it?) <

Bristling, the Captain strides over to the storeroom, pulls out two recent on-board bulletins, and flourishes them in Cindy's sinful face.  The first, published on the 17th of February, is entitled "The continuing twisted flight of Cupid's Snitch" and spells out a Filch/Florence romance in Great Detail.  The second, published just *yesterday*, includes the following passage:

"This tendency (towards compassion and nurturing) was instilled in Mrs Norris at birth in accordance with the Potterverse law of Name Determinism by her Muggle parents, who named her after that paragon of caring for others... Florence Nightingale."

Shaking her head mutinously, Captain Tabouli heads once more for her deck chair when she is accosted by a woman who reminds her of the FLIRTIAC figurehead, somehow.  She is wearing a badge with a picture of a small cat on it, on which is printed the legend:

E.L.F. T.A.B.B.Y: Enough Love For Two!  Alliance for Benevolent Bigamist Yearnings.

Catlady (quoting Elkins):
>> Forced to choose once more between these two paragons of masculine 
>> desirability [Filch and Snape], would Mrs. Norris make the same 
>> decision the *second* time 
>Why can't she have both? If everyone agrees that a woman can have two 
children and love both of them, why doesn't the same argument apply to 
two husbands?<

(quoting me):
>> "SNAPE LOVED **LILY**!
>If Mrs. Norris can love two wizards, surely Snape can love two 
witches.<

Captain Tabouli politely hears her case, promises to look into the foundation of an ELF TABBY common room on her Ship, and makes it to the deck chair.  However, she has hardly got settled when another passenger approaches her.

Eloise:
> Can I just ask Captain Tabouli whether the comment in GoF (the Egg and the 
Eye) that Mrs Norris's lamp-like eyes are so very like those of her master 
has any bearing on what is going on in the FLIRTIAC dinghy?<

Masking her weariness, Captain Tabouli considers.  There are many possibilities.  One easy out is that a new dinghy should be built to float alongside FLIRTIAC, perhaps A.C.I.D.A.R.T.I.C.L.E. (Argus' Cat Is Doubtless A Relative, Transported Into Cat Life Eternally).  Another is the well known phenomenon of couples coming to look like each other after spending years together living the same lifestyle - both have developed lamp like eyes in their endless quest to bring students' antics to light, so to speak.  Perhaps the resemblance is not so much that their eyes look alike, but that Mrs Norris' eyes look eerily human (for obvious reasons), and wear Filch's gleaming, haunted expression.

However, perhaps the most interesting and strongest theory is one that came up months ago, which I don't know enough about to explain properly.  There is apparently some legend which says that there are some wizards whose power is located not in them, but in their familiar.  Hence Mrs Norris, who by proxy has become Filch's familiar, is in fact the vessel of his power, which will not be released for him to use again until she is returned to human form.  By this theory, whoever cursed Mrs Norris also managed to leach Filch of his power and put it in the cat (which would neatly enable him to be the man snogging Florence Norris-to-be who hexed Bertha), and when Mrs Norris is healed, Filch will be the person who (re)develops magical powers late in life.  Man and cat would therefore be linked by a strange, Dark Magic bond, lending them both an eerie, lamp-like cast to their eyes.

Promising Eloise that she will try to come up with further theories on the subject, Captain Tabouli slumps into her chair and closes her eyes, but the babble of excited map theorists is too loud for her to sleep.  With a sigh, she rises from her chair and limps towards her own cabin for some much-needed rest.  Just when she is reaching for the doorknob, the same passenger as before seizes her arm.

Cindy:
>So I issue a challenge to those with competing Mrs. Norris theories:  
Explain exactly how it is that Mrs. Norris shows up that way on the 
Marauder's Map instead of showing up under her first and last name, 
like every other witch or wizard.<

The Captain's head wobbles dizzily on her neck.  Wordlessly, she groped in her pocket for yet another brochure, titled "Mrs Norris and Marauders' Map musings", published on the 16th of February, which is slightly out of date with current FLIRTIAC renovations, but can hopefully be tailored to fit.  In a last husky whisper, she adds that we don't yet know how to interpret Lupin's avowal that "the Map never lies".

What constitutes the "truth"?  Voldemort is the most interesting example here:

Boggles:
> While I wonder about this too, the suggestion that it wouldn't show 
him _as Voldemort_ is intriguing.
>
>Fred: "Quick, get back in the broom closet!  Quirrell's coming down 
>the charms corridor!"
>George: "Who's this Tom Riddle he's got with him?  Is he that 
>Hufflepuff fifth-year?"

Dumbledore implies that "Tom Riddle" effectively no longer exists.  He has put himself through so many transformation that "Lord Voldemort" has become his true nature and identity.  Would it really be "true" for the Map to label him "Tom Riddle"?  Arguably, Mrs Norris has also undergone a profound magical transformation, a change of her original nature and identity into that of a cat.  Maybe she was nee Florence Figg, but is only ever spoken of and thought of in cat form as Mrs Norris (which Filch adheres to out of loverly irony, in their inability to forget the omnipresent shadow of her husband).

Cindy looks sceptical, but thankfully, she does not press her question and ascends the ladder to the deck once more.  Flaccid with relief, Captain Tabouli staggers into her cabin, locks the door behind her, and sags onto the bed, shakily pouring herself a flagon of rum.  A Captain's work, she muses to herself as she sips, is truly never done.

Tabouli.


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