[HPforGrownups] Re: TBAY: MATCHINGARMCHAIR: the Debate Rages On (WAS: Yel...

[Edblanning at aol.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 39042

Eloise is awoken from her slumbers at the back of the hall by screaming and 
shouting and the noise of doors slamming and glass breaking.

'Eloise, you're wanted!  The Sphinx's trailer'

Rubbing her eyes, Eloise wanders off in the direction of Cindy's star-sized 
trailer. She knocks on the door, opens it a crack, cautiously peers round 
and, seeing Cindy sitting quietly on one of her set of matching armhairs, 
enters.

'Good. You've come to give me a massage?'

'Err....yes'

Eloise isn't quite sure why she's been summoned, but if Cindy's ego needs 
massaging, then she figures someone had better do it. The thought of what 
Tough, featherboa-bedecked Cindy might get up to if the stress *really* got 
to her doesn't bear thinking about.

Cindy springs lightly onto the massage table which is another prominent 
feature of her trailer. As Eloise begins working on the knots in her back, 
she begins to take in the rest of her surroundings: the pictures of Cindy 
with all the paddles she has ever owned; the memorabilia of the campaign 
promoting some of the more obscure varieties of Kool-Aid which first made her 
a household name; the remaining Big Paddle, hung mercifully high up on the 
wall out of immediate reach and a photograph frame, the picture turned 
mysteriously towards the wall. 

Eloise is intrigued and contrives to knock it over accidentally on the 
pretext of getting a better grip on Cindy's shoulders. 

'Give that to me.'

Eloise gives Cindy a look (which she might not have risked if she didn't have 
her lying flat on her stomach, wrapped in a towel)

'Please.'

It is a picture of Cindy and Elkins in happier days, becomingly clad in their 
wet-suits, propelling a kayak by means of very small paddles, featherboas 
flying in the wind.

'How did it come to this?' asks Cindy wistfully. 'I thought we were 
friends......and now.....now she's *overacting*, trying to take the 
lime-light.....*smashing my paddle!*'

'Is there any chance it can be mended?'

Cindy shakes her head sadly, and picks up a bag, tipping out onto the massage 
table a dozen pieces of splintered wood.

'But *you* understand the point, don't you? The Reverse Memory Charm ..it 
makes *sense*.'

'ER....look, I was asleep through all that'

'Yes, but you were asleep in a MATCHINGARMCHAIR, that means something doesn't 
it?'

'Well, it might, or it might not....I'm a bit undecided on all this memory 
charm stuff, to be honest. My job is just to go around giving massages and 
telling people how terribly clever they are and nodding occasionally so they 
think I understand what they're saying..... Well, it's worked up to now, 
hasn't it?

I mean, to pick up an a bit I *do* understand, I used to have this problem 
with the idea of just why anyone should think the Longbottoms should have 
information on Voldemort.'

'Exactly,' interrupts Cindy,

 >' I see no reason to think that Frank knew where Voldemort was -- 
>particularly if Voldemort was but a noxious gas at that point.<>
>Wormtail found Voldemort by chatting up the other rats, 
>didn't he?  Unless Frank is an Animagus (heaven help us!), then he 
>wouldn't have any way of gathering this information, no matter how 
>good an Auror he was.'

'Yeess........but Wormtail found him by communicating with rats 
because....well he was a rat......and *not* an Auror. Frank OTOH *was* an 
Auror (and not, I assume, a rat :-) ). Now, we've never been told exactly 
what powers Aurors have when it comes to sniffing out Dark Wizards. Do they 
just have good detective powers or something more? Look at all Crouch/Moody's 
'Dark detectors'. Look at the way owls are able to find the person they're 
looking for. Now, what about a potion made from owl feathers........'

Cindy is reaching out towards a pile of yellow flags.....

' But anyway, it doesn't seem at all unlikely to me that the Aurors would 
have had some means of tracking down Voldemort. And they probably had the 
advantage. The DEs on the whole  don't seem to have tried, do they? The 
Lestranges and their companions seem to be an exception in their loyalty to 
Voldemort. I imagine that the rest fled in disarray at the news of 
Voldemort's downfall, covering their own backs, whereas we know Dumbledore's 
side were on the spot straight away. I further imagine that Frank Longbottom, 
if not one of 'the old crowd', was at least close to Dumbledore as when he 
tells Harry about the Longbottoms' fate his voice is 'full of a bitterness 
Harry had never heard before then'. I think it extremely likely that, perhaps 
at Dumbledore's prompting, he immediately started trying to track him.

And I do think that Dumbledore's spies have been tracking him since, though 
obviously not always very successfully ;-). (Who took their eye off the ball 
when he turned up at Hogwarts, then? And in Little Hangleton)

In CoS, he has sources who tell him that Voldemort is currently hiding in the 
forests of Albania. He doesn't just say he assumes this, because of where 
Quirrell  had met him, it appears to be *current* knowkedge. And it's nearly 
two years later when he mentions Bertha disappearing where Voldemort was 
certainly last known to be. OK, it's not stated, but that implies to me that 
he did still have his finger on the pulse. 

So I'm arguing that it really was possible that Frank did have the ability to 
know where Voldemort was.

And that Cruciatus thing......I have to say that I also have my doubts as to 
how the Longbottoms lost their minds as a result of Cruciatus.'

>'But the second Cruciatus Curse does start to sound like a move 
>toward insanity:  "The pain was so intense, so all-consuming, that 
>he no longer knew where he was."  There's also no question that the 
>cumulative effects of consecutive Cruciatus Curses is, uh, rather 
>exhausting.  After the first Cruciatus Curse, Harry is described 
>as "hanging limply."  After the second, he fares much worse:  "He 
>was shaking as uncontrollably as Wormtail had done when his hand had 
>been cut off."  '

'Yeah, I get that. But what is being described is the effect of *pain*. he 
doesn't know where he is *whilst he is in pain* and the limpness and shaking 
are the after-effects of pain which wear off. Now, I'm sure a that Mrs 
Lestrange did go just a little OTT with the old Cruciatus, but we've seen 
nothing else in canon to suggest that Cruciatus can cause insanity, or 
lasting loss of awareness. The Penseive four are accused of using Cruciatus, 
not I think, of making the Longbottoms deranged. Given the fact that 
Cruciatus is an Unforgivable, from the sentencing point of view, I shouldn't 
think it matters much. '

>I guess it makes sense that Frank lost his mind, and I'm not sure 
we can really dispute Dumbledore's take on it at this point.

'Well, Cindy, it doesn't make sense to me. I agree that we have to take 
Dumbledore's word, but what does he say? He says they were tortured and that 
they are now insane. *He* doesn't mention Cruciatus and he doesn't actually 
say that the insanity is the result of the torture. Which makes me 
wonder.....Is there some other kind of torture, perhaps more mental than 
physical? Or is the insanity not the result of torture, but of something 
else? I leave sinister plots involving bent Aurors, etc. to others. Could 
Dumbledore's bitterness be because he knows something about who made them 
insane - and that it wasn't the DEs? Is this why he is willing to admit that 
he has no idea whether Crouch Jr was involved?

Now, what does all this this have to do with MATCHINGARMCHAIRS? Because I 
think I've lost the plot.'

But before Cindy can explain, she's called back to the set. She swings her 
legs down and hops off the table.

'Ow! What the.....'

Cindy has accidentally trodden on Eloise's pet hedgehog.

'Oh, watch out! Poor Abelard!'

Cindy doesn't look as if she thinks there's anything poor about him and as 
she hops about, nursing her foot, Eloise retreats, clutching Abelard in the 
dragon skin gloves she always carries around for just such occasions.

Later, she finds herself despatched to Elkins' trailer. It's a modest 
trailer; no airs and graces, no matching armchairs. Elkins is looking 
despondent. 

'Lacklustre. That's what he called it. Lacklustre. I mean, I give it my all, 
and it's just not good enough. That script....what can you do with it....it 
just lacks ....everything. No truth, no sincerity. How is anyone supposed to 
do anything with that?
You know what this is, don't you? This is the end. There won't be a sequel; 
he was just humouring me, I know that.'

'Oh, there'll be a sequel, Elkins. I just *know* there'll be a sequel. 
Somehow.
Here, have a brandy.'

Eloise reaches out towards a decanter

'No, not that one. That one's been doctored. You remember...Cindy......back 
in the old days...... ambushes and all that.'

Eloise does indeed remember the occasion on which having accepted brandy from 
Cindy, Elkins and others got very excited and were observed jumping up and 
down on the sofa screaming 'bloody ambush' at the tops of their voices.

'Elkins, you didn't have any of that earlier on today, did you?'

Eloise notices that Elkins is holding a copy of the same photograph that she 
saw in Cindy's trailer.

'Do you think she remembers?' she asks.

'Oh, yes, Elkins, I'm sure she does. And do you know what I overheard? 
They're thinking of making this one of those films with two alternative 
endings. You know like thay did with that remake of that old classic  _The 
Fourth Man_ you know, the one with that catchy zither tune,  

<hums>
Da de daa, de da, de da......
Da de daa, de da, de da.......
Da de da de da..de dam, de da,de da.......

You know, the one where there was one ending where Fourth Man *was* Avery and 
that much more convincing one where  Fourth Man turned out to be Molly 
Weasley's second cousin, aka Rita Skeeter.'

Elkins is still looking at the photo, where for the first time Eloise 
realises that she can just see Avery's head disappearing under the waves, 
evidently as the result of one of Cindy's attempts to drown him.

'Or perhaps not...'

Eloise

#,#,">  #,#,">  #,#,">  #,##,#"> (Abelard and his cousins)

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HPforGrownups/files/Admin20Files/hypotheticalley.htm 
 
 and Inish Alley at 
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