TBAY: Madame Lestrange is Loose!

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 39067

Pippin relaxes idly in bow of the LOLLIPOPS lifeboat.  She and 
the Snapetheories have watched the carnage on shore with 
bemused detachment. So much to-do and disturbance over 
lowly Longbottom. Who'd have thought it? But now the bay is 
calm again. "Ars Longa, Vita Brevis," she sighs, and lovingly 
stroking her black iridescent featherboa, she picks up her tape 
recorder and begins to dictate another submission to the 
on-shore Coherence II thread.

Suddenly there is a faint <pop>. Behind her dark glasses,  
Pippin blinks in surprise at her newly materialized visitor. He is a 
a dapper, middle-aged fellow with a certain continental air, 
clothed in  the height of fashion for 1934. His forehead is high, 
he is somewhat balding and somewhat plump, and his features 
are distinguished by his deep dark eyes and by a prominent 
mustache, waxed into points, of which he seems inordinately 
vain.

"Excuse me," says Pippin politely. "Are you by chance lost? This 
Bay is for HP theories only."

"Madame," he says, in slightly accented English, " *I* am H.P."

He produces his card with a flourish and hands it to Pippin with 
a polite bow.

Her eyes widen as she reads the name engraved thereon: 
"Hercule Poirot."

"AIR-coo-lee Pwa-ROH!" Pippin exclaims phonetically. "Agatha 
Christie's greatest detective!"

Poirot bows again, hiding his pleasure at this praise. "Madame 
is too kind. But I perceive that despite her  look of nonchalance, 
Madame is distressed. Might I perhaps render some 
assistance?"

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"Well, now that you mention it," says Pippin, coming to the point 
of the post before the Mod-squad chopper drops a load of 
Howlers on her," it's the woman in the Pensieve scene. She's 
Madame Lestrange, isn't she? I mean, it seems obvious."

"Yes, indeed,  Hastings, eh,* pardon*, Madame Pippin. 
Something so obvious, it must be, how you say, a red flag."

"Yes. It's too simple. It's so simple, it's hardly a mystery at all. 
Where are the misleading clues, the red herrings, the false 
leads? I mean, there's no one else it *could* be, is there? Is 
there?"

"Let us remain calm, Madame, and put the little grey cells to 
work. Perhaps it is, after all, but a simple mystery, *pour amuser 
les enfants.* But no, of course that can not be. The great Joanne 
Rowling does not write children's books. There must be more." 
The deep brown eyes suddenly crinkle with amusement. "Oui, I 
have it. You seek the red herring, Madame, but it is already 
before your eyes."

"That would be a typical Christie ploy! But I'm afraid I don't follow."

"But it is so very simple, Hastings! Eh!, *pardon*, Madame 
Pippin, of course. This matter of identifying Madame Lestrange, it 
is the flourish of the magician's wand, distracting the eye from 
the matter which the magician wishes to conceal. You concern 
yourself with finding out the  name of this mysterious and 
powerful Death Eater of the heavy-lidded eyes and the queenly 
manner, and when you have discovered it, you pat yourself upon 
the back and look no further. Is it not so? But, I, the great Hercule 
Poirot, I will look further. Tell me, what else do we know about 
this lady?"

"Well, Sirius tells us she was in school with him and Snape. But 
she's in Azkaban now. Voldemort says so, too. 'Entombed' 
there."

"A curious choice of words, is it not? But this Voldemort, 
He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, need we believe all he says? And 
Sirius Black, he also thought, did he not, that young Barty Crouch 
had been entombed in Azkaban, and yet  he proved mistaken, 
n'est-ce pas?"

"Good heavens! You  don't mean she's escaped!"

"I cannot rule out the possibility."

"Then *she* could be the next DADA teacher!"

"Madame Pippin! We have already had a Death Eater disguised 
as a Hogwarts teacher. No, we must look else where. Closer to 
home, I think. Perhaps in Little Whinging?"

"Ooh! Mrs. Arabella Figg?"

"Yes, I think we will find her identity has been stolen." 

"It's an intriguing theory, Poirot, but we need canon here at 
Theory Bay."

"But of course, Madame." Poirot produces a much thumbed copy 
of "Harry Potter and The Philosopher's Stone. "You see, in 
Chapter Two, we learn of Mrs. Figg, she of the cabbage-smelling 
living room and the great fondness for the cats. But it seems she 
has broken her leg. And in Chapter Three, our Mr. Potter spends 
an afternoon at her house while Dudley is being taken for his 
Smelting's uniform. And he notices, does he not, that Mrs. Figg is 
no longer as fond of her cats as she once was, and that she lets 
him watch television, and gives him chocolate cake, with the 
implication that she has never done so before."

"You mean Madame Lestrange has been impersonating Mrs. 
Figg for four years now? But why? And how did she get out of 
Azkaban anyway? She can't be another unregistered Animagus, I 
hope. And why would any self-respecting Death Eater 
masquerade as a Muggle?"

"On the orders of her Master, who engineered her escape with 
the help of the unfortunate Professor Quirrell. For one who could 
break into Gringott's, surely Azkaban would pose no difficulty.  
And so, you see, it explains the broken leg. For how could Lord 
Voldemort know how safely Harry Potter was protected on Privet 
Drive unless he had tested those same protections?"

"Mrs. Lestrange!Figg broke her leg trying to get at Harry?"

"I fear so."

"But why would Voldemort lie to the Death Eaters and tell them 
she was still in Azkaban?"

"Because he has told no one, not even young Barty. For he trusts 
no one, not even young Barty. Soon, he thinks, she will be free of 
her tedious duties on Privet Drive, and he will set her at other 
prey. His unwilling, treacherous,backsliding Death Eaters, whom 
he would not trust as far as he could throw a Quaffle. Is it not 
brilliant? Who but I, Hercule Poirot, could see through such a 
devious scheme."

"But Harry didn't die that night. And that means--she's still there!" 
Pippin exclaims, like one of the Three Bears. "And that means--"

"Yes, indeed. The, how you say, Deadsexy!Sirius, is on a 
collision course with the Deadsexy!Madame Lestrange. The 
sparks will fly."

"Bangy!" says Pippin reverently. "All it needs is an acronym."

"That, I leave to you." And with another courtly bow and a faint 
<pop> the great detective disappears.

Pippin thinks for a moment, then pulls out a can of white paint 
and begins to paint new letters on the side of the LOLLIPOPS 
lifeboat.

E.L.V.I.R.A.

Evil Lestrange Villainess Is Replacing Arabella

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Pippin
who has observed that in Rowling, as in Christie, the villain is 
often a young man thought to be of good character, whom no 
one ever suspects. :-)