TBAY: MACHINGARMCHAIR

[charisjulia]

No: HPFGUIDX 39143

>As she turns toward the Parallel Universe Fourth Man hovercraft, 
however, 
>Debbie sees a new raft heading for shore, with the letters 
MATCHINGARMCHAIR 
>emblazoned on the side. <Debbie glances out in the bay where the 
good ship 
>LOLLIPOPS can be seen in the distance and makes a note to herself to 
request 
>an acronym for Memory Charm'd Frank one of these days> It's Eileen, 
with Avery in tow, waving a new defense for Cindy's Memory Potion:
>
>> "Be that as it may, there's a very simple reason why Harry reacted 
>> worse than Neville, and it fits perfectly within the logic of the 
>> Reverse Memory Charm or, as we must now call it, the Reverse 
Memory 
>> Potion theory. Dementors make one relive one's worst moments. 
Harry, 
>> having completely forgotten his parents' murder, does very badly 
>> against the Dementors. But, what if, as MATCHINGARMCHAIR claims, 
>> Neville is already reliving his parents' torture. If one regularly 
>> hears Cruciatus screams already, wouldn't have one learned to cope 
>> with them to some extent? Once Harry begins to cope more, he can 
face 
>> the dementors much better. Boggart-dementors have all the 
emotional 
>> and psychological effects of real dementors (as demonstrated in 
POA), 
>> yet Harry is able to deal with that Boggart-dementor in GoF quite 
>> handily. Neville does o.k. in the train, because he's an old hand 
at 
>> the reliving-your-worst-memories game."
>> 
>
>Debbie smiles. Debbie has been waiting patiently for days for 
someone to 
>raise this argument. It's a very clever argument. After all, Debbie 
thought 
>of it herself (one must always evaluate a theory from all sides, 
yes?). So 
>she will let Eileen down gently. "This argument doesn't work. Why? 
It doesn't take the egg into >account. Because one cannot 
simultaneously argue that Neville can't be had by the 
>Dementors because he has a grip on his worst memories *and* at the 
same time 
>argue that Neville could reasonably think the egg sounded like the 
Cruciatus 
>curse. If he's in touch with those memories, he *knows* what 
Cruciatus 
>sounds like. It sounds like his parents screaming in horror. It does 
not 
>sound like this." <Debbie pulls out tape of the Beatles' White Album 
and 
>plays it backwards at 2000 rpm>




Just then a rush of sound-- a plop followed by desperate scrambling 
and panting-- make Debbie turn around. Charis Julia has suddenly made 
a spectacular leap from high up on the deck of the Fourth Man 
Hovercraft and fallen splayed out frog fashion right next to her. 
She'd been spying on Debbie's little conversation with Eileen. And 
no, she's not ashamed of it. Recovering herself quickly she firmly 
jams her fingers deep into her ears and then, hardly waiting to catch 
her breath, she once again hurls herself forward clearly aiming for 
the CD--Player. One well—aimed kick sends it whizzing through the 
air, till, Splash! It hits the waves of Theory Bay with an almighty 
upheaval of water and then proceeds to sink slowly to the seabed.


Silence settles once more on the Bay. Oh, phew.


Heaving a huge sigh of relief Charis then turns to face the seriously 
disgruntled Debbie.


"Err, oh no. Was that yours? Oops. . . I'll, err, buy you a new one?"


But Debbie is drumming her fingers threateningly on the hand—rail.


"Forget about the CD—Player! That's not the * point*." she roars 
throwing her hands up in the air. "What you've just gone and drowned 
there was a perfectly good * argument*!"


"Oh. Errr, gee, . . . Sorry? Oh, but see here, if that's the case, 
then there's no problem because now you've * made* your point. So you 
don't need it anymore."


Debbie looks considerably brighter. Charis reassuringly continues, 
now nodding her head knowingly.


"Yes, precisely! You are most definitely right. Indubitably so. I 
must indeed concede that there * are* ways to make even the Beatle's 
songs sound bad. But, hey! Really, what group could stand up to such 
a test? It's just not possible and anyway it would be really rather * 
useless* as well to write music that would sound harmonious even when 
played backwards, don't you agree? I mean, all in all I think that's 
really asking for a bit too much and. . ."


Charis's voice trails off as she notices the look on Debbie's face.


Debbie has sunk to the floor. Her head is in her hands. There's a 
look of utter disbelief on her face as she stares up at Charis and 
shakes her head sadly.


Charis winces.


"Oh, err, that * wasn't* your point? Oh. I did wonder there for a 
moment, you know. . . Well, in that case why don't we get to the real 
issue at hand, eh?"


*       *       *


Right. I think it's been pretty convincingly argued that the wailing 
of a golden Triwizard Tournament egg is unlikely to sound much like 
someone subjected to the Cruciatus Curse. (though I must point out 
that nobody on this list has ever heard either of them:--) People 
scream when in pain, they yell, they shriek and maybe they pant or 
gasp a bit afterwards too (all of which various characters in the 
books have done) but they would hardly "wail". My dictionary 
gives "to wail" as "to lament or sorrow audibly, esp with prolonged 
and high—pitched mournful cries", which admittedly does not fit the 
bill. 


Buuuuuuuuut. . . Ah, yes there is a but!


What makes us so sure, Debbie, that Neville at the Gryffindor 
celebration party is really sitting there thinking "Hang on. Better 
be sure of exactly what I'm going to say before I open my mouth. 
Right. First thing's first. Now, I hear the Egg right there in front 
of me. Lets just imagine the sound of my parents being tortured and 
then compare the results."


Unlikely.


Neville is in * shock* right then. He's not thinking straight. He's 
not conducting a thorough scientific examination of high—decibel 
noises, but, quite to the contrary, what he basically is is 
frightened * out* of his wits. I repeat. He's in * shock*. And now to 
poove it.


Charis grinning wildly yanks a book out from inside her robes. It's 
titled "Horrible Histories. The Frightful First Would War."


Debbie raises her eye—brows smirking slightly.


"No, no," Charis hurriedly explains. "It's reliable. Really"


Debbie looks down at the front cover:


"Noses are red,
My feet are blue,
There's lice in m pants
And the rats ate the stew"


Debbie looks unconvinced.


Choosing to ignore the slight sneer lurking at the side of Debbie's 
month Charis flips through the pages. "Where is it. . . where is 
it. . . Ah! Right! There, read that!"


Charis hands the book over indicting a small paragraph quoting a 
survivor of the Great War. Debbie flicks through the passage:


"The noise of a slamming gate, a flaring gaslight, a train whistle, 
the barking of a dog or some boyish prank is enough to set off my 
trembling. Or, sometimes the trembling comes without a reason. <snip> 
All of a sudden I felt my strength was leaving me. I stopped talking. 
I felt a shiver in my back, I felt my cheeks going hollow. I began to 
stare and the trembling came back on again."


As Debbie hands back the book Charis smiles proudly out at 
her. "There. See? Now surely you're not going to argue that a train 
whistle sounds more like a Five—Nine blasting into the ground ahead 
than an indefinable wail does to the sound of Crucioed wizards, are 
you?"


Anyway, Charis presses her advantage, lets take a look at Neville's 
symptoms, shall we? He goes * very white* and spills sausages all 
over the floor. – obviously all that trembling you realise. And 
previously, after Moody's Unforgivble lesson Neville is * staring* at 
the wall opposite him. He's hardly able to talk. An unnaturally high 
voice. He's getting confused. He has a wide—eyed, horrified look.


You know, I'm no way near being an expert on these matters (but then 
again neither is JKR I suspect) But these reactions sound an awful 
lot like the behaviour of all the shell—shocked soldiers in every war 
book I've ever read from "No News on the Western Front" to "The 
Divided Sea".


"Neville," Charis concludes happily closing the book with a 
snap, "has Post—Traumatic Stress Disorder! He's Spell—Shocked."


Sooooo, every loud noise makes his mind leap automatically to the 
Cruciatus. He can't help it. And especially after that nice little 
reminder of his parents torment courtesy of Monsieur Crouch which 
made all those old memories resurface with a vengeance.


Of course this theory only works if Neville is * not* under a Memory 
Spell. If he were he'd have nothing to remember and shock him, see? 
Sure he'd feel bad about his parents an'all, but hey, lets be 
realistic here — bad enough to get the words "dinner" and "lesson" 
mixed up? He might be * upset*. He might feel * resentful*. He might 
even spend a few nights staring into mirrors with magical properties 
envisioning the happy childhood he'd have had had his parents been 
healthy. But he wouldn't drop sausages. After all Harry does get a 
bit lamentful over Lily and James's demise once in a while and he 
might blow up an aunt or two when he's feeling really rough, but when 
Moody mentions AK what he feels mostly is, well, * informed*. And he 
certainly doesn't clutch at the desk till his knuckles go white, his 
eyes wide--open in terror.


On the other hand the Dementors, as you admit Debbie, had a profound 
influence on Harry. That's because this is the first time he's had to 
face what Cindy would call the Dolby Digital, mega—screen, extra 
special effects version of his parents last moments. But as Eileen 
points out Neville is an old hand at this game.


One last comment.


Everyone's been concentrating so much on the Cruciatus suggestion 
that we're ignoring what the Egg sounds like to other people. "Ah—
ha". Clogs start working in Charis Julia's brain. "So it was Percy 
that tortured the Longbottoms. . . Driven insane by lack of rhyming. 
The dreaded Off-Key Curse!"

Err, no, actually. What did catch my eye though and what I * do* 
think noteworthy is Seamus's proffer. "Sounded like a banshee. . ." 


A banshee as we all know is Seamus's Boggart in PoA. Very natural too 
as banshees I believe originate in Ireland which is according to all 
indications Seamus's homeland. But what exactly * is * a banshee? Not 
listed in FB, but according to Priscilla Spencer's What's In A Name  
a banshee is "a crying spirit or fairy whose scream announced 
imminent death. She has long streaming hair and is dressed in a grey 
cloak over a green dress. Her eyes are fiery red from constant 
weeping."


Maybe there was a banshee present at the Longbottoms torture scene. 
After all if you're sublimated to such pain that you're left 
irrevocably mad then surely it is not carrying it too far to propose 
that your death would then have been "imminent" and would probably 
have ensued had the pain not been removed when it was. 


So maybe Neville heard his parents screams and heard the banshee's 
wails and got then all just so mixed up, so indistinguishably 
intertwined in his head, that –especially after the continual replays—
he simply can't tell the one from the other. Or at the very least 
they are so interknitted in his mind that when hearing a drawn out 
wail he is just as likely to cry out "Cruciatus" as "banshee".


And then you've got that feathery git of a Jabberknoll just making it 
all worse. Wails, screaches, screams, it sure was noisy that night, 
I'm _ telling_ you!

Charis Julia, who firmly believes in Memory Potions because they * 
are* Can(n)on.