Mrs Figg's broken leg...

[ingachristsuperstar]

No: HPFGUIDX 46678

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "Darla" <talkative_alien_4000 at y...> 
wrote:

> From the four books it's pretty clear that Mrs Figg has a 
connection 
> to the WW and is in all probablity a witch herself, and perhaps 
lives 
> near the Dursleys in order to keep an eye on Harry. But in PS 
we're 
> told Harry can't stay with her during Dudley's birthday because 
she's 
> broken her leg. Couldn't that be easily fixed? I mean, broken 
bones 
> can be fixed 'in an instance', and wouldn't Mrs Figg know 
someone who 
> could mend it for her, even if she couldn't do so herself?
>   Was it deliberate so that Harry could go to the Zoo with 
Dudley, 
> perhaps as a test to see if he *was* a Parseltongue? Maybe 
Dumblebore 
> suspected that he would be? If so, doesn't that have some BIG 
> implications?
>   Darla.

It could have been a deliberate test, but it would have a lot of 
variables involved.  My reading of the incident was always (since 
GoF that is) that she hadn't really broken her leg but had been 
called away from Privet drive for something really important - 
some kind of "old crowd" task perhaps.  It must have been really 
important to make her leave Harry.  So, when Petunia asked her 
to baby-sit Harry she had to come up with an excuse, and 
"broken leg" was the first thing that popped into her head.  After 
that, she'd have to walk around in a cast for a while so no one 
would be suspicious.  

No matter what her motivation, she'd probably have done better 
to say "I have to go visit my aunt" or something like that, and not 
have to walk around in a cast.

-Ing