TBAY: Rats Be Diseases

[r f]

No: HPFGUIDX 45790

On the front lawn of the Safe House, Melody sits on the grass, wondering
what it is about Frankie that makes her think of sea otters and seals.

"New digs! Well, all right," says Frankie and spins in a circle to survey 
the Safe House, the bay and the dock. "Oops, sorry," she adds as Melody 
throws up an arm to block the spray. "Accio towel!"

A fluffy white towel flutters up from the end of the dock and drapes itself 
over Frankie's dark hair. "I would have put it up in pigtails in honor of 
the theory, but it's too short," she explains, twisting the towel into an 
elegant knot that looks terribly out of place above her sopping wet yellow 
and black striped tank-top, cut off jeans and bare feet. "Wanna help me get 
this stuff set up in the RATS BE DISEASES room?"

Melody eyes the large, pig-shaped floatie toy full of junk and sighs, "Yeah, 
why not."

Finally, having the spilled only the Crayola 64 box of crayons down the
stairs, the two women wrestle the inner-tube through the heavy steel door of 
the RATS room. Melody plops down in the lone chair as Frankie starts tossing 
odds and ends out onto the floor.

"I maintain that Dudley is still part pig and that Hagrid's incomplete
transfiguration spell is affecting his development." says Frankie. "Could 
you hang this on the door for me, please?"

"So we've heard," says Melody. She unrolls a Primus "Pork Soda" poster
modified to read RATS BE DISEASES and tapes it up. "Care to explain?"

"No problem. At the beginning of PS/SS we find Dudley is a... is a..."
Frankie digs a book out of a large ziplock bag. Flipping open Sorcerer's
Stone (U.S. hardback edition) to pages 20 and 21, she continues. "We find 
Harry thinks of Dudley as someone who hates exercise and looks like a pig in 
a wig. But, Dudley is described as looking just his father, Vernon. A little 
bit later on page 26 Harry sees a gorilla that reminds him of Dudley, so at 
this point, I don't think we can attach much significance to the "pig in a 
wig" idea, expect as an easy caricature. Something a little like this..."

Frankie snatches up cans of pink, yellow and black spray-paint, quickly
cartooning a pig with a blond pompadour on the gray cement wall. She drops 
the cans and grabs the book.

"If we skip ahead to page 36, we find Dudley, while pudgy, is still a small 
enough eleven year old boy for Uncle Vernon to throw out of a room by the 
scruff of the neck with one hand.

Now for Hagrid's arrival. On page 48, Hagrid has arrived at the Hut on the 
Rock and as is cooking sausages. Dudley fidgets as the smell of the roasting 
sausages fills the hut, but after sharing only a bag of potato chips and 
four bananas between four people, I'd fidget too. Dang, now I'm hungry." 
Frankie complains.

"I still don't understand your theory," says Melody, crossing her arms. "And 
you can finish explaining it now, thank you."

"Right-o," says Frankie and unfurls a large pink parasol. She pulls a large 
dive knife from the sheath strapped to her leg and transfigures it into a 
fat, black Sharpie marker. She writes "The Umbrella of Mischief" and "The 
Umbrella of Drunken Glory" around the edge, wraps a string of glowing violet 
christmas lights around the handle and lets the umbrella drift idly to the 
ceiling. She consults the text again.

"Once Vernon Dursely insults Albus Dumbledore on page 59, Hagrid  attempts 
to transfigure Dudley into a pig with what later turns out to be his wand 
(which was snapped in half-- remember the trouble Ron had with his?) 
embedded in the heart of a battered pink umbrella. Here's the scene.

*********************
-there was a flash of violet light, a sound like a firecracker a sharp
squeal and the next second Dudley was dancing on the spot with his hands
clasped over his fat bottom, howling in pain. when he turned his back on
them, Harry saw a curly pig's tail poking through a hole in his trousers.

Uncle Vernon roared. Pulling Aunt Petunia and Dudley into the other room, he 
cast one last terrified look at hagrid and slammed the door behind them.

Hagrid looked down at his umbrella and stroked his beard.

"Shouldn'ta lost me temper," he said ruefully, "but it didn't work anyway. 
Meant ter turn him into a pig, but I suppose he was so much like a pig 
anyway there wasn't much let ter do."
*********************

There's been a lot of discussion here and there that transfigured
individuals, even incompletely transfigured individuals like Krum in Goblet 
of Fire, take on some, if not all mental capacities of the animals they've 
been transfigured into. This is also supported in Quidditch Through the Ages 
on...." says Frankie, digging a thin paperback from another ziplock bag.

"Here it is," she says, "Page one, 'The witch or wizard who finds him or
herself transfigured into a bat may take to the air, but, having a
transfigured bat's brain, the are sure to forget where they want to go the 
moment they take flight.' Besides, Dudley could still function normally 
since not only are pigs omnivorous, they're more intelligent than dogs."

"Really?" asks Melody skeptically.

"Really," says Frankie. "They'll eat just about anything and since they
can't sweat, they roll in mud, but if you give them an option, they prefer 
clean water and you can train them too..."

"Aren't you straying from canon a little bit?" says Melody.

"Er, yeah," says Frankie. She drops QTA and picks up Sorcerer's Stone again. 
"Back to PS/SS. On page 90, Uncle Veron tells Harry that the only reason he 
will give him a ride to King's Cross is because he needs to take Dudley to a 
private hospital to have the tail removed. Meg said earlier that vestigial 
tails are a well-documented human medical phenomenon, so Aunt Petunia and 
Uncle Vernon could explain the existence of Dudley's tail. Perhaps the 
surgeon would lecture them a bit about not taking care of the 
"sacrococcygeal teratomas" sooner, but they wouldn't be particularly 
startled.

All the surgeon can do is lop off Dudley's tail. No Magic Reversal Squad
here.

And, it's like Meg said,
>But the traces of magic would have still been there. Whenever you remove
>tissue, you try to get good margins. That means that the edges are normal
>tissue. Well, since there is no evidence that magic leaves marks Muggles 
>can
>detect, it is reasonable to assume that the surgeon did not get the
>established margins.

Plus, Hagrid's transfiguration affected Dudley's spine which happens to
contain the spinal cord which just so happens to connect to the... brain. 
Who knows what other internal transfigurations took place?

The next time we see Dudley, ONLY NINE MONTHS LATER, is at the beginning of 
Chamber of Secrets. On page 2 (U.S. hardback edition), he is described as 
"so large his bottom drooped over either side of the kitchen chair."

Now, Dudley's put on an awful lot of weight in a rather short amount of
time. Somehow he's managed this without the assistance of beer. AND, he's 
managed this on boarding school food (which is one step above summer camp 
food, which is only slightly above prison fare. Or so I'm told). 
Technically, twelve is before most boys start their teenage growth spurt. 
Perhaps Dudley's an early bloomer, but he's not described as being any 
taller.

At the beginning of Prisoner of Azkaban, on page 5 (U.S. hardback edition), 
Dudley's snores are described as "grunting" and on page 16, Dudley is 
described as having "little piggy eyes" and "five extra chins." We also find 
out that Dudley has spent most of the summer in the kitchen eating 
continually.

It's Agro-talk time," says Frankie. She pops open the seal of another five 
gallon bucket, dumps out 15 stuffed piglets and tosses one to Melody before 
arranging them in a row on a shelf Meg thoughtfully included when she 
armored the room.

"I just so happen to have an uncle in large animal medicine." Frankie grins. 
"Here's the skinny on pigs. The Yorkshire hog currently is the most commonly 
bred pig because sows have between 14 and 16 piglets per litter. These 
piglets start out between 1.5 to 2 lbs and WITHIN SIX MONTHS reach market 
weight of 220 lbs. That's a little over a pound per day, and the general 
ratio of feed to pound of pig is roughly 2 to 1. That's two pounds of food 
for every pound the pig gains.

The market weight is the target weight for pigs that will be slaughtered. A 
fully grown Yorkshire boar (that's a boy pig still in possession of his 
naughty bits) can weight more than 500 lbs.

Returning to Dudley." Frankie says, pulling another book from a ziplock bag. 
"At the beginning of Goblet of Fire, page 26 (U.S. hardback edition), we 
find that Dudley is now so darn big he takes up an entire side of the 
kitchen table by himself. On page 27, we read, "that the school outfitters 
didn't stock knickerbockers big enough for him anymore" and that, "Dudley 
had reached roughly the size and weight of a young killer whale."

Keep in mind we're talking about a thirteen-just-turned-fourteen-year-old 
boy. Not an adult. On page 32, we find that Dudley has "become wider than he 
was tall."

Frankie tacks the largest pair of knickerbockers she could buy from the
Smeltings outfitters on the wall and draws a Salvador Dali-esque pig-being 
flowing out of them. "I'll paint that in later," she says.

"Now for my actual point. Since Dudley's growth rate is far closer to that 
of a Yorkshire boar than a Yorkshire boy, I maintain that he's still 
partially transfigured."

Frankie is interrupted by Meg stepping out of the fireplace. Meg looks
around, opens her mouth, closes her mouth and settles herself into one of 
the pig-shaped inflatable beanbags. "I've got a few minutes before my next 
class and I thought I'd stop in to hear your closing arguments," she says. 
"Interesting, er, decor."

"The Warner Bros. "That's All Folks" banner, the Primus and Pink Floyd
posters or the Miss Piggy pin-up?" asks Frankie, unrolling them.

"Never mind," says Meg. "Just make your point."

"Oooooookeey-dokey," says Frankie. "Now then, Hagrid himself says that since 
Dudley was already so piggish, "there wasn't much left to do." From this 
statement and from other descriptions of transfigured creatures, I think it 
is safe to conclude that Dudley's tail was only an externally visible 
indication that a transfiguration had, in fact,  taken place.

For support, let's go back to CoS. On 198, on his way to find Justin
Finch-Fletchly, Harry hears McGonagall yelling at someone for accidentally 
transfiguring their friend into a badger. Later, on 203 when Peeves stumbles 
onto Harry who's just stumbled on the petrified Justin and Nearly Headless 
Nick, McGongall comes running, followed by her students, one of whom still 
has black-and-white striped hair."

Grinning, Meg tosses Frankie an Arizona Iced Tea bottle.

"Thank you," says Frankie. "To address the idea that transfiguration is an 
"on or off" molecular switch or a localized phenomenon, let's look at Dean's 
pin cushion on page 233 of GoF. Pin cushions do not have nervous systems, 
yet his "curls up in fright when anyone approaches it with a pin." When 
students are comparing the results of their final transfiguration exam on 
page 317 of PoA,  we find a myriad of molecular structures resulting from 
the same experiment. Some tortoises have teapot spouts for tails, some have 
willow patterned shells and some breathe steam. These are all varying 
degrees of incomplete transfiguration, and one of them, the steam-breathing 
tortoise, is an entirely internal phenomenon indicating that the 
transfiguration is incomplete. Cutting off the teapot spout tail or painting 
over the willow patterned shells wouldn't change the fact that those 
tortoises have been partially transfigured."

Frankie pauses and looks between Melody and Meg. "Because of this extended 
period of a magically altered state," she says. "I also maintain that Dudley 
stands a good chance of being the person Jo Rowling referred to in an 
interview as someone who would develop magic later in life."

Frankie snaps PoA shut, put the bottle on the shelf with the stuffed piglets 
and cocks her head to one side. "Are you guys hungry?" she asks. "I could 
really go for some barbeque pork right about now..."

"YUCK!" Gail's shout carries clearly to the Safe House from the boardwalk.

"Or maybe just a bag of goldfish crackers." Frankie says evenly.

Meg smiles at her crew. "I would love some barbeque." Seeing Melody look
slightly ill, she explains, "What? Im in Gross Anatomy. This is nothing. Oh 
and Frankie, a few more points to go with that Tea bottle. The note it 
contained said:

>The tail did not fall off on its own. Part of the problem with
>transplanting animal parts to people is that the immune system identifies
>and destroys any foreign cells. Unless Hagrid managed to cast an
>immune-suppression charm along with the transformation, the cells were 
>still
>human.

That is easily explained. The cells and tissue that were transfigured where 
Dudley's own. There is no need for immunosuppression. Also, I got bored in 
Developmental Anatomy, I mean I was doing research for Devo, and I found the 
following case report." Meg dug into her backpack and whipped out a purple 
binder labeled Devo. "Here:

The brief research portion of Ledley's paper (1982:1212) concerned the case 
report of a 7-pound baby that was born with a caudal appendage 2 inches in 
length. Shortly after it was born the child was transferred to Children's 
Hospital Medical Center in Boston where doctors removed the growth. Ledley 
related that it was a ". . . well-formed caudal appendage" located near the 
end of the baby's spine; ". . . it was covered by skin of normal texture and 
had a soft fibrous consistency:' Ledley also noted that there were no 
vertebrae or even cartilaginous elements in the so-called "caudal appendage: 
'Ledley included a helpful review of caudal appendage research. Such cases 
have been noted throughout history, but very few have been scientifically 
documented. The rest of Ledley's paper consisted of a bold defense of 
macroevolution involving ontogeny and comparative embryology. <snip> Ledley 
himself (1982) admitted that the so-called caudal appendage may be nothing 
more than a dermal appendage which by chance occurred in that position. Reno
noted that one explanation of these abnormal caudal appendages is that each 
is merely a birth abnormality:

'Could not this be the result of a deranged process taking place during
embryologic development? The normal process is sometimes altered and as a 
result we see Siamese twins, cleft palates and harelips. No one would argue 
that these were once normal conditions in a remote ancestor. A "tail" could 
be such an anomaly.' Reno (1970:86)"

Closing her binder, Meg looks up at Frankie and Melody. "See, the surgeon 
removing the tail would not have necessarily checked for species. He or she 
would have assumed that it was just a developmental anomaly and left it 
alone after getting what he saw as safe margins. This doesn't preclude he or 
she from missing the magically affected tissue. Rather it helps to explain 
how they missed it."

Checking her watch, Meg swears under her breath, "I have to go, Gross
lab in five minutes and I still need to change. See you guys around."
With that, Meg steps back into the fireplace and disappears.

And there you have it, says Frankie. Now Im REALLY hungry. Wanna go for 
lunch?

Melody stands up and steps over scattered paint brushes, markers and 
pig-themed paraphernalia. Only if we can go for salad.



Frankie Lee

Citation on caudal appendages taken from:
http://www.angelfire.com/mi/dinosaurs/tailbone.html


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