TBAY: Wake Up Call aboard the U.S.S. SAD DENIAL

[terryljames76]

No: HPFGUIDX 73705

Terry Apparated onto the deck of the SAD DENIAL with what was 
definitely a crack.  Waiting impatiently for her were two of her 
loyal crewmembers, Lorrie and Marina.  "You wanted me for something?" 
she asked Lorrie.  "I, um...I got your forty-seven owls..."

"Where have you BEEN?" Lorrie said.  "We've been under attack!"

"Attack?"  Terry looked uncertainly at Marina.  

"Whoosa widdle bitty durl?  Whoosa baby?"  Marina responded.  
However, this comment wasn't directed at Terry, but at what Terry was 
holding.  It was a beautiful baby girl, with luminous blue eyes and 
wispy hair that defied gravity to stand straight up.  She favored 
Marina with a huge smile and clapped approvingly at her.  

"Is that where you've been while we've been getting SHOT AT?"  Lorrie 
asked accusingly.  

Terry followed her glance.  "Er, yeah.  Darn RL getting in the way 
all the time."  She pointed her wand at the baby.  "Expecto Paternum 
Babisitticus!"  The baby disappeared.  "OK, now what's going on?"

Marina handed her several rolls of parchment, which she read with 
mounting disbelief, glancing up every now and then.  "Who are these 
people?" she demanded at one point.  "Are they mods? What's a yellow 
flag, anyway?....Hmmm, they've got the Neville/Harry/thestral point 
completely backwards.  The point is not that it was strange that 
Harry and Neville were the only ones left standing--after all, the 
prophecy is about them, they should be there.  What is strange is 
that Neville could already see the thestrals.  There's no canon 
reason for him to _need_ to be able to see them--unless you accept 
our theory."  She finally finished reading and looked up.  "Court? 
What's this all about?  Are we under a gag order until the court 
date?" 

"Absolutely not," Marina said firmly.  "If anything, this is an 
invitation to fire all canons, to prove our points."  

Lorrie was surprised to see that Terry was actually grinning.  

"OK, in the last couple of weeks, I've claimed that Umbridge was a 
better teacher than Snape.  I've postulated that wizards interbreed 
with beasts.  And--my personal favorite--I've practically equated 
Sirius with Christ.  In the narrative role he plays, of course.  I 
kinda counted on getting death threats from Christians and all non-
Christian groups both, from that one. But they pick on _this_?"

"This is serious, Captain,"  Lorrie insisted.  "We had to defend 
ourselves!"

Terry picked up on that immediately.  "Past tense?"  Lorrie nodded, 
looking a bit shamefaced.  "OK, what did you do?"

Lorrie handed her another stack of parchment.  "Oh, you both fired 
back already.  OK, this looks good...you covered the curse question 
quite well, Marina.  Hmm...Lorrie, go easy, it's all in fun, 
isn't it?"

Lorrie scowled at her.  "He's NOT DEAD," she stated fiercely.  

Terry giggled, looking back at the first bit of parchment.  "'He 
shall rise'...that's actually pretty funny."  She looked up to see 
the other two staring at her.  "No?"  She sighed.  "Well, nice to know
the ship's in good hands.  You two did a good job in defending us.  I 
really didn't want to have to fight, but--"

They all looked up as Captain Cindy burst into their midst.  Ignoring 
Terry's welcome, she began raving at the top of her voice about 
BANGS, which were right up there with yellow flags in Terry's area of 
expertise.  But after a few minutes, she gathered that Cindy was 
referring to events which make a big emotional impact.  She privately 
agreed with Cindy's assessment of OOP as being largely bang-free, but 
didn't want to interrupt the head of steam Cindy appeared to be 
getting up--until she saw a way to possibly sway her.

"Given that OoP was almost Bang-free, the least we can do is nurture 
and preserve the few Bangs we do have -– or almost have," Cindy 
was saying. "Bangers don't want Sirius alive. Bangers want him Dead, 
Dead, Dead. Deader than he is in canon, even. With lava and 
catwalks and people fighting hand-to-hand while Hermione looks on 
helplessly until one or both plunge screaming to a gruesome, searing 
death, limbs flailing, their lungs -–"

"So, Bangers weren't satisfied with the death scene, then," Terry 
interrupted.  

Cindy, stopped in mid-rant, stared at her with her mouth open.  "Was 
I not clear in getting that across?"

"So, a REAL death would have had a bigger bang, right?"

"Right!  Wait, no..." Cindy backtracked, realizing she was 
dangerously close to agreeing with the Unclean Flagged Ones.

"All the really good Bangy scenes have been enormously important to 
the plots and to the development of Harry himself.  So the fact that 
this wasn't Bangy at all ought to be a tip-off."  

"It was meant to illustrate the randomness of death!"  Cindy argued.

"We had that with Cedric, thanks," Lorrie snapped.  

"Now, what we have here is the set-up to a Really Good Bang," Terry 
continued, her enthusiasm getting the better of her narrative plot-
sense.  "After a lot of angst, Sirius will reappear with a Big 
Bang.  Then, as everyone's rejoicing, BANG!" Everyone jumped.  "Lupin 
will die.  And he will _stay_ dead."  

"Lupin?" Cindy mused.  "That would be an acceptable narrative 
Bang..."  She looked up, her eyes narrowed again.  She gestured to 
the now rather weatherbeaten yellow flag.  "But what about that?"

"Well, I don't know the accepted procedure,"  Terry admitted.  "Does 
somebody come and take it away?  Can we chuck it overboard?  I think 
our crew has done an admirable job of defending our ship.  We have a 
theory, and this is, what again?  _Theory_ Bay, am I right?  We have 
several canon-based examples of how our theory might come to pass, 
and even canon precedent for some."

"But canon for how it might happen is not enough," Cindy 
objected.  "You have to have canon for the theory itself."  

Marina rolled her eyes.  "I thought we covered this.  The 'second 
jet' canon...Sirius' face changing as he fell, clearly indicating 
that he was not dead at that time..."

"But once he went beyond the veil, he was a goner," Cindy 
insisted.  "That's a no-Banger.  I mean, no-brainer."

"That's where we disagree," Terry said, smiling happily.  "And I do 
have canon for disagreeing.  There are some points that have yet to 
be resolved.  Why was such a point made that Crookshanks was so fond
of Sirius?  That dates way back to PoA, when Crookshanks put himself 
in between Harry and Sirius, and it was referenced several times in 
OOP.  Why, if it hasn't been integral to the plot so far, would it 
have been mentioned so frequently?  Conclusion: it must be important 
to something yet to come.  

"Now, there's also the title of the article--'Sirius--Black as he's 
painted?'  Sure, it was an attempt to be clever on the part of the 
journalist--but I see it as a clue as to how Harry will communicate 
with Sirius again if all else fails.

"Then, there's Stubby Boardman.  Was that his name? You know, the 
singer."  At this point she noticed that her crewmembers were looking 
at her as if she had lost her mind.  "No, listen up.  Names are 
important in JKR's world.  If a seemingly throwaway character is 
named, it's a hint to the future importance of that character.  
Remember how we already knew what Mundungus Fletcher was probably 
like, because we were told that he tried to hex Arthur Weasley while 
his back was turned?  Stubby was referenced not once, but twice.  
Something's bound to be going on there."  

"But one of those references was in a trashy newspaper, to show what 
kind of paper it was--like the Inquirer or something.  And the other 
reference came from Luna--it was meant to show that Luna actually 
read stuff like that and believed it.  It was a way of showing her 
character."  Cindy was fast losing patience.  "It was a red herring, 
for Pete's sake!"

Terry replied cheerfully, "You say red herring, I say canon point, 
let's call the whole thing off."  She looked up at the tattered 
yellow flag also.  "Lorrie, would you like to do the honors?"

Terry LJ