Names of St Mungo's wards/SILK GOWNS clue ?/Dumbledore !

[a_reader2003]

No: HPFGUIDX 82293

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "maneelyfh" <maneelyfh at y...> 
wrote:
> SNIP
> > The other thought was that it was meant to be a simple play on 
> sounds 
> > and meanings, which JKR likes to do, with 'Thickey' = stupid, and 
> > perhaps Janus = the 2-faced Roman god ? (Not sure about this, no 
> > doubt someone will correct me..) The message being that people in 
> > this ward got spell damage because they made some stupid decision 
> > about something, and also possibly because they behaved in an 
> > underhand way. 
> > 
> > However, although that might definitely apply to Lockhart, and 
> > possibly Bode and Agnes to some extent, it doesn't fit so well 
with 
> > the Longbottoms, from what we know about what happened to them so 
> > far. Maybe they did make some kind of stupid decision, which lead 
> to 
> > them being caught and tortured ?
> > 
> > Carolyn
> > (who has several cats with lethifold tendencies..)
> 
> OR....Thick can mean slow, so the people in the ward as mentally 
slow 
> or disabled because of spell damage and they are kept that way by 
> underhanded means....
> 
> Also on a side note.... does anyone think that row 97 where the 
> prophecy resided concurs with the year 1997? And the prophecy will 
> come about during that year?  I did not come up with this but agee 
> with it and think that the deception surrounding the Longbottoms 
stay 
> in St. Muungo's will be resoved in book 6.  Any takers on this?
> Fran
> who is just dying, DYING to know when book 6 is coming out...

Carolyn (after lunch....)
As a former innocent, sadly corrupted by MD theories, Kneasy et al, I 
think you are too right, and this is all part of THE PLAN.  [However, 
I think 1997 is Book 7, not Book 6 - even more important for the 
prophecy to come true at the end of the series]. Its no coincidence 
that gum is a sort of sweet, and DD is a keen fan of all sorts of 
sweets, and probably highly knowledgeable of what goes into them, and 
their effects.

He has also got an excellent reason to keep most of the inhabitants 
of Janus Thickey ward out of circulation:
1. Longbottoms - if they could speak, they'd blurt out what really 
happened to them. Bet they were expecting to be protected by DD when 
they were attacked by Bellatrix et al, but for reasons best known to 
himself, he was elsewhere at the crucial moment.
2. Lockhart - maybe he'd blurt out why DD really hired him, since no 
one can really imagine it was for his DADA skills. Alternatively, 
maybe DD doesn't want more elements of the basilisk story circulating 
too widely yet, as its not clear at the end of CS who exactly knows 
all the details other than Harry and DD (and by extension, Ron & 
Hermione of course).
3. Bode - well, he's dead now, but DD probably didn't want Bode to 
explain in any detail why he got into that state.
4. Agnes - we don't know how she got like she is, or indeed who she 
is. Some speculate she's Snape's mother or wife... Whoever she is, 
there is probably a reason to keep her quiet, like all the rest.

A further thought about the Longbottoms, and the name of the ward. 
Maybe the pair of them really were not too bright, and did make a 
stupid mistake, which landed them in there. I mean Neville, bless 
him, is not the sharpest kid around is he ? Ok, so he's getting 
braver and trying hard, but he does seem a slow developer. Maybe he 
gets this from his parents. Grannie Longbottom seems a bit impatient 
with Alice (which is pretty unfair on a brain damaged person), and 
she is Frank's mother, so might try to overlook her son's faults a 
bit. Maybe this is the reason she is so insistent on Neville trying 
harder, so he doesn't end up like them ??? Maybe there's some 
symbolism to be revealed in his breaking his father's wand - he will 
do much better with one that really suits him ?