Marrietta's betrayal

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 111021

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "carodave92" 
<carodave92 at y...> wrote:

> But it is interesting that she continued to attend meetings 
 throughout the year...especially when it seemed to present such 
a  moral dilemma to her...<

If people can stand to hear just a little more about this, I think
it's also interesting that the curse didn't activate at once. You'd 
think, if Marietta had spoken to Umbridge with the intention of 
selling out her friends, that it would have. Here's the canon:

[Umbridge speaking] "...Miss Edgecomb here came to my office 
shortly after dinner this evening and told me she had something 
she wanted to tell me. She said that if I proceeded to a secret 
room known as the Room of Requirement, I would find out 
something to my advantage. I questioned her a little further, and 
she admitted that there was to be some kind of meeting there. 
Unfortunately, at that point this hex," she waved impatiently at 
Marietta's concealed face, "came into operation and upon 
catching sight of her face in my mirror the girl became too 
distressed to continue." 

I believe someone has already pointed out that Umbridge's 
method of questioning Marietta  "a little further" was unlikely to 
have been benign. We've seen that Umbridge resorts to 
coercion  very quickly. You have to wonder if that's where the rest 
of  Snape's fake veritaserum went, and if Shacklebolt didn't zap 
Marietta's  memory to keep that from being discovered as well.

But I think it's also noteworthy that the hex doesn't come into 
operation as soon as Marietta starts telling Umbridge about the 
Room of Requirement. What if that's because at that point 
Marietta didn't have any intention of betraying her friends? Maybe 
she hoped that if Umbridge started watching the room, the DA 
would have to call off the meetings, at least until they found a 
safer place to meet?

I can see where the publication of the Quibbler story and Cho's 
date with Harry could have put Marietta in a horrible position. 
After all, Marietta's mum probably knows who Marietta's best 
friend is, and Cho and Harry didn't make a secret of their date. 
We've also seen that gossip about Harry's love life is of interest 
even to adults.  If  the word got back to Madame Edgecomb, I can 
see her forcing her daughter to promise her that she isn't having 
anything to do with that Potter boy, on pain of being forbidden to 
associate with Cho.  And I can see Cho not being above a little 
emotional blackmail herself and telling Marietta that if she won't 
support Harry, then she, Cho, won't want to be friends anymore. 

Now Marietta's having to lie to her mum, and she's in danger of 
losing her best friend too. If only the DA weren't meeting! Well, 
they won't be able to meet if they lose their hiding place, will 
they? Marietta probably didn't count on being interrogated further.
She could have  planned to warn her friends before Umbridge 
caught them without, of course,  giving herself away as the 
informant. But Hermione's jinx made that impossible. 

Pippin