Punishing Marietta

[nkafkafi]

No: HPFGUIDX 120863



> Hickengruendler:
> 
> I'm not sure. The whole scene was a bit unclear for me, but I think 
> Hermione didn't leave the parchment in the RoR. Umbridge said, that 
> she needed some evidence, and that the room provided the evidence. To 
> me, that sounds as if the parchment appeared in the room, because 
> Umbridge asked for it. After all, it was the Room of Requirement.
> 

Neri:
Hmm, an intriguing interpretation, for sure, but I can't find much
canon to support it. During the first DA meeting in the RoR (Ch. 18)
we are told about Hermione: 

***************************
She pinned the piece of parchment with all of their signatures on it
on to the wall and wrote across the top in large letters:
DUMBLEDORE'S ARMY
***************************

Since then the parchment is not mentioned until the time when the DA
is caught (Ch. 27), and then we are told about Umbridge:

***************************
And to Harry's horror, she withdrew from her pocket the list of names
that had been pinned upon the Room of Requirement's wall and handed it
to Fudge.
***************************

>From this I understand that the parchment had been pinned to the RoR's
wall since the first meeting. Now that I read it again, it could also
mean "the parchment that had been pinned upon the RoR's wall during
the first meeting only", but this is a bolder interpretation, and
you'd think that if this is what JKR meant she would have made it
clearer. She could have easily told us after the end of the first
meeting that Hermione took the parchment with her, but she didn't.

Also, I think JKR is telling us here something about Hermione's flaws.
It wouldn't be the first time that Hermione invests a lot of effort in
some advanced magic and then messes it up by overlooking some trivial
detail. She also did it with the Polyjuice potion, and was properly
punished by JKR. In OotP she doesn't pay personally for her mistake,
DD does. But this is in accordance with the theme of OotP: when you
make bad mistakes, it is someone you care about who pays for them.

Neri