Penelope Clearwater (Was: Ginny's development )

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 92996

Heather:
<big snip>

"They were almost at King's Cross when Harry remembered something.
'Ginny - what did you see Percy doing, that he didn't want you to 
tell anyone?'
'Oh, that,' said Ginny, giggling. 'Well - Percy's got a 
girlfriend.'"
 
(But then, I do think that Penny is going to show up again in 6 or 
7 - That is not just a random pairing....).

Carol:
I agree with you. Ginny and Penny have a common bond. Ginny was
possessed by Riddle/Voldemort and Penny was petrified by his basilisk.
They also share the connection to the disgraced and alienated Percy
(who in spite of his pomposity and obtuseness, may still love them
both  in his own way).

Anyway, I do think we'll see Penny again in connection with Percy
and/or Ginny. But my question, for anyone who wants to take a stab at
it, is: 

How much do you think Penny (and the other victims of petrification
other than Hermione) knows about what happened to her? Do you think
that she knows about Tom Riddle and the diary, or that Diary!Tom was
an incarnation of Voldemort?

Even the basilisk doesn't seem to be commmon knowledge (Terry Boot
heard about it from a portrait in DD's office, OoP Am. ed. 342). The
general behavior of the students in the Hog's Head scene indicates
that they don't know much about the sorceror's/philosopher's stone,
either, despite DD's assertion to Harry in SS/PS that the whole school
knows his secret. But to return to CoS, we don't really see the
special banquet held on the night Harry rescues Ginny (we're told in
passing about the four hundred points to him and Ron securing the
house cup for Gryffindor for solving the mystery of the Heir of
Slytherin but very little else), and certainly Ginny's possession by
Diary!Tom is kept secret for her own protection. Evidently the other
details are kept secret, too. (See the brief summary near the end of
CoS, pp. 339-40 of the American edition for the little bit that's
revealed to the reader, and presumably to the students, at the
banquet: Harry and Ron are heroes, Hagrid is innocent, and Lockhart
has lost his memory and won't be returning, but nothing about the
actual events in the Chamber of Secrets.)

Which brings me back to Penny, who would be in the same position as
the younger students regarding Harry's adventures in his first year
and who would have learned little or nothing from the celebratory
banquet regarding the nature of the monster that petrified her or the
identity of the Heir of Slytherin. What, then, do you think she knows
about Tom Riddle and the diary in Harry's second year? I don't think
Ginny has confided in her because of the age difference and because
she's ashamed of what happened to her, but surely Penny would want to
know what happened to her and would have the right to know? And if she
or Ginny passed that information on to Percy, would that cause him to
think that Voldemort was destroyed along with Diary!Tom?

And what about Colin Creevey and Justin Finch-Fletchley, both of them
victims of petrification (who'd no doubt have been held back a year if
DD hadn't canceled those end-of-term exams)? Both are members of the
D.A., but do they know what happened to them in CoS? If they do, they
seem to have kept it quiet, and that's not Colin's nature.

Carol, with apologies for the length of the post, which is intended to
present what I already "know" about Penny's predicament and explain
why I think it's important (hoping this isn't sent twice!)