[HPforGrownups] Some Sybil questions (or questions on the Sybil...)

[manawydan]

No: HPFGUIDX 124850

Potioncat wrote:
>Well, the life spans are very long, but so far it appears that
>couples have babies around the same age as Muggles do. So I'm not
>sure these dates are correct. Does the Chocolate Frog cards give
>Cassandra's dates?

Some do (Harry's parents certainly do) but others possibly don't (Harry's
grandparents are deceased, as are Sirius's parents, which might suggest that
they had their children late in life)

>It sounded as if DD didn't plan to fill a vacancy. Although he does
>seem to value prophecies. Perhaps he doesn't think it is an easily
>taught magic. She may have felt she had the sight even if no one else
>thought she had it. I'd like to know how old she is too. Was she at
>Hogwarts with the Marauders and Snape? or is she older?

She seems to be of an indeterminate age. Could be of the Marauders
generation (though she seems to have an older "feel" about her, maybe of the
Weasleys' generation). If so, it could put her ancestry back even further.

I remember a post (can't remember by whom) which suggested that in fact
divination is far easier to teach (eg in terms of the techniques) than to
prove that you can do. If Dumbledore didn't have a vacancy to fill, then
what prompted Sybil to turn up in the first place? It would have taken
considerable chutzpah on her part as an unproven Seer to turn up on spec and
try to persuade him to create a post.

Though if the post was already there, here's another question: what happened
to Sybil's predecessor?

>But, if a rat was found dozing in the hallway, it would be chased out
>pretty quickly. We don't know when DD found out about an
>eavesdropper, or if the person who expelled the eavesdropper
>even knew that eavesdropping was happening.
>
>Can I make that more clear? Someone sees a rat and tries to catch it,
>but it escapes. In conversation to DD something is said about
>needing an exterminator because of the rat. Some time later, DD
>discovers part of his conversation had been overheard and even later
>puts it all together.  I'm not saying it was Peter, but it could have
>been.

Still more questions would come up if this were so, though. Why would Peter
have been there in the first place (unless he was in league with an
ESE!Trelawny)? How would DD have discovered part of the conversation had
been overheard without knowing the identity of the person who overheard it -
it'd seem a pretty important question of DD's spy.

The plot thickens still further..

Cheers

Ffred

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