Not killing Peter / Umbridge / Snape / Snape / Snape / Vanishing Cabinets

[Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)]

No: HPFGUIDX 163133

Zanooda wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/162904>:

<< Wow, this is quite ingenious, even if quite creepy, as well.
Compared to this, AK seems like a very nice death, quick and clean. >>

I had a lot of practice, as soon as GoF told us about Avada Kedavra,
the Killing Curse, answering the question 'Back in PoA, how did Harry
intend to kill Sirius when he didn't know Avada Kedavra yet?" My
favorite answer then was one I omitted this time because it seems
creepier than some others: to Transfigure the victim's aorta into
tissue paper, so that the victim dies almost instantly from massive
internal hemorrhage. Without getting any literal blood on the killers'
hands.

<< I think though maybe Lupin and Black wouldn't want to do such
bloody stuff in front of the kids. It would also require some kind of
communication between them, some kind of agreement on what to do >>

Black wasn't thinking about 'in front of the kids' anymore than he was
thinking about clearing his name. Lupin's willingness to be bloody in
front of the children is no less inexplicable than his willingness to
murder Peter in front of witnesses, or at all. If they weren't
thinking of something bloody or messy, why did they roll up their sleeves?

(The attempt to understand or explain Lupin's problematic behavior in
this scene is probably the reason why the ESE!Lupin and MAGIC
DISHWASHER theories were created. According to MAGIC DISHWASHER, Lupin
is not trying to kill Peter but rather trying to goad Harry into
saving Peter's life because Dumbledore has decided to send LV a
servant with a life debt to Harry Potter. One of their axioms is that
using the blood of a life-indebted servant for the re-embodiment spell
creates a flaw that makes the re-embodied LV vulnerable to Harry,
which is why DD's eye twinkled when he heard that part of the
Graveyard events. I believe that explanation of the twinkle without
believing that the Shrieking Shack scene was a set-up.)

Maybe as young men or as schoolboys, they had had long theoretical
discussions of how to kill people without using an Unforgiveable, and
had agreed what method they they thought was best, and maybe even
practiced it on animals. (JKR appears not to share my reluctance to
commit vivisectoid experiments on cats, and I consider a magical quick
death for a sheep or deer to be no morally worse than a slaughterhouse
or shotgun.)

So maybe in their nostalgic reunion, they automatically intended to
use the method of killing on which they maybe had agreed so long ago.

Lupinlore wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/162910>:

<< Let us take Umbridge as one example. DD is watching Harry "more
closely than [he] can have imagined." And yet DD managed to miss the
little bit about Umbridge's detentions? Unbelievable. Which means that
the moral avatar of the series tacitly approves of Umbridge's abuse of
Harry, which means abuse is, in the moral universe of the series,
approved of. >>

In the matter of Umbridge, I don't believe Dumbledore had any power to
change or punish her behavior; I believe that's why McGonagall told
Harry to keep his head down and his temper under control rather than
telling him she will pass this matter (detention as punishment for
saying that LV had returned) on to Headmaster Dumbledore. 

(I like the theory, posted on this list, that the Ginger Newt bikkies
she gave him contained a calming potion.)

--------------------
I personally agree that the Dursleys abused Harry, and Snape abused
Harry and Neville and Hermione (and Harry and Neville and Hermione
were children, which makes it child abuse), and that Dumbledore's role
in that matter is problematic.

(I have read long posts of arguments that the Dursleys' and Snape's
behavior is not abusive because there are other people (in real life)
who abuse worse, a lot worse, and of arguments that Snape is not
abusive at all but merely a demanding good teacher. I agree that there
are lots of people, in real life, who abuse worse, but I've never
believed that minus-one is a positive number because minus-one-million
is so much more negative.)

As for Dumbledore, you say, if he failed to stop child abuse, that
means he condoned it. I would rather believe he didn't have the power
to stop it. I have read many posts arguing whether he had the power to
stop it and I don't want to take part in that argument. 

You say, if Dumbledore condoned child abuse and Snape is not punished
for child abuse, the writing is bad. I say, you must mean that the
writing is MORALLY bad. I say, writing that is morally bad is not
always bad entertainment and not always bad stringing of words
together to create a word-weave of beauty or humor. I say, even if
Dumbledore condoned child abuse and Snape is never punished for child
abuse and even if this series is morally bad, its writing is still
good entertainment and humor and possibly a word-weave of beauty.

Oh, and by the way, even if Snape unexpectedly turns out to be a
simple villain who murdered a pleading Dumbledore out of loyalty to
the Dark Lord or some other evil motive, he's STILL a sexpot.

(Other evil motives: Some have suggested a desire to replace both
Voldemort and Dumbledore as mightiest wizard in Britin by helping LV
to kill DD and then helping Harry to kill LV (or killing LV himself,
which would be nice because it contradicts the Prophecy) and then
killing Harry. I don't see any sign in Severus's personality of
*wanting* to be to be the mightiest wizard.)

Pippin wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/162924>:

<< A horned toad is neither a toad nor a frog. I'ts a lizard. >>

I've always considered that, like the claim that kappas are more
common in Mongolia, to show dear Sevvie's lack of knowledge rather
than lack of nastiness. Also in GoF, Harry and Ron spent a detention
"forced to pickle rats' brains in Snape's dungeon". I've always
thought that one was aimed at Ron as a rat-owner. As the pain aimed at
Neville may have missed because horny toads aren't toads, the pain
aimed at Ron missed because he had ceased to like rats at the end of
PoA. That suggests that Severus had no idea that Scabbers was
Pettigrew and therefore was still sincere in his belief of Sirius's
guilt. It also suggests that dead owls are not common potion
ingredients, or Sevvie would have aimed at Harry's fondness for his pet.

(It does suddenly give me to wonder whether the Marauders killed
and/or tortured Sevvie's pet in one of their practical jokes on him.)

Carol wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/162928>:

<< he rightly believed that Hermione's "help" wasn't helping him at
all. (It's she, not Neville, who lost points for Gryffindor.) >>

I don't believe that Hermione's help wasn't helping Neville at all. I
believe he learned more Potions from Hermione than from Snape, or at
least he wouldn't have learned much from Snape without Hermione. I
don't think Neville's learning disability is as straight-forward as
dyslexia, but I think blaming him for being helped by Hermione is like
blaming a blind or severely dyslexic student for having someone read
the textbook aloud to him.

Furthermore, I don't believe that Snape thinks that Hermione's help
isn't helping Neville at all. At any rate, that's not why he took
points from her. Because in PS/Ss, he took points from Harry for NOT
helping Neville: "You -- Potter -- why didn't you tell him not to add
the quills? Thought he'd make you look good if he got it wrong, did
you? That's another point you've lost for Gryffindor."

Alla wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/163053>:

<< Alla, who always ready to sacrifice Snape, but for whom Living
Snape but suffering forever Snape would be more satisfying conclusion
:) >>

Cruel! Let the poor guy die and be out of his misery.

Beatrice summarized Chapter 27 in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/162997>:

<< 12. The vanishing cabinets have been around for awhile, at least
since CoS. Is it possible that someone else is aware of their
connection? Why does DD conclude so quickly that there must be a pair?>>

KJ answered in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/163027>:

<< I think that he just knows how they work. Why he would have a
Vanishing cabinet in the school, knowing that they are paired, is
beyond me. >>

And Carol answered in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/163046>:

<< I don't think that anyone else is aware of the connection, which
must have been set up long ago. Caractacus Burke is dead and Borgin
seems to have known about it only because of Draco's, erm, project.
Neither Snape nor DD knew about it, and they're the sharpest people at
Hogwarts. Nor did Voldemort, even though he used to work at Borgin and
Burke's, or he'd have invaded Hogwarts long before, DD or no DD. DD
concluded that there must be a pair because the one in the RoR could
not have been used to bring them if there weren't another somewhere
else that provided a passageway >>

I agree with Carol, except I suspect that Vanishing Cabinet is not
their real name. I suspect that 'Vanishing Cabinet' is one unpaired
cabinet and things that are put into it just vanish -- useful as a
garbage disposal. And Hogwarts and B&B each thought they had a
Vanishing Cabinet on the premises. When really they each had half of a
pair of Passageway Cabinets, or whatever the right name for wormhole
portals really is.