Evil Hermione

[Ceridwen]

No: HPFGUIDX 154931

Alla:
> > I already mentioned that I totally see the parallel, but I want  
to add - Peter was at MOST two or three years older than Marietta 
IMO,  so adult/child does not really work for me here.

Julie:
> > No he wasn't. Marietta is most likely 16 like Cho, perhaps just 
turned  17, though there's no reason to assume that. James and Lily 
were 22 when they died, so that was also Peter's age. Thus he was 5 
or 6 years older than Marietta.

Alla:
> I meant when Peter **started** pasing information to Voldemort. 
Sirius accuses him of doing it for a year before Potters died. That 
is what Sirius **knows**, who is to say that he did not start 
earlier?
 
And I think it is a possibility that Marietta is seventeen - we know 
that Hermione turns seventeen early, why not Marietta...

Ceridwen:
As long as it's speculation, then, how's this?

The MoM is the official government of the WW.  They're *supposed* to 
be watching out for the people of the WW.  They're *supposed* to be 
the official Side of Light & Goodness and All Wonderful Legal WW 
Things.  That they actually come off as ineffective and bogged down 
in redundant bureaucracy doesn't matter, we're talking about a teen 
whose mother works for this hulking mass of government.  She has been 
raised to respect the MoM and its laws.  Umbridge is the Face of the 
MoM at Hogwarts.  Blindly trusting, sure, but where do we see classes 
about the WW's Constitution, or in Britain, the WW's own Magna Carta, 
balance of power, government?  The most we see is history.  Which one 
of us as adults would trust a neighborhood vigilante group above the 
local government if we believe we're in ordinary circumstances?  
Marietta believes the MoM's line that LV isn't back, apparently.

So, she sees a group that she was iffy about from the beginning when 
it was merely a study group to get around the ineffectual DADA 
lessons of that year - and that in itself was going around Umbridge's 
ideas for the subject, so no wonder she was reluctant to join - a 
group that was insisting that LV was back when the Ministry was 
denying it, suddenly turning against Ministry-approved sources of 
protection (Dementors), and runs screaming to Umbridge as the nearest 
authority figure with the closest ties to the MoM.

This is not the same thing as running to LV.  Unless stated 
otherwise, she can tell the difference between a supposedly friendly 
government and a murderous outlaw.  I can see Magpie's assertion that 
she would rather trust Marrietta as SK than PP, since Marietta went 
to what was supposed to be the overall protector of the WW, not to 
LV.  *We* know what Umbridge is, because of Harry's POV.  Marietta 
didn't read the book.  She probably mistrusts Harry's word because 
*some* people, as they do in RL, will have been running around saying 
that he 'got off on some technicality and what the heck were they 
thinking to allow a *Squib* to testify, anyway?'

We're all products of our environments and upbringing and so is 
Marietta.  And it doesn't seem that the WW actively encourages 
thinking for oneself where the MoM is concerned.  If it's in the 
Prophet, believe it because the MoM wouldn't allow them to print 
lies, now, would they?  And believe the Ministry, they're only there 
to help.  *roll eyes*

Ceridwen.