Evil Hermione, and Traitor Marietta

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 154997

> > Pippin:
> > Of course they can! Marietta can rationalize her involvement in the
> group and her agreement not to tell anyone with reason number one, 
until  they start learning how to fight dementors.
> > 
> > Then her rationalization no longer works. Learning to fight dementors
> > is not part of the OWL exam by any stretch of the imagination. Nor,
> > from Marietta's point of view, can it be part of an anti-Voldemort 
> > effort, since the dementors are supposed to be anti-Voldemort
> themselves.
> 
> Gerry
> Could you give me the canon for that please? The Patronus charm is not
> part of the OWLS examination, but logically it is part of the NEWT. We
> don't have any evidence that all dementors are in the employment of
> the MoM. They are definitely dark creatures so I don't see any reason
> that this would be an issue for Marietta. 

Pippin:
"The spell I am going to try and teach you is highly advanced magic, Harry
--well beyond Ordinary Wizarding Level. It is called the Patronus Charm."
--PoA ch 12. 

"Half of us only feel safe in our beds at night because we know the
dementors are standing guard at Azkaban!" -- GoF ch 36

"The dementors remain in place in Azkaban and are doing everything
we ask them to do." -- OOP ch 8


Somewhere in HBP, it's mentioned that Harry disagrees with Snape's
method of fighting dementors, so apparently the Patronus isn't part of
the usual NEWT curriculum either.

The Ministry's line is that there are no rogue dementors and no
pro-Voldemort dementors, and that the dementors, however dark they
are, are doing the ministry's bidding. Logically, if Marietta believes that, 
she can only see fighting dementors as an anti-Ministry measure.

 
> Pippin
> > 
> > At that point Marietta would have to choose between her own beliefs 
> > and Cho's friendship. She tried, IMO, to get out of the choice by 
> > going to Umbridge.
> 
> Gerry
> I'm not sure what you mean by this. By going to Umbridge she made a
> choice, the choice to get her best friend into big trouble. 

Pippin:
That's the way it turned out, but only because Umbridge already had 
information about the purpose of the group and who was in it. I
doubt that Umbridge  called out the Minister of Magic and
two Aurors to witness her busting Fawcett, Chang and Boot, to 
pick some names at random, for an illegal gobstones club. She knew
who she was going to find, and what they were up to. 

All Umbridge could have done, on the basis of what Marietta told her, was
to stake out the RoR. She would have had no evidence of what was being
done inside, or, prior to the students' leaving,  who was doing it.  
Even if she caught them coming out, there would have been no evidence 
that it was a "regular meeting."  

Charges must be fully proven, says Dumbledore at the hearing, 
before a student can be expelled. Without Hermione's carelessness,
even Harry would have got off. In the French resistance, failing to
destroy that parchment when she knew the group had been 
compromised would have got Hermione shot. :)

It was possible for Marietta to hope that, knowing their meeting 
place had been compromised, the DA would be disbanded, Cho 
would come to no harm, and Marietta would escape from having
to choose between her best friend and her family. 

> Gerry
> Giving away where and when the meeting would be held is the same as
> giving away who was there. If Dobby had not come, Umbridge and co
> would have bursted in on everybody except Marietta, caught them all
> red handed and that would be it. No, I don't see any conflict there.
> 

Pippin:
It's not so easy to burst into the RoR, as we learned in HBP. It was a
bit simpleminded of Harry not to post a lookout, but Umbridge couldn't
have known that he wouldn't, so she'd have planned to ambush them
coming out in any case. 

They  *were*  caught red-handed leaving. Draco was already in place
to ambush Harry -- he must have been there all along and let the
others go past. Dobby's warning came too late.

AFAWK, Marietta did not initially intend to volunteer the information that 
there  was a meeting. It was delivered under further questioning, which 
probably explains what happened to the rest of Snape's fake veritaserum. 
(It also helps to establish that it *was* fake, or Marietta would have told
Umbridge everything.)

Pippin