Pince/Filch and Polyjuiced Draco (was: Why DD trust Snape)

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 152518

Potioncat wrote:
> In HBP Hermione calls Filch a wizard. That surprised me. We are
sure, aren't we, that he's a Squib? <snip>

Carol responds:
That surprised me, too. Isn't there some reference, somewhere, to
Filch as "a failed wizard"? And Arabella Figg says that she's never so
much as transfigured a teabag (OoP, "A peck of Owls"), indicating that
she has at least tried to do so. So maybe she's a "failed witch"?) (I
still hope she's the one who'll do magic late in life in OoP. I can't
see her whacking a DE with catfood cans.) 

Potioncat:
> Based on the way Snape treats Filch, I don't think Filch is Snape's 
> father or step-father. <snip>

Carol:
I agree. While they both prowl the corridors to catch rule-breakers,
it's clear that Snape, who is much younger than Filch, is in charge.
He's a teacher and a Head of House; Filch is just the caretaker. I
don't think he would treat his father in that way, whether he loved or
hated him. Nor do I think that Snape, who prided himself on the Prince
half of his heritage, would want anything to do with his Muggle
father, especially if that father was abusive to him and his mother.
Also, if Filch were the man in Snape's childhood memory, Harry would
have recognized him instantly. (Of course, the hook-nosed man could be
Grandpa Prince rather than Tobias Snape, but that's another topic.)
There's no physical resemblance between Snape and Filch. Snape has
black hair, a sallow complexion (cometimes described as pale), and a
hooked nose. Filch has quivering jowls and lamplike eyes that resemble
Mrs. Norris's, very different from Snape's black eyes, which make
Harry think of a dark tunnel (perhaps because he's using Occlumency to
prevent Harry from reading his thoughts). I can't remember any other
distinguishing features, but as often as Harry has seen Filch and
Snape together, surely even he would have noticed the resemblance if
there were any. (Irma Pince does at least have a hooked nose and a
name similar to Eileen Prince's, but it was the man in the memory, not
the woman, who had a hooked nose, and the description of Eileen Pince
in her school photo doesn't suggest that she had a hooked nose, either.)

More important, if Filch were a Muggle, he wouldn't be able to see
Hogwarts, nor would he long for the old days when caretakers at
Hogwarts used whips and hung students by their wrists like medieval
prisoners. No, Filch seems to me to be part of the WW yet not fully
able to participate in it, which accounts for his envy of the students
and his malice toward them. Also, no Muggle would have ordered a book
on remedial spellcasting. What would be the point? Filch is hoping
that his magical blood will somehow be activated. But Muggle!Tobias
(who must surely be dead) would have no such hopes. Nor would a Muggle
 have an almost psychic relationship with a cat (that familiar of so
many witches in folklore). Note the resemblance in this respect to
Mrs. Figg (who, oddly, has the same initials). 

 
Potioncat:
> Harry and Hermione hear a noise and a moment later Pince comes out.
She gets upset about the book and grabs it.
> 
> Much later in HBP we learn that Draco was in the library listening
to H&H, and it must have been this same time because of what he says
he heard. (based on what he tells DD on the tower.) So, I think in
this chapter, Pince is really polyjuiced Draco. Draco knows Harry is
doing so well in Potions because of the book and Draco wants it too.
He's overheard Hermione talking about the spells that Harry's found in
it. <snip>

Carol:
That's a very interesting possibility, and we do know that Draco is
polyjuicing his friends. But why would he polyjuice himself as Madam
Pince when she's going to be in the library herself and would shriek
to high heaven on encountering her double? Also, her wonderful line,
"Besmirched! Befouled! Desecrated!" (quoted from memory) doesn't sound
like anything Draco would come up with. It perfectly expresses her
outrage that someone would dare to write in a book (which, BTW,
indicates that others besides Harry could see the marginal notes,
whether or not they could read the cramped handwriting). (If we want
polyjuiced Draco, I think Blaise Zabini lolling against a column in
the Three Broomsticks is a better candidate.)

I think the incident you're describing is an example of misleading the
reader with a false but plausible explanation (HH think that Madam
Pince made the noise but it was really Draco). JKR uses a similar
tactic with Tonks: Hermione explains her depression as resulting from
"survivor's guilt," but we later learn that she's in love with Lupin
(who's rejecting her advances) and fearful for his safety. Also, Harry
concludes that Mrs. Weasley wants Bill to transfer his affection from
Fleur to Tonks when her comments on Tonks are really aimed at Lupin.
And throughout the book, we're told that Dumbledore's reflexes aren't
what they used to be (despite or because of the battle with LV) as a
way of accounting for the dead hand injured by the curse on the ring
Horcrux. (It seems to be a "natural" explanation agreed upon by Snape
and Dumbledore that's also proposed by other characters, e.g.
Slughorn, but it's false or at best misleading.)

I'm sure there are many other examples of this tactic that I can't
think of at the moment, not just in HBP but throughout the books. Most
of the time, the true explanation is provided in the same book, as it
is in the examples I've cited. But there are other instances where the
explanation provided could still be proven false or incomplete. For
example, Tonks says that she hears Snape yell something, Harry says
that he yelled, "It's over" (which he did), but he could also have
yelled "Petrificus Totalus!" and stopped Fenrir Greyback from killing
Harry. (At any rate, we don't know who shouted the spell, but it
couldn't have been Harry.) We also have Harry's explanation of Snape's
reasons for switching sides, which we know to be false but do not yet
have a true explanation for, and the Felix Felicis explanation for why
Snape didn't kill Luna and Hermione, which doesn't work because Luna
didn't take the potion. 

Anyway, I think we're all being hoodwinked by the evil JKR <wink> into
accepting a large number of false explanations like the Draco/Madam
Pince one. I'm just not sure which explanations are the false ones.

Carol, who just remembered another example of this tactic, this one
from OoP: "Kreacher, it transpired, had been hiding in the attic." Yet
later we discover that Kreacher went to see Narcissa. Darn unreliable
narrator!