[HPforGrownups] Re: Views of Hermione

[Janette]

No: HPFGUIDX 160661

wynnleaf wrote:

> The way things turned out, this is almost beside the point.  The hex
> didn't stop Marietta from telling Umbridge, who immediately took her
> to DD to confront him alongside Harry and some Order/Aurors, who ended
> up modifying Marietta's memory so that she never got to tell who was
> in the DA.  Nobody got expelled or otherwise and it had nothing to do
> with Hermione's hex.  Without DD and the Shacklebolt's quick thinking,
> Umbridge would eventually have gotten Marietta to talk (after all, she
> didn't loose her voice, did she?), and the DA members would have been
> found out.  Hermione's hex did No Good.  If she hadn't been so sneaky
> about it, and told everyone up front when they were signing, it might
> have prevented Marietta either from signing in the first place, or
> from telling Umbridge.  But no, Hermione knows best….  or at least is
> convinced she does.  It's a good thing DD and Shacklebolt were around
> to do the *real* defense measures.


montims:  I recently reread this book, and was horrified at the actions of
Ministry-sanctioned Umbridge, which were so much worse than I had remembered
- there are strong parallels to the rise of Naziism in Germany, for example,
particularly with the continuous new decrees prohibiting and limiting
student actions.  Just what the Nazis did in Europe with the Jews - decree
by decree limiting their movements and rights... So I am a little surprised
at some of the comments by people.

Notwithstanding that, to address the above point specifically - I don't have
the book with me right now, but as I recall, Umbridge tells the Minister in
DD's office that Marietta started to tell Umridge about the DA, then caught
sight of herself in the mirror, and, having seen the letters on her face,
stopped telling Umbridge anything.  DU then sent her own inquisitorial squad
out to catch other students (why hasn't anyone discussed this yet?) and only
upon Harry being caught, went up to DD's office with Marietta.  So the
"branding", if you will, worked at scaring Marietta into keeping silent.
She may have feared further punishment if she said any more (and who knows
if there was another boobytrap in there?)

As to the obliviation, I know that is what DD called it, but it really
seemed to me as if Shackbolt had just reversed her answers - where she would
have shaken her head, she nodded, and vice versa...

I find it admirable that nobody else broke the secret of the DA's existence,
even just by telling classmates about it, and I am horrified by DU's use of
the dementors who would have kissed Harry (she did not know about his
patronus), her torture of Harry and her readiness to use the cruciatus on
him, and at the powers given to her IS.


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