Views of Hermione

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 160664

montims:
> 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?)

Pippin:
Let's think about the chronology. "Within minutes" of catching Harry,
Umbridge arrives at Dumbledore's office. Fudge, McGonagall, two
Aurors and Percy are already there. McGonagall is looking extremely
tense.

That means all those people were sent for *before* Harry was caught or
the scroll was discovered. In other words, despite the curse, without
any information that the meeting Marietta spoke of was related to the 
meeting  in the Hogs Head or that Harry Potter was going to be present, 
Umbridge was confident that she would catch  Harry Potter dead to 
rights. Fudge confirms this. "I came here tonight expecting to
expel Potter and instead--"

It wouldn't have looked very good if DU had called out the big guns and 
it turned out that Harry wasn't involved and the meeting Marietta 
had in mind was  the Ravenclaw  Chess Club. But the curse itself was 
evidence that Marietta's information was a little more sensitive than that.

It did as much to give Harry away as Marietta could have. 

Suppose there had been no charm and Marietta had told Umbridge 
everything. Umbridge still would have  sent for Fudge and his aurors to 
witness her moment of triumph and Dumbledore's humiliation, 
she still would have needed to  stake out the RoR to catch the DA in the 
act, Dobby would still have been able to warn them,  Marietta would
still have been asked to repeat her evidence in front of Fudge, and 
Shacklebolt would still have stopped her. 

Once she'd been obliviated, Marietta was no more use as a witness 
than Crouch Jr, regardless of what she'd said before. Umbridge
might have known that Dumbledore was less involved than he
claimed to be, but do you think she would have cared? 

It was Dumbledore she wanted to oust. Harry was just a crazy
mixed-up kid as far as Umbridge was concerned, only dangerous
because he and Dumbledore were insisting that his story was true.

Pippin
who agrees that Umbridge is very nasty. But Marietta had
no way to know most of that.