Trelawney's prediction & end of HBP (Trelawney at the funeral or not?)

[Dana]

No: HPFGUIDX 166474

Jen:
> Hold on a minute, Dana!  I mean, you can bow out of course <g>, > but I think we're arguing omissions with omissions now.  Just because there should have been a head count, there wasn't one on page.  Trelawney's name isn't mentioned, so she must be 'staff'.

<snip the rest of your excellent post I fully agree with)

Dana:

Jen, I am still with you on the part about Trelawney's absence at the funeral to be somehow still important, but Magpie made a point: not so much about the headcount, but that it would make sense that someone would have notified Trelawney about DD's death for her to be actually at the funeral, and that it would then have been actively noticed she was missing (before the funeral not during).

You also would expect some kind of staff meeting where the passing of DD was discussed, and about the lessons and exams being cancelled,
and that there will be a funeral at Hogwarts while no other Headmaster had been buried there before, or even why Professor Snape is no longer an employee at Hogwarts.

It just made sense that her absence would be noticed *before* the funeral, even if I still believe her absence during the funeral would cause less of a buzz because it would not be OOC for her to not come in with the staff, and I still totally agree that Trelawney made too much of an impact on Harry's life, for him to not even mention her specifically while he does mention all those other people. So in this I still believe she wasn't actually at the funeral, and I still stand by my previous post that the numb brain will be more triggered by active visual stimulation than in its absence, especially with all the distractions going around and because of the history between them, he would not just put her under the "staff" label. So I am still with you here.

So the question is not so much is the missing Trelawney element still important, because I have no doubt it is, but was it part of LV's bigger plan *during* the time Draco's mission was unfolding? That part seemed slightly less believable to me after the point Magpie made, because why would her absence from Hogwarts not be noticed before the funeral?

It isn't logical to think that it would just have been accepted that she locked herself into her tower without anyone actually telling her what has happened on that fateful night. Of course it is still possible people expected someone else to have notified her but actually no one did, and everyone just assumed about each other they had probably talked to her, but that not discussing it amongst each other made no one realize none of them has actually seen her since the events of that night, and her not attending would again not be OOC because no one but DD and Harry knew about the amount of predictions she was making all year, so no one would be expecting her to be in everyone's face about it. We do not get a real after the funeral account as the book is cut off right after the aftermath conversation between Harry, Ron and Hermione.

But again, you would expect McGonagall sending a message to her to notify her about a staff meeting, but we do not know anything about it, or even if there indeed was a staff meeting at all; but that would be really odd because you would want to have all the teachers to know what had happened before the rumors start floating around and risk them being informed with second hand information.

The scenario is still possible, but less likely to expect that no action was taken to bring Trelawney up to date personally and then not notice she was missing. Even if I agree that to the reader her absence jumps out with all the information we know about the predictions she made all year. There is indeed no mention of her annoying everyone about being right between DD's passing and the funeral; she is totally not mentioned to be at the funeral while she indeed had such a large impact on Harry. We are totally cut off right after the funeral so even if someone noticed her absence, and going to her room to investigate the reason for her absence, it would be something done off page. We do not even see Harry leaving Hogwarts or any specific afterthought about the funeral.

But still, Magpie's comment makes sense that someone would have made an attempt to inform Trelawney about what happened, and that it would have been noticed she was missing. The only thing I am saying is that there is too much time between the events on the tower and the funeral, for no one to notice Trelawney was no longer at Hogwarts - not that I agree suddenly that she therefore WAS at the funeral and labeled under the "staff". It doesn't even mean she is at Hogwarts at the time of the funeral, but is it likely she was kidnapped on that specific night? Can her absence during the funeral still support the theory that her kidnapping was part of LV's plan during Draco's mission? That I'm not sure off anymore.

Dana