Marietta

[Ceridwen]

No: HPFGUIDX 176860

> > Lanval;
> > > Absolutely yes. It was desigend to warn the DA not only that 
> they 
> > > had been betrayed (granted, only if there was enough time, 
which 
> in 
> > > the actual event was not the cause), but also by *whom*. No one 
> > > could have foreseen the precise way in which the betrayal took 
> > place.
> > 
> > Ceridwen:
> > The spell didn't warn the DA.  The spell only told them who had 
> > broken peace.  They were caught.  They were dragged to 
> Dumbledore's 
> > office.  Their names were captured on the parchment hanging on 
the 
> > wall.  They were not warned.  They were alerted after the fact.  
> > Since we're going for superlatives where this incident is 
> concerned, 
> > if my house catches on fire, I don't want the alarms going off as 
> the 
> > fire department is leaving.
> > 
> 
> 
> Lanval:
> Well, that's what I wrote, isn't it? :) 

Ceridwen:
No.  You wrote that, once someone had told, it would be evident.  I 
wrote that the curse failed because it did not prevent the person 
from telling.  Knowing after the fact is not being protected.  
Preventing the occurrence is being protected.

Lanval:
It was only *designed* to 
> warn the DA in a potential (and wholly plausible) Peter Pettigrew 
> scenario. That it did not work out that way, that actual events 
have 
> a way of throwing in a surprise or two, rendering all careful 
> planning moot -- well, that's something every designer of security 
> systems, every disaster recovery team, every military commander has 
> a story about.

Ceridwen:
A Peter Pettigrew scenario would have been better off not happening 
in the first place.  The planning was not careful, in my opinion, 
because it allowed the situation to occur.  In military, in medical, 
in parenting, "prevention is worth a pound of cure."  Security 
systems try to prevent by advertising that a property is under 
surveillance.  They give stickers to their clients to post in obvious 
places to that end.  They advertise on TV with dramatized scenes of 
immediate noise from the alarm, and calls from their call center to 
the police, another deterrent or preventative measure.  When a 
potential security risk sees the company's sticker on a door, they 
have a context that should tell them that breaking and entering the 
premises will be cause for sudden, and unwelcome to the burglar, 
visits by the police.

Which scenario would have been better?  Pettigrew approaches 
Voldemort and gets huge pustules across his face?  Or Pettigrew 
approaches Voldemort and can't tell the secret?

Lanval:
> One can blame Hermione for not thinking through ALL possible 
> scenarios, I suppose. But how does the failure of 
> Hermione's security plan mean that there can never have been one to 
> begin with? Because that's what I understood the former poster, 
> Angel, to be arguing. That it was all about revenge.

Ceridwen:
One can also blame Hermione for not recognizing that prevention, not 
discovery after the fact, would be better.  Security starts with 
attempts to prevent the feared action in the first place.  Hermione 
did not do what other security teams do: advertise.  She did not tell 
a soul that the parchment was cursed.  She did not say, "If you sign 
this paper, you agree not to tell under penalty of a curse."  She 
just hemmed and hawed and said they should agree not to tell.  She 
didn't say that by signing, they were binding themselves to a curse.  
Do you think that might have deterred Marietta from going to Umbridge?

Lanval:
> No one, AFAIK, has ever argued that revenge was entirely absent 
from 
> Hermione's mind, but why does the other (major, IMO) aspect -- 
> security -- have to be discredited? Especially since it is 
supported 
> by canon.

Ceridwen:
Because this wasn't security.  Security's first goal is to prevent 
the occurrence.  Hermione didn't warn the signatories that there was 
a curse on the paper for anyone who told.  Simply by telling them 
this, she would have frightened them into not telling, especially 
Marietta, who clammed up the minute she saw the pustules on her 
face.  She would probably not have spoken out if she knew there was a 
curse waiting to strike her if she did.  Security is all about 
attempting to prevent a disaster, not clean up after one.

Lanval:
*(snipping quotes)*
> So how can anyone say that it didn't work? The jinx may not have 
> protected all the DA members when the actual betrayal happened, 
> because Umbridge, assisted by her odious little helpers, reacted 
> with impressive speed. But up to that day, the *absence* of 
pustules 
> on any DA member's face lets Hermione and Harry rest a bit easier 
at 
> night, and keeps Ron from ripping Michael Corner's head off. 

Ceridwen:
It didn't work.  Marietta told.  That proves that it didn't 
work.  "When the betrayal happens" should not be the anticipated 
option.  "If" is an iffy option.  Up to the day that Umbridge and her 
IQ descended on the RoR, the absence of Umbridge and the IQ 
descending on the RoR lets the DA, not just the trio, rest a bit 
easier at night and keeps them from being found out.  When Umbridge 
and her IQ descend, it's too late to worry.

Lanval:
> Reason one, given in canon by the author of the jinx: security. 
> Reason two: revenge.
> 
> Unless of course anyone wants to assume that Hermione is lying.

Ceridwen:
False dilema bordering on ad hominem, in my opinion.  I don't have to 
assume that Hermione is lying to see that her curse was ineffectual.  
She may actually believe that she is providing adequate security.  
She would be wrong.  Her curse did not prevent the uncovering of the 
DA.  It merely marked the revealer for revenge.


> > > Lanval, smiling at the thought of the sheer amount of angry 
> > > responses here, had Marietta been struck mute and unable to 
> > > write. 
> > 
> > Ceridwen:
> > How about a spell that makes it impossible for the person to 
> divulge 
> > the secret?  I think there *might* be an obscure spell in canon 
> which 
> > allows this, and I'm pretty sure that - in the middle of *HP & 
The 
> > Order of the Phoenix*, whose headquarters is protected by such a 
> > spell, which was introduced at the beginning of this same book - 
> > Hermione just *may* have heard of it by the time the students 
meet 
> at 
> > the Hog's Head to form the DA halfway through this book.
> > 
> > Ceridwen.

Lanval:
> Am I to understand that Hermione should have meddled with people's 
> minds? Taken away their free will to divulge the secret, should 
they 
> have made a conscious choice to do so? 
> 
> And in Marietta's case, taken away her right to turn in this 
budding 
> terrorist organization fighting their government? *veg*

Ceridwen:
How is making the existence of the DA the subject of a Secret Keeper 
charm meddling with people's minds?  Dumbledore didn't meddle with 
Harry's mind by writing the secret of Grimmauld Place on a piece of 
paper at the beginning of OotP.  Bill didn't meddle with Remus's mind 
by revealing the secret of Shell Cottage to him in DH.

How would informing them that, by signing the parchment, there would 
be physical scarring if they told, be taking away their free choice?  
It seems to me that, by giving them all the facts, it helps them to 
make the informed decision to sign or not to sign, to join or not to 
join, in the first place.  How would making them privy to the secret 
of the DA club be taking away their choice?  They wouldn't be let in 
on the secret, if Hermione had been honest with the potential 
members, if they didn't want to be in on it.

Ceridwen.