DH reread CH 13-14

[montavilla47]

No: HPFGUIDX 186504

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Carol" <justcarol67 at ...> wrote:
>
> Zara wrote:
> > They were themselves all along. They did not poison Mr. Cattermole with a Puking Pastille in some sort of moment of personality derangement. It was a part of a plan they had worked out in cold blood over the course of weeks.
> 
> Carol responds:
> "In cold blood" makes them sound like murderers. To be fair, they're new to long-term planning that involves disguises, and overpowering other people to get their robes and name tags, not to mention stealing their identities, seems necessary and Fred and George's products a convenient means for doing so. 

Montavilla47:

Hehe.  But they do!  They did a dress rehearsal of this stunt in 
CoS, when they polyjuiced Crabbe and Goyle. Only, they were
a bit smarter when they were pre-teens, since they used a 
sleeping draught, rather than a Puking Pastille.


Carol:
Just as they don't consider what they'll do once they get inside (a point that someone, perhaps Harry, realizes too late), 

Montavilla47:
Something in common with the CoS polyjuicing, since they 
didn't consider that they'd need the Slytherin password to
enter the dungeon common room.  However, they did have a
better general plan in CoS, since they had, at least, the plan
of asking Draco about the Heir. 

Carol:
...they don't consider the rightness or wrongness of what they're doing. Would Stunning an innocent person (perhaps causing him or her to bruise his head on the sidewalk) have been any better? Admittedly, Puking Pastilles were a particularly bad choice, but even Nosebleed Nougats or Fainting Fancies involve incapacitating an innocent person.

Montavilla47:

What's disturbing when you really think about this chapter
(which I hadn't really done earlier), is that we know that 
people don't stop puking, fainting, or bleeding until they
get the antedote.  (Well, maybe they stop fainting?)


Carol:
> One purpose served by this scene, intended or unintended, is to show the readers that Fred and George's products are perhaps not quite so amusing as they've previously seemed. (We've already seen another of F&G's products, Peruvian Darkness Powder put to genuinely evil use.) There are two questions here, I think. The first is whether the products are as innocent and clever as they seem (I'd say no, but that's just my opinion); the other is whether, in this instance, the end justifies the means (my instinct is to say no; there must be a better way).

Montavilla47:
We didn't really need this chapter to point out that the
Skiving candies were dangerous.  We saw that when 
Katie (or was it Alicia) nearly bled out after eating one 
of the Nosebleed Nougats in OotP.

But this is even a little worse, if you think about it, since
the Twins were aware of the dangers of their candies and
took care of Alicia when things got bad.  


Carol:
> The kids thought that they had come up with a good, if not necessarily brilliant, plan, and it certainly worked, but it contained a number of flaws because of circumstances they didn't anticipate, including making a man so ill that he had to go to St. Mungo's.
> 
> Could they have gotten in at all without impersonating MoM employees? And if they did have to impersonate people, how else could they have made sure that those people didn't show up at the MoM and by doing so, reveal the imposture?

Montavilla47:
I was thinking about this earlier in replying to another
post--and I forget whether I ended up posting it or not.

One thing I think they could have done was to ask Arthur
to allow them to impersonate him--and simply have him
stay home that day.  Or they could have asked him if he'd
seen Umbridge wearing a locket at work--and gone from 
there.

I think it would have been a lot easier to find out where
Umbridge lived and start searching there.  People are far
more likely to leave their jewelry in their home than in
their office.  I don't know if the wizards have a directory,
but it seems like they should.

They could have had Hermione (as the most capable of 
the three) assume the look of a Muggle or simply change
her looks as she did with Ron by using transfiguration 
and apply for a job in the Floo department.  Once in, she
could try to find Umbridge's home floo... number or address
or whatever it is that they use.  

With all the extra work of recording and imprisoning or
otherwise persecuting Muggleborns, the Ministry would
need to b hiring like mad.  I'm sure Hermione could get
a fake birth certificate and alter her O.W.L. certificate to
qualify for a clerk position.

Or, failing all that, we saw in OotP that it's pitifully easy
to break into the Ministry--as long as you go after hours.
Both the Order and the Death Eaters broke into the place
several times over the course of the year.  The Trio might
have done that.

In any case, I think it was a mistake to try and get all
three of them into the Ministry at once.  It would have 
been a lot simpler to kidnap one person and send in
one of the Trio.  I think, in that case, Harry would have
been the best bet.  He's good under pressure and 
can think on his feet.