Lavender Brown, dead or alive? If alive is she a now a werewolf?

[John]

No: HPFGUIDX 192374

Hi all.
An oldish controversy this, but one Jo Rowling has not fully clarified from what she wrote in the final book.

In the written text at the Battle of Hogwarts whilst fighting bravely Lavender Brown fell from a balcony and as she lay injured was then attacked by Fenrir Greyback, but thankfully and a little ironically Hermione Granger seeing what happened blasted him off of her former love rival with a spell. When last 'reported' by Jo she was known to be still alive, but injured, perhaps seriously. That's the 'canon' position anyway.

However, in the final movie Steve Kloves, the screenwriter took it upon himself to 'kill her off' and we see her dead body being covered up. :o(

However, as we all know the final part (DH2) was very different from what Jo wrote, indeed whilst in many ways a brilliant 'action movie' it had very little to do with the book events in many places. Personally after the dragon escape from Gringotts I feel it becomes so AU (Alternate Univere) it has little at all to do with any Potter story I know and is an utter 'dogs breakfast' or at best a 'Curate's Egg' as we Brits say. :o(

Events and their settings were changed for no particular reason other than perhaps to help with the 'cinematic flow' and several other 'non canon' scenes and events were invented. Don't get me wrong, some of these 'rewrites' were very good and one scene/piece of dialogue almost goes so far as to redeem the whole as far as I am concerned. That is the part where Neville Longbottom stands at the end of the boobytrapped bridge and taunts Scaboir and his horde of Death Eaters with his now famous "You and who's army?" line. Brilliant stuff and hilarious. :o)

Indeed in some ways Neville comes out of this film having the best scenes and dialogue, his defiant speech to Voldemort, his killing the snake and, (for me, since it is my favourite non canon 'ship'), his declaration that he is "mad for" Luna Lovegood all go together to suggest that possibly the prophecy was wrong and in fact it needed both Neville and Harry working together to defeat the Dark Lord.

Anyway, enough of that, do I hear what about the fate of Lavender Brown and why do you care so much?

Several reasons, I firstly came to relate to her when she sadly lost Binky, her pet rabbit who she'd had to leave at her family home while at Hogwarts and who died, I felt so sorry for her. Secondly because the Trio treated her so badly during her frantic infatuation with 'Won Won', for which her lack of self control was simply down to raging hormones and the intensity of first love, she simply couldn't help herself. Thirdly in the way she gained Ron as her boyfriend she in fact showed why she was placed in Gryffindor, despite superficially being nothing but a gossip machine and fashion victim. In fact she saw what she wanted (Ron) and had the self confidence and courage to 'go for it', that being a very typical Gryffindor trait. And by the way she didn't 'steal' Ron from Hermione as some think, because at the time they weren't even a romantic couple.

Lavender 'disappears off the radar' for a while in the later books but  makes a brave return at the Battle of Hogwarts. She had been hiding out in the Room of Requirement with the rest of the DA and other oppressed pupils and had been helping the injured and frightened youngsters, then in the Battle she fights bravely, once again showing her Gryffindor courage, until sadly she is hurt as I described above.

So now to the question I posed, what happened next? Did she live, die or live and become a werewolf. As I said JKR left it undefined. The werewolf idea is one many accept as right, since in the description of the attack on her by Fenrir Greyback he is described by onlookers as  being a 'grey blur' who leaps on her and begins to maul her. Does this mean he was transformed to his werewolf form or simply moved very fast? If he was transformed she might well become a werewolf, or like Bill Weasley, another of Greyback's victims, simply acquire some scars and a few 'wolfish traits' such as a liking for virtually raw meat.

Then again if Greyback was not in werewolf form then she might simply have some scars and also injuries from her fall needing curing by Poppy and her volunteer helpers, then gone on to live a fairly 'normal' witch's life.

The other option is of course that she simply died after succumbing to her injuries, as Steve Kloves seems to think and wrote into the screenplay.

As to me I tend to go with the werewolf option and I love her dearly as a character almost as much as she loved 'Won Won', because the werewolf Lavender Brown is such a great heroine post war in many superb fan fiction stories. Several excellent examples of note being written by an incredible fan author (pen name Northumbrian), who is a fellow Brit and a very canon and skilled writer, fully professional in standard and with a JKR type eye for detail and very prolific. Part of his very extensive output, (which like Jo's own work builds into a huge integrated story), relates tales of Lavender's brave struggle back to full fitness post Battle and her then career as the Auror Office's 'werewolf expert in residence'. Northumbrian also goes into her love life post battle, pairing her with an incredibly good character of his own invention, one every bit as good, detailed and well rounded as any of Jo's, a Scottish wizarding law officer called Mark Moon. The stories of their adventures and romance together are utterly brilliant.

Another superb fan writer is an American, (pen name sarcastrow), who has a similar take on Lavender Brown post war and has written several excellent stories about her as well. I would recommend everyone who doesn't know these two writers works to try searching their profiles on the several fan fiction websites or look at their LiveJournal profile pages for lists and details of their online tales. Also for that matter many other amateur writers (like myself) have also featured the lovely Lavender in their stories. :o)

So there yer go, that's my 'take' on Lavender Brown and her fate at the Battle.

So what do you think? Live, dead or werewolf why not let me know what you believe?

Many Blessings All.
John, (Oriondruid)