Tonks again

[Barry Arrowsmith]

 > ewe2
 > This points to a PolyJuiced!Someone. There have been several  
attempts to
 > excuse the Patronus, but I think JKR's pronouncement on the FAQ  
poll page
 > seals it. "Tonks" asks Harry directly about letters between Order  
members,
 > which is such a giveaway; "Tonks" doesn't know about the Patronus  
method.
 > But she's had to make a Patronus and it sounds rather fudged and  
excuses can
 > be made for not-quite-there Patronuses. Hence the Lupin love-story  
to deflect
 > suspicion and excuse most un-Tonk-like behaviour.
 >

Kneasy:
Plenty of Polyjuice potion around by all accounts - which raises  
intriguing questions: who made it, where did they get the rarer  
ingredients from and when was it made? Somehow I don't see young  
Drafto stirring a cauldron in the Slytherin Common-Room every day for  
a month, or even in the RoR. Maybe it was provided by an interested  
party or parties, someone willing to let him have some that was  
surplus to the suppliers requirements.

Makes some sort of sense, hardly seems worthwhile to go to the  
trouble of manufacturing something as complicated and time-consuming  
as PP just to disguise Grab and Coyle as pre-pubescent girlies. A  
stray thought - if 'Tonks' is a Polyjuiced somebody-or-other,  that  
somebody need not necessarily be female. C&G are playing with gender  
reassignment, why not the someone else? After all,
hiding in plain sight by changing sex is not the type of subtle  
thinking one would associate with Draino, or any teenage male come to  
that.

But if it is a Polyjuiced!Tonks then the original must have been  
available at some time to have various redundant bits hacked off her  
to add to the potion. Um. That complicates things and tends to  
strengthen the odds that it may be an unPolyjuiced Andromeda that's  
the ringer. A strong physical resemblance would not be unreasonable,   
the appearance of age would be explicable,  she'd be anti-Voldy  
(disowned by family, married to a Muggle),  concerned for Nympho's  
emotional well-being and need to be reminded who she's supposed to be  
by being called 'Nymphodora' rather than the plain 'Tonks' that the  
latter prefers.


 > ewe2:
 > Do you think it likely that Dung knows who Aberforth really is? My  
impression
 > is that if half the denizen's of the Hog's Head knew, the pub  
would be empty.
 > It's such a golden opportunity to hear what the criminal  
underground is
 > saying, Aberforth would be mad to allow a yapper like Dung in on  
the secret.
 >

Kneasy:
Yup. They've been together before - in OoP when Dung was getting the  
low-down on the formation of the DA. And it is interesting that  
Aberforth slides out of the picture as Harry confronts Dung, to be  
almost immediately replaced by 'Tonks', her hair wet with sleet. One  
might almost believe that there's some funny business going on here.


 > Stephanie writes:
 > Since the discussion last month I’ve been wondering what it could  
mean if Tonks isn’t always Tonks in HBP.  For example, does she know  
that someone -– Narcissa, or Andromeda, who are my two favorite  
candidates so far -- has been impersonating or controlling her?  But,  
ever the gun-jumper, the part that I’ve really been mulling over  
(especially having read Pippin’s Accio paper) is, if Tonks isn’t  
really Tonks, what does it mean that she and Lupin seemingly get  
together at the end of the book?
 >
 > Possible combinations –-
 >
 > * ESE!Lupin and Imposter!Tonks in league with one another, fudging  
a love story;
 >
 > * ESE!Lupin and Imposter!Tonks, each thinking they're fooling the  
other;
 >
 > * In-the-Dark!Lupin and Imposter!Tonks, who's stringing him along  
after having seen his behavior toward Real!Tonks, setting him up for  
yet another betrayal.
 >
 > * Of course there’s always the possibility that Not-evil!Lupin had  
a plain old argument with Real!Tonks in the hospital wing ... but  
that’s boring.
 >
 > So for me, two other questions to ponder in the Polyjuice theory  
are, (1) Is Tonks herself in the hospital wing and at the funeral,  
and (2) If she isn’t, what does the imposter gain by soliciting Lupin  
in public?
 >

Kneasy:
Fun speculations, save perhaps for the last one which I agree is a  
bit boring. Always comforting to know that there's still a bunch of  
Bangy fans around, hoping for even more dirty work at the cross- 
roads. We can but hope...

But it'll probably be something more mundane. Sad that. Cuts down on  
the possibilities of confrontations, misunderstandings, violence and  
generalised mayhem ending with exploding eyeballs and the crunch of  
smashed bones. Pity.
Still, I suppose one must rein in one's enthusiasm occasionally. How  
about  this - if Loopy is doing his sheep in wolf's clothing bit,  
then he'll  need a contact, a messenger, a go-between. Who better  
than Nympho who can assume a fake appearance that is not time-limited  
like Poly-Potion? Sensible but not exciting.

 > I feel they are doomed ...
 >
 > Silmariel

Splendid! That's the ticket!
Not an enthusiast of happy endings myself, find them depressing.  
Can't help but extrapolate and imagine the characters 20 years on -  
overweight, balding, flatulent, shrewish ("I should have listened to  
my mother!") and wondering where the excitement went. Nothing more  
useless than a redundant hero, slumped over a pint in the pub, boring  
everyone to tears with tales repeated too often of derring-do long past.

Kneasy