Marietta's Real Crime

[mary_j_59]

In the discussion about "The Centaur and the Sneak", Dracasdiablo made a very interesting point. She stated that Marietta was a bad friend to Cho. After thinking about this for a while, I have to admit that I actually agree. The quotes that follow will, I hope, make clear why I think this.

Comments

[sunnyskywalker]

Even weirder because Hermione herself acknowledges permanently marking someone's skin as a problematic thing to do when she distinguishes between the Dark Mark and her coins. And the Dark Mark, while definitely creepy, is a voluntary permanent mark, which both parties know about in advance. I could totally understand the DA shunning her and calling her nasty names, or shooting Tripping Jinxes at her in the halls, or even having some sort of ink-based version of the "sneak" curse which wears off after a week or two. Not nice, or useful for prevention, but more on the scale you would expect for the offense, and the ink-sneak would probably still be enough to scare her so that she would reconsider talking further (since she wouldn't know what might happen next). They want punishment and vengeance? Fine, but there's options that don't involve scars.

Marietta was waffly, and I might actually have respected her more if she had turned in the DA right away rather than months after it became illegal. If you're inclined to be generous, maybe she was trying to give them the benefit of the doubt and only decided she had to do it when she heard they were going to learn to fight the official government prison guards... but we don't know either way, and she does seem like whatever her principles are, she isn't very strong-willed, at least not for good friends, and authority figures who are her mom's co-workers in a situation were her limited knowledge of the situation really might make Harry and his DA look shady.

[mary_j_59]

Yes - as Oryx said above, her real crime is not being Neville. And I don't see how Hermione gets a pass for what she did in response. I hadn't - somehow - noticed before that she comes up with the snitch hex AFTER discussing how evil it is that Voldemort marks his servants' skins! Good point.

[condwiramurs]

One wonders if that's where she got the idea, says my cynical mind. I like Hermione, but she's ruthless.

[sunnyskywalker]

We know she was thinking about the Mark... you know, I had assumed when she said the coins were "better" than marking someone's skin she meant better as in "not so creepy and Dark Lord-ish," but maybe she just meant that the Dark Mark made it too easy for DEs to be identified. I really hope I'm wrong!

I've also started wondering just how much Cho and Marietta talked about the DA in private. Cho knows Marietta is stressed about her mom, but is that through observation and guessing, or did they talk about it? And after, say, a few months in the DA, did Marietta really start resenting Cho for just ignoring all her concerns about her mom and whether there was something off about Harry and this whole organization and insisting Marietta keep supporting her quest for Harry? It isn't like she would remember now, and Cho's apparently the only one being nice to her after the event, so we'll never know what the dynamic was now.

[oryx_leucoryx]

There is also the fact that twice in the past Hermione was humiliated by magic affecting her face so she knew from experience how effective that would be.