More on Marietta
More on Marietta.. and then maybe I'll shut up.
There are several points that no one has yet brought up about Marietta and her reactions.
First, Madderbrod pointed out, with justice, that Marietta stopped her “snitching” when she saw (in Umbridge’s mirror) the spots on her face. He took this as evidence that whatever motivated Marietta to turn the DA in to Umbridge, it was neither her principles (or not strongly-held principles) nor legitimate fear for her mother or another, since she stopped talking when she saw herself disfigured.
That is, just seeing spots spelling “SNEAK” across her face should not have stopped Marietta from talking, had she had strong enough principled (or emotionally-powerful) reasons to tell Umbridge about the illegal group. So, concluded Madderbrad, Marietta’s reasons for talking must have been venial.
However, Hermione told Ron & Harry (and therefore the reader) way back when Educational Decree 24 was first posted, that the parchment the DA members had signed had been “jinxed” to produce “acne” that would make any squealer “really regret it.” So the reader knows (if s/he believes Hermione despite the fact that Hermione has been a dedicated liar since book one*) that the spell on the parchment is set to punish the “sneak” in one specific manner. Moreover, since Hermione describes the spell as a jinx, not a curse, and specifies the results to be spots, not a long-lasting marring of the face, the reader is invited to view the “punishment” lightly.
But Marietta is not privy to any of that information. And, unlike Harry and unlike us readers, she was raised in the WW. She knows that it is possible in the WW for someone to enter into binding contracts, without full understanding or intent, that have lethal consequences if one fails them.
The twins could have killed ickle Ronniekins with that Unbreakable Vow they were trying out for grins, hence the unflappable Arthur’s fury. Yet we watched the Vow being sworn to in HBP, and there’s nothing in the spell-casting or the words spoken that specifies “may I die if I fail this.” You would have to know from external sources what would happen if you broke it.
The fact that ickle Ronnie had no remotest understanding that he was agreeing actually to DIE if he’d failed to meet the Twins’ terms (and that a child that age wouldn’t be considered competent to enter into a binding contract in Muggle law) would not have saved his life, had the twins completed that Vow. Informed consent this was not.
And Harry participating in the Triwizard tournament-why didn’t Dumbledore tell him to “just say no”? Each of the tasks was so dangerous it could have killed an adult wizard, much less a demi-prepared fourteen-year-old. Why wasn’t Harry advised to fold his arms and say, “My name might have been entered by someone else (not by me!), but I ain’t actually playing? I refuse!”
The consensus was (among our-world analysts), that the nature of that binding magical contract with the Goblet must have been, that trying to honor it might quite possibly prove lethal.
Trying to flout or ignore it, absolutely would be.
So that’s the background we need for understanding Marietta’s reaction to looking in a mirror and discovering “K-A-E-N-S” suddenly blazoned across her face.
Hermione had tricked all the study-group wannabes in the Hogs Head into entering into a binding magical contract when they signed that parchment, without ever disclosing the terms of that contract or the full consequences for breaking it.
Marietta has no idea what will happen next if she continues to tell Umbridge about the DA. She hadn’t known ANYTHING would happen! Hermione had suckered them all into binding themselves to terms unknown. Maybe, if Marietta had said more, the spots would simply have gotten worse, as Umbridge later suggested. Maybe nothing more would have happened. Or maybe the hand that had signed that parchment (Marietta’s wand hand) would have fallen off. Or maybe, if Marietta had continued talking, the tongue speaking in contravention of her promise would have swelled and choked her to death.
Marietta doesn’t know. She can’t know. Because she hadn’t known anything would happen. Little Muggle-born Hermione had transformed what Marietta had thought to be a simple schoolgirl promise not to “talk out of school” about a perfectly legitimate study group that would have gotten up the nose of just one (if an important one) of the teachers … into a magically-binding contract with entirely unknown, unadvertised, unagreed-upon consequences.
Marietta has no way at all of knowing what that contract would have done to her next had she continued to talk about the DA to Umbridge.
And no more do we, actually, except we tend to accept Hermione’s assurances to Harry and Ron that any traitor would “regret it” but suffer no more than spots.
If Marietta doesn’t believe that, it makes sense of Marietta’s behavior in Dumbledore’s office.
Marietta gave another muffled wail and shook her head frantically.
… But Marietta would not speak. She merely shook her head again, her eyes wide and fearful.
The girl is utterly terrified of saying anything, of cooperating in any way. Why, if the worst has already happened?
Because what has happened so far, the overt mutilation that has already occurred, is not the worst of what could happen, it’s the first. Marietta doesn’t know what will happen next, if she continues to break her agreement not to talk about the DA. What might happen next to her (and maybe not even just to her-if you read fairy tales or the Bible, there can be contracts binding on one’s family…) depends on how depraved Hermione Granger’s imagination is.
And it’s noticeable that Marietta chooses to risk the worst that Umbridge and the Ministry might do to her and her family for stopping talking, to avoid further retribution from Hermione.
Let me clarify. It is dangerous (to Marietta and her mother both) to alienate Fudge and Umbridge by withdrawing her cooperation after once offering it. We see how Umbridge physically attacks the girl a few minutes later for not giving the answers Umbridge desires. Staying mute, deliberately withholding information Umbridge wants, would obviously eventually bring forth similar retaliation (although Umbridge would first try coaxing). And it might be held against her mother by her mother’s boss. Starting to confess, and then falling silent, is the worst thing to do vis-à-vis the High Inquisitor; Marietta’s already said enough to condemn herself by implication. Shutting up now invites her being punished with the rest of the group.
Yet Marietta remains obstinately silent.
As though she fears Hermione’s revenge more than anything the Hogwarts High Inquisitor might do to her, or the Minister of Magic might do.to her mother.
Which shows good Ravenclaw sense, if she’s not sure Hermione’s curse wouldn’t turn lethal. Marietta knows the worst Umbridge and Fudge will do. Being expelled, being fired, is far better than being killed.
Marietta refuses to speak, or even to gesture to confirm information already volunteered to Umbridge, until Kingsley does…. something to Marietta.
*
Which is the second point that no one has brought up. What, exactly, did Kingsley do?
We’ve all been assuming that Kingsley Obliviated Marietta. Well, why wouldn’t we? After all, Dumbledore told us that’s what had happened!
Or more precisely, he asked Minerva to thank Kingsley for a well-cast Memory Charm.
And The Twinkly One, after all, never lies. Even by indirection.
Memory charms are legal and considered relatively minor in the WW, despite their sometimes horrific consequences.
The Imperius is illegal. Except to Aurors in time of war. And even if the Minister considers Dumbledore’s sedition to come close to requiring that level of response, Marietta’s a witness for the Ministry’s side.
But consider the actual evidence.
Consider first Marietta’s reaction to Umbridge’s physical attack:
Marietta was standing exactly where Umbridge had released her. She seemed neither perturbed by Umbridge’s sudden attack, nor relieved by her release. She was still clutching her robe up to her oddly blank eyes, staring straight ahead of her.
Obliviated people can be dazed and disoriented afterwards (Mr. Roberts’ “Merry Christmas!”-obviously he was not oriented as to time and occasion). However, Marietta isn’t disoriented here. She’s deprived of volition.
Well, gee, there is a canon spell that removes the victim’s volition. And we know (c.f. Stan among the DE’s pursuing the 7 Potters) that if the victim has not been specifically instructed to act normally, s/he looks “blank.”
Of course, so do people in the process of being Confunded look blank while they’re being told what to think (Mundungus receiving Snape’s orders for the 7 Potters scheme). However, this apparently only lasts while the false beliefs are being implanted. Snape suggested to Fudge in PoA that Harry and Hermione had earlier been Confunded by Sirius Black, and “blank” was the opposite of how they were acting. Harry was in-everyone’s-face rude in asserting Sirius’s innocence, while Hermione was earnestly interrupting with her but-I’m-right! corrections-exactly in character for how they would behave if their base personalities and wills were entirely intact but they had been magically compelled to believe Black’s false scenario.
Further, if the instructions given with the Confundus can be imparted NONVERBALLY, what the hell was nonverbal-magic master, the greatest Occlumens of his age, master Legilimens Snape, doing taking the risk of MUTTERING HIS INSTRUCTIONS TO DUNG. IN A BAR.
Whereas, when we saw the Imperius in use by Harry at Gringotts, the victim acted according to the caster’s will without requiring oral instructions.. At least while the victim was under the caster’s direct observation.
Finally, a simple Obliviate could not have created false information for Marietta to confirm. A Confundus could have, but how could Kingsley have known at the moment he first cast it exactly what lies Dumbledore wanted Marietta to disseminate? The only clue Dumbledore had given of the direction he intended the lies to go was, “[All the meetings after the first in the Hogs Head] would be [illegal], if they had continued after the decree came into effect. Do you have any evidence that those meetings continued?”
As Dumbledore spoke, Harry heard a rustle behind him and rather thought Kingsley whispered something.
So Kingsley could have Obliviated or Confunded Marietta to remove all knowledge of meetings between the first and the last, but he would not have known at that point to remove as well her knowledge that Harry was the leader who had organized tonight’s meeting, or have instructed her to nod in confirmation of the false claim that Dumbledore himself had invited her to join the just-now-forming organization.
And how could either spell have overcome her clear terror of Hermione’s unknown retribution if she confirmed anything further to Dolores?
Whereas the Imperius would have automatically. And it could have been cast with a very simple instruction. Deny anything Umbridge asks you that you have not already explicitly confirmed to her. Confirm anything Dumbledore suggests. Volunteer nothing, do nothing else.
And Marietta’s behavior is all explained.
*
The final point that no has raised is the simple and blindingly obvious fact that DA “member” Marietta was with Umbridge, not with the DA, the night of the raid. And that no one in the DA commented on or took alarm at her absence.
Now, we have a couple of meetings described in fair detail, and we know of a number more that were simply sketched. We know that Marietta was there at the Hog’s Head, giving Harry mistrustful looks. We know that Marietta attended the first of the illegal meetings, where she “looked sourly at Harry” and Cho explained, “She doesn’t really want to be here but I made her come with me. Her parents have forbidden her to do anything that might upset Umbridge.”
We know too that she was at the last meeting before Christmas; Cho told her to go on ahead so she could talk to (kiss) Harry.
And we know that she wasn’t there the night of Umbridge’s raid around Easter.
There were a number of other meetings, and we have no precise information as to who attended any of them.
But we know one thing more: that no one in the DA saw fit to remark on Marietta’s absence on the night of Umbridge’s raid. We even see Cho talking to Harry that night, and the subject of her best friend’s inexplicable absence does not come up.
Which makes most sense if it was not inexplicable. If no one expected her to be there. If Marietta had, by then, quietly dropped out of the group. And possibly had urged Cho to do the same. It’s illegal, and you can tell that that Harry is a bit unstable (look at how he reacts to any criticism or even questions, not to mention those funny turns he keeps having). and WE don’t have OWLS coming up. And if you’re still hoping to get Harry to tell you more about how it happened that Cedric died, well, good luck on that.
It is canon that Marietta was absent from the ranks of Dumbledore’s Army on the night of Umbridge’s raid: And that no one was worried by this. At all. No one had a clue there was trouble brewing until Dobby showed up.
There are four choices I can see, and none of them make the DA look particularly bright.
A.
It was unusual for Marietta to miss, and she was simply AWOL, and no one in the DA ever paused to worry whether an unexplained absence might pose a security concern. Which would be extraordinarily stupid of them-if you’re running an illegal underground organization and someone doesn’t show to a meeting, the very first thing you think about is whether they’ve been captured and made to tell. Or deliberately betrayed the group, given that Marietta’s known to have harbored doubts..
But given Veritaserum, WHICH HARRY KNOWS ABOUT, even if Umbridge had just caught a random member en route to the RoR and decided on whim to interrogate hir in full, an AWOL member is a security concern. An extremely serious one. And we’re not talking about someone being three minutes late; it’s ten to nine when the warned-by-Dobby kids pile out of the room, and ten after is when they had adjourned that first meeting in the RoR. Late. One infers, 9 pm was the usual time to adjourn.
B.
It was unusual for Marietta to miss a meeting, and Marietta had given Cho a really, really good excuse for that one night, which Cho had duly relayed to the DA when she arrived. All of which happened off page. Given Jo’s other lapses, plausible enough. JKR’s a bad enough writer that so significant a clue might have passed unmarked. So chalk it all down to Jo’s poor writing.
Except-you’d really think such a scenario would have grossly aggravated Marietta’s offense in Cho’s eyes-it would prove that Marietta’s betrayal was premeditated, and that she was deliberately hanging her best friend out to dry with the rest of the DA, since she didn’t even warn Cho to skip that night’s meeting. Moreover, it would add a personal lie to CHO on top of Marietta’s overall betrayal of the group.
Surely if that had been how it had happened, even loyal Cho (a Ravenclaw, not a Hufflepuff, note: at heart Cho’s an ANALYST) would not be talking about her lovely friend’s “mistake”?
And it still makes Hermione and the rest of them look terminally stupid-if a group member who’s visibly disaffected absents herself unexpectedly, shouldn’t you at least consider the possibly of betrayal and post someone to watch the Marauder’s Map? (That Cho wouldn’t consider a sudden absence suspicious in itself just shows she trusts her friend; that Hermione wouldn’t, was stupid.) (Even Sirius was smart enough to take alarm when good friend Peter wasn’t where he was supposed to be, the night the Potters were murdered.)
C.
Or, of course, it was normal for Marietta to miss the occasional meeting without warning or excuse. And this never raised a red flag among her fellow DA members about Marietta’s level of commitment?
D.
Or it was normal (by now) for Marietta to be absent, because she had left the group. But everyone in the DA assumed that Marietta would not take the further step of turning them in, even though they knew she disapproved of their activities enough to stop participating. (Dolores never said that Marietta claimed to have been invited to the meeting herself, only that a meeting was to be held. Which she could easily have figured out when she saw Cho and Luna missing along with the relevant fifth-years.)
Pick one.
Note that only the last choice doesn’t make Hermione, Cho, and the rest of the DA look like utter fools for not worrying, at least a bit, about Marietta’s failure to show THAT NIGHT. Not that they don’t still look like fools with the last option, but at least they had no especial cause to worry that night just because she was a no-show. The last option makes them more the type of fool schoolkids who think, even if someone’s left the group and totally disapproves of the group’s activities, she wouldn’t RAT on us. Because tattling on someone is the worst crime in the world. To schoolkids.
Not, of course, to functioning adults. Most adults, if they discovered a friend was involved in an illegal group which was sliding over towards actual treasonous activities, would at least contemplate turning in the group if they couldn’t dissuade the friend from participating. If only because if the group seems to sliding toward worse crimes, turning them in NOW might protect the friend from committing crimes worthy of worse punishments.
The worst that will happen to Cho, after all, if she’s caught participating in an organization which the High Inquisitor has not authorized but which has not yet committed any chargeable crimes, is expulsion from Hogwarts.
What’s the penalty for treason, in the WW? Surely Azkaban?
Moreover, where does one draw the line between loyalty to a person and loyalty to the law, to the government, to the common good as one sees it, to a higher law if one believes in such? What if one thinks a specific law or the government is wrong? What if one thinks the law is probably right, but understands that the law-defying friend sincerely thinks the law wrong? What if one thinks the law-defier was wrong, but that supporting hir is a higher good than supporting the government and its laws?
This has been the stuff of tragedies since Antigone at the least!
Unsophisticated schoolkids, of course, tend to cast this conflict in black and white terms: you NEVER rat on a schoolmate. NEVER. No matter what the schoolmate might be involved in….. But in stories written at that level, there’s normally not going to be crimes involved, just pranks and harmless-seeming rule-breaking. No real sedition expressed against the legitimate government one’s mom serves. No Weasley twins putting another student at risk of death or long-term neurological damage to prevent points-taking, no one threatening to kill fellow students with Garroting Gas to score off Umbridge.
No one being really mutilated for disloyalty. By either side.
There are several points that no one has yet brought up about Marietta and her reactions.
First, Madderbrod pointed out, with justice, that Marietta stopped her “snitching” when she saw (in Umbridge’s mirror) the spots on her face. He took this as evidence that whatever motivated Marietta to turn the DA in to Umbridge, it was neither her principles (or not strongly-held principles) nor legitimate fear for her mother or another, since she stopped talking when she saw herself disfigured.
That is, just seeing spots spelling “SNEAK” across her face should not have stopped Marietta from talking, had she had strong enough principled (or emotionally-powerful) reasons to tell Umbridge about the illegal group. So, concluded Madderbrad, Marietta’s reasons for talking must have been venial.
However, Hermione told Ron & Harry (and therefore the reader) way back when Educational Decree 24 was first posted, that the parchment the DA members had signed had been “jinxed” to produce “acne” that would make any squealer “really regret it.” So the reader knows (if s/he believes Hermione despite the fact that Hermione has been a dedicated liar since book one*) that the spell on the parchment is set to punish the “sneak” in one specific manner. Moreover, since Hermione describes the spell as a jinx, not a curse, and specifies the results to be spots, not a long-lasting marring of the face, the reader is invited to view the “punishment” lightly.
But Marietta is not privy to any of that information. And, unlike Harry and unlike us readers, she was raised in the WW. She knows that it is possible in the WW for someone to enter into binding contracts, without full understanding or intent, that have lethal consequences if one fails them.
The twins could have killed ickle Ronniekins with that Unbreakable Vow they were trying out for grins, hence the unflappable Arthur’s fury. Yet we watched the Vow being sworn to in HBP, and there’s nothing in the spell-casting or the words spoken that specifies “may I die if I fail this.” You would have to know from external sources what would happen if you broke it.
The fact that ickle Ronnie had no remotest understanding that he was agreeing actually to DIE if he’d failed to meet the Twins’ terms (and that a child that age wouldn’t be considered competent to enter into a binding contract in Muggle law) would not have saved his life, had the twins completed that Vow. Informed consent this was not.
And Harry participating in the Triwizard tournament-why didn’t Dumbledore tell him to “just say no”? Each of the tasks was so dangerous it could have killed an adult wizard, much less a demi-prepared fourteen-year-old. Why wasn’t Harry advised to fold his arms and say, “My name might have been entered by someone else (not by me!), but I ain’t actually playing? I refuse!”
The consensus was (among our-world analysts), that the nature of that binding magical contract with the Goblet must have been, that trying to honor it might quite possibly prove lethal.
Trying to flout or ignore it, absolutely would be.
So that’s the background we need for understanding Marietta’s reaction to looking in a mirror and discovering “K-A-E-N-S” suddenly blazoned across her face.
Hermione had tricked all the study-group wannabes in the Hogs Head into entering into a binding magical contract when they signed that parchment, without ever disclosing the terms of that contract or the full consequences for breaking it.
Marietta has no idea what will happen next if she continues to tell Umbridge about the DA. She hadn’t known ANYTHING would happen! Hermione had suckered them all into binding themselves to terms unknown. Maybe, if Marietta had said more, the spots would simply have gotten worse, as Umbridge later suggested. Maybe nothing more would have happened. Or maybe the hand that had signed that parchment (Marietta’s wand hand) would have fallen off. Or maybe, if Marietta had continued talking, the tongue speaking in contravention of her promise would have swelled and choked her to death.
Marietta doesn’t know. She can’t know. Because she hadn’t known anything would happen. Little Muggle-born Hermione had transformed what Marietta had thought to be a simple schoolgirl promise not to “talk out of school” about a perfectly legitimate study group that would have gotten up the nose of just one (if an important one) of the teachers … into a magically-binding contract with entirely unknown, unadvertised, unagreed-upon consequences.
Marietta has no way at all of knowing what that contract would have done to her next had she continued to talk about the DA to Umbridge.
And no more do we, actually, except we tend to accept Hermione’s assurances to Harry and Ron that any traitor would “regret it” but suffer no more than spots.
If Marietta doesn’t believe that, it makes sense of Marietta’s behavior in Dumbledore’s office.
Marietta gave another muffled wail and shook her head frantically.
… But Marietta would not speak. She merely shook her head again, her eyes wide and fearful.
The girl is utterly terrified of saying anything, of cooperating in any way. Why, if the worst has already happened?
Because what has happened so far, the overt mutilation that has already occurred, is not the worst of what could happen, it’s the first. Marietta doesn’t know what will happen next, if she continues to break her agreement not to talk about the DA. What might happen next to her (and maybe not even just to her-if you read fairy tales or the Bible, there can be contracts binding on one’s family…) depends on how depraved Hermione Granger’s imagination is.
And it’s noticeable that Marietta chooses to risk the worst that Umbridge and the Ministry might do to her and her family for stopping talking, to avoid further retribution from Hermione.
Let me clarify. It is dangerous (to Marietta and her mother both) to alienate Fudge and Umbridge by withdrawing her cooperation after once offering it. We see how Umbridge physically attacks the girl a few minutes later for not giving the answers Umbridge desires. Staying mute, deliberately withholding information Umbridge wants, would obviously eventually bring forth similar retaliation (although Umbridge would first try coaxing). And it might be held against her mother by her mother’s boss. Starting to confess, and then falling silent, is the worst thing to do vis-à-vis the High Inquisitor; Marietta’s already said enough to condemn herself by implication. Shutting up now invites her being punished with the rest of the group.
Yet Marietta remains obstinately silent.
As though she fears Hermione’s revenge more than anything the Hogwarts High Inquisitor might do to her, or the Minister of Magic might do.to her mother.
Which shows good Ravenclaw sense, if she’s not sure Hermione’s curse wouldn’t turn lethal. Marietta knows the worst Umbridge and Fudge will do. Being expelled, being fired, is far better than being killed.
Marietta refuses to speak, or even to gesture to confirm information already volunteered to Umbridge, until Kingsley does…. something to Marietta.
*
Which is the second point that no one has brought up. What, exactly, did Kingsley do?
We’ve all been assuming that Kingsley Obliviated Marietta. Well, why wouldn’t we? After all, Dumbledore told us that’s what had happened!
Or more precisely, he asked Minerva to thank Kingsley for a well-cast Memory Charm.
And The Twinkly One, after all, never lies. Even by indirection.
Memory charms are legal and considered relatively minor in the WW, despite their sometimes horrific consequences.
The Imperius is illegal. Except to Aurors in time of war. And even if the Minister considers Dumbledore’s sedition to come close to requiring that level of response, Marietta’s a witness for the Ministry’s side.
But consider the actual evidence.
Consider first Marietta’s reaction to Umbridge’s physical attack:
Marietta was standing exactly where Umbridge had released her. She seemed neither perturbed by Umbridge’s sudden attack, nor relieved by her release. She was still clutching her robe up to her oddly blank eyes, staring straight ahead of her.
Obliviated people can be dazed and disoriented afterwards (Mr. Roberts’ “Merry Christmas!”-obviously he was not oriented as to time and occasion). However, Marietta isn’t disoriented here. She’s deprived of volition.
Well, gee, there is a canon spell that removes the victim’s volition. And we know (c.f. Stan among the DE’s pursuing the 7 Potters) that if the victim has not been specifically instructed to act normally, s/he looks “blank.”
Of course, so do people in the process of being Confunded look blank while they’re being told what to think (Mundungus receiving Snape’s orders for the 7 Potters scheme). However, this apparently only lasts while the false beliefs are being implanted. Snape suggested to Fudge in PoA that Harry and Hermione had earlier been Confunded by Sirius Black, and “blank” was the opposite of how they were acting. Harry was in-everyone’s-face rude in asserting Sirius’s innocence, while Hermione was earnestly interrupting with her but-I’m-right! corrections-exactly in character for how they would behave if their base personalities and wills were entirely intact but they had been magically compelled to believe Black’s false scenario.
Further, if the instructions given with the Confundus can be imparted NONVERBALLY, what the hell was nonverbal-magic master, the greatest Occlumens of his age, master Legilimens Snape, doing taking the risk of MUTTERING HIS INSTRUCTIONS TO DUNG. IN A BAR.
Whereas, when we saw the Imperius in use by Harry at Gringotts, the victim acted according to the caster’s will without requiring oral instructions.. At least while the victim was under the caster’s direct observation.
Finally, a simple Obliviate could not have created false information for Marietta to confirm. A Confundus could have, but how could Kingsley have known at the moment he first cast it exactly what lies Dumbledore wanted Marietta to disseminate? The only clue Dumbledore had given of the direction he intended the lies to go was, “[All the meetings after the first in the Hogs Head] would be [illegal], if they had continued after the decree came into effect. Do you have any evidence that those meetings continued?”
As Dumbledore spoke, Harry heard a rustle behind him and rather thought Kingsley whispered something.
So Kingsley could have Obliviated or Confunded Marietta to remove all knowledge of meetings between the first and the last, but he would not have known at that point to remove as well her knowledge that Harry was the leader who had organized tonight’s meeting, or have instructed her to nod in confirmation of the false claim that Dumbledore himself had invited her to join the just-now-forming organization.
And how could either spell have overcome her clear terror of Hermione’s unknown retribution if she confirmed anything further to Dolores?
Whereas the Imperius would have automatically. And it could have been cast with a very simple instruction. Deny anything Umbridge asks you that you have not already explicitly confirmed to her. Confirm anything Dumbledore suggests. Volunteer nothing, do nothing else.
And Marietta’s behavior is all explained.
*
The final point that no has raised is the simple and blindingly obvious fact that DA “member” Marietta was with Umbridge, not with the DA, the night of the raid. And that no one in the DA commented on or took alarm at her absence.
Now, we have a couple of meetings described in fair detail, and we know of a number more that were simply sketched. We know that Marietta was there at the Hog’s Head, giving Harry mistrustful looks. We know that Marietta attended the first of the illegal meetings, where she “looked sourly at Harry” and Cho explained, “She doesn’t really want to be here but I made her come with me. Her parents have forbidden her to do anything that might upset Umbridge.”
We know too that she was at the last meeting before Christmas; Cho told her to go on ahead so she could talk to (kiss) Harry.
And we know that she wasn’t there the night of Umbridge’s raid around Easter.
There were a number of other meetings, and we have no precise information as to who attended any of them.
But we know one thing more: that no one in the DA saw fit to remark on Marietta’s absence on the night of Umbridge’s raid. We even see Cho talking to Harry that night, and the subject of her best friend’s inexplicable absence does not come up.
Which makes most sense if it was not inexplicable. If no one expected her to be there. If Marietta had, by then, quietly dropped out of the group. And possibly had urged Cho to do the same. It’s illegal, and you can tell that that Harry is a bit unstable (look at how he reacts to any criticism or even questions, not to mention those funny turns he keeps having). and WE don’t have OWLS coming up. And if you’re still hoping to get Harry to tell you more about how it happened that Cedric died, well, good luck on that.
It is canon that Marietta was absent from the ranks of Dumbledore’s Army on the night of Umbridge’s raid: And that no one was worried by this. At all. No one had a clue there was trouble brewing until Dobby showed up.
There are four choices I can see, and none of them make the DA look particularly bright.
A.
It was unusual for Marietta to miss, and she was simply AWOL, and no one in the DA ever paused to worry whether an unexplained absence might pose a security concern. Which would be extraordinarily stupid of them-if you’re running an illegal underground organization and someone doesn’t show to a meeting, the very first thing you think about is whether they’ve been captured and made to tell. Or deliberately betrayed the group, given that Marietta’s known to have harbored doubts..
But given Veritaserum, WHICH HARRY KNOWS ABOUT, even if Umbridge had just caught a random member en route to the RoR and decided on whim to interrogate hir in full, an AWOL member is a security concern. An extremely serious one. And we’re not talking about someone being three minutes late; it’s ten to nine when the warned-by-Dobby kids pile out of the room, and ten after is when they had adjourned that first meeting in the RoR. Late. One infers, 9 pm was the usual time to adjourn.
B.
It was unusual for Marietta to miss a meeting, and Marietta had given Cho a really, really good excuse for that one night, which Cho had duly relayed to the DA when she arrived. All of which happened off page. Given Jo’s other lapses, plausible enough. JKR’s a bad enough writer that so significant a clue might have passed unmarked. So chalk it all down to Jo’s poor writing.
Except-you’d really think such a scenario would have grossly aggravated Marietta’s offense in Cho’s eyes-it would prove that Marietta’s betrayal was premeditated, and that she was deliberately hanging her best friend out to dry with the rest of the DA, since she didn’t even warn Cho to skip that night’s meeting. Moreover, it would add a personal lie to CHO on top of Marietta’s overall betrayal of the group.
Surely if that had been how it had happened, even loyal Cho (a Ravenclaw, not a Hufflepuff, note: at heart Cho’s an ANALYST) would not be talking about her lovely friend’s “mistake”?
And it still makes Hermione and the rest of them look terminally stupid-if a group member who’s visibly disaffected absents herself unexpectedly, shouldn’t you at least consider the possibly of betrayal and post someone to watch the Marauder’s Map? (That Cho wouldn’t consider a sudden absence suspicious in itself just shows she trusts her friend; that Hermione wouldn’t, was stupid.) (Even Sirius was smart enough to take alarm when good friend Peter wasn’t where he was supposed to be, the night the Potters were murdered.)
C.
Or, of course, it was normal for Marietta to miss the occasional meeting without warning or excuse. And this never raised a red flag among her fellow DA members about Marietta’s level of commitment?
D.
Or it was normal (by now) for Marietta to be absent, because she had left the group. But everyone in the DA assumed that Marietta would not take the further step of turning them in, even though they knew she disapproved of their activities enough to stop participating. (Dolores never said that Marietta claimed to have been invited to the meeting herself, only that a meeting was to be held. Which she could easily have figured out when she saw Cho and Luna missing along with the relevant fifth-years.)
Pick one.
Note that only the last choice doesn’t make Hermione, Cho, and the rest of the DA look like utter fools for not worrying, at least a bit, about Marietta’s failure to show THAT NIGHT. Not that they don’t still look like fools with the last option, but at least they had no especial cause to worry that night just because she was a no-show. The last option makes them more the type of fool schoolkids who think, even if someone’s left the group and totally disapproves of the group’s activities, she wouldn’t RAT on us. Because tattling on someone is the worst crime in the world. To schoolkids.
Not, of course, to functioning adults. Most adults, if they discovered a friend was involved in an illegal group which was sliding over towards actual treasonous activities, would at least contemplate turning in the group if they couldn’t dissuade the friend from participating. If only because if the group seems to sliding toward worse crimes, turning them in NOW might protect the friend from committing crimes worthy of worse punishments.
The worst that will happen to Cho, after all, if she’s caught participating in an organization which the High Inquisitor has not authorized but which has not yet committed any chargeable crimes, is expulsion from Hogwarts.
What’s the penalty for treason, in the WW? Surely Azkaban?
Moreover, where does one draw the line between loyalty to a person and loyalty to the law, to the government, to the common good as one sees it, to a higher law if one believes in such? What if one thinks a specific law or the government is wrong? What if one thinks the law is probably right, but understands that the law-defying friend sincerely thinks the law wrong? What if one thinks the law-defier was wrong, but that supporting hir is a higher good than supporting the government and its laws?
This has been the stuff of tragedies since Antigone at the least!
Unsophisticated schoolkids, of course, tend to cast this conflict in black and white terms: you NEVER rat on a schoolmate. NEVER. No matter what the schoolmate might be involved in….. But in stories written at that level, there’s normally not going to be crimes involved, just pranks and harmless-seeming rule-breaking. No real sedition expressed against the legitimate government one’s mom serves. No Weasley twins putting another student at risk of death or long-term neurological damage to prevent points-taking, no one threatening to kill fellow students with Garroting Gas to score off Umbridge.
No one being really mutilated for disloyalty. By either side.