Ink and Stink: A Halloween Post-mortem

[zorb]

Whew! That was fun. I thought I'd start a new discussion post now that all the facts are available and the drama is done.

Notable events:
- Harry accidentally spilled indelible ink on the book Hermione copied for the LP, the Pretiosissimum Donum Dei, thus sending her off in tears. :-(
- Teddy showed off his Dark Mark (inked by Draco) to the Lord Protector, who was pleased to see a new generation of minions coming to life, as was Bellatrix.
- TROOOOOOOOOOOLLLLLL in the castle! MacNair was the rumored source, most likely by virtue of his announcing it. Sucks to be the messenger. (ETA: The troll belonged to him, so I guess that's more reason.)
- Even before the panic, boot realized Hermione was missing and told Neville, who also knew from Lavender that Hermione had gone off to cry. Harry put the pieces together and ran off after her with Ron, Neville, and a reluctant Draco.
- The battle with the troll seems to have played out much like it did in canon, with two extra people. Harry still ended up upended, prompting Neville to charge the troll (oh, Neville!). Ron wingardium leviosa'd the troll's club above its head, where it dropped for the KO, with a brief stop on Neville. Draco pulled Neville out of the way.
- Pansy is quoting things.

And finally, the LP left Harry a most devoted gift - welcome, Dennis Creevey! (I love him already.)

Thoughts? Theories?

Comments

[alt-player.livejournal.com]

Look at the *time* Pansy posted about her father singing to her.

--Pansy's player

[longstrider.livejournal.com]

Note for those too lazy to go look, the daddy singing post is 3:01 AM... something weird is going on (as if we couldn't tell)

[alt-player.livejournal.com]

Mighty late for a little girl to be awake and posting, isn't it?

[lapin-agile.livejournal.com]

The time stamps are so tricky to take as evidence in this game (especially as the different time zones of various players influences the time stamp that I see). That said, I do take notice of chronology of posts and it was clear that Pansy posted that very late. She and Sally-Anne seem to be night owls, don't they?

But. What, dear player, are you suggesting? That she was sleep-walking and sleep-writing?

[alt-player.livejournal.com]

Even for a night owl, that's awfully late, don't you think?

[lapin-agile.livejournal.com]

Certainly. But ... what does that signal? It's a time when everyone else was finally in bed and she could be alone with her thoughts. You are hinting there's more to this but I'm not sure what. Ghosts? Firetalk with a daddy who is not dead but in a far-away timezone? You've got me grasping at straws!

[alt-player.livejournal.com]

Pansy keeps me guessing too. She really keeps me on my toes and surprises me all the time.

[brimtoast.livejournal.com]

Or... maybe a Pensieve with memories of her father's? Or a diary of his that she is reading (maybe some sort of horcrux-diary, although that would radically change my thinking about his character)?

[brimtoast.livejournal.com]

Did she... wake up from a dream and write down what had happened in her dream?

She says "Who is Macheath" which sort of indicates that maybe she's getting these ideas without actually hearing the songs and making the comparisons herself. As if someone else is giving her hints about her father and about Lucius, but doing it in code?

Is any of this on the right track at all?

[alt-player.livejournal.com]

Yes.

[lapin-agile.livejournal.com]

Okay. So if she's getting whispers in her dreams from beyond the grave(?), perhaps we have a Hamlet-style hint from a father that he's been murdered. Lucius as MacHeath, Mack the Knife, suggests that he is a murderer for personal advantage.

It would certainly suit my sense of Lucius that he might have murdered her father and then inserted himself into Pansy's life as her god-father and "protector". A shark, indeed.

[brimtoast.livejournal.com]

There is no canon precedent for contact from beyond the grave. In fact, at the end of book 5 they specifically go into that you can either become a ghost or "pass on" and that if you choose the latter option, there's no way to make contact. A ghost or portrait of her father could also be conveying things to her, but I think the yes meant that this was related to a dream, so I'll leave aside those ideas for now. If it's her father communicating to her, then I'm pretty sure that means he's alive.

There *is* precedent for communication through dreams. The connection between Harry and Voldemort in book 5 is the only time I can think that it happened, though. And that may be because of the Harry-is-a-horcrux thing. But we know at least some sort of mind-to-mind contact is possible through magic, or else there would be no need for Snape to know Occlumency.

So if a living person were communicating to Pansy through her dreams, possibly doing it by sending dreams of her father... who would it be? Would it need to be someone in close proximity to her? It would have to be somebody familiar with Muggle music, and someone know knows Lucius and her father well.

[alt-player.livejournal.com]

Or maybe it's just a random dream dredged up by a hazy memory of her father.

Stay tuned!

[brimtoast.livejournal.com]

Heh. Occam's razor says yes!

Nevertheless, you know, sometimes it's useful to dream up a million crazy theories, so that it will be easier to recognize if one of them starts coming true. :)

[lapin-agile.livejournal.com]

All true.

Maybe it was just a dream that was processing the stuff of the day. After all, she was told earlier that day that she doesn't know Lucius as well as she thinks (by Sirius, who had just called Lucius a murderer -- of Muggles). The particular pieces of music may be things half-remembered from her father's collection (he must have had eclectic musical taste).

Why does a shark have so many teeth?
I can't help thinking the answer is "The better to eat you with, my dear."

Edited to correct the quote and to note that the player posted while I worked on this reply. Interesting.

[brimtoast.livejournal.com]

Good points. I agree that communicating-through-dreams stuff seemed to be sort of heading towards a dead end, since I can't think of anybody who would both want and be able to do that. And I like your connection to Sirius having called Lucius a murderer.

Also, your post fits perfectly with what alt-player just said. So... mystery solved, I think?