A Doll's Head and a Secret

[queenbookwench.livejournal.com]

So, now I'm really curious about how exactly Pansy came upon Marie the doll's head. It could be that it was simply an accident, and that the charm/curse operated in exactly the way Professor Acton described it. However, it's more interesting for plot purposes to assume that it was somehow deliberately placed in Pansy's way. The question is, who would want to do such a thing, who would be able to, and what goal would they be hoping to achieve?

As far as who, it seems to me that it would have be someone who knows Pansy quite well--because not every girl would pick up a doll's head that was lying around, much less take it to bed with her. But Pansy is just the sort of curious, somewhat lonely, eccentric, slightly morbid girl who would.

As to how--it seems like it would have to be someone with ready access to the castle, which implies a student or faculty member. Unless an invisibility cloak, the Marauder's Map (although I think it's been hinted that the twins have it here, as in canon), and/or the passage from the Shrieking Shack were involved. Hmmm...

What do they want to gain from it? It seems to be related to her father in some way, and to things that suggest his view of the world didn't exactly toe the standard LP line. I still wonder if her father's ghost could be involved somehow.

Also, I'm very curious about the nature of Pansy's secret. She says in her sleepwalking that it's a Black secret, which to me suggests something to do with either Sirius or Regulus. It would be especially interesting if it was Regulus. This could be a totally crackpot theory, but...what if he is an Occlumens and his return to the LP's fold isn't what it appears to be? I could see that fitting somehow with what we know of canon!Reg and the horcruxes.

I'm also curious as to how much of Pansy's abject apology is sincere, and how much is put on. The girl is in Slytherin, after all! My guess is that she is sincerely upset by Lucius' disapproval, and believes a good portion of what he told her about deserving to be hit and all, but I also think that another part of her is even more determined to go on observing and questioning, just much more secretly. I think it's very interesting that not too long after the fracas, she left a comment on boot's journal--not an overtly friendly one, but not a hostile one either. On the other hand her (at least expressed) attitude toward Dennis seems to be all one expect of a pureblood in this universe.

Comments

[lapin-agile.livejournal.com]

So, now I'm really curious about how exactly Pansy came upon Marie the doll's head. ...

Also, I'm very curious about the nature of Pansy's secret. ...

I'm also curious as to how much of Pansy's abject apology is sincere.

I join you in all of this wondering. Regarding the first, it is worth adding to the evidence you consider that we've been reminded over the weekend that boys cannot access the girl's dormitory. I suppose we didn't resolve whether the head of house can enter should he need to, but it's hard to imagine that Slughorn is a suspect in planting Marie. So that leaves the possibility that (a) it was left by a former occupant of the room or by the house elves (Pansy mentions that the House Elves aren't perfect cleaners -- there was a spider web they neglected in the Common Room at one point, but stuff left under the beds for years is harder to accept) or (b) by one of the current occupants or (c) by a girl/woman with access to Slytherin or ... (d) is there an opposite to the Summoning spell? (The episode with Harry's broom reminded us of the fact that you needn't be present to steal an object from its resting place, but I don't know a spell that allows you to spirit an object into someplace distant.)

Who would seem to benefit from Pansy's having Marie? and did the same person break Marie? (There's no particular reason to suppose so, unless it was the more distressing, mad influence of the object that was the real goal all along.)

Regarding Pansy's sincerity... we'll have to wait and see. She has so many "voices" that it's hard to tell which is real. Is she back to "normal" when she sounds level-headedly convinced of the beneficence of the LP and resigned about having made so many people mad at her? Or does the fact that she's still sounding pleased about having a secret suggest that even in her "normal" state, Pansy has depths that the LP does not own? (And is the remaining secret something she learned from Marie?)

I'm intrigued by your speculation about Regulus. I agree that it would be an interesting, inspiring thing if we were to see him begin to operate as a double agent (a replacement for Snape's canonical role?). I wonder if BD is counting Regulus among his hypothesized third force of operatives aligned with Dumbledore?

That's enough thoughts for early morning... :)

[queenbookwench.livejournal.com]

If I remember correctly, Sirius is able to get into Harry's dorm in PoA, but then that was a boy's dorm

I like the idea of a reversal of the Summoning spell--I don't remember anything like that in canon, but it doesn't seem inherently implausible.

[lapin-agile.livejournal.com]

We could at least add the possibility of a female animagus to the list of ways Marie might have been planted for Pansy (if that's the right scenario). But. animagus forms tend to lack pockets and opposable thumbs, so this possibility takes a fair amount of imagination to explain. (Wouldn't put it at the top of my guess list.)

While we're on the subject, I suppose we're all wondering if the twins' new pet is just a dog. Certainly, it gave me pause to think of the implications of their having invited it into the castle and into Gryffindor.

[black-dog.livejournal.com]

While we're considering animagus candidates, I wouldn't overlook Lupin's young female raven with a broken wing. (http://alt-lupin.livejournal.com/2115.html) It turns up on October 4, the same day Quirrel is spotted (another member of DD's reconnaissance team?). It's too injured to do anything right away, though it's expected to heal quickly. Is presumably caged while Lupin is away/injured from around the 8th to the 12th. And the dolls' head first turns up on the 14th. We have a raven, notorious for hoarding/carrying off objects; a female -- the gender is noted a couple of times. Not sure what to make of the "immature" part -- maybe one of the Order's foundlings?

[lapin-agile.livejournal.com]

I like that idea -- the dates, the mentions of its gender, the nature of ravens, all contribute strongly to making this an attractive theory.

[brimtoast.livejournal.com]

Here are a few of the thoughts I'm having about Pansy and Marie, in light of recent information:

-She started saying all the pro-Muggle stuff before Marie was broken. Even though she blames it on the curse, it's really the good-dream spell of Marie that seems to have originally been causing these thoughts in her. I don't know whether that's relevant.

-She said Marie "talked" to her, and told her things like that she was her only friend, and to ask Lucius about Machiavelli. Is that just part of the dream spell? Like induced daydreams? It sounds more like an additional enchantment.

-Did the *content* of Marie's influence come from Marie, or was it all from Pansy's own thoughts and memories that Marie brought forth? If Marie had been owned by a different Slytherin, would they have been influenced in some of the same ways, or would it have been entirely different?

I am interested in her Black secret as well. She seems to think it's a bad thing ("don't leave me. even if I have a Black secret"). But then in her next post she says she has a wonderful secret. Is that the same secret, or a different one?

And here's an old loose thread from Pansy. Remember when Harry gave her his old broom (http://alt-pansy.livejournal.com/1417.html?nc=10) and when she asked what he wanted in return he had to tell her in the common room because he didn't want to say it in the journals? What was that about? Could it be related to any of the other storylines happening now?

[queenbookwench.livejournal.com]

I tend to think that Pansy is to some extent using Marie as a smokescreen for her own real thoughts--if everybody blames the whole episode on an charm/curse, they'll be less likely to expect her to do unconventional things in the future.

I tend to thing that the Black secret and the wonderful secret are the same thing--to her it is wonderful, but she fears that others would find it terrible if they knew.

*I'm so glad Alternity is here to distract me from election results*

[brimtoast.livejournal.com]

I used to think Marie was entirely a way for Pansy to process her own thoughts without feeling threatened by them. Assign them to the doll instead of her, and therefore be able to examine them without feeling disloyal or whatever. But in the last few comment where she talked about Marie communicating with her, it started to sound much more literal than I had thought. Especially when Marie said that nobody else loved Pansy except her.

I do agree that Pansy is using Marie's curse as an excuse for her previous pro-Muggle ideas in order to take the heat off of herself, rather than because she no longer believes those ideas.

[qwerty88.livejournal.com]

And besides, she has just offered Boot her dad's jumper now that she has his chess set.

http://alt-pansy.livejournal.com/6663.html and
http://alt-terry.livejournal.com/7703.html?thread=41751#t41751

Which continues to argue in favour of having pro-Muggle leanings.

[alt-player.livejournal.com]

The girl is in Slytherin, after all!

She sure is.

-Pansy's player

[queenbookwench.livejournal.com]

So am I at least somewhat on track here?

[alt-player.livejournal.com]

Somewhat.

[black-dog.livejournal.com]

I'm trying to think through Pansy and the Doll as a sort of mirror image of Ginny and the Diary. If the planted diary in CoS was intended to corrupt Ginny and advance the DE agenda, maybe the planted doll's head was intended to reinforce Pansy's critical and rebellious spirit, in support of the anti-LP agenda. And then things went awry when the head got damaged.

It's interesting that Pansy turns to the head just a little bit after her greatest period of sadness -- her posts about homesickness and her mother's drinking at the beginning of October. There's a parallel here with canon!Ginny's vulnerability to the Diary. The doll appears on the 14th, and suddenly Pansy seems more at peace at Hogwarts, more cheerful than before, though she's already telling people that the doll talks to her. On the same thread (http://alt-pansy.livejournal.com/2171.html), she has an affectionate conversation with Lucius about feeling better-adjusted.

I gave up on finding the exact posts where the doll went missing, and then when Pansy found it again, damaged. Maybe someone else remembers exactly when this happened? But by the 21st, Marie is apparently "uptight," (http://alt-pansy.livejournal.com/2439.html) and saying rude things about the jinx that Harry put on Neville; and by the 28th, Pansy is going off the deep end with her questions about Muggleborns, and getting into trouble with Lucius.

I definitely agree that later on, Pansy seems to take advantage of her "cure" to dissociate herself from her earlier remarks about Muggles. Very prudent and Slytherin of her! But I wonder how sharp the distinction is, between Pansy's own true thoughts, the mild enhancement of those thoughts by the intact doll's head, and the later extreme behavior under the influence of the damaged dolls' head.

[lapin-agile.livejournal.com]

Marie goes missing the evening of the 28th (at the end of Pansy's 1:05 am post on the morning of the 29th, she says she can't find Marie (http://alt-pansy.livejournal.com/2990.html)). Pansy finds her broken mid-day on the 29th (http://alt-pansy.livejournal.com/3088.html).

[black-dog.livejournal.com]

Hmmm. OK that's why I didn't find it -- didn't realize it was so late. So we have to attribute Pansy's "extreme" remarks to Lucius, and not just the more innocuous ones, to the original doll. The broken doll then gives her a near-breakdown, with her bad dreams and sleepwalking. So if you buy the idea that the "original" doll was intended to reinforce her critical spirit, it seems like it was willing to push her pretty far, even at the risk of her own reputation/safety. Which maybe makes it a bit more sinister than I thought.

[lapin-agile.livejournal.com]

Go, BD, go!

Keep working this thought. It seems promising. (And I've got to slip back to grading essays, but hope you've got it figured out when I stop back in later.)

;)

[alt-player.livejournal.com]

http://alt-lucius.livejournal.com/6918.html

[black-dog.livejournal.com]

In that post, Lucius' use of the word "certifying" kind of stands out for me, as though it were very important to publicly validate Acton's official version of the doll's dream-spell effect. Lucius has seemed unusually on the defensive, personally, throughout the whole doll business. Is he really worried that Pansy's insolence makes Bella & Co. think badly of him? (That's a rhetorical question -- I don't expect a player to answer!) But he also seems truly fond of Pansy, and I also give him credit for protectiveness on Pansy's behalf when she began to say dangerous things.

I found it interesting, and tried to work it into the previous comment, that Lucius is familiar enough with "Marie" to casually mention her here (http://alt-lucius.livejournal.com/6204.html?thread=39740#t39740), in a friendly chat with Pansy, even though Pansy hadn't explicitly brought the doll up in that conversation. I wondered for a while if Lucius were behind planting the doll, in an originally well-intentioned way, but I couldn't quite make it feel like it fit.