Further Carrow Activity (Speculation)

[wintercreek]

Hermione posted that Amycus has been taking a creepy interest in her and she's now, according to Dennis, absent without amulet.

We also know from Hermione's post that Amycus (or someone/thing else) drew pictures of a sleeping Terry on the wall in reddish brown ink. Hermione doesn't want to think too closely about what that ink might be; I'll go out on a limb and guess that it's blood. alt_player tells us that "The pictures play into it because of the ink used," so if it's not blood it's something else of significance.

Assuming it's blood, whose blood is it? Pigeon blood? Or is it Terry's? Amycus's most recent post tells us that Terry's "been really lethargic and pale lately." It also tells us that the new clothes come from Alecto, who recently had a dream in which she was on "her knees on a hill in a storm. hands covered with blood."

Amycus also made a reference yesterday to 731 which looks to be a reference to human experimentation.

So, here I go with crackpot theory #1 (more to follow in comments, surely):
We know from alt_lucius that research on the process of Magical Tranference is underway:

Even now, specialists in the Department of Mysteries are working to discover how it is that Muggles are able to steal magic from its rightful heirs and implant it into the capabilities of their issue. It is essential work, to discover the linkage between Mudbloods and Squibs, and to determine how that transfer is accomplished.

We also know, again from Lucius, that Professor (Alecto) Carrow teaches Muggle Studies and is familiar with the history of torture.

And we know, from all over the place, that Professor (Amycus) Carrow is the Transfiguration teacher. Transfiguration, we may recall from canon, involves the changing of one thing in to another thing. At its advanced levels, it can involve Animagery. One or both Carrows (probably Amycus) recently changed Terry in to a dog.

Putting it all together, the crackpot theory for which you've presumably been waiting is that the Carrows are conducting their own research on Magical Transference, possibly in an unauthorized fashion, using Terry and (probably) now Hermione as subjects. One wonders if the creepy blood-pictures of Terry and his recent lethargy are the result of attempting to transfer magic out of a Muggleborn wizard. Oh dear.

ETA: Also, the music on Amycus's most recent post is "Blue as the Turquoise Night of Neyshabur." A little Googling reveals this to be part of Yo-Yo Ma's Silk Road music project for which "The Iranian-born Kayhan Kalhor achieved the ultimate synthesis in his "Blue as the Turquoise Night of Neyshabur"; this was a written-out work that surged with improvisatory energy, erasing differences between Western and Eastern styles." One review says

It is a work in a Persian nocturne form called the chahargah, a melodic formula that belongs to the night -- specifically, to the "fourth time of the day," that between deep night and the beginning of dawn. Even so, it contains a constantly rising level of rhythmic involvement and excitement, much similar in shape and means to an Indian raga performance. It has the mood of a mysterious, scented evening in a Turkic, Arabic, or Persian setting.

I add some Wikipedia work which indicates that Neyshabur was the gateway between Anatolia and the Mediterranean and China. So Amycus's music would seem to suggest themes of gateways, transitions, blurring of lines, liminal spaces ... and rising excitement and improvisatory energy.

And just to go further afield, Neyshabur was the birth place of Omar Khayyam, who is also buried a few miles outside the town. Khayyam's poetry, for which he is most famous, includes the line "Shall God His secret to a maggot tell?" (In this translation.) Maggots again!

Excerpt:

Allah, perchance, the secret word might spell;
If Allah be, He keeps His secret well;
 What He hath hidden, who shall hope to find?
Shall God His secret to a maggot tell?

...

The Koran! well, come put me to the test—
Lovely old book in hideous error drest—
 Believe me, I can quote the Koran too,
The unbeliever knows his Koran best.
 
And do you think that unto such as you,
A maggot-minded, starved, fanatic crew,
 God gave the secret, and denied it me?—
Well, well, what matters it! believe that too

Comments

[alt-player.livejournal.com]

Look at the music he's listening to.

[wintercreek]

I was just researching that! :) I'll be posting an additional crackpot interpretation in a moment, oh kind and hinting player.

[wintercreek]

Also, you are justifying my instinct to be hyperattentive to detail in looking at Amycus's posts. I hope you don't turn me paranoid!

[wintercreek]

Warmer? Colder? (Final comment spam, I promise.)

[lapin-agile.livejournal.com]

Hermione's posted (on Dennis's thread) (http://alt-dennis.livejournal.com/1316.html?thread=8996#t8996): she's turned up and claims she just forgot the amulet. Either she's telling the truth or she's been told not to breathe a word of what's been done to her or she doesn't know/remember that anything's been done to her. If it's the first of those, I'd say the players are playing us!

[lapin-agile.livejournal.com]

Well, my! The maggot connection is interesting! That was a good piece of detective work.

[wintercreek]

I've no idea if that's what alt_player was hinting at, but it certainly is curious, isn't it? Do you suppose we need a "Maggots again!" tag for alt_fen?

Wikipedia claims that the quoted passage indicates Khayyam's "intrinsic conclusions describing those who claim to receive God's word as maggot-minded fanatics." I'm having trouble teasing out what the implications of this might be with regard to Muggles and Muggleborns - that they are deluded by religion? That God (or some higher power) bestows magic and Muggleborns could not have rightfully come by it?

[brimtoast.livejournal.com]

I want to marry your crackpot theory. Transferring the magic out of Muggleborns is the PERFECT thing for the Carrows to be working on.

I'm pretty sure it's not possible for them to actually succeed, but they could definitely do a lot of harm while trying.

[wintercreek]

they could definitely do a lot of harm while trying

Oh my goodness, yes. Especially if this is the grown-up version of the earlier blood color investigation. All this connecting of magic with literal blood!