Carrow's poisoning pigeons?

[longstrider.livejournal.com]

Am I the only one disturbed by the number of students feeling ill after having eaten the food in the dining hall?

Susan is the most recent. I haven't tracked the others down yet, but there have been several over an extended period of time.

Go back to early speculation about Carrow's pigeon references for why I'm fingering him in this instance. Short version: Pigeons may equal students and there were references to Tom Lehrer's Poisoning Pigeons in the Park

Comments

[brimtoast.livejournal.com]

Penelope, 10/20: Tuna Noodle Casserole was gross (http://alt-penelope.livejournal.com/1484.html).

Sally Anne, 11/26: However, lunch did not agree with me (http://alt-sally-anne.livejournal.com/7895.html)

I remember at least one more.

[wintercreek]

Megan, 11/16: Does anyone else think the food at lunch today tasted a bit off? - Sally-Anne and Ernie say it tasted fine to them in the comments, so perhaps there's some targeting going on?

[brimtoast.livejournal.com]

Aha. Yes, I think that's the key entry to the theory. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if Penelope's entry and Susan's entry have nothing to do with the actual food. Or Sally Anne's for that matter, but since she's a half-blood and it would make an interesting pattern, it's possible that she really meant it about lunch being off and wasn't using it as an excuse for why she was acting unsettled in the wake of Carrow's use of cruciatus. Or maybe she was sort of using it as an excuse, but it also happened to be partly true?

Anyway, it could still be a coincidence, but it's something to keep an eye on.

[wintercreek]

Megan's particularly interesting because she's a halfblood and her comment on lunch occurred not long after Amycus's emergence on the journals (11/13), which is also when our long alt_fen discussion and the Poisoning Pigeons in the Park reference.

The others are interesting - Penelope's is an outlier, since she doesn't seem to be the sort to be put off her food by acts of cruelty.

Sally-Anne's and Susan's seem straightforward physical responses to mental and emotional discomfort, but one wonders if they are instead the victims of very carefully timed poisoning.

Also: Penelope and Susan are purebloods, I think, while Megan and Sally-Anne are halfbloods. Equal opportunity experimentation?

[brimtoast.livejournal.com]

Well, depending what the experiment is, it could make sense to have a control group, as qwerty mentioned.

On one hand, we only have 2 examples of food disagreeing with halfbloods. But on the other Megan and Sally-Anne are the ONLY two half-blood students with journals, so maybe this is happening to every halfblood at school and we just don't have a large enough sample to realize it.

Penelope doesn't seem like she'd be put off food for emotional reasons, but hers is also the only post where she talks only about a gross taste, and not about feeling ill after eating it. So it's an outlier in that way as well, and likely isn't actually related to the other two.

In fact, the effects were:
Megan: tastes off, and made her "feel funny"
Sally-Anne: made her stomach feel bad, no specific mention of the taste (although she says the chamomile tea later tastes terrible)
Susan: says that her stomach was upset, but we know she actually ran after Hermione, so it's unclear if the stomachache was a cover or an additional reason to leave. No mention of strange taste.
Penelope: says it was gross, clarifies that it was the tinned tuna (and the beige color) that made it particularly bad, no mention of feeling strange afterwards.