Fans of Alternity

Remember Umbridge's PM to Sinistra back in January, about her relationship with Raz? "A wizard’s public face and his private face can be so very different. I know you’ve not the greatest experience out in the world. If by any chance he is pressuring you into the slightest thing you do not wish to do, I am sure you know I would be glad to help any way I can."

I wondered then, especially in light of her previous poking at Siz about her "keeping company with him for some time now and he doesn’t seem inclined to take the next step", if her perception of others' relationships is framed by something unfortunate in her past, specifically some kind of "who wants to buy the cow when he's already got the milk" attitude (so to speak).

And now it's coming up again in her comment to Lavender: "Now, it is a fact that men - young and not so young - can forget themselves and lead innocent and untainted women astray."

Anyone else wondering what dear Headmistress Umbridge might have in her past? What teensy moments might be causing her to be hyper-vigilant about other women's sexual conduct?


Also, I hardly think this is intentional, but Bellatrix's dig at Umbridge about not being a useful tool of the LP, "If one has gone to rust, best to leave it on the shelf, hmm?" brings to mind the use of the Love Shack lyric "Tin roof, rusted" as a euphemism for pregnancy. It's a little fun to speculate what Bellatrix might know about Umbridge's past, especially given her renown at legilimency.

Okay, bear with me here because I just moved across the country and so I have not researched this post properly. But. I want to talk about the end of the term in-game and how it compares to the end of HPSS. (We may have listened to the audiobook of HPSS in the car. *g*)

First off, Ron's still involved in the chess match even though it's Harry, Draco and Hermione down there. Interesting that it's Draco who sacrifices himself as Ron did in the book - this sets Draco up as the heart, the role that Ron arguably fills in the original heart-mind-hand reading of the trio. (They could also be read as body-mind-soul - in both cases, Hermione's the mind. More on this immediately!)

Second, Hermione's able to use Draco's wand to defend Harry because "their turn of minds are similar enough that his wand worked perfectly well in her hand". Now Draco's being paralleled with canon-Hermione as the mind. Fanonically Draco is very intelligent; one AU even had him sorted into Ravenclaw, to his father's displeasure. Draco seems to be standing outside the canon trio rather than slotting into one of their roles - he's borrowing from them and creating his own element.

Third, in canon Harry makes it to the final confrontation on his own and is protected by his mother's love and sacrifice. In-game, it's Hermione's actions that protect Harry. I am only a sometime-H/Hr 'shipper and this is not an argument for romantic love between eleven-year-olds, but it does seem that Hermione acted out of her affection for Harry, saving him at great risk to herself. Hermione may be here paralleled with Lily-and-James, in that she both cares for Harry, placing herself in harm's way as Lily did, and actively fights for him as James did.

Finally, it's Hermione's parents that end up making the sacrifice. Just as we know that Harry's parents canonically died for him, McG tells Hermione that she "needed to remember that my parents were strong and they loved me and they would rather them than me." And although they are, as Hermione says, not dead. Just werewolfed it comes to something very much the same in this universe. In-game-Hermione and canon-Harry are connected here; in-game-Hermione and in-game-Harry are connected here as well, possibly, if Harry knows that his parents died protecting him before he was "adopted" by the LP.

Also, Percy telling off Sally-Anne strikes me as similar to McG's telling off of the trio in canon as they try to contact Dumbledore. And yet it's quite different in that Sally-Anne is seeking help during the climactic scenes rather than before and is not directly involved. That Percy's a prefect and not a professor seems to be a good in-game translation of the increased visibility and power of prefects, who did not seem as prominent in canon.

What do you all think? Are these specious parallels? Or ones worth following up on? How do you think the roles of the in-game characters shook out relative to canon?

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.

( Now with rampant music-related speculation! )