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Eileen wound her way through the crowds in the Royal George until she found the corner table where Elkins was sitting with her arm around Fourth Man Avery's shaking shoulders, murmering sympathetically into his ear.
Not for the first time, Eileen wondered if she were witnessing an expression of philos or of eros.
"I heard what happened," she said quietly, slipping herself into a seat at the table. "Are you all right there, Aves?"
Avery nodded weakly.
"He's okay." Elkins looked tired. "Cindy didn't actually lay a finger on him. But still. It wasn't very nice of her to go about threatening him now, of all times. You know how edgy he's been lately. Ever since the storm started up. How edgy we've all been." She shook her head. "I just don't understand this, Eileen. Why? Why does Cindy have it in for my Fourth Man theory? Why is she always going after Avery like this? Why?"
"It's envy," said Eileen firmly.
"But did you hear the ludicrous nonsense she came up with this time around? I mean, Dolohov? What the devil does Dolohov have to do with anything? Is Dolohov one of Snape's old friends? Does Dolohov have any connection with the Lestranges? Does Dolohov get a strangely emphasized—yet also peculiarly anonymous—cameo appearance in Book Four?"
"I know, Elkins," sighed Eileen. "I know."
"Does Dolohov have any tie-in to the main thrust of the story at all?"
"I know."
"Does Dolohov even have a reason to exist, other than to establish that Karkaroff wasn't the only Slavic Death Eater? I mean, that's his sole function, as far as I can tell. That, and to give Karkaroff yet another useless name to offer up to Crouch while the author is busy establishing just how venal a fellow Karkaroff himself really is. Dolohov is filler, for God's sake! He only escapes the GARBAGESCOW by the very skin of his teeth! And Cindy thinks that guy's going to turn out to be the Fourth Man? Really, what would be the point?"
"Elkins. I know."
"Antonin Dolohov," repeated Elkins savagely. "Hah! If you ask me, Antonin Dolohov probably died years ago. A shattered wreck. Gibbering and drooling. Sprawled on the floor of his prison cell. In his own waste."
"Elkins, please!" objected Eileen, throwing a concerned glance over to Avery, who had gone as pale as death and looked very much as if he were contemplating being sick.
"I...oh. Oh, hell. I'm sorry, Aves. I really am. But honestly! Dolohov? How could it have been Dolohov? At Karkaroff's hearing, Crouch tells Karkaroff that Dolohov was 'caught shortly after yourself,' and he doesn't say a word about letting Dolohov go. We've already established that Karkaroff had to have been in prison for some time before Crouch offered him release in exchange for information. So it just doesn't make sense, Eileen. How could Dolohov have managed to qualify as someone who 'talked his way out of Azkaban?'"
"I believe that Cindy may have had a double pardon scenario in mind for him."
"A double pardon scenario? And she thinks it implausible that Avery might have managed both to evade indictment right after Voldemort's fall and to get a pardon years after his later conviction?" She shook her head. "She finds that so terribly implausible, and yet she has no problem at all with a...a what? A Double-Pardoned Dolohov?"
"I know, Elkins. I tried to explain that to her myself."
"It's absolutely ridiculous! What's she going to do next? Finger Travers as the Fourth Man? And then she...she got it all wrong, Eileen! She tried to use the process of elimination to narrow down Fourth Man candidates, but she used the wrong starting premise! She eliminated all of the people who are free, rather than all of the people who are in prison. And then she seemingly forgot that Avery himself was in the graveyard! It's his one and only incontrovertble canonical appearance, and she forgot that he was even there?"
"I know, I know."
"It just didn't make a lick of sense! How am I supposed to counter objections that don't even make any sense? It's MC'd Neville and that blasted Egg all over again! She always does this to me! She does it on purpose! I just know it! It's all to upset me! She Humpty-Dumpties her Bangs, she refuses to Concede The Point, she engages in the most grotesque logical fallacies imaginable, and she...says these, these weird random nonsensical things..."
"She's The Cinister One, Elkins. What can you do?"
"She does it just to spite me!" cried Elkins. "I know it! She does it because she knows how much it frustrates me!"
"Forget it, will you? Let me buy you a drink."
"And she goes off-canon, and she does that just to annoy me as well! She said that Pettigrew was the one who put Crouch Sr. under the Imperius Curse, when we all know perfectly well that Voldemort was the one who did that. She's always saying things like that, Eileen. She does it just to bait me. And...and...and...and she...she..."
Elkins took a deep breath, then blurted:
"And she let Derannimer hold her Big Paddle!"
And burst into tears.
"Oh, dear." Eileen fumbled in her pocket for a handkerchief, but Avery offered his first. She leaned back in her seat and sighed. "So word of that finally got back to you, did it?"
"How could she?" wailed Elkins. "Just...just hand it over to her? Just like that? How? How? How COULD she have, Eileen? How COULD she?"
"How could I have what?"
Elkins stiffened in her seat. She looked up at Cindy, then tossed her head imperiously.
"I was just wondering," she said coldly, rising slowly to her feet. "How you could ever have brought yourself to humiliate yourself so badly by raising all of those absolutely pathetic so-called objections to FourthMan!Avery. Really, Cindy! I would have been ashamed to be caught in the Bay uttering such errant nonsense."
"Oh you would, would you?" Cindy growled. "I suppose you can offer some defense against my anti-Fourth Man canons?"
"What canons would those be again?" asked Elkins, shifting her position slightly.
Eileen found herself wondering if Elkins had even the slightest bit of conscious awareness of the way that she had just moved so as to place her own body directly in line between Cindy and the seated Fourth Man Avery.
Then it struck her.
Oh! she thought. Of course!
Storge.
"What anti-Fourth Man canons?" Elkins asked again, tense.
"The fact that Voldemort never praised Avery in the graveyard?" said Cindy. "The fact that Avery begged forgiveness and grovelled so piteously?"
Elkins stared at her. "Those are your anti-Fourth Man canons? Have you been smoking something, Cindy? Those aren't anti-Fourth Man canons. Those are Fourth Man canons! And one of them is also a Redeemable!Avery canon. You're arguing my position here. Didn't Eileen just explain all of this to you?"
"Well, I tried," said Eileen, rolling her eyes. "And to explain the difference between the acquittal and the pardon. She's just being difficult, if you ask me."
"Well, just how gullible is Crouch Sr. supposed to be, anyway?" demanded Cindy. "And why would Crouch Sr. have let Avery off the hook the first time around? He wouldn't have liked that."
"No, he really wouldn't have," agreed Elkins and Eileen.
In perfect unison.
Although in completely different tones of voice.
They each blinked, then eyed the other warily.
"But," they added, after a moment's pause. "He wouldn't have had a choice."
Again in unison. And again in different tones of voice.
There was a long strained silence.
"Go on," muttered Elkins, at length. "You go."
Eileen nodded at her. "The first time," she explained, "Crouch was forced to release Avery because he had nothing on him! Just like Ludo Bagman and the Lestranges."
"Or," suggested Elkins. "Perhaps more like Malfoy, Crabbe, Goyle, Nott, and MacNair. Actually," she said, turning to Eileen. "That's the Fourth Man defense that I prefer, you know."
"It is?"
"Yes. I think that it works better that way. The first time around, he got off on the Imperius defense, just like all of those other DEs did and at the same time: right after Voldemort's fall. He was acquitted on the Imperius Defense along with Malfoy, Nott, Crabbe, Goyle, MacNair, and the Lestranges."
"But the Fourth Man couldn't have been acquitted," said Cindy. "Because Barty Jr. was caught with people who had 'talked their way out of Azkaban.'"
"If Barty Jr. had been acquitted," Elkins countered. "Wouldn't you call that having 'talked his way out of Azkaban?' He pleads with his father not to send him back to the dementors, remember? Even though he's not yet been found guilty. People awaiting trial get held in Azkaban, it seems. It's not just the wizarding prison. It's also the wizarding jail. So acquittal on the Imperius defense definitely counts as 'talking ones way out of Azkaban.'"
"I thought that he probably got out of his first spot of trouble with the law due to lack of evidence," said Eileen. "Like Ludo Bagman. And that it was his later pardon that was based on the Imperius Defense."
"Well, I guess it could be," admitted Elkins. "But I really think that it makes much more sense the other way around. The way that Fudge lumps Avery in with all of those older DEs makes me feel that he—along with the Lestranges—pulled the Imperius Defense right along with all of the others: immediately following after Voldemort's fall. I'm not really sure how effective that defense might have been later on, honestly. I have an idea that it was a lot easier to beg off on Imperius in the immediate aftermath of Voldemort's fall, when everyone was feeling all celebratory and forgiving. And of course, that would have been the incident that Fudge would have wanted to remind his listeners of—the 13-year-past acquittal, rather than the more recent pardon—because that one that happened on Crouch's watch, not on his own."
"You still haven't explained to me why you think that Crouch permitted those mass acquittals," Eileen reminded her. "If he'd supposedly usurped so much of the Minister's power?"
"Yeah, I know. I'm in the middle of that one. Give me another day or two on it, okay? I'm having a busy week. But getting back to the subject at hand, my feeling here is that the Fourth Man really didn't need the Imperius Defense to get off the hook for the Longbottom Incident. By the time of the canon, it seems to have become the common wisdom that Barty Jr. might really have been innocent. Sirius thinks so, and it isn't a notion he came by in Azkaban. He tells Harry: 'This is mostly stuff I've found out since I got out.' Sirius has been picking up his information from current opinion, I'm guessing. And maybe also from reading old newspapers. So why is it, do you think, that the current day 'Common Wisdom' holds so strongly to the idea that Barty Jr. really might have been innocent after all? The wizarding world doesn't generally seem inclined to question its own judicial system very much, does it? Fudge has poor Hagrid dragged off for some sort of vague protective custody in CoS, and nobody seems even to think to question it. Yet they're all questioning Barty's guilt. Why? Why, Cindy?"
"Well..."
"The current 'Common Wisdom' holds that Barty Jr. was likely innocent," Elkins told her firmly. "Because at least one of Barty Jr's co-defendents was later determined to be innocent. Exonerated of all charges. Pardoned. Released from prison. Fourth Man. Fourth Man Avery."
Cindy shook her head. "No, see, that's a real problem," she said. "It doesn't add up. This has always bothered me about Avery as Fourth Man. I mean, if he talked his way out of Azkaban once claiming he was under the Imperius Curse and then attacked the Longbottoms, how on earth can he claim he acted under Imperius a second time?"
"He didn't!" Elkins repeated, with more than a touch of exasperation. "He didn't claim Imperius a second time! He didn't need to! There was no real evidence against the Pensieve Four, remember? That's why both Sirius and Dumbledore thought it possible that Barty Jr. have been innocent. The trial of the Pensieve Four was a kangaroo court. There was no evidence to speak of against those defendents. Fourth Man wasn't exonerated for the torture of the Longbottoms because he was believed to have been acting under the Imperius Curse. He was exonerated because he was believed not to have acted at all. He was exonerated on the grounds of having been completely innocent of the charges against him. There had probably never been any real evidence against him in the first place, other than his relationship with the Lestranges."
"So you're saying that Avery wormed his way out of trouble not just once but twice in the space of a few months?" demanded Cindy.
"A few months?" Elkins stared at her. "Where on earth are you getting 'a few months' from? For all I know, he could have been in prison for five years before he was pardoned. It certainly wasn't a matter of a 'few months,' because that wouldn't fit in with what we know of the timeline. It had to have been well over a year between these two events at the very least. Crouch Jr. was in prison for a year before he supposedly died, and Crouch Sr. didn't get shunted out of office until some time after that. We don't really need to embark on yet another 'Fall of Voldemort Timeline' thread, do we? Or do we? Actually," Elkins added thoughtfully. "I'd be game for that. Maybe tomorrow..."
She shook her head quickly.
"Anyway," she continued. "Fourth Man only 'wormed his way out of trouble' once by using the Imperius defense. He was then arrested for the assault on the Longbottoms, convicted, and sent to prison on the basis of pretty much nothing at all. Some years later, after Crouch Sr. had fallen from power and been replaced, and after the mood of the public had turned, and after people had started to realize at last just how shoddy Crouch Sr's judicial methods had been..."
"Hold on," objected Eileen.
"...that's when the Longbottom case was reexamined, and he was pardoned. Probably by Fudge, but possibly by whomever succeeded Crouch as the head of the DMLE. He wasn't pardoned on the basis of the Imperius defense. He was pardoned on the basis of being innocent."
"Which he actually wasn't," said Eileen. "'Shoddy judicial methods,' my foot!"
"Yeah, well, Sirius Black really was innocent," Elkins snapped back at her. "Shoddy judicial methods is what I said, and shoddy judicial methods is what I meant. So the Pensieve Four were really guilty. Big deal. Even a stopped clock is right twice a day."
"If you two are finished bickering over that tiresome Crouch fellow," interrupted Cindy irritably. "Perhaps you can tell me this. Why didn't the Lestranges get out?"
"Because," Elkins sighed. "They confessed. More fools they."
"Why would the Lestranges have confessed, but not Avery?"
"Oh, who knows? Maybe the Lestranges were a lot more cynical and fatalistic. They figured that they were doomed to life imprisonment no matter what they said or did, so they might as well be Good Terrorists and claim responsibility for the attack, while Fourth Man was less resigned and held out in hopes of an acquittal. Or maybe Eileen's theory holds, and the Aurors used a UC to force a confession out of the Lestranges, but never bothered to do the same with Avery because they no longer needed to: the Lestranges had already implicated him as part of their confession, and that was all they felt they needed. Or maybe the Lestranges were loony fanatics and the Fourth Man wasn't. Who can say? It's all speculation, really. There could be any number of reasons why some of the defendents in that case might have confessed, while others continued to insist upon their innocence. Just look at young Barty, for example. He never confessed."
Eileen muttered something under her breath about spoiled brats and favoritism.
"Well, okay," said Cindy. "What do you make of this, though? The Fourth Man theory cannot be true, because Avery was not a Cruciatus specialist!"
There was a very long silence.
"Come again?" asked Elkins, at length.
"Avery was not a Cruciatus specialist. You see, the DEs were all divided into specialties, and..."
"They are? Says who?"
"Well, Mulciber was an Imperius specialist, wasn't he? That implies that they specialized. And so far in the canon, we always only hear about DEs using one particular Unforgivable Curse. Dolohov and Karkaroff were torturers, so they must have been Cruciatus guys. Wormtail used the AK on Cedric Diggory. He blew up those Muggles. Oh, yeah, Wormtail is a Killing Machine — an Avada Kedavra specialist if I ever saw...what? What are you laughing about?"
"Nothing," snickered Elkins. "Nothing. I'm just...no. No, sorry. Sorry. Here." She forced herself back under control. "Here, Cindy. A canon for you."
Cindy blinked. "A canon? Are you serious? For my 'the DEs all specialized' theory? The one you find so very risible?"
"Yeah, sure. Why not? Here it is: Krum was Karkaroff's student, and we know that Krum knew how to use the Cruciatus. He used it on Cedric in the maze, during the Third Task, while under the influence of Barty Jr's Imperius Curse. I don't think that the Imperius Curse can enable people to cast difficult and powerful spells that they haven't already learned, do you? So there you go. More evidence for Karkaroff as a Cruciatus Specialist."
"Oh." Cindy blinked again. "Thank you."
"You're very welcome. Never let it be said that Elkins is ungenerous with her canons. So you were saying?"
"I was saying that the DEs specialized. The Slavs go in for torture, and Wormtail's a killing machine, and Barty Crouch Jr—"
"Could manage all three of them," said Elkins firmly.
"Only on spiders. Not on people. Anyone can curse a lousy spider, Elkins! But the only curse that we actually see him use on people is the Imperius."
Elkins stared at her.
"You're arguing that Barty Crouch Jr. was an Imperius specialist," she said flatly.
"Yup."
"If that's true, then that has got to be the most pathetic thing about him that I've heard yet. Cindy, Barty Crouch Jr. had all the Imperius resistance of a gnat. Neville Longbottom could probably have kept him under Imperius!"
"So? That just means that he was an inept Imperius Specialist. It doesn't mean that he wasn't one. When do we ever hear about him using any other Unforgivable?"
"Err....the Longbottoms?"
"Besides, Cindy," objected Eileen. "Crouch Jr. KILLED his father!"
"Ah." Cindy smiled. "But we don't know how exactly Crouch Jr. killed his father, do we? He only tells us that he 'killed [his] father."
"You think he hit him over the head with a blunt object a few times?" asked Eileen in disbelief.
"It's possible."
"No," said Elkins suddenly. "It's not. It's not possible."
"No? Why not?"
"Because...because he just wouldn't have done it that way. Not like that. He just wouldn't have!"
"What?" Cindy looked at her in disgust. "Whyever not?"
"Because that would have been crude, Cindy. Brutish."
"Oh. I see." Cindy snorted. "That would have been a crude way for him to murder his poor exhausted remorseful unarmed weakened-by-fighting-the-Imperius-Curse father who had saved him from prison and preserved his life at all costs. I see. It all makes sense now! Because Barty Jr. would never do something so impolite."
"Yeah," agreed Eileen. "Barty Jr. only did things like torturing his father for Voldemort's amusement to prove his loyalty to the age's most evil Dark wizard, which of course is not in the least bit brutish or crass."
"He would never have done it that way," insisted Elkins, looking as if she were about to cry. "Not like...not like that. Not with so little finesse. That would be like...it would be like telling an outright lie, when instead you could twist around the truth! It wasn't the way he did things. It would have been aesthetically displeasing to him."
"Aesthetically displeasing to him?"
"Barty Crouch Jr. did NOT murder his father by braining him with a blunt implement!" yelled Elkins.
"Yeah, right." Cindy snorted. "Eileen?"
"No, she's right," said Eileen stolidly. "Because Barty Crouch Sr. did not die by being bludgeoned in the head with a blunt implement."
"You're daft," said Cindy. "Both of you. But okay, so maybe it wasn't a blunt implement. But—"
"Cindy," Elkins interrupted her. "Even if we are willing to accept this, uh, 'The DEs all specialized in a particular UC' theory of yours as a given..."
"Are you?"
"No, of course not. But even if I were, then explain something to me here, will you? How do you know that Avery was not a Cruciatus specialist?"
Silence.
"Well, come on," said Elkins. "You said that it was a big canon. A grand objection to Fourth Man. 'Avery is not a Cruciatus specialist.' So? Why do you say that? Where's the canon?"
"The canon," said Cindy. "Is that if Avery had really been a Cruciatus specialist, then he wouldn't have screamed so loudly in the graveyard, when Voldemort hit him with that—"
"Uh-huh. And Barty Jr. was an Imperius specialist, right?"
More silence.
"That's rather what I thought," said Elkins coldly. She turned back to Eileen. "I don't know how he died, Eileen, but I just know that it wasn't by being bludgeoned over the head with a blunt object. I'm sure of it. It would be all wrong. It's...it's the way that a thug would do it. It's something that..." She spared a sidelong glare at Cindy. "It's something that only the sort of person who carries around Big Paddles would do."
"Or something that someone who smashes other people's Big Paddles would do?" gritted Cindy.
"Oh, did that nice young Derannimer not smash your Big Paddle, Cindy?" snarled Elkins. "Did she treat it gently? Did she coddle it?"
"Ahem."
They both whirled around to stare at the woman standing rather shyly to one side.
"Allow me to introduce myself" the woman said, pulling a rubber duckie from her bag. "I am Ginger, new to these shores, but wanting to float my tiny theory." She gestured towards the Duckie. "I call him TNT, for Third Nott Theory."
"Nott?" asked Elkins, with interest. "You have a Nott theory?"
"Yes. He has been a pet of mine for some time, and in my lurking moments, I have found your Fourth Man hovercraft to be floating in similar waters. Indeed, I almost abandoned him and requested permission to climb aboard."
"You're always welcome," said Elkins numbly. "But...what's your alternative? You think that Nott could be the Fourth Man? Elkins turned to Cindy. "Now you see, Cindy?" she said. "This is an alternative Fourth Man theory that at least has a bit of promise. At least Nott has a child at Hogwarts. He has some tie-in to the plot. Dolohov, indeed!" She turned back to Ginger and smiled. "I've often thought myself that Nott has some promise as an alternative Fourth Man candidate," she said. "In fact—"
"Oh, no." Ginger shook her head. "Not that Nott. His son. Hence 'Third Nott Theory.' You see?"
"Err..."
"Look," said Ginger reasonably. "Nott in the graveyard was described as 'stooped.' That usually implies elderly, so he would not likely be the Nott in Harry's grade's father."
"So, you're proposing that the Nott in the graveyard is actually the Nott kid's...what? Grandfather? Grandfather Nott? And his son was the Fourth Man?"
Ginger nodded. "The Nott in the graveyard, when his master passed him, he said 'My Lord, I prostrate myself before you...' which made me think he talks like a lawyer..."
"Oh, absolutely!" agreed Elkins cheerfully. "I quite agree. Don't you, Cindy? Go on, Ginger."
"And so TNT was formed," Ginger announced. "One of the four in the Longbottom trial is describes as 'a thickset man who stared blankly up at Crouch'. Suppose this fourth man was the son of the one in the graveyard. His father may have told him to stare blankly, realizing that the trial of the four together was a loss, and hoping to free him later with his flowery words, either begging Imperious, or shock at being accused of such a crime. Crouch Sr. was moved aside into his current department, and the father approached Crouch's successor and won his case. This man would have sat in Azkaban waiting for his release, been of a weak constitution, and died an unremarkable death, thus being neither eulogized as 'dead in the service', mentioned with the Lestranges, or expected to show up."
Elkins nodded slowly. "You know," she said. "I really like this one? I like it a lot. You've managed to produce a 'dead Fourth Man' scenario that still satisfactorily explains why the Fourth Man doesn't get praised in the graveyard. He doesn't get praised because he is disgraced...but he's also dead. That's very nice indeed, and it also explains why elder Nott is so squirrely in the graveyard. I've always loved Nott and Voldemort's little exchange in the graveyard scene, you know. It's my favorite bit of black humour in the entire series. It cracks me up each and every time, it does."
"It does?" Eileen frowned. "Why?"
"You know, I have no idea? It strikes me as hysterically funny, yet I've never quite been able to articulate the reasons why."
"But how can a dead Fourth Man Bang?" asked Cindy.
"What if the fact that Nott is in Harry's grade is not the significant part?" demanded Ginger. "What if what is significant is that this Nott is in Neville's grade?"
There was a short silence.
"Go on," said Elkins.
"Neville was sorted shortly before Nott, and being greeted by his new house, would not have paid any attention until Parvati was sorted, joining him at the Griffindor table. We have oft wondered why Gryffs and Ravens have no classes together. We have also wondered why Nott has been silent."
"So you're proposing that young Nott's narrative function might be for his or her existence to come as a nasty shock for Neville, then?" asked Elkins. "That makes sense. After all, surely Neville knows the names of all of his parents' torturers. Even if we don't know for sure who that Fourth Man was, Neville probably does. And he is an inattentive sort, isn't he? You think that perhaps he's not yet realized that he's at school with the child of one of his parents' victimizers? That maybe he'll learn this in Book Five?"
Ginger nodded.
"You know, this actually works!" Elkins exclaimed. She beamed at Ginger. "Ginger," she said. "Ginger, do you know what you've done here? You've actually succeeded in getting around the big problem with all of the other alternative Fourth Man theories! See, the problem with most non-Avery Fourth Man theories is that they hardly ever have anything to do with Neville. And that makes them all pretty implausible, because if the Fourth Man is ever going to be reintroduced in the canon, then he'll have to relate to Neville in some way. There would be no point, otherwise. It's one of the reasons that I think that Avery fits the bill so well, in fact -- because Avery is an old school friend of Snape's, and Snape and Neville's plotlines are so obviously intertwined. Snape and Neville have unfinished narrative business with each other, just like Neville and his parents' torturers have unfinished business with each other, and just like Snape and his surviving school chums have unfinished business with each other. I firmly believe that those plot threads will be tied together in future canon. The Lestranges will almost certainly be involved in that. The Fourth Man might be, and if so, then it's very tempting to assume that he's going to be Avery, precisely because Avery does share the Lestranges' relationship to Snape. Most of the other Fourth Man candidates people have suggested don't have that advantage.
"But yours does, doesn't it? You've just tied it together by suggesting a relationship between Neville and the yet unknown youngest Nott, rather than tying it in with Snape."
"I am still speculating on the youngest Nott," Ginger admitted. "Innocent bystander keeping a low profile? (Silent Nott, Holy Nott) Perhaps a girl with whom Neville may come into contact in a pre-OWL study course?"
"But what about Ginny/Neville?" objected Eileen suddenly.
"I don't like Ginny/Neville," Elkins said flatly. "I like Ginny, and I like Neville. But together? Oh, that just makes my teeth hurt, that does. But you know, Ginger, I've often wondered about young Nott as well? You see, I really am desperately hoping that somewhere in this series we're going to see a child of a Death Eater who isn't just yet another chip off the old block. Young Nott could fit that bill quite nicely. And it would be even better if young Nott's father turned out to have been one of the Longbottoms' torturers, wouldn't it? Because, I mean, it just doesn't get any more villainous and evil and wicked than that, does it?"
"From your mouth to God's ears," murmured Eileen.
"Oh, Yellow Flag!" objected Cindy. "We haven't even seen this Nott kid in the canon yet. We don't even know if young Nott is a girl or a boy!"
"We hadn't heard of Cho or Cedric either, until PoA," Elkins pointed out. "Yet they both wound up rather important, right? And besides, NiceKidRavenclaw!Nott-New-Friend-Of-Neville does have Bang potential, Cindy. You have to admit it. You know," she concluded. "This is the first non-Avery Fourth Man theory that has ever worked for me? I still think that Avery has a better claim to the position, personally. I'm not prepared to abandon the hovercraft. But I do concede that Dead Fourth Man Third Nott has a lot going for him."
"I have wanted to float my duckie since my arrival," Ginger said. "But I wanted to know if it is seaworthy, and I ask you, if you please, to point out any holes in its rubber."
Cindy snickered.
"Well, I don't see any," said Elkins. "It looks water-tight to me. But I'm sure that someone will think of something. They always do, you know," she sighed. "Even when their objections make no sense. They still always do."
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Elkins
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Posted to HPfGU by Elkins on January 22, 2003 12:41 AM
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