Hermoine Granger recognizes the true face of Mr-Hat-and-Cloak. This should rule out proxy agents or Sirius Black.
I don’t think Sirius Black can be ruled out. It’s quite possible that Hermione has seen pictures of famous past criminals, including Sirius and Bellatrix. Also her sudden terror at recognizing him seems way bigger than if it had been someone like Severus or Quirrel, so this recognition made me update upwards the probability of him being Sirius Black, not downwards.
Yes. Also, “she saw the face beneath, and recognition sent a jolt of terrified adrenaline bursting through her” - ‘recognition’ doesn’t read to me like the person she saw was a personal acquaintance of hers.
Grindelwald?
He’s been mentioned so many times, and his connection to Dumbledore explored in such detail, that it’d be surprising if he didn’t play a role in the story. If you grant that, then his motivation for returning was aggressively foreshadowed by Chapter 42 (“Courage”). He’d be a strong candidate for opposing and manipulating Dumbledore as Hat & Cloak is doing.
But not much in Hat & Cloak’s appearances points to Grindelwald specifically. The sibilance of his speech and the ambiguity around his gender might be nods toward stereotypically gay characteristics. And might not be. It’ll be clearer once Eliezer’s told us more of what Grindelwald was like as a person.
the “jolt of terrified adrenaline bursting through her” doesn’t necessarily fit with all the possibilities.
I dunno about that. Suppose H&C is someone Hermione was previously disposed to like and trust; then finding that s/he had been behaving like that would be quite a shock. On the other hand, anyone whose past behaviour rendered H&C’s actions not-shocking is probably someone she’d be unhappy finding herself face to face with even in the best circumstances.
(FWIW, I too read “recognition” as probably indicating someone she already knew.)
We didn’t know about this restriction back then. But yeah, that restriction effectively eliminates the possibility of a non-Professor like Sirius being Hat & Cloak.
Yeah. Which, as the example of Skeeter teaches us, means that we could look for a weaker link in the chain: the professors themselves. Imperius/Obliviation strategies have been discussed in the past, but Polyjuice Potion hasn’t. Would that work? Dunno. Moody fooled the wards in canon, but that was probably because the fake was the only one to ever get keyed in as a Professor in the first place. Would Polyjuice let Flitwick or one of the others be replaced?
So Snape heard the prophecy from...someone with a Slavic or Germanic accent. The only candidates from canon that I can think of are Grindelwald, Karkaroff (who doesn’t have a strong accent, at least not in the movies), and Krum (who may not have even been born yet.) Could Snape have visited Grindelwald in Nurmengard at some point?
Hat & Cloak seems like Quirrell to me. Who else stood up for Hermione, even a little bit, at the Head Table? Though he must have a lot of faith that multiple Obliviations don’t cause permanent damage. Hermione is way too potentially useful, both in her own right and as a lever on Harry.
Chapter 46 has McGonnagal think of Trelawny as the origin of the prophecy, and she seems to remember it in its original voice.
The sequence of events then seems to be that Trelawny went into her trance with McGonnagal in the room, but the destined recipient of the prophecy actually being Snape just outside it. Snape thought he was overhearing a prophecy meant for McGonnagal, when in reality McGonnagal overheard a prophecy meant for Snape.
Edited to add: Chapter 28 is the one that gives the most detail.
If (as in canon) the prophecy was made (1980) shortly before Harry’s birth, then Krum had been born (c. 1976), but I don’t suppose that he was talking yet. (ETA: Sorry, of course he was talking. But he would have sounded odd, an adult prophecy from the mouth of a child. That doesn’t really prove anything, I guess.)
Sirius Black also might not know much about girls. I can’t recall his knowing much in canon (as that was more James Potter’s department), and of course here he seems not even to be interested in them, as they say. (On the other hand, it is a bit of a cliche in our culture that gay men turn out to understand women better than het men do.)
Bellatrix is the first theory I’ve heard that seems to adequately explain “jolt of terrified adrenaline”, to me. I hadn’t thought of that possibility. And we should be expecting Bellatrix to appear somehow, which seems less true for Sirius.
My mentioned idea about Sirius isn’t workable anymore—and neither is the one about Bellatrix. Because we now know that only professors can obliviate people at Hogwarts without being detected—so Hat & Cloak has to be a professor.
I don’t think Sirius Black can be ruled out. It’s quite possible that Hermione has seen pictures of famous past criminals, including Sirius and Bellatrix. Also her sudden terror at recognizing him seems way bigger than if it had been someone like Severus or Quirrel, so this recognition made me update upwards the probability of him being Sirius Black, not downwards.
Yes. Also, “she saw the face beneath, and recognition sent a jolt of terrified adrenaline bursting through her” - ‘recognition’ doesn’t read to me like the person she saw was a personal acquaintance of hers.
Grindelwald?
He’s been mentioned so many times, and his connection to Dumbledore explored in such detail, that it’d be surprising if he didn’t play a role in the story. If you grant that, then his motivation for returning was aggressively foreshadowed by Chapter 42 (“Courage”). He’d be a strong candidate for opposing and manipulating Dumbledore as Hat & Cloak is doing.
But not much in Hat & Cloak’s appearances points to Grindelwald specifically. The sibilance of his speech and the ambiguity around his gender might be nods toward stereotypically gay characteristics. And might not be. It’ll be clearer once Eliezer’s told us more of what Grindelwald was like as a person.
Not to discount the other suggestions, but ‘recognition’ did read as someone she knew to me. The mist dissipated, and she recognized the face beneath.
Though I’ll admit, the “jolt of terrified adrenaline bursting through her” doesn’t necessarily fit with all of the possibilities.
I dunno about that. Suppose H&C is someone Hermione was previously disposed to like and trust; then finding that s/he had been behaving like that would be quite a shock. On the other hand, anyone whose past behaviour rendered H&C’s actions not-shocking is probably someone she’d be unhappy finding herself face to face with even in the best circumstances.
(FWIW, I too read “recognition” as probably indicating someone she already knew.)
How do either Black, Bellatrix, or Grindelwald pass the observation about the wards screaming on Obliviation by non-professor?
We didn’t know about this restriction back then. But yeah, that restriction effectively eliminates the possibility of a non-Professor like Sirius being Hat & Cloak.
Yeah. Which, as the example of Skeeter teaches us, means that we could look for a weaker link in the chain: the professors themselves. Imperius/Obliviation strategies have been discussed in the past, but Polyjuice Potion hasn’t. Would that work? Dunno. Moody fooled the wards in canon, but that was probably because the fake was the only one to ever get keyed in as a Professor in the first place. Would Polyjuice let Flitwick or one of the others be replaced?
So Snape heard the prophecy from...someone with a Slavic or Germanic accent. The only candidates from canon that I can think of are Grindelwald, Karkaroff (who doesn’t have a strong accent, at least not in the movies), and Krum (who may not have even been born yet.) Could Snape have visited Grindelwald in Nurmengard at some point?
Hat & Cloak seems like Quirrell to me. Who else stood up for Hermione, even a little bit, at the Head Table? Though he must have a lot of faith that multiple Obliviations don’t cause permanent damage. Hermione is way too potentially useful, both in her own right and as a lever on Harry.
Chapter 46 has McGonnagal think of Trelawny as the origin of the prophecy, and she seems to remember it in its original voice.
The sequence of events then seems to be that Trelawny went into her trance with McGonnagal in the room, but the destined recipient of the prophecy actually being Snape just outside it. Snape thought he was overhearing a prophecy meant for McGonnagal, when in reality McGonnagal overheard a prophecy meant for Snape.
Edited to add: Chapter 28 is the one that gives the most detail.
If (as in canon) the prophecy was made (1980) shortly before Harry’s birth, then Krum had been born (c. 1976), but I don’t suppose that he was talking yet. (ETA: Sorry, of course he was talking. But he would have sounded odd, an adult prophecy from the mouth of a child. That doesn’t really prove anything, I guess.)
Sirius Black also might not know much about girls. I can’t recall his knowing much in canon (as that was more James Potter’s department), and of course here he seems not even to be interested in them, as they say. (On the other hand, it is a bit of a cliche in our culture that gay men turn out to understand women better than het men do.)
Bellatrix is the first theory I’ve heard that seems to adequately explain “jolt of terrified adrenaline”, to me. I hadn’t thought of that possibility. And we should be expecting Bellatrix to appear somehow, which seems less true for Sirius.
My mentioned idea about Sirius isn’t workable anymore—and neither is the one about Bellatrix. Because we now know that only professors can obliviate people at Hogwarts without being detected—so Hat & Cloak has to be a professor.