dazzleberry

"Tell me, how have you been communicating with Rosemerta? I thought we had all methods of communication in and out of the school monitored."

"Enchanted coins," said Malfoy, as though he was compelled to keep talking, though his wand whand was shaking badly. "I had one and she had the other and I could send her messages--"

"Isn't that the secret method of communication the group that called themselves Dumbledore's Army used last year?" asked Dumbledore. His voice was light and conversational, but Harry saw him slip an inch lower down the wall as he said it.

"Yeah, I got the idea from them," said Malfoy, with a twisted smile. "I got the idea of poisoning the mead from the Mudblood Granger as well, I heard her talking in the library about Filch not recognizing potions."

HBP, p 389


This just jumped out at me. How did Draco know how the DA was communicating? Then, I answered myself. Marietta Edgecomb, of course. So I went to OotP to verify that and... chapter and verse: Order of the Phoenix, Chapter 27 The Centaur and the Sneak. (p 612-5)

Just after the Inquisitorial Squad busts up the planned DA meeting, Umbridge and Fudge are in Dumbledore's office with Potter and McGonagall. Umbridge brings Marietta in as a witness and tries to get Marietta to tell them what she knows. Marietta refuses.

"Oh, very well, you silly girl, I'll tell him," snapped Umbridge. She hitched her sickly smile back onto her face and said, "Well, Minister, Miss Edgecombe here came to my office shortly after dinner this evening and told me she had something she wanted to tell me. She said that if I proceeded to a secret room on the seventh floor, sometimes known as the Room of Requirement, I would find out something to my advantage. I questioned her a little further and she admitted that there was to be some kind of meeting there. Unfortunately at that point this hex," she waved impatiently at Marietta's concealed face, "came into operation and upon catching sight of her face in my miror the girl became too distressed to tell me any more."

There's some more conversation, wherein Fudge attempts to convince Marietta to speak, and Marietta refuses, but Umbridge suggests Marietta just shake or nod her head as to whether or not she's been attending these meetings all year. Then Harry hears Kingsley Shacklebolt whisper something behind him and feels something pass his ear. Marietta's eyes become blank and she shakes her head, repeatedly. DUmbledore concocts his story about the DA being his brainchild and yatta yatta yatta.

The point being, Marietta never told them about the coins.

Marietta certainly never told them about the coins in Dumbledore's presence.

After the initial shock of HBP, I've been under the impression that Dumbledore was very certain that he was going to die when he got back to the castle after the Horcrux thing. When I've re-read these scenes, I've been more interested in the Snape-Dumbledore question than anything else, but this is the first time that I've really read the Dumbledore-Harry scenes carefully.

I propose that Dumbledore knew he was going to die, and while he's questioning Draco, he's actually telling the petrified Harry a few last things.

I offer that perhaps Dumbledore even had Draco under an Imperius Curse or something similar-- we've seen Dumbledore perform magic without his wand.

But I ask point blank-- who the hell is the leak in the DA? Marietta, who was so frightened of the curse that she wouldn't tell the teachers and the Minister of Magic exactly what had happened (and whose memory appeared to have been modified anyway)?

Thoughts?