OVERANALYZING THE TEXT

Debbie wrote, about the Weasleys:

There certainly doesn't appear to be anything "weaselly" about them. Quite the contrary. I think the Weasleys are among the most straightforward characters in HP, and quite comfortable in their own commoner shoes. (Now, is there an English town called "Weasley"?)

Debbie, waiting for someone to prove her wrong by posting the sinister Weasley backstory (no, I don't think Molly's sandwich crimes will do)

<Elkins, alerted by the words "Weasley" and "backstory" appearing in the same sentence, comes running around the corner, gasping for breath, clutching at her side, and waving a platter of Arthur-Weasley-With-Imperius-Curse teacakes madly about in the air.>

Weasley backstory? Did somebody request a Weasley backstory?

You don't want your Weasleys straightforward, eh? You want someone to suggest something that will make you lie awake nights, worrying about them? You want something a bit more dire than Molly's culinary amnesia to make you feel paranoid and unsettled about the dear old Weasley clan? You asked for an improbable backstory speculation?

<Elkins bows>

At your service, Debbie. I don't know if this is quite what you hoped for—it's not really so much sinister as it is sad—but would you care for a bite of Arthur Weasley With Imperius Curse?

::wheedling tone::

Aw, come on. Just a nibble? Can't I get anyone to swallow one of these? They may be only half-baked, but I did make them myself, and with real canon!

Here. I'll show you.

------------------

Okay. Presumably, there were indeed at least a few wizards who really were placed under the Imperius Curse against their will during Voldemort's first rise, rather than just claiming that they had been to escape punishment for their crimes. In the Pensieve chapter of GoF, Karkaroff names Mulciber: "he specialized in the Imperius Curse, forced countless people to do horrific things!" In Chapter Four of PS, Hagrid tells Harry that after Voldemort's disappearance: "People who was on his side came back ter ours. Some of 'em came outta kinda trances. Don' reckon they could've done if he was coming back." Nor do I think that Hagrid is talking about the likes of Lucius Malfoy; Hagrid seems steadfastly unimpressed with the Malfoys and their claims of innocence. And when talking to Harry about the dark days of Voldemort's rise, both Hagrid and Sirius emphasize the difficulties of knowing who could really be trusted. So although everyone we have yet seen who claims to have been a victim of the Imperius Curse in canon has been lying, I nonetheless do believe that there were a number of genuine victims of the curse as well.

I believe that Arthur Weasley might have been one of them. For one thing, at the time he would have been a relatively young and likely low-ranked ministry official: precisely the sort of person most likely to be targetted by the Death Eaters for exploitation. From Ludo Bagman's trial, we already know that the organization sought to make use of the ministry's younger and more vulnerable workers. It seems quite likely to me that they would have done so not only by deceiving the gullible (as with Bagman), but also through judicious use of the Imperius Curse. In fact, Crouch/Moody implies as much in Chapter 14 of GoF, when he says: "Gave the Ministry a lot of trouble at one time, the Imperius Curse."

And then there is Ron's knowledge of the precise details of Lucius Malfoy's acquittal. At the beginning of PS/SS, he tells Harry:

'I've heard of his family,' said Ron darkly. 'They were some of the first to come back to our side after You-Know-Who disappeared. Said they'd been bewitched. My dad doesn't believe it. He says Malfoy's father didn't need an excuse to go over to the Dark Side.'

This is very specific knowledge for a kid who was raised in a culture that displays a pathological aversion to the idea of ever talking—or even of thinking—about those days. The Weasley parents do not seem to make a practice of speaking to their children about such matters. Ron doesn't give the impression of knowing about the Longbottoms, for example. He doesn't recognize the Dark Mark when he sees it, either. For that matter, he doesn't even know what the Dark Mark is! And yet he happens to know the specific grounds on which Lucius Malfoy was acquitted ten years ago?

Why would Arthur have told Ron about Lucius Malfoy's acquittal, when he's never even explained to the kid what the Dark Mark was?

Well, if he really had sincerely been placed under the Imperius Curse at some point during Voldemort's reign, then the fact that Lucius Malfoy got off on the same claim must have really rankled. It might even have rankled badly enough for him to have told his younger children about it, in spite of the evident reluctance of wizarding culture—the Weasley family included—to speak of such matters.

Primarily, though, I find the "The Unforgivable Curses" chapter of GoF strongly suggestive of the possibility that Arthur Weasley was one of Voldemort's Imperius victims.

Although "several hands rose tentatively into the air" when Crouch, as Moody, invites his students to name the Unforgivables for him, he chooses to call upon Ron. He has already, at the very beginning of the DADA class, identified Ron as Arthur Weasley's son. Ron names the Imperius Curse, adding that he knows of it because his father has mentioned it to him. This seems to please Crouch immensely.

'Ah, yes,' said Moody appreciatively. 'Your father would know that one. Gave the Ministry a lot of trouble at one time, the Imperius Curse.'

Now, we all know what Crouch is, right? He's both a sadist and a show-off; and he's sly. He just loves to entertain himself by making double-edged statements with malicious secondary meanings. Just about everything he says throughout the novel has some nasty message lurking beneath it. So is it possible that there could have been a second meaning underlying that "your father would know that one," as well as some reason for him to be so "appreciative" of Ron's answer?

Oh, yes. I think that's possible. I think that's definitely possible.

I also see a certain symmetry emerging in this chapter if we accept as our hypothesis that Ron's father was indeed, at one time, a victim of the Imperius Curse. Crouch calls on Ron to volunteer the name of the Imperius. He calls on Neville to volunteer the name of the Cruciatus. I feel absolutely certain that he was just dying for Harry to raise his hand, so that he could force him to speak the name of the Avada Kedavra. Alas for Crouch, though, Harry was an ignoramus, and so he was forced to call on Hermione instead; all the same, he did go out of his way to draw the class' attention to Harry after his demonstration of the curse. Crouch is just like that. He's a sadist, and he has some...well, let's just say some parental issues.

And finally, in defense of my Imperio'd Arthur Weasley theory, I would point out that Ron seems to find fighting off the Imperius Curse unusually difficult. Nowhere else in canon is Ron depicted as a poor student. He does have some difficulties in CoS, but only because of his broken wand; he doesn't take Divination at all seriously, but then, neither do any of the other male Gryffindor students. Ordinarily, Ron is canonically depicted as a perfectly average student. So why the trouble with the Imperius Curse? He's not a weak-willed person at all, really.

Well, could it be a family trait? Riddle's diary did quite the job on Ginny too.

Of course, if poor Arthur Weasley really had spent some time under the Imperius Curse back in the bad old days, then clearly no one has ever told Ron or the Twins about it. While Ron doesn't care at all for those spiders, Crouch's Imperius demonstration doesn't otherwise seem to bother him at all—he thinks that it's cool—and he has no negative reaction to Crouch's comment about his father. Similarly, the Twins show no signs of distress over Crouch/Moody's DADA class; on the contrary, they are overflowing with enthusiasm about it.

No, if Arthur Weasley ever had a little Imperius problem, then that's been kept a secret from the children — or at least from the younger ones. Bill and Charlie might know about it, but Ron, Ginny and the Twins certainly don't. Percy...

Well, Percy might, or he might not. Hard to say, really.

At any rate, if it's true, then it's a rather large secret, don't you think? Rather a nasty secret. Rather an ugly secret. A Deep Dark secret. A Skeleton In the Weasley Family Closet sort of secret.

So I'm hoping that it's true. Because not only do I think that the it would be interesting for the Weasleys to have one of those; I also think that the Weasleys act as if they have one of those. There's something festering away somewhere in that family dynamic, and I don't think that it's just a matter of financial stress. I think that there's something swept under the carpet somewhere in that household. Something secret, and sad.

Further speculations about missing Weasley children, Arthur's particular demeanor when telling the children about the significance of the Dark Mark at the end of Chapter 9 of GoF, Bill's contributions to that particular conversation, literary parallels between Percy Weasley and Barty Crouch, and how any of that might intersect with the series' thematic emphasis on damaged families, secrets, the effects of the past upon the present, and father-son relationships, I will leave to the cruel and ruthlessly bloody minds of my fellow FEATHERBOAS.

—Elkins, who really does adore Arthur Weasley.