I wonder if GoF's repetition of blackmail-inflected plotlines might not be giving us a foretaste of precisely which, of the many faces of the temptation of power, we might be seeing Hermione forced to confront in the future.
Greicy asked:
What do you mean by "temptation of power" Elkins? Do you mean bad temptations? Temptation does usually mean something bad, but I hope she doesn't go bad! =(
Yes, I did indeed mean bad temptations. I used the word "temptation" there though, rather than, say, "seduction" or "corruption," because I don't think that Hermione is going to go bad either. ;-)
I do think that she will have to face temptation, just as Harry both has and will.
Bboy wrote:
Since the subject of Rite Skeeter has come up again, so has the subject of Blackmail, but I think many people have a warped idea of what Blackmail is. Blackmail is a crime of theft; a form of stealing.
Blackmail says, give me what I want even though it doesn't belong to me, or else. Fred and George aren't saying that. Fred and George are saying give us what rightfully belongs to us, or else.
Legally speaking, that simply doesn't matter. If somebody owes you money and you try to retrieve it from them by threatening with them with some form of public exposure, rather than through the official channels, then that is still an actionable offense. At least, here in the US it is. And from Fred and George's exchange in the Owlery, it would seem that the exact same legal rules apply within wizarding Britain:
"--that's blackmail, that is, we could get into a lot of trouble for that--"
"--we've tried being polite; it's time to play dirty, like him. He wouldn't like the Ministry of Magic knowing what he did--"
"I'm telling you, if you put that in writing, it's blackmail!"
"Yeah, and you won't be complaining if we get a nice fat payoff, will you?"
--GoF, Ch. 29
Of course, the wizarding world's "official channels" are corrupt, and Fred and George have no proof of their verbal agreement with Bagman, which is why they feel forced to resort to blackmail in the first place. These factors certainly do make their decision sympathetic. They do not change the fact that they are engaging in the legal crime of extortion.
I would also say that unlike many other canonical examples of law-breaking, the authorial voice here strikes me as ambivalent on the subject of what the Twins are up to. Their actions are to my mind portrayed neither as wholly positively as the illegal use of the time-turner to rescue Sirius and Buckbeak at the end of PoA nor as wholly negatively as Lucius Malfoy's use of threats and extortion to force the Hogwarts Board of Governors to support his political agenda.
As I read the Twins' blackmail attempt, the text is setting it forth as rather "grey." On the one hand, Bagman cynically and deliberately stole their savings, and what other options do the Twins have, really? On the other, Fred and George's behavior towards Ron when they are interrupted in their discussion, the concerns Ron states elsewhere in the novel about how he worries that the Twins' financial concerns renders them vulnerable, and the fact that the plotline is in fact resolved not by the success of the blackmail attempt but instead by Harry's act of generosity all combine to lead me to read the blackmail subplot as rather ambiguously presented.
What do you think the purpose of all of this reiteration of the concept of blackmail might be? It does seem to be a bit of a recurring motif in GoF, don't you think?
—Elkins
]]>How is she going to enforce this rule? Blackmail-- she'll "spill the beans" on her being an unregistered Animagus if she doesn't keep quiet for a year.
Back in December there was an interesting thread about Hermione's decision to engage in blackmail, started off by Porphyria, who drew a parallel between Hermione's treatment of Rita and Snape's of Lupin, and then asked (in message #47912):
Isn't this worrisome, since a pair as boisterously reckless as Fred and George worry about using blackmail? Didn't the subplot of Fred, George and Ludo Bagman indicate that blackmail in the Potterverse is wrong from many people's point of view?
I was thinking about this, and it occurred to me that the Twins/Bagman subplot is not the only place where GoF hints at the perils of blackmail.
'But Bertha Jorkins heard Winky talking to me. She came to investigate. She heard enough to guess who was hiding under the Invisibility Cloak. My father arrived home. She confronted him.'
— GoF, Ch. 35
Why precisely did Bertha Jorkins "confront" Crouch about what she had heard? My own instinctive reading of this line was that Bertha Jorkins had attempted to blackmail Crouch, a reading which also led me to suspect that she had been planning something very similar when she agreed to go for that pleasant evening stroll with Peter Pettigrew in Albania. It was only later that I learned that most people had not read the line in at all the same way.
But whether or not we are meant to read a blackmail attempt in the above phrasing, the fate of the unfortunate Jorkins certainly does seem to me to touch upon the particular dangers inherent in conflating knowledge or information about others with power over them.
Ironically, it is a failing to which Rita Skeeter herself would seem to be prone. She does not merely distort the truth. She also ferrets out real truths, truths which she often uses to discomfit others. There is indication that she is not merely a glory-hound; she also revels in the sense of personal power that she gains from knowing that she possesses hidden information about others, even (or perhaps especially) when it is information that she chooses not to reveal.
'I know things about Ludo Bagman that would make your hair curl...'
Rita in fact does not tell Hermione what she knows about Bagman's past. Why? Because her malice does not extend that far? To me, the impression is rather that she takes active enjoyment in possessing information that others do not. It is the mind-set, if not the actual crime, of the blackmailer.
Given that Rita does seem to me to be established quite firmly as a nemesis for Hermione in particular in GoF, I find myself wondering if we are likely to see this emerge as a temptation for Hermione herself in the future. Hermione is proud of her ability to root out knowledge that others cannot find. We see her struggle briefly with this in PoA. She does not in fact betray Lupin's secret to Harry and Ron, no. But she cannot quite resist making it quite clear to them that she has figured something out about him, something which they themselves have not. Her particular type of pride-in-information is apparent not only to the other students, but also to the staff. Not only children, but also the adult Snape, refer to her as a "know-it-all."
probono wrote of Hermione, back in December:
She's been accused of meddling in things that she shouldn't (see below), so is this the one that backfires?
By Snape: "Keep quiet you stupid girl. Don't talk about what you don'tunderstand."
And Skeeter: "Sit down, you silly little girl and don't talk about things you don't understand."
Yes, that is interesting.
Is Hermione being set up for a fall here?
Rita Skeeter is a ticking time-bomb, to be sure, but I find myself wondering whether the ramifications of Hermione's blackmail plot might be even more serious than that. "Only knowledge, and those too weak to seek it?"
I wonder if GoF's repetition of blackmail-inflected plotlines might not be giving us a foretaste of precisely which, of the many faces of the temptation of power, we might be seeing Hermione forced to confront in the future.
—Elkins
]]>I think the starting point is that the series is a bildungsroman, so Harry is developing. As part of that, JKR is bringing in themes that tie in with Harry's increasing awareness and maturity. One of those themes that has received very little exposure is the nature of feminity and the role of the feminine in life.
I agree with David, and I also see in GoF many signs that suggest to my mind that the feminine archetype which I see as represented by both Ginny and Lily is likely to take far more precedence in future volumes.
As I read GoF, it is largely concerned with the developmental concerns of adolescence: separation from parental protections, rivalry with the negative or devouring paternal archetype, individuation. It is also the volume in which Harry's libido first really starts coming into play as a motivating factor in his decision-making (he is beginning to emerge from latency in PoA, but only just; it's really only in GoF that I start perceiving him as truly pubescent).
By the end of GoF, Harry has passed this hurdle. He has lost the maternal protections of childhood, and he has been recognized by Dumbledore as having behaved admirably by the standards of the adult, not merely the schoolyard, world. It is really only now that he is ready to start dealing with the feminine as a sexual or romantic force, as opposed to a maternal one.
It also seems to me significant that it is really only in GoF that we first begin to see eros set forth as a motivating factor for the adults surrounding Harry. The Dursleys seem happily married in their own horrid way, but there is no tinge of romantic devotion in Harry's perception of them. The same goes for Arthur and Molly pre-GoF. The adult characters of the Potterverse up until GoF seem to exist in a strangely sexless state, which I believe reflects Harry's own state of latency.
That changes in Book Four. In GoF, suddenly we begin to see signs not only that adults have sex lives, but that Harry is becoming aware of that fact. We learn of Arthur and Molly's Hogwarts courtship. Hagrid develops a romantic interest on Madame Maxine. Crouch's marital devotion to his wife is spoken of with envy and resentment by his son; it is a different type of love: "he loved her as he had never loved me." Eros starts making its appearance in the adult world of the Potterverse just in time to coincide with Harry's entry into adolescence. I agree with David in thinking that this is a reflection of Harry's maturing POV, as well as a reflection of the series' structure as a bildungsroman. The Potterverse is a mirror; it reflects Harry's own developmental concerns.
I am neither seer nor prophet, and I make no claims to be any good at predicting JKR's intentions. But I am expecting to see more of Ginny in OoP. I am also expecting to learn more about Lily. It does seem to me that on the thematic level, GoF has cleared the path for those plot developments to occur.
—Elkins
]]>----------------
Amy asked:
What really interests me about veritaserum is if a wizard could convincingly lie under it's effects. I am thinking inparticular of Severus Snape here. Could a wizard, under the effects of the potion, avoid telling the truth, tell a round-about story or just not answer the question entirly. Does it depend on the does and it's strength?
It's hard for me to imagine why, if there were no possibility of veritaserum resistance, Dumbledore would have specified that Snape fetch his strongest veritaserum.
My interpretation was the same as Star Opal's: that some people, whether due to an unusually strong will or to some innate talent, can occasionally muster up a bit of resistance to the stuff, if only enough to enable them to choose their words carefully enough to lie by omission or circumlocution.
Given that Crouch Jr's performance throughout GoF shows him to have been exceptionally skilled at precisely this sort of use of the language—he was a master at the fine art of lying with the perfect truth—it was probably for the best that Dumbledore called for Snape's strongest serum.
But why wouldn't one always use the strongest available veritaserum?
Kivrin (Welcome!) asked:
In the end, I still wonder about the significance of different levels of Truth Potions. Dumbledore obviously orders Snape to fetch the "strongest Truth Potion," (which evidences that there are less strong potions) but I cannot imagine what a lesser strength potion would alter about a situation. Obviously, if the potion will allow the individual to evade the truth then it fails at being a Truth Potion. Moreover, if full ability to find the truth is found only with Veritaserum, then what is the point of the existence of lesser potions?
It seems possible to me that the point of potions of lesser potency might be that they run less risk of permanent damage to the imbiber.
Crouch Jr's interrogation does not really last very long at all yet by the end of it, he seems to be drifting off into a near-catatonic state. Of course, it's so hard to tell what the cause here is. On some level, Crouch Jr. must have known that he was doomed, and he was none too stable to begin with; the cause of his apparent descent into utter dissociation at the end there could have been situational. Or, it could have been helped along by Snape's strongest veritaserum.
Dumbledore clearly did expect Crouch Jr. to be coherent enough later on to be able to give formal testimony: he says as much to Fudge. It does seem possible to me, though, that really strong veritaserum might not be something one would want to use on, say, a witness, as opposed to a convict, or on a defendent one was not already certain was guilty as sin and facing a life sentence in prison anyway. It could be that, much like being hit with an overly enthusiastic memory charm, imbibing overly potent veritaserum has permanent and detrimental effects on ones mental facilities.
---------
How much awareness does the subject have?
Kivrin wrote:
One of the things that struck me most about the use of veritaserum in GoF was the description of Crouch Jr. as Dumbledore interrogated him.Crouch's son opened his eyes. His face was slack, his gaze unfocused. Dumbledore knelt before him, so that their faces were level…[t]he man's eyelids flickered…Crouch took a deep, shuddering breath, then began to speak in a flat, expressionless voice
(US hardback, pg 683-684).
This diction suggests wholly that Crouch Jr. is not under his own control, he is speaking because the serum is extracting the information, much as a computer search will yield data. It is emotionless, "flat, expressionless" -- there is no "person" behind what is being said.
I too interpreted his diction, his lack of affect, and his shuddering breaths all as evidence that he was not under his own control.
I also, however, interpreted some of this as evidence that he did have ome awareness of what he was saying. I find it significant, for example, that Crouch's breathing is specified as "shuddering" only at the beginning of his interrogation. Similarly, his eyelids flicker in response to Dumbledore's early questions, but then stop doing so later on -- or at least the narrative stops mentioning them. All of these seeming symptoms of compulsion are mentioned only at the beginning of the scene.
My interpretation was that both the shuddering breathing and the flickering eyelids were symptomatic of Crouch attempting (and failing) to resist the overwhelming compulsion of the veritaserum. Eventually, it would seem, he just gave up and...well, you know. Just lay back and tried to enjoy it. ;-)
As for the extent to which there is a "person" in there guiding the veritaserum-compelled narrative, I myself believe that there is, although I also believe it to be severely constrained, and certainly incapable of overcoming the compulsion of the potion to the extent of either refusing to answer or speaking anything but the (at times subjective) truth. I do not see Crouch's testimony as at all a computer-like "just the facts, ma'am" account. Rather, I see it as quite subjective and digressive.
In the past, I've cited Crouch's diction and word choices in "Veritaserum" as evidence both of his rationalizations about the role his father played in saving him from Azkaban (message #47932) and of the lack of pleasure he took in committing parricide on Voldemort's orders (message #47962).
This is part of an "Crouch Jr, Unwilling Parricide" argument From message #47962. I cite it here because it shows some of the ways in which I see agency—or, at least, personality—underlying even the affect-flattening compulsion of the veritaserum in the confessional.
----------------
[excerpt begins]
While Crouch Jr's testimony in the 'Veritaserum' chapter is indeed largely a matter of plot exposition, I think that we can deduce quite a bit from it about his character and motives as well. For one thing, it is clear from his testimony that he is, in fact, capable of quite a bit of digression. He is also capable of emotional, subjective, and non-factual testimony.
This is how Crouch Jr describes his experience at the QWC.
The "question" which he is answering in this passage is: "Tell me about the Quidditch World Cup."
'Then we heard them. We heard the Death Eaters. The ones who had never been to Azkaban. The ones who had never suffered for my master. They had turned their backs on him. They were not enslaved, as I was. They were free to seek him, but they did not. They were merely making sport of Muggles. The sound of their voices awoke me. My mind was clearer than it had been in years. I was angry. I had the wand.'
Okay. His affect is certainly deadened, although I've never been altogether clear on whether that's really completely due to the Veritaserum, or whether it's also due to the fact that he's finally slipped his very last mooring. I rather suspect that it's a bit of both. Whatever the cause, though, it doesn't prevent him either from volunteering information or from showing insight. Dumbledore did not ask him to explain his motives for behaving as he did at the QWC. He did not ask him about the wand. He did not ask him about breaking free of the Imperius Curse. Crouch Jr. is volunteering all of that information, based on his own interpretion of what about the QWC is important, relevant, or of interest. And given the emotional nature of the above passage, I think that it is also clear that to a certain extent, he is choosing to focus on what about this event was of importance to him.
This is really not factual testimony. It's not a 'just the facts, ma'am' account. It is subjective, emotional, and personal.
Nor is Crouch Jr. completely deadened in affect, although he is extremely dissociated. He's not exactly a zombie. He is capable of emotional responses, albeit of a rather disturbing sort.
'My father answered the door.'
The smile spread wider over Crouch's face, as though recalling the sweetest memory of his life. Winky's petrified brown eyes were visible through her fingers. She seemed too appalled to speak.
'It was very quick. My father was placed under the Imperius Curse by my master. Now my father was the one imprisoned, controlled.'
That's what Veritaserum'd!Barty looks like when he's enjoying the memory of a bit of payback on dear old Dad, yes? He's not so far gone that he can't display emotion, albeit of a rather mad sort, at the memory of vengeance. And he doesn't lack insight so utterly as to be incapable of explaining the extent to which his pleasure at this memory derives from Turnabout-Is-Fair-Playdom either. He may have bats in his belfry, but he is perfectly emotionally comprehensible. He can explain his motives, and he seems often to be interested in doing so, even when it is not technically required of him. He does so at times quite eloquently, in fact: "It was my dream, my greatest ambition, to serve him, to prove myself to him."
But this is all that he has to say about his act of parricide:
'My master sent me word of my father's escape. He told me to stop him at all costs. So I waited and watched. I used the map...'
[There then follows some discussion of the Map, and then:]
'For a week I waited for my father to arrive at Hogwarts. At last, one evening, the map showed my father entering the grounds. I pulled on my Invisibility Cloak and went down to meet him. He was walking around the edge of the forest. Then Potter came, and Krum. I waited. I could not hurt Potter; my master needed him. Potter ran to get Dumbledore. I Stunned Krum. I killed my father.'
And that's it. There's no editorial commentary there. No mad grin. No gloating. No description of his feelings about this turn of events. Nothing. It's a very stark series of statements of fact, and it is nothing at all like the way he speaks of recovering his own volition after a decade under the Imperius, or of firing the Dark Mark into the sky at the QWC, or of watching Voldemort overpower his father.
Dumbledore then gives him an opening to elaborate on the parricide if he so chooses. "You killed your father?"
Crouch Jr. says absolutely nothing in response to this, although he does answer the next question about what he did with the body: "Carried it into the forest. Covered it with the Invisibility Cloak." We're back to choppy sentences and 'just the facts' here, although Crouch is in fact not incapable of a far more eloquent mode of diction. He will prove this with the very last line of his confession: "My master's plan worked. He is returned to power and I will be honored by him beyond the dreams of wizards." Even at the very end, his diction is not so degraded that he cannot manage that sentence. But when asked about the disposal of his father's body, incomplete and choppy sentences are all he has to offer.
Crouch Jr. does not speak of murdering his father in at all the same way that he speaks of either his acts of anger or of payback events that he actually took pleasure in. He shows no signs of enjoyment at the memory, nor any inclination to elaborate upon the event any further than he absolutely must do to satisfy his interrogator. While he may imply to Harry that he considered it an act of homage to Voldemort, when he is actually under the Veritaserum and therefore compelled to speak the truth, the only motive that he offers is that he was under direct orders to see it done "at all costs." He is not even willing to confess to it a second time: he does not assent when Dumbledore asks for confirmation that he killed his father. His diction degenerates into choppy broken sentences when he is forced to discuss it. Compare his diction here with his diction when he speaks of topics on which he does seem proud of his actions and eager to communicate his motives: his devotion to Voldemort, his fury with the disloyal DES at the QWC. Compare his affect here with his affect when he speaks of Voldemort's arrival at his father's home.
All of this leads me to conclude that Crouch really didn't enjoy killing his father at all. He was clearly willing to do it. But I don't think that he was at all happy about it.
[excerpt ends]
--------------------------
While I do view the "Veritaserum" chapter as primarily plot exposition for the reader's benefit, I also believe that JKR uses Crouch's confessional to establish quite a bit about his character and motivations -- really, just about everything we know about him comes from this one chapter-long monologue. It is my opinion that that much of this material serves to bolster GoF's thematic emphasis on the developmental issues of adolescence.
—Elkins (who suspects that we'll find out precisely what speaking through Veritaserum feels like first-hand in future canon, as she thinks that Harry is more than likely to get fed it sooner or later in the series)
]]>Some are seeking wealth (their share of the loot), slaves, sex (from the slaves), a paycheck, or just think they're less likely to be killed if they're on the winning side (like Pettigrew). Some seek a position of power ("Lord Voldemort will make me supervisor of traffic enforcement for this town") which they can use to "punish" the people they don't like. A Dark Wizard can offer more than a Dark Muggle can, magic things, of which a potion of immortality would be tops ...
Immortality is the biggie, I'd say. The very first book in the series emphasizes the temptation of immortality. Harry's internal struggle largely revolves around his need to accept his parents' deaths. Voldemort is "Voldemort" and his followers "Death Eaters." I really don't think that's all accidental.
To the above list, though, I would also add the restoration of ancient class privilege, which I believe to be Lucius Malfoy's main interest in Voldemort and which I don't view as either purely ideological (although it can be framed that way) or as precisely the same thing as the issue of purity of blood (although the two issues are obviously closely related). I believe that the exchange between Malfoy and Borgin in Knockturn Alley at the beginning of CoS serves to highlight issues which might have led so many members of the WW's older families to throw in their lot with Voldemort the first time around.
Ffred is more concerned with ideological issues, though. He wrote:
So where do you go if you are a wizard with political ambitions for change? The only place seems to be into conspiracy.
::slow smile::
Well...yes. That really is one of the more troubling things about the developing backstory, isn't it? It certainly is for me. I find that the more we are told about the Ministry, and about wizarding society as a whole, the more sympathy I feel for the Death Eaters, particularly for those who signed on when they were quite young.
It's hard for me as a reader to believe that all of them were as cynical or as purely self-interested as Lucius Malfoy seems to be, especially given that each passing volume seems to paint the WW's status quo in darker and darker shades. GoF gives us that sickening account of the WW under Crouch, tells us about an attempted genocide of the giants, and then provides, in the figure of younger Crouch, an example of a servant of Voldemort who, while he does seem to have been rather severely emotionally disturbed, is also presented as a highly idealistic personality type.
It gets harder and harder for me as a reader to believe that there were no misguided—but nonetheless quite legitimately aggrieved—idealists among Voldemort's followers. It would be very nice, IMO, if this really were a symptom of the series' transition from a focus on the concerns of childhood to one on the concerns of adolescence. Sadly, though, I strongly suspect that it is accidental, that JKR really has no idea just how well she's laid the groundwork for future examination of the problems of misguided idealism in her series.
Such a pity.
Of course, one can always hope. To my mind, the introduction of Snape's old Slytherin classmates, certain aspects of their characters as depicted so far (Fanatic!Lestranges, hints of ambivalence in Avery), and the implied authorial promise that they will be brought into the plotline as figures of more importance in the next volume or two, all provide us with by far our best hope that JKR actually might be planning on touching on a few of these issues in later canon.
—Elkins
]]>I think that other wizards can "feel" the presence of another wizard around, because of the magic.
[snip examples of Harry sensing the invisible Crouch Jr. in the woods and the emanating power of an enraged Dumbledore at the end of GoF]
It's an interesting theory. There are so many examples, though, of wizards not noticing the presence of other hidden magical people or powers.
Harry is rarely noticed in his Invisibility Cloak (except by Mrs. Norris, of all people, who does seem to have a good sense for him).
Harry does not notice Dumbledore watching him use the Mirror of Erised in PS/SS.
Nobody notices Invisible!Snape in the Shrieking Shack scene in PoA.
Nobody notices anything magically unusual about Ginny, while she is possessed by Riddle in CoS.
Nobody notices anything magically awry with Quirrell, while he is sporting Voldemort beneath his turban.
Ron is surprised (and maliciously pleased) when he learns that Filch is a Squib.
Everyone believes that Neville is magically weak, even though all of the evidence actually points to him having quite a bit of raw magical power.
No one ever notices that Scabbers is a wizard. Furthermore, the pet shop woman suggests that perhaps he is so ill because he is actually a non-magical rat, and thus at the end of his natural lifespan.
So I don't think that wizards are able to sense magical power. They identify others as Muggles, I would guess, based on nothing more than superficial signifiers: manner of dress, for example.
—Elkins
]]>No! No, really! I am!
JOdel asked:
Has it been established that Crouch Sr had seen/heard enough of Voldemort's councils to know that his son was at Hogwarts masquerading as Moody? He knew he was there, certainly. But did he know that it was as Moody? I'm not convinced that he did.
It's not established, no. I tend to believe that he did, although I can give no legitimate canon defense for this belief other than that it seems utterly in character to me for both Voldemort and Crouch Jr. to have wanted to gloat to a captive Crouch Sr. about their plans.
If Crouch didn't know precisely what his son was up to before the Drawing of the Names from the Goblet, though, then I believe that he figured it out shortly thereafter.
Here's why.
In Chapter 16 of GoF, during the actual drawing of the names from the Goblet, we are told that Dumbledore, the other headmasters, and Bagman all look tense and expectant.
Mr. Crouch, however, looked quite uninterested, almost bored.
We next see him in Chapter 17, after Harry's name has come out of the Goblet and he has been sequestered with the other champions, the headmasters, and the judges in the room off of the Great Hall.
Bagman wiped his round, boyish face with his handkerchief and looked at Mr. Crouch, who was standing outside the circle of the firelight, his face half hidden in shadow. He looked slightly eerie, the half darkness making him look much older, giving him an almost skull-like appearance. When he spoke, however, it was in his usual curt voice.
"We must follow the rules, and the rules state clearly that those people whose names come out of the Goblet of Fire are bound to compete in the tournament."
Okay. So the plot has now been set in motion, and this is when we first hear that Crouch looks ill. My assumption is that this is a reflection of his inner struggle with the Imperius. Harry did not notice him looking unwell earlier, when he noted that Crouch looked "uninterested, almost bored." While Crouch does look a bit poorly, though, he is still speaking normally—"in his usual curt voice"—and following through on what we can assume to have been his instructions: to make sure that Harry participates in the Tournament.
Then his son enters the room, masquerading as Moody, and brags his little head off, telling everyone just how clever he is and effectively giving away the entire plot, as well as having a bit of fun poking at Karkaroff.
The next time we hear anything about Crouch is this:
"Well, shall we crack on, then?" he said, rubbing his hands together and smiling around the room. "Got to give our champions their instructions, haven't we? Barty, want to do the honors?"
Mr. Crouch seemed to come out of a deep reverie.
"Yes," he said, "instructions. Yes . . . the first task . . ."
He moved forward into the firelight. Close up, Harry thought he looked ill. There were dark shadows beneath his eyes and a thin, papery look about his wrinkled skin that had not been there at the Quidditch World Cup.
Not only does Harry again notice how ill the poor man looks, but both the "reverie" and his "instructions...yes..." line are suggestive. My interpretation is that his "reverie" represents a struggle against the curse, hence the reiteration of "instructions" right before he then continues on with following his orders. I see this line as an indication that the curse is really having to work overtime to keep him under control.
Crouch doesn't succeed in throwing the thing off, but he seems to be working a lot harder at it here, after "Moody's" entrance, than he was before. I also find this line rather telling:
Mr. Crouch turned to look at Dumbledore.
"I think that's all, is it, Albus?"
"I think so," said Dumbledore, who was looking at Mr. Crouch with mild concern. "Are you sure you wouldn't like to stay at Hogwarts tonight, Barty?"
Dumbledore's concern does not surprise me. That tentative "I think that's all, is it, Albus?" really does seem out of character for Crouch. It does not seem consistent with what we know of this man's character for him to be asking for a second opinion on the question of whether or not he has successfully discharged his official duties.
The fact that his question to Dumbledore is effectively a request for instruction also strikes me as highly significant. I have always read this as a sign of the Imperius hard at work on a victim who is attempting to resist.
In this case, the Imperius is successful. In response to Dumbledore's question, Crouch reverts to orders, and he is soon behaving far more "normally," making dry commentary about Percy's behavior and expressing faint irritation with Ludo Bagman. Given that "behaving normally" was presumably part of what Crouch was instructed to do, I read this as evidence that his brief struggle with the Imperius has ended in abject failure.
The way that the signs of his struggle seem to intensify after his son enters the room, though, does suggest to my mind that Crouch knew who "Moody" was. Whether he knew it beforehand or only figured it out right there on the spot is unclear to me. I can read it either way with equal facility.
—Elkins
]]>"Loved it," answered Eileen immediately. "The Pensieve scene is not nearly as upsetting to me now."
No," agreed Elkins slowly. "I don't suppose it would be. It does make his behavior there quite a bit more sympathetic. On a number of different levels."
Eileen nodded. "You remember that in my original responses to the sections of the Crouch Novenna dealing with this precise point, I was very..."
"Emotionally distraught." Elkins shuddered slightly. "Yes. I remember."
"Your picture of Crouch's behaviour was so black, and I really couldn't find anything to argue with it, except to start weeping and protesting it couldn't be true."
"Wildly and desperately denying all charges. Yes. And a brutally effective strategy it was, too."
"It was?"
"Well, assuming that your intention was to make me feel wretchedly guilty, it was. As I recall, you were particularly distressed over the notion that Crouch Sr. might have thought that there was a chance that his son was innocent when he—"
"Yelled, 'You are no son of mine!'" Eileen looked as if she were contemplating crying again. "Yes. I don't want him to have done that! He couldn't have done that!"
Elkins sighed. "Oh, you're just spoiled, you are," she said. "You should try identifying with the man's son for a change, see how that feels. Trust me. You go contemplate the fate of the Longbottoms for a little while, and I think you'll find that a little renunciation between family members starts to look positively benign. But really, you know, it did sort of surprise me that you should have been so upset over `you are not my son.'"
"It did?"
"Well, yeah. I guess that I just don't perceive the disavowal itself as all that much of a betrayal, really. It pales in significance, to my mind, when compared to the whole sending-someone-off-to-prison-for-life-on-the-basis-of-scanty-evidence thing. I mean, would it really have made matters any better if Crouch had sent his son off to die in Azkaban and not denounced him first? Would it have been more reassuring if he'd looked down at his son in the dock—or, more precisely, chained in that horrible chair—and said: 'Yes, son, I know that I'm your father, but I am a fair and unbiased man. Therefore, I am going to deny you your due process and railroad you to Azkaban, just like I do everyone else whenever it suits my political purposes?' Surely that wouldn't have made you feel better about him, Eileen. Would it?"
"Well," said Eileen. "When you put it like that..."
"I should have thought that the kangaroo court itself would have bothered you more than the denunciation," said Elkins. "Maybe it's just me. To me, the denunciation makes Crouch far more sympathetic, particularly the way that he keeps raising his voice louder and louder to drown out his son's pleas. It shows him as conflicted. Without it, he would come across as positively inhuman in that scene. The denial of due process, though...well, that's a different matter. Sending people off to effective death sentences without much at all in the way of evidence. Allowing political expedience to override concern for the truth. As far as I'm concerned, that's far worse than disavowal. It's...well, to be perfectly honest, I consider it tantamount to murder. Crouch's behavior in regard to his son is really only one short step away from filicide, in my opinion. Crouch Jr. may have been guilty, but he could just as easily have been innocent. Sirius Black was."
"But if you factor in self-protection, the picture's a whole lot greyer," pointed out Eileen.
"Yes, it is. And if you factor in the possibility of additional evidence, evidence that Crouch suppressed, then that makes it even more so. Not only does it give him self-protection as a motive, but it also gives him an at least somewhat better reason to have suspected his son to be guilty than 'he was caught in bad company, and besides, I know for a fact that he was out of the house that night,' which is pretty much what you're left with otherwise. And that really does make me feel a whole lot better about things, you know, because—"
"Hold on, hold on," said Eileen, frowning. "That makes you feel better about things?"
"Well, yes. It does. Because the thing here is that I do think that Crouch genuinely believed his son to be guilty. I said as much in the novenna. I am far more willing than you are to accept the possibility that he had considerable doubts. I don't see how he couldn't have done, given the lack of evidence. But I also did say that I thought that he at least believed in his son's guilt at the time of the trial. I've always wondered why, though. Why? There seems to have been no real evidence. It's always bothered me a great deal about this plotline, actually. It just doesn't fit together for me. If in fact there was some evidence, though, evidence that Crouch suppressed in order to protect himself, then that makes me feel a lot more comfortable with it. Because otherwise, you know, it just seems so very out of character to me."
Eileen stared at her.
"I can't believe what I'm hearing," she said. "Out of character? For Crouch? That incarnation of all things infamous?"
"But I don't read him as the incarnation of all things infamous, Eileen," objected Elkins earnestly. "Just as the incarnation of some things infamous. Things like political opportunism. Things like disregard for the rights of others. Things like unhealthy and narcissistic and devouring expressions of perverted _storge_. Things like hatred that masquerades as love. But I can't ignore those last things in favor of the others, because that just doesn't seem to fit in with his other actions in regard to his son. Throwing Sirius Black and other random accusees to the mob as blood offerings is one thing, but his scion? The son who carries his name? The one whose individuation he has such a hard time accepting? The one that he will later drag out of prison, keep alive and under control in his house, and try to indoctrinate? The one that he perceives as his mirror?"
Elkins shook her head.
"I just don't buy it unless he had some reason to believe that the boy was guilty. Crouch was self-interested, all right, but his investment in his son was a big part of that self-interest, and even if his political star was falling, I can't imagine that he was entirely without clout at the time of the Longbottom Incident. If it had just been a matter of some Death Eater fingering a member of his family, I can't imagine that he wouldn't have been able to extricate himself from that position with a bit more competence and grace, witch-hunt atmosphere or no. There had to have been something else. There's no indication anywhere that Crouch was disposed against his son before his arrest, and there's plenty of suggestion that precisely the opposite was true. In his mad scene, he speaks of him with quite a bit of pride. His behavior at the sentencing is that of a man who is outraged, and I've said before that I don't think that was all an act. The entire public response to Crouch Jr's arrest isn't in the least bit consistent with a scenario in which young Crouch was perceived as a black sheep, or as a bad seed. It's obvious to me that he was a golden boy. Dumbledore's backhanded eulogy on him reinforces that. JKR even went so far as to give him all that blond hair!"
"Although..." Eileen began.
"Yeah, I know. Blond hair is a backhanded marker in the Potterverse to begin with. But still. The parallel scenes also suggest that Crouch didn't think that his son was innocent."
"You mean the parallel with the QWC?"
Elkins nodded. "At the QWC, Crouch renounces Winky, and I read that as a blood sacrifice, and as a diversionary tactic, and as a failed exorcism, and as an expression of projected self-loathing, and even as a bit of self-flagellation, as well. Self-punishment. All of which also works when applied to his son. But it doesn't come out of nowhere with Winky, does it? He did have some cause for feeling that she had failed him. And he did have some cause for finding her an appropriate mirror onto which to project his disgust with his own weakness.
"So as I see it," Elkins continued. "He had to have had some cause for believing his son to be guilty, as well. Maybe not the greatest cause, maybe not good enough to warrant a guilty verdict, but at least something a bit better than a random accusation or guilt by association. It just doesn't make any sense to me otherwise. I interpret his reaction to his son as one of horrified recognition. Hs son was trying to bring about what he himself secretly desired: Voldemort's return. There is projection going on there, but it doesn't make sense to me if I try to read it as a totally irrational projection. I do read Barty Crouch Sr. as pretty seriously messed up, but I don't see him as totally delusional."
"No," said Eileen snarkily. "That was his son."
"Now, now. Even his son wasn't all that divorced from reality, really. Especially not when you...well, you know. Take one consideration with another. But at any rate, the Invisibility Cloak left behind at the scene of the crime speculation helps me to resolve that problem, and it also ties in nicely with so many other things. Like the self-preservation. Because I do read that Pensieve mob as out to get Crouch. I think that they liked watching him suffer. I think that they liked it when his son went all to pieces on him, and when his wife fainted dead away at his side. And they loved the denunciation. They ate that up -- just as Crouch knew that they would. Because I am convinced, you know, that he was playing to the crowd a bit with that."
There was a short silence.
"It's not a very pretty scene," said Elkins quietly. "On any level. In fact, I find it by far the most disturbing scene in the entire series. Do you know that when I first heard that people had been making complaints about GoF being 'too dark for children,' I didn't even think of Cedric's death? I didn't think of Graveyard at all. Or of anything having to do with Voldemort, for that matter. I just immediately assumed that it was Pensieve they were talking about. A sequence which apparently," she added, with a slight laugh. "Doesn't bother children at all."
She shook her head. "Children are so weird, aren't they? I never understand children. I didn't even understand children when I was a child. I...Eileen? Hey, are you all right?"
Eileen was staring blankly at the swingset, where the two Elkins' were embroiled in a shoving match over Memory Charm theories.
"I identified with that mob in the Pensieve scene," she said dully. "I've told you that, haven't I? That I can see where that crowd was coming from?"
"Yeeesss," said Elkins cautiously. "You've mentioned that before. Outrage on behalf of the Longbottoms, wasn't it? Like Harry?"
"Yes," said Eileen. "And no." She paused for a second. "Argghh... I hate this. I just hate this. I've mentioned my first emotional response to Crouch Sr. on the list many times. Sympathy. And, of course, that response to his... charisma. But I've never really gone into the darker side of my emotional response on the list, have I?"
"Uh-oh. Oh look, Eileen. This isn't going to turn into a performance of 'Who's Afraid of J.K. Rowling' or anything, is it? I mean, we're not playing a round of 'Get the Listmember' here, are we? Please tell me we're not. Because, you know, if you'd rather talk about something else..."
"I have this nasty suspicion," Eileen said quickly. "That for all my bleeding heart tendencies, I would have been a Crouchist during the first Voldemort years, and absolutely worshiped the man. And believe it or not, this actually does not make me feel very kindly towards him. Do you know what it's like to break away from that particular type of charm, Elkins?"
"Well, I—"
"It's an exhilirating experience. To stand on your own two feet and realize that whatever De.. errr... I mean, the hypothetical politician wants is not the be-all and end-all. But you also feel very angry. You want to strike back at that person for taking advantage of you, of blinding your eyes to certain things. That's not entirely a healthy reaction."
"Isn't it?" Elkins thought about it. "Oh, I don't know," she sighed. "I guess that depends on how you define 'healthy.' It isn't an ideal reaction, no, but at the same time, it does seem perfectly natural to me. It's also highly congruent with GoF's position as the midpoint of a bildungsroman, don't you think? Because what you're describing sounds an awful lot to me like...well, it sounds to me like the same fundamental psychological dynamic that underlies some of the more troublesome developmental issues of adolescence. On a far more macrocosmic scale, of course. But still. Do you think that Crouch Jr. always disliked his father?"
Eileen stared at her.
"Because you see," Elkins explained. "I've always imagined that at one time, he must have absolutely worshipped him. He is envious of his mother: 'He loved her as he had never loved me.' His relationship with Voldemort is a substitution. It's displacement. What does that say about how he likely once felt about his father? He calls him 'disappointing.' Disapppointment isn't too far off from disillusionment, is it? You can't be 'disappointed' in someone unless you first had certain...expectations."
"No," murmered Eileen.
"Mainly, though, I read it that way because as I see the entire Crouch subplot, Crouch's relationship with his son replicates on the personal level his political relationship with the wizarding world as a whole."
"Yes, so you've said."
"And said and said and said. Yeah, I know. I repeated that sentence like a mantra in the novenna, didn't I? I think that it may have come up in three separate posts. But that's because it really is just so intrinsic to my reading of this plotline. It's the glue that binds it all together."
There was a long silence.
"Elkins," said Eileen, in a low voice. "I really don't want to identify with Crouch Jr."
"I am sorry. But if Crouch's son is a faulty mirror to Crouch, then Crouch must also be a faulty mirror to his son. That's just how mirrors work. And if Crouch was a faulty mirror to his son, then he must have been one to the wizarding world as well. Because as I see it, that's how that dynamic is constructed in the text. Thematically speaking, leaders and fathers occupy the same symbolic position. Crouch Jr's antipathy towards his father reads to me like a backlash response, replicating on the personal level the public and political backlash that we see in the Pensieve."
"The wizarding world couldn't have felt very good about itself," said Eileen slowly. "They didn't just have something to regret in the small world of Canadian politics. They had to regret supporting some pretty horrible things. So, naturally, they would have turned their anger on Crouch. They wanted him gone. Because he reminded them of themselves. He was their faulty mirror. I don't think the Pensieve Croud's jeering just represents the anger of the people who had been hurt by Crouch. I think it represents the far greater swell of anger from the people who had helped Crouch hurt others."
"Yes."
"'Take him away. Shunt him aside to International Magical Co-operation, where we'll never have to see him again. Where we can forget what we did.'"
"Sweeping it under the carpet," agreed Elkins. "Like the wizarding world does with everything having to do with that era. Just like all of those acquitted Death Eaters."
"By the way," added Eileen lightly. "I think that public state of denial saved him. Really, Crouch Sr. should have been brought to trial for what he did during the war. And...NO!" she shrieked, as Elkins lunged across the grass at her. "What did I say? I...oh."
She blinked down at Elkins, who had thrown her arms around her.
"Oh. I see. Well, all right then. I thought that you didn't like hugging?" She patted Elkins tentatively on the back.
"Eileen," gasped Elkins, letting go of her. "Eileen, do you want to know why Crouch Sr. always makes me so very angry?"
"Because he reminds you of your—"
"No. No, it's not just that. It's also because I read him as a war criminal. A war criminal who got away with murder. A war criminal who was never brought to trial. A war criminal whose victims are still suffering for his crimes, even by the time of the canon. He's a lot like Lucius Malfoy, or Nott and Avery, or all of those other guys whose past sins everybody seems to know about but nobody is willing to acknowledge. Except that in Crouch's case, even the readers don't seem to care about it. And that just...oh, it just infuriates me somehow." She sat back on her heels, frowning. "I think that I find Crouch such an immensely frustrating character in part because while everyone thinks of those Death Eaters as war criminals, I have never before heard anyone other than myself say the same thing about Barty Crouch."
"Elkins, I..."
"And the one time that I did say it—on another list, that was—everybody just yelled at me."
"I..."
"Thank you!"
"Elkins!" Eileen pushed her away. "Stop that! You're scaring me."
"I wrote an entire post about this, you know," Elkins explained, stumbling somewhat over her words. "Midnight In the Golden Wood With Crouch. A Novenna response. But then I was afraid to post it."
"Afraid? Why?"
"Oh, I don't know. Because it's a topic on which I can get a little bit emotional? A little bit strident? A little bit ranty? A little bit...oh, hell, let's be fair here, okay? A lot over-engaged. Frankly, I just can't keep my head on this subject at all. And because as a means of addressing and acknowledging that problem," she concluded wearily, "the Affective Fallacy horsie joke really only works once.
"Also because I worried that it might have bordered on implied ad hominem," Elkins added, after a moment's pause. "You know, sort of like the way that those posts objecting to Sympathy For the Devil readings by focusing really heavily on the plight of the DEs' victims can sometimes come across as accusatory? There's that 'it's your sort of person who lets the terrorists win' flavor that can sometimes start creeping in? Except that in this case, it would be 'it's your sort of person who lets the police state take over.' And I particularly wanted to avoid that because, well... Because it was January 24, all right? When I was all set to post it."
Eileen frowned. "January twenty...Oh! Oh, I see. You were worried about what Dicentra and I were talking about on that factional/fictional divide thread?"
"Yeah. Specifically that passage about you being unusually sensitive to implications that you don't care about civil liberties. You see, Eileen," explained Elkins with a rueful smile. "I don't exactly want to identify with Barty Crouch Jr. either. That's really not a positive reader identification for me. I wasn't sure how serious you were, was the thing, and I really wasn't keen on the idea of reenacting some twisted variant on 'The Egg and the Eye' for the amusement of the 5000 lurkers."
She shrugged. "I know that you care very deeply about human rights, Eileen."
"Most kind of you," said Eileen drily.
"I also think that Crouch should have stood trial. For war crimes. But I doubt that he would have got a fair one. Well," Elkins added, with a sudden grin. "Not unless he stood trial here, of course. Because as everyone knows, here on HPfGU, we always give characters fair hearings!"
"Bringing him to trial would have meant that the society would have had to examine its own self," Eileen pointed out. "Much better to exile him to Magical Co-operation... There was, of course, one other way to lash back at him, as I agree they desperately wanted to."
"By implicating him personally in the Longbottom Incident."
Eileen nodded her head. "I would have been scared out of my wits the moment the Longbottom affair was traced back to my door, invisibility cloak or no invisibility cloak."
"Yes, I suppose I would have been as well. Dumbledore says that the attack on the Longbottoms 'caused a wave of fury such as I have never known.' And he's...what? 150 years old? Nor was Voldemort's rise the first war against Dark Wizardry he'd ever seen. So I'm thinking that must have been quite some wave of fury. I guess I would have been pretty nervous too. People at the forefront of witch hunts do tend to get targetted in the end, don't they? Today's inquisitor is tomorrow's heretic. It's almost a cliche."
"The revolution eats its children," murmered Eileen.
"Oh, Eileen, Eileen!" Elkins laughed wildly. "So does the status quo!"
"Pull yourself together," Eileen told her, smiling.
Elkins took a deep breath. "Crouch was definitely trying to save his political career in the Pensieve," she said. "But it is possible that he was also trying to save his own skin. Eric Oppen suggested that possibility all the way back in April, actually. He suggested that Crouch was afraid that he might be carted off to Azkaban himself if he didn't throw his son to the mob as a kind of a sop."
She pulled a brittle yellowed message out of one pocket and unfolded it gently. "This is Eric, in message #37781:
Face it, learned colleagues, Crouch Sr. was in a dicey position himself at that trial. If he had shown any sympathy for his son or anybody else on trial (Mr and Mrs. Lestrange?) he could have found himself up on charges himself---I would not want to attract any such thing with the Wizard World in what amounted to a lynching mood. Distancing himself from his son the Death Eater in the most public way he could was, if nothing else, a necessity for his own and his wife's safety. We know that people were hauled off to Azkaban without so much as trials, at his command. Wouldn't some of these folks have people they'd left behind who'd _love_ to pay Crouch Sr. out?
Elkins smiled dreamily. "I love it when Eric calls me a 'learned colleague,'" she sighed.
Eileen was staring at her.
"Elkins," she said. "Are you actually blushing?"
Elkins jumped, then quickly folded up Eric's message and put it back in her pocket.
"Yes, well," she said briskly. "So Crouch could have been fighting for his life there. Which is indeed rather sympathetic."
"Pitiable, anyway," said Eileen, with a rueful grin. "Wasn't it you who said a while back that you always feel for the person who's fighting for their life, no matter what they've done to get there?"
"That was me. And you were the one who agreed with me, I seem to recall. Yet Barty Jr. was fighting for his life in that Pensieve scene, and I fail to see you shed a tear about it."
"Yes, that's rather strange," said Eileen. "I have got weepy over Crouch Jr. several times, but it's never when reflecting on the Pensieve scene. The Pensieve scene just doesn't move me. I always feel remarkably cold-hearted towards Crouch Jr. there."
"I assume that you mean on re-reading?" asked Elkins. "Or am I misremembering? For some reason, I'd remembered you saying that he really tugged at your heart-strings there. Was that just when you thought that he was innocent, then? You know, the strange thing about this," she said thoughtfully. "Is that I actually sympathized with him in that scene a whole lot more on rereading? On first reading, I did think that he was innocent. Yet I felt rather more strongly for his father."
"That's simply perverse, Elkins."
"Yeah, it really is, isn't it? But I just can't help it. It's always like that for me. I always feel a whole lot worse for the guilty than I do for the innocent in those sorts of situations. I think that it must be because I know how much worse it is to suffer for something when you know that you've brought it all upon yourself. When you don't even have the knowledge of your own essential innocence to sustain you. When you don't have anyone other than yourself to blame."
Elkins shuddered helplessly. "It's precisely the same reader sympathy that I feel for Pettigrew in the Shrieking Shack. Which is the reason that your own lack of sympathy surprises me so much, actually."
"What is?"
"Shrieking Shack. You see, I wouldn't find it all that strange for anyone else to feel cold and unsympathetic towards Crouch Jr. in the Pensieve scene. Not on re-reading, at any rate. After all, his sins are truly dire. Even if you assume that he was innocent of torturing the Longbottoms, he's plenty wicked enough elsewhere to make up for it. And my own idiosyncratic reader response aside, Crouch Jr. really isn't written as a sympathetic character. But I do find it somewhat surprising coming from you, Eileen, because you identify with Peter in the Shack, which I see as a very similar situation. They're both scenarios in which a character is about to pay a very high price for his crimes, and is absolutely terrified, and can't escape from what's about to happen to him, and desperately, hopelessly, wants to be spared his fate, even though he's really not at all innocent. So what accounts for the difference in your reader response?"
There was a brief silence, while they thought it over.
"I wonder if it might be because Barty never actually confesses?" suggested Elkins. "He protests his innocence to the very last. Peter, on the other hand, does abandon his denial eventually. In the end, he's simply pleading for mercy. Could that account for it, do you think? Or is it possibly because you identified so very strongly with Crouch Sr. overall that it caused your reader sympathy to stay more narrowly focussed on him in that scene?
"I don't know. I'm just throwing out guesses here. What do you think?"
*******************
Elkins
********************************************
Crouch Novenna and responses: message #47927 and downthread replies
]]>"I don't want to spoil everyone's fun," says Eileen to herself. "But I think invisibility cloaks belong to old families, not people with connections to the DMLE."
"Truthfully?" whispers Elkins, with a quick glance back at the door to the Safe House. "So do I."
"Elkins! I was talking to myself there!"
"And I was eavesdropping. I think that they belong to old families too. Look at what Ron says, when he first sees Harry's in PS/SS."
"I've heard of those," he said in a hushed voice, dropping the box of Every Flavor Beans he'd gotten from Hermione. "If that's what I think it is -- they're really rare, and really valuable."
"Really rare, and really valuable," repeats Elkins. "But what Ron doesn't say is anything about them being 'restricted.' And given that Ron is a Ministry kid, I think that he might well know about it, if they were. It also seems clear to me that Ron's never seen one before. 'If that's what I think it is.' But we know that the Weasley kids do come into contact with members of the DMLE from time to time. Charlie met Moody while visiting Arthur at work, for example, and the Twins also seem to be acquainted with him.
"Hermione never brings it up either," she continues. "No 'Harry, you can't have one of those! I just read in a book that only people in Magical Law Enforcement are allowed those!' Nothing like that. Nobody ever cautions Harry against being caught with one in his possession either, which I suspect would have come up by now, if Invisibility Cloaks were really restricted to members of the DMLE. Snape never objects to his owning one on those grounds. Nobody does. It looks to me far more like a very valuable legacy artifact, the sort of thing that wealthy old families might possess, than it does like government issue."
Eileen nods. "After all, Barty Crouch Sr. wasn't just head of the DMLE," she points out. "He was an aristocrat. And something in the way JKR describes the Potters makes me think we're looking at a similar background."
"I agree. Inherited wealth. Never had to work for a living. Also, the Malfoys seem to view the Potters far more as class traitors than as inferiors. Both Draco and Lucius talk about them as if they should have been on Voldemort's side. As if they made the wrong choice. I'm left with the impression that the Potters were wizarding aristocrats as well."
"But I do hate to spoil Cindy's fun..." begins Eileen.
"Do you? Really?" Elkins blinks. "How droll. I always find it rather amusing, myself. In fact, I think that I'm going to end this post right here..."
"You are? Why?"
"Why, to give her a chance to object without having to deal with more of our Crouch talk, of course!"
"But how do you plan on conducting more than one conversation at a time?"
Elkins jerks her head over towards her two clones on the swingset.
"Oh."
-----------------
Elkins
]]>"Didn't you say last night Elkins that you always like it much better when it turns out that people screwed up big time than you do when it turns out that they were actually being very clever and getting things right all along?" Melody asked.
Elkins looked up, smiled, and nodded.
"Doesn't Barty Jr. fit that clever bill rather nicely though?"
><))"> ><))"> ><))"> ><))"> ><))"> ><))"> ><))"> ><))"> ><))">
Well, he is clever (and I do realize that that's a big part of why you like him so much, Melody), but I also see him as rather striking for the extent to which he screws things up (which is a large part of why I like him so much). He's not really much of a criminal genius at all, if you ask me. He doesn't really get a whole lot of things right. I mean, let's take a look at his nasty, brutish and short life, shall we?
First off, he became a Death Eater. That's screwing up right there, I'd say, especially when you consider that he had all the practical advantages: wealthy and influential parents, good connections, academic talent, blandly inoffensive looks. Entering into compacts with Dark Wizards is always screwing up, if you ask me, but in Barty's case, you can't even explain it on pragmatic grounds: unlike the giants, for example, who may have had very good cause for supporting an insurrectionist agenda, Barty was well-positioned to benefit from the status quo.
Second, assuming that the Death Eaters didn't take minors or schoolboys, he probably accepted the Dark Mark only a matter of months before Voldemort went down. If that. (Myself, I always like to imagine that it was only a matter of days, but that's just because I'm seriously Bent.) Assuming that he left school in June of 1981 (for the reasoning behind this timeline, see posts 39828, 47294), he would have become a Death Eater around four months before the event at Godric's Hollow at the most. I rather suspect that it was even less time than that, as I imagine that given whose son he was, he would have been very carefully vetted before being ushered into the inner circle. So we're looking at the most appalling timing here. Seriously Bad Timing.
Nonetheless, he did avoid getting exposed as a Death Eater after Voldemort's fall. Lucky devil! So what did he do? Did he keep his head down and just try to get on with his life? No, no. Of course not! That would have been sensible. No, instead he started hanging with the crazed fanatics. Naturally. And then he got himself arrested. Invisibility Cloak Left Behind At Scene Of Crime? Wrong place at the wrong time? Actually innocent, and framed by one of his father's political enemies? Under the Imperius Curse (dig that theory, btw, Eric!)?
Well, there's no way to know for sure. But no matter how you spin this, I'd say that it qualifies as a Bad Mistake.
He didn't have the requisite fanaticism to stand up to the dementors. The Woman Assumed To Be Lestrange wasn't on her death bed after a year of replaying her worst memories. I think that her fanaticism probably helped to sustain her, just as Sirius' knowledge of his own innocence did. So in Barty, we're looking at someone who wanted to be a fanatic, but who wasn't even really very good at it, when push came to shove. Sad, sad, sad.
Once again, though, he has the luck of the devil. His parents rescue him from prison. Choice opportunity for him, yes? He could have started a new life, perhaps. Or, he could have feigned gratitude and compliance long enough to put his father off his guard, and then run off to try to bring back Voldemort. Either one of those two actions would at least have shown a bit of competence. But instead, what does he do? He actually lets his father know that he's all set to run off and find Voldemort -- and he gets himself Imperio'd for all his pains. Pathetic.
After a decade of slavery, he starts managing to resist the Imperius from time to time. He succeeds in keeping it a secret from Winky. So far, so good. So what does he do at the QWC? He kicks that Imperius, and he's outdoors, there's a crowd, there's already the distraction of the little DE parade going on...I mean, we're talking chance of a lifetime here. So how does he exploit it? Does he seize this opportunity to make his great escape? Take advantage of the situation to try to break free of Winky, and then flee into hiding?
Err...no. No, see, instead what he decides to do is to shoot the Dark Mark into the sky, thus alerting everyone to his precise location. Yes, so clever is our Barty that within minutes of casting his Morsmordre, he's been triangulated upon by a bunch of Ministry guys and stunned into unconsciousness. He only avoids going right back to prison because his father covers for him. And then he winds up right back where he started: under the Imperius Curse, and his father's prisoner. I mean, really now! This is hardly a criminal mastermind we're looking at, is it? He can't even cast a single spell without getting caught! He's perfectly hopeless!
He can't throw off the Imperius a second time. He needs to be rescued by Voldemort. And then we get to the Cunning Plan -- which isn't even his.
Okay. First, he and Wormtail botch their abduction of Moody badly enough that there's a commotion. They only get away with it by the skin of their teeth.
Then, his mission to ensure that Harry wins that Tournament is constantly on the brink of doom. Barty's skating on thin ice throughout the entire novel, really. He needs to resort to a rather desperate 'Plan B' to get Harry through the Second Task, and even then, he only succeeds through the dumbest of luck. Harry very nearly sleeps through the thing, for heaven's sake!
He nearly gives himself away with Bouncing Ferret. He nearly gets caught out by the Marauder's Map. He nearly gets caught killing his father. He plays his part a bit too well by teaching Harry to resist the Imperius Curse. In fact, Eileen has argued, and I think that I'm forced to agree, that his behavior as "Moody" is in some ways utterly reckless. He shows off, he seeks out old companions, he gives other people clues to his real motives. He is not careful.
And that Third Task was also an awfully close shave, wasn't it? In spite of all of his efforts, in spite of taking Fleur out of the running, in spite of that breathtakingly vicious "Imperio Krum Into Crucio'ing Cedric" ploy, Cedric still comes thiiiiiiiis close to taking the trophy. And wouldn't that just have pleased Voldemort no end!
And finally, there's the End Game. Ah, the End Game. He breaks his masquerade by dragging Harry out of Dumbledore's sight. Then he takes Harry...where? Why, to his office, of course! The very first place that Dumbledore is likely to go looking for him. He is so consumed with explaining how terribly cunning he's been that he not only fails to look into his Foe Glass; he also somehow fails to notice that his would-be victim keeps stealing glances at said Foe Glass. He can't even manage to kill a helpless, traumatized, unarmed fourteeen-year-old boy. Not even after drugging him first! Instead, he degenerates into bwah-hah-hah Villain Mania and then gets himself, in rapid succession, stunned, spurned, exposed, veritaserum'd, interrogated, bound, and Dementor Kissed.
Yes, he is clever, in his way. He has a quick wit and an agile mind, and he's just killer with all of those sly double-edged comments. He's also one heck of an actor. But at the same time, I can't really say that I view him as all that competent. In fact, he strikes me as rather notably self-sabotaging. It seems to me that whenever he's in danger of actually getting away with something, he finds some way to shoot himself in the foot. To me, he comes across very strongly as someone who on some deep and fundamental level really doesn't want to succeed.
In short, he's a screw-up.
—Elkins
]]>First of all, bravo, Dicentra, on a thought-provoking and compelling argument.
Oh, enthusiastically seconded!
You know, I've always problems with Jealous!Ron? I was never able to put my finger on the reasons why. He somehow just never...felt right to me.
Now that Dicentra has done this marvellous analysis, though, I finally feel justified in kicking Jealous!Ron out the door and happily accepting a BetrayedLoyalty!Ron.
Abigail felt much the same way. She did, however, have one Big Question to ask:
What is the point?
No, really, I'm asking. I have no idea what the answer is, and that's bugging me because Dicentra's argument makes a lot of sense. So, any thoughts?
Hmmmm. Thoughts...
Well, one thing that occurs to me is that, as Dicentra and Jo and bboy and others have pointed out, every single one of the first three books has given us some striking example of Ron's extraordinary loyalty, his capacity for self-sacrifice. In PS/SS, he sacrifices himself in the chess game. In CoS, he braves his worst phobia. In PoA, he tells Sirius that Sirius will have to go through him in order to get to Harry.
So could it be that in GoF, we are being shown this same character trait, but from a slightly different angle? Perhaps Betrayed!Ron is there to show us what such loyalty looks like when it has been treated cavalierly, when it believes itself to have been under-appreciated, or spurned?
It strikes me that GoF returns to a theme that the series has not touched so strongly upon since CoS: the problem of fame. By introducing Rita Skeeter, JKR brings the issue of his own fame and, even more to the point, of his own unique position and role within the Wizarding World back home to Harry. While CoS focused more on the ramifications of this role in terms of ego, though, GoF seems to me to focus far more strongly on its ramifications in terms of duty, of obligation. Harry must participate in the Triwizard Tournament, regardless of the fact that he strongly suspects that it is a trap intended to bring about his own death. He simply has no choice in the matter. His unusual talent with the Imperius Curse also emphasizes his oddity, his specialness. And of course, the "Badge Chuck" zeroes in, in a painfully explicit way, on the particular "badge" of his distinction: his mark, his scar.
It seems to me that this issue becomes particularly important now because, in terms of the series as a whole, GoF is a transitional volume, a turning point, a pivot. To some extent, it marks the end of Harry's childhood. It also marks the point at which the conflict with Voldemort is poised to become a war.
The Rift may serve to point out to Harry the necessity of someone in his position appreciating the particular considerations owed to those who have proven themselves willing to lay down their lives for you or for your cause. It serves as both a warning and as a challenge to Harry: a reminder that fealty is a two-way street, that those destined to lead have serious responsibilities and obligations to those who follow them -- responsibilities which must not be neglected, not even through oversight or accident.
If this is indeed the Rift's purpose, then I would expect to see it reflected elsewhere in the text. And indeed, I do. In fact, I think that it is reflected quite strongly in the behavior of the villains throughout GoF, particularly Voldemort, who has already been established as a literary double to Harry.
It seems to me that the parts of GoF which focus on the antagonists are overwhelmingly concerned with the bonds of loyalty, fealty and duty. They stand, however, to illustrate what happens when these concepts are perverted, or when they are misapplied.
The entire Crouch family subplot, for example, revolves around misguided notions of devotion, loyalty and duty. Crouch mistakes coercion for devotion. Percy and Winky grant Crouch loyalty that he does not merit. The entire Crouch household applies its misguided devotion to its erring scion. Barty Jr., in turn, gives his to Voldemort.
What allows us to know that all of these expressions of personal devotion are misapplied is that they are non-reciprocal.
Crouch is willing to sacrifice both his son and his servant to protect himself; he cannot remember his assistant's name and will not even do him the courtesy of drinking his tea. Crouch Jr. rewards Winky for her devotion by exploiting her weakness at the QWC, and he murders the father who saved his life. His own loyalty to Voldemort is rewarded by soul death at the hand of one of his master's "natural allies."
Every single one of Voldemort's scenes in this novel similarly showcases and highlights Voldemort's own unwillingness to recognize the reciprocity of service. Voldemort demands utter devotion, loyalty and submission from his followers, yet he does not recognize any corresponding obligations towards those who tender him such service. Indeed, although he promises reward to those who serve him faithfully, whenever one of his followers actually shows signs of expecting quid pro quo, he takes great pains to disabuse them of that notion.
In the first chapter of the book, in spite of his absolute dependence on Wormtail's service, Voldemort refuses to give him any assurance that he will not be killed once he no longer proves useful. In the dream sequence, his punishment of Wormtail for allowing Crouch Sr. to escape is gratuitous, excessive, and sadistic. In the graveyard, Voldemort talks a good game of contracts and of loyalty, but his actual actions make it clear precisely what the nature of this "contract" really is. He coaxes his Death Eaters to beg forgiveness for their prior disloyalty, but when one finally does, he retaliates with torture and the assurance that "I do not forgive." He delays replacing Wormtail's hand until he has first forced Wormtail to proclaim, out loud and in front of the assembled Death Eaters, that he is actually owed nothing. Nothing but suffering. Only then is Voldemort willing to "reward" him for his service, thus making it clear to all that his "reward" is absolutely not to be viewed as any form of payment. There is to be no quid pro quo in this relationship. The "reward" is actually an undeserved gift, an act of Grace -- and indeed, Wormtail responds to it with precisely the sort of gratitude appropriate to such a bestowal.
To say that Voldemort has no sense of noblesse oblige would be a gross understatement. He has no sense of reciprocity. He demands the privileges of fealty, but he does not accept its corresponding responsibilities, obligations or duties. Voldemort does not want to be master to his followers. Master/servant is a reciprocal relationship. Instead, Voldemort wants to be their god.
Perhaps the Rift is there to show to Harry the dangers inherent in such a lack of reciprocity?
Steve/bboy wrote:
First this thought was triggered in my mind by someone mentioning that after the second task when Ron was getting some attention, Harry assume Ron's pleasure in it was because Ron was getting to share the limelight for a change. This person (sorry couldn't find that post again) speculated the Ron 'joy' was really in the realization the he (Ron) was the most precious thing in Harry's life, even more precious the Harry's world class Firebolt Broomstick which was the first thing Harry thought of.
Yes. I think that's why he's so happy too.
Being valued in just that fashion was also what Crouch Jr. fixated upon, wasn't it? It was what he felt he never received from his father. And it was what he hoped, foolishly, to receive from Voldemort.
::pause::
::slow smile::
One last thought about the responsibility towards ones followers, this one going back to last week's Train Stomp discussion, in which we were discussing the significance of the Twins ambushing the anti-Trio and cursing them from behind...
It occurs to me, you know, that Voldemort and Crouch Jr. aren't the only antagonists who serve as Harry's literary doubles in this story. Draco Malfoy also plays that role, as unsatisfying as he may be in it. And there's something about that Train Stomp that I was thinking about last week. Something that I don't believe anyone else brought up.
"Interesting effect," said George, looking down at Crabbe. "Who used the Furnunculus Curse?"
"Me," said Harry.
"Odd," said George lightly. "I used Jelly-Legs. Looks as though those two shouldn't be mixed. He seems to have sprouted little tentacles all over his face. Well, let's not leave them here, they don't add much to the decor."
Crabbe. That would be the same Crabbe who braved Fake!Moody's wrath to try to help Ferret!Draco during the Ferret Bounce, wouldn't it?
The Slyth Trio are described as "covered with hex marks," but I do find it interesting that this discussion of such marks actually being on someone's face centers on poor dear voiceless Vincent Crabbe.
See, I just can't seem to shake this sneaking suspicion that Draco's face is probably just fine.
Good Guys really shouldn't go hexing their enemies in the back, you know.
But they don't go using their followers as human shields, either.
—Elkins (who will happily board Marina's Harry/Millicent ship, so long as she is allowed to desseminate Redeemable!Crabbe leaflets to all the crew)
]]>I can see giving the Aurors those powers under the circumstances. We had an unfortunate incident in my town a week ago where an officer was forced to kill when he was attacked. If Aurors, as trained law enforcement officials, are not given this authority, the attacking DE has all the advantages. It would be like sending a cop to a drug bust with no gun.
There's no reason to believe that the Aurors didn't have the right to kill in self-defense even before Crouch came along.
This is what Sirius says in "Padfoot Returns," Ch. 27 of GoF:
"The Aurors were given new powers -- powers to kill rather than capture, for instance."
Note what Sirius is actually saying. He does not say that what Crouch authorized his Aurors to do was to kill in self-defense. For all we know, they already had that authorization. Recognition of self-defense as an acceptable legal justification for killing is very common, after all, even if the burden of proof may vary widely from culture to culture.
No, what Sirius actually says is that the Aurors were given authorization to kill rather than to capture.
This is serious. What it means is that the Aurors were permitted to kill not only in self-defense, nor even in the immediate defense of others. They were allowed to kill as an alternative to arrest.
In other words, they could kill innocent citizens—people only suspected but not yet actually convicted of any crime—without being held accountable for it.
Note also what Sirius has to say about Moody:
"I'll say this for Moody, though, he never killed if he could help it. Always brought people in alive where possible."
Indeed, the text gives us an example of the sort of situation in which it was not possible: the combat with Evan Rosier, who chose to fight rather than to surrender. But for all we know, Rosier's death at the hands of the Aurors might have been perfectly legal even before Crouch came into power.
The implication that I see in Sirius' commentary about Moody above is that there were other Aurors who, unlike Moody, were not killing in self-defense. Nor were they killing only when it was impossible to apprehend a suspect by other means (Moody himself brought more Death Eaters to justice than any other Auror, we are told, so clearly refraining from the AK was really not all that crippling a disadvantage).
No. They were killing gratuitously.
And Crouch's measures were what allowed them to get away with it.
—Elkins
]]>"You're just another spy, aren't you," demanded Cindy suspiciously.
"'Another spy?' Thanks, Sneaky." Elkins accepted a cup of coffee and settled herself into a chair. "What, have you guys been playing around with that new Persil Automatic or something? I thought this was an Invisibility Cloak discussion."
"You have a letter from Tom," Risti told her.
"A letter from Tom?" Elkins asked. "Let me see!"
Risti handed her the letter. Elkins glanced down at it, nodded once to herself, pulled a blue pencil out of one pocket, and then stopped, frowning.
"Oh," she said.
"What?"
"Oh. Well, I was about to explain to Tom that the other Elkins' inference that Barty must have actually entered the maze probably derived from all of the things that he had done. Removed all those obstacles. Taken out monsters. It's always seemed implausible to me that he really could have done all of that from the perimeter, because it seems to me that it would require not only being able to cast spells through the shrubbery, but also around corners, which I don't believe is possible. I've therefore always assumed that he must have slipped into the maze itself at some point during the proceedings. But."
"But?"
"But. I've just remembered that he actually tells Harry that he did it all from the perimeter. In Chapter Thirty-five. Page 677, in my edition:
'I was patrolling around it, able to see through the outer hedges, able to curse many obstacles out of your way. I stunned Fleur Delacour as she passed. I put the Imperius Curse on Krum, so that he would finish Diggory and leave your path to the cup clear.'
Elkins shrugged. "So I guess he really didn't enter the maze. Had he done so, he would have bragged about it. It still seems weird to me, I must say, but I guess it's the truth. So okay. There's no need for a second Invisibility cloak. Point conceded." She sat back in her chair and sipped contentedly at her coffee.
Cindy threw her a look of weary disgust. "You really don't have even a shred of True Wizarding Pride. Do you, Elkins?"
"Nope," said Elkins happily.
Risti stirred some milk into her second cup of coffee. "I had no idea invisibility cloaks could be so interesting. We hardly ever talk about them."
"Yeah," Elkins agreed, "but you know, those other Elkinses out there filled me in, and I'm really not sure you've really gone anywhere with this."
"We have so!" Cindy exclaimed. "See, once we know that law enforcement wizards are more likely to have invisibility cloaks, we can have all manner of fun. Let's go back to this idea that Mrs. Longbottom stunned Neville and concealed him under Frank's invisibility cloak the night the Pensieve Four burst into their home..."
"But Cindy," objected Elkins gently. "What we've determined here isn't that law enforcement wizards are more likely to have Invisibility Cloaks. In fact, what we've determined is precisely the reverse."
Cindy frowned.
"Well, think about it," said Elkins. "If Crouch Jr. only had one Invisibility Cloak, rather than two of them, then the cloak in question was probably his father's, because that's the one that we know for sure does exist. The Crouch family had an Invisibility Cloak. That's canon. So there's really no need at all for Moody to have had one as well. And if Moody didn't have one, then why on earth would you assume that Frank Longbottom had one? After all, Frank was an Auror, just like Moody was. Crouch, on the other hand, was the Head of the DMLE. So if there's no second cloak, then that makes it less likely that Frank Longbottom had one in his house. Not more."
"Well," began Cindy. "Moody was a retired Auror..."
"Yeah. And Crouch was a retired Head of the DMLE. Yet he still had an Invisibility Cloak. So." Elkins shrugged and took another sip of her coffee.
"But what does that do to my theory about James' Invisibility Cloak?" wailed Melody.
"Oh, your theory can still hold," Elkins reassured her. "You just have to assume that James' father was once someone really important. Not just an Auror. Something more like the Head of the DMLE."
"I think that was where we came in, actually," said Melody. "Wasn't that my original speculation?"
"Was it? Oh, well, in that case you're fine. This entire Mrs.-Longbottom-hid-Neville-with-Frank's-Invisibility-Cloak speculation, though?" Elkins shook her head sadly. "Getting less plausible by the minute, I'm afraid. Where do you guys keep your yellow flags?"
"Yeah, well you know what?" Cindy snarled. "I think that you're an imposter too!"
"There's an easy way to find out," pointed out Eileen from the doorway. Everybody jumped.
"Are you the real Eileen?" asked Risti politely. "Or are you an imposter? Just so we know."
"If I were an imposter, I'd hardly tell you, would I?" Eileen turned to Elkins. "Elkins," she said. "Neville was in the house the night his parents were tortured, but his mother saved him by throwing an Invisibility Cloak over him and then Stunning him. Yes or no?"
"No," Elkins replied instantly, stroking Coney, who had just jumped into her lap. "There would be absolutely no dramatic point to having him be there at all if he did not actually witness the event. Either he was there, in which case we're looking at a Memory Charmed Neville scenario of one sort of another, or he was not there, in which case we're left with Faith's reading. But why on earth would JKR have him be there, yet unconscious and oblivious? I mean, really! What on earth would be the point? Where's the opportunity for a Bang?"
Eileen nodded with satisfaction.
"Right," she said. "Okay, second speculation. Neville was in the house that night, but his mother saved him by throwing an Invisibility Cloak over him and then body binding him. Yes or no?"
Elkins thought about it.
"Well," she said, at length. "That one does have possibilities. Not only does it allow Neville to be a witness, but it also accounts for his expression of utter horror when Hermione body-binds him at the end of PS/SS, as well as for the fact that when he is then rewarded for being victimized in this fashion, he does not look pleased, but instead 'white with shock.' Also, it carries on that good old JKR tradition of nameless martyr mothers sacrificing themselves for their sons."
She took another sip of coffee.
"So that one's not as bad," she concluded. "But it still has that Yellow Flag Invisibility Cloak problem. Also, I myself rather prefer the speculation that if anyone did such a thing, then it was Barty Jr. The text does seem to suggest some sort of bond between them. Neville and Junior react strangely to each other all the way through GoF. Barty's interested in Neville from the very start. Neville volunteers the name of the dread Cruciatus Curse in DADA class, which seems strangely out of character for him. He seems simultaneously terrified of Moody and intrigued by him. A mystic bond between the two might account for some of that. And besides," she adds, after a moment's thought. "It's blackly ironic. And you know how much I like that sort of thing."
"Now, that one's really Elkins," Eileen told the room.
"Oh, bother," sighed Elkins.
"What? What's wrong? Didn't you want to be really you?"
"No, no, no. It's not that. It's just that...well, it's just that now I'm finding that Mrs. Longbottom Does A Body-bind scenario rather plausible. It really is a lot more thematically consistent with the series as a whole than the Barty Jr. version, you know." She frowned down at Coney, then shoved it roughly off of her lap. The bunny hopped away across the kitchen, looking indignant.
"You're right," said Cindy smugly. "That really is Elkins."
"Thematic consistency," snorted Eileen. "What about some plot consistency, eh? Weren't you just arguing a few minutes ago, Elkins, that the fact that Barty Jr. had only one cloak made it seem implausible that the Longbottoms had an Invisibility Cloak at all?"
"What do you do, Eileen?" asked Melody. "Listen at doors?"
"This is Theory Bay." Eileen pointed out. "There are no private conversations. So. Barty Jr. was using his father's Invisibility Cloak. There's no indication that either Longbottom or Moody owned one. If there were an Invisibility Cloak involved in the Longbottom Incident, it makes the most sense to assume that the Cloak in question was the one that we already know to exist in canon. And that one belonged to the Crouch family."
"So we're back to Barty Jr." agreed Elkins, looking considerably cheered.
"It makes a lot more sense than risking a Yellow Flag by inventing some Longbottom invisibility cloak out of thin air," said Eileen. "It also serves to answer yet another one of those canon mysteries: on what evidence was Barty Jr. convicted? There must have been something else to convict Barty Jr. on than the testimony of the other Death Eaters. No matter what Elkins says, I can't see Crouch Sr. allowing that. Any Death Eater could finger a family member and he'd cart them off to Azkaban? There must have been some other evidence that disposed him against his son. It couldn't have been the Longbottoms' testimony, because if it was, I doubt Dumbledore would have expressed doubt about Barty Jr's innocence.
"No," she concluded triumphantly. "I say it was finding his own invisibility cloak there in the wreckage of the living room. Here, pass me a poptart!"
"One toaster pastry for Sly Eileen," chuckled Elkins, passing her one. "Really, now, Eileen! You can't honestly imagine that I don't see exactly what you're up to here, can you? You just want to find a way to make Crouch Sr. keeping his son under that Invisibility Cloak for all those years some kind of twisted ironic punishment, rather than either a means of trying to break the lad's spirit, or proof that he couldn't even stand to look at that faulty mirror that was his son. Can't say that I blame you all that much. After all," she snickered. "It is rather an impediment to that 'Barty Sr. talked to his son' theory of yours, isn't it? That pesky yet irreproachably canonical detail of the worn-night-and-day Invisibility Cloak? Hmmmm?"
Eileen looked quickly away. "I don't know what you mean," she muttered.
"Uh-huh." Elkins leaned back in her chair. "Right. Oh, well, that's okay. I don't really need the Cloak, you know. I've got plenty of other canons to shoot down that theory of yours -- although maybe we should take that outside. No, I'm happy to go for The Invisibility Cloak Left Behind At The Scene Of The Crime."
"You are? Really?"
"Yeah, sure. Why not? Especially since it makes it even more necessary for Crouch Sr. to have needed to preside over that Kangaroo Court, and for precisely the usual reason. Same old same old. Same reason he's usually doing things. Self-protection. Self-preservation. Self-interest. Covering himself. Because really, if it was his cloak that was found at the scene of the crime, then who, aside from his son, would have been a prime suspect, do you think?"
"Elkins!" objected Eileen. "Crouch was well-respected and—"
"The crowd shook their fists at him during Bagman's trial."
"But why would Crouch have gone for one of his own Aurors?" asked Melody.
"Well," said Elkins thoughtfully. "Off-hand, I can think of about five marvellously slanderous and conspiratorial ways to explain why Crouch might have wanted to torture very popular Frank Longbottom and his wife into insanity. But it really doesn't matter, does it? I'm not saying that he really did. Only that if I can think of ways to spin it that way, then surely Crouch's political enemies could have done the same. And I think there were probably a good number of people who would have wanted to believe it."
"Yeah," sniffed Cindy. "Death Eaters."
"How about also people who had been falsely accused of being Death Eaters? And their families? And the families of those 'suspects' that his Aurors tortured or mind-controlled? And the families of his political enemies, those people he deemed 'supporters?' And the families of those people he sent off to Azkaban without benefit of trial? The families of all the people he disappeared while the war was going on? The families of the people who as far as we know are probably still there, rotting away in Azkaban, just like Sirius Black would be, if he hadn't escaped? Yeah, I think there were probably people out there who would have been up for a bit of come-uppance for old Crouch. I always read a bit of backlash in that Pensieve Crowd, myself. They're out for blood for the Longbottoms, but I also think they liked Crouch's son being involved. I dare say that some of them would have been even more pleased to see Crouch himself dragged off by those dementors. His son was just the next best thing.
"So," concluded Elkins. "It really was in his best interests to get his son convicted as quickly as possible, wasn't it? Even if it really wasn't the greatest evidence. Shoddy enough evidence for Dumbledore to have had his doubts. Cloaks can be stolen, after all."
"I thought you said that Crouch was pandering to the crowd at his son's trial," objected Eileen. "Whipping them into a hysteria to further his own political agenda."
"Well, I think that he was, although as it happened, he seriously misjudged the long-term benefits of that strategy. But he could also have been protecting himself by allowing hostility directed at him to be deflecting onto his son and his son's co-defendents, just as in the parallel scene with Winky at the QWC, he protects himself and his son by allowing attention to be deflected first onto the Trio and then onto Winky. The two motives are hardly mutually exclusive. And really, you know, it wasn't a bad strategy, even if it did backfire on him. Besides," Elkins added. "I like Barty Jr. leaving his father's Invisibility Cloak behind at the scene of the crime. It makes him just such a screw-up, and you know how I love it when people turn out to have screwed up big time, rather than actually having been all clever and getting things right all along."
"What you want has nothing to do with plausibility," Cindy reminded her, rather severely.
"No," agreed Elkins. "It doesn't. But actually, you know, I also think that screw-up scenarios are far more canonically plausible?"
She reached down absently to scratch Coney behind the ears.
"I mean, just look at what we've seen in the text to date, will you?" she said. "A brief survey of the canon: 'It's Snape, I tell ya! Snape!' 'Mother Love? Oops, I forgot!' 'It's Draco, I tell ya! Draco!' 'Oops, cat hair!' 'It's Hagrid, I tell ya! Hagrid!' 'Oh, I'd best not tell Dumbledore I've been hearing voices!' 'Phoenix Tears? Oops, forgot that one, too!' 'Hey, guys, I know! Let's make Peter our Secret Keeper!' 'Oops, forgot my Wolfsbane Potion!' 'Come on, Cedric: let's take the prize together.' 'Priori Incantatem? Oops, didn't think of that one.' 'My gosh, you mean that wasn't my old friend Alastor Moody, but instead an imposter?' 'Harry, there's something that I should have told you five years ago....'"
Elkins took a deep breath. "And that's just a sampling," she said. "There are just tons more. People mess up constantly in these books. They make stupid mistakes and terrible errors of judgment; they're doomed by bad timing and rotten luck and plain old human fallibility. It happens everywhere you look in these books. That's just the way things work in the Potterverse, it seems: best-laid schemes ganging a-gley all over the place!"
"'Ganging a-gley?'" Risti repeated dubiously.
"It actually ties in, to my mind, with the emphasis on House Gryffindor," said Elkins. "Rather than either Ravenclaw or Slytherin. Not wisdom but bravery. Not cunning but faith. Fortune in the Potterverse really doesn't seem to favor the prepared mind, does it? It's a more Vergilian sort of Fortune. It favors the brave. So overall, I actually do think that canonical plausibility weighs far more heavily towards scenarios in which people screw up royally than it does towards ones in which it turns out that they were actually being terribly clever and planning everything right from the very—"
She made a small choking noise and looked down at the rather massive sword that had just appeared, seemingly from nowhere, at her throat. Then up into Melody's rather steely blue gaze. Then back down at the blade.
"Um," she said.
At the table, Eileen had buried her head in one hand and was shaking her head slowly back and forth. Behind her, Risti was making suspicious snerking noises at the back of her throat. Cindy sighed.
"Elkins," she said patiently. "Where are you?"
"I'm, uh." Elkins swallowed hard. "I don't see quite what you... Mel? Mel, uh, look, don't—"
"You're in the Safe House, Elkins," explained Cindy. "You know, the place for conspiracy theories? And Agatha Christie style speculations? Ones in which people have planned everything out ahead of time and are actually being very clever?"
Elkins' lips moved soundlessly. It looked as if perhaps she had just said, "oops." She glanced back up at Melody again.
"I, er...forgot?" she said faintly.
There was an awkward silence.
"I'll just, uh, go out into the garden then, shall I?" asked Elkins. "And play with the bunny for a little while?"
Melody withdrew the sword an inch from her throat.
"That might be for the best," she said coldly.
Elkins nodded weakly and staggered to her feet. She reached down, scooped up Coney, and inched her way across the kitchen, throwing nervous glances repeatedly at Melody's Big Sword. At the door, she paused.
"Can I take some coffee and a poptart with me?" she asked, without much hope.
"NO!" screamed Melody.
"Okay, okay. Sheesh." Elkins shook her head. "Just one last question, though? About that Invisibility Cloak Left Behind At The Scene Of The Crime? Eileen?"
"Yeah?"
"If that evidence was ever a matter of public record, then why would Sirius tell the Trio that Crouch's son might 'just have been in the wrong place at the wrong time?' Why would he have emphasized Crouch's son being caught in the company of the others as the most damning evidence against him?"
"Well..." began Eileen.
"I can only think of one explanation that fits," said Elkins quietly. "Crouch suppressed the evidence."
"To protect his son?" asked Eileen, looking excited.
Elkins laughed and shook her head.
"Hardly," she said. "But oh, Eileen. I do like it sometimes when people screw up big time."
*************
Elkins
***************************
]]>Cindy, Melody and Elkins turned to see Risti framed in the doorway of the Safe House's kitchen, her broom in one hand, floating a shiny new canon behind her.
"I--" Elkins began, but Risti seemed utterly distracted by the strawberry pop tart she was snarfing down with the single-minded concentration of the truly famished.
"Mwhorry," mumbled Risti, her mouth filled with crumbs. She swallowed. "I suppose I should introduce myself again. Risti's the name, and while it's been awhile, I think I have met all of you at least once around the bay."
"I should say so!" exclaimed Elkins. "As if I'm ever likely to forget the stern yet loyal First Mate Risti, who reprimanded me for speaking disrespectfully to Captain Veronica of the Imperio'd!Arthur Trimaran and then actually put me off the ship when I—"
The others were all staring blankly at her.
"Oh." Elkins blinked. "Oh, blast," she sighed. "That's right. I never actually posted that one, did I? I came down with bronchitis, and by the time that I'd recovered, the thread was hopelessly ancient. Oh, well." She smiled apologetically at Risti. "Never mind then. Perhaps we'd best just pretend it never happened. As indeed, I guess that it, er, well, didn't. Really."
"Err...yes, all right," said Risti, now looking quite confused.
"What's that canon you've got there?" asked Cindy.
"Well, you did say earlier that you didn't think real Moody had a cloak, right?" asked Risti, with an apologetic smile.
"I seem to recall saying that," Cindy said slowly.
"Mmmm-hmmmm." Risti bent down and lit her canon with a barely suppressed air of triumph.
GOF, Veritserum, p591, Canadian Hardcover
...Dumbledore closed the trunk, placed a second key in the second lock, and opened the trunk again. The spellbooks had vanished; this time it contained an assortment of broken Sneakoscopes, some parchment and quills, and what looked like a silvery Invisibility Cloak.
"Risti's right," said Elkins, nodding. "There is just no way that Barty would have had the time to get that Cloak back in the trunk. He was wearing an Invisibility Cloak during the Third Task. He used it to skulk about taking out the other champions, trying to leave a clear field for Harry. And then he was right there on the scene when Harry reappeared. I can't really imagine that he would have gone back to his office while Harry was in the Graveyard, can you? Gone back to his office, put his Invisibility Cloak back in his trunk, maybe had a nice cup of tea, and then bolted back down to the maze? It wouldn't make any sense at all."
"So he must have had two Cloaks!" cried Cindy. "The one that he actually used, which was probably his father's, the same one that he'd spent all that time being forced to wear while he was a captive, and Real!Moody's, which he left in the trunk."
"Or vice versa," agreed Risti, smiling. "He used Moody's Cloak and left his father's hidden safely away in the trunk."
"The latter would make more sense, I think," said Elkins. "Invisibility Cloaks might well be distinguishable from each other. After finding Harry's Invisibility Cloak at the foot of the willow in PoA, Snape makes it clear that he knows that it's Harry's. He doesn't suspect that it's Sirius Black's, for example. That could be just because Snape's no dolt, or it could be because Dumbledore's been filling him in, but it's also possible that he recognized the thing as having once belonged to James. At any rate, if anyone had ever noticed that "Moody" had Crouch's Invisibility Cloak, that would have been a giveaway. So he probably used Moody's, and kept his father's hidden away in the trunk with all of the other things that he couldn't afford ever to allow anyone to see. Like, er, well, like Moody himself, for example."
"But where did he put the Invisibility Cloak that he was wearing during the Third Task?" asked Melody. "What ever happened to it?"
There was a long silence. At length, Elkins coughed, a cough that sounded suspiciously like ::coughflintcough::. Cindy glared at her and elbowed her hard in the ribs.
"Not fair play," she hissed. "Even worse than that 'narrative invisibility' nonsense."
"Oh, all right," sighed Elkins. "So how's this? He put it in exactly the same place that he put the Marauder's Map! Ow!" she complained, as Cindy elbowed her again. "Geez! What was that for?"
"Anyway," said Melody. "It still supports the idea that one of James' parents might have been in the DMLE, because we're still looking at a situation in which only Law Enforcement people ever seem to own Invisibility Cloaks. It's not just money or prestige. The Malfoys don't seem to have one."
"Not necessarily." Risti smiled. "Remember what Cindy said? I believe she said something along the lines that no sane parent up and gives something like an Invisibility Cloak to a teenage boy. Think about it. If you were Lucius, and had a son like Draco, would you even mention that an invisibility cloak existed in your house?"
Melody chuckled. "I see your point."
"Oh, I think he might," said Elkins.
They all looked at her.
"Well, he's willing to take his son in with him to Knockturn Alley, isn't he? He's willing to have Draco trailing along with him while he itemizes all the nasty items he's arranging to sell to Mr. Borgin. He's willing even to let Draco know where he keeps his secret stash of Dark items:
'Father's got some very valuable Dark Arts stuff. But luckily, we've got our own secret chamber under the drawing-room floor -'
"So I think that if Lucius owned an Invisibility Cloak," Elkins concluded. "Draco likely would know about it. Of course," she shrugged. "That doesn't mean it would necessarily ever have come up in the books. And I'm certain that Lucius would never allow Draco to take such an item to school with him. But he likely would still know about it, if his father owned one."
"So we've proven...nothing, in other words," sighed Cindy.
"Nope. Not a thing. Except that people in the DMLE do seem often to have Invisibility Cloaks, while other people...err...well, might or might not have them. Still." Elkins shrugged again. "The coffee's good."
---------
Elkins, always glad to see Risti around and about
]]>