Not So Faithful (was: Re: The Imperius Curse

[Rita Winston]

No: HPFGUIDX 2959

--- In HPforGrownups at egroups.com, Amanda Lewanski wrote:

> [Barty Crouch, Jr] told his story, in great detail and under very 
> strong Veritaserum, to Dumbledore, Snape, McGonagall, and Harry. 
> He was indeed a very faithful servant.

For all that Moody/Crouch said "There's nothing I hate more than a 
Death Eater who walked free" and mouthed off about disloyal followers 
who denied their lord just to avoid Azkaban, he himself had *loudly* 
denied his lord ("Father! I'm innocent! I didn't do it!") in an 
unsuccessful effort to avoid Azkaban. (Perhaps the given name should 
have been Peter rather than Bartemius, as Peter denied *his* lord 
three times before cock crow -- does anyone have any ideas on the 
meaning of the name Bartemius?) 

Two trains of thought that leave from this station have to do with 
hypocrisy. One is the gutter-psychological theory of projection, 
in which, whenever person X criticizes person Y for bad behaviour A, 
someones retorts to person X that he/she is only saying that because 
of 'denial' of his/her own A.

Another is whether the Lord of Lies really has any objection to his 
followers lying.

A related thought is that, throughout the story, Crouch Sr. is 
criticized for his hardness, such as ending his own son to Azkaban, 
sending Sirius to Azkabab without trial, authorizing Aurors to kill 
'suspects' without the bother of planting a drop gun on them and 
falsely testifying that the killing was in self-defense like Muggle 
police officers do (apologies to any honest cop reading this post, 
but I live in Los Angeles and cannot imagine why *anyone* was 
surprised by the so-called Rampart scandal: talk about old news!).

But the harm that we actually *see* in this story was caused by 
Crouch Sr's moment of *softness*. If he hadn't yielded to his 
wife begging him to most illegally help a convicted felon escape from 
prison, V couldn't have kidnapped Harry from Hogwarts, Cedric 
wouldn't be dead, and for that matter, Crouch Sr wouldn't be dead.