crouch jr. under imperius

[Amy Z]

No: HPFGUIDX 11536

mschub wrote:

 So assuming all this was true, Crouch Sr. 
> was able to keep Crouch Jr. under the Imperius curse for 
(assuming 
> Neville was 1 year old when the attack took place) TWELVE 
YEARS? (give 
> or take) It seems wrong to me. I had always assumed (not 
sure why) 
> that Crouch Jr. had broken out of the Imperius Curse like a 
year or so 
> after being placed under it. 

I have had to return all the books to the library (and am already 
suffering withdrawal symptoms:  headache, nausea, obsessive 
checking of Yahoo!Groups) so I can't be 100% sure on this.  But I 
am 99% sure that it was twelve years, or close to it.  The torture 
of the Longbottoms took place--?--no more than a year after V's 
fall, probably?  A year after that, Crouch Jr. was smuggled out of 
Azkaban.  It took him 10-12 years to begin to shake it off, and it 
took V's interceding to really release him.

Clearly, people vary greatly in their ability to resist the Imperius 
Curse.  In this case, Crouch Sr. was very powerful, Crouch Jr. 
was physically extremely weak--he had been close to 
death--when he was first put under the Curse, and perhaps we 
are also meant to conclude that those who gravitate towards 
Voldemort lack the strength of will and character that it takes to 
resist?  By this I'm not suggesting that V had ever had Crouch Jr. 
under the Imperius Curse, but rather that there are character 
traits that make one less likely to join a group like the Death 
Eaters, the White Aryan Resistance, whatever:  a strong sense of 
one's own self, morality, and purpose--a kind of interior voice 
that, when someone suggests "let's beat up some _____" 
(Muggles, Jews, gays) says "Why?  Stupid thing to do, really . . . . 
I WON'T!"

Amy Z