Crouch Jr's imperius timeline, Weatherby, Lucius the DE

[grey_wolf_c]

No: HPFGUIDX 37836

Note: this is a re-post. Yahoo is a little bit on the strange side 
today, and one of my posts seems to have vanished. I didn't make a 
copy, so I just rewrote it. Please excuse me if a very similar post 
appears toghether with this one.

Gwend wrote:
> At first, I thought Crouch may have already had Imperius cast before
> the Quidditch World Cup. <<The timeline is ambiguous>>, although it
> strongly suggests that Voldemort did not make contact until after the
> event. However, it may be possible that he *did* arrange to Imperius
> Barty Sr. before the cup, or else decided he needed to enlist Barty
> Jr. prior to the cup, and perhaps at that time, Crouch is suffering
> from the combinative effects of Imperius and a memory charm.

I don't think the timeline is ambiguous at all. Let's take a look at 
canon: IIRC, during the long Veritaserum-induced rant Crouch Jr. makes 
at the end of GoF, he tells Harry and co that he had been able to throw 
off the Imperius on his own a few times before being liberated by 
Voldemort and Wormtail's visit to his father's house, but it wasn't 
until that visit that he's totally liberated, at the same time that his 
father is Imperioed. During that same rant Crouch explains that one of 
those times when he was able to throw off the Imperius *own his own* 
was during the Quidditch World Cup (he wakes up and sees Harry's wand, 
which he promptly steals, without knowing who the young boy is). Since 
he's liberated from the Imperius by Voldemort, and during the match he 
was still under an Imperius, it can be deduced that Crouch Sr. wasn't 
Imperioed until AFTER the Quidditch World Cup.
 
> If that is so, then at no point in GoF do we see Crouch when he has
> not been the victim of dark spellwork. The confusion over
> Weasley/Weatherby, whether initially magically induced or not,
> however, I think clearly derives from a previous employee's name, and
> the blurring of past and present Crouch suffers under the curse.
> 
> Gwen

Well, if my canon interpretation is correct, we do see Crouch as he 
normally was during the visit to the Weasley's tent before the match 
(however, my last tries of interpreting canon have been quite a 
disaster [See below], so I'm willing to hear other views on the 
timeline). However, the fact that Crouch, at that time, was hiding a 
condemned DE inside his tent who just happened to be his believed-dead 
estrangled son, who was under the guard of a single house-elf and, to 
make things worse, who was going to be taken out into the open in a few 
hours was, maybe, *just* making Crouch Sr. to become a little unhinged 
and definetely nervous.

On the other hand, I prefer my own theory to explain the Wetherby 
syndrom: Couch got Percy's name wrong the first time and Percy was to 
awed by his authority to correct him at the time, and when a few weeks 
had passed, the situation was too violent for Percy to do anything 
about it ("Excuse me, Mr. Crouch, but even though I've been answering 
to Wetherby, my name is *Weasley*, like my father, Arthur, from the 
Muggle department. I hope this does *not* make you look too much of an 
idiot, sir").

Porphyria, Betty et al. wrote:
> "Grey Wolf, you're wrong on the Lucius matter: JKR identifies him by
> name, surname and voice during the chapter" (liberal adaptation of
> their words)

Yes, I realised that, and I'm sorry. I had wondered why I was so sure 
that Lucius was guilty, but I just laid it down to my belief of the 
RottenToTheCore!Malfoys theory. When I wrote that posts my books were 
unavailable, so I shouldn't have expressed it as if taken directly from 
canon. I'm sorry, and I will try not to trip with the same stone a 
second time.

Hope that helps,

Grey Wolf, a canon-based-theories defender (even if he does got canon 
wrong at times himself).