How reliable is Veritaserum? (wasRe:Another question about the "Witch Hunts")

[alicit at aol.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 47561

Strix raises a good question: 

"Why
didn't the Ministry of Magic administer Veritaserum to
the accused Death Eaters, and get around the whole
problem of trying to figure out whether they had acted
of their own free will?"

and I, since I am in such a chatty mood today, respond:

Veritaserum has always bugged me.  How do they know they get the right story 
and not just a very biased account of events?  How do they know that they are 
not getting an altered memory? especially if it happened a long time ago, 
like Barty Jr's account of his escape from Azcaban.  What if their mind has 
been tampered with, would Sirius give an accurate account of his days before 
Azcaban?  Or has the dementor's effects changed that?  People can convince 
themselves that a false memory is real, can veritaserum detect that?

But, the real reason I think that veritaserum is not used in trials is the 
bias factor.  For example, If we gave Snape Veritaserum and asked him about 
The Prank:

"Sirius tried to kill me" (or something to that extent)

we give Sirius the Veritaserum and ask about the prank:

"It was a joke, he was trying to figure out where lupin went, so i told him," 
(or something like that)

so, the testimony would be tainted by what a person believes happened.  That 
is why I think the MoM doesn't use the serum.

-Scheherazade, off to have dinner!


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