[HPforGrownups] The Unforgivable Curses

[Ashfae]

No: HPFGUIDX 48341




> From: Tammy Bianchi <Resqgal911 at msn.com>
> 
> This has been bothering me for a while.  Why does Crouch!Moody make sure
> that Harry learns to fight the imperio curse?  I would have expected
> someone that was helping V to get Harry to try to send him as unprepared
> as possible.  My next question is why focus so much on teaching all the
> students how to break the imperio curse when he is just supposed to be
> showing the curses to them.  I believe the answer to this is that Crouch
> Jr. didn't want anyone to suffer as he did all these years his father
> kept him in hiding.  But, this would give Crouch Jr. a little to much
> credit.  After all he did keep Real!Moody under imperio all this time.

	I wondered about this, but the answer is obvious really: it was in 
character. I'm not sure we give Barty Crouch enough credit. He managed to 
pretend to be Mad-Eye Moody for an entire year, even fooling Dumbledore, 
who in addition to not being an idiot is a personal long-time friend of 
Moody's. That's some impressive acting. 
	Anyhow, Dumbledore told Moody to make sure the students were 
familliar with the Unforgivable Curses, and therefore it would have been 
out of character for Barty to be anything less than overwhelmingly 
thorough and paranoid. The real Moody would certainly have made sure Harry 
Potter could throw off the Imperius Curse, if Harry showed any signs of 
being capable of doing it. I imagine Barty wasn't too happy about this, as 
he knew perfectly well that Harry would be coming face-to-face with 
Voldemort (known for making use of the Imperius Curse), but there wasn't 
anything he could do without blowing his cover. Plus, I very much doubt 
there was a way for him to warn Voldemort or Peter that Harry could break 
the curse; I doubt there was any contact made between Voldemort and Crouch 
Jr. while Crouch Jr was in disguise; he couldn't risk any possibility of 
someone guessing that he wasn't what he seemed. 
	But still, Harry's ability to fight of Imperio is not very
important, at least not yet. No part of the plan to bring Voldemort back
required that Harry be put under the Imperius Curse; Voldemort just did
that for a bit of fun, in an attempt to bring Harry to his knees.
Cruciatus seemed to work just as well. (I was a bit relieved by that,
though I hate the idea of Harry in so much pain. The boy can fight off
Imperius, and AK apparently doesn't work on him; if Crucio didn't have an
affect either, I'd be wondering if Harry's even human!)

	Ashfae