Talented DEs (WAS: Talentless DEs)

[ssk7882]

No: HPFGUIDX 39828

Pippin asked (rhetorically, right before pointing the finger at 
Lupin):

> How did Crouch!Moody, who's never taught a lesson in his life, 
> get so good at teaching DADA? 


Aldrea responded:

> I know someone else already answered this and said that 
> Crouch!Moody would be good at DADA because of his experiences in 
> the Dark Arts. Crouch himself was a very loyal DE to Voldemort, so 
> there's his experience. 

Yes, but he wouldn't have had very much time at all to gain that 
experience.  In fact, if we assume that Voldemort did not invite 
minors or schoolchildren to join his elite circle of Death Eaters, 
then Crouch Jr. could not have been a DE for very long at all before 
Voldemort's fall.  Not only was he a minor; he would also still have 
been in school.

Sirius says of Crouch Jr. that at the time of his trial "he couldn't 
have been more than 19 years old."

As others have pointed out, the fact that Sirius uses the number 
"nineteen" here is highly suggestive.  It's not the age that one 
would cite if one were making a guess about somebody's age based on 
their appearance.  In that case, one would say, "he couldn't have 
been more than twenty," or perhaps (given that 17 is the age of 
majority in the wizarding world) "he couldn't have been much more 
than seventeen."

That Sirius uses the specific age 19 implies to my mind that what 
Sirius *did* know was Crouch's year at Hogwarts (in fact, he almost 
surely knew this, as their time at school would have overlapped).  
What Sirius did *not* know was the specific date of Crouch's birth.  
He knew that Crouch couldn't have been over the age of 19 because if 
Crouch had been, then he would have been in the next year up while at 
Hogwarts.  But Sirius does not say that Crouch *was* 19, because not 
knowing his birthday, Sirius realizes that it is equally possible 
that Crouch was still only 18 at the time of his trial.

Just as sixth years like Angelina Johnson and the twins in _GoF_ can 
be either 16 or 17, depending on when their birthdays fall, so a one-
year-out-of-schooler like Crouch could have been either 18 or 19 at 
the time of his trial.

What this means is that we know approximately how long Crouch had 
been out of school when Voldemort fell.  He had been out of school 
for less than a year.

I don't believe that a wizard that young, no matter how talented a 
student he might have been, could possibly have developed the mastery 
of the Dark Arts that we see him exhibit in _GoF_ by the time he was 
sent to prison, and after he was sent to prison, he would have had no 
opportunity to do so at all.  I don't really think that anyone gets 
very much in the way of magical studying done at Azkaban.  Certainly 
sickly Crouch would have been far too busy dying of dementor despair 
in his cell to be spending much of his time learning (without a wand) 
how to master the Unforgivables. And after his rescue from prison, he 
was a slave to his father's Imperius Curse.

Yet Crouch Jr. is *exceptionally* skilled.  He can Confund a powerful 
magical artifact.  He can ambush Krum, murder his father, and 
transfigure a corpse into a bone.  He can cast the Unforgivables not 
only in a classroom setting, but also under extremely adverse 
conditions: during the Third Task, he places Viktor Krum under
the Imperius Curse while patrolling around the hedge maze, which 
means that he must have done so in the dark, probably with very poor 
visibility, and either without invocation or in a low tone of voice, 
as he was neither seen nor heard by Harry or Cedric.  

Even when he had just been brought back from the very brink of death, 
Crouch Jr was remarkably powerful for his age and experience.  In his 
Veritaserum confession, he explains that once he had been nursed back 
to health after his rescue from Azkaban:

"I had to be controlled. My father had to use a number of spells to 
subdue me." 

In fact, his father eventually has to resort to the Imperius Curse to 
subdue him.  And his father is no slouch himself in the magic 
department.  Even Sirius, who has every reason to hate Crouch Sr, 
describes him as "a great wizard...powerfully magical."  Yet we are 
to believe that this powerful and experienced wizard had such trouble 
subduing his weak and sickly twenty year old son?

Yes, Crouch Jr. was a good student.  He got his 13 OWLS.  But I don't 
think that's enough to account for the degree of magical prowess that 
he exhibits.  There is only one explanation that I think
satisfactorily accounts for it.

Allegiance to Voldemort had imbued him with special powers.


Grey Wolf wrote:

> And now, for a possible explanation which I'm not sure I believe: 
> could Voldemort have GIVEN them powers, like on loan, in exchange 
> for their help? That would explain why people with the 
> constitutions of stones (Crabbe and Goyle) and nearly as 
> intelligent, can cast those difficult spells.

I do believe this to be the case, Grey Wolf, for reasons that I first 
outlined back in March, in message #35473.  To recap:

There is some suggestion in the books that either Voldemort himself 
or allegiance to Dark forces in general might indeed have the ability 
to imbue wizards with magical powers previously beyond their 
capabilities.

In the Shrieking Shack scene of PoA, Pettigrew offers up Sirius' 
escape from Azkaban as evidence of his Dark allegiance:

"He's got dark powers the rest of us can only dream of! How else did 
he get out of there? I suppose He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named taught him a 
few tricks?"

Of course, it is actually not Sirius but Peter who is the traitor, 
which does make you wonder if Peter might not be speaking from some 
personal experience here.  Might not he himself have been "taught a 
few tricks" by Voldemort?

He certainly does seem to be *extremely* magically capable for 
someone who is constantly accused of being a weak wizard. Sirius 
Black is not the only person who claims that Pettigrew was never much 
of a wizard.  Voldemort says so as well, and so does Pettigrew's old 
teacher, McGonagall:

"Hero-worshipped Black and Potter. . . .Never quite in their league, 
talent-wise. I was often rather sharp with him."

Of course, Sirius and James were extraordinarily talented; even an 
average student would not have been "in their league."  But 
McGonagall's claim that she was often "sharp" with Pettigrew implies 
to my mind that he was a lackluster student at best.  In canon, the 
student we most often see McGonagall being "sharp" with is Neville
Longbottom, a poor student.

McGonagall also describes Pettigrew as "always hopeless at duelling."

This, however, really doesn't describe the Pettigrew that we know at 
*all.*  The Pettigrew that *we* know can pull off a perfectly-timed 
explosive spell that kills a dozen people in a single blast.  He can 
not only cast such a spell; he can also cast it with no invocation, 
with one hand quite literally behind his *back,* and timed to 
coincide perfectly with an animagus transformation.  He can take 
advantage of a split-second opportunity to seize a fallen wand and 
then -- *with somebody else's wand!* -- cast not one but *two* spells 
(one on Ron and one on Crookshanks), all before Harry can even manage 
to snap out an "Expelliarmus!"  He can overpower Bertha Jorkins.  He 
can AK Cedric Diggory.  And he can conduct what would appear to be a 
extremely difficult and involved piece of ritual magic through to its 
successful conclusion, even after severing his own hand.

This is a weak wizard?  This is a hopeless duellist?

No.  This isn't.  This is a competent wizard, and a very very *good* 
duellist.

So what accounts for the discrepancy here?  Why does everyone, 
Voldemort included, insist on referring to Pettigrew as a "weak 
wizard?"

Well, one explanation is that he gained an enormous boost in magical 
power after he sold his soul to Voldemort and accepted the Dark Mark 
as a token of this mystical bond.

It seems to me that casting in ones lot with Dark forces really 
*ought* to grant one a boost in magical power.  It is, after all, 
traditional.  There's an enormous weight of cultural and literary 
precedent behind the notion that when you sell your soul to the 
Devil, you do *get* something for it, even if you pay far too high a 
price for it in the end.

It also seems to me this would explain Dark magic's siren song appeal 
to the members of House Slytherin, whose characteristics include a 
disregard for rules, the desire for power, and the willingness to use 
any means to achieve their ends.


Cindy is not so convinced:

> The idea that DEs get a power loan from Voldemort makes some sense, 
> it really does. But if that were true, Peter really wouldn't need 
> to frame Sirius and then spend 12 years as a rat. Peter could use 
> his enhanced powers to blast Sirius in the street. When the 
> authorities arrive, Peter could just say that he was merely  
> defending himself against the completely and utterly mad Sirius 
> Black.

> No, I think Sirius would have won that duel, and Peter knew it. 

But Peter wouldn't have engaged him in an honorable duel if he'd just 
wanted to kill him.  Peter would have sneakily blasted him without 
fair warning, just like he sneakily blasted those muggles and then 
transformed into a rat without fair warning.  And I rather suspect 
that he would have had a fair chance of pulling it off, too, given 
how flawlessly he managed to engineer the frame job.  

For that matter, given that Peter had clearly planned the entire 
thing ahead of time, he must have arranged to run into Sirius on that 
street corner, which means that he probably could have cursed Sirius 
in the back before he had even been spotted, if killing Sirius had 
been all that he had really wanted to do.  I mean, this is Peter 
Pettigrew we're talking about.  He doesn't *have* a sense of honor.

But clearing his own name wasn't the most important part of the plan 
at all.  Faking his own *death* was the most important part of the 
plan, because at that point in time Peter wasn't nearly as worried 
about Sirius or the Ministry as he was about the other Death Eaters, 
whom he feared might hold him responsible for Voldemort's 
disappearance.  Sirius accuses him of as much in the Shrieking Shack, 
and I think that Sirius was spot-on there.  Killing Sirius and 
getting himself proclaimed a hero by the MoM would only have solved 
*one* of Peter's problems -- and the far less pressing of his two 
problems at that.


Cindy again:

> I have rather mixed feelings about the power of the DEs. On the one 
> hand, DEs include characters like Crabbe Sr. and Goyle, Sr., who 
> are supposed to be dim like their sons. The DEs can't hit Harry in 
> the graveyard. And they let themselves in for all manner of abuse 
> at the hands of their sadistic master.

You think those Death Eaters were really *trying* to hit Harry in the 
graveyard?

I've always been a bit dubious on that point.  True, there is a fine 
upstanding genre tradition of sending ones Minions off to be trained 
at the Storm Trooper School of Markmanship, but still....still....

You know, if *I'd* been one of those DEs in the graveyard...

<nervous glance over to Eloise>

Er, which I was most decidedly *not.*  But, uh, I mean, *if,* *if* I 
had been, then I sure as hell wouldn't have been trying to hit him.  
I would have been aiming just about a foot to the left of him.  
Because weird things just sometimes *happen* when you hit this kid 
with spells, right?  I mean, just look at what happened to 
Voldemort!  How did *that* happen?  Nobody knows.  Nobody has the 
slightest idea.  But one thing's for sure: there's something very 
peculiar about this boy, and strange bad inexplicable things tend to 
happen to people who are foolish enough to mess with him.

I mean, *once,* okay.  Once is a fluke.  Once could happen to 
anyone.  And indeed, for a while back there, it was beginning to look 
like a fluke.  Here's Voldemort, he's returned, he's smacking Harry 
Potter with Cruciatus right and left, and the kid is screaming and 
writhing and shaking helplessly and all of the things that he's 
supposed to be doing as a result of being in excuciating agony.  All 
to the good.  All is right with the universe.  So all of the DEs are 
laughing with pure nervous *relief,* because as it turns out, they 
don't really have to be frightened of this boy at all.  And then 
Voldemort tells him to bow, and by God, the kid bows!  So now they're 
laughing even harder.  All of those years of being terrified of Harry 
Potter, and as it turns out, he's just a normal kid after all!  What 
a relief!  Whatever happened thirteen years ago?  Well, that must 
have just been one of those once in a lifetime blue moon events, like 
a rain of frogs, or spontaneous combustion.  One for the record 
books.  No need to worry about it any more.

But then things start to go horribly wrong.  The kid gets hit with an 
Imperius, and he's not begging for mercy or worshipping at 
Voldemort's feet or doing *anything* that he's probably being 
commanded to do.  Instead, he refuses.  He *resists.*  He resists the
Dark Lord's Imperius.

Oh.  That is just *so* not good.  The DEs stop laughing.

So Voldemort threatens him with another Cruciatus, and they all start 
giggling again, a bit hysterically, really, because the Cruciatus is 
good, the Cruciatus *works,* the Cruciatus doesn't cause any of 
these...unsettling things to happen, even the *kid* seems to be 
afraid of the Cruciatus.  Maybe things are really okay after all...

And then there's Priori Incantatem.  

Oh.  Now, what the hell is *this*?  Both the Potter boy and Voldemort 
are being lifted right off the *ground,* and there's this weird 
bubble, and this strange golden thread connecting their wands, and 
nobody knows what they're supposed to be doing, and Voldemort looks 
actually *astonished,* so it's clear that even *he* doesn't have the 
slightest idea what this new thing is or what to do about it, and 
then there are these bloody *ghosts* or something up there -- it's 
all just enough to Freak You OUT, is what it is -- and then suddenly 
it's over, and the kid is running like hell while Voldemort himself 
seems to be caught in some sort of ghost huddle or something, and...

And then you're ordered to Stun him.  

Stun Harry Potter.

Uh-huh.  Oh, yeah.  Right.  Like I want anything from my wand 
*touching* this kid.  God only knows what might happen to you, if you 
hit the Potter boy with a spell.  He's some sort of *freak,* is what 
he is, and he does nasty inexplicable things to the people who mess 
with him.

So I'd aim to miss.  Not too obviously, mind you.  Voldemort might 
notice that.  But definitely to miss.  Just a foot or so to the 
side.  Because really, it's just ever so much *safer* that way. 

No.  I don't think that there's anything wrong with the Death Eaters' 
aim.  Their aim is just fine.  It's their *nerve* that could use a 
little bit of work.


Grey Wolf again, on the DEs:

> Lately I've noticed that we have been picking on several of the DEs 
> over their lack of power - Wormtail especially - but there is 
> something that we must take in mind. . . . .They may look pathetic 
> powerless, but they're not. They're powerful, mean and VERY bad.

Yeah, I agree.  They've got dark powers the rest of us can only dream 
of. I'd watch my back around those DEs, all right.

But they're not *all* bad, Grey Wolf.  They're morally grey.  Really
and truly they are.


-- Elkins