Finding Voldemort -- Barty's "loyalty" (WAS: minor flaws?)

[ssk7882]

No: HPFGUIDX 40364

Aesha (Welcome!) was bothered by a number of GoF's more troublesome 
plot points.  

She wrote:

> Firstly, and not as annoying, is the fact that Wormtail escaped 
> from the gang at the end of the term in PoA. Wormtail, who has been 
> a rat for 12 years, escapes and in less than 3 months makes his way 
> to Albania, runs into our friend Bertha, finds his master (who he's 
> had no contact with), they kill Bertha, hatch this elaborate 
> scheme, find Barty Jr., and get to the Riddle house. Wow. 

Wow, indeed. ;-)

Yes, it does seem fast work, doesn't it?  And for Wormtail to have 
happened to run into Bertha Jorkins in Albania, of all places, 
certainly was quite a fortuitous coincidence.

Well.  Not really fortuitous for *her,* I suppose.  But you know what 
I mean.

I have always believed that, no matter what Sirius implies in the 
Shrieking Shack, Pettigrew would never have returned to Voldemort had 
his masquerade not been uncovered in PoA.  He returns only because he 
believes that he is now a hunted rat, and that Voldemort's protection 
is therefore likely his only chance for survival or safety.

So I'm not unduly bothered by the fact that after twelve years of 
passivity, Pettigrew was able to find Voldemort after only three 
months of searching.  I suspect that he could have done it years 
before, if he had ever been given any real incentive to make the 
effort.  

But how did he manage to find Voldemort so quickly?

David touched on this issue a few days ago, when he wrote (in regard 
to the Spying Game Theory's claim that a number of the DEs really are 
loyal to Voldemort):

> Voldemort really is unable to contact the DEs and they are unable 
> to find him. In that case we have to explain how Pettigrew could 
> succeed where others had failed.

Well, I think those Death Eaters are a bunch of disloyal worms, 
myself, but I can see that Pettigrew does have two great advantages 
over all of the rest of them when it comes to finding Voldemort:

1) As Scabbers, he has been privy to Harry and Ron's private 
conversations for the past three years.  He has also had the freedom 
to roam Hogwarts unnoticed for even longer, as he was there as 
Percy's pet before he was passed down to Ron. He has therefore had 
ample opportunity to learn that Dumbledore knew Albania to be
Voldemort's hiding place.

2) He can both speak with rats and assume rat form.  He is therefore 
privy to the rumor mill of the rodent population in a way that no 
other wizard ever could be.

I have always assumed that Pettigrew knew where Voldemort was likely 
to be found from having overheard either Ron and Harry or one of the 
professors discussing the fact that Vapour!Voldemort was hovering 
about somewhere in Albania.  This is admittedly pure speculation, but 
I don't think it an unreasonable assumption.  The timeline alone 
suggests to my mind that after his escape at the end of PoA, 
Pettigrew likely headed straight for Albania.

Once in Albania, he would have had a far better chance of finding 
Voldemort than any of the other DEs for the simple reason that he was 
privy to the local verminous rumour mill.  In the graveyard, 
Voldemort reports that while in his vapor form, he could only possess 
small animals.  He also states that Pettigrew found him by following 
the fearful rumors of other rats.  Even if someone (an Auror, a loyal 
DE, whoever) *had* known to look for Voldemort in Albania, it is most 
unlikely that that person would have thought to interview the local 
rodent population.  Only somebody travelling in rat form would be 
likely to gain access to that information.


Aesha wrote:

> I'm not a big fan of CoS anyway, but it seems maybe she should have 
> had a story like that for a year before the Tournament- that way 
> there's a year to find Voldemort, Bertha and BartyJ, figure out 
> this plan in such precision that it flows perfectly for almost 9 
> months, even under the eye of (presumably) one of Mad-Eye's closest 
> friends...

I agree with you that the plot would have seemed more plausible that 
way.  Structurally, however, it makes sense for the plot events of 
Book Four to take place at the midpoint of the series.  They 
constitute a turning point both in terms of the overarching plot 
and in terms of Harry's development.  They therefore belong in the 
middle; for them to have happened in the fifth book of a seven-book 
series wouldn't have had at all the same effect, IMO.


Aesha:

> Secondly, the part that I really get a little confused with. In the 
> Death Eater Circle, he rants about how none of his death eaters 
> went to find him, about how the LeStranges were loyal to him 
> always, etc... but then also speaks of his loyal servant at 
> Hogwarts.  Here's my problem. In my opinion, the moment that 
> Barty Jr. started crying and screaming to his daddy that he didn't 
> do it, and so on and so forth- well, he denounced the Dark Lord. 
> How is that loyal? 

It isn't, very.  I agree with you.  I don't think that Voldemort 
knows about it.


Judy, on the other hand, suggested:

> Perhaps Barty Jr wanted to stay out of Azkaban primarily so that he 
> could find Voldemort and return him to power. It is in fact canon 
> that Barty Jr. was much more interested in helping Voldemort than 
> in staying safe and sound outside of Azkaban; this is why his 
> father put him under Imperio.

Yeah, that really wasn't very clever of little Barty, was it?  Not 
very *sneaky.*  He couldn't have managed to feign conversion -- or at 
the very least submissive gratitude -- at *all?*  Not even long 
enough to get the chance to slip away once his father's back was 
turned?  For heaven's sake, what kind of a master manipulator *is* 
he, anyway?  What happened to all of that intellect?  Where were all 
of those brilliant thespian talents?

This, by the way, is the main reason that I've never been able to 
accept the suggestion (which a number of people have proposed on this 
list in the past) that young Crouch's hysteria in the Pensieve was 
just another one of his Oscar-winning performances, designed 
to manipulate his parents' emotions.  I just can't buy that.  After 
all, if he were really that emotionally controlled at that point in 
his life, then why on earth would he have allowed his father to 
realize that he "thought of nothing" but restoring his fallen
master to power?

No, I think that it took Barty a good decade under the Imperius to 
develop quite the degree of identity loss necessary to be that good 
an actor.  His behavior in the Pensieve was manipulative, all right.  
But I don't think that he was precisely *acting,* either.  That was a 
genuine crisis of nerves.  

But this leads us to an interesting question.  If Voldemort did know 
that Barty had denounced him at his sentencing, and if he believed 
that Barty had done only in an attempt to manipulate his way out of 
prison so that he could continue his service, would Voldemort 
consider that "loyal" or "disloyal" behavior?

Judy thinks the former:

> I don't think Voldemort would mind being denounced if it increased 
> his chances of regaining his body. 

I don't know if I agree.  I certainly think that Voldemort would put 
*up* with it, but I don't really know if I believe that it would 
qualify Barty for designation as someone "whose loyalty has never 
wavered."  


Judy also wrote:

> And in fact, one could argue that Barty Jr's denouncing him did 
> just that. If Barty Jr. had proclaimed his undying devotion to 
> Voldemort, as the woman in the Pensieve scene did, his parents 
> might not have helped him escape, and he would not have been 
> available to help Voldemort regain power. 

True enough.  But then, we generally assume that the woman in the 
Pensieve scene is Mrs. Lestrange, don't we?  And Voldemort praises 
the Lestranges to the *skies* in the graveyard scene.  He praises 
them even more fulsomely than he does his "loyal servant at 
Hogwarts," and unlike his servant at Hogwarts, they haven't done squat
for him in over a decade.

Voldemort strikes me as overall more megalomaniacal than tactical, 
more proud than pragmatic.  He can recognize the value of Lucius 
Malfoy's "slipperiness," but I don't get the impression that he 
really likes it all that much.  I don't think that he cares much for 
his servants renouncing him in public, even when it is strategically 
wise for them to do so.

I tend to agree with Aesha when she says:

> On page 10, US hardback, it says: "Wormtail, I need somebody with 
> brains, somebody whose loyalty has never wavered, and you, 
> unfortunately, fulfill neither requirement."  Curious. I suppose 
> one could argue that Voldemort knew that BartyJr. had been to 
> Azkaban and not how he had acted at the trial.

That's my interpretation.  And after all, how would Voldemort have 
learned about it?  It happened after his fall, and after Peter had 
fled into hiding as a rat.  Even if the Weasleys knew about young 
Crouch's pathetic appearance at his trial, would they really have 
mentioned it in front of Percy (or his pet rat, for that matter)?  I 
rather doubt it.  And I'm absolutely positive that young Crouch 
himself never breathed a *word* about his unfortunate little crisis 
of nerves to his newly-returned baby master.

The only way that I can imagine Voldemort having learned that Barty 
denounced him at his sentencing would have been from Bertha Jorkins.  
Given that Bertha (or, rather, her Memory Charm) was more concerned 
with Barty's *loyalty* than with his disloyalty, though, it's quite 
likely that the subject would never have come up.  I rather imagine 
that what Voldemort learned from Jorkins was merely that this group 
of people had tried to seek him out after his fall, that they had 
been caught and sentenced to life in Azkaban, that Crouch had 
secretly rescued his son, and that said son was still loyal and 
currently kept enslaved by the Imperius Curse in his father's house.  

All of which would suffice to designate Barty as a person whose 
loyalty had never wavered.


-- Elkins