Memory Charm / The Egg Problem / FB

[catlady_de_los_angeles]

No: HPFGUIDX 39059


Cindy wrote:
<< Now as for me, I'm still waiting for an answer to why the DEs 
didn't use the undisputed quickest and most efficient way to get the 
information out of Frank -- The Imperius Curse. >>

Naama replied::
<< Or, for that matter, why did Voldemort bother torturing Bertha? 
Veritaserum, in my opinion, are very problematic in that sense (as is 
the Time Turner). >>

and Dave answered:
<< Maybe because they were under a memory charm, that only Cruciatus
could break (as with Bertha J.)? >>

1) What happens when a person under Imperius is commanded to do 
something impossible? Such as fly off the roof without a broomstick? 
Such as "Tell me who will die first of the people who were at 
Christmas dinner in PoA" (i.e. tell me something you cannot possibly 
know, in this example because it is the future)? What happens when a 
person under Veritaserum is asked something that they don't know, or 
that they have a wrong sincere belief about?

I believe that a person under a Memory Charm doesn't KNOW the stuff 
concealed under that Charm, so Imperius or Veritaserum would get the 
same result as asking about something the person never did know. I 
believe that that result is "I don't know". I suppose Wormtail 
got a lot of information from Bertha just by letting her prattle, 
and maybe Voldemort used some Imperius when he started questioning 
her, and noticed some clue that she had been Memory Charmed, and 
that's why he decided to break the Memory Charm, just in case it 
covered something useful.

I am sure that GoF does not specify that Voldemort used Cruciatus on 
Bertha. Only in the voice of young Crouch does it say he 'tortured' 
her, and young Crouch didn't specify the type of torture. I don't 
think that just any old kind of torture will break a Memory Charm; 
I think that a Memory Charm Removal Charm must be used, and the 
pain, mental damage, and physical damage are Side Effects of the 
Memory Charm Removal Charm. I went on about this in post 
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/37120

Elkins wrote:

<< Neville ought to *know* what people in pain sound like, and that 
they really don't sound the slightest bit like a ghost orchestra 
playing on the musical saw -- which is what the mermaid song from 
Harry's Egg sounds like. So the Egg Problem still stands. >>

MAYBE the sound of the Egg is like the appearance of a Boggart. IE to 
each listener it sounds like whatever is most repulsive to that 
listener. For Harry, it would not be his parents' dying screams: 
despite being emotionally painful, they are the Opposite of 
Repulsive.

 Zoe wrote:

<< There never was any claim that FB was the definitive guide to 
beasts. After all, it's a text book for pre-university students ... 
I'm quite sure that there are plenty of beasts that are too complex 
for the book. >>

FB itself states that it is a 'definitive guide' to magical beasts. 
"The first edition of Fantastic Beasts was commissioned back in 1918 
by Mr. Augustus Worme of Obscurus Books, who was kind enough to ask 
me whether I would consider writing an authoritative compendium of 
magical creatures for his publishing house..... The rest is 
publishing history. FANTASTIC BEASTS is now in its fifty-second 
edition." 

"Seventy-five species are described in the following pages, but I do 
not doubt that some time this year yet another will be discovered, 
necessitating a fifty-third revised edition of FANTASTIC BEASTS AND 
WHERE TO FIND THEM."