TBAY: Operative!Arthur Attacks Auror!Arthur (WAS Re: small question from )

[Cindy C.]

No: HPFGUIDX 45380

Melody asked:

> Where does Arthur purposely avoid watching veelas?

Veronica replied:
 
> We see Arthur take OFF his glasses and clean them, but we never 
>see him put them back on to WATCH the Veela. 

Veronica further explained:

>I believe that Elkins was orginally suggesting that he took his 
>glasses off to avoid watching the Veela, because he knew that he 
>was more vulnerable--for whatever reason. 

There's also this:

**********

"Fingers in your ears!" bellowed Mr. Weasley as the veela started to 
dance in celebration."

***************

That said, Melody, this veela thing really isn't the strongest canon 
out there for Imperius!Arthur (although Captain Veronica is the only 
one who can properly toss the thing overboard) or for Operative!
Arthur.  In fact, maybe you are owed a serious explanation for how 
such a terribly feeble canon wound up in this thread.

<points finger>

It's all *Elkins'* fault!!!  That's it!  *She* suggested it!  I 
didn't want any part of that whole veela thing!  I was *helpless*; 
there was no way to resist Elkins' power!  If you want my opinion, 
*Elkins* is a veela her own self!  ;-)

OK.  Fine then.  Attack the veela canon if you must.  I will 
retaliate by taking a wild swing at Auror!Arthur's head.  (Yeah, 
that just rolls right off the tongue, doesn't it?  Auror!Arthur, 
indeed.)

See, I object to the idea that Arthur's actions (such as his close 
ties to Moody) could possibly be explained by Auror!Arthur.  If 
Arthur was once an auror, why on earth would he try to hide that 
fact?  Arthur would just be a former auror who is now in the Muggle 
Artifacts department.  <yawn>

Oh, sure, I get the whole idea that Auror!Arthur depends on Imperius!
Arthur for his motivation.  The idea, I suppose, is that Auror!
Arthur is ashamed of his stint under the Imperius Curse, so he 
decided to pretend he was never an auror in the first place.  

But this just doesn't make sense to me.  As a general matter, aurors 
don't hide their occupations.  Frank was a popular auror.  So isn't 
Arthur afraid that he'll be walking down the street in the company 
of his children and someone will walk up and mention something about 
his auror past?  Wouldn't Lucius Malfoy be itching to taunt Arthur 
and "out" him if it were true?  I'm also not convinced that an auror 
would have to live a life of shame if he were placed under the 
Imperius Curse and couldn't resist it.  

Now, Operative!Arthur has none of these problems.  He keeps his 
status an Unspeakable secret because that's what Unspeakables *do!*  
His kids don't know.  Lucius doesn't know.  Amos Diggory *might* 
know.  Maybe.

But Molly doesn't know.  No way.  Molly is completely in the dark.  
Yup, Operative!Arthur has been feeding Molly this cockin' bull line 
about being in Muggle Artifacts for *years!*  Oh, Molly, I've been 
shunted aside by mean old Fudge because of my affection for muggles, 
he says.  Oh, Molly, there's a little loophole in the law I wrote so 
I can have a flying car.  Oh, Molly, I'm terribly sorry, but Muggle 
Artifacts doesn't pay anything at all.  Oh, Molly, honey, I'm just 
helping sort out the Moody situation and doing press interviews 
about the Dark Mark at the QWC in my role as head of the the Muggle 
Artifacts department.    

Hey, you wanna know why Arthur is so very fascinated by electricity 
to the point of having a collection of plugs and batteries?  Well, 
magic disrupts muggle electricity, right?  Well, if you're an 
Unspeakable, you'd really like to be able to sneak around doing 
magic without muggle lights dimming every time you whip out your 
wand.  So Operative!Arthur is trying to understand electricity so he 
can find himself a way around that little problem.

Yeah.  I'm really warming up to Operative!Arthur, but Auror!Arthur 
is leaving me cold.  ;-)

Cindy -- wondering where the Auror!Arthur defenders are these days