On Trial

[Eric Oppen]

No: HPFGUIDX 44650

I can't find anything in the "trial scene" of Barty Crouch where he
explicitly _says_ "I am not a Death Eater," or "I do not serve Lord
Voldemort."  All he does is scream for mercy, appeal to his parents
unsuccessfully, and say that he didn't do the particular crime he's been
charged with---the torture of the Longbottoms.  _At no time_ does he
explicitly deny serving Lord Voldemort.  He doesn't join in with "Mrs.
Lestrange's" cool defiance of the court---a defiance for which I cannot but
admire her poise and courage---but he's only nineteen and this is his first
time through the mill, while "Mrs. Lestrange" (if that is who we saw in that
scene, _we don't know_) is mentioned as having "talked her way out of
Azkaban" and can be said to know just what fate awaits her.

Personally, were I Lord Voldemort, I'd value live free associates that could
work my wicked will far more than I would excruciatingly loyal ones that
would allow themselves to be sent to Azkaban rather than get out of it by
pretending to renounce me, if that was all it took to keep them free and on
my side.  But then, I am not an insane Dark Wizard/multiple murderer with a
yen for immortality and Absolute Power, no matter _what_ my online friends
say.

In fact...now that I think about it---how do we _know for sure_ that
Augustus Rookwood, the guy denounced by Karakoff to get out of Azkaban, was
actually guilty of anything?  The atmosphere of the Wizard World during the
later Voldemort years reminds me of (ironically enough) a witch-hunt, where
often all it takes is an accusation for conviction.  Karakoff doesn't strike
me as the sort of person who would scruple at accusing an innocent person if
it got his sorry behind out of Azkaban, and he might, for all we know, have
had personal reasons to dislike Rookwood and want to get back at him.