TBAY - Crouch - (8 of 9) Sympathy for the Devil

[Eileen]

No: HPFGUIDX 51788

"You didn't *really* think that I was going to argue
against Crouch's last scene being a redemption scene,
did you?" asks Elkins, helping Eileen to haul the
overturned CRAB CUSTARD table back up onto its legs.

"Well, actually..." begins Eileen hesitantly.

Elkins waves her aside. "I let the angels have him, in
the end. Although, you know," she adds, smiling
slightly. "It does seem to me that those angels might
just have to wait a little while..."

"Yes, I imagine he's got a substantial amount of
purgatory ahead of him... oh wait... you mean Point
Nine of the CRAB CUSTARD manifesto! I've been plugging
for *months* for Barty Crouch Sr. to return as a
ghost."

"I do think that Crouch as future canonical ghost
makes quite a bit of sense. He seems like a prime
candidate to me. And not just because he dies
unhappily."

"There's that little matter of parricide," says Eileen
with excitement. "Parricide, and fratricide, and
filicide, and general kin-slaying" Eileen watches as
certain listies wince, "really keep people from
sleeping soundly in their graves, according to
everything I've read."

"Maybe," says Elkins, "Mainly, though, I was
thinking...well, isn't there a tradition about people
coming back as ghosts when they die with unfinished
business on their hands?"

Eileen pulls out one of her all-time favourite books:
"The Bluenose Book of Ghosts" by Helen Creighton.
"Yes," she says. "Yes, that's typical. That's why when
you meet a ghost, you're supposed to ask if you can do
anything for it. Like in Hamlet. Unless," she flips to
the chapter on buried treasure. "Unless you're digging
up pirate gold. Then you'd better not speak to it."

"Myrtle's immaturity, Nick's neck, the blood on the
Baron. Unfinished business, I tell you," says Elkins.

"I don't know about the Grey Lady in England," says
Eileen reflectively, "But in Canada, in the Maritimes
(where the best ghosts hang out), there's plenty of
Grey Ladies, and they all seem to have burial problems
or secrets to divulge. But, of course, no-one manages
to ask when they see them. The Fat Friar seems happy
enough. But I'm sure he has some unresolved issue.
That's what ghosts are like."

"Binns, though," says Elkins pensively.

"Oh, Binns is an example of another ghostly tradition,
in my humble opinion. The ghostly afterlife as
punishment or purgation. Jacob Marley. Doomed to teach
until..."

"Until what?" asks Elkins.

"I don't know. Do you *want* me to incur a yellow
flag? I'll leave that to fanfic, thankyou very much.
But the two concepts are related and mixed, of course.
You have to do something to get out of the ghostly
state, though I suppose you could be doomed forever.
Hell as a ghost."

"Hell as a ghost," says Elkins with a curious smile.
"I forged this chain of my own free will. And of my
own free will I wear it." She pauses, a light in her
eye.

"Leave the poor man alone!" says Eileen.

"Snap out of it, Elkins!" cries Cindy. 

The light fades, and Elkins, sighing, resumes her
business-like tone. "The way that Crouch died really
does seem to me to make him classic revenant fodder.
He died desperately trying to convey a vitally
important message. A message that never got through.
If anyone died with some pretty serious unfinished
business on their hands, I'd say that it was Crouch.
For that matter," Elkins adds. "His son is sort of
unfinished business too, when you think about it."

"But how do you finish that?" says Eileen to herself,
peering into the palantir. "I've always wondered if
Rowling has given any thought to what happened to
Barty Jr. after the Dementor's Kiss."

"Crouch Sr. was improperly buried," says Elkins.
"Transfigured into a bone and then buried in
unconsecrated ground by his murderer. "Right on the
borders of the Forbidden Forest."

"That's true," says Eileen wincing, "but I was sort of
hoping that Dumbledore dug him up, and buried him
properly."

"There's one little problem, though," says Elkins.
"What JKR said that got you thinking alone these lines
was this: "You don't really find that out until Book
VII, but I can say that the happiest people do not
become ghosts."

"Oh." says Eileen. "Book Seven."

"The fact that JKR's talking Book Seven makes me think
that it's actually far more likely to be, well,
*Snape*
than it is a Book Four character like Barty Crouch."

"I don't know," says Eileen wildly. "It *could*
happen. It could."

"I'm not giving up on Ghost!Crouch that easily," says
Elkins stubbornly. "I'm just not. He's too perfect."

"Yes, he is! It's just got to happen!" There is a long
silence. "Why do I have the feeling that you and I are
going to feel Crouch deprived through the rest of the
series?" 

"Cheer up! JKR only said that the readers weren't
going find out what *makes* people become ghosts until
Book Seven. She didn't say that there wouldn't *be*
any new ghost characters before then, did she?"

"No, she didn't," says Eileen happily. "After all,
Moaning Myrtle was introduced in Book II, not Book
VII, and I thought she'd never show up again
(Actually, I hoped and prayed she'd never show up
again, but that's another story) and she seems to be a
permanent fixture of the story and probably will turn
out to be important later on."

"Besides, Ghost!Crouch is just too good to pass up.
Because you know, he could serve a really interesting
*plot* function if he were to come back as a ghost."

"I thought he could reveal a secret," says Eileen
doubtfully. "But I agree that's not bangy enough. Do
you have anything better?"

"You see, I just keep wondering...well, Crouch died
while still under the Imperius Curse. So does that
mean that Voldemort might still be able to command
him? Even
from beyond the grave? Yet another faithful servant at
Hogwarts?"

"Elkins!" screams Eileen. "That is horrible! He was
free of Imperius when he died!"

"I don't think so," says Elkins. "When Harry shakes
off the Imperius, it's just gone. When Crouch Jr.
finally breaks free of it completely, he describes it
as being
himself as he hasn't been in years. But even before
that happened, he was still capable of small acts of
rebellion. He was able to steal Harry's wand *before*
the sound of those DEs acted like cold water on him.
So I think that's about where Crouch Sr. was. He
wasn't clear of it. He was just fighting it."

"But Elkins, you can't compare the two situations.
Walking all the way from England to Scotland? That's
not a small act of rebellion. I-"

"What?"

"Dash it! I like your reading. It makes him all the
more heroic if he was fighting Imperius the entire
way. Though... I don't know. As I said, it wasn't my
instinctive reading that he hadn't broken free of
Imperius." 

"Wasn't that what accounted for his apparent madness?"
asks Elkins, perplexed.

"Oh, is that what you thought it was?" asks Eileen. "I
thought..." Her voice trails away.

"What?"

"well, er, have you ever wondered what Voldemort did
to Crouch in the little time he had him at his
disposal? Imperius isn't the Unforgivable Curse that
is known to leave people insane, you know."

Elkins stares at her. "Do you know," she says slowly.
"I have never even *thought* about that? Not even
once. That's a spectacularly sick line of speculation.
But
I wouldn't be so sure about the Imperius not driving
people insane, if I were you. So far in canon to date,
we've only seen two people other than Harry, who is
some sort of weird freakish savant, struggle free of
the Imperius by their own force of will. They're both
named Bartemius Crouch. And neither of them seems to
have gained much in the way of sanity by it. And
besides," adds Elkins, smiling. "You really do want to
be careful with that logic, you know."

"I do?"

"Oh, yes. You really do. Because, you see, Crouch Jr.
was mad as a hatter, and *he'd* been his *father's*
prisoner for the past ten years." 

Eileen stiffens. "That is entirely different," she
snaps. "Barty Crouch Jr. was delusional, but he knew
where he was and what he was doing. Crouch Sr.
couldn't distinguish between past and present, but
whenever he could, he didn't have any delusions about
the situation. Contrast "I will be honoured by him
beyond the dreams of wizards" with "my fault... tell
Dumbledore... Harry Potter... the Dark Lord...
stronger... Harry Potter..." It seems to me that while
both are mad, it's not anything near the same thing.
I'm willing to concede that Crouch Jr's mental
condition wasn't exactly helped by Imperius..."

"Generous of you," snorts Elkins.

"Though I'm thinking that term in Azkaban takes a
share of the blame, and I liked your theory that
parricide, breaking the life debt twice over, sent him
entirely over the edge. And, of course, he probably
had problems in the first place... This is the part
where I get to blame Mrs. Crouch for bad parenting."

"And his father, as well," Elkins reminds her.

"Yeah, sure," says Eileen. "So Crouch Jr. had a lot of
factors working to get him to the over-the-top lunacy
of the Veritaserum chapter. But I don't think
Cruciatus was one of them. It doesn't fit in with what
we know of the after-effects of that curse. The
Longbottoms in St. Mungo's unable to recognize
Neville. Besides, I don't think that Crouch would ever
have practiced Cruciatus on
his son."

"No," agrees Elkins, rather surprisingly. "I don't
either. I think that he probably would have balked at
that."

"Nice of you to say that," says Eileen wryly. "Not his
style either, really. I'm sure punishment in the
Crouch household was a little more... refined."

"Not less cruel," says Elkins.

"No," agrees Eileen. "Not less cruel."

"And you like this man," says Elkins. 

Eileen smiles weakly. "You know one thing that upheld
me in my reading of Cruciatus being used on Crouch
Sr.? Your posts on the Longbottoms. Your suggestion
that Cruciatus has trapped them in the past, unable to
recognize the present, unable to recognize their son.
That this is related to the whole theme of memory and
forgetfulness. And here we have Crouch slipping into
the past..."

"Yeah, Crouch Jr. had his father screaming and
writhing down there on the floor, all right," Elkins
says. "Ugh. And I'll bet that he really enjoyed it,
too. 'You are not my father. I have no father.' Tit
for tat, you know. Barty Jr. really did enjoy tit for
tat."

"Except when he was the one who got tit for tat," says
Eileen snarkily. "He could dish it out, but he
couldn't take it."

"True," says Elkins. "But the punishment exceeded the
crime. *Nobody* deserves the Dementor's Kiss. It's
horrible. I can't stand to imagine it."

""Well, I have a similar reaction to Crouch Sr's
death," says Eileen.

"I know what you mean." Elkins lowers her voice. "In
fact," she says. "I'll let you in on a little secret
here, Eileen. I've never liked imagining the man's
death either. I always find myself hoping that Barty
Jr. just, er, well, you know. Took him from behind.
Quickly. And
didn't feel the need to go making some big
*production* number out of it or anything."

"You do remember who we're talking about here."

"Yeah." Elkins sighs. "Sadly, I do. But all the same,
I think that he would have done it fast. He was in a
hurry, after all. He wouldn't have wanted to risk
getting caught."

"Like in "Veritaserum?"

"He'd gone completely over the edge by that point,"
objects Elkins.

"Completely," emphasizes Eileen. "But really, I never
got the impression that Crouch Jr. was exactly
cautious. Went out of his way to draw attention to his
plans, never stayed in the shadows, emphasized all his
old relationships. And then ended the show up by
bungling the business with Harry so he could make a
big production number out of killing him."

"But the forest was just *swarming* with red herrings
that night, wasn't it? Ludo Bagman was bopping around
somewhere, and Madame Maxine's carriage wasn't too far
away, and on top of all of that, he had just come
across *two* students out there in the woods. How
could he know how many other random people might come
wandering by at
any moment?"

"By looking at the Marauder's Map," says Eileen.
"Which he had in his hand."

"Oh," says Elkins. "Still, I just can't imagine that
he would have wanted to waste any time, or been
willing to risk any unwanted attention. I mean, he
wouldn't have wanted there to be any screaming, you
know, or any
broken *weeping,* or any horrified *pleading.*"

Eileen pauses. "Well, it'd depend how close anyone was
on the Map, wouldn't it? But time. Yes,that is a good
point. In fact... 

"Potter ran to get Dumbledore. I Stunned Krum. I
killed my father... I watched Potter run into the
castle."

"So it was done quickly," says Elkins triumphantly.

"Yeah,it would appear so. Does anyone care to take a
stab at guessing how long it would take for Harry to
run from the edge of the Forbidden Forest to the
castle doors?"

Elkins shrugs her shoulder. "It was done quickly
because he didn't want to do it."

Eileen stares increduously at Elkins. 

"Tit-for-tat, Eileen. Killing his father wasn't
tit-for-tat."

"No, I suppose it wasn't. But he said he enjoyed the
experience."

"Protesting way too much. And then there's the
rationalization. Why would he feel the need to
rationalize at all, if he didn't feel at least some
degree of ambivalence over what he had done? That
bare-bones description of the killing. All of this
leads me to conclude that Crouch really didn't enjoy
killing his father at all. He was clearly willing to
do it. But I don't think that he was at all happy
about it."

"All right, then," says Eileen. "You're making my
heart bleed for the little monster. I don't know why
though. Killing your father and feeling slightly bad
about it isn't that sympathetic, you'd think. But,
goshdarnit, I'm feeling ever so much warmer towards
Barty Jr. now."

"You see, Eileen? My Crouch Jr. apologetics aren't
really all that bad, are they? That one can give you a
fast and painless death for poor Barty."

"But not from behind," says Eileen. "I don't think it
was from behind. Stinking, cowardly, scummy thing to
do."

"At any rate, it's really not Crouch's death that
makes me pity him. I'm pretty well convinced that was
relatively fast and painless. It's his life. Solitude
may be in some sense a *just* punishment for a
solipsist. But ten years of having no one to talk to
is really more than anyone deserves."

"Well," Eileen points out. "He did have Winky."

"Yes." Elkins smiles slowly. "He had Winky." She
glances up at the subject line emblazoned across the
sky above
Theory Bay and shakes her head.

"Well," she says. "My, my, my. Would you just look at
that."

"What?"

"I do believe that we're going to need a second prefix
up there."

"Elkins!" gasps Eileen. "You're *not!*"

Elkins grins evilly.

"Oooooh, yes I am," she says.

Eileen flings herself on the ground and holds on for
dear life.

***************
>
>This post is continued from part seven. It cites or
>references message numbers 37476, 45402, 46468,
47531.


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