TBAY: Screw-up!Crouches With Invisibility

[ssk7882 <skelkins@attbi.com>]

No: HPFGUIDX 52074

"Hi, guys," said Elkins, sauntering through the door to the kitchen
of the Safe House.  Melody, Cindy and Risti all stared at her. 
"What's up?  Cindy, why did Pippin just tell me that you're an 
imposter?  And why on earth are there *two* of me out there playing 
on the swings?  I don't even *like* swings!  They make me feel all 
dizzy and sick and...oooooh, is that *coffee?*"

"You're just another spy, aren't you," demanded Cindy suspiciously.

"'Another spy?'  Thanks, Sneaky."  Elkins accepted a cup of coffee 
and settled herself into a chair.  "What, have you guys been playing 
around with that new Persil Automatic or something?  I thought this 
was an Invisibility Cloak discussion."

"You have a letter from Tom," Risti told her.

"A letter from Tom?" Elkins asked.  "Let me see!"

Risti handed her the letter.  Elkins glanced down at it, nodded once 
to herself, pulled a blue pencil out of one pocket, and then stopped, 
frowning.

"Oh," she said.

"What?"

"Oh.  Well, I was *about* to explain to Tom that the other Elkins' 
inference that Barty must have actually entered the maze probably
derived from all of the things that he had done.  Removed all those 
obstacles.  Taken out monsters.  It's always seemed implausible to me 
that he really could have done all of that from the perimeter, 
because it seems to me that it would require not only being able to 
cast spells through the shrubbery, but also around *corners,* which 
I don't believe is possible.  I've therefore always assumed that he 
must have slipped into the maze itself at some point during the 
proceedings.  But."

"But?"

"But. I've just remembered that he actually *tells* Harry that he 
did it all from the perimeter.  In Chapter Thirty-five.  Page 677, 
in my edition:

'I was patrolling around it, able to see through the outer hedges,
able to curse many obstacles out of your way.  I stunned Fleur 
Delacour as she passed.  I put the Imperius Curse on Krum, so that he 
would finish Diggory and leave your path to the cup clear.'"

Elkins shrugged.  "So I guess he really *didn't* enter the maze.  
Had he done so, he would have bragged about it.  It still seems weird 
to me, I must say, but I guess it's the truth.  So okay.  There's no 
need for a second Invisibility cloak.  Point conceded."  She sat back 
in her chair and sipped contentedly at her coffee.  

Cindy threw her a look of weary disgust.  "You really don't have even 
a *shred* of True Wizarding Pride.  Do you, Elkins?"

"Nope," said Elkins happily.

Risti stirred some milk into her second cup of coffee. "I had no idea 
invisibility cloaks could be so interesting. We hardly ever talk 
about them."

"Yeah," Elkins agreed, "but you know, those other Elkinses out there 
filled me in, and I'm really not sure you've really gone anywhere 
with this."

"We have *so!*" Cindy exclaimed. "See, once we know that law 
enforcement wizards are more likely to have invisibility cloaks, we 
can have all manner of fun. Let's go back to this idea that Mrs. 
Longbottom stunned Neville and concealed him under Frank's 
invisibility cloak the night the Pensieve Four burst into their 
home..."

"But Cindy," objected Elkins gently.  "What we've determined here
*isn't* that law enforcement wizards are more likely to have 
Invisibility Cloaks.  In fact, what we've determined is precisely
the reverse."

Cindy frowned.

"Well, think about it," said Elkins.  "If Crouch Jr. only had *one* 
Invisibility Cloak, rather than two of them, then the cloak in 
question was probably his father's, because that's the one that we 
know for sure *does* exist.  The Crouch family had an Invisibility
Cloak.  That's canon.  So there's really no need at all for Moody 
to have had one as well.  And if Moody didn't have one, then why on 
earth would you assume that Frank Longbottom had one?  After all, 
Frank was an Auror, just like Moody was.  Crouch, on the other hand, 
was the Head of the DMLE.  So if there's no second cloak, then that 
makes it *less* likely that Frank Longbottom had one in his house.  
Not more."  

"Well," began Cindy.  "Moody was a *retired* Auror..." 

"Yeah.  And Crouch was a *retired* Head of the DMLE.  Yet he still 
had an Invisibility Cloak.  So."  Elkins shrugged and took another 
sip of her coffee.  

"But what does that do to my theory about *James'* Invisibility
Cloak?" wailed Melody.

"Oh, your theory can still hold," Elkins reassured her.  "You just 
have to assume that James' father was once someone *really* 
important.  Not just an Auror.  Something more like the Head of the 
DMLE."

"I think that was where we came in, actually," said Melody. "Wasn't 
that my original speculation?"

"Was it?  Oh, well, in that case you're fine.  This entire Mrs.-
Longbottom-hid-Neville-with-Frank's-Invisibility-Cloak speculation, 
though?"  Elkins shook her head sadly.  "Getting less plausible by 
the minute, I'm afraid.  Where do you guys keep your yellow flags?"

"Yeah, well you know what?" Cindy snarled.  "I think that *you're* an 
imposter *too!*"   

"There's an easy way to find out," pointed out Eileen from the 
doorway.  Everybody jumped.

"Are you the *real* Eileen?" asked Risti politely.  "Or are you an 
imposter?  Just so we know." 

"If I were an imposter, I'd hardly tell you, would I?"  Eileen turned 
to Elkins.  "Elkins," she said.  "Neville was in the house the night 
his parents were tortured, but his mother saved him by throwing an 
Invisibility Cloak over him and then Stunning him.  Yes or no?"

"No," Elkins replied instantly, stroking Coney, who had just jumped 
into her lap.  "There would be absolutely no dramatic point to having 
him be there at all if he did not actually witness the event.  Either 
he was there, in which case we're looking at a Memory Charmed Neville 
scenario of one sort of another, or he was *not* there, in which case 
we're left with Faith's reading.  But why on earth would JKR have him 
be there, yet unconscious and oblivious?  I mean, really!  What on 
earth would be the *point?*  Where's the opportunity for a Bang?"

Eileen nodded with satisfaction.

"Right," she said.  "Okay, second speculation.  Neville was in the 
house that night, but his mother saved him by throwing an 
Invisibility Cloak over him and then *body binding* him. Yes or no?"

Elkins thought about it.

"Well," she said, at length.  "That one does have possibilities. Not 
only does it allow Neville to be a witness, but it also accounts for 
his expression of utter horror when Hermione body-binds him at the 
end of PS/SS, as well as for the fact that when he is then *rewarded* 
for being victimized in this fashion, he does not look pleased, but 
instead 'white with shock.'  Also, it carries on that good old JKR 
tradition of nameless martyr mothers sacrificing themselves for their 
sons."  

She took another sip of coffee.  

"So that one's not *as* bad," she concluded.  "But it still has that 
Yellow Flag Invisibility Cloak problem.  Also, I myself rather prefer 
the speculation that if anyone did such a thing, then it was Barty 
Jr.  The text does seem to suggest some sort of bond between them.  
Neville and Junior react strangely to each other all the way through 
GoF.  Barty's interested in Neville from the very start.  Neville 
volunteers the name of the dread Cruciatus Curse in DADA class, which 
seems strangely out of character for him.  He seems simultaneously 
terrified of Moody and intrigued by him.  A mystic bond between the 
two might account for some of that.  And besides," she adds, after a 
moment's thought.  "It's blackly ironic.  And you *know* how much I 
like that sort of thing."

"Now, *that* one's really Elkins," Eileen told the room.

"Oh, bother," sighed Elkins.  

"What?  What's wrong?  Didn't you *want* to be really you?"

"No, no, no.  It's not that.  It's just that...well, it's just that 
now I'm finding that Mrs. Longbottom Does A Body-bind scenario rather 
plausible.  It really *is* a lot more thematically consistent with 
the series as a whole than the Barty Jr. version, you know."  She 
frowned down at Coney, then shoved it roughly off of her lap.  The 
bunny hopped away across the kitchen, looking indignant.

"You're right," said Cindy smugly.  "That really *is* Elkins."

"Thematic consistency," snorted Eileen.  "What about some *plot* 
consistency, eh?  Weren't you just arguing a few minutes ago, Elkins, 
that the fact that Barty Jr. had only one cloak made it seem 
implausible that the Longbottoms had an Invisibility Cloak at all?"

"What do you do, Eileen?" asked Melody.  "Listen at doors?"

"This is Theory Bay."  Eileen pointed out.  "There are no private
conversations.  So.  Barty Jr. was using his father's Invisibility 
Cloak.  There's no indication that either Longbottom or Moody owned 
one.  If there were an Invisibility Cloak involved in the Longbottom 
Incident, it makes the most sense to assume that the Cloak in 
question was the one that we already *know* to exist in canon.  And 
*that* one belonged to the *Crouch* family."

"So we're back to Barty Jr." agreed Elkins, looking considerably
cheered.

"It makes a lot more sense than risking a Yellow Flag by inventing 
some Longbottom invisibility cloak out of thin air," said Eileen.  
"It also serves to answer yet another one of those canon mysteries: 
on what evidence was Barty Jr. convicted?  There must have been 
something else to convict Barty Jr. on than the testimony of the 
other Death Eaters. No matter what Elkins says, I can't see Crouch 
Sr. allowing that. Any Death Eater could finger a family member and 
he'd cart them off to Azkaban? There must have been some other 
evidence that disposed him against his son. It couldn't have been the 
Longbottoms' testimony, because if it was, I doubt Dumbledore would 
have expressed doubt about Barty Jr's innocence. 

"No," she concluded triumphantly.  "I say it was finding his own 
invisibility cloak there in the wreckage of the living room. Here, 
pass me a poptart!"

"One toaster pastry for Sly Eileen," chuckled Elkins, passing her
one.  "Really, now, Eileen!  You can't honestly imagine that I don't 
see *exactly* what you're up to here, can you?  *You* just want to 
find a way to make Crouch Sr. keeping his son under that Invisibility 
Cloak for all those years some kind of twisted ironic *punishment,* 
rather than either a means of trying to break the lad's spirit, or 
proof that he couldn't even stand to *look* at that faulty mirror 
that was his son.  Can't say that I blame you all that much.  After 
all," she snickered.  "It *is* rather an impediment to that 'Barty 
Sr. talked to his son' theory of yours, isn't it?  That pesky yet 
irreproachably canonical detail of the worn-night-and-day 
Invisibility Cloak?  Hmmmm?"

Eileen looked quickly away.  "I don't know what you mean," she 
muttered.

"Uh-huh."  Elkins leaned back in her chair.  "Right.  Oh, well, 
that's okay.  I don't really need the Cloak, you know.  I've got 
plenty of other canons to shoot down that theory of yours -- although 
maybe we should take *that* outside.  No, I'm happy to go for The
Invisibility Cloak Left Behind At The Scene Of The Crime."

"You are?   Really?"

"Yeah, sure.  Why not?  Especially since it makes it even *more* 
necessary for Crouch Sr. to have needed to preside over that Kangaroo 
Court, and for precisely the usual reason.  Same old same old.  Same 
reason he's usually doing things.  Self-protection.  Self-
preservation.  Self-interest.  Covering himself.  Because really, 
if it was *his* cloak that was found at the scene of the crime, then 
who, aside from his son, would have been a prime suspect, do you 
think?"

"Elkins!" objected Eileen.  "Crouch was well-respected and--"

"The crowd shook their fists at him during Bagman's trial."

"But why would Crouch have gone for one of his own Aurors?" asked
Melody.

"Well," said Elkins thoughtfully.  "Off-hand, I can think of about
five marvellously slanderous and conspiratorial ways to explain why
Crouch might have wanted to torture very popular Frank Longbottom
and his wife into insanity.  But it really doesn't matter, does it?  
I'm not saying that he *really* did.  Only that if *I* can think of 
ways to spin it that way, then surely Crouch's political enemies 
could have done the same.  And I think there were probably a good
number of people who would have wanted to believe it."

"Yeah," sniffed Cindy.  "*Death Eaters.*"

"How about also people who had been falsely accused of being Death 
Eaters?  And their families?  And the families of those 'suspects' 
that his Aurors tortured or mind-controlled?  And the families of his
political enemies, those people he deemed 'supporters?' And the 
families of those people he sent off to Azkaban without benefit of 
trial?  The families of all the people he *disappeared* while the war 
was going on?  The families of the people who as far as we know are 
probably still *there,* rotting away in Azkaban, just like Sirius 
Black would be, if he hadn't escaped?  Yeah, I think there were 
probably people out there who would have been up for a bit of come-
uppance for old Crouch.  I always read a bit of backlash in that 
Pensieve Crowd, myself.  They're out for blood for the Longbottoms, 
but I also think they *liked* Crouch's son being involved.  I dare 
say that some of them would have been even more pleased to see Crouch 
himself dragged off by those dementors.  His son was just the next 
best thing.

"So," concluded Elkins.  "It really was in his best interests to get 
his son convicted as quickly as possible, wasn't it?  Even if it 
really wasn't the greatest evidence.  Shoddy enough evidence for 
Dumbledore to have had his doubts.  Cloaks can be stolen, after all."

"I thought you said that Crouch was pandering to the crowd at his
son's trial," objected Eileen.  "Whipping them into a hysteria to
further his own political agenda."

"Well, I think that he was, although as it happened, he seriously 
misjudged the long-term benefits of that strategy.  But he could also 
have been protecting himself by allowing hostility directed at him to 
be deflecting onto his son and his son's co-defendents, just as in 
the parallel scene with Winky at the QWC, he protects himself and his 
son by allowing attention to be deflected first onto the Trio and 
then onto Winky.  The two motives are hardly mutually exclusive.  And 
really, you know, it wasn't a bad strategy, even if it did backfire 
on him.  Besides," Elkins added.  "I like Barty Jr. leaving his 
father's Invisibility Cloak behind at the scene of the crime.  It 
makes him just *such* a screw-up, and you *know* how I love it when 
people turn out to have screwed up big time, rather than actually 
having been all clever and getting things right all along."

"What you *want* has nothing to do with plausibility," Cindy reminded
her, rather severely.

"No," agreed Elkins.  "It doesn't.  But actually, you know, I also 
think that screw-up scenarios are far more canonically plausible?"  

She reached down absently to scratch Coney behind the ears.

"I mean, just look at what we've seen in the text to date, will you?" 
she said.  "A brief survey of the canon:  'It's Snape, I tell ya!  
Snape!'  'Mother Love?  Oops, I forgot!'  'It's Draco, I tell ya!  
Draco!'  'Oops, cat hair!'  'It's Hagrid, I tell ya!  Hagrid!'  'Oh, 
I'd best not tell Dumbledore I've been hearing voices!'  'Phoenix 
Tears?  Oops, forgot that one, too!'  'Hey, guys, I know!  Let's make 
*Peter* our Secret Keeper!'  'Oops, forgot my Wolfsbane Potion!'  
'Come on, Cedric: let's take the prize *together.*'  'Priori 
Incantatem?  Oops, didn't think of that one.'  'My gosh, you 
mean that *wasn't* my old friend Alastor Moody, but instead an 
*imposter?*'  'Harry, there's something that I should have told 
you five years ago....'"

Elkins took a deep breath.  "And that's just a sampling," she said.  
"There are just *tons* more.  People mess up constantly in these
books.  They make stupid mistakes and terrible errors of judgment;
they're doomed by bad timing and rotten luck and plain old human
fallibility.  It happens everywhere you *look* in these books.  
That's just the way things work in the Potterverse, it seems: 
best-laid schemes ganging a-gley all *over* the place!"

"'Ganging a-gley?'" Risti repeated dubiously.  

"It actually ties in, to my mind, with the emphasis on House 
Gryffindor," said Elkins.  "Rather than either Ravenclaw or 
Slytherin.  Not wisdom but bravery.  Not cunning but *faith.*  
Fortune in the Potterverse really *doesn't* seem to favor the 
prepared mind, does it?  It's a more Vergilian sort of Fortune.  It 
favors the brave.  So overall, I actually do think that canonical 
plausibility weighs far more heavily towards scenarios in which 
people screw up royally than it does towards ones in which it turns 
out that they were actually being terribly clever and planning 
everything right from the very--"  

She made a small choking noise and looked down at the rather massive 
sword that had just appeared, seemingly from nowhere, at her throat.
Then up into Melody's rather steely blue gaze.  Then back down at
the blade.

"Um," she said.  

At the table, Eileen had buried her head in one hand and was shaking
her head slowly back and forth.  Behind her, Risti was making 
suspicious snerking noises at the back of her throat.  Cindy sighed.

"Elkins," she said patiently.  "Where *are* you?"

"I'm, uh."  Elkins swallowed hard.  "I don't see quite what you...
Mel?  Mel, uh, look, don't--"

"You're in the *Safe House,* Elkins," explained Cindy.  "You know,
the place for *conspiracy* theories?  And Agatha Christie style 
speculations?  Ones in which people have planned everything out 
ahead of time and are actually being very clever?"

Elkins' lips moved soundlessly.  It looked as if perhaps she had just
said, "oops."  She glanced back up at Melody again.

"I, er...forgot?" she said faintly.

There was an awkward silence.

"I'll just, uh, go out into the garden then, shall I?" asked Elkins.  
"And play with the bunny for a little while?"

Melody withdrew the sword an inch from her throat.

"That might be for the best," she said coldly.

Elkins nodded weakly and staggered to her feet.  She reached down, 
scooped up Coney, and inched her way across the kitchen, throwing 
nervous glances repeatedly at Melody's Big Sword.  At the door, she
paused.

"Can I take some coffee and a poptart with me?" she asked, without 
much hope.

"*NO!*" screamed Melody.

"Okay, okay.  Sheesh."  Elkins shook her head.  "Just one last 
question, though?  About that Invisibility Cloak Left Behind At The 
Scene Of The Crime?  Eileen?"

"Yeah?"

"If that evidence was ever a matter of public record, then why would 
Sirius tell the Trio that Crouch's son might 'just have been in the 
wrong place at the wrong time?'  Why would he have emphasized 
Crouch's son being caught in the company of the others as the most 
damning evidence against him?"

"Well..." began Eileen.

"I can only think of one explanation that fits," said Elkins
quietly.  "Crouch suppressed the evidence."  

"To protect his son?" asked Eileen, looking excited.

Elkins laughed and shook her head.

"Hardly," she said.  "But oh, Eileen.  I *do* like it sometimes
when people screw up big time."


******

Elkins