Crouch the Mole?

[Eric Oppen]

No: HPFGUIDX 52419

I don't know if any of my learned colleagues have suggested this before, so,
as resident List Paranoid, I will suggest that Barty Crouch, Sr. might
actually have been a Death Eater himself.  (And no, I do _not_ look under my
bed every night for Death Eaters---the dust bunnies under there would drive
them out screaming for help!)

Think about it:  We know that the DEs were infiltrating the Ministry of
Magic itself, including having moles in place that were not known until
Karakoff's confession.  _Why_ didn't one of these moles either take out
Crouch Sr. or else feed him information that would lead him straight into a
trap?  Or frame him up on some charge that would make him harmless?

I'm sure that he was quite careful, but he might well have been vulnerable
to a trusted colleague's carefully-worded suggestions.  But if he was a DE
himself, he'd have been far more useful to the Dark Lord alive and
continuing to hold his position.  He could have carefully guided the search
for Voldemort and the DEs away from the places where they actually were,
while pointing them toward unimportant gulls and even innocent people.  The
use of the Unforgivables and sending people to Azkaban _without a trial_
both sound, to me, like the very things that a deep-cover Death Eater mole
might well want to do.  The Unforgivables help blur the distinction between
the Aurors and their enemies, and as for sending people to Azkaban without
trial...what better way to take out people who're In The Way?

His rage at his son during the Penseive scene could have been actual, as in
"You _bloody_ young fool, you've ruined all my careful plans!" or a
calculated act intended to convince people still further that he _was_
really the hot-against-Death-Eater-ism man they thought they knew.  If, as I
suspect, the DEs worked on a cell system, Crouch Sr. might not have even
known that his son had been recruited (operational security would make this
very wise) and neither would Crouch Jr. know that Dad was part of the same
organization he was in.  Particularly if he thought that his father's public
persona as Scourge of All Death Eaters was the real thing, Crouch Jr. would
never have ever dreamed of saying _anything at all_ to his dad.

If my theory of Voldemort-as-puppet was ever true, Crouch Sr. could well
have been one of the puppet-masters. He and Lucius Malfoy would make
an...interesting...team, wouldn't they?

--Eric, who had better get his hands on _Order of the Phoenix_ soon before
he starts convincing himself that Ginny and Molly Weasley are Ever So Evil.
But, seriously, this theory does hold together, doesn't it?