What about Percy?

[Jim Ferer]

No: HPFGUIDX 73446

Fran, commenting on bibphile, who 'actually subscribes to the
Percy-as-a-mole theory for the  moment': "I have been rereading the
COS, and found some interesting things on Percy.  Remember when they
find the Tom Riddles Diary, and ron comments that he has heard the
name before.....Ron had to polish the a medal of merit that Tom had
earned.  HRH go to the trophy romm to check the medal out, and find
that he was headboy as well. Ron comments then and a couple of other
times in the book that Percy is just like Tom Riddle....  when I read
this I thought Percy really is evil, and he will not redeem himself. 
I have been thinking all along that Percy would go back to his family,
but now I am not so sure."

I think JKR has a theme going here: Those who do not resist evil serve
evil's ends.  Fudge is the prime example: some believed him to be an
active agent of Voldemort, but now he is revealed as a
don't-rock-the-boat self-serving moral coward blind to evil, the
Neville Chamberlain of his world.  Percy, who spends the OOP year as a
disgusting sycophant who goes along to get along,  is going the same
way.  Can he be redeemed?  I hope so, because I can't think ill of a
Weasley, not for long.  Nobody can accuse Percy of not knowing which
way the wind is blowing, at least.  I wonder if he looks at Hermione,
who has his achievement but the character he lacks, and wonders about
what he's done with his life so far.

Clearly JKR does not approve of those who stand idly by while evil is
in the word.

Jim F.