ESE!Arthur

[olivier.fouquet+harry at m4x.org]

No: HPFGUIDX 129892

Jen Reese
 >HA! Ain't that the truth? ESE!Lupin is the most canon-tight, hard-
 >to-defend theory on the boards, IMO

Olivier
I am not sure. I would rather say that ESE!Lupin has the most 
dedicated, eloquent and talented defender. In fact, I have sometimes 
thought that ESE!Theories are in a sense dishonest theories in the 
sense that one could take any character in the series and build a 
convincing case for him being evil. I wanted to do so with a random 
character but soon discovered that ESE!McGonagall and ESE!Sirius 
already existed as well as ESE!Percy, ESE!Fudge and ESE!Dumbledore 
(ESE!Pigwidgeon also exists, as unlikely as this may seem). ESE!Snape 
is too easy. So that left me with Arthur Weasley. Well, here is my try.

So Arthur Weasley is evil, shocking at first but makes a lot of sense.

First of all, his motives are crystal clear: he is a Pureblood and has 
not the status he feels he deserves. He has been relegated to an 
obscure broom cupboard, because of his love for Muggles we are told, 
but more probably because he is an eccentric with a very dubious 
behavior towards laws (illegaly bewitching artifacts, going out of his 
way to help Moody escape the law...). He has grown a deep resentment 
towards Muggles and the Wizarding World as it is, and as thus joined 
the Dark Lord (already during the first WW). That Arthur feels 
under-appreciated is at any rate canon: Percy knows it, Hermione feels 
it, Ron feels it (most notably in OoP chapter 4).

Now, what has he actually done? Plenty of things. He has passed 
informations from the Ministry to Voldemort during the first WW. He has 
arranged a staged fight with Lucius Malfoy, his old accomplice, in 
order to ensure that Lucius will be able to slip Riddle's diary to his 
own daughter in the confusion that ensues. Also note that in CoS, we 
discover that Lucius strongly advises his son to at least pretend to be 
friendly towards Harry. Undoubtedly, Arthur has also done so to his own 
son. The convergence is odd. Besides, despite Harry's tip that Malfoy 
has many dark artifacts, Arthur never take actions, and it is up to 
Dumbledore to warn Malfoy.

In PoA, he insists on telling Harry about Sirius, hoping to spur his 
curiosity, just as Malfoy does. Another example of a strange 
convergence: how would Draco know if not by his Father telling him to 
slip a hint about it?

He, of course, knows everything about the Triwizard Tournament in GoF 
(the book where serious doubts start) so he tipped his Master, and 
ensures that everyone knows he thinks highly of Moody in order to 
reinforce Barty's cover. He also covered for Barty right after Barty's 
attack on Moody. Think about it: a powerful and paranoid Auror is 
defeated by a man that has just passed many years under the Imperius 
curse without leaving any spurious hints? I believe their fight left 
many signs that were removed by Arthur. He could of course very well 
have conjured the Dark Mark during the QWC, and was conspicuous only by 
his absence during the Third task. Could he have been in a graveyard? 
Note also that Dumbledore doesn't trust him fully: he wasn't in the 
original order and Dumbledore seems not so sure he has a place in the 
new one. "Am I right in thinking that I can count on you and Arthur?" 
are his words. So there is a doubt then? And there are plenty of other 
clues... Barty Crouch under Moody's appearance implies that Arthur 
would "would know that one. Gave the Ministry a lot of trouble at one 
time, the Imperius Curse." Has Arthur specialized in it under the 
glorious years of his reign?


OoP is his triumph. He basically sets everything in motion in this 
book. First, he tries to get Harry expelled by hiding him in his office 
and his insisting that they have plenty of time while perfectly knowing 
the time has changed. His colleague ruins his plan, but he still 
manages not to loose his morning by performing the Imperius curse on 
Sturgis while pretending to wait for Harry outside. Remark by the way 
how very similar his behavior towards Malfoy is to his behavior towards 
Shacklebolt. We assume that former is genuine and the later staged, but 
what if it was the reverse? He could also have tipped the Malfoys about 
12, Grimmauld Place via Kreacher.

Then there's the staged attack. Here we have Voldemort in snake form 
unable to finish off a deeply wounded Arthur Weasley? Who are we 
kidding? This was a deliberately staged attack in order to convince 
Harry that his visions were useful, and of course it worked perfectly 
well. Harry explicitly refers to his vision of Arthur to overcome Ron 
and Hermione's doubts about Sirius being prisoner: 'How d'you explain 
Ron's dad then, what was all that about, how come I knew what had 
happened to him?'. And where was he during the battle at the Ministry? 
Think about it: the most dramatic event of OoP is the direct 
consequence of Harry believing he saved Arthur's life. Suppose Arthur 
had died (much more realistic, seeing he was already almost dead and 
pitched against Voldemort). Then Harry would have been devastated but 
would have had an incredibly strong motivation to learn Occlumency ('Do 
it for my Dad, Harry' said Ron miserably not to mention that Harry 
wouldn't want to witness his friends dying one after the other under 
his own eyes).

Of course, I don't believe one word of what I have written, this was 
just my attempt to prove that with enough dedication, one can find many 
many fishy things about any character. Indeed, if I was to take 
seriously what precedes, I would say that the "staged fight theory" 
with Lucius in CoS, the "cover Barty theory" in GoF and the "staged 
snake attack theory" in OoP are easily as convincing as the best 
arguments in favor of ESE!Lupin (and Dumbledore's suspicion well worths 
Sirius' suspicion, not to mention that if we are to take seriously 
Sirius' suspicion, Snape is worst than Voldemort). Ditto for Arthur's 
alleged motives. Arthur and Lupin are both struggling economically 
because of choices or personality traits the Wizarding World considers 
anomalous. They have both been denied a proper place (rights for Lupin, 
a place worth of the purity of his blood for Arthur) they hope 
Voldemort can give them.

As it is, I personally don't believe in any theory. So Lupin could be 
evil, Arthur could be Voldemort right-hand's man, Crookshanks could be 
the Animagus form of Florence spying for Dumbledore's brother who 
really is Hermione in disguise. But I'll wait and see.

Olivier










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