CHAPDISC: HBP11, Hermione's Helping Hand

[Caius Marcius]

No: HPFGUIDX 148968

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "quigonginger" 
<quigonginger at ...> wrote:
>
> Stan Shunpike is arrested.  Other than the trio's say-so, do we 
have 
> any evidence that he is actually innocent?  Their meetings with him 
> have been brief, and the Dark Lord doesn't seem to have a pre-
entrance 
> IQ test for his minions.  It is pretty well accepted that this is 
JKR's 
> way of showing the corruption/ineptitude of the WW government, but 
how 
> do we, the readers, know that he isn't actually a DE?  How does the 
> trio?  Are we all reacting merely on faith and the narrator's say 
so?

Great summary, Ginger!

Anything is possible, but we've seen Shunpike before in braggart 
mode. During the QWC, a group of young adult wizards brag to three 
veelas:

"A third young wizard, whose pimples were visible even by the dim, 
silvery light of the veela, now cut in, "I'm about to become the 
youngest ever Minister of Magic, I am."

Harry snorted with laughter. He recognized the pimply wizard:  His 
name was Stan Shunpike, and he was in fact a conductor on the triple-
decker Knight Bus." 

Scrimegour doesn't dispute Harry's assertion of Shunpike's innocence 
either. And while I agree that Voldemort doesn't have an DE IQ test, 
he does seem to require that those who serve him either be violent 
ruthless thugs, or highly placed enough to provide him with useful 
information. Shunpike fails to meet either criteria.

  - CMC