Why Cruciatus? (A question about Dear Bella)

[Mike]

No: HPFGUIDX 161709

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Eric Oppen" wrote:
> Eric:
> I was thinking about the whole "The Lestranges, with or without 
> Barty Crouch Jr., tortured the Longbottoms into insanity to try   
> toget the current location of Voldemort" scenario, and it occurred 
> to me that Things Are Wrong with it. <snip>

Mike:

I too think there is something wrong with it but for a different 
reason. It starts with Barty Sr's pronouncement at the trial:

"...subjecting him to the Cruciatus Curse, believing him to have 
knowledge of the present whereabouts of your exiled master,..."
(GoF p.595, US)

Dumbledore adds to this perception when telling Harry:

"He and his wife were tortured for information about Voldemort's 
whereabouts after he lost his powers, as you heard." (GoF p.602,US)

But then Dumbledore throws in the caveat:

"The Ministry was under great pressure to catch those who had done 
it. Unfortunately, the Longbottom's evidence was - given their 
condition - none too reliable." (ibid)

This makes it seem that although the Ministry had probably caught 
the right people, they were probably just as likely to be guessing 
as to the perpetrator's motivation for the attack on the 
Longbottoms. Given the DMLE's actions during the Crouch years in 
charge, I question the conclusion they reached, and Dumbledore's 
parroting of the same.

Dumbledore told us prior to this that his informants gave him to 
believe that Voldemort was holed up in Albania. Wormtail seemed to 
go directly there after his escape at the end of PoA, and he had 
spent the last 12 years as Percy's then Ron's rat. How much of a 
secret was Voldemort's whereabouts? I know the Longbottom tortures 
took place more than ten years prior, but the WW doesn't seem to 
have come upon some revelation during the interim as to where 
Voldemort was residing. 

My point is, the whereabouts of Voldemort doesn't seem to be this 
great secret that the Longbottoms would need to be tortured to 
reveal. Nor does it seem reasonable that the Longbottoms would have 
some inside information as to this location.

So, what was the real reason that the Longbottoms were tortured? 
What was the information they were more likely to have? If it was 
all a set up by someone (Lucius Malfoy?) to get the Lestranges out 
of the way, why does the Ministry, and for that matter Dumbledore, 
believe that they were after Voldemort's whereabouts? IMHO, this 
might be a profitable line of questioning to pursue.


> Eric: 
> So why did Bella, Rudy and Barty do what they did?  About the only 
> thing I can think of is that they were mainly after payback---IOW, 
> my old "Frank Longbottom was Judge Dredd On Acid!" theory.  We  
> know that by the end of Vold War I, the Ministry was just about as 
> ruthless as the DEs, and used a lot of the same tactics.

Mike:

Actually, IMO this seems a more likely explanation than the one 
given in canon. (BTW, Eric where can one find your "theory"? Do you 
have a message number? I think I read it once, but can't remember 
where it was.) Revenge can be highly motivating, and it makes more 
sense to me than that hooey about finding Voldemort.