More thoughts on the Cloak

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 158985

Carol earlier:
> 
> > You've ignored my point about the chains on the chair binding
Barty Jr. ("the chained boy") as they bound Karkaroff but did not bind
Ludo Bagman (or Harry in OoP).
> 
> Abergoat responds:
> I didn't mean to ignore anything - but I don't view how Barty was
> chained to mean anything other than he did not have powerful
friends, unlike Ludo. Just because Stan Stunpike is in jail doesn't
make him guilty, so just because Barty was in chains and Ludo wasn't
doesn't make Barty guilty and Ludo innocent.
> 
> Carol wrote:
>  And Bellatrix, who would never credit someone who wasn't a loyal DE
with helping her to find Voldemort and torture the Longbottoms, says
"We alone were faithful. The Dark Lord will reward us above all
others" (quoted from memory). "We" seems to include not only the
Lestrange brothers but Barty Jr. If Barty weren't one of the people
who accompanied her and helped her torture the Longbottoms, surely she
would have excluded him from her claim to "glory."
> 
> Aberogoat writes:
> I see it differently. I see Bella thinking it was a badge of honor
to go to jail for having been a Death Eater. She wouldn't give Barty's
> innocence of the Longbottoms crime a second thought. He was a Death
> Eater and he shouldn't be wimpering about innocence, he should go to
> jail proud of what his 'leader' stood for.

Carol responds: "We alone were loyal. We alone tried to find him"
includes Barty Jr., as does "We will be honored above all others."
Bella would have said "*This* little scum didn't go with us to get
information from the Longbottoms" if he hadn't been with them and
participated in the crime--as his subsequent actions (the prolonged
Crucio of the Longbottomw and his cruel anticipation of Neville's
reaction so he could give him tea and the book after class) also
indicate that he did. How do you explain his otherwise unaccountable
cruelty to Neville--knowing that the Longbottoms were Cruciod'd into
insanity and using that knowledge to upset the boy so badly that he'd
need tea and sympathy (and a book on magical water plants) afterwards
if he didn't actually participate in that horrendous action? (Note
that he was afterwards found in the company of the Lestranges--why, if
he wasn't their follower, equally loyal to Voldemort and equally
determined to find them? the other DEs were busy making themselves
look innocent and disassociating themselves with LV.)

As for the chairs, they bind people Karkaroff, the Lestranges, and
Barty Jr. They don't bind Ludo Bagman nor do they bind Harry during
his hearing (though they do rattle menacingly, presumably because he
did cast the Patronus Charm). I take this to mean that the chains
magically sense who is guilty and who is not. I could be wrong, of
course, by why wouldn't the chains magically bind everyone if they
couldn't sense guilt or even degrees of guilt, as in Harry's case?
(The action of the chains is independent of Ludo Bagman's "powerful
friends," by which I assume you mean the jury, who were more like fans
than powerful protectors. And you seem to think that Bagman is guilty
of something more than innocently passing information to someone he
thought was on the good side, but the only evidence for that is Mr.
Crouch's opinion of him. The real Mad-Eye doesn't think he's guilty,
only rather dim-witted.)

Also, you haven't explained how Barty could have learned the
Unforgiveable Curses (I don't just mean the words but whatever else is
needed to cast them) while he was under the Invisibility Cloak. He
must have learned and practiced them as a DE. Notice that he tells his
students that he isn't going to tell them how to cast the spells, yet
he uses the words right in front of them. Something beyond the
incantation or even power and will is required to do it right,
including, for Crucio, the enjoyment of inflicting pain--which he
clearly demonstrates in inflicting the curses on the spiders in
Harry's class and in controlling the students. (It's interesting that
Snape, IMO the best DADA teacher Harry ever had, didn't find it
necessary to cast the spells on the students. He just showed them the
effects of Dark Magic through posters and made them read and research
the topic and write essays.)

Carol, noting that JKR would surely have objected to the film
depiction of Barty Jr. as guilty if she meant him to be viewed as an
innocent victim of injustice like Stan Shunpike