In Defense of Scrimgeour & Offense against DD

[muscatel1988]

No: HPFGUIDX 179588

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "lizzyben04" <lizzyben04 at ...> wrote:
>
> They both died within weeks after DD visited 
> them, shortly after DD himself says that he used powerful magic to  
> extract their real memories (with great difficulty). After damaging 
> their minds & bodies beyond repair, DD decided that they had served 
> their purpose, & disposed of them.
> 
> *Adds Morfin & Hokey to the DD death toll.*

Mus adds:

On the other hand, we don't know that DD disposed of them directly. 
We only know that LV did away with Jorkins, and this sounds like an
immediate death.  In the case of Morfin and Hokey, the deaths occurred
some time after DD broke the Charm.  

If death results inevitably from the breaking of the Charm, then LV's
offing of Jorkins at least gave her a quick death; DD seems to have
left Hokey and Morfin to die slowly.  Of course, a dying witch with a
restored memory wandering around the countryside could perhaps be
dangerous to LV, and he was in a hurry to get away from Albania;
Morfin and Hokey were imprisoned (in Azkaban in his case, though we
don't know for certain in hers), so if they started to talk after his
visit, they could be discounted as raving.  In other words, DD didn't
need to kill them directly.  Time would do it, and his hands would,
naturally, remain clean.

"The only one he ever feared?"  You've got a point there, Tom.  

Of course, all of this raises yet another point about the WW's system
of justice.  We've seen it fail on pretty much every count: it
sentences the innocent without even due process, it fails to convict
the guilty, and now it seems, except in the case of hippogryphs, not
to have any appeals process.  But I'm confident that Hermione will
sort it all out.  <eg>

In passing, I found something odd w.r.t. house-elves.  In HBP Ch20,
when DD tells Harry about Smith's death and Hokey's conviction for it,
there's this:

" 'Yes, that is my conclusion, too,' said Dumbledore.  'And, just as
with Morfin, the Ministry was predisposed to suspect Hokey - '

' - because she was a house-elf,' said Harry.  He had rarely felt more
in sympathy with the society Hermione had set up, SPEW." [HBP UKhb: 410-1]

This is just bizarre.  DD is telling us that wizardkind regards
house-elves *as a class* as suspect and capable of harming their
masters.  It's a good thing the little blighters aren't free, isn't it?