Headscratchers / Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire The Plan

Doesn't Mr. Tennant Do A Brilliant Impression of Mr. Gleeson?

• This is a hole the films dug for themselves. As we saw in Chamber of Secrets, Polyjuice Potion does not change the voice. In the films that is, the books make it clear that it changes voice as well. However, this leads us to the obvious question. Why does Moody sound like Moody and not like The Doctor?
  • In the film, Crouch!Moody briefly imitated Hagrid during his Motive Rant at the end. That's supposed to explain that he's good at doing voice.
  • This was only done for the audience's sake (Viewers Are Morons, after all...) This would cause HUGE complications, especially in year 7. Would Draco really not recognize Harry and Ron's voices when they look like Crabbe and Goyle? Not to mention all those people in the Ministry when they sneak in there with Polyjuice.
  • And if you like, the first potion we saw was brewed by three twelve-year-olds on their first attempt. This one was brewed by an experienced Death Eater. It is shown that some potions can have differing effects depending on how well they're made, so you could Hand Wave it as that if you really want to.

That's a lot of Polyjuice!

• While we're talking about Crouch Jr. Polyjuice potion lasts an hour and one hour only. Therefore, Crouch Jr. would have to drink some every hour. Does this guy sleep in one hour segments or something? Because it isn't out of the ordinary for someone to wander around at night, not to mention the house elves.
  • Impersonating a known paranoiac has its advantages. As for any house elves, Crouch Jr. could've easily ordered any who caught him out to keep their mouth shut. Dobby was probably the only one of the lot who would've thought twice about that, and you saw what it took for him to warn Harry about the Chamber of Secrets plot for as much as he did.
  • He can be reasonably sure nobody but house elves are gonna intrude into his room when he is asleep, in which case all he has to do is sleep with the covers over his head, presumably using a spell to lock them in place. Or else, since he is supposed to be paranoid, he might have asked Dumbledore to order house elves to stay out of his room least they trigger one of his alarms and he blast them to pieces in the middle of the night. Of course, one wouldn't put it past him to sleep in one hour segments for a year in the name of Lord Voldemort if need be.
  • Thank you, Troper. Now picture Fake Moody screaming, "For the Dark Lord!" and instantly falling asleep for an hour-wake up, drink Polyjuice Potion, repeat. Every night.
  • Although that might be a bit of a giveaway if he did scream that.
  • He could just be sleeping inside the trunk, after locking the trunk from the inside. And as pointed out above, this would be entirely in-character behavior for the real Mad-Eye Moody.
  • Harry points out, 'we shouldn't see him at the crack of dawn, he'd blast us through the door.' Others probably think the same way.
  • Imagine Crouch with a Polyjuice drip. If Polyjuice Potion works when diluted with enough saline solution to inject it directly into one's veins, even with magic making it not a suicidal idea?
  • It's called polyphasic sleep. You sleep for 30 minutes every 6 hours, and it forces your body to abandon natural circadian rhythms. It's intended to give you more time awake each day. Of course, if you do it improperly, it causes you to hallucinate and think you're in the Legend of Zelda, but there you are.
  • Here's two bits: Crouch Jr. doesn't take it in at night. He just locks his rooms and tells everyone not EVER to come in, and he's done. His last potion of the day would be an hour before he goes to bed, and his first potion as he wakes up in the morning. Seems a good solution to anyone of us. He does have to put up with the inconvenience of having to lose his leg and eye every time he transforms into Moody, and then regrows those body parts before going to bed, but it's a minor inconvenience in the grand scheme of things.
  • Post Deathly Hallows we can assume his bed is surrounded with all of the same kinds of charms the trio put around their campsite, so we could talk in his sleep, etc, without fear of being noticed.
  • The same way disguised spies in the real world deal with this: make sure you're completely alone and not likely to be discovered. Locking your room would do fine here. Also, what self respecting wizard would allow a house elf to come into his room while he was sleeping? Why would someone even want that? They can clean bedrooms during the day, can't they?
  • Rowling has stated on Pottermore that one can make Polyjuice potion that lasts longer. "The effect of the potion is only temporary, and depending on how well it has been brewed, may last anything from between ten minutes and twelve hours." So he would only need to take a high quality potion twice a day once at breakfast and once a night if you will.
  • Then why drag it around in the flask and attract attention to it instead of drinking it in the safety of his chambers? He could've spilled it in view of other people, somebody might've asked him for a taste. Why risk it when he had absolutely no need to do, other than set up another unnecessary Chekhov's Gun?
  • The problem is that if Crouch Jr. doesn't drink from the flask he might be labelled a 'fake'. The real Moody was known for drinking from a hipflask.
  • Like Dumbledore being gay, Show, Don't Tell is a problem Rowling frequently runs into in these books and this is another example of it. If the child prodigy Hermione can not by Deathly Hallows create a Polyjuice potion that lasts longer than an hour then there is something seriously wrong. You shouldn't get extra credit for something that you haven't shown in your work.
    • Hermione followed a recipe that only gave results for an hour, and the sixth book shows that she's not the type to improve her potions, merely following the official instructions.
    • Hermione didn't brew any of the Polyjuice Potion they used in Deathly Hallows, because they were on the run, and they couldn't get their hands on several ingredients, bicorn horn for example was a controlled substance even before Voldemort took over, that only licensed potioners like Snape could get their hands on. What they used was Moody's, that she "borrowed" and stashed away.
  • Dumbledore says, "But I think, in the excitement of tonight, our fake Moody may have forgotten to take it as frequently as he should have done... on the hour, every hour..." And he had only just found out this Moody was a fake. He didn't know for sure how big a draught he took.
  • In Deathly Hallows, Harry took an "large dose" of Polyjuice for Bill and Fleur's wedding and it lasted for a number of hours, from before 3pm until late evening. So apparently, if one drinks a lot, it will last longer.
  • So, when the kids were infiltrating the Slytherin dorm in CoS they didn't take larger doses... because?
  • Because as mentioned above, the recipe given was only for an hour and it looked like there wasn't much of it in the cauldron anyway. They might have even figured they didn't need more than an hour, anyway.
  • It's doubtful that Crouch Jr. took it every hour during sleep time or even in other hours when out of sight, it would be a waste, remember: he needed to steal the ingredients from Snape (which sound pretty dangerous) in order to keep the doses. He probably wanted to save as much as he could, so he probably was himself every time no one watched him taking the potion when in public only. As for the elves, as said before, he could just request not to have them into his room using any paranoid excuse.
  • Doesn't Crouch Jr. have Dark Detectors all over the office? The Foe Glass mirror signals if someone is coming. So maybe he doesn't take it while he sleeps, and relies on extra precautions so he's not disturbed.
  • And we've never had any confirmation on what time of day the House Elves clean the rooms. Surely during the day is easier? The students and teachers are all in their classes, so the dorms and offices are empty.
  • And if it's possible to make Polyjuice Potion last longer than an hour, maybe Crouch Jr. doesn't want to take any chances. Remember, his impersonation of Moody was very last minute - and he didn't have a lot of time to test out how long the potion lasted before he had to take Moody's place at Hogwarts. So maybe he's sipping the potion every hour just to be safe; his cover's blown if he starts changing back in the middle of class or a meal at the Great Hall. When you're a teacher, you don't get a lot of private moments during the day - as you're constantly interacting with either students or other staff members. So Barty Jr can't afford to take risks like that.
  • If you want your Fridge Horror quotient for the day regarding the implications of there being a long-lasting Polyjuice potion out there, recall that he was smuggled out of Azkaban by becoming his own mother. He may have found out a lot about her that day.

Rats!

• Wormtail's ability to get information from other rats. Rats have to establish relationships before they tell other rats things. (And yes, they do inform each other of danger. At least that's true.)
  • It is a bit fast for him to have developed a relationship with the other rats, but he could have used magic to speed up the process, or the rats were so scared of it that they were warning any other rat that passed.
  • For example, there's a difference between someone telling their friend that they think something odd is going on, and someone screaming to all the random bystanders, "OMG there's a huge snake in there!".
  • The Imperius curse, perhaps? If Moody can use it in class on a non-human rather easily, who's to say someone else didn't help Wormtail get information from the rats (or he just did it himself before he transformed).
  • Actually, Voldemort says that Wormtail has a 'curious affinity with rats'. He's implying that Wormtail has a gift for not only communicating with rats, but for getting them to trust him.
    • It's also possible this is just something that Animagi can do in general. Sirius was able to communicate with and get Crookshanks to trust him when he was in dog form.

May my Lord have more difficulties.

• To understand why Crouch Jr. demonstrated the unforgiven curses and tried Imperius on children - that's what the real Moody would do. But don't you think he went too much into the role? He basically trained Harry's Imperius-resistance to perfection. Why do that, if you serve Voldemort? And don't tell it was because of Dumbledore - he didn't know about Harry's resistance-potential and wouldn't find out, so there was no need to teach it to Harry SPECIFICALLY.
  • Crouch Jr. really had no choice in the matter - doing any less would raise the red flags and alert Dumbledore. You're underestimating how much of a paranoid Moody was: going even the slightest bit lenient in defense would seem VERY out of character. Besides, even if Harry's capable of resisting the Imperius Curse, Voldie still has the perfectly serviceable Cruciatus and Killing Curses to use, both of which are much harder to defend against. Voldemort isn't going to want to keep Harry alive as a slave, so the Imperius curse would only get use for some brief humiliation before he gets around to the finishing off.
  • Yes, but Crouch could simply note to himself "wow, this guy has affinity to the resistance", not say it loud and go on with other students. It's not like people would notice something was wrong. And as for there being other means, sure, but why give him such a valuable means of defence? It's like if Lupin wanted Harry dead and still taught him how to make a Patronus.
  • He also needed to ingratiate himself with Harry. On the other hand, as it was aptly noted above, it is hardly a life-saving skill, unlike the Patronuses. Neither Crouch, nor V planned any further use for Harry, so neither saw any point in keeping him particularly Imperiusable. There is also a chance DD specifically ordered "Moody" to train Harry.
  • It's entirely possible that Crouch himself had a fundamental moral objection to the Imperius Curse (considering he was subjected to it and controlled by it for years) and as a result thought that, regardless of Voldemort's eventual goals, everyone ought to have a chance to learn to resist it.
  • Crouch's original goal was probably to test whether Harry could resist the Imperius curse. If he couldn't, then Crouch could have subtly sabotaged Harry ever learning to. Knowing whether it would work ahead of time would certainly be better than only discovering Harry could resist it after deciding the situation of the moment warranted Imperius-ing Harry.
  • Because Crouch Jr. needed to sell the deception. Remember, that he has the real Moody locked up and was interrogating him regularly for information. So, Crouch Jr. likely was asking the real Moody what he would be teaching the students if he were in a classroom himself.

The Idiot Ball Strikes Again

• Upon re-reading the book, there's the conclusion that if either Cedric or Harry had any common sense whatsoever, the entire plan could still have been foiled and they both would have survived. The obvious thing they should have done was, after they figured out the cup was a Portkey, grabbed the cup again! There! Problem solved! Harry and Cedric win the Triwizard Tournament, Voldemort throws another tantrum and possibly ends up killing Wormtail (no great loss there, the dirty coward), and cooks up another scheme to get Harry for Book Five. (Actually, this is kind of something that's bugging about the series in general: Harry is very obviously and severely lacking in the common sense department, and yet it only ends badly for him once, when his stupidity gets Sirius killed! Why is a lack of common sense praised by these books?)
  • How could they have known it wasn't a one way Portkey? They initially thought it might have been part of the task and that there was one more leg to find a Portkey back. Besides, almost immediately someone came to them and Harry's scar started to hurt, thus distracting them.
  • Do one way Portkeys even exist?
  • Except that they didn't think the Portkey was one-way; otherwise, why would Harry have summoned the cup at the end of the chapter? Actually, if you put the events of the chapter in real-time, the whole thing happens in a space of about fifteen or twenty minutes, with the first minute or so taken up by Harry and Cedric discussing how this doesn't feel right and ""zomg cup is a Portkey!" In that case, what did they have to lose by touching it again, just to test the "it's a one-way Portkey" theory?
  • That was two different situations of them wondering about the Portkey. The first is a relatively confused setting with Harry being injured, and the second is after Harry has dueled a reborn Voldemort and Priori Incantetumed a vision of Cedric that's had time to think about the situation from a relatively calm position. Harry summoned the cup partially out of desperation, as if it hadn't worked, he would have had no other way to escape. This is assuming, of course, that Barty Crouch Jr. didn't put a time delay for the return trip so it wouldn't activate for the first five minutes anyway. After all, if the original plan was for Voldemort to come back through the Portkey or send Harry's dead body back, you wouldn't want it to be able to activate immediately.
  • To recall, the scene went like this: Harry and Cedric arrive. Both are confused at it being a Portkey. They assume it's part of the challenge. Harry's scar starts hurting. Harry tells Cedric to go back (showing that no, they didn't assume it was a one-way Portkey), but Cedric refuses. Wormtail shows up and kills Cedric. It makes sense...
  • Think of this from Cedric's PoV. He's sitting there with Harry and the portkey. They both think this is part of the tournament (that they have to find another one). Almost immediately after they get back on their feet, someone with a bundle of rags appear. A split second later, Harry doubles over in pain, clutching his head. At this point, this is probably what was on Cedric's mind: "Where are we? Is this part of the tournament? Why is Harry in pain? What the bloody hell is going on!?" A mere few seconds later, he's killed. Simply, they didn't have time.
  • They didn't necessarily know that it was a two-way Portkey; it was one of the ghost/echo things that told them — Lily, probably. Maybe she knows stuff that they don't either because she's dead and that just gives her more knowledge, or because she lived four more years than Cedric.
  • Um... what? To recall correctly, it was James/Lily who told Harry this AFTER Cedric died. Cedric himself apparently learnt this as he told Harry to take his body back to Hogwarts.

Improbable Acting Skills

• Okay, so Barty Crouch Jr. specifically mentions that he put Moody under the Imperius curse. In that case, why'd he even bother brewing Polyjuice Potion in the first place? Why not just make the real Imperiused Moody do everything? And how'd Barty Jr., who spent most of his time being tortured in Azkaban, suddenly become such a good actor that he could fool people who knew the real Moody perfectly? His voice should've sounded different, at least.
  • Imperius can be resisted. As for the second, who said he fooled them? D just played along.
  • So Dumbledore let Voldemort return and send the entire wizarding world into a state of war because he was just playing?
  • Not quite. He was betting on the infinitesimal odds that he'd be able to arrange everything so that Voldemort kills himself and Harry survives, and D wouldn't have to get his hands dirty. We're supposed to believe he succeeded.
  • Dumbledore didn't know, as he says that "The real Moody would not have removed you from my sight after what happened tonight. The moment he took you, I knew - and I followed." Later in the scene, Crouch Jr. says "Then I packed up Moody's clothes and Dark detectors, put them in the trunk with Moody, and set off for Hogwarts. I kept him alive, under the Imperius Curse. I wanted to be able to question him. To find out about his past, learn his habits, so that I could fool even Dumbledore." Also, it's only in the films that your voice doesn't change with Polyjuice Potion. And if you want an explanation for the movie version of all this, note that Crouch Jr. does Hagrid's voice when he reveals himself at the end, suggesting that there at least, he has a talent for voices.
  • He lied. Or rather told something Metaphorically True, like "I was 99% sure, so sure I actually put a secret Portkey enchantment on the Goblet and suppressed it so that it doesn't work until the Goblet is used as a Portkey once, and it was obviously me, cause who the hell else could it be", but only when he took you, I knew.
  • It seems kinda vague whether Moody could resist the Imperius Curse or not. On one hand, it says Crouch Jr. put him under the spell, but on the other hand, Crouch Jr. DID teach a class on how to resist Imperius, which implies the real Moody can do it to an extent. Still would have been nice for the books to directly address or explain this, though...
  • Yeah, this and about a billion other things. Regardless, it's one thing when all your puppet does is sit inside a trunk malnourished the whole year, and another when he has to walk around teaching and interacting with people - it's much harder.
  • It's one thing to use Imperius to prevent and underfed, weakened, trapped Moody from trying to escape and another to let him walk freely and have enough energy to fight against the spell. As for voice, in the books the potion changes it, too.
  • And no one had really seen Moody in years. He's a well known eccentric, so it's hard to make him seem suspicious. Dumbledore even only knows he's an impostor when he takes Harry away after the graveyard bit. So the Polyjuice disguise was working for most of the time. And walking around in disguise is much more fool-proof that bewitching the other Moody and keeping track of him.
  • Crouch Sr. was able to throw off the Imperius curse before the year was up, to the point where he had to start sending letters into the Ministry saying he was working from home. There's no way an experienced Auror like Moody wouldn't have done better at resisting it than that, especially when he also lives at Hogwarts. You can't exactly work from home if you're someone with his profession.

I have returned from the dead! But remember, I never actually died.

• This is more Fridge Logic than a real headscratcher, but: When Voldemort taunts Harry in the graveyard, he says "It will be quick, it might even be painless. I would not know, I have never died." It sounds cool and casually confident and all, but then you realize, Voldemort is probably the person in history most qualified to say that he HAS died. In that light, it seems like a rather odd choice for a boast, to remind everyone of his defeat and near-death.
  • This may be JK pointing out Voldemort's arrogance, but in truth he technically hasn't died, per se. He was just in spirit ghost-like form for over a decade, but not dead exactly.
  • Or more likely, to remind everyone that he didn't die when he should have.
  • Also, Voldemort may simply not have wanted to contemplate the idea of Harry returning to life like he had, even if it (maybe) wasn't possible at that time. Not only are the two cases not the same, but trying to compare them at all brings to light the idea that Harry could potentially, conceivably return, too, by that logic.

Even Evil Love Quidditch

• Movie question. If Crouch Jr. had already rejoined Voldemort before the beginning of the Quidditch Cup, what the hell was he doing there at the stadium, if Voldemort knew that they couldn't kidnap Harry from there? Moreover, if he was already on the mission, why the hell would he compromise himself by casting the Dark Mark?
  • It's like that was supposed to be set up by the line, "gather our old comrades. Send them a sign." But that really doesn't make sense since the Death Eaters were already "gathered" before he fired off the Dark Mark. So maybe he sent the Death Eaters some other sign, they raided the campsite, and then he fired off the Dark Mark for the hell of it.
  • Memory's a bit vague but he mentioned something about being furious that the former Death Eaters were enjoying themselves while Voldemort was a ghost-thing, so he used the Dark Mark to scare them.
    • That's how it goes in the book, and this question is specifically about the movie. The book's explanation doesn't work with the film version of events as the Death Eaters are already dispersed by the time he casts the Dark Mark into the sky. Plus, the Death Eaters seemed to be already united in the film, rather than just goofing around like they were at that point in the book. Maybe movie!Crouch, Jr. just wanted to put Voldemort's seal on the attack, like a Calling Card.
  • OP: No, the chief question is what the hell was Crouch Jr. doing there in the first place? Again, it's perfectly clear why in the book: he'd still lived under house arrest with his father at that point, and Winky had convinced Crouch Sr. to let her take Crouch Jr. out for a walk. But in the movie, Crouch Jr. had already joined V by that point (we see him in Harry's dream in the beginning). Maybe V could've sent him to spy on Harry at the Quidditch Cup, but surely he wouldn't have been there in his own, presumably-dead-in-Azkhaban, image, right?
  • Well, you might as well ask what any of the Death Eaters were doing there. Since the film seems to avoid the "Ku Klux Klan turned football hooligans" explanation of the book, presumably they were trying to make some sort of "Hey, we're still here" statement and Barty was one of the ring leaders. It's not like Barty was meant to be dead in the film (Dumbledore et al's reaction is more "So you escaped from Azkaban" than "Why aren't you dead?") and he'd be unlikely to be disguised as Moody at that point. He could have used a random polyjuice disguise but in the book he used an invisibility cloak and that would seem to fit for the movie: He could have been there incognito and taken the cloak off for casting the Dark Mark, thinking he was alone.
  • For Crouch Jr., being a Death Eater was a religion, and he was utterly devoted to Voldemort, as well as completely insane as a combination of exposure to the Dementors and a decade under the Imperius Curse. It makes sense that he just wanted to be there and kill people and put the dark mark up.
  • Actually in the book, Crouch Sr. had Winky. Winky was acting as Crouch Jr's baby-sitter. Crouch Jr had been a good adult child lately and Winky convinced Crouch Sr that Crouch Jr should be allowed to attend the Qudditch match (since he hadn't been out of the house in years)-under the pretense that Winky was saving a seat for Crouch Sr.

Funniest thing happened during the autopsy...

• So according to Crouch Jr., his mother posed as him in Azkaban, and died as him. Through whatever means, she kept drinking Polyjuice Potion to keep up his appearance to the bitter end. So what happened after she died? Did they literally just dig a hole and throw "him" in within the hour, somehow contacting Crouch and Crouch Jr. to come prior to? Were they doing an autopsy when the corpse suddenly started transforming? Or did they come across the cell and notice that the young man inside has been replaced with the corpse of a dead woman?
  • Polyjuice'd dead bodies obviously don't change.
  • That would make sense if the Polyjuice Potion works by only altering live cells, and there's no seeing why that wouldn't be the case.
  • Why would they autopsy someone who died from Dementor draining? It is probably a weekly occurrence at Azkaban. (Though, from the lack of medical science seen elsewhere, there might not be any magical coroners anyway)
  • Sirius said that the Dementors can't see, which is why he was able to use his dog form to escape from Azkaban without them stopping him. He also said that they buried Mrs. Crouch. So it's likely that the dementors just found a dead body, reported that the prisoner had died, then disposed of Mrs. Crouch and nobody was any the wiser. The other prisoners either never got a good look or were too insane from years of Dementor exposure to be reliable witnesses/tell anyone that this body was not Barty Crouch Jr.
  • At this point in time, Crouch Sr was still an influential government official in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, who oversaw matters related to prisoners. He could have arranged things to keep people from finding out about the switch right before the burial. Maybe there were some irrelevant to the situation at hand close calls where he was almost found out?

To announce your secret return to your arch-nemesis, press 1

• Upon returning into flesh, V activates Wormtail's Dark Mark, so that all the Death Eaters feel it and come to him. All of them feel it. Including Snape, who has or has not betrayed him, and Karkaroff, who's definitely betrayed him and might just decide that rather than escaping he'd better seek protection with Dumbledore. Not to mention, of course, that DD could've easily arranged the incarcerated DEs to be checked daily for the sign of reactivated Dark Mark. So, did V really not think about it? After all the extensive preparations and meticulous planning, that's just downright pathetic.
  • How else was he supposed to get in touch with them all, without giving away the locations or identities of the ones who were still in hiding/playing innocent? We know the Owl Post isn't secure enough, because Sirius worries about his messages to Harry being intercepted and giving away his own hiding place.
  • Also it's possible that Voldemort didn't think Snape or Karkaroff were disloyal until they didn't show up at the graveyard. True, he probably would've subjected Karkaroff to the Cruciatus Curse for giving so many names to the Ministry, but it seemed like he only planned on killing those who didn't respond to his summons.
  • In comparison to the method that immediately announces your return to your arch-nemesis, any way would've been more secure.
  • Voldemort presumed Dumbledore would rapidly become aware of his return, one way or another. There were just too many ways it could happen. Gathering all his allies, giving them orders and launching his second campaign within minutes of his resurrection would give him a head-start over any countermeasures that people like Dumbledore and the Ministry's Aurors might have had in place. It also allowed him to identify right away which of his old followers were no longer trustworthy. Risky, yes, but we don't really know what the rest of Voldemort's initial plan was since Harry spoiled his evening.
  • Who is to say that only Voldemort can activate the Dark Mark? It's likely they can all activate the mark, but when he does it, they all know.

Finding the Dark Lord

• Another thing that has been irking: both Pettigrew and Crouch Jr. were able to find their master before his return to power. Now assuming this was because their Dark Marks told them where to find him... if this is true, why didn't any of those that had fallen out with him, like Snape and Karkaroff, track him down long ago and dispose of him or hand him over to Dumbledore while he was still in that weak state?
  • The marks had nothing to do with that. Pettigrew knew Voldemort fled to Albania, probably because it was a designated fallback location all Death Eaters knew about, and he learned the exact place from local rats. Crouch didn't find V - it was the other way round. Regardless, V's "weak state" was that of an incorporeal shadow, not much you can do with that.
  • Tell that to Professor Quirrell. Presumably that was Voldemort's fallback plan if discorporated again, wait for a convenient fool to blunder past and bodyjack him again.
  • Not much you can do in ways of destroying/containing it. Although...

Luck in resurrection

• Speaking of the fallback plan. "Wait for a convenient fool to blunder past" leaves quit a lot to chance, isn't it? Why not arrange in advance for someone to go to Albania and resurrect him? Hell, after he's ressurected, he complains to his cronies that he was expecting them to come looking for him, and yet noone came, you guys! Why is Lord Voldemort, who ostensibly doesn’t trust anyone, suddenly trusting his flunkeys with his very life?!
  • Hopefully this theory isn't too convoluted. Voldemort, despite gathering followers in his first reign of terror partially due to seeking to conquer death, wants his surprise return to be a revelation even to the Death Eaters, and obviously doesn't tell any of them about the Horcruxes. At the same time, as a Secret Test of Character, he expects the most faithful of them to believe in his unholy second coming and seek him out to enable this. Unfortunately for him, the most loyal followers were locked in Azkaban for, ironically, torturing people for information as to his whereabouts. The less devout, such as Lucius and MacNair, either didn't believe the rumours that his presence had been felt in Albania or were too fearful to seek him out after such a long period of time had passed. So, when he finally returns, he impresses the less faithful with his powers of resurrection, expresses his disappointment that none of them were his top servants, and inspires pure fear in them once more. This does rely on the idea in the above folder of Albania being a fallback location for all the DEs not being correct. Instead, Pettigrew might have followed the "trail of fear" via rats through Europe, along with wizard rumours, until finding Voldemort.
  • Voldemort hadn't actually completed his preparations for immortality when he was blasted. He had still yet to find a suitable relic to be his sixth Horcrux. Maybe once he had he would have made better preparations for his return to physical form but at the height of his power he wasn't really expecting to be offed quite so suddenly.
  • No matter what the circumstances, most people don't actively plan on being killed, especially as the result of a sneak attack on two Order members and a baby. Voldemort's Horcruxes were meant to keep him from suffering a natural death as much as to prevent him from being killed - he was already a skilled enough wizard that he didn't think he would need to rely completely on them in his everyday affairs. And he wouldn't need to have told anyone where or how to seek him out if he ever disappeared to be disappointed when they didn't come. They swore their loyalty to him, found out he vanished mysteriously, and didn't do anything about it. That would be disappointment enough.

Of all the crazy plans by insane people...

• Let's take another look at how Voldemort could possibly hatch this plan to kidnap Harry Potter. Barty Crouch Jr. escapes from his father's clutches roughly a week before school starts. In that short time, the certifiably insane Barty manages to make contact with Moody, a man Dumbledore has been unable to seek out for the past decade and more. They brew Polyjuice potion within that week (despite the recipe requiring a month) and proceed to kidnap Moody two days before school. The plan is for Crouch Jr. to be permanently stationed at Hogwarts amongst dozens of staff members, including Dumbledore, who have fought by Moody's side during the First Wizarding War in a tightly-knit Order. Peter Pettigrew is the only other one privy to this plan, but doesn't mention the Marauder's Map, although he knows that Harry has it and knows how to use it. The chance of being discovered rises with every passing day, but the kidnapping must occur at the end of the year. At no point did any of them stop and think, "Maybe there's an easier way to do this?"
  • Already discussed to death. The Ministry and/or Dumbledore would notice if somebody creates a Portkey, so Crouch Jr. needed a legit excuse to create one, i.e. in the Third task when he was supposed to charm the Triwizard Cup to teleport the winner outside of the maze. And Crouch wasn't that much of a nutjob (in the book at least). A fanatic, sure, but he kept it together pretty well. Good point about Pettigrew and the Map, though. No idea how he could omit something like that.
  • They didn't notice Crouch Jr. create a Portkey. Under Veritaserum, he admits to having made the Triwizard Cup a Portkey. Not altered an existing Portkey enchantment, making it one.
  • Remember that Veritaserum only makes people say what they think is the truth, not the absolute truth. It's possible that Crouch Jr. genuinely but wrongly believed the Triwizard Cup wasn't already a Portkey when he cast the Portkey spell on it. Since there weren't any Portkeys on the premises aside from the Cup, it's possible the Ministry simply thought that the organizers made a mistake when creating the Portkey and accidentally cast the spell twice.
  • FWIW, Wormtail has probably been using Polyjuice himself whenever he needs to go out in public in human form, as being seen in his true form would spoil the frame-up on Sirius and give another of Dumbledore's allies more freedom to operate openly. He mixed up a batch over the summer and lent enough of it to Barty Jr. to get him started on his "Moody" ruse, until Barty could mix more with what he stole from Snape's supplies. As for the Map, the last Peter knew of it, it'd been confiscated by a teacher; he may have assumed that Snape turned it over to Filch.
  • Why in the world would Snape or Lupin turn something like that over to Filch? Not that it really matters. If somebody in the castle had the map, it means the whole plan was in danger, therefore Wormtail would've certainly mentioned it. Not that it matters either, because unless that homunculus body lacked the brain compartment, V would've certainly scanned him for all the useful information he might possess, whether he realises it or not.
  • Erm... this was already explained in the books, through Voldemort's and Crouch Jr's confession. This was the timeline of events:
    1. Pettigrew reaches Albania, where he accidentally meets Bertha Jorkins;
    2. He uses the Imperius curse on her to bring her to Voldemort, whom he suspects is in a certain forest;
    3. Voldemort interrogates Bertha (probably having Pettigrew use the Cruciatus curse on her) and when he gets what he wants, he has Pettigrew kill Bertha;
    4. Voldemort has Pettigrew make the potion that creates the homunculi that stores what rests of his soul;
    5. Both Voldemort and Pettigrew return to Britain, hiding at Riddle Manor;
    6. When they are at Riddle Manor, they have that conversation about the plan that Frank Bryce snoops on (and Harry sees through his connection with Voldemort);
    7. Wormtail and Voldemort go to the Crouch house a few days after the World Cup. Voldemort puts Crouch Sr. under the Imperius Curse, freeing Jr and forcing Sr to go on with his job as if there is nothing wrong;
    8. Crouch Jr and Wormtail assault Moody's house the night before Hogwarts starts, taking him out and then, using Moody's ready supply of Polyjuice, Crouch turns into Moody and defuses the situation with the Muggle police thanks to Arthur Weasley's help.
    9. Finally, although it takes him some time to do it, he puts everything into Moody's trunk (including Moody himself) and travels to Hogwarts.
  • Also, Crouch Jr being certifiably insane is not mentioned anywhere. Even if he were driven insane by Azkaban, he's had 12 years to recover from that.
    • After Azkaban, Crouch Jr. spent 12 years under the Imperius Curse, while struggling to break free all the while. Six months of that was enough to put Broderick Bode in the Spell Damage Ward. It's amazing Crouch Jr. can tie his own shoes.
    • There's the thought that Bode was driven insane by touching a prophecy not meant for him? While in St. Mungo's he wasn't Imperiused anymore, just unintelligible. Harry managed to fight off the Imperius Curse without any brain damage.
  • One other thing to note is that, despite all this planning and complexity, the play still almost failed. The only reason it worked was due to Cedric's generosity. Cedric reached the cup first. If he didn't feel like deliberately tying with Harry, he would have picked up the cup. What then? Cedric disappears for a few minutes, a dead body comes back? Moody!Crouch kidnaps Harry directly? if he could do that, why not just do that at any point during the year?
  • Well, Crouch was there, wasn't he, keeping an eye over the course and removing obstacles from Harry's way. He was probably standing right there near the Cup, invisible. If Cedric tried to go for the Cup alone, he would've removed him as well and then forced Harry to touch it.
  • Doesn't make sense. Cedric was there and almost touched it. Was Crouch Jr. literally waiting for Cedric's hands to be millimetres away from the cup before he'd stun him? Would he know Cedric wouldn't panic or change his mind as Harry approached? When working on a year-long plan to kidnap someone, you don't take silly risks like this at the last second (especially after he already used unforgivables on the other competitors). Secondly, if he were willing to do that, why not just do it at any point in the year? Say, during a Hogsmeade weekend? Not when there's an international audience watching (let's ignore the silly issue that thousands of people came to watch bushes for an hour, and pretend the Triwizard Tournament was actually a sporting event). If he had no backup plan, it was clearly a very stupid plan. If his backup plan was to just kidnap Harry by some other method, that should have been Plan A.
  • Nope. Cedric never got even close to the Cup on his own. After they blast the mega-spider, they just stand there, urging each other to go for it, until Harry suggests they take it together. So Crouch could have stood there, wand aimed at Cedric, ready to knock him out the moment he goes for the Cup alone. But when they went for it together, and Cedric even helped the limping Harry along, it was clear he'd made up his mind, so Crouch didn't feel the need to interfere. And he couldn't have just kidnapped the kid earlier, because Harry supposedly was under DD's constant eye, unlike, naturally, when he was in that dangerous labyrinth, during the final stage of the Tournament in which his participation was orchestrated by an unknown party, so whatever their intention was, this would be their last chance to achieve it... Nah, why would DD want to keep an eye on him THERE? God, loving these self-sustaining plot holes.
  • False. Re-read the book. Harry was far behind because the spider almost crushed him. Cedric was practically within arm's reach of the cup. If Crouch had actually been there, Cedric would have been stunned before Harry even managed to stand up. He was alone with the cup for a long time with Harry nowhere nearby. No stunners, no imperius, nothing. Crouch obviously wasn't anywhere nearby or else he wouldn't have taken such a huge risk.
  • Within several feet. Anyway, concluding that Crouch was there mostly because where the hell else would he be at the pivotal moment of his plan? As for why he didn't stun Cedric, well, he was keeping as low profile as possible (all it takes Harry to alert the adults is fire sparks into the sky), and, besides, Cedric was helping Harry against the spider, which favored Crouch's interests. Maybe Crouch was also using Legilimancy to monitor his intentions, or maybe he didn't even need to stun him personally - since he'd set up the Cup, so he could've rigged it to stun anybody approaching it, except Harry. When he saw them going for it together, he removed the trap.
  • In answer to that last one: he was patrolling outside the maze, just like other teachers, looking for any sign of the red sparks that were supposed to be sent up in case of danger. From a gap in the hedge he saw Viktor, Imperiused him and used him to incapacitate Fleur and Cedric - except Cedric was saved by Harry, which was not part of Crouch's plan.
  • If the wrong champion wins and ends up being transported to the graveyard, the solution is simple - if Voldemort is really set on using Harry as his means of resurrection, as opposed to either of the other three champions who could conceivably count as his enemies, then he could just have Pettigrew kill Cedric, as well as Viktor and Fleur, if they come along, sending the Portkey back into the maze each time until Harry finally manages to find it.
  • And all that matters is Harry touching the cup and getting there. If he were watching them, stunning Cedric out of nowhere might have made Harry hesitate and forget about the cup to help him.
  • Psychology of Voldemort. He believes He and Harry are Equals, therefore it is unthinkable that Harry would not be the one to grasp the cup. Voldemort's egocentrism is key to all his plans.

The plan is too complicated even if we assume rules about portkeys.

• So, let's work in the 'ideal' world where the Cup is the only working Portkey, authorized by DD, and Fake Moody couldn't enchant something else. So Harry had to enter, and win to get Portkeyed. Uh, no? Since Fake Moody was the one who put the Cup in the maze in the first place, he could have, instead, simply put the Cup in his office and invited Harry in, and, oh, look at this. As an added bonus, he could have portkeyed with Harry, and then brought the Cup back to Hogwarts, and Harry's just mysteriously disappeared. (If the return trip takes Fake Moody to the bleachers and someone sees him arrive, haha, everyone laugh at Moody, who accidentally touched the Cup he was carrying and got Portkeyed across campus.) A lot of mental gymnastics have come up with some reasonable justifications for the Cup being the only good way to kidnap Harry, but there's not a very good reason to do that kidnapping via rigging the Twiwizard Tournament instead of just Moody handing the Cup to Harry! Hell, Harry didn't even have to be in the Tournament.
  • As pointed out on the YMMV page, the plan was to make Harry's death look like an accident. If he suddenly disappeared, everyone would be investigating where he went. In the tournament, they could chalk it up as "a skrewt ate him".
  • Except for that explanation to work, you'd have to assume that no-one would investigate Harry's death, and one would find that hard to believe. Even if he weren't Harry friggin' Potter, in a Tournament he was forced into against his will, it's still a death in a school competition that was specifically designed to be death-free. It's extraordinarily unlikely that Dumbledore and everyone else would just shrug their shoulders and do nothing. Remember that both Fleur and Viktor were also attacked by what is clearly wizard magic, and since it's hardly likely that Harry or Cedric would use those spells on them, anyone with a brain would have worked out that there was some kind of foul play involved. If everything had gone perfectly, what would have happened to Moody? Presumably Crouch Jr would have killed him and gone on his merry way as soon as he could. It wouldn't take a genius to realize that forced tournament entry + Harry's death + foul play + Moody's disappearance/death + Dark Mark at QWC = Lord Voldemort. Voldy's plan would have bought him a respite of maybe a few weeks, no more than that.
  • Besides, an accident of what exactly? Harry was supposed to suddenly disappear with no way to bring his body back to the labyrinth.
  • This isn't that difficult. 1. We know you can't apparate in and out of Hogwarts, and it would be ludicrous if you could circumvent this with a portkey. So you can't portkey in and out of Hogwarts either. 2. We know Dumbledore can remove these restrictions or make exceptions to them, as seen in book 6. 3. We know the Cup portkey must have been prearranged to appear at the front of the maze because why would Crouch Junior set it to go there thus giving Harry a possible escape? And why, if it wasn't meant to be a portkey, would he plan to send Harry's body back to the front of the maze thus advertising to everyone that it was a portkey? 4. So it's clear that Dumbledore removed the wards to allow Fake Moody to create that particular portkey on that particular night, and Fake Moody simply redirected it to take a detour to Voldemort's graveyard before going to its original destination. Ergo, the only way to capture Harry with a portkey was with the Triwizard Cup on the night of the Third Task. The plan was just as complicated as it needed to be to actually work! Any questions? Can people stop asking about this now?
    • You can circumvent the Apparition ban with a Portkey. Dumbledore does it in the next book, when he has to rush the Weasley children out of Hogwarts to see Arthur after he's injured.
    • The Hogwarts Headmaster having a special exception to the Apparition rule is to be expected. They're able to section off an entire room for students to practice Apparating in, so clearly it can be turned off by faculty when needed.

Constant Vigilance, Except When It Matters

• After V resurrects he explains to his cronies, that they couldn't just abduct Harry during the year, because he was under constant watchful eye of DD. Of course, what he meant was "constant watchful eye, except for when he's in a dangerous labyrinth filled with monsters, which is a part of a Tournament where his participation was orchestrated by an unknown mastermind, most likely an enemy agent, and this task is their last chance to achieve their goal, whatever it might be". Just what in the world possessed V to think Harry wouldn't be watched there?!
  • Following on the above why the hell WASN'T Harry being watched there?! Ok, understanding DD, since ^note Crazy conspiracy theorist mode ON he was in on the whole plan and went along with it^note Crazy conspiracy theorist mode OFF, but what about all the others? This is the grand finale of the Tournament, the event that the whole year had been building up to, and nobody is watching it? Why?
  • Well, they also weren't watching them in the second task, given that Dumbledore had to ask what happened from the Chief Mermaid. But that can easily explained by the fact that it's hard to do surveillance on an entire lake, especially when it requires the champions to head to the bottom. For the third task, it's presumably because the maze is so large; it fills the entire Quidditch field. Or^note WMG mode on they DID know Harry and Cedric had been portkeyed away, they just didn't know where and couldn't follow them because the Triwizard Cup had gone with them.
  • Who said about watching the whole lake/labyrinth? The spectators would only be interested in watching the contestants. Don't tell us they couldn't arrange some kind of surveillance over them.
  • They specify before anyone enters the maze that staff will be flying the perimeter watching for the red sparks that signify a contestant quitting the maze. What isn't explained is how none of those observers saw Cedric and Harry portkey out of the maze without appearing at the entrance as planned.
  • Dumbledore thought that his trusted compatriot, with the magical eye that could see through all barriers, was watching Harry and could intervene if necessary. Crouch Jr. likely gave updates to the other teachers on patrol, some real, some complete fabrications, and he may have had some way of communicating with Dumbledore to keep him up to date on everyone's progress, too. The moment his old friend Mad-Eye reported trouble, Dumbledore and all the other teachers were ready to come to his aid!

Blood, Apparations, and Sirius Black all make for a better plan

• Why couldn't Crouch/Moody have just gotten the blood from Harry, and then sent the blood to Voldemort? You might say it had to be fresh, but remember if Crouch/Moody could have just apparated to the graveyard, it could have taken all of ten seconds. So Crouch/Moody could have surely just taken Harry aside at Hogsmeade, stunned him, taken his blood forcefully, and then apparated to the graveyard where they could complete the ceremony. Crouch/Moody could have immediately gone back to Hogsmede, secured Harry's body, and then Voldemort could arrive later to finish off Harry himself. Or if it's possible within the Harry Potter universe to apparate someone's unconscious body with you, then Crouch/Moody could have just brought the body along with him. Sure it might have seemed really suspicious that Harry was killed, after all, it's not like there is a notorious mass murderer trying to kill Harry... Oh wait.
  • Voldemort specifically wanted to duel Harry, and kill him, in front of the Death Eaters. To prove a point.
  • Hell, you don't even need that. Crouch/Moody tracks down Harry at Hogwarts, sounding panicked, saying that there's a plot to kidnap him. He escorts Harry to the nearest secret passage (Wormtail knows them all from the map, assuming Crouch doesn't know them from his magic eye), which they climb in...and Crouch stuns Harry, Wormtail appears out of a hole in the wall and turns human and lugs Harry off, and Crouch goes back to Hogwarts, no one the wiser. Or, for added confusion, he Polyjuices into Harry for a bit to make sure Wormtail gets away. (And if Wormtail is busy taking care of Voldebaby, there's no reason for Crouch to just not do it all himself, as the entire point of Crouch's disguise appears to be to kidnap Harry. It's okay if he blows his cover doing that.) Do this during a Tri-Wizard event (And don't enter Harry in the first place) to make sure everyone's distracted.
  • The whole point of entering Harry into the Tri-wizard Tournament is because Harry's death was supposed to look like an accident. All other ways would blow Fake Moody's cover. Also at all times-Harry is under protection of some sort or other.
  • An accident of what exactly? Harry would've disappeared without a trace, and... then what? V cannot use the Triwizard Cup to return the body to the maze - the return portkey already in place was leading to the stands. If he can just make a random portkey leading to Hogwarts, it fucks up the entire idea of the place being impregnable. That is, of course, assuming that nobody is keeping an eye on what happens in the maze, which cannot be, since, and to quote: "At all times Harry is under protection of some sort or other".
  • Right because in crowded Hogsmeade with hundreds of students and several adults supervising them, plus all the ordinary residents, Moody can just attack Harry Potter and forcibly take his blood and no one's going to notice. As for pulling him into a secret passage, that plan requires 1. Harry going along with crazy out-of-character Moody trying to take him away from the safety of Hogwarts without the approval of Dumbledore or any other teacher, 2. Nobody seeing or hearing this happen, 3. Dumbledore not having placed any alarms or defence mechanisms on the secret passages that Crouch Junior isn't aware of, 4. Wormtail breaking into Honeydukes or Shrieking Shack successfully AND without anyone noticing and 5. There not being any anti-apparation wards on that part of Hogsmeade at that time or managing to get to the nearest apparation-friendly zone while carrying unconscious Harry Potter and nobody noticing. Right. So many of these arguments amount to "why use a carefully planned complicated scheme that might not work when you could use a completely unplanned Indy Ploy that almost certainly won't work?"
  • Well, Draco managed to Imperius Madam Rosmerta in Hogsmeade in book 6, so it's not implausible that a skilled adult wizard might be able to pull Harry aside somewhere and stun him where no one could see. And as for the secret passage plan, the first two problems are valid, but as for 3) and 4) Dumbledore didn't bother putting alarms on the secret passages when he thought Sirius was trying to kill Harry, and Sirius managed to break into Honeydukes and the Shrieking Shack with no problem - and Pettigrew turns into a rat, not a large dog, so it would be even easier for him. As for 5) since when, other than the Death-Eater-installed security measures in book 7, is there any indication that there are any anti-Apparition wards in a public place like Hogsmeade?

Confunded Foe-Glass

• When Fake Moody has Potter in his office and we learn he's not who he seems, Harry notices the Foe-Glass with shadows in it. Shouldn't Harry have seen his own face looking out of it?
  • Chances are the Foe-Glass only shows wizards that are an active or immediate threat to the owner.
  • Since Harry isn't himself aware of the fact that Fake Moody is fake, he is not really an active threat to Fake Moody. Later, after Voldemort comes back and Crouch Jr. is explaining his plan to Harry, the shadows in the Foe Glass start clearing up and show the faces of Snape, McGonagall and Dumbledore. By that time, Dumbledore has realized that the real Moody would never have removed Harry away from Dumbeldore's sight.
  • Crouch Jr's main foes at this point were any Death Eaters who escaped prison by either pretending to be imperiused or by naming names. Snape, Malfoy, and especially Karkaroff were those he hated the most, people Moody may also have hated.

Bartemius Imperiused

• Where was Barty Crouch Sr. when he started to break free from the Imperius Curse? Was he at home or something? Everyone knows you can't Apparate into Hogwarts, but why didn't he fly there, or use the Floo network, or just use some method of contacting Dumbledore directly? Or do anything other than walking in a dazed stupor through the woods to reach the school? And when he does stumble across Harry and Krum, and Harry decides to go fetch the headmaster, why doesn't he just take Crouch with him to see Dumbledore, instead of leaving him in the woods with Krum where literally anything can happen to him? And finally, why didn't it occur to Harry that Crouch was struggling under the effects of the Imperius Curse when he first ran into him? Crouch Jr. spent their entire first lesson on testing it on the students—surely at least one of them had to have managed to half-resist it like both Crouch Jr. and Sr. did.
  • Crouch Sr. had clearly been under the Imperius Curse for some time and doesn't have full control of his faculties. All he can think of is "Must tell Dumbledore" and thought he just had to go there. As for Harry, he is panicking because this happened so fast. He has ultimate trust in Dumbledore and thinks that the best thing to do is get him right away. He has enough trust in Krum to leave him to guard Crouch for a while. And Harry has only seen the direct effects of short term Imperius curses, i.e. being forced to act. He has never seen the results of long-term Imperius and what it does to the mind.

Why keep Real!Moody alive?

• At the end of the book, Dumbledore states that the real Moody is lucky because Crouch Jr. needed to keep him alive for his plan to work. Now, knowing that Crouch Jr. had to keep Moody alive until he had Imperiused him enough times to learn his mannerisms. When Dumbledore makes this statement, though, it's clear that the only purpose Moody is currently serving is a source of Polyjuice Potion ingredients. Why couldn't Crouch Jr. have just removed all of Moody's hair after he had successfully learned his mannerisms and then kill him? Why leave the possibility that Moody might be discovered alive? Killing him just permanently removes another powerful enemy. There's no real reason why someone would need to be kept alive to make the Polyjuice Potion work, since there's nothing alive about hair anyway.
  • Magic A Is Magic A, or literally A Wizard Did It. Rowling as the world-builder can make the rules of magic; there doesn't have to be a reason for them. The obvious conclusion is that, hair or no hair (or fingernails or toenails), Polyjuice Potion does not work if the subject is dead.
  • About hair - no, about magic - yes. Hair is just a token, something to attune the potion to a specific person with. As to why that person needs to be alive, who knows. Maybe, if Moody is dead, the potion will give you the appearance of their corpse. Maybe the inventor of the potion added that caveat specifically to preclude Kill and Replace attempts or at least make them harder. Also, there was no good reason for anyone to go rummaging in his chest either, so it wasn't much of the threat.
  • Crouch Jr. needed Moody for information in case something unforeseen happened. He had almost all needed information as he was able to make Dumbledore believe he was the real deal but you never know what could happen.
  • Also, there's the possibility that he wanted to use Moody as part of a frame-up of some sort. Once Harry suffers from kidnapping-by-Portkey and disappears, Crouch Jr. lets Moody out of the trunk, gets him all dressed up, then Obliviates him so he forgets about being attacked, and then vanishes to rejoin the Death Eaters, leaving everyone at Hogwarts none the wiser.

Harry's death was supposed to look like an accident. And why exactly?

• It's discussed quite often (on this page) that the overly convoluted plan on how to abduct Harry instead of just kidnapping him for an hour (which nobody would notice at night), is because Voldemort wanted Harry's death to look like an accident. The question is simple: Why? One couldn't see a reason why it has to look like an accident! Voldemort could just kill Harry in an overly gruesome way, send the bloody corpse back, and order Crouch, Wormtail or another servant to take the blame for it. Or even Crouch!Moody. Voldemort: "You are going to say that you took revenge in my name, that one day I will return, and then escape with another portkey or die trying. If you don't, I'll just practice my Cruciatus skills on you for the next decade." Wormtail: "I don't want to?" - Voldemort casts Imperius and does it himself. Problem solved, murder case “Harry” closed, no proof of Voldemort being around again given - only that he still has crazy followers.
  • Well, that explanation makes no sense anyway. Obviously DD (i.e. the only person who matters) will not be convinced by a seeming accident, because even he's not that stupid. Nor do the proponents of this idea ever elaborate on what exactly an accident of it was supposed to look like, when, supposedly, the organisers of the Tournament went to great lengths to prevent the participants from dying, and how was it going to appear even remotely plausible if the return portkey was aimed at the outside of the maze, so it would've been useless to send the body back (he couldn't have honestly expected people to believe Harry got killed by... something and then just happened to grab the Goblet with his last dying breath).
    • Killed by one of the many deadly challenges within the maze. They've taken precautions but accidents happen and Harry is years behind everyone else in magical knowledge and ability. There was a reason only wizards who were adults were allowed to enter the tournament. As for why make it look like an accident, that's obvious: so Voldemort can keep his return low profile and start building up his power behind the scenes without much opposition. Yes, Dumbledore would have suspected foul play (and Snape would have later confirmed that Voldemort had returned) but the Ministry wouldn't have believed him and given no support. So Voldemort would have minimal opposition, the element of surprise and a dead Chosen One. Yes the plot could have been simplified but that's what happens when you have to wait till the end of a book to put your plan into motion.
    • It's been suggested on YouTube that Voldemort didn't want to make it seem as though Harry had died at all (at least not at first), based mostly on how the cup Portkey was charmed to to take him back to the entrance of the maze. The theory goes that upon his return, Voldemort would've killed the real Harry and had one of his followers use Polyjuice to impersonate him, sending the impostor back to Hogwarts to make it seem as though nothing had gone wrong and to gather intel for Voldemort's eventual return. This theory would explain why Voldemort needed the Triwizard Cup - because the tournament was the only place where Harry would be able to "disappear" for an hour or two without it raising any suspicion.
    • This theory also covers up for people's claim that this plot is "convoluted" or unrealistic since Barty Crouch Jr. could have simply given Harry a portkey at any moment. Voldemort clearly had a well-thought out plan, and you would have to think that Rowling probably figured that this would be a criticism of the plot. It is perfectly in Voldemort's nature to "play with his food" though, if you will, so perhaps he simply set all of this up to crush Harry during what would be his greatest moment. Perhaps, Voldemort intended to use the portkey to launch an attack on Hogwarts right away, but other moments in the later text seem to contradict that.
  • Voldemort wanted to keep his return a secret for as long as possible, since Harry wasn't supposed to survive the encounter. Voldemort was intending to kill him in the duel, so it could be assumed that Harry would simply have disappeared. He would have disappeared in the centre of a magical maze, during an event in which it would be hard to work out exactly when he did (he managed to witness Voldemort's resurrection, duel with him, have ghostly conversations with the murdered victims and escape back to Hogwarts, and no one thought anything was wrong beforehand). And since the magic redirected the portkey, they would have very little clue as to where he could have gone. So once Harry was dead, Voldemort and co would leave Little Hangleton and go about their business elsewhere.
  • Voldy was not someone who was subtle or silent. His plan was to kill Harry and be able to announce to the world that he killed Harry once and for all, reversing his greatest failure. There is no way he would have been able to keep this accomplishment silent, he was way too arrogant and prideful.

Unidentified Death Eaters mentioned by Voldemort

• During Voldemort's Death Eater reunion in the graveyard, he mentions "One who is too cowardly to return...he will pay...and one who I believe has left me forever...he will be killed, of course..." Assuming he was referring to Karkaroff and Snape. But which was which? We also learn later that Snape returned to Voldemort's side several hours after the events at the graveyard, how did he manage to escape torture or worse?
  • Igor is the one who left forever and was condemned, since he'd ratted out Death Eaters during his trial. Snape managed to convince him that he didn't return immediately to protect his cover, and also provided some (seemingly) valuable intel.
  • Likely it's meant to be the other way around, actually - Igor was "too cowardly to return" when Voldemort called, seeing as he ratted on his fellow Death Eaters to get out of prison and fled from Hogwarts after the tournament and tried in vain to go into hiding before turning up dead. Meanwhile, Voldemort had spent Harry's first year at Hogwarts possessing Quirrell, during which time he'd discovered that Snape had switched sides, gotten a job working for Dumbledore, and was trying to stop Quirrell from stealing the stone - hence, Voldemort believed that Snape had "left him forever" and so planned to kill him if he showed up again, if not for Snape's managing to convince him otherwise.

Polyjuice Potion

• So Polyjuice potion mimics the appearance of the person as they are now. Injuries and all. It doesn't take their genetic sample and make you a clone of them. If they have a scar or a tattoo then it will be copied too as evidenced by Crouch Jr actually losing an eye and a leg when taking it. However, if that's the case, why didn't Crouch Jr. end up malnourished and weak if he was taking a potion to mimicking the appearance of the real Moody in a weakened state.
  • It gives you the body, appearance, and (in the books) voice of that person, not the medical afflictions that might be affecting them. It's the same reason why Harry and Ron weren't put to sleep once they knocked Crabbe and Goyle out and Polyjuiced into them in Chamber of Secrets. Odds are, Crouch Jr. kept Moody well-fed enough for his condition not to be all that noticeable.

Nothing to fear

• It's been said that Peter only returned to Voldemort and helped to resurrect him out of fear...But, really, what was he so fearful of? It couldn't really be a fear of Voldemort himself, since he was a disembodied spirit who probably hadn't even known nor cared what had happened to Pettigrew after the war. The only other thing that could be thought of would be his fear of Remus and Sirius coming after him, but could that not have been solved by him just trying to start a new life somewhere else, without dooming the world in the process?
  • Perhaps Pete reasoned that sooner or later V would claw his way back to life anyway, and then he's fucked, unless he manages to get back into his good grace by helping him return. After all, he did kinda send V to his death, so expecting him to forget or forgive was rather foolhardy (also he had V's wand), and he did have the Dark Mark, which you apparently cannot get rid of simply by hacking your arm off (that, or Karkaroff was monumentally stupid), so fleeing and starting over wasn't a safe option either.
    • Other Death Eaters would have been looking for Peter as well, after their spy apparently deserted them. He even tries to get away after helping Voldemort at the beginning, but Voldemort manages to read his thoughts and intimidate him out of it.
  • Peter, much like the rest of the Death Eaters at the graveyard, was aware that deserting Voldemort meant certain death. Also he was probably worried that Voldemort shared the views of the Death Eaters in Azkaban and wanted to explain himself while Voldemort was too weak to kill him on the spot. To think even Karkaroff would've been better off just apparating to the graveyard and taking his medicine.

Mad-Eye overtaken

• Considering how constantly vigilant and paranoid he is, how did Mad-Eye Moody manage to get taken down by Barty Crouch Jr. (who's been in Azkaban or under the Imperius Curse and unable to do magic for about fourteen years) and the cowardly Peter Pettigrew? Moody was probably the best Auror of his time, and these two managed to get the drop on him? Is there any word on how that went down?
  • Pettigrew turned into a rat, slipped past his defenses, and Stunned him while his back was turned, or something similar.
  • Moody is extremely powerful, but even the most trained wizard is not invincible. Barty Crouch Jr. is a highly skilled actor (enough to maintain his impersonation of Moody so well that nobody was suspicious) and despite what Voldemort and Sirius say (both who hold Peter in contempt for different reasons), Wormtail has proven many times to be a skilled and dangerous wizard. One could see the two eventually overwhelming the ex-Auror after a difficult fight, even if only because he was outnumbered.
  • Don't underestimate the value of surprise, as well. Even the best warriors can fall to a sneak attack by someone much less powerful than themselves, let alone, as you say, two dangerous wizards.

A Coward's Loyalty

• Now, not saying this is necessarily a plot hole- it's just something that's led to, well, a headscratcher. Why is it that Wormtail chose to return to Voldemort, as opposed to fleeing to America or some other foreign country? Voldemort never repays him, and throughout the book indicates he finds it amusing that Wormtail believed he would consider the possibility of rewarding him for loyalty. Recognizing he might've been convinced he'd get rewarded in some substantial fashion, but given his motivation seems to be survival above all else, it doesn't explain why he'd go back to serving Lord Voldemort, as opposed to just going on the lam. Surely outside of Britain- where he was assumed dead anyway- he could make some kind of living for himself elsewhere?
  • Pettigrew seems like someone who always wants power. Sure, he could go live in America or something, but then he'd have to make a life for himself, rather than feeding off of someone else's glory. Perhaps he genuinely believed that Voldemort would reward him. No, it's not entirely rational, but people's behavior isn't always rational.
  • Fair enough. Guess it just got the impression his cowardice outweighed his greed?
    • Well, you can always put it down to Because The Plot Needs It To Happen. Also, maybe it's because he's not just cowardly, but also, to a certain extent, lazy. He probably doesn't want to go to the effort of establishing a new identity and such for himself when he could leech off someone else's power and influence. In a way, it's the same as being with the Marauders-given the fact that he is a fairly skilled and intelligent wizard, he probably could have gotten attention for himself from teachers and fellow students, but was happy to follow James and Sirius.
    • Interesting theory. One is stymied because the book portrays his returning to Voldemort as being motivated by fear- when it would seem that fear is exactly what would make him run away from Voldemort.
  • Good point, well made. It may just have to put it down to good ol' Theory of Narrative Causality.
  • Alternatively, it was fear, but of a different color. Perhaps he belived that, one way or another, V would eventually come back. Before he was exposed, Wormtail had a trump card in the form of Harry he could hope to deliver to V to placate him. After that option was gone, he was left with a choice - either flee and spend the rest of his life in constant fear of retaliation (and judging by Karkarov, it's not that easy for a Death Eater to escape and hide from their master), or, well, force the hand of fate, and try to get in V's good grace by being the one to bring him back.
  • Peter did find out from Sirius that most of the Death Eaters in Azkaban were still angry with him for his part in Voldemort's downfall, with a lot of them thinking he'd been a double-double-crosser. On top of that, as someone else noted, Peter has a lot of ambition, but not the courage to acquire it on his own. He probably didn't even know where to start in getting himself a new identity and chose to return to his old master thinking that at least he'd be rewarded for finding him when no one else had bothered to do so.
  • For all we know Voldemort may have been a bit more charming to Peter before his downfall. Perhaps after giving the location of James and Lily, Peter was given praise or rewarded by Voldemort. If their previous reactions were so positive, maybe Peter did feel safe about returning to Voldemort. At the very least he probably knew that Voldemort was too weak to be much of a threat. It could even see Voldemort being initially happy to see Peter, though once his relief wore off he probably asked something along these lines: "Wormtail, explain to me why you waited thirteen years to find me if you were alive and knew where to find me."

Figure out a non-Tournament way to kidnap Harry without raising alarm bells from Harry's friends

• Guys, try to figure out a way either at night or during the daylight.. that someone wouldn't have noticed Harry was missing. Remember, he's the famous wizard, and it would be like someone trying to kidnap Prince George if Prince George of England was a 14 year old boy.

• Let's say he went missing at night. Let's say (because he's one of 5 boys in a dorm).. Seamus, Neville, Dean or Ron needed to go to the bathroom at 4 or 5 in the morning.. wouldn't they (especially if it’s Ron) notice something's wrong with Harry's bed? Regarding when it might have been (when Ron wasn't speaking to him in 4th or after they started to speak again)-even if Ron wasn't speaking to Harry at that time.. Ron would have tried raising the alarm if he noticed Harry wasn't in bed.. and if (after using the bathroom) he checked the common room to see if Harry was there and he wasn't... would he bother to check Harry's trunk about Invisibility cloak at least?

• During the day-we know that Moody's lesson is right after lunch on Thursday and it goes straight to almost supper time. So let's say Moody asked Harry to stay to talk with him a bit.. wouldn't Hermione and Ron have waited outside the door for Harry? (since Harry + one of the others have waited for the 3rd person).. or even if Harry had told them to "go ahead" to supper.. they would have noticed eventually that Harry never showed up at supper or he wasn't back in the common room by 9… especially if they checked the dorm. They would have definitely raised the alarm.

• Same thing goes for a Hogsmeade visit… A bunch of students in the town, 3 and above... someone would have noticed… And once again Ron and Hermione would have noticed if he never showed up at Three Broomsticks or at supper.

• So there should be a way outside of the tournament which wouldn't have raised suspicions on either Ron's or Ron and Hermione's part (or any of their fellow schoolmates of their year) and being Potter's best friends, they know something was off.
• This is addressed above. Essentially, Crouch Jr thought his plan was the best, and let's face it—most wizards operate on a complete lack of common sense.

• Actually, it's the opposite: it's the best "plan", so to speak, since it's the other options that would lack a common sense. Since any other way would either a) blow Fake!Moody's cover, or b) raise suspicion on the part of Dumbledore. Because who else but Voldemort would want to kidnap Harry?

How does Barty Crouch Sr. judge the first task?

• Under Veritaserum, Barty Crouch Jr. explains that his father was placed under the Imperius Curse to imprison and control him. Junior then goes on to explain that he needed Alastor Moody to gain access to Hogwarts, which means that for the majority of the book that Moody that we know is actually Crouch Jr. That also means that some events where his father was under the Imperius Curse took place before Crouch Jr. was able to imposter the real Moody. At the First Task, Crouch Sr. is a judge and gives Harry a 9/10. This is weird, because this is while the Moody at school is Crouch Jr. and that Crouch Sr. should be under the Imperius Curse. The only argument to can come up with is that he is still under the Imperius Curse and appears only to give the impression that all is normal. If that is the case, how does the curse work? Assuming one would have to be close enough to the target (meaning somebody had to be close enough to curse him), but maybe not.
  • Regarding the timeline, Crouch Sr. was under the Imperius Curse while Crouch Jr. is pretending to be Moody by using Polyjuice Potion. He makes sure Harry joins the Triwizard Tournament, and gives him good points so that he'll make it to the end for Voldemort's plan. It doesn't go unnoticed. Everyone that knows Crouch Sr. knows that he's acting strangely. There's a lot of suspicion. When Crouch Sr. begins to fight the Imperius Curse, he's ordered to stay home and write letters telling others that he's sick/can't carry out his duties. Sirius is especially suspicious of this because he knows Crouch Sr. is a workaholic who never missed a day of work in his life. That's when Percy fills in for Crouch Sr.. When Crouch Sr. breaks free of the curse, he runs to tell Dumbledore but gets lost in the forest. (This is why we read that he comes to "that fight" acting funny with Harry and Viktor there.)
  • As for how the Imperius Curse works, look at the spider demonstration that Crouch Jr. gives while pretending to be Moody. The Imperius Curse is one of the three Unforgivable Curses that gives the spell caster full control over the victim. If cast incorrectly, it can scramble brains. If cast correctly, the victim will be in a calm, trance-like state, succumbing to ever will of the caster. It's unique compared to the other Unforgivables in that the victim's willpower can take them out of the trance, out of the curse. We see both Crouch Jr. and Crouch Sr. break the curse with their willpower. However, they talk about "biological scars" from spells, like Harry's actual forehead scar. In this case, the Imperius Curse has a tendency to leave scars on the brain for some people, which is why Crouch Sr. seems likes he's gone mad when he shows up in the woods, and it is strongly implied that Crouch Jr. was never able to become rehabilitated because he broke himself out of the Imperius Curse as well. Of course, this is different victim to victim, but it's a known side-effect. If the spell caster chooses to relieve a person of the Imperius Curse, they will revert to the same health they previously had.
    And no, after cursing the victim, the spell caster doesn't have to be anywhere near the victim to force them to do things. It's supposed to be like a whisper heard from anywhere.

What if Crouch Jr. was caught earlier?

• At one point, Crouch Jr. comes very close to getting exposed. It's in "The Egg and the Eye," on the night when Harry (while returning to the common room upon figuring out the second Task) sees his name on the Marauder's Map while he's searching Snape's office (but thinks it's Crouch Sr. because the map can't differentiate between two people using the same name). He decides to go check it out, but gets stuck in the trick step. Meanwhile, Snape finds out that someone's in his office, but by the time he gets there, Crouch Jr. has grabbed everything he needs and gotten a quick dose of Polyjuice to keep his disguise intact. Crouch Jr. then bluffs his way out by claiming that Dumbledore ordered him to search Snape's office. And the only thing after that that saves Crouch from having to duck a school-wide manhunt is Snape blaming Harry for the theft because of both his hatred for the kid, and the fact that Harry's possessions coincidentally ended up near the scene of the crime due to Harry getting caught in the trick step. But what would've happened if Crouch Jr. wasn't so lucky that night, and ended up getting caught and outed as an imposter well before the third task?
  • For starters, there's the matter of how Dumbledore would handle the rest of the academic year for the DADA post. He would have to explain Moody's departure (since the real Moody would need to be taken to Saint Mungo's regardless to recover from spending so long trapped in his trunk as a prisoner of Crouch, Jr.'s) in a way that doesn't negatively affect his reputation with the Ministry, the Wizengamot, and the Hogwarts student body (Crouch Jr.'s cover is so deep that Dumbledore hasn't suspected him), and find a suitable replacement teacher to fill in, if the real Moody isn't up for teaching what remains of the academic year.
    • Snape could fill in temporarily, as he did the previous year when Lupin was unavailable when he was transformed on full moon days.
  • Voldemort would've been screwed if Crouch Jr. was compromised before the Third Task. Only Voldemort and Wormtail knew about Jr. after all, and they had a really short amount of time to get the current spur of the moment plan they lucked into in place. If Crouch Jr. gets caught ahead of the Third Task, he gets tried and shipped back to Azkaban. That probably wouldn't matter much to Voldemort if he's pragmatic enough to realize that anyone's blood will suffice for the ritual, not just Harry's...but that assumes that Crouch Jr. didn't give up Pettigrew under Veritaserum and tell them where the Aurors could find him.

Why doesn't Crouch Jr. go bald?

• When Barty Crouch Jr. takes the Polyjuice Potion to assume Moody's identity, he loses his leg and one of his eyes owing to Moody's physical injuries. But shouldn't this also extend to Crouch Jr.'s hair? When the real Moody is found, the narration says, "and lying on the floor some ten feet below, apparently fast asleep, thin and starved in appearance, was the real Mad-Eye Moody... and chunks of grizzled hair were missing." If Crouch. Jr was ruining Alastor's appearance, wouldn't he be ruining his own polyjuice appearance?
  • He probably wouldn't appear as starved as the real Moody was because he's still allowed to eat regularly, obviously. As for the bald patches, maybe Crouch was using magic or a potion to stimulate hair growth to replace what was lost.
  • It never actually says if he's going bald; just that Barty Crouch Jr has been cutting strands of it out, so it'd be shorter patches than usual. Maybe they're from the nape of the neck so they wouldn't be obvious normally but they can see it on the real Moody because he's lying down. Or more likely, he brewed the potion in a way that would account for that.

What if Crouch Jr. got caught at the World Cup?

• When the Dark Mark is cast, Hermione points to where the shout was heard. The Aurors investigate and return carrying an unconscious Winky in possession of Harry's wand, shocking Crouch Sr. Crouch, who had been searching in the area where Winky was found, returns empty-handed. Crouch Sr. has to be absolutely terrified during this scene. He looks visibly nervous and distant, which turns to unrestrained fury and "This means clothes!" when he realizes Winky neglected to keep his son under control. Which begs the question, what do you think his reaction would have been had Amos Diggory found Barty Jr. in the bushes?
  • Crouch Sr. would be fucked big-time. Crouch Jr. is supposed to have died in Azkaban, according to the official record. This whole incident, and the discovery of how he'd imprisoned his son with the Imperius Curse and subjected Bertha Jorkins to a memory charm when she found out, would be enough to ruin what's left of the reputation he lost when he sent his son to prison. With the likeliest outcome being Crouch Sr. getting sent to Azkaban, and Fudge being pressured by the public to have every ruling Crouch Sr. made on the Council of Magical Law be reviewed, with many (like Sirius's) likely getting overturned.

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