Misjudging Tom: Apologies regarding GoF

[terri_testing]

Upon reflection, Voldemort’s grandiose and utterly unnecessary kidnapping/murder scheme in GoF wasn’t actually as stupid as we thought. We fans criticized: Why not have Barty/Moody just toss the kid a Portkey in class? (Or, if witnesses mattered, any time Barty might corner Harry alone in the halls

Comments

[oryx_leucoryx]

Very interesting indeed. Some nit-picks: At the graveyard Tom tells Nagini 'just a little longer' just before his duel with Harry. I think the implication is he was planning to feed Harry's corpse to her, just as he had already promised Peter in the vision Harry saw. Also, even if we ignore the previous bit, I wish you found a way to include a reason for Barty to teach Harry to resist Imperius. Perhaps Viktor was supposed to attempt to Imperiurize Harry and fail as part of the frame-up? Tom and Barty expecting Harry to be able to resist a weakened Krum but not Tom himself?

[urbanman1984]

I suppose Harry's disappearance could still be attributed to Krum and Karkaroff even if it was a complete disappearance with no body found. Fudge would certainly have been willing to suspect them first. And Barty would certainly have enjoyed anything to Karkaroff's detriment.

[oryx_leucoryx]

If the body disappeared but the cup showed up at the entrance of the maze then Krum must have done something to Vanish Harry just as he touched the cup. So there should be a suitable spell on Viktor's wand for this eventuality.

Another alternative would be to have Nagini eat a bit of Harry's body and send the rest of it back - maybe to disguise the knife-cut. Assuming Tom had sufficient control over her. Harry would look more heroic, thus making the 'conspirators' igor and Viktor look even worse.

[oryx_leucoryx]

I don't know how deeply into the maze Barty could see, but probably not all the way to the center. When he saw the second set of red sparks what did he think? It wasn't Viktor who had sent them up. Maybe he thought Harry found the disabled Cedric? I think Barty would have been among the rescuers, because that would give him a chance to look deeper into the maze. To his surprise he found Viktor. Maybe by the time Barty reached Viktor Harry and Cedric were gone and there was nothing for him to do but await the return of the cup, hoping his master would deal with the extra guest? Because if Cedric were still there Barty would have done something to disable him, he couldn't risk Cedric going alone to the graveyard. He did not wnat to disappoint his master.

[danajsparks]

----I wish you found a way to include a reason for Barty to teach Harry to resist Imperius.

I may have a possible explanation for this. Barty was only ostensibly teaching Harry to resist Imperius. In reality, he was testing his own ability to hold Harry under the curse.

The lesson on unforgivables took place before the triwizard tournament began. Perhaps the original plan had been for Barty to put Harry under Imperius in order to make him enter his own name into the goblet of fire.* But Barty wasn't sure if this plan would work, for Harry was known to be a powerful wizard and therefore potentially capable of resisting Imperius.

Indeed, after four tries, Barty concluded that he would not be able successfully use the Imperius curse on Harry Potter.

*Or he was planning to Imperius Harry at some other point during the tournament.