How the fuck was Barty Crouch Jr able successfully confound a pretty powerful goblet and add Harry's name in it? I don't think he was that talented.

 

It never really said how talented or not he was. But given that he was able to pass as Mad Eye for a year, who was said to be very talented, I'd say he can't have been too bad.

 

He could have fooled all the students by being competent at DADA, but how could he have fooled people who actually knew Moody, who have been members of the OoTP with Moody, like Albus nazifucking Dumbledore?

 

How did he even achieve a good grasp of Moody's mannerisms (beyond surface level)? He was imprisoned at 19 years of age, iirc, just two years out of Hogwarts, leaving him literally no time to interact with Moody before kidnapping him.

I'm pretty sure interrogation under Imperius wouldn't really draw out the sort of responses needed for such simulation...

 

He took the Lindsay Lohan potion, which gifts all drinkers with amazing acting skills.

 

I read enough Dumbledore bashing in crapfics as it is, why the hell do I have to read it here?

From what I remember, there's nothing in canon about how close he was with any of the members. Also, he was an Auror, so there's no reason to suspect he'd be on anything more than casual terms with Dumbledore.

The only caveat to that last sentence, is if something is said in GoF by Dumbledore concerning Moody - "close friend" etc. I can't remember right now, but I don't think it was.

 

I believe another important thing to note is that Moody was widely regard as mad, sort of going senile with paranoia, and whatever else was being said about him. Crazy and paranoid are easy to act and no one really expected 'Professor' Moody to behave in any other way.

It would be all too easy for Barty to have played up the paranoid bit to keep people who supposedly knew Moody from bogging him down with conversation and finding out that he's not Moody.

Like an illusionist, he used distraction to avoid detection.

 

A further thing worth adding is that Dumbledore says Moody was a "close friend" but does that really mean much of anything. Dumbledore may be held in high regard but he doesn't really strike me as ever being a man for close friends. At least not after Grindelwald.

 

Wofle isn't a Dumbledore-basher, he's a canon-basher, like all sensible Rus- err, people are.

 

Yes, thank you T3t. And I apologize to E. C. Scrubb for reminding him of bashing fics, not my intent. A careful reading of canon while requiring an in-universe explanation leads to very few possible conclusions: either fiction-within-fiction (e.g. it's all a dream, or the protagonist-narrator is lying, etc.) or mass insanity or deliberate widespread use of mind-altering magic by a sinister actor. cui bono can point to Dumbledore as the chief suspect, but I have never seen any good fanfic based on this analysis, and I don't expect to encounter any. I myself gave up on in-universe explanations years ago - there is no point because it's not a deliberately constructed puzzle, it's just a lot of mistakes. The text is not meant to be critically read. That's it.

 

What are a centaur's internal organs like?

If you look at a centaur, the human part looks big enough for all the human sized organs. The horse bit looks big enough for a set of horse sized organs.

So does a centaur have two sets; one set of slightly bigger organs, but moved around a bit to fit the centaur shape; or just a great big empty space?

Also, do they have two sets of ribs, or one long set that goes all the way past the join?

 

According to what I learned in school, since Centaus have six limbs they are insects instead of mammals.

 

Thestrals, gryphons, abraxan, centaurs--all are of the six-limbed magical insect class.

 

In no way that question can be answered by Rowling's perception alone.

A classical view is of a half-man-half-horse.
Thus everything from the respective half is of a fitting size.
Yes, that means horse penises too, you sick fucks. That's because centaurs in mythology were feared because they would supposedly steal (and presumably rape) women. I'm sure uncle Froid would have heaps to tell about the meanings of that penis envy.


I have also come across an interesting depiction of centaurs in Philip Jose Farmer's works. He has centaurs that are bio-engineered and actually takes into account the need for a lot more air. Thus centaurs actually have additional breathing hole - or even a not completely formed horse head. There were also some additional titbits thrown in, but I don't really remember much - it was a while ago since I read that story.


In any case, magical creatures are magical because they have inheritant biological problems that would kill them in no time.

The inner organ question is stupid, unless you plan to have a biologist theorise in what additional things are needed to make the creature actually live for more than five minutes.

(Pegassus can never fly with a wingspan of his. Hydra dies from too much blood need in the head, Griffin can't eat anything to sustain himself and can't fly, because of non-hollow bones of the lion. And so on.)

Magic happens inside magical creatures.
There's blood, meat and bones, and any organ you need for the story.
Let's leave it at that, eh?

 

In other words, they have a magical core.

 

One of the few canonical things we know about Crouch Jr. is that he got 12 O.W.L.s - every subject.

Seeing that using a time-turner to attend all of the subjects drove Hermione the only canonically "smart person" crazy in a single year, Crouch - who, admittedly, quite likely didn't retain his sanity - lasted for at least three and did rather well, I'd go towards this being "he's supposed to be a pretty fucking good wizard".

So honestly I'm willing to suspend my disbelief about him knowing a Confundus Charm. And, if he joined the Ministry after graduating Hogwarts top of his class - perhaps the DMLE (since he was in the Wizengamot trials trying to sneak out when he was outed by Karkaroff) - it makes sense that he might have had a few chances to casually observe Moody's mannerisms. Which, him being the famous Auror that he was, might also have been famous, we have no idea.

And if he oversold it a bit, then hey maybe the old guy was losing his edge and attacks dustbins every now and again. The thing about pretending to be a person with crazy habits is that if you get it 110%, people aren't going to be like, "I know he's crazy, but didn't that seem a little too in character?"

Plus there's Veritaserum/Imperius Curse (canonically, Moody was kept under it for months) followed by a thorough interrogation.

 

As well did Percy. This brings the question if to seat for your O.W.L’s you need to attend class. I always thought that the fanon "I'll test my N.E.W.T's next week, while I'm 3rd year" plot devise had an ounce of truth. You can test whatever subject you want. It depends on your knowleadge if you pass or fail.
Hermione's time turner was needed for the ending, IMO.

 

Turning your hands into paws when you gesture could be a 'curse', but it would probably fall under transfiguration.

Wait... I may have read that incorrectly.

Pure libel! There is nothing scary about Mary Poppins, and shame on you for suggesting otherwise.

 

I don't necessarily think you're wrong. But canonically speaking, the only person we see taking all classes (thus presumably going for all 12 O.W.L.s) is Hermione. As I understand it, presuming O.W.L.s are based on O-Levels (British exams before G.C.S.E.s - and maybe in the future?), it was possible to take the O-Level exams without taking the associated course. This was mostly done by students who were at less prestigious schools that didn't offer the courses, as I understand it. So there is not a precise parallel, but some basis for reasoning that Hermione could have taken the Muggle Studies exam but chose not to.

And yes, both Percy and Bill also got 12 O.W.L.s.

 

Maybe this is also why giving Hermione a time-turner wasn't such a world-breaker - if every student who wanted to try for all twelve O.W.L.s had to be given a time-turner, trained in its proper use, and sworn to secrecy in order to do so.

The only problem is, that takes the insanity of giving a time-turner to even one student and institutionalizes it, so who knows.

It would also give a better explanation of why Hermione's seemed like it would only have worked a few hours at a time. Maybe the Department of Mysteries has a better grasp on time than we thought.