4

An Occlumens is a practitioner of Occlumency, while Occlumency means closing the mind. Despite being in the same school with two great Legilimens (Dumbledore and Snape), he was only discovered to be an impostor after the last round of the Triwizard Tournament in Goblet of Fire:

“Moody,” Harry said. He was still in a state of complete disbelief. “How can it have been Moody?”

“This is not Alastor Moody,” said Dumbledore quietly. “You have never known Alastor Moody. 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.”

Does this mean that Barty Crouch Jr. is an Occlumens? Because if not, then Snape or Dumbledore would have found it out earlier, right?

Improve this question
10
  • 6
    Very likely. We know Bellatrix is a skilled occlumens and it seems she and Barty had at least one mission together, she may well have tutored him to avoid being found out he is a DE during the first wizarding war
    – user68762
    Commented Aug 29, 2017 at 16:43
  • 6
    Possibly, but not for the reason you cited. Legilimency seems to be a rather strong breach of privacy - almost a mental violation, and not something that goes unnoticed by the "victim". I doubt Dumbledore, and even Snape would go around Legilimens-ing people without very good cause. Until the point you quote, Dumbledore had no reason to suspect Moody wasn't Moody. So, maybe Crouch Jr was an Occulmens, but I don't believe Dumbledore or Snape would have tried using Legilimens on him (Moody) in the first place.
    – NKCampbell
    Commented Aug 29, 2017 at 17:00
  • 3
    @NKCampbell didnt most of Dumbledore and Harrys quality time in HBP consisted of D showing to harry memories he got without the subjects approval and devising how to trick/manipulate slughorn to give up his TR memory? I think D has much less qualms reading and storing memories than one might think.
    – user68762
    Commented Aug 29, 2017 at 17:10
  • 1
    I don't believe so @D.O.B.Y2.0 - the majority of memories shown were Dumbledore's own memories. Slughorn's memory was (we have no reason to think otherwise), willingly given, which is precisely the point of Harry's task. Slughorn deliberately manipulated the memory so Dumbledore wouldn't find out the truth when he [Slughorn] gave Dumbledore that important memory. In other words "see Dumbledore - nothing happened here, I'm not at all responsible for Voldemort - move along"
    – NKCampbell
    Commented Aug 29, 2017 at 17:40
  • 4
    ...necessary. in Horace's case in HPB he was lamenting to Harry that unfortunately S is a trained wizard so they'll need Slughorn's cooperation to retrieve the true memory. As for 'Moody' - why not perform a routine check, after all these are dangerous times...DM may even've asked 'moody' to voluntarily share some memory, to collect data. And the funny thing is, barty having the original, could even have obliged, saying "ah that one? I keep that in a pensive" then walk to his captive in the coffin, retrieve the required memory and back to D. But it's personal headcannon-guesswork territory :P
    – user68762
    Commented Aug 29, 2017 at 19:08

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
7

It is unclear

It is not stated anywhere in the books that Legilimency was applied to fake Moody/Crouch jr. The conclusion Dumbledore made (quoted in the question) is based on pure logic, not Legilimency or any other magical means.

So unless any other canon information is available, we cannot tell.

Improve this answer

Your Answer

By clicking “Post Your Answer”, you agree to our terms of service and acknowledge you have read our privacy policy.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.