Harry Potter/Headscratchers/Universe: Difference between revisions

** It's never really established how widespread pensieves are in this world. For all we know, Dumbledore has one because a previous Headmaster of Hogwarts created it and left it for Headmasters only. If, however, they are widespread enough for commercial use, it's entirely possible that the way veritaserum is bypassed can bypass pensive memories as well. Unbreakable Vows, on the other hand, might be really bad, as, if I remember correctly, if you break one, you die. That would be bad in the courtroom for lying about something small on accident. Unfortunately, even if phrased correctly as an oath of truth, it could probably still be bypassed by the above method of fooling veritaserum. The fact that a truth serum can be bypassed usually means there's a magical method to completely fool one's perspective of the truth. In that case, there would be no way to get the truth unless there's a way to prevent the method.

*** Well, I would presume that the British Ministry would have enough resources to get a single one to be used at trials. As for bypassing the truth serum, according to [[Word of God]], "he [Barty Crouch Jr.] might have sealed his own throat [to prevent swallowing it] and faked a declaration of innocence, transformed the Potion into something else before it touched his lips, or employed Occlumency against its effects", so those techniques couldn't be used against a pensieve or the vow. And when Slughorn tried to tamper with his extracted memory, it was obvious that it had been altered. And as for dying from breaking the vow: 1) the vow could be worded along the lines of "I swear to not ''intentionally'' lie" to prevent death from accidents, and 2) I don't think people would be willing to die in order to lie over minor matters.

*** What really gets me is that their solution to the possibility of veritaserum failure is simply to take testimony without any veritaserum. So, because there is a method of interrogation that can possibly be suborned with significant effort, it is then cast aside and instead they use... a method that can be suborned by the simple effort of opening one's mouth and lying? Refusal to use a method because it's imperfect only makes sense if the alternative is more reliable; otherwise, it might not be ideal, ''but it's still better than nothing''. As for the [[Word of God]] in question; in that very same paragraph, Rowling also mentions that the reason veritaserum ''did'' work on Barty Crouch was because he was 'groggy' at the time he was dosed and thus unable to perform any tricks. The solution is thus obvious; feed the interrogatee a stunner (or some type of confundus or disorienting charm, if you just want to daze them momentarily), force-feed Veritaserum, then enervate.

**** Veritaserum is not better than nothing because it lends a sense of false confidence to the interogation. It is easily understood that the person being questioned may lie, but people may have a harder time accepting that if they've been dosed with veritaserum.