Indeed, this is the character who was described to us those many months ago from the Secret Door on Ms. Rowling’s site. Curious I was then, wondering who on earth could hold importance enough to be the Secret information stored behind the locked door. However, much of that speculation came to a dead end, as we now see the character who holds that physical description. In fact, there doesn’t seem to be all that much to Mr. Scrimgeour...oh sure, he’s the new Minister for Magic in the British community, but he seems to be walking a similar line to that of Barty Crouch Senior rather than Fudge, as Harry so sharply pointed out to him at both Christmas and at the end of the school events.
There is, however, one small, almost insignificant, piece of information that I’d like to mention and put on the table for possible discussion: Luna Lovegood (God bless her) mentions him only once, and provides some interesting information about him, which is obviously a Quibbler claim, and therefore untrue.
p. 294
‘Did you hear, there’s supposed to be a vampire coming?’
‘Rufus Scrimgeour?’ asked Luna.
‘I - what?’ said Harry, disconcerted. ‘You mean the Minister for Magic?’
‘Yes, he’s a vampire,’ said Luna, matter-of-factly. ‘Father wrote a very long article about it when Scrimgeour first took over from Cornelius Fudge, but he was forced not to publish by somebody from the Ministry. Obviously, they didn’t want the truth to get out!’
Who has already picked up on this? I’m curious, honestly. This is mostly an out-on-a-limb speculation, but I think that perhaps the claim that they’re making about Rufus might actually have some truth behind them. What makes me think this is the line ‘but he was forced not to publish by somebody from the Ministry.’ Now, in a magazine like The Quibbler, where people aren’t likely to believe what they read anyway, why is someone from the Ministry banning this article from being published? I admit, we do see Rufus during an evening while there is still light out (last chapter), but we haven’t much information about the workings of Vampires in her series. We do meet a vampire in this book, but that is very briefly and we only see that he is eying up some girls standing by him.
This concludes my take on Rufus Scrimgeour: a darker character than first glance?
-Jane
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1 comment:
Jane,
The fact that the ministry kept Luna's father from printing his vampire theory is interesting, but I'm still kinda skeptical. If Rufus really was a vampire, would the ministry have allowed him to be Head of the Auror Office? (page 43) Lupin, as a werewolf, had a pretty hard time getting anyone to employ him at all, let alone become a head of a department. (By the way, I was happy for Tonks and Lupin. The poor guy deserves some happiness!)
I don't know if the magical community has the same prejudices against vampires as they seem to have with werewolves, but it doesn't seem possible they'd elect someone Minister for Magic if he was either. Of course they might not know, and it's hard to say since there's very little on vampires in the other books. Though he could be a secret vampire, I'm leaning towards it being a "Loony Luna" moment, and nothing more.
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