One Of The Villains Of Harry Potter (Was Actually A Hero)

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One Of The Villains Of Harry Potter (Was Actually A Hero)

We know what you're thinking. There is no way we're basing this theory on the fact that they were played by the same actor, right?

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David Tennant For Every Role 2016

That's exactly the kind of thing they want muggles to believe! Your keys weren't shrunk by a wizard; you just "lost" them. That statue didn't move when you blinked; it was just gravity. That old blue police box in front of the street is just some leftover from a garage sale. But if you look closer, you start to see that there are eerie similarities between the two men, and that the Tenth Doctor, also known as the best Doctor, became Barty Crouch Jr. in order to help save the wizarding world from He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.

Why Would The Doctor Do That?

Despite coming off as evil in the books, Barty Crouch Jr. is the one who really sets the stage for Harry Potter to eventually defeat Voldemort. If it wasn't for him, Harry wouldn't have known that his wand's core was a twin of the Dark Lord's, and having this information is vital in helping him win future battles. Crouch was also the reason for Cedric Digory's death, which was tragic, obviously, but was also the rallying point for the creation of Dumbledore's Army in the fifth book. The members would play key roles in the Battle of Hogwarts, thanks to the special knowledge they had gained from Harry's instruction.

One Of The Villains Of Harry Potter (Was Actually A Hero)
Warner Bros.

Some more hands-on than others.

If it wasn't for Crouch's actions, there is a good chance Harry would never have defeated Voldemort.

But How Did He Even Know About That World?

The Doctor, as awesome as he is, is also technically a muggle like the rest of us magic-less chumps. Wizards probably wouldn't exactly be willing to open up about their super-secret community to him, even if he did just land a freaking spaceship in front of Hogwarts.

But the Doctor is clever, and we can assume he has suspected that magic is real for some time. A big premise of the magical world of Harry Potter is that it is hiding right under our noses, but the Doctor has indicated he might be aware of it. In the episode "Face The Raven," we learn that hidden places, similar to Diagon Alley, exist in the Doctor's London, and that he knows how to find them.

There is another way he could have found out. As distrustful as wizards are, there is one muggle they always share their secret with: the prime minister of Britain. And the Doctor was also close friend with at least one prime minister, Harriet Jones. She might have spilled the secret to him, or he might have gotten it out of her another way.

How Did He Manage To Blend In?

Naturally, the Doctor's usual bluffing wouldn't cut it for this particular mission, and he would need more than just psychic paper to get himself near the Dark Lord's inner circle.

Fortunately, there is a Time Lord device called the Chameleon Arch. With it, the Doctor is able to become a human. His new persona has "echoes" of his old personality, but it is for all intents and purposes a new different person. The Doctor used it to become an average Joe called "John Smith" shortly before World War I.

One Of The Villains Of Harry Potter (Was Actually A Hero)
BBC

Yeah, we'd be pretty panicked about that, too.

While he takes on a human persona, everything that makes him "the Doctor," including his Time Lord nature, memories, and personality, are stored in a fob watch (think of it as a backup file). Opening the watch restores the Time Lord, but "kills" the human personality in the process.

One Of The Villains Of Harry Potter (Was Actually A Hero)
BBC

This is same type of watch Barty Crouch Jr. had on him prior to his arrest.

One Of The Villains Of Harry Potter (Was Actually A Hero)
Warner Bros.

But this is far from the only connection between the two. The freshly-regenerated Tenth Doctor is almost indistinguishable from Barty. They practically wore the same clothes. If it wasn't for the TARDIS behind the Doctor and Barty's decision to bro-pop his collar, you wouldn't be able to tell them apart.

One Of The Villains Of Harry Potter (Was Actually A Hero)
BBC

One Of The Villains Of Harry Potter (Was Actually A Hero)
Warner Bros.

And when a Time Lord is disguised as a human, even if they don't have memories of their true selves, they still have echoes that they express subconsciously. This might explain why Barty Crouch Jr. seems to like to dress like his past incarnation as the Ninth Doctor.

One Of The Villains Of Harry Potter (Was Actually A Hero)
BBC

Still, how would he be able to infiltrate a pure-blood family and make them believe he had been their son all along? Difficult for your average muggle, maybe, but a piece of cake for a Time Lord who regularly forges documents, rewrites history, and alters the memories of his companions with the power of hypnosis. For example, he made his companion Donna Noble forget him completely, and he attempted to give his companion Clara Oswald a new, made-up identity.

But even within the Harry Potter world, there is evidence that Barty Jr. might not really be his parents' son. Barty Crouch Sr. obviously didn't care too much about him, given the fact that he sentenced him to Azkaban for life without a second thought. Therefore, his personal time stream wasn't affected that much by having a son. While his mother seemed to be closer to Barty, she might have liked the idea of having a child more than her actual son, since she failed to see that he was completely crazy. Plus, Barty easily dismissed his mother, despite her sacrificing her life to break him out of Azkaban. This is hardly a close-knit family, and it could be because it was basically of the Doctor's creation.

How Did He Become Barty Crouch Jr.?

When he uses the Chameleon Arch, the Doctor can program some vague backstory, but eventually the new personality changes from his own. This explains the biggest difference between Barty and the Doctor -- that one is a great hero and the other is just your average evil henchman in service to a dark lord.

So why would the Doctor become evil as Barty? This can be attributed in part to the Arch, which has been known to reverse the morality of its users. His nemesis, the Master, is a coward and a genocidal maniac, yet became a heroic and gentle old guy after using this device. Obviously, the opposite happened for the Doctor.

The Chameleon Arch shouldn't have all the blame, though. Even when he is the Doctor, our favorite Time Lord has been shown to have a dark side. He's killed people before when filled with rage, and he was even willing to commit genocide for "the greater good." He followed the lead of another dark lord, the Time Lord president, during the Time War.

One Of The Villains Of Harry Potter (Was Actually A Hero)
BBC

The Death Eater outfit was a big step up for him.

He becomes corrupt easily, and once renamed himself "the Time Lord Victorious." It got so bad that an innocent woman had to commit suicide to make him come back to his senses and stop being evil.

So, you know, maybe it wasn't exactly a complete 180.

How Can He Use Magic?

The Doctor doesn't believe in magic, so to him, whatever the wizards use is just another form of science. When he ran into actual witches before, he attributed their power to their universe having different rules that are closer to magic. And the Doctor has found reality-warping "magic" beings even in his universe, like the villain called the Celestial Toymaker.

One Of The Villains Of Harry Potter (Was Actually A Hero)
BBC

Making clown dolls come alive is much scarier than controlling snakes.

So either the Doctor reverse-engineered "magic," or part of the Chameleon Arch gave him the ability to use magic when it made him a new person, since we know that in the Harry Potter universe, the ability to use magic is in fact genetic.

Time Lord Technology Used By Barty Crouch Jr.

There are two staples of time lord technology: time travel and when something is "dimensional transcendental," or "bigger on the inside." And that's exactly what Crouch used when he impersonated Alastor Moody. He needed Moody close by so he could create a magical potion to resemble him. After he kidnapped Moody, he trapped him in a chest which, you guessed it, was bigger on the inside.

One Of The Villains Of Harry Potter (Was Actually A Hero)
Warner Bros.

One Of The Villains Of Harry Potter (Was Actually A Hero)
Warner Bros.

One Of The Villains Of Harry Potter (Was Actually A Hero)
Warner Bros.

Although the interior decorating left something to be desired.

Then there's the fact that, despite all the screams and movements of the chest, nobody thought something suspicious was going on. Dumbledore and Snape didn't give it a second thought. Even Harry didn't seem to care much after hearing a scream coming from it. The only logical explanation is that this was due to another Time Lord technology, called a perception filter, which misdirects one's senses around an object. It would be useful if you walked in on your parents naked, for example.

Evidence Of A Magical Community Hidden In Doctor Who

Both Doctor Who and the Harry Potter universe share magical and supernatural phenomena, like ghosts. We know that the ghosts from Harry Potter are people who refused to go to the other side after dying. Certain ghosts in Doctor Who had a similar origin; they were souls who lost their bodies during the Time War. And while Moaning Myrtle lives in the drain pipes of a girl's bathroom, other ghosts in Doctor Who live under a lake.

One Of The Villains Of Harry Potter (Was Actually A Hero)
Warner Bros.

One Of The Villains Of Harry Potter (Was Actually A Hero)
BBC

The Doctor has also found several supposedly "normal" humans with magical abilities who might really be witches and wizards, like a kid who could see the future. And as mentioned above, the Twelfth Doctor knows there are hidden streets and communities on earth disguised on maps as "trap streets," which work almost exactly the same as the way the wizards hide their magical community from muggles.

One Of The Villains Of Harry Potter (Was Actually A Hero)
BBC

One Of The Villains Of Harry Potter (Was Actually A Hero)
BBC

Even the Doctor's meddling in time has been noticed by Harry Potter's magical community. River Song once mentioned that all the "good wizards" from legend always turned out to be the Doctor. A wand with a phoenix core or a sonic screwdriver -- who could tell the difference?

Fictional Characters Can Be Real In Doctor Who

It's true that the Tenth Doctor once referred to the characters of Harry Potter as being fictional, and he was seen reading the final book before it was even released in the real world. However, the Doctor has been wrong at least once in calling something real "fictional". He was extremely surprised to discover that Robin Hood and his Merry Men were real, before going off to have an adventure with them.

One Of The Villains Of Harry Potter (Was Actually A Hero)
BBC

Which he was not so thrilled about.

How Did The Doctor Survive The Dementor's Kiss?

When Crouch was finally caught and brought for questioning, he suffered a fate worse than death, as he became a victim of a Dementor's Kiss, which is a fancy way of saying that those depression-loving bastards sucked out his soul and left him in a vegetative state. It's at this point that we can say that Barty Crouch Jr. basically died.

The Doctor, however, was luckier. Remember, everything that the Doctor is is hidden in that fob watch, that backup copy of him. A Dementor's Kiss doesn't really kill, but it sucks out everything that makes you, you (your soul). And that's exactly what the fob watch saves. The dementor killed Barty Crouch Jr.; the fob watch restored the Doctor.

Memories Of The Doctor After His Adventure

The Doctor once said that nothing is truly ever forgotten, as you can remember what you lost by the hole it left in your heart, and there is evidence that some memories of his adventure in the wizarding world remain. This would also explain his fascination with the Harry Potter series.

During an adventure with Shakespeare, the Doctor and his companion Martha suggest "expelliarmus" as a spell against some alien witches. And after his tenth life, the Doctor has started pointing his sonic screwdriver at everything as if it was a wand instead of a scientific device. This is a new affectation, something that even one of his past incarnations noticed.

One Of The Villains Of Harry Potter (Was Actually A Hero)
BBC

And if the Harry Potter world knows about the Doctor, this would also explain how, even though the Doctor doesn't care about hiding aliens or anything fantastical from humans, humanity still seems to be unaware of the fact that aliens exist in the universe. The wizards are probably out there cleaning up all his messes to maintain the status quo.

This all might not just be coincidence. It might have been the actual plan for the Doctor. Not only has Russell T. Davis, the writer who brought back Doctor Who, been a very vocal fan of J.K. Rowling. but he planted a very obvious clue that links both Barty Crouch Jr. and the Doctor. In the Harry Potter books, Barty dies in a chapter called "The Parting Of The Ways." "Coincidentally," the episode that introduced us to the Tenth Doctor is also called "The Parting Of The Ways." It's a not-so-subtle way of telling us that when Barty Crouch Jr. died in one universe, the new Doctor was born in the other.

Abraham is a half Time Lord, half wizard, and half Mexican. You can say allons-y! to him on Twitter, or visit his DeviantArt here.

See why the villain in Skyfall might be M's son in 6 Insane But Convincing Fan Theories About Popular Movies, and check out how Harry Potter made his aunt and uncle evil in 5 Horrifying Fan Theories That Make Way Too Much Sense.

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