Come now, come now… certainly, Crouch may have believed himself to be acting upon You-Know-Who’s orders—but to take the word of a lunatic like that, Dumbledore…”

But in the final instance he simply did not believe himself, and stubbornly, slavishly, sought objections on all sides, gropingly, as if someone were forcing him and drawing him to it.

Whereas now, a month later, he was beginning to look at them differently and, despite all those taunting monologues about his own powerlessness and indecision, had grown used, even somehow involuntarily, to regarding the “ugly” dream as a real undertaking, though he still did not believe himself.