More Neville topics - Bertha

[Amy Z]

No: HPFGUIDX 12504

MMM wrote:

> > 1. The Pensieve scene with Bertha Jorkins.  Why is Dumbledore sad 
> > over a harmless gossip among students?  It just isn't the right 
> > reaction.  

He suspects that she's dead and that her nosiness led her into 
trouble, as it had on a smaller scale when she got hexed by a fellow 
student she'd spied on.  He doesn't *know* yet that she's dead, but he 
does know that she disappeared near where V was rumored to be, plus 
people do not normally go incommunicado for 10 months, so it's a 
natural fear.

> > Now, remember Neville's Boggart?  The most horrible and 
frightening 
> > thing ever happen to Neville was the torture of his parents.  
Okay, 
> > Snape can be intimidating but Neville's fear is unnatural.

I don't think it's unnatural (ever been ridiculed on a daily basis by 
someone who has power over you?), but even if it is, it might be that 
Snape does remind Neville of his parents' fate without Snape having 
been involved in their torture (as Charmian points out, Voldemort had 
fallen already when the Longbottoms were tortured).

BTW, I don't think Neville witnessed his parents' torture.  He 
probably wouldn't remember it consciously anyway (we don't know when 
it was, but I'm guessing no more than a year after the Potters died, 
putting Neville at no more than ~3), but it would return to him when 
the Dementors came, just as Harry's memory of his parents' deaths 
(un-recall-able to his conscious mind) does.  Judging from Neville's 
response to the Dementors, he isn't recalling anything as horrific as 
that.  Or maybe he just doesn't faint as easily as Harry?

None of which is to say that Neville doesn't know exactly what 
happened to them--it's clear in GF that he does and is tormented by 
it, not only by their absence in his life.  Just that he didn't 
actually see it happen.

Charmian wrote:

 But as for fear, I don't think he 
> "fears" his parents' torturers coming after him. It could be that 
> while traumatized, he regards this as a sad illness of theirs, 
rather 
> than feeling anxiety over the return of the DEs; after all, most of 
> the wizarding world thinks that Voldy's gone for good. 

He could feel great anxiety over the return of the DEs without fearing 
that they'll come for him.  He's more anxious than most because he 
knows better than most what a world with a powerful V would be like.  
(Ron is like this too--I have to go to work so I can't cite, but I 
think he is--and I put it down to his parents' and oldest brothers' 
frankness in talking about the days of Voldemort's power.)

Amy Z

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Just then, Neville caused a slight diversion
by turning into a large canary.
                  --HP and the Goblet of Fire
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