Neville/Memory Charm

[cynthiaanncoe at home.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 26835

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "Amy Z" <aiz24 at h...> wrote:
> Cindy wrote:
>  
> > As a "Neville has a memory charm" believer, I have a question 
that 
> > just occurred to me.  Assume Neville witnessed the torture of his 
> mom 
> > and dad.  If I'm doing the math correctly, he was about 1 year 
old 
> > when this happened.  One year olds have almost no awareness of 
> what's 
> > going on around them, and I doubt that they would have any memory 
of 
> > witnessing something traumatic at that age.  So why would anyone 
put 
> > a memory charm on a one-year old, particularly if the side-
effects 
> > turn them into a klutz?


Amy wrote:> 
> I'm not particularly an adherent of the memory-charm theory, but 
> Neville could have been as old as three when his parents were 
> attacked.  Here's the math:
> 
> Let's say the Sept. 1 cutoff date IS firm and so a student could 
turn 
> 12 on September 2 the year he starts at Hogwarts.  That makes it 
> possible for Neville to be 11 months older than Harry, that is, 26 
> months old the night Voldemort fell.
> 
> As for how long after that the Longbottoms were tortured, we don't 
> know.  All we know is "The attacks on them came after Voldemort's 
fall 
> from power, just when everyone thought they were safe."  That could 
> imply several months, maybe even a couple of years, after October 
> 1981.
> 

OK, OK.  I need a few more facts to make the math work.  First, I'll 
hide behind the Lexicon for the proposition that Harry and Neville 
are both born in 1981, as it expressly says so on the master 
timeline.  So Neville can't be any more than 7 months older than 
Harry, and he could easily be younger.

But you're right that we aren't expressly told how soon after 
Voldemort's downfall the Longbottom's were attacked.  I always 
assumed it was soon after.  

So we go back to canon and the Lexicon.  

Here's the best I can do in canon to figure this out.  In Padfoot 
Returns, Sirius tells us about the circumstances under which Barty 
Crouch Jr. is brought to Azkaban and everything going on at the 
time.  He says:

"When Voldemort disappeared, it looked like only a matter of time 
until Crouch got the top job.  But then something rather unfortunate 
happened. <snip> Crouch's own son was caught with a group of Death 
Eaters who'd managed to talk their way out of Azkaban.  Apparently 
they were trying to find Voldemort and return him to power.  <snip> I 
saw the Dementors bringing him in. <snip> He can't have been more 
than nineteen."

The Lexicon list Barty Crouch Jr.'s birthday as 1962.  So if he is 19 
when he goes to Azkaban, that would be 1981 -- making Neville around 
1 when the Longbottoms are tortured.

Also, I think JKR writes the dialogue for Sirius expressly to support 
this timeline.  When a person estimates someone's age, they probably 
wouldn't use an expression like "He can't have been more than 19."  
Most people would pick a round number, like 20.  The use of 19 is 
probably to make the timeline work perfectly.

Cindy (who can't figure out how we can be so sure about the date of 
Crouch Jr.'s birth year)