Concern for Neville

[christi0469]

No: HPFGUIDX 36661

Snipped from a post by Uncmark,

> The only parallel of Peter/Neville was in Harry's dreams when he 
> imagined an evil Sirius killing an innocent Peter. Harry was 
> completely wrong about Sirius and Peter. I think he was equally 
wrong 
> about Neville.
> 
> Harry admitted being tempted by the sorting hat 'to be great in 
> Slytherin' but chose Gryffyndor. Considering what we've seen of 
> Neville (fightingGoyle when he knew he would lose, standing up the 
> HRH when they tried to sneak out of the tower and getting body-
bound, 
> and asking out Hermione before Ron or Harry got up courage to ask 
a 
> girl out) I cannot picture himself being tempted to the dark EVER!
> 
> Picture Neville in Peter's place, "He was taking over everywhere! 
> What was there to be gained by refusing him... You don't 
understand! 
> He would have killed me!" Neville would have gladly refused, dying 
> rather than betray his friends.


  My intuition leads me to believe that JKR intentionally set up a 
parallel between Neville and Peter, and I think she is going to use 
this parallel to highlight the importance of choice. To show Neville 
in Peter's light and then have him choose to be loyal to H/R/H would 
be a powerfull example of choice over circumstances. She could put 
tempt Neville with whatever tempted Peter. There also seems to be 
paralllels between Ron/Sirius and Malfoy/Snape, and parallels may 
develop between Hermione/Lupin and Ginny/Lily. This does not mean 
that all or any of the characters from Harry's generation will make 
the same decisions as those of James'. Consider the parallels 
between Harry and Tom Riddle. Would Harry's choices not to be like 
T.R. be nearly as poignant if these similarities did not exist?

  On a different note, I don't think that the Sorting Hat's offer to 
put Harry in Slytherin tempted Harry much at all. I wonder if the 
Sorting Hat gave Tom Riddle a choice? How many people have been 
offered a choice? 

Christi