Memory Charms: For discrete events

[Tabouli]

No: HPFGUIDX 36832

Catlady (quoting me):
> > [Memory Charms] Have an effect which wears off within a few hours
> >at most (hence Mr Roberts needed to be re-Charmed several times
> >each day)
>
>I think not: the Muggles, and Lockhart's victims, don't need to be 
re-Charmed. I had immediately assumed that Mr Roberts needed to be 
Charmed (not re-Charmed) several times each day because he needed to 
be Charmed for EACH incident in which careless wizards made him 
suspicious.<

Oops, you're right, hang on, let me rephrase that...

OK.  So Mr Roberts had to be charmed again and again, every time he noticed something that made him suspicious.  A series of discrete, mostly unconnected events to be forgotten, right?  One encounter with foreigners bearing huge gold coins, one hanging upside down in the air incident, etc.etc.

Then there's the dragon event in Fantastic Beasts.  Isolated sighting of dragon in Muggle's memory... Obliviate!  End of problem.  Muggle remembers sitting on beach, does not remember dragon, goes about life as if dragon never happened.

Compare this with the Longbottoms incident.

This is no singular, discrete encounter.  This is an event with lifelong repercussions which *cannot* be wiped out.  So.  Neville witnesses his parents being tortured into madness, it traumatises him.  Obliviate!  The memory is gone.  However, the effects of the event he witnessed are crashing all around him.  Suddenly, his parents aren't around any more. Um, it's not something he's going to miss, is it?  Aurors swarm around his family, fishing for clues to find the culprits. He is sent to live with his grandmother, who, along with all his relatives, is extremely upset.  Sure, they'll try to protect Neville (aged 3-4 at most), but, well, he's going to be traumatised anyway, isn't he?

Also, at some stage, Neville's relatives obviously told him what happened and started taking to see their gibbering bodies in St Mungos.  Um, not a great way to keep it out of his mind.

Therefore the only purpose of the Memory Charm is to *reduce* the trauma suffered.  Take away the first-hand eyewitness trauma, but leave the second-hand aftermath trauma untouched (unless they're going to keep on Charming him to wipe that too).  There is no way Neville is going to go about his life as if the event never happened.

What I'm saying is that this particular event is not isolated and short term in its effects but inextricably connected with the rest of Neville's life, and therefore not very suited to a Memory Charm for altruistic, psychological purposes.

A Memory Charm to conceal the identity of the perpetrators would make more sense, because then the fact that Neville sees the aftermath isn't a problem... he can't remember the *actual* event, and hence can't point the finger.  This is where Cindy's Reverse Memory Charm comes in.  At the trial, they had to use "the Longbottoms" (in a bad condition, says Dumbledore) to identify the culprits.  Was Neville included?  Perhaps when no sense could be gotten from his parents, they had to break the Memory Charm on Neville.  This can be done, because Voldemort did it to Bertha (using torture).  *Hence* he now remembers the incident, and *hence* his memory is bad because it's, well, occupied with horrible things most of the time.

(To her alarm, Tabouli finds herself looking at a nice, comfy MATCHING ARMCHAIR...)

Hmmm... now that raises another possibility... were the Lestranges and co torturing the Longbottoms to try to break a Memory Charm on *them*?  Perhaps they knew where Voldemort had fled, and Dumbledore or someone obliviated their memory of this so they *couldn't* give it away.

I dunno.  I'm just not convinced that many people *really* get tortured to death without spilling the beans.  I'm with Elkins there... it's amazing what people will do when being exposed to extreme pain.

Tabouli.


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