Still-Life With Memory Charm

[elfundeb at aol.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 36889

Musings on Elkins' Still Life (very long, very free-form, everything from 
speculation to theory):

First, my theory of Memory Charms:

I analogize the Memory Charm to surgery - a well executed Memory Charm 
excises a single, specific memory.  This requires the magical equivalent of 
surgical precision. Moreover, since the purpose of executing Memory Charms on 
Muggles is to keep them ignorant of the wizarding world, they must not 
attract attention, which definitely might happen if large numbers of Muggles 
(such as the witnesses to Pettigrew's escape to the sewers) started wandering 
around with amnesia. Thus, I theorize that the Ministry wizards who perform 
such charms on Muggles are well-trained.

Memory Charms, like Crucio or Imperius, can be broken, but only by a wizard 
of some power.  Therefore, Memory Charms performed on Muggles are highly 
effective.  The reason that Mr. Roberts required multiple Memory Charms is 
because every time a wizard did something magical in his presence, a new 
memory was created that required erasing. 

Because of the surgical precision required to execute a good Memory Charm, 
the average witch or wizard who does not perform them regularly may not 
always "hit the sweet spot" when he or she does attempt one.  And some 
wizards (here I'm muttering something sounding suspiciously like "Lockhart") 
simply lack the skill to perform a good memory charm.  So to avoid getting 
the wrong memory, the Lockharts of the world perform essentially a global 
Memory Charm which effectively erases everything ("Am I a professor?" says 
Lockhart). 

And one more thing, which may seem obvious.  The recipient of a Memory Charm 
does not remember the charm having been performed.

Is Neville suffering from a Memory Charm?

I've been harboring that assumption since I first read the books.  It seemed 
obvious, even to a dunderhead like me, that Neville is a much better wizard 
than given credit for (for all the reasons Elkins cited) and that he shows 
some of the same signs as Mr. Roberts and Bertha Jorkins.  Some have 
suggested that the Memory Charm suggestions are false clues, and his problems 
are more psychological in origin.  The idea is appealing.  However, if that 
were the case I would have expected that the Dementor on the Hogwarts Express 
would have affected Neville almost as badly as it did Harry.  JKR seems to 
make a big point of having Neville and Ginny stumble into the darkened 
compartment just before the Dementor arrives, and the only purpose I can 
imagine is to show us their reactions.  In fact, Neville was far less 
affected than Harry, and less so than Ginny, who presumably was recalling the 
events of CoS, though they were both reported to be very pale.  Interesting.  
I think that is additional evidence to support the Memory Charm theory.  (By 
the way, my take on the Sorting Hat taking so long with Neville is that it 
was looking through the Memory Charm.)

But I don't believe for a minute that a well-meaning family member put a 
Memory Charm on Neville to protect him from the psychological effects of the 
torture he witnessed.  That, IMO, is inconsistent with the general violence 
and toughness of the Potterverse.  (Does anyone have one of those Viking 
helmets to spare?)  No, I hold to the notion that the purpose of the charm 
was to prevent him from squealing.  But who did it?  Well, it could have been 
one of the four Pensieve defendants, or someone else who was there, or 
arrived shortly thereafter, and didn't get caught.

Or it could have been Gran.  I really like this idea.  It gives wonderful 
meaning to Snape appearing in Gran's clothing.  

Role of the Memory Charm to the plot, and who else might be suffering from 
one:

I don't think Neville's Memory Charm adds much to the plot by itself, unless 
Gran was involved.  Assuming he was no more than 2 or 3 at the time of the 
events, he wouldn't be able to identify the participants (e.g., "Barty Crouch 
was there") and I don't think he would fare much better identifying the 
perpetrators by sight.   That is, of course, unless he already knew that 
person.  Unless that person he knew did unspeakably horrible things to his 
parents.  

But Neville may not have been the only person to receive a Memory Charm that 
night.  I think Mr. & Mrs. Longbottom also received them.  According to 
Dumbledore and the Pensieve, the Longbottoms were tortured to reveal 
Voldemort's hideout and the torture left them instantly insane.  I know 
nothing about psychology, but it always sounded fishy to me that a bit of 
Cruciatus would cause a trained Auror and his wife to both completely snap 
and lose their entire memories exactly at the same time, not just the 
traumatic memories of the torture itself, and without any hope of recovery.  
I would have thought that the psychological problems would have manifested 
themselves more in the nature of post-traumatic stress disorder.  On the 
other hand,  the description of the Longbottom's condition is completely 
consistent with a Memory Charm.  For support, I compare the description of 
the Longbottoms (about whom Dumbledore says "They are insane. . . . They do 
not recognize [Neville]") with Prof. Lockhart (about whom Ron reports "Hasn't 
got a clue who he is, or where he is, or who we are.")  I think the 
descriptions sound very similar.

The next question is whether Mr. & Mrs. Longbottom have any plot-furthering 
information that could be revealed if their memories were unlocked.  It's not 
the location of Lord Voldemort, which is no longer relevant. Nor is the 
identity of their torturers, if Crouch, the Lestranges and Fourth Man were 
responsible.   Nevertheless, whether or not Frank actually knew Voldemort's 
whereabouts, if he was out searching he probably had uncovered a lot of other 
information the DE's would not want anyone to know (I have double-agent 
visions here).  And they would also be able to tell if their torturers were 
persons who were totally unexpected.  Like Gran.  Or Ministry officials.   
Frank may have had information on people that would shock us.  And if I'm 
totally wrong, and it's not the Longbottoms, I'm betting that someone else - 
perhaps a character we haven't even met - will reveal very surprising 
information about somebody's past once their memory is unlocked.

Anyway, here's my scenario about how and why Frank and wife lost their 
memories, which of necessity includes a bit of (plausible, I hope) 
speculation.  It doesn't matter for purposes of this scenario who the 
torturers were.  The MOM would have at least as great an interest in this 
information as the DE's, and if Aurors were in effect secret agents, they 
would not want to reveal their secrets to the average MOM employee.  It could 
have been other Aurors, if Frank was a suspected double agent.  Or it could 
have been DE's.  Whoever they were, they show up at the Longbottom residence, 
torture Frank, who doesn't talk, torture his lovely wife, which doesn't get 
him to talk either, maybe even torture Neville.  But they are interrupted, 
perhaps by (or DE's, depending on which scenario you buy) at the door.  The 
torturers don't want to kill the Longbottoms at this point because he hasn't 
cracked yet and they think they can return and continue the torture at a 
later date (believing they can break the charm as Voldemort did to Bertha).  
But they're in a rush since the Aurors (or the DE's) are at the door, so they 
quickly execute an enormous, cover-your-rear Obliviate that would do Lockhart 
proud, as there's no time for surgical precision.   Then they Disapparate, 
Gran included.  The Longbottoms, now clueless as to (presumably) their own 
and Neville's identity, may have little more than a vague recollection of 
Crucio, which allows the Ministry great latitude in sweeping up suspects.  
The Longbottoms are misdiagnosed based on the sketchy information and sent to 
St. Mungo's.

Next, if the perpetrators were DE's they were caught; if the Ministry was 
responsible, they took advantage of the resulting furor that Dumbledore 
mentions and framed some suspected DE's (or, if it was DE's interrupting 
Ministry-applied torture, they had ready-made suspects.)  Interesting 
possibilities here:  if the MOM was responsible, could Fudge (now presumably 
and up-and-comer in the Ministry after  his role in the Sirius/Pettigrew 
affair)  have somehow had something to do with getting Crouch Jr. framed to 
perhaps clear Crouch Sr. out of the path to the Minister of Magic Position?  
If the DE's did it, could Barty have sacrificed himself - after all, 
Voldemort calls him his most faithful servant - to eliminate Crouch Sr., who 
might have been led an all-out attack against the DE's if he had become 
Minister of Magic, as a plausible candidate and clear the way for the 
[seemingly] benign Fudge?

But a powerful Auror such as Frank Longbottom would eventually have been able 
to throw off the Memory Charm, you say.  That's true, but Gran may be 
forestalling that eventuality by refreshing it every time she takes Neville 
to see his parents.  If so, she's probably refreshing Neville's as well.  But 
that's not all she's doing.  She's got to find cover for Neville's 
charm-induced forgetfulness and other ill effects.  And she needs to keep 
Neville from figuring out that he's powerful enough to shake the Memory 
Charm.  So she begins to tell the relatives after she gets custody of Neville 
that she's worried he's a Squib, and she makes sure Neville hears it, too, so 
he thinks he's incapable of magic.  She gets really irritated when Great 
Uncle Algie, horrified at the idea of a Squib in the Longbottom family, keeps 
trying to scare him into some magic, but she plays along.  Another thing that 
suggests (at least to me) that she's not as benevolent as she seems is her 
constant harping on Neville's forgetfulness.  In my view, the thoughtful 
things she does for Neville aren't nearly as helpful as they seem.  Take the 
Remembrall, which she sends him the first week of school.  Neville receives 
it in the Great Hall so everyone can see how forgetful he is.  Moreover, it's 
quite useless.  It constantly reminds Neville that he's forgotten something, 
but it doesn't tell him what those things are.  To me, the Remembrall says 
only one thing:  "Remember, you're nearly a Squib."

Well, that's my theory, for what it's worth.

The Thematic Issue of Memory, Remembrance and the Past

Aside from the obvious Things Are Not What They Seem, a large part of the 
books taken together, once you strip away the magic, is a coming of age 
story, mostly focusing on Harry, but also his friends.  For most of us, 
coming of age has to do with  preparing to leave our nurturing home and 
school environments, and figuring out how we fit into to the larger world and 
 identify our vocations in life. But Harry is missing one of the anchors - 
our families - that most of us use as a starting point in the journey.  In 
that way he is much like an adopted child, grieving for a family he does not 
know. So for him the search is not just for his place in the adult world, it 
is for a connection to his past. 

Harry's past was as effectively locked as if he had a Memory Charm.  As a 
result, as someone pointed out, Harry is drawn to things like the Mirror of 
Erised and the Dementors because they give him clues to unlock that past.  
That's why he's so anxious to go live with Sirius only minutes after wanting 
to kill him.  But Harry has been very lucky in some respects because the 
information about his family has unfolded very slowly.  He never seems to get 
more information at one time than he is able to digest.  Therefore, he is 
able to slowly uncover pieces of the puzzle.  At this point, Harry has a very 
idealized portrait of his parents.  Head Boy and Girl, excellent Quidditch 
player, a mum who sacrificed her own life for him, a dad who saved the life 
of the hated Snape.  This is very typical of how adopted children deal with 
their birthparents.  But Snape has hinted that there is more to the Potters, 
and Harry has probably reached the point where he's ready to absorb more 
complicated, more ambivalent information about who his parents were.  He'll 
need to do that in order to mature in his view of himself.

Neville is in a very different position from Harry, however, though their 
immediate stories are similar.  Both  suffered a traumatic event as a toddler 
that cost him both parents.   If my speculation is true, then both Harry and 
Neville were raised by relatives that actively suppressed a portion of that 
past, so that neither one knows who he is.  Harry is fortunate to be able to 
slowly learn and accept the truth; moreover, the main bit of information that 
the Dursleys withheld - that he's a wizard - is positive.  Neville's image of 
himself, however, remains deeply at odds with his true abilities (I don't 
think he's intentionally spreading disinformation about his magical ability). 
 If Neville has a Memory Charm, unless  it unblocks itself slowly as he is 
able to break the charm, the missing  information may rear its ugly head in a 
shocking revelation that, for example,  Gran is evil.  This would be much 
more difficult for Neville to cope with than Harry's learning he is a wizard, 
and I wonder what kind of uncontrolled magic such a disclosure might unleash 
in poor Neville.  This is another point adoption social workers stress: it's 
highly detrimental to an older child or adolescent to suddenly be told out of 
the blue a fact about his past that upends his notions of who he is (such as 
a revelation of adoptive status); better for the child that information, 
positive and negative, about the child's background, be shared slowly, with 
more information revealed as the child gives indications that he is ready for 
it.  This is the way Harry is learning.  We also can't rule out startling 
revelations about some of the other kids' backgrounds.

All of this - the ability to cope with and accept one's past - tie into 
Dumbledore's big theme that it's ultimately our choices that dictate who we 
are.  At the same time, memory and information about one's past and family 
are important in giving us the sense of self to help make those choices.  
Each of the student characters (not just Harry and Neville) needs to accept 
his or her past, and family background, whatever it is - whether that person 
is from a wizard or Muggle family, whether he is poor or rich, whether the 
person's parents are martyrs in the cause of good or bloodthirsty Death 
Eaters, the Minister of Magic or a milkman.  It's often hard enough for 
adolescents who know their backgrounds to come to accept it.  That's part of 
growing up.  But before you can accept it and move beyond it, you have to 
know what it is. 

I'm not sure this last bit is very well articulated, as I'm veering off into 
the type of sociological discussion that's far outside my expertiese, but I'm 
speaking as a parent of two adopted children.  There are many parallels 
between how they cope with missing background information and Harry Potter.  
One in particular identifies very strongly with Harry Potter and fantasizes 
about getting a letter from Hogwarts when he turns 11.   So this whole search 
for one's past resonates very much with me, as it's my job to impart the 
information I have at the right time and to help them accept the information 
they get, obtain whatever additional information they might want, and accept 
that there is much they will never know.  I get to do what Dumbledore's 
doing.  I think he's doing a good job.  So is Harry.  But I worry about 
Neville.

Debbie



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