TBAY: Memory Charm Symposium (2 of 3) (Long)

Fri May 17 01:22:18 UTC 2002

No: HPFGUIDX 38813

Welcome back.

This second batch of variants on the Memory Charm Theory moves away
from the idea that Neville's memory was suppressed for psychological
or purely humanitarian reasons.  Instead, these theories ascribe far 
more pragmatic (if still generally good-intentioned) motives to the 
perpetrators of the proposed memory charm.  We're delving into some
darker territory here, to be sure, and the motives get greyer and
greyer the deeper in we go.  With luck, this should mean that by the 
time we get to the truly Dark and nasty variations on MC'd Neville, 
we should all be thoroughly inured.

In this segment of our symposium, we'll be looking at the Wizarding 
Witness Protection Program, The "Wizards In Black" Theory, The 
"Hidden Source" Theory, and the Reverse Memory Charm, or 
MATCHINGARMCHAIR.

*********************************************************************

--The Wizarding Witness Protection Program--

Neville was given a Memory Charm by well-meaning Ministry officials, 
in order to protect him from those (still-at-large Death Eaters, for 
example) who might otherwise target him to prevent him from revealing 
something incriminating about them.

---------------------

A number of people have suggested this theory in the past, although 
none of them stepped forward on the Still Life thread.

The main problem that I have with this theory is that nobody has ever 
been able to explain it to me in a way that enables me to understand 
the motive.  I just don't get it.  At all.  I mean, if Neville had 
actually known something useful, then wouldn't the Ministry have 
heard his testimony *before* they gave him a Memory Charm?  But in 
that case, the damage would already have been done, right?  And if 
Neville's testimony was insufficient to put away some still-at-large 
culprit the first time around, then why would said culprit even 
bother to target him thereafter?  The only possible reason to do so 
would be revenge -- or possibly pure malice.  But how would a 
memory charm serve to protect Neville from someone out for revenge, or
from someone acting out of murderous spite?  Why would such a person 
*care* what the kid could or could not remember?  It's not as if 
Neville's name has been changed, or he's been given a new identity, 
or anything like that.  It's not even as if the fact that he was 
given a Memory Charm has been widely publicized.  On the contrary, it 
seems to be a deep dark secret.  So how...

Oh, well.  You get the idea, I trust.  No matter how I try to 
approach this one, I just can't seem to work it so that it makes any 
sense to me.  Maybe one of its adherents can explain it to me?  
Because I feel as if I'm quite likely missing something when it comes 
to this theory.

I do think that the underlying premise here -- that Neville was 
placed under a memory charm for somebody's *physical* (rather than 
emotional) protection -- is indeed very compelling.  For now, though, 
it works a whole lot better for me as it is used in Cover-Up at the 
Ministry, or any of the variants on DEPRECIATION, or in Memory Charm 
Most Foul.  Or, for that matter, in our next theory...

*********************************************************************

--The "Wizards In Black" Theory--

(Includes such variants as: The Double Agent Protection Program; 
Fifth Man; The Rescue Scenario; and Fourth Man With Deep Undercover.)

Neville was given a Memory Charm in order to prevent him from 
revealing top-secret and strategically vital information about 
someone or something related to the assault on his parents.  
Unlike "Depreciation" or "Cover-Up at the Ministry," however, the 
culprit in this case is not a Death Eater or any other garden variety 
evil-doer, but instead someone working for the forces of good, albeit 
in a creepy, secretive, "never let the right hand know what the left 
hand is doing," black-budgety sort of way.

---------------------

This theory is particularly appealing to paranoids and fans of 
espionage plotlines.  Probably its most common manifestation is 
the "Double Agent Protection Program" version, in which Neville's 
Memory Charm was cast on him to preserve the cover of some spook or 
another.

Of course, if Neville was given a Memory Charm in order to protect the
identity of somebody working deep undercover within the DE 
organization, then we all know who that somebody must have been, 
right?

<Elkins waits, beaming, for the expected audience response>

That's right!  It was...

What?  WHAT?  *What* did you all just say?  You said *Snape?*  You 
think that it was Snape?  

Oh, please.  You're joking, right?  Surely you must be joking.  
You're all just having me on here.  You can't honestly believe that, 
can you?  

Come on, people.  Let's be *serious* here for just a minute, okay?  
You all know perfectly well that Snape is hardly an important enough 
character to be the person that Neville's Memory Charm was cast to 
protect.

But we all know who really *is* important enough to fulfill such a 
plot function, don't we?  Sure we do!  Who do we all *know* to be the 
Most Important Character In Canon?  Who do we all *know* JKR has all 
lined up to serve as the big surprise hero of Book Five?  Who do we 
all know absolutely *must* have been the real mole in the Longbottom 
Affair, who is in fact *still* working for the Ministry in a very 
active role, whose true allegiance has been kept secret from even 
Dumbledore himself?  Who must it be whose work is so absolutely vital 
to the security of the entire Wizarding World that the Ministry would 
go to any lengths to protect him from exposure?

<Elkins waits again, tapping her foot irritably as the silence drags 
on and on and on...>

Oh, for heaven's...

It was AVERY, you fools!  Avery!  Sheesh.  What's wrong with you 
tonight?

Of *course* it had to have been Avery!  Who else could it have been?  
It was Unspeakable Fourth Man, that's who it was!  

Unspeakable Fourth Man.  Department-of-Mysteries Fourth Man.  Tough-
As-Nails Fourth Man.  Avery-Means-King-of-the-Elves Fourth Man.  So-
Deep-Undercover-That-At-First-Glance-The-Bed-Looks-Completely-
Unoccupied Fourth Man.  Fourth Man who eats men like Mad Eye for 
breakfast, out-Oscars even young Barty Crouch, and makes Snape's 
purported talent for snooping about look just plain pathetic.  Fourth 
Man who thinks nothing -- *nothing,* I tell you! -- of enduring years 
of imprisonment in Azkaban, over a decade of suspicion and mistrust 
from the rest of the law-abiding wizarding world, the contempt and 
scorn of other Death Eaters, and even the reincorporated Voldemort's 
very best Cruciatus, if that's what it will take to allow him to 
maintain his cover as grovelling, hysterical, in-over-his-head 
SYCOPHANTSish Fourth Man so that he may continue his heroic and loyal 
service to...

What?  What's that you say?  You *still* think that the Undercover 
Agent must have been Snape?  Really?  Still?

<sigh>

Oh all *right.*  I guess we can talk about that possibility, if you 
guys absolutely insist.  But I'm warning you right now -- Fourth Man 
With Deep Undercover is actually a whole lot more canonically 
defensible, in the long run.

By far the most popular interpretation of this version of the Memory
Charm speculation is that the purpose of Neville's memory charm was
to protect Snape, who was somehow involved in the Longbottom Incident
in his role as Dumbledore's agent.

Talon DG suggested that Snape might in fact have been a *Fifth* Man:

> What if Snape were involved? He could have been there, involved, 
> undercover, and perhaps his testimony is what sent the torturers to 
> Azkaban.  Could Neville's memory charm be there to prevent him from 
> inadvertantly blowing Snape's cover?

Fifth Man Snape, eh?

Well, it's certainly possible.  I do see a big problem with the 
timeline, though.  Snape's role as undercover agent was discussed 
openly at Karkaroff's hearing, which predated the attack on the 
Longbottoms.  It seems highly unlikely to me that Snape was still in 
active service at that point in time, or that he would have been able 
to return to active service after his role had become so widely 
known.  There were about two hundred people seated on the tribunal 
when Dumbledore pronounced Snape's status as a mole, and I find it 
very difficult to believe that Dumbledore was so certain that each 
and every one of those two hundred people could be trusted that 
he would have first blown Snape's cover to them, and then sent him 
right back out to work.  Certainly *I* wouldn't have been too pleased 
about that, if I had been Snape.

The other big problem that I see here is that Dumbledore himself 
seems so very doubtful about Crouch Jr's guilt when he discusses the 
affair with Harry in Chapter 30 of GoF, and that he so strongly 
implies that the only evidence against the Pensieve defendants was 
the highly dubious testimony of the Longbottoms themselves:

"'Unfortunately, the Longbottoms' evidence was -- given their 
condition -- none too reliable.'

'Then Mr. Crouch's son might not have been involved?' said Harry 
slowly.

Dumbldore shook his head.

'As to that, I have no idea.'"

I find this exchange very difficult to reconcile with a scenario in 
which Snape's testimony was in fact what put the Pensieve defendents 
away.  Given that Harry has learned of Snape's undercover role only 
minutes previous to this conversation, I just can't imagine why 
Dumbledore would feel the need to be so exceptionally duplicitous 
with him here.  It also just doesn't jibe with his character for me.  
As I read him, Dumbledore is indeed often evasive, but he is never 
duplicitous in quite that outright a manner.

Although Fifth Man Snape is so hard to reconcile with canon, though, 
the suggestion that Neville's memory charm must exist to protect 
Snape in some fashion really does have teeth, following up as it does 
on canon's strong suggestion that there must exist *some* important 
connection or relationship between Neville and Snape.  

Pippin wrote:

> I think we have to account for the fact that Neville's main 
> antagonist is Snape, and therefore the drama around Neville ought 
> to be Snape-centric. 

Finwitch agreed, even abandoning her usual hard-line anti-Snape stance
just long enough to concede the possibility that Snape might have 
been present for the Longbottoms' torture as an agent of good:

> Yes, it is *necessary* that Snape was somehow involved with 
> Neville's worst experience to become his *worst* fear. I believe it 
> also has to do with *why* Dumbledore trusts Snape.  Yes, he may 
> have been the double-agent. . . .Perhaps Snape was trying to save 
> the Longbottoms? 

Perhaps he was at that.  After all...

<Elkins grips the edge of her lectern, leaning forward as a mad gleam
appears in her eyes>

After all, since as we all know, Snape is secretly and hopelessly in 
love with Neville's mother, and has been ever since their schooldays 
together at Hogwarts, it makes perfect *sense* that...OW!  Hey!  Come 
on!  Quit it!

<ducks down behind the lectern to take refuge from the pencils, beer 
cans, rotten tomatoes, and bowling balls which have suddenly come 
flying towards her from the audience>

*Okay!*  All *right!*  Sheesh.

<straightens, eying the audience warily>

Boy.  Tough crowd.

Okay.  Well, staying on target then, this brings us to the "Rescue 
Scenario" version of "Wizards In Black," in which Snape was indeed 
present at the scene of the attack on the Longbottoms, but found 
himself incapable of helping anyone but toddler Neville, whom he 
rescued from the scene and possibly saved from suffering his parents' 
fate.  

This speculation appeals on so many different levels.  First, it 
provides a highly convincing explanation for Neville's fear of 
Snape.  If both Snape and Neville were present for the attack on the 
Longbottoms, and if Neville's memory blockage is wearing off or 
degrading in some fashion, then he could well retain some trace 
memory of Snape which associates him with the traumatic event, thus 
leading to Neville's identification of Snape as his "worst fear."  
Second, the rescue scenario maintains, with beautifully cruel irony, 
the canonically-established pattern of Snape's actions and 
motivations being misinterpreted in the worst possible way by others.

The rescue scenario also avoids some (although by no means all) of 
the pitfalls of "Fifth Man."  If Snape was for some reason unable to 
save any of the Longbottoms but Neville, then it seems equally 
possible that he was also unable to learn the identities of the 
culprits.  The rescue scenario still doesn't explain, however,
why Snape's role in the affair should have been believed to be so 
very sensitive that it would warrant wiping Neville's memory of the 
event, especially since at the time, Snape's role hardly seems to 
have been a terribly carefully-guarded secret.

In message #36922 Pippin, while standing back and preparing to be 
pelted with FEATHERBOAs, put forward a "psychological repression" 
version of the rescue scenario in which Snape was himself responsible 
for setting up Frank Longbottom, as a part of an entrapment scenario 
gone horribly awry.  That in and of itself warrants a featherboa as 
far as I'm concerned, but she also threw in not one, but *two* bloody 
ambushes, as well as much betrayal among old school chums. *And* use 
of the word "gibbering."  So...

<Elkins pulls a feather boa made from glossy -- if also still rather
sticky --  black feathers out of one of her very deep pockets and 
looks it over comtemplatively>

Hmmmm.  Well, since I know how much you like that whole "dressing in 
black" thing, Pippin, how about this one?  I made it from these two 
big black birds that I ran into the other day.  It was the weirdest 
thing, actually: one of them kept saying "wei...wei...wei..." but 
every time I tried to *tell* it why, it just wouldn't listen to me.  
And then the other one started croaking "mr-no...mr-no...mr-no..." 
which just made no sense to me at *all.*  I mean, I had no *idea* 
what that stupid bird was nattering on about, and I couldn't find
Eileen or anyone else with one of those Viking helmets to translate 
for me.  So I figured that I'd best just wring both their necks and 
have done with it.  

<shrugs>

Oh, well.  It couldn't have been anything all that important, right?  
After all, neither of them put up much of a fight.  So here you go, 
Pippin!  Enjoy!

Okay.  So what's next?  Oh, that's right.  We were just talking about 
ravens, weren't we?  That must mean that the next one up is... 

*********************************************************************

--The "Hidden Source" Theory--

(Otherwise known as: "Neville As Raven")

Neville's father, or perhaps both of his parents, really *were* in 
possession of some crucial information regarding Voldemort, possibly
even knowledge of the means by which he could be utterly defeated.  
Either Neville stumbled across this knowledge by chance, or he had it 
magically hidden away in his mind when his parents realized that they 
were likely to come under attack.  In either case, his parents then 
gave him the Memory Charm themselves, in order to keep hidden the 
vital information that he carries.

---------------------

This marriage of "Wizards In Black" and "Memory Charm Most Foul," 
proposed by Naama, has the undeniable advantage that it avoids all of 
the problems inherent in the idea that Neville was witness to the 
assault on his parents, while still allowing him to possess a highly 
plot-relevant memory charm.  It also has a certain "worm-turning" 
appeal, suggesting as it does that whatever secret knowledge Neville 
carries hidden deep within his mind will likely be absolutely vital 
to Voldemort's eventual defeat.

Naama:

> If so, then it makes sense that the memory charm has an inbuilt 
> expiration mechanism. Maybe the charm will expire once Neville 
> reaches a certain age? Or, maybe the hidden knowledge is supposed 
> to be triggered by some event (meeting with Voldemort, maybe)? What 
> if Neville carries, unbeknowest to him, the information that Harry 
> will need in order to vanquish Voldemort? 

And so, somewhere in Book Seven, Neville will help to save the day!

Mm.  Well, there is a certain pleasure to be found in that notion, to 
be sure, as well as in the incongruity of Neville in the role as the 
repository of secret knowledge. And certainly I agree with Naama that 
if Neville has a memory charm, then there is surely *something* 
important hidden away by it. Otherwise there would seem little point, 
from the authorial perspective, of introducing such a plotline in the 
first place.  

I'm having a lot of problems with the details of the Hidden Source 
Theory, though.  I almost wish that I weren't, as I find the ironic 
juxtaposition, if I may steal Tabouli's pet phrase, to be so very 
delightful.  Take this, for example:

Naama:

> Neville, the Raven (whatsitsname?), carrier of secret information, 
> the unexpected source, etc.

Now, how can I bring myself to argue with the idea of Neville-as-
Raven?  It's...well, it's almost like putting a single pink flamingo 
right in the middle of a gloomy old Gothic Cathedral, isn't it?  I 
mean, it's just plain beautiful.

But it does make the Longbottoms themselves seem rather *ruthless,* 
don't you think?  To place their only son at such a terrible risk?  
Not that I really mind Ruthless!Frank -- in my more perverse moods, I 
even enjoy a little bit of Ever So Evil Frank -- but I do find myself 
struggling with the idea that even Ruthless!Frank would have chosen 
his own son and heir to serve such a role.  Even leaving aside the
emotional issues involved, couldn't he have found some more *secure* 
place to hide away the secret knowledge than in his own son's mind?  
If the DEs knew that such a spell was possible, then surely that 
would be one of the very first places they would think to look once 
they realized that Frank himself no longer possessed the information 
they sought, wouldn't it?

I also find myself wondering why, if the Longbottoms had indeed 
received advance warning that they might become DE targets, they 
couldn't have protected themselves a bit better.  There's something 
almost embarrassing about the notion of Frank Longbottom, the 
Ruthless Auror Who Sees Which Way the Wind Is Blowing, *still* 
managing to get himself brought down by that pathetic group of losers 
that we saw in the Pensieve scene.  

Unless, that is, we're proposing that the Longbottoms had some sort of
martyr complex?

My biggest problem with this theory, though, is that I'm finding it 
very hard to imagine how Frank Longbottom could have managed not to 
give the game away himself, seeing as both he and his wife were 
apparently tortured half to death with the express purpose of 
persuading him to talk.  

Naama suggested, as a way around this problem:

> Maybe they also put themselves under a Lunatic charm, i.e., a charm 
> hat turns them insane the minute they are about to divulge the 
> secret?

Wow.  That would certainly have been sporting of them.  Very heroic 
indeed.

True, that certainly would fix the hole.  And it would also clean up 
the whole "Oh, please!  People don't *really* go insane like that!" 
objection to the entire Longbottom plotline.  But I just don't know 
about that Lunatic Charm idea.  We've never heard of anything like a 
Lunatic Charm in canon, have we?  I'm very much afraid that we might 
be looking at a yellow flag violation if we start venturing down 
*that* path. 

Tabouli wrote:

> 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. 

No, neither am I, and I don't think that JKR is either. The HP books 
are written in a fairly heroic idiom, but they're not written in 
*that* heroic an idiom.  And besides, we already know that memory 
charms can be broken.  In fact, it has been very strongly implied 
that they are specifically broken by means of torture.  The
Ministry must be aware of this, so I very much doubt that they would 
Obliviate their Aurors as a means of granting them immunity to 
interrogation: they would surely be aware that that it just wouldn't 
work.

Nor do I find it believable that there is any more effective or more 
permanent means of removing information from the human mind known to 
the wizarding world than the Memory Charm.  If there were such a 
method, then the Ministry would likely be using it, rather than 
Obliviate, on the muggle population.  Even if it were so dangerous 
that even the Ministry would balk at its use, I doubt that Gilderoy 
Lockhart would have been so fastidious.  And even if it were too 
tricky for Lockhart to have managed, Crouch Sr. surely could have 
handled it, and I don't believe for a second that ends-over-means-
prone Crouch, who was willing to cast an Unforgiveable Curse on his 
illegally-sprung-from-Azkaban son, wouldn't have used it on Bertha 
Jorkins.  So I feel fairly well-convinced that the Memory Charm is in 
fact the closest thing that the wizarding world has yet found to a 
permanent knowledge removal spell -- and a memory charm wouldn't have 
sufficed to keep the Longbottoms' information hidden from their 
assailants.

So all in all, I feel fairly well convinced that poor Frank 
Longbottom really didn't know a thing.  

I do rather like the idea that the Lestranges et al might have 
*thought* that Frank was under a memory charm, though.  It offers a 
far more convincing explanation than pure sadism for the fact that 
they hung around Crucioing the couple (and thus increasing their risk 
of getting caught) long past the point at which it must have become 
clear to anyone with the slightest modicum of sense that neither of 
the Longbottoms knew anything useful.  It also has some canonical 
support in that Voldemort's description of the post-memory-charm-
cracked Bertha Jorkins ("mind and body both damaged beyond repair") 
would seem an equally apt description of two people who have been 
hospitalized for thirteen years to date with apparently no noticeable 
improvement in their condition.

Ah.  But speaking of those yellow flag violations, we now come at 
last to...

*********************************************************************

--The Reverse Memory Charm Theory--

(Otherwise known as: M.A.T.C.H.I.N.G.A.R.M.C.H.A.I.R. ["Marooned At 
The Court Hearing, Ill-fated Neville Got A Reverse Memory Charm, 
Hatching Amnesia-Inducing Results"])

Neville is indeed the victim of a memory spell, but it is not one 
designed to *suppress* his memories at all.  Rather, he was exposed 
to some form of magical memory-enhancement, probably by ministry 
officials hoping to get some leads on the identities of the 
Longbottoms' attackers.  The end result of this has been that Neville 
now helplessly relives the memory of having witnessed his parents' 
torture, particularly whenever he is under stress, thus rendering him 
incapable of concentrating on other matters.

---------------------

Gulplum, apparently unaware of the fact that he was about to be 
offered a seat in the Comfy Chair, made a case for this one:

> Neville suffers not from a memory *charm*, but a memory 
> *curse*. . . .What I mean by that, is that the trauma of his 
> parents' torture hasn't been wiped from his mind, but on the 
> contrary, has been deliberately embedded in such detail and so 
> inextricably, that every waking moment, he relives the experience 
> over and over and over again.  Thus his short-term memory has been 
> shot, his self-confidence is shot, and his whole self-image is 
> damaged. 

There you go, Gulplum.  Have a seat.

MATCHINGARMCHAIR, the "Reverse Memory Charm" Theory, is definitely
appealing in that it caters to all of our worst suspicions about the
MOM.  By suggesting that Neville is tormented on a near-constant 
basis by the sound of his parents screaming in agony, it also pleases 
the anti-sap brigade. There is not a single ewwwwy bit of sappiness 
to be found in the Reverse Memory Charm theory.  It is not in the 
least bit sappy.  It isn't even *nice.*  It is a nasty brutal cynical 
little speculation, capable of corrupting even the ordinarily 
peaceable Tabouli into coming up with things like this gruesome 
marriage of MATCHING ARMCHAIR and DEPRECIATION, in which poor 
Neville's problems actually derive from someone in Law Enforcement 
having *broken* a Memory Charm which had been placed on him by one of 
the perps:

Tabouli:

> 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...)

An armchair?  

Oh, you're looking at far worse than that, hon.  I mean, Tortured 
Toddler Neville?  Tortured by the *Ministry* Toddler Neville, no less?

Mmmmmm.  Actually?  Maybe later.

When you least expect it, Tabouli.  When you least expect it.

Reverse Memory Charm also offers a strong possibility that one or 
two -- or even all -- of the Pensieve defendents might actually have 
been innocent.  After all, as Nuria wrote quite recently:

> However, given that he was indeed a toddler when his parents were 
> crucio'd, it is more likely a Reverse Memory Charm had been used on 
> him (this is what we Muggles call Regressive Hypnosis!)

Eeeee-yup.  Indeed it is.  And we all know how very reliable 
testimony based on Regressive Hypnosis is, right?  

Yeah.  Small wonder that Dumbledore had his doubts.

Perhaps the most appealing thing of all about the Reverse Memory 
Charm, though, is its success in avoiding all of those pesky 
motivational difficulties that plague so many other memory charm 
theories.  We may have some problems figuring out why Neville might 
have been given a Memory Charm, but it's fairly obvious why someone 
might have given him a *Reverse* Memory Charm.  To help the Ministry 
identify the Longbottoms' attackers, of course!  

But Would the Department of Law Enforcement really stoop that low?  
Even knowing what it might do to the poor boy's mind?

Are you kidding me?  Under Crouch's reign?  Of *course* it would!

Gulplum even offered up a perfectly beautiful suggestion as to what
the thematic relevance of a Reverse Memory Charm scenario to the 
series as a whole might be:

> The ability to forget is as important to the health of the human 
> psyche as the ability to remember. What if Neville is, quite 
> simply, incapable of forgetting? This, of course, also juxtaposes 
> his parents' situation, in that they can't remember...

Well, yes.  Yes, that will do.  

That works.  It works quite well, although as you know, I tend to 
prefer the converse interpretation: that Neville's current state 
represents the problems inherent in the inability to remember, while 
the later problems that I fear he may be headed for in the canon 
would represent the problems inherent in the inability to forget.  
But Gulplum's gloss works every bit as well.  No, there's just no 
denying that Reverse Memory Charm does offer the possibility of strong
thematic consistency.

And there's even a sadistic sort of Just Desserts pleasure to be 
found in the Reverse Memory Charm, especially for those of us who do 
not care very much at *all* for Crouch and his ends-over-means 
judicial approach.  "You *did* want to know, right?" such readers can 
find themselves snickering maliciously as they contemplate the 
ramifications of this speculation.  "You really, really wanted to 
know.  You wanted to know the truth soooooooo badly.  So badly that 
you were willing to mess up some poor toddler's mind, just to get at 
it.  Well! Congratulations!  Got your answer, didn't you?  Hope that 
you really enjoyed it."

I mean, there's just so much to like here that I really find myself 
*wanting* to believe in the Reverse Memory Charm.  But I can't.  I 
just can't.  There are far too many holes, most of which I've already 
covered in my comments on the "No Memory Charm At All" Theory.  

See, I just can't believe that Neville has been walking around 
reliving the horrible image of his parents being tortured into 
insanity for the past four books.  I just can't buy that.  There's 
far too much evidence to the contrary.  There's his overall demeanor, 
and his reaction to the Second Task's mermaid song, and his reaction 
to the Dementor on the train --  and then there's also the problem 
that Porphyria raised here:

> He was too little to give testimony (the testimony of thirteen year 
> old wizards doesn't even count).

Yeah, that's a problem too, although I think that it's a very minor 
one.  After all, we already know that legal precedents and due 
process were being abandoned left and right at the time of the 
Longbottom Incident.  What would one more violation of standard 
policy matter?  But all the same, taken in combination with all of 
the other problems with the Reverse Memory Charm theory, it does 
start to add up.  

And then there's also the, er...

<nervous look at Cindy>

Well, the yellow flag violation.  I mean, what in blazes is a Reverse 
Memory Charm, anyway?  I hate to hurl such monstrous accusations in a 
public forum, but I have to admit that there are times, terrible 
times, Long Dark Nights of my Soul, when I almost find myself 
suspecting that Cindy...

<Elkins winces, then lowers her voice>

Well, that Cindy might have just made the Reverse Memory Charm *up.*

<bites lip, then continues more quickly>

Not, you understand, that I'm saying that she *did* or anything.  I 
mean, I'm hardly going to go throwing any yellow flags around here, 
ha ha ha.  Not, at any rate, while I'm posing such a very tempting 
target standing right up here in front of everyone.  But you know, I 
can't deny that I sometimes do *think* it.

And then finally, there's this problem of the foreshadowing.  See, 
the main support for the entire memory charm speculation in the first 
place is all of that emphasis that the books have already placed on 
the existence of memory charms, right?  In every single volume, we've 
had some mention of memory charms, or of some other form of magic 
(Riddle's Diary, the Fidelius Charm) that has the effect of rendering 
someone amnesiac, or of hiding information from their conscious 
mind.  References to that sort of thing are just scattered throughout 
canon.  There are spells that erase specific memories, and then 
there's magic that causes amnesia, and then there are botched memory 
charms that effectively lobotomize their recipients, and then there 
are...

Well.  You see my point, I trust?  There's been all of that, and yet 
we've not had one mention *anywhere* of a memory retrieval spell.  
We've had memory storage, with the Pensieve, and we've had coerced 
remembrance, with the Dementors, and we've had veritaserum -- all of 
which are admittedly getting pretty close -- but we've yet to see 
anything like a Reverse Memory Charm.

Wobbly.  The Matching Armchair is indeed Ever So Comfy.  But it is 
also just so very *wobbly.*

All the same, though, I'd very much like for it to be true.  Because 
you know what?  I think that I've finally figured out just exactly 
what it is that the Reverse Memory Charm armchair actually matches.

It matches my feather boas.

And it also matches my politics.

><(("> ><(("> ><(("> ><(("> ><(("> ><(("> ><(("> ><(("> ><(("> <>((">

Okay.  Time for another break, I think.  Let's just check the...

<Elkins glances down at her watch, then stops, staring.>

Um.  Uh, yeah.  Ooooo-kay.  So, er, does anyone have any idea why my 
watch might seem to be, um, *melting?*

Well, whatever.  Tabouli's Tortured Toddler notwithstanding, MATCHING 
ARMCHAIR was the last on my list of Memory Charm theories that can 
really be described as "Grey."  From here on out, I'm afraid that 
we're into the Dark and Nasty ones: "Cover-Up at the Ministry," 
DEPRECIATION, and "Memory Charm Most Foul."  So fortify yourselves 
well with your beverage of choice during this break, because when we 
get back, we're headed straight down to the depths.

-- Elkins

For an explanation of the acronyms and theories in this post, visit
Hypothetic Alley at 
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/files/Admin%
20Files/hypotheticalley.htm 
and Inish Alley at 
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/database?
method=reportRows&tbl=13