TBAY - Neville Sacrificed

[lucky_kari]

No: HPFGUIDX 39029

She sits there, looking around the place in horror. How did she get 
here? And why? Who is she? Some-one is coming towards her.

Voice: Well, you have to admit. The memory charm worked.

Memory Charm? Now what does that remind her of?

Well, nevermind. She may have forgotten some horrible little secret 
to do with Peter Pettigrew and Lily Evans, but she the lost memories 
seem to highlight something that she had forgotten, something that 
happened long before. Something about memory.

"Do I live here?" she asks the woman.

"No. This is the Theory Museum," answers her new friend.

"Where do I live?"

"The Fourth Man Hovercraft."

"What's that?"

The woman shakes her head, then asks, "Do you know who I am?"

She strains her mind a little. "I don't know who I am either," she 
replies back.

"Nice work, Debbie," comes a very familiar voice. "You just had to 
apply the BIG BANG principle to real life."

"But Cindy, this isn't real life," says the woman named Debbie. "Come 
on, help me get Eileen back to the hovercraft."

"We have a new MATCHINGARMCHAIR raft now," said Cindy. "It was her 
last request before you obliterated her." 

"Neville... sacrifice... memory," moans Eileen.

"Don't worry about that," said Debbie kindly. "We've got almost all 
of that figured out."

"Tell.... Elkins...."

"Elkins Shmelkins," says Cindy rather fiercely. "You know what Elkins 
said? Have you seen her and her yellow flags? We're through with 
Elkins. She doesn't even do her share of cleaning up the hovercraft. 
Her and her memory charms."

"Super..."

"Super what?" asked Debbie attentively.

"Super Neville," said Eileen in a daze. "Elkins doesn't like Super 
Neville."

"You mean the Neville that regains his memory then kicks serious DE 
butt?" asked Cindy.

"Right," said Eileen. "I think I remember.... Of course, I can't 
remember all the research I did into the theme of memory in 
literature."

"Sheesh," said Cindy.

"But Elkins was afraid Neville was going to end up that way as the 
avenging angel, if I recall correctly. She wants him to Renounce 
things, doesn't she?"

"Things that he can't remember," said Cindy quickly. "Yes. She has 
said that." A look approaching a glare shows on Cindy's face.

"Well, I have a different theory."

Cindy and Debbie exchange glances. "Are you sure you're strong 
enough?" begins Debbie.

"Yes. What are the three ways by which a hero can succeed?"

"He can conquer!" cried Cindy, her eyes wild with excitment.

"He can renounce!" added Debby.

"Or he can sacrifice himself," said Eileen quietly.

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

If the Longbottoms are, as Elkins has so ably demonstrated, 
emblematic of the memory theme in the wizarding world, will not their 
eventual fate be emblematic of the theme's resolution? And, has not 
JKR basically promised to us that there will be a resolution, that 
the wizarding world will learn to remember or forget, or whatever it 
is that JKR thinks they should be doing? Cornelius Fudge, with his 
dementor escort, will not be here for long. When Arthur Weasley is 
Minister of Magic (End of Book 7 :-), what will have happened to the 
Longbottoms? Is there any questions that they must learn to 
remember/forget? That Frank and his wife must be restored to the 
world of the living for the sake of the theme?

But that's too good to be true, you say. Well.... What do we know 
about these "unburials," these acts of remembrance? That they come at 
a price. That they're painful, and yet always productive. Frank 
revived will, I have no doubt, remember something, perhaps making it 
redundant and un-bangy to have a secondary Nevile-remembers-something 
plot, btw. <Smiles at memory-charmers.>

But, what ends a revenge, what puts a stop to that cliche: the never 
ending cycle of violence? Sacrifice, that's what. From the dawn of 
human history, it has been understood that sacrifice has this role. 
Some civilizations try to pawn it off on the old guy, or the little 
kid. Some see it as symbolic. Others think it's going far enough to 
sacrifice your possessions. And then, there's a long history of self-
sacrifice, from the Livian hero who flung himself into a bottomless 
pit for Rome's sake, to Christ's crucifixion, to Ron's Chess Game in 
PS/SS.

What do you want to bet that Neville shall eventually be tortured by 
Cruciatus for a secret? It fulfills two generational parallels. 
Frank/Neville, connecting the father and son in a way that Gran has 
not envisioned, and Peter/Neville, both under pressure by Voldemort. 

And it fulfills the need for sacrifice. 

Elkins, it would not suit you if Neville killed for his parents' 
sake, what if Neville was to die for his parents' sake? And that 
would be, come to think of it, a mirror of Lily's sacrifice for Harry.

Eileen