[HPforGrownups] Re: TBAY: MACHINGARMCHAIR

[Edblanning at aol.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 39150

Charis Julia:

> "Neville," Charis concludes happily closing the book with a 
> 

I love this idea, it makes a whole lot of sense.

> 
> 
> Sooooo, every loud noise makes his mind leap automatically to the 
> Cruciatus. He can't help it. And especially after that nice little 
> reminder of his parents torment courtesy of Monsieur Crouch which 
> made all those old memories resurface with a vengeance.
> 
> 
> Of course this theory only works if Neville is * not* under a Memory 
> 

OTOH, I'm not so sure about this.
Forgive me if this was covered in the Symposium (I was asleep for most of it, 
if you recall), but one of the things I've always wondered about memory 
charms is just how completely do they wipe memories? Are there different 
degrees of memory charm, as I think I have heard suggested, so that the most 
severe is the type put on Bertha, which can only be broken by torture, but 
others of lesser degree that can be broken more easily?
 
But what chiefly intrigues me is at what level the memory is wiped. In fact, 
*is* it wiped, or merely suppressed?
If memory charms merely *suppress* memory, then Neville might not be affected 
on a day-to-day basis by the trauma he suffered as an infant, yet it might be 
re-awakened in his subconscious by something such as the egg's wailing.

Another point I'd like to make is that even if Neville has no *memory* of the 
events (and it would seem unlikely anyway, given his very young age at the 
time, memory charm or no), or no conscious trauma caused by them, he still 
*knows* what happened. He *knows* his parents were tortured; he has to see 
the results every holiday. This is traumatic in itself. He doesn't have to 
*remember* witnessing the Cruciatus performed on his parents to make 
connections.

> 
> On the other hand the Dementors, as you admit Debbie, had a profound 
> influence on Harry. That's because this is the first time he's had to 
> face what Cindy would call the Dolby Digital, mega—screen, extra 
> special effects version of his parents last moments. But as Eileen 
> 

And there may have been other occasions on which these memories have been 
awoken.
If memory charms *suppress* memory, then it is possible that the Dementors 
cannot awaken them, but that noises such as the egg can.

> 
> 
> One last comment.
> 
> 
> Everyone's been concentrating so much on the Cruciatus suggestion 
> that we're ignoring what the Egg sounds like to other people. "Ah—
> ha". Clogs start working in Charis Julia's brain. "So it was Percy 
> that tortured the Longbottoms. . . Driven insane by lack of rhyming. 
> The dreaded Off-Key Curse!"
> 
> Err, no, actually. What did catch my eye though and what I * do* 
> think noteworthy is Seamus's proffer. "Sounded like a banshee. . ." 
> 
> 
> A banshee as we all know is Seamus's Boggart in PoA. Very natural too 
> as banshees I believe originate in Ireland which is according to all 
> 

Indeed they do. Perhaps this one popped over on the ferry!

But seriously, it does seem as if the egg's strange wailing evoked different 
things in different people, presumably because it was not precisely like 
anything else and so each made the best approximation from their experience. 
It is curious, though, that Seamus *does* hear it as a wailing ('wailing' is 
the term I would associate with them - 'wailing like a banshee' - rather than 
'screaming'), whereas Harry thinks it is like the Deathday party orchestra, 
which in CoS is described as sounding like fingernails being scraped down a 
blackboard. <shiver>
If it wasn't for George's facetious remark and Harry's reaction, I'd be 
tempted to say that it reminds people of what they fear most, similar to a 
Boggart (and thus further establishing Snape at the scene of the crime), but 
I don't think it can be so.

But perhaps the dreadful noise does just re-awaken in post-traumatic stress 
manner, the awful thing which is hidden in the back of Neville's mind, either 
repressed naturally, or through a memory charm, or that he simply cannot 
remember because he was too young: the awful thing which his family make sure 
that he cannot forget *about*. 

Eloise





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