[HPforGrownups] on Neville Longbottom

[Janet Anderson]

No: HPFGUIDX 47084

>*Good sidenote*, Finwitch. Have you gotten the impression from the books 
>that Neville's garbled magic is still tapping into some greater source of 
>power than meets the eye? And everybody's discussed why he was put into 
>Gryffindor, whatever corner of the net they're in.

The easy one first: Neville Longbottom is in Gryffindor because he 1) has 
courage, the first attribute of a Gryffindor person and 2) in all 
probability asked to be there, the same way Harry did. In my opinion 
Neville's choices were Gryffindor or Hufflepuff.

About Neville's bungling magic, the best theory I have heard is that he, 
like Harry, saw his parents assaulted by Dark forces, but unlike Harry he 
was old enough to have conscious memories rather than unconscious ones, and 
therefore someone removed those memories with Memory Charms. Apparently 
Memory Charms, if strong enough, will affect one's ability to remember 
*anything* (e.g., Bertha Jorkens), and this is why Neville is such a sieve. 
And his bad memory affects his learning capability. He seems to have *power* 
enough, once it manifested (maybe that was slowed down by the Charms too); 
he's just not capable of *doing* much with it.


Janet Anderson

*    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *
An ordinary person says, "You have a face that would stop a clock." A 
diplomat says, "When I look at you, time stands still."






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