MemoryCharm!Neville/K'nut/New Gryffindor Keeper/Grandma Evans/Miranda

[Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)]

No: HPFGUIDX 55300

Steve bboy_mn wrote:

<< Two year old Neville witnesses his parents torture and may have 
been tortured himself. So Neville's problems are related to the 
torture itself and/or a memory charm that was placed on him so he 
could forget the nightmare of the torture. >>

Steve, you left out the Reverse Memory Charm theory, in which young 
Neville witnessed his parents' torture and a Reverse Memory Charm was 
placed on him to enhance his memory of that event so he could testify 
at the trial of the Pensieve Four despite being an infant, but the 
side-effect is that his mind is always full of those horrible 
memories, which is why he can't quite concentrate/remember anything 
else.

Isn't that supposed to be how Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder works, 
even without magic?

Catphile5 wrote:

<< FWIW the CD audio books pronounce it kah-nutts. >> 

I keep pronouncing Knut as kah-noot, because it is spelled the same 
as King Knut, englished as Canute (the one who ordered the tide not 
to come in).

Nez Echegaray wrote:

<< I couldn't help wondering if you had a specific character in mind 
when you suggested "Who other than Ron is qualified for the team?" >>

I like Ron (even if he and I would dislike each other if we knew each 
other in real life), and I have long hoped that he would become 
Gryffindor Keeper (he has the build -- tall, with long arms and legs 
-- and there is a vacancy) and be so good at it that he would be a 
new school hero and get some of that glory he yearns for. 

But I've always figured that JKR doesn't want to make Ron happy; she 
wants to keep turning up the pressure on him. Which would probably 
include him losing in the try-outs to be on the team. I thought Dean 
Thomas might get the Keeper position: he is also tall with long arms 
and legs, and maybe he has become as sports-mad for Quidditch as he 
is known to be for futbol, and maybe playground experience as futbol 
goalie is *some* background for Quidditch Keeper. And then Ron would 
have the humiliation of not only losing, but losing to a Muggle-born 
student who hadn't even heard of Quidditch until he started Hogwarts 
(and probably it was Ron who first explained Quidditch to him). That 
could put a strain on his absence of 'racial' bigotry.

Or Lavender Brown, who is also a Muggle-born student, and a *girl* as 
well, but has shown no interest in Quidditch in canon so far. 

[My evidence that Lavender is Muggle-born is the scene in Divination 
when the Grim is mentioned: "He could tell that he wasn't the only 
one who didn't understand; Dean Thomas shrugged at him and Lavender 
Brown looked puzzled, but nearly everybody else clapped their hands 
to their mouths in horror." We know that Harry and Dean were raised 
by Muggles who never told them about the Grim, and I am convinced 
that the same applies to Lavender not knowing about the Grim. Even 
tho' I would have PREFERRED her to be wizard-born (she has such a 
perfectly wizarding name!) and the Patil sisters to be Muggle-born 
(still *possible*, if Parvati had somehow heard of the Grim since 
coming to Hogwarts, on some rare occasion when she was separated from 
Lavender).]

[If it were going to be one of the two hypothetical other Gryffindor 
girls in that year, she SHOULD have been mentioned by name before the 
fifth book.]

Or a younger student, but the only younger Gryffindors I recall are 
the Creeveys and Ginny. The Creeveys are Muggle-born, but surely much 
too small to be Keeper -- maybe they can try out for reserve Seeker. 
That leaves Ginny -- and I suspect that losing to His Own Little 
Sister would hurt Ron's pride the most. I can imagine him whining 
"I'm the only person in my whole family who didn't get on the team, 
except Percy, and he didn't even try out!" (altho' I can also imagine 
that Bill also didn't even try out).

Key of Kenneth wrote:

<< Ever notice the way Harry and Tom look exactly alike? But with no 
explanation. Surely the oldest Star Wars line "I am your father" can 
not be expelled from Voldemort's mouth. However, what about Grandma 
Evans? If Lilly's Mother had an affair with a man by the name of "Tom 
Riddle" then being ashamed of a bastard son, she faked her death and 
orphaned the abandoned child. >>

I am a bit confused about what is it that you're suggesting -- are 
you suggesting that Lily and Petunia's mother was a witch, the one 
who bore Tom Marvolo Riddle? After which she faked her death and had 
a new life in the Muggle world and bore Petunia and Lily? Considering 
that TMR was born sometime in the 1920s and Lily was born in the 
1950s, witch-lady might have needed to fake her death a second time 
and start a second new Muggle life, to stop people from gossiping 
about her longevity. I don't see how it would explain Petunia's 
resentment, except as jealousy that BOTH her mum and her sis were 
witches and she wasn't.

Btw, I think that neither Lily nor Hermione are the descendent of 
witches or wizards, in the last several hundred years anyway, because 
I think that having very powerful and heroic witches who are vital to 
the plot of the story and history of the wizarding world be Muggle- 
born is part of JKR's anti-bigotry agenda.

Whatever you were suggesting about Grandma Evans, I don't believe 
that Harry is related to Riddle on his mother's side, because Harry's 
resemblance to his FATHER is as much emphasised in the text as his 
resemblance to Tom Marvolo Riddle. If Harry's resemblance to Tom was 
the result of them being related, they would have to be related 
through James. I really do not like the idea that TMR was James's 
father, but TMR is not old enough to have been James's mother's 
father.

H'm. If TMR's mother faked her death as you suggest, and made her new 
life in the wizarding world instead of the Muggle world, she *could* 
have become James's mother or James's mother's mother or James's 
father's mother ... that IS not the archetypal fairy-tale motif of 
the bad guy killed by his own heroic descendent, but JKR is good 
enough that she could make a matrilineal prophecy, some "fruit from 
the same tree", equally dramatic, and MAYBE she would want to.

Anne U replied to Key of Kenneth:

<< Faked her own death? Lily's *mother*? So you're saying that 
Tom Riddle's mother (who, IIRC, was a witch by the last name of 
Marvolo), >>

Anne, the one part I don't agree with you about is that TMR's mother 
had the last name of Marvolo. TMR told us that his mother gave him 
the middle name of Marvolo after her father, not specifying if it 
were her father's first or last name. I immediately assumed it was 
his first name -- it sounds like a wizarding first name, like 
Prospero (see next). I was quite surprised the first time I saw a fic 
that assumed that Marvolo was the family name. Surely British wizards 
with the family name of Marvolo would have anglicized it to Marvell?

Star Opal wrote:

<< Miranda means, admirable, beautiful, wonderful and was invented by 
William Shakespeare for the young heroine of The Tempest. >>

Shakespeare's Miranda was the daughter of Prospero, his wizard, so I 
have been under the impression that Miranda and Prospero would fairly 
normal names for witches and wizards in the Potterverse. So I have 
often imagined that TMR's mother was named Miranda.