Neville

[jodel at aol.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 56529

>>Kathryn Cawte wrote:

> Neville - when the new Gryffindors are discussing their origins Neville 
sayd
> "Well, my gran brought me up and she's a witch but the family thought I was
> all Muggle for ages" But a non-magical person born into a wizarding family
> isn't a muggle, they're a squib - like Filch. So why does he say muggle? We
> know his parents were tortured by Death Eaters and are in St Mungos so it's
> not like his mother was a squib who married a muggle. I'm confused. <<

Good point, and while Katy's explanation that it was one too many 
explanations for that point in the series is a good one structurally, Neville 
himself is unconcerned with the structure of the books.

I think you've just unearthed a clue that Harry and Neville have more in 
common than the loss of their parents due to Voldemort's ambitions. Clearly 
one of Neville's parents was Muggle-born. 

Think about it. The family could only have feared that he was a Muggle if 
there already *were* actual Muggles in the family. And they would only have 
gotten that het up over it if there was a real possibility that he might NOT 
have been born with magic. 

And until we know whether Neville's gran is Madam Longbottom or Madam 
something else we won't know which side of his family is the pureblood one. 
Because there is a enough circumstancial evidence to be pretty confident that 
his gran is a pureblood. But "Squib" is a fairly shamefull term inside the ww 
and I suspect that Neville's gran was too uptight to use it in the boy's 
hearing.

Of course after he gets to school and Squibs are explained to him he stats 
comparing himself to Squibs. As he has done for the past couple of books. 

-JOdel 


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]