Neville's family

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 87582

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "meriaugust" <meriaugust at y...>
wrote:
> I was just rereading my copy of SS (I am on vacation now and can 
> thankfully read whatewver I want!) and I came across this line in 
> the Sorting Hat chapeter, page 125, American edition where all the 
> new Gryffindors are talking about their families. "Well, my gran 
> brought me up, and she's a witch," said Neville, "but the family 
> thought I was all Muggle for ages." Neville then goes on to describe 
> the Blackpool Pier incident and how he almost drowned. My question 
> is this: why would the Longbottoms think that Neville was all 
> Muggle? Was his mother from a Muggle family? Or are the Longbottoms 
> not all wizards and witches as I thought? I always assumed that the 
> Longbottoms were an old wizarding family (ala the Weaslys and the 
> Malfoys) but maybe Gran and Frank were the only ones to have any 
> magical powers. Maybe that's why the majority of the Longbottom 
> family emerged unscathed from the first war: they weren't magical 
> enough for LV to care about killing them. Any thoughts? 
> Meri

The line *is* confusing. maybe JKR hadn't invented the term "squib"
yet when she wrote PS/SS. In any case, they're definitely a wizarding
family. Since Uncle Algie drops Neville out of a window to see if
he'll bounce and buys him a toad, I'm pretty sure he's a wizard, and
Neville's mother was obviously a witch or she wouldn't have been an
auror (or in St. Mungo's now). But the clincher for me is Dumbledore's
reference to Neville as a "pureblood" in OoP (842 Am. ed.). I can't
see Dumbledore being mistaken on such an important point. It was the
Muggle blood on Harry's mother's side that caused Voldemort to go
after him rather than Neville.

Carol