Imperio'd Neville longbottom

[ssk7882 <skelkins@attbi.com>]

No: HPFGUIDX 50290

Galadriel wrote:

> At the recommendation from another site, I re read CH 14 
> of GoF to investigate a little more into Neville's role in 
> the series. It does seem to me that Moody/Crouch DID have 
> the opportunity to not only give Neville the book about the 
> gillyweed, but to also place Neville under the Imperius Curse 
> while in his office. 

I've seen this speculation before, but I've always found it
a little bit difficult to understand, myself, primarily 
because I just can't imagine what on earth Crouch/Moody's
*motivation* would have been in placing Neville under the 
Imperius Curse.

Seriously.  What would have been his purpose in doing this
thing?  It would have been taking a very big risk, to be
sure.  If anyone had found out, it would have compromised
his cover and jeapordized his main mission at Hogwarts: to
make sure that Harry got transported to that graveyard for
Voldemort's rebirthing ritual.  For me to believe that 
Crouch would have risked his cover in this fashion, I feel 
that I need to see some *very* compelling reason for him
to have wanted or needed to be able to control Neville
Longbottom in such a fashion.  

And I just can't think of one.  The only reason that I can 
possibly imagine that Crouch would have wanted an Imperio'd
Neville would be so that he could have control over someone
very close to Harry Potter.  But if this were the case, then
why *Neville,* of all people?  Wouldn't Ron have made a much 
better choice?

Also, if Crouch had Neville under the Imperius Curse, then
why wouldn't he have used that control to make sure that
Harry learned about the gillyweed from Neville, as per
the original plan, rather than having to fall back on 
Dobby's indiscretion?  Surely once he realized that Harry
did not, in fact, seem likely to ask Neville for help with
the Second Task, then he would have used his control over
Neville to *force* the information on Harry?  Caused Neville
to make some passing comment about the uses of gillyweed
in Harry's hearing some day in the common room?

That's certainly what I would have done, at any rate, if I 
had been in Crouch Jr's position, and if I had been controlling 
Neville with the Imperius.  

I don't think that Neville got Imperio'd during that little
tea session with Fake!Moody.  I do dearly wish that we knew
what *did* transpire, though.  I confess to an unwholesome
curiousity about that particular meeting.  If I could choose
one "off-screen" scene in all of canon to have witnessed as
a fly on the wall, that particular scene would almost certainly
be the one that I would pick.

> If you recall, Neville behaved strangely after that meeting. 

Neville was behaving strangely before that meeting.  His odd 
spat of aphasia, so suggestively reminiscent of the Memory 
Charmed Mr. Roberts from the QWC, takes place *before* he is 
ushered off to Fake!Moody's office.  It would seem to have been 
that demonstration of the Cruciatus Curse that set him off, not 
whatever transpired during Tea With Fake!Moody.

When Harry runs into Neville again in the dormitories, after 
his Tea With Fake!Moody, on the other hand, Harry thinks that 
Neville seems to be behaving *more* normally than he was before.  
He does, however, also note that Neville's eyes are red: Neville 
would seem to have been crying.  And, of course, he also did not 
sleep that night.

Personally, all that I think really happened to Neville there in 
Fake!Moody's office was that he had a nice long chat about his
poor mad Auror father, whom Moody would surely have known 
personally.  As, of course, would Barty Crouch Jr.  Although in 
a somewhat different context.  <small but twisted smile>

If you accept the idea that Neville may be operating under
some form of memory charm, however, then other possibilities
for what might have transpired do start suggesting themselves.
If Crouch/Moody had reason either to suspect or to knew that 
Neville was in possession of some information about the night 
of the assault on his parents, then he might have taken the
opportunity to do any number of things: he might have tried 
to determine just what Neville knew or remembered; he might
have cast a memory charm "reinforcement" on the poor lad;
he might have tried to evaluate the nature of any mental
magics under which Neville was already laboring.

The Imperius Curse, though?  I just can't see that somehow.
What would have been its *purpose?*

Star Opal asked:

> BUT as far Imperius goes, well I have a question: Does a 
> curse continue to function after the caster is dead or 
> incapacitated? He's been soul sucked - which is worse than 
> dead, just a shell.

I don't think that the Imperius Curse survives the death -- or
the soul-death, for that matter -- of its caster.

When Voldemort was disincorporated, his Imperius victims are
said to have snapped out of it -- like coming out of trances.  
Even if one believes that all of those people were faking it, 
I still think that this implies that the Imperius Curse is 
known not to survive the death of its caster.  I can't imagine 
that it would be any more likely to survive the soul-death of 
its caster.  

So if Crouch Jr. really did ever put any Hogwarts students 
under the Imperius Curse, I'd say that they would have been 
freed when he got the Kiss.

Alex wrote:

> I have often wondered if Neville was tortured too? Why is 
> he so bad with magic? Did he witness his parents being 
> tortured? Is he scarred and that is why he can not do 
> magic well?  Did they put some kind of memory curse on 
> him dimming his mind so he would not remember something? 

Many people have speculated here in the past about the 
possibility that Neville might have been tortured along 
with his parents, or that he might have witnessed his 
parents' torture that night, or that he might have been 
placed under a memory charm.  Or sometimes, all of the 
above.  ;-)

For this past spring's spate of memory charm speculations,
you might try the threads linked to in the HA entry on
Memory Charmed Neville:

http://www.hpfgu.org.uk/faq/hypotheticalley.html#memorycharm



Elkins