OoP - More on Snape's memories and Neville's upbringing

[darrin_burnett]

No: HPFGUIDX 67046

Two distinctly different areas here.

When Harry made it through to Snape's memories, he saw a snippet of 
at least verbal abuse from Snape's father to his mother, a snippet of 
Snape killing flies (having just learned AK?) and Snape's pathetic 
attempts on a broom.

That's pretty painful stuff. Even the fly-killing is an indicator of 
how into dark arts this kid was. 

So, what did Snape try to protect from Harry's eyes, other than the 
Grey Skivvies scene? He left some pretty painful stuff in there, 
which indicates that what he took out is even worse.

Still!Evil!Snape theorists like myself might wonder if he took out 
the memory where he pledged eternal fealty to Lord Voldemort and they 
plotted his "defection" to Dumbledore.

Snape!Loves!Lily theorists might say it's the memory where Lily gives 
Snape the "let's just be friends" chat. 

Or, alternately, the memory where James threw Lily over his shoulder 
like a caveman, having just drugged her after blackmailing her into 
sleeping with him after beating her up. Known as the James!Never!
Reformed!But!Of!Course!Snape!Did! Theory.

I know this has been brought up in other forms, but I wanted to throw 
it out again with the wrinkle that what Snape did leave in his head 
was pretty bad too.

Of course, when it comes to Snape, a Penseive as big as a swimming 
pool might not be enough to hide all the bad memories.

Neville's upbringing.

OK, what if the Longbottoms and Gran did some kind of spell to 
dampen, suppress, even attempt to eliminate, the magic in Neville? It 
stands to reason that the Longbottoms would have heard the prophecy 
as well. 

Maybe this was their method of trying to protect Neville, reasoning, 
like Harry did, that V-Mort would go after the bigger threat and 
would wait until the kids had grown a bit before determining who the 
threat was. If V-Mort sees Neville is a Squib, maybe he leaves the 
kid alone. (Again, if it were me, I'd have killed both, and then any 
kid born in August, just to be safe.)

So maybe it's not a memory spell that has been hampering Neville. 
Maybe it's a magic suppression spell that is finally wearing off.

Darrin
- I love the 80s moment: "Bartles & James was the Zima of it's day."