Snape/Neville/Trevor

[jodel at aol.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 53098

Now, I've got a different view of all of this issue.

I think that the Snape vs. Neville situation IS personal, and that it has 
nothing to do with memory charms, nothing to do with his parents, and 
everything to do with Neville himself.

We have been told that the older Longbottoms do not recognize their son. Do 
they not recognize him as a member of their family, or do they not recognize 
him as being a member of the same species as themselves? Are they mental 
vegetables, lying in their own little worlds of deep shock where they cannot 
be reached, or do they no longer recognize themselves as human and have to be 
kept under sevre Magical restraint? What is Neville's grandmother *thinking* 
of in dragging him off to St Mungo's to visit these strangers who are 
determined to remain strangers? 

Clearly the experience has traumatized the boy. No matter how many assurances 
he may have been given that his parnts did not do this to themselves, he has 
come away with the conviction that this is what comes of dealing with Magic. 
And he wants no part of it.

My reading of Neville is that he desperately *wants* to be a Squib. 
Everything he says includes a reminder that he is "practially a Squib", that 
he is magically incapable, a veritable waste of space. Everything he has ever 
been shown to have done magically has been something that might as well have 
been calculated to give observers the message that he is no good magically, 
and should be removed from Hogwarts, sent home and permitted to forget about 
it. That people should just stop trying to force him to be a wizard. He 
doesn't *want* to be one. 

Of course the very methods of avoidence Neville uses only serve to point out 
that his problem is not power, but control. And Snape, for one, sees right 
through the "act" and it gets right up his nose, with absolutely predictable 
results. (The big problem here is that Snape is convinced that Neville is 
being passive-agressive deliberately, while I'm not convinced that it is 
consious at all.)

Neville's absent-mindedness is another issue, mind you. That's genuine 
enough. The kid is off in his own private little  world, inside his head, and 
things either don't get through in the first place or he checks right back 
out again and forgets  them. 

As to his sorting, I agree that Gryffindor was the only real possibility, but 
I suspect that the (very long) time it took to get him sorted was not, as in 
Harry's case, over any debate as to *which* House, as to get the kid resigned 
to going into *any* House. Let's look at the choices, shall we?

Slytherin? It is to laugh. If ever there was a child with abosluely *no* 
wizardly ambition, Neville is that child. This wasn't even on the menu.

Ravenclaw? Hardly, Neville is well within "normal" IQ range, but he lacks the 
sort of mental quickness which is all that would keep him from being 
effectively trampled by his housemates in Ravenclaw. Despite the fact that 
the "Claws are probably the most determined individualists of all the Houses, 
they're a competitive lot with it, and it's everyone for himself. Neville's 
"duffer" routine would cut no ice in Ravenclaw.

Hufflepuff? No, again. This is "group think" territory, here. The Hufflepuff 
motto is "nobody left behind", but that only applies if you do your part for 
the rest of the "team". The Hufflepuffs move at the speed of their weakest 
member, which is why they rarely get the glory. But they always finish the 
course. The 'Puffs have no tolerance for the sort of "odd duck" that Neville 
is. And they have a nasty habit of ganging up on outsiders, slackers, or 
people who deliberately let their side down. For his own sake, it's a damn 
good thing that Neville is *not* in Hufflepuff.

So what real possibility was there ever, but Gryffindor? 

(He'd probably trade places with Harry in a heartbeat so long as he could 
*stay* with the Dursleys and attend the local comprehensive.)

I'll admit that I'm finding Neville a bit of a puzzle once I step back and 
try to sort him out. 

He's clearly cowed by adults, particulary older or agressive adults - which, 
given his upbringing is certainly one direction such  things might reasonably 
have been expected to go - but he seems to not be at all fazed by kids his 
own age. I'm  almost beginning to think that the only reason we haven't seen 
him flareing back at Malfoy & Co. more than we have is his aversion to 
situations where he might be forced to have to do magic, plus the fact that 
he doesn't like being hit any more than the next kid, and you rarely find 
Malfoy without his goons in  attendence. At that, Neville's thrown a punch at 
them at least once. 

On a related flip side of the social issue, he didn't hesitate to stand up to 
the trio, and he was not only the first of Harry's year mates (that we heard 
of) to actually screw up his courage and ask a girl to the Yule Ball, he had 
the good sense to ask someone he considers a friend, rather than getting 
distracted by the (frankly barbaric) Weasley equation of trying to find the 
best looking girl who might actually accept him. And when the one he asked 
turned him down, had the traditional 
well-bred-young-gentleman-at-dancing-school manners to transfer the 
invitation the female friend that she was standing next to. We may not know 
much about the Longbottom socio/economic background, but Neville's Gran 
clearly values traditional standards of behavior. And he's shown us no sign 
of finding them a burden. Can you even imagine the level of Weasley whinge 
should anyone try to hold Ron to that kind of standard? Neville clearly wants 
to be a "good" wizard, but I'm far less convinced that he values the idea of 
being being a good "wizard". 

(It's beginning to look to me as if it may be Neville who is the real flip 
side to the Malfoy's prominent pureblood coin, rather than Ron and his 
siblings. At least in the "two Houses alike in digity" sweeps.) 

And, yes, Neville *does* go through *all* the motions of "trying" to do well. 
Yet, every time he opens his mouth, he reminds people of what a bundle of 
incompetence he is as a wizard. He might just as well be saying "Look at what 
a duffer I am. Can I go home now?" It might even be significant that the only 
class he relaxes and does his best in, without sabotaging his own efforts is 
Herbology, which probably requires the least active use of Magic in its 
performance. (Not much absent-mindedness on display in the greenhouses, 
either, I suspect! Although, admittedly, plants do tend to just sit there 
until you remember what it was you were doing.) 

I contend that he probably isn't deliberately, repeatedly, shooting himself 
in the foot. But he pretty clearly wants to be let off the hook of Magic use 
altogether. I'm now beginning to wonder if, after trying for four years 
straight to get himself sent home for some reason that he publically "can't 
help", he is going to finally hit his own wall and have to really face face 
the fact that he *is* a wizard, his magic is not going to go away, he can't 
supress it the way he did as a tiny tot, and that if he and the people he 
cares about are going to survive, he had damned well better get control of 
it. 

And in the meantime, we should hardly be surprised that Snape, who sees just 
about all of the same evidence we do, and ascribes the worst possible motives 
to it, should be driven batty by Neville's whole "duffer" act and be 
determined to take it out of Neville's hide. 

As to Trevor. I can't think of any significance he plays, apart from 
underscoring Nevill'e "odd duck" status. Unless someone decides to toadnap 
him to hatch out another Basilisk. 

_JOdel