[HPforGrownups] Neville/Memory Charms

[Kelly Grosskreutz]

No: HPFGUIDX 56894

I was thinking about this on my way home tonight.  Things from this list
were jumbling around in my brain (Neville, what happened to his parents, the
potential use of a Memory Charm on him, Bertha Jorkins), and these are some
thought I came to.

First, I was thinking about how some people were wondering just how old
Neville was when the Longbottoms were tortured.  I had always assumed he was
an infant like Harry, which made me wonder why people thought he wouldn't
have been killed, let alone remembered anything.  Then I got to thinking
that his parents were found alive and their tormentors were captured, so the
DE's didn't get to finish their dirty deeds.  Which left me with Neville's
age at the time.

Correct me if I'm wrong anywhere here.  I'm too lazy to go doublecheck GoF
to verify my facts.  Just trying to get this written up so I can get to bed.
During one of the trials in the Pensieve (Karkaroff's?), we see Crouch Sr.
If I'm not mistaken, somewhere in one of these trials we overhear him
telling someone that his son had just received 12 O.W.L.'s.  This would
place Crouch Jr. as just having finished his fifth year, around 16 years
old.  If these particular trials were held not long after Voldemort's
disappearance, then we can put Neville between 1-2 years old.

Later, we see Crouch Jr.'s trial for the torture of the Longbottoms.  Harry
places his age at around 19.  So this trial would then have had to be 3-5
years after the first batch, giving a little bit of leeway for age
miscalculations on both ends.  If this is the case, Neville was anywhere
between 4-7 years old.  Let's say 5 just for the fun of it.   This would be
long enough after all the post-war trials that the WW would have been
feeling safe.  This would also make Neville old enough to be able to
remember what transpired if he was actually at home at the time, and not
with his Gran.

(Side note there:  I sometimes wonder if Neville was even at home, because I
could see the DE's easily killing him or torturing him just to get at his
parents and maybe to make them talk if they were there to gather
information.  Therefore, either they had a really good hiding spot for him
in the house, or he was not home at the time.)

This brings me to the Memory Charm bit.  We have been operating under the
belief that strong Memory Charms in and of themselves have the potential to
damage one's brain.  I've also wondered for a bit what would happen if a
person truly didn't *want* to forget something that another was trying to
make them forget.  Take Bertha Jorkins.  She has a reputation for being nosy
and a gossip.  She goes over to Crouch's on business.  She sees sitting in
his kitchen his son, a man presumed dead and known to be a vile DE, capable
of torture and most likely murder and whose last known living location was
Azkaban.  What is she going to want to do?  Tell someone.  For many
different reasons.  Crouch is said to have used a strong Memory Charm on
her.  I wonder if it had to be so strong because she didn't want to forget
and fought it.  I also wonder if the reason her brain seemed to be damaged
from it is because she fought so hard against it.

Maybe this is what happened with Neville, if you ascribe to the Memory Charm
theory.  Here's a scenario.  He's home at that time and hears (and perhaps
sees) everything.  The MoM shows up, investigates the scene, and decides
that it'd be kinder to the little boy if he didn't have to live with the
memories of being a witness to what happened to his parents.  They also know
that this is going to be a potent memory in the boy that would leave an
imprint on many different levels, therefore they know it's going to have to
be strong (otherwise he could have vividly horrible nightmares and then not
even know why he was having them).  For some reason, Neville decides to
fight against the Memory Charm.  Maybe he's afraid they'll make him forget
his parents entirely, and that's something he wouldn't want to do.  Again,
that could hurt him.

While I'm on Neville, I did have one other thought that would go on the
other side, that he didn't have a Memory Charm used on him.  I mean, there
are enough psychological reasons to explain why he is the way he is.
Perhaps he knew his father (and maybe mother) was a powerful wizard, and
after what happened to them, he believed that what happened to them was
because they knew his father was powerful, and now he's unconsciously
blocking himself from showing any hint of power because he's afraid that
he'll suffer the same fate.

Anyway, I think I'm done rambling for the night.  I should get myself to
bed.  As I'm still somewhat new here, forgive me if this stuff has been
hashed to death.  I haven't had a chance to read everything in the Best
Threads web page yet.

Kelly Grosskreutz
http://www.idcnet.com/~ivanova