A loose end or two...

[Jen Reese]

No: HPFGUIDX 83887

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "hermionegallo" 
<hermionegallo at y...> wrote:
> Kneasy said (snipped):
> 
> Lockhart is not nice. A liar, vain, a fraud; prime Voldy meat. But 
he 
> is very, very good at one thing. Obliviate!  Has Lockhart been 
> naughty in ways we haven't been told about?
> 
> 
> hg:
> Okay, so you've dragged me into the public, haven't you?  I'll add 
> this: Lockhart's skills could have *augmented* what the Lestranges 
> did to the Longbottoms.  Because I really think someone's behind 
> their extended incapacity, and it's most likely Malfoy.  So if 
we're 
> going to connect dot Lockhart to dot Malfoy, why not go to dot 
> Longbottom while we're at it?  


Jen: 

Are you all saying that Lockhart, via Lucius's orders, is continuing 
to keep the Longbottoms in their incapacitated state now? Thus 
Lockhart would only be pretending to have severe memory loss, 
keeping himself in St. Mungos and extraordinarily close to the 
Longbottoms. Or are you proposing that Lockhart, prior to 
Voldemort's fall, was a DE (or at least working with Lucius) and 
caused the Longbottoms to be incapacitated in the first place, along 
with the Lestanges? Or are both hypotheses being considered, for 
that matter :)?

Either way, we're back to that issue of what the Longbottoms know-- 
what causes so many people to want them alive, yet incapacitated? 
Because there's no doubt Bellatrix would have killed them without a 
second thought, if that's what she wanted to do in the first place. 
And could Lockhart's books possibly give us a clue to something the 
Longbottoms experienced and he took credit for before "Oblivate"! I 
don't know, but I'm sure going to review this in canon....