Great Uncle Algie and Neville's Gran

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 90334

 "suehpfan" wrote:
> It seems to me that what Neville's Grandmother really wants is to 
> protect Neville at all cost.  Is it possible that she has been using 
> memory charms on him all along in the hopes that he will be unable to 
> perform magic and therefore safe from the hands of one Voldemort and 
> his followers?  If that is possible, then isn't it also possible that 
> Uncle Algie is trying to thwart his sister (?) and make sure that 
> Neville gets what he needs to become the wizard Algie knows he can 
> be.  
> 
> It would explain Granny's refusal to allow Neville his own wand and 
> the constant jabs at his capabilities, not because she really 
> believes him incapable but because she hopes to keep him from 
> discovering his true potential. <snip>

Carol:
I think that both Uncle Algie and Gran care about Neville in their
different ways. I realize that hanging your great nephew out the
window by his heels is an odd way to prove affection, but Uncle Algie
is old and quirky and was worried until then that Neville might be a
Squib (I know the book says "All Muggle," but the term "Squib" hadn't
been introduced, and the Longbottoms are purebloods so Neville
couldn't have been any sort of Muggle.) Uncle Algie showed his
affection for Neville by giving him his two most prized possessions,
Trevor the Toad and the Mimbulus Mimbletonia. The second seems to
indicate that he now recognizes, and is proud of, Neville's skill in
herbology. Maybe it's also his way of saying that he's sorry he ever
doubted Neville (or hung him out the window).

Gran is harder to explain. In some ways she reminds me of Professor
McGonagall, stern and old-fashioned, but with more of a pureblood air
about her, yet she must be adamantly opposed to the Death Eaters, who
presumably killed her husband (we know that he's dead and Neville says
he saw him die) and Crucio'd her son and daughter-in-law, both Aurors,
driving them to insanity. I have no doubt that in her stern way she
loves Neville and is trying to do what's best for him, but instead of
encouraging him and building his self-confidence (which McGonagall,
for all her impatience with Neville's deficiencies, recognizes that he
needs), she reminds him of his deficiencies by sending him a
Remembrall and turning in his Hogsmeade permission form for him as if
she doesn't trust him not to lose it. Of course, the forgetfulness is
not an imagined failing--it's quite real, whatever its cause--but it
adds to her perception of his inadequacy. And since the way others see
us--especially powerful and important others whom we want to
please--shapes the way we see ourselves, Gran's view of Neville
reinforces his view of himself as not only forgetful and clumsy but
barely magical.

But the wand, I think, is something else again. I don't think Gran
deliberately gave Neville his father's wand to prevent him from
adequately performing magic. It probably did hinder Neville's progress
in Charms and Transfiguration, but I don't think that was Gran's
intention. I think the wand has more to do with her view of Frank, her
much-loved son. IMO, his wand is to her a cherished reminder of what
he was before the DEs took away his mind and powers, and I think that
her giving it to Neville meant two things. First, it was an admission
in her own mind that Frank was lost to her forever, that he would not
return, that he was, to all intents and purposes, dead. There would be
no moment of waking when she could return his wand to him and all
would be well again. Second, to give the wand she had so cherished to
Neville would be, in her view, a great honor. This was the wand that
had fought against Death Eaters, the wand that had been used three
times to challenge Voldemort himself--a token of Gran's hope that
Neville will overcome his deficiencies and bring honor to the family
by follow in his father's footsteps.

And now that wand broken. How will Gran react? Neville thinks she'll
"kill him," but Ron uses the same expression to describes Molly's
ranting and I think it's the same sort of adolescent exaggeration in
this case. Given the circumstances in which the wand was broken, I
think Gran will be proud rather than angry. Maybe she'll reaize that
even if Neville isn't Frank, she can still be proud of him in his own
right. I think and hope she'll be glad now to buy Neville his own
wand. After all, if he's going to fight Death Eaters like his father,
he'd better be able to do it right.

Carol, who doesn't think there's any need for memory charms to explain
what's wrong with Neville and has no doubt that he'll become a hero in
Books 6 and 7