Neville and the Thestrals

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 104530

-becky: Just a general point here as I reread OotP... Neville's 
grandfather was killed in front of him. Many signs point to 
Neville's memory having been tampered with-- why would this memory 
be left? Just musing, really...
  
Christina: I have wondered this also, but I also wonder how his 
grandfather died? Could he have died in VMW1 when his parents were 
attacked?
 
Pixie: Who says his grandfather was killed? I always pictured him 
dying in bed, from natural causes. There would be no need to modify 
a memory like that.

Carol (responding to everybody):
I don't have the exact quote handy, but Bellatrix taunts Neville
during the DoM battle about his grandmother losing yet another
relative (meaning Neville himself) to the DEs. That to me suggests
that the DEs killed her husband as well as torturing her son and
daughter-in-law into insanity. (Bella herself may have had a hand in
the murder, though her specialty is the Cruciatus Curse.)

Not that I believe Neville has had his memory modified. The human mind
can only take so much suffering, and I imagine that his forgetfulness
is partly the result of repression from which he's slowly recovering.
There really is no need for memory modification spells to explain his
mental and emotional state in Books 1 through 5.

Carol