TBAY: Longbottoms and memory charms

[saraquel_omphale]

No: HPFGUIDX 132238

> "dungrollin" wrote:
> 3. According to JKR the Lestranges were not in on the prophecy, 
and 
> their reasons for attacking the Longbottoms were not to do with 
> Neville.
> This is the important bit ---->
> 4. The state in which we currently find the Longbottoms, sounds 
> uncannily like the state of Bertha Jorkins after Voldy had 
finished 
> breaking through her memory charm (but before he disposed of her, 
> obviously).<-----

Saraquel writes:
Hey, I like that explanation of the Longbottoms state, but I don't 
think that Crouch was the one to perform the original memory charm. 
I think it would probably have been DD.  Referring to my previous 
post 132070, and I'm quoting now

"I think that what Snape told DD that convinced him to
trust him, was what experiments LV had done to try and achieve
immortality. Proof that the DEs know this is in GoF p562 when LV
addresses the DEs in the graveyard "And then I ask myself, but how
could they have believed I would not rise again? They, who knew the
steps I took, long ago, to guard myself against mortal death?"

DD also had the prophecy, he knew that either Harry or Neville was 
the ONLY one who could conquer LV.

So with these two bits of information, he set about working out how 
to finally conquer LV. I suspect that DD has been putting into 
action a plan he hatched even BEFORE LV tried to kill Harry. So he 
must have sat down with the Potters and the Longbottoms and devised 
something which would be a failsafe to keep both Harry and Neville 
alive in the event that LV tried to kill them."

Adding to that, DD might well have then performed a memory charm on 
them (with their agreement)to keep that plan and the prophecy 
secret, even from them, so that if they were attacked by DEs they 
wouldn't give it away.  I know it sounds like madness to say that 
they could enact a plan they didn't know about, but it seems that 
the whole thing hinged on a mother sacrificing herself for her 
child. This is an instinctive thing, or they could just be left with 
the knowledge that the only hope for their child's survival would be 
their own sacrifice. As a mother, I'd have agreed to that.

I'm not convinced that the Longbottoms have a big secret (well 
information that DD doesn't already know) to give away.

That does't answer the question as to why the Lestranges attacked 
the Longbottoms in particular. But I am assuming LV knew the whole 
of the first line of the prophecy - up to "seventh month dies".  He 
definitely didn't know any further. He would have been interested 
from that moment on in both families.  So even if the Lestranges 
didn't know the prophecy they might have known that LV was 
interested in the Longbottoms. Yes, very weak argument I know :-)

"dungrollin" wrote:
> So "Who Knew The Prophecy?" is an important question, the answer 
> to which JKR is not yet ready to reveal. 

Well, I'm wondering about our goat obsessed Aberforth for one.  He 
owns/works in the Hogshead after all.  But where that leads, who 
knows, probably nowhere.

Saraquel