TBAY: Longbottoms and memory charms

[nkafkafi]

No: HPFGUIDX 132397

Captain Neri looks astonished at the small flotilla gathering around
him, above water and below it, all maneuvering for a better position
on the lee side.

"Shiver me timbers! We're surrounded!"  He sneaks a look down the
engine bay, which was hastily converted into an ammunition bay, "and
nearly out of marine metaphors, too. OK, crew, forget about them
canons! It's time for serious meta-thinking!"

(to answer Dungrollin's query, in the suspicious absence of First Mate
Alla, the crew of the ELKINS AVENGED consists mainly of Sailing Master
Neri, Able Shipman Neri and Cabin Boy Neri, all wearing time turners
around their necks. I suspect this isn't a unique phenomenon either.
Haven't you noticed that as we are approaching July 16 the days seem
to have more and more hours in them?)

> Dungrollin:
> Dumbledore not knowing whether Crouch Junior was innocent or not is 
> perfectly possible and compatible with the theory. DD probably knows 
> that the DEs tortured their way through the memory charm, and thinks 
> that the Longbottoms have no hope of recovery (FWIW, I hope they 
> don't recover, I like a good tragic past).  He swallows Crouch 
> Senior's cover story, that the DEs attacked the Longbottoms because 
> they thought they knew what had happened to Voldemort after GH. 
> Crouch Senior is hardly going to admit that it was his slip of the 
> tongue that put Junior and co on the scent of the Longbottoms, is 
> he? He's set to lose enough from the whole horrible series of events 
> as it is.  Junior is protesting his innocence, while Bonkers Bella 
> insists they were trying to find Voldy.  Why should DD think Crouch 
> Senior let the info loose?  

> Actually, a little tweak and all is well.  Crouch Senior not only 
> gets the Longbottoms to agree to have a memory charm, but he agrees 
> to have one himself, having been told at least about the existence 
> of the prophecy (if not the specific wording) by DD too.  What he 
> lets slip to his son is that he and the Longbottoms "...had to have 
> memory charms, and it's so strange, isn't it? Because I obviously 
> can't remember why I needed it... leaves one a bit disoriented, you 
> know?  Ah well, must get on with some work. You can amuse yourself, 
> can't you, Junior?"
> 
> That way DD would never assume that it was Crouch Senior who put 
> Junior and the others onto the Longbottoms.
>

Neri:
Erm
, if Junior is dead, Senior was memory-harmed and now is also
dead, the Longbottoms will never recover, and Bella and DD had never
suspected, then how would Harry and us ever learn about the nice story
above?  

Unless Junior told Voldy during the GoF year, and we will learn about
it all from Voldy. But Voldy had Crouch Sr. conveniently at hand and
nicely Imperio'ed during most of the GoF year, and *Voldy* canonically
knew about the Longbottoms being prophecy second option, so he would
have a very good guess what was it that Crouch Sr. and the Longbottoms
had wanted to forget. Voldy is obsessed with the prophecy, remember?
So why didn't he try to crack Crouch Sr. the same way he cracked
Bertha and wrench the prophecy out of him? And if for some reason he
failed in this, why didn't he go for Frank and Alice next? They were
considerably less protected than the prophecy orb in the DoM.

My conclusion: Voldy didn't have any reason to suspect from Crouch
Jr.'s story that Crouch Sr. and the Longbottoms ever knew about the
prophecy. Why? Perhaps because Junior told him what was it that the
Longbottoms *really* knew, and it *wasn't* the prophecy. 

> Dungrollin:
> Ah, now. You see, if I were patient and thorough and not prone to 
> constructing flimsy craft out of whatever materials were at hand, I 
> could make a good case that Neville's problems are *all* about 
> confidence, and nothing to do with memory charms at all. I think, 
> Neri, that you're possibly a little guilty of accepting a theory 
> (albeit a very convincing one) as canon here, no?
> 

Neri:
Nope. I even wrote that the possibility of "no memory charms at all"
(neither Neville nor his parents) is still the most probable. I only
pointed out that *if* Alice and Frank are memory-charmed but Neville
doesn't, then JKR would look rather stupid when she finally reveals
it. Either she has been foreshadowing memory-charms since SS/PS, or
she hasn't, but if she has then leaving the foreshadowed person with
only a non-magical explanation would be rather lame. If JKR wanted to
have memory-charmed! Frank-and-Alice but merely-insecure!Neville, she
could have easily afflicted him with some psychological problem other
than a poor memory.

> Dungrollin:
> You remember when Crouch!Moody told Neville that Professor Sprout 
> had said he was good at Herbology?  Do you think Professor Sprout 
> had ever said anything of the kind?  No, neither do I.  It was 
> simply Crouch!Moody's way of getting the book describing Gillyweed 
> into Harry's dormitory. From that moment on, though, from having had 
> no confidence in anything at all, Neville believes (erroneously) 
> that a *teacher* said that he's good at something.  As his 
> confidence in Herbology increases, so do his marks, until Herbology 
> is clearly his best subject. And with a little confidence thus 
> gained, and a bit of fear and determination when the DEs escape 
> Azkaban, his confidence in DADA increases still further.  Even 
> McGonagall says that in Transfiguration all he lacks is confidence, 
> she never upbraids him for forgetting incantations.  

Neri:
Neville was good at Herbology since his first year:
*****************************************************
SS/PS Ch. 17:
To their great surprise, both he and Ron passed with good marks;
Hermione, of course, came top of the year. Even Neville scraped
through, his good Herbology mark making up for his abysmal Potions one.
*****************************************************

This is not to say that Neville *doesn't* have a confidence problem.
He surely does, and it *can* fully explain his poor memory. I'm only
saying that Neville having, for non-magical reasons, the very same
problem his parents have for a magical reason would be kinda poor writing.

> Dungrollin:
> That's your case? Pah! It only seems a bit rubbish because I can't 
> work out why Who Knew About The Prophecy is going to be important. I 
> just can't quite work out where or how or by whom or when. Or why, 
> really. Whether it's important in terms of the backstory, or 
> important in terms of future events and so on and so forth.

Neri:
I hope I managed to explain above that my difficulty with Neville
Isn't Memory Charmed But His Parents Are has nothing to do with any
possible backstory or plot or anything. It's meta-thinking. It simply
seems like a blunder that JKR could have easily avoided by giving
Neville another type of a psychological problem. 

Mooseming, piloting her new MINISUB, wrote:
> Ah, there's the 
> leverage! Barty Jnr places Neville under the Imperious curse 
> compelling him to "Find Harry Potter and befriend him. Tell the toad 
> all. Further instructions to follow." An Imperious curse, 
> experienced at such a tender age, leaves Neville's mind confused, 
> the only indication, however, is a poor memory. The DE's are 
> captured but not before they have created a sleeper agent.

Neri:
My problem with Imperio'ed!Neville is very similar to my problem with
Neville Isn't Memory Charmed But His Parents Are. If JKR *hasn't* been
foreshadowing any magically-afflicted!Neville then this is all just us
overanalyzing the text, and we're all heading fast for the bottom of
Theory Bay. But if she *has* been foreshadowing it, then a memory
charm is the obvious candidate. Now, if JKR shouts in the end of HBP:
"Ha! Fooled ya! It's *not* a memory charm! It's a Forgetfulness
Potion!" then this would be fair nuff, because the symptoms of
Forgetfulness Potion are (presumably) forgetfulness, and Neville (as
JKR has been telling us over and over) is a forgetful boy. In fact, a
Forgetfulness Potion would be a rather typical JKR sneakiness,
springing on us a tiny detail that was waiting quietly in the corner
since SS/PS, while in the meantime there was much ado about memory
charms. But JKR shouting "Ha! Fooled ya! It's *not* a memory charm!
It's an Imperio!" sounds to me rather like cheating, unless she had
planted some canon that Imperio might have a forgetfulness effect. Had
she? JKR had shown us the effect of Imperio from the PoV of Harry
himself as a victim, more than once, and I don't remember it including
any forgetfulness. She showed us Crouch Sr. at Hogwarts while he was
imperio'ed (GoF, Ch. 17) and he seemed eerie and distant, but he
didn't forget anything, except when he called Percy "Weatherby", but
he already started doing that during the QWC, before he was
Imperio'ed. Now, in the forest (Ch.28) he did seem to forget where he
was from time to time, except that it wasn't really forgetfulness but
more the opposite: he was suddenly living again moments from his past,
and he was taking to trees as if they were people. In any case it was
nothing like what Neville had ever done.

Mooseming:
> In the future Neville will learn that Harry is the chosen one and he 
> is not, that Harry is the reason his parents were attacked, they 
> suffered because of Harry and not in defence of their own son. 
> Neville may become resentful he may, provoked by a latent Imperio, 
> betray Harry.

Neri (meta-thinking again):
If this is what JKR has in store for us, shouldn't she have written
Neville as less of a bungler? As an unsuspected enemy he's not very
scary. What is he going to do? Point his wand at Harry and shout
"Ibperio!" ?

> Dungrollin:
> By the way, Neri, I've been meaning to ask (and sorry for crossing 
> TBAYs), but how is the VASSAL coping with "In choosing which boy to 
> murder, he was also (without realising it) choosing which boy to 
> anoint as the Chosen One - to give him tools no other wizard 
> possessed - the scar and the ability it conferred, a magical window 
> into Voldemort's mind?" (JKR's most recent FAQ answer.)

Neri:
I truly don't see why the above constitutes any problem for VASSAL.
Could you elaborate?

And on the subject of VASSAL, SSSusan asked:

> How *do* you manage to pilot both the VASSAL and the 
> ELKINS AVENGED??"

Neri:
I don't. Not enough time turners for that <g>. As I wrote in #130838,
I experimented a lot with the design of the VASSAL but nothing really
satisfied me, so I left her by the dock to fend for herself in the
hurricane. She might survive it, or not. Of course, if another captain
wants to take care of her, be my guest.

> SSSusan:
> We've still got margarita fixin's on the DRIBBLE SHADOWS.  You're 
> welcome to set your gangplank against her & come aboard!

Neri:
Margaritas, eh? What kind of seamanship is that, I ask you. It seems
there are certain captains around here who still think this is some
kind of a *pleasure cruise*. Wait for July 16, all I say. Now, how
about some rum? 


Neri