[HPforGrownups] Nearly The One - Was:Re: Prophecy wording - why not Neville?

[elfundeb]

No: HPFGUIDX 128386

Annemehr:
> I feel comfortably sure that Harry is The One. But, need Neville be
> either The One or Not The One?  Might it make a difference that
> Neville is Nearly The One?

An interesting and thought-provoking idea, though for reasons set
forth in more detail below, I would find that to be very unsatisfying.

Though Hogwarts was known to Neville, it still must have
> been a great relief to him when his letter arrived - a rescue from his
> gran's disappointment if he hadn't been magical enough.

Ah, Gran's disappointment.  Unfortunately for Neville, Gran's
disappointment is a constant presence in his life, and admittance into
Hogwarts didn't improve it much.  It must have been horrible for
Neville when Gran belittled his magical abilities in front of the
Trio, and I imagine that's a constant thing.  Remember the Remembrall
she gave him?  It was really useless (because it wouldn't tell you
what you'd forgotten) except as a reminder of his poor memory.

It's hard to know exactly why Gran torments Neville so.  I sometimes
think she might have acted to keep Neville safe from harm -- if he was
advertised as lacking magical ability, then the DEs (and Voldemort
after his return) would leave him alone.   But an equally likely
reason for Gran's treatment of Neville is her overwhelming
disappointment that it was that Potter kid, and not *her* grandson,
who defeated Voldemort.  Because at that time, Frank and Alice were
running neck and neck with James and Lily in defying the Dark Lord,
and Frank was a popular Auror on top of that.

So this is a very long-winded way of saying that for Neville to be
Nearly the One would be equivalent to being a failure in Gran's eyes,
and perhaps in Neville's eyes as well.  And perhaps why I think that
to be a success, Neville either needs to be the One, or he must chart
a completely different course.

Perhaps I am channeling Elkins, but I don't think it would be very
satisfying at all for Neville to avenge what happened to his parents
by killing Bellatrix, which many have suggested.  If he did that, he
would become the person Gran wants him to be, which seems to be
someone very different from the person Neville is and wants to be.  I
think Harry would be much more likely to want revenge on Bellatrix now
that she's killed Sirius.

> Many of us will remember the heyday of the MemoryCharmed!Neville
> theories -- that his memory was so bad, not naturally, but because
> he'd either received too strong a memory charm as a toddler, or had a
> memory charm broken.  These theories have lost some of their
> visibility of late, but still it's easy to wonder if something had
> happened to him to affect his mind -- which would bear the shadow of a
> similarity to the fact that Harry's mind is affected by his scar.
> Whether it's a memory charm, or something else (even if it's "only" a
> repressed memory), there's the possibility that Neville was marked in
> some way by the Death Eaters.  Being marked by Death Eaters is like
> being almost marked by Voldemort, no?

It's good to see someone mention the Memory Charm theories again. 
Despite post-OOP reports that all Memory Charm theories had sunk under
Hurricane Jo, I agree with you that the theory is alive and well,
though the clues are much less obvious.  So I will digress for a
moment to comment that there were concrete examples of memory lapses
in OOP.  We don't hear about Neville forgetting the passwords, but
only because someone conveniently devised a password that Neville
could not fail to remember; however, Neville cannot remember the name
of the "Philosopher's Stone" -- he calls it the "Philological Stone." 
I believe there are other clues as well.

To link to what I said about Gran above, it's posible that she cast a
Memory Charm to make him appear inept, to keep the DEs away.  (It was
Uncle Algie that forced the magic out of him, IIRC.)    Or it could
have been a host of other candidates whom I won't mention here.

> Almost the right birth, almost the right parents, almost a Muggle,
> almost an orphan, maybe almost marked -- Neville really is an echo of
> Harry.  Will his role be an echo of Harry's role, as the secondary
> hero, and above all the others?  Does the fact that Neville partly
> fits the prophecy (if such is indeed the fact) have a true, magical
> significance?

I guess what I'm saying is that Neville's narrativ function would be
sad indeed if he was merely Harry's echo or his shadow.   Neville
demonstrated that he was *not* Harry's shadow when he stood up to the
Trio in PS/SS.  And while Neville worked extremely hard in the DA, and
forcefully argued to accompany Harry to the DoM, he did not succeed in
a single spell.  Neville had a hand in destroying the prophecy, but it
was sheer accident.  As a shadow, he seems not to be a success.

Yet he stuck around to the end, and never wavered in his determination
to keep the prophecy from Voldemort.  He even exhorted Harry not to
give it to the DEs as they were getting ready to Crucio him.  (Harry,
OTOH, was ready to hand it over.)  If Voldemort is to be vanquished
through a means other than a great wand duel, then I think there's at
least a possibility that Neville could accomplish it.  If Neville is
not the One, though (and I will reiterate that the odds against it are
very high), instead of being Nearly the One, would it not be better
for him to be recognized for something very different?

I have a vision in which Neville, in an act that manifests his core
virtues -- humility, steadfastness, moral courage, to name a few --
provides an essential ingredient without which Harry could not
vanquish the Dark Lord, or perhaps without which Harry could not
survive.  Neville's perspective is unique, and often ignored. 
Dumbledore's recognition of Neville act of courage in PS/SS, which
provided the final points Gryffindor needed for the Quidditch cup, is
perhaps a foreshadowing of an such an ending.
  
Debbie
who really enjoyed reading Annemehr's post on Sin/Redemption & Snape /
Christianity in HP, too