Who sent Bellatrix and Co. after the Longbottoms

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 141667

<snip Nora's post, which can be found upthread>
> 
> -Nora has devilish thoughts about who sent the DE crew after the 
> Longbottoms: someone who knew those people, and knew about the 
> prophecy, and wanted either or both of them gone...
>

Carol responds:
If Snape had wanted a Longbottom killed because of the Prophecy,
wouldn't it have been Neville? JKR states in the Rumours section of
her website that the Lestranges (and Barty Jr., whom she doesn't
mention) were "very definitely sent after Neville's parents" and that
they didn't know about the Prophecy. They would certainly have killed
or tried to kill Neville if they had, and if the person who sent them
knew about the Prophecy and was trying to thwart its fulfillment, he
would have informed them that it was the child, not the adults, who
posed the threat. And if he wanted them out of the way, he would have
ordered them killed, not Crucioed.

I admit that "sent" is a bit odd, but there's no reason to suspect any
particular sender, especially since the word appears only on the
website and not in the books, which seem to imply that they acted on
their own initiative. Crouch states that they're charged with
Crucioing the Longbottoms "believing [Frank] to have knowledge of the
whereabouts of your exiled master" (GoF Am. ed. 595). 

Bellatrix herself corroborates this motive: "We alone were faithful!
We alone tried to find him!" (GoF 596). And in HBP, she asks Snape
where he was when the Dark Lord fell and why he didn't "make any
attempt to find him" (HBP Am. ed. 596), a point reinforced by
Voldemort himself: Voldemort "They were faithful. They went to prison
rather than renounce me" (GoF 650). Bella distrusts Snape and
certainly doesn't regard him as having any authority over her. If he
had "sent" her to torture or kill the Longbottoms, either he or she
would surely have mentioned it in "Spinner's End," when Bella is
questioning his loyalty.

Sounds to me as if Snape had nothing to do with the Crucioing of the
Longbottoms. But if someone did send them (as indicated on the website
but not in the books), I wonder who it could have been.

Carol