The Sting: Lucius sent Bella (was:Re: LV: Where'd He Go and How did Frank...)

[Neri]

No: HPFGUIDX 150961

Neri:
Since lofty ships has been built (not the least by yours truly) on
that single line of JKR "the Lestranges were very definitely sent
after Neville's parents", I thought it worth looking more closely at
the context in which this line was written:

*****************************************************
JKR's website, "Rumours" section
http://www.jkrowling.com/textonly/en/rumours_view.cfm?id=25

[Rumour:]
The Lestranges were sent after Neville to kill him.

[JKR's answer:]
No, they weren't, they were very definitely sent after Neville's
parents. I can't say too much about this because it touches too
closely on the prophecy and how many people knew about it, but the
Lestranges were not in on the secret. 
*****************************************************

Note that the critical word "sent" may not have been originally
introduced by JKR at all, but by the fan who wrote this question, and
she may have used it only because that fan did. Both question and
answer aren't very clear, due to being written in the passive tense
and because JKR at the time had to hide Snape's involvement in the
prophecy (it was before HBP was published). But it now seems to me
that JKR's main (and perhaps only) objective here was to squash the
theory that the Longbottoms were attacked because of the prophecy.
Taking a guess at what went in JKR's head when answering this I think
it was something like this:

Question:
Oh, I see. This fan thinks that Voldemort sent the Lestranges to find
and kill Neville before (or maybe even after) he became vapor because
of the prophecy, or alternatively that the Lestranges were in on the
prophecy and therefore decided to kill Neville after Voldemort
disappeared.

Answer:
Well, I can't explain this before HBP is out, but the only DE who was
in on the prophecy at that time was Snape, and that wasn't because
Voldemort trusted him with it, but because it was Snape who overheard
it. This is highly classified information at this moment, but I must
stress in my answer that the Lestranges didn't know about the prophecy
at all and therefore had no reason to go after Neville. They were very
definitely after Frank and Alice for reasons other than the prophecy.


According to this interpretation the meaning of the words "were sent"
is ambiguous to begin with, since in the original rumor they can mean
either that it was Voldemort who sent the Lestranges, before or after
becoming vapor, or that the Lestranges sent themselves because of a
secret (i.e., the prophecy) that Voldemort had told them. It is not
clear at all that JKR meant to make the words "were sent" less
ambiguous in her answer. From the context it seems to me that by "very
definitely" she was actually refering to "after Neville's parents"
rather than to "the Lestranges were sent". So interpreting this answer
as "JKR said the Lestranges were sent after Frank and Alice by someone
other than Voldemort or themselves" is kind of shaky. It depends a lot
on whether you think JKR weights very carefully every word she writes
in her website or not. Based on some recent examples I personally tend
more to the "or not".

Now, regarding the Lucius' sting theory, while it generally works well
with the canon (especially with that shaky "the Lestranges were sent
by someone other than Voldemort or themselves") the problem that I see
with it is that it has low BANG quotient and doesn't advance the main
plot much. I keep returning to the fact that JKR has just one book
left to tie together all the loose ends and still locate and destroy
four Horcruxes while maintaining a fast pace moving towards the
biggest climax of the series. I see very little that a revelation of a
Lucius' sting in Book 7 can do to advance the story. It certainly can
cause a nice feud between Bella and Lucius should the plot demand it
(though we don't know that it should) but plotting the Longbottoms
affair throughout the series mainly in order to cause a feud between
Bella and Lucius in Book 7 strikes to me as a bit of an overkill. 

So my guess is that, if the reason for the attack on the Longbottoms
is going to play in Book 7 (which isn't certain at all) it would be in
the service of solving a big standing mystery. An obvious possibility
would be the location of one of the Horcruxes. Based on Bella's little
slip of tongue in Spinner's End ("in the past the Dark Lord had
trusted me with his most precious...") it seems that she was entrusted
with the safekeeping of a Horcrux shortly before GH, about the same
time when Lucius too (according to Dumbledore) was trusted with the
safekeeping of the Diary. It also appears that Voldy isn't very
satisfied with Bella's safekeeping performances. Perhaps Frank and
Alice, working as aurors and/or Order members, stole or confiscated
that Horcrux from Bella, probably not knowing what it really was. In
this theory the attack on the Longbottoms was Bella's attempt to
retrieve this Horcrux, and it looks like she failed. While this theory
isn't more canon-based than the Lucius sting, solving the Longbottoms
mystery in Book 7 would be considerably BANGier that way and would
directly advance the plot by leading to the discovery of this Horcrux.

Neri