The Longbottoms

[Jen Reese]

No: HPFGUIDX 158740

Ceridwen:
> I think LV's plan was to go to the two children born at the end of 
> July, to couples who had "thrice defied him", that night:  visit
> the Potters first, kill Harry, then move on to the Longbottoms and
> kill Neville.  Moving so quickly would have limited the 
> possibility that someone would warn the Longbottoms and move them 
> to safer surroundings.  It would also get rid of the two
> possibilities at once and clear the field for LV.

Jen: That seems like the most logical plan to me, too. Then Deb 
pointed out to me in post #158452 that canon is straightforward in 
this area: Voldemort went after the Potters. Fudge says that in POA 
and Dumbledore tells Harry again in OOTP, that Voldemort chose Harry.

I think she may be right after musing about it for awhile. 
Voldemort's plans aren't exactly illogical but they tend toward the 
obsessive. After reading about his psychological make-up in HBP  
it's believable to me he chose Harry and pursued him alone, certain 
his choice was right. If he did plan to kill both children it 
doesn't sound like Snape was aware or Dumbledore would have known 
that. 

Now to switch gears, I pulled the quote by JKR about the Lestranges 
being 'sent' by someone because it keeps coming up in this thread. 
Here it is, from the Rumours section of JKR's website: 

Q: The Lestranges were sent after Neville to kill him?

JKR: 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.

Jen again: She wrote this before HBP and now I'm puzzled about it. 
If she's trying to keep Snape's knowledge of the prophecy secret 
then there's an implication *he* was the one who sent the Lestranges 
to the Longbottoms. It definitely sounds like the prophecy was 
involved in the attack on the Longbottoms, but the orders were not 
to kill Neville but go after the parents. ??? Now I'm confused.

One thing though, the biggest mystery now is GH. Any resolution left 
for the Longbottom storyline is probably going to dovetail with that 
mystery because it fits most naturally there: The Longbottoms and 
Potters were tied together by the prophecy and likely the fates of 
both evolved from there.

Nate:
> Ok, so how does Bellatrix's horcrux fit with the Longbottoms?
> It's possible that the Longbottoms, in the course of their
> investigations, recovered the horcrux somehow (either immediately
> before they went into hiding, or, depending on the timeframe
> of the attack by Lestranges, possibly after they came out of
> hiding). 

Jen: Although I can't puzzle out the quote above, it does sound like 
the Longbottom attack had something to do with the prophecy and not 
horcruxes. I agree with you that Bella may have been entrusted with 
a horcrux, or the hiding of a horcrux, but it seems more likely to 
me her storyline would fit into the mystery of the fake locket in 
the cave.

Jen Reese