Comments | bluestocking20: Why was Neville not harmed?

bluestocking20

Why was Neville not harmed?

Jan 01, 2007 02:48

The Lestranges, according to JKR, were sent after the Longbottoms, believing they had information on Lord Voldemort's whereabouts. They tortured Frank and Alice into insanity. But why didn't a sadist like Bella use Neville as leverage? (as horrible as that is) Their own child, I imagine as much loved as Harry Potter. We never hear anything at the ( Read more... )

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RE: Here through DS or HT, can't remember which... wolfsbaine January 3 2007, 16:49:44 UTC

The only person who knew Neville was going to be an also ran, was Voldemort. The prophecy says...'will mark him as his equal'...Voldemort would never have chosen Neville, because he chose the child most like himself, rightly believing that child would have the same core desire to stop LV that he (LV) had to take over the WW and that would not be a pureblood in his eyes, given that he (LV) has made most purebloods subservient to him.

My thoughts on why Neville wasn’t with his parent’s when they were attacked was because they were no longer in hiding, they didn’t need to be; LV had fallen at that point and the threat lifted through the choice LV had made. So the Longbottom’s would have returned to work helping to round up the rest of the DE’s. Neville would not have been at work with them normally so wouldn’t have been with them when they were picked up.

One would also have to assume that time was limited for Bella and co as they were effectively on the run so didn’t really have the time to get Neville to use for leverage and I doubt they would want to. At this point in the scheme of things, they believe Voldemort is dead. They aren’t just looking for someone to give them information; they are looking for someone to punish, to exact revenge upon. They are looking for someone to torture more then anything else and the use of the Crucio curse would be more effective serving both the lust for vengeance, while not inadvertently upping there profile as loyal and deadly DE’s. So for those reasons cited, there is no leverage in Neville, because his parent’s would give in to quickly were he to be threaten and Bella and Co wanted to hurt someone more then they believed there was any information to be gained.

Re: Here through DS or HT, can't remember which... bluestocking20 January 4 2007, 03:43:57 UTC

True, but I can't help but thinking of Bella going for Ginny first, and there was nothing to stop her from going on even if she got what she wanted...and I wonder if the Longbottoms even had any information on Voldemort's whereabouts to begin with. Maybe they were just easy targets to point the finger at.

Re: Here through DS or HT, can't remember which... mary_j_59 January 4 2007, 04:38:23 UTC

Just a brief addition here - hope you don't mind. Doesn't it say, explicitly, that Bellatrix was looking for the Dark Lord and hoping to find where he had gone? There are hints at the beginning of HBP that she may have known something about the horcruxes. I don't think she did believe he was dead.

(The people who, IMHO, didn't believe Voldemort was gone forever: Dumbledore, quite clearly. Snape. Bellatrix. Hagrid - who tells Harry that Voldemort did not die, and that there was a remnant left. Even 11-year-old Ron seems to know as much as Hagrid.)

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