The Longbottom Affair: An Addendum to oryx_leucroryx’s Filling the Gaps Theory
Oryx suggested that the Longbottoms had not been tortured into insanity by the Death Eaters, but tortured, Obliviated, and released, in case Frank might subsequently learn more. And that Frank and Alice’s minds had been ripped apart by the Ministry (or just by Crouch), trying to recover the Obliviated memories. Because the Ministry guessed that the Longbottoms had been interfered with by some free Death Eaters, and were willing to sacrifice their minds in order to recover their memories.
*
I’d add first that if the Longbottoms had been released insane, but still alive, a skilled Legilimens should be able to get identifying images from their minds, even if they were unable to speak. (And Bellatrix, at least, we know to be skilled enough later to teach Draco, so she should have been aware of that possibility.) So it would have been safer to just kill them and add them to the war’s list of “disappearances” than to release them obviously victims of an attack.
But I'd add also that a “catch and release” policy would still make sense, not just if they hoped Frank might dredge up further information later. Specifically, if Frank DID crack and give the Lestranges a clue to Voldemort’s location. Consider. If, not just any old Auror, but one on the team that had been working on finding Voldemort suddenly disappeared (or showed up dead or insane)-well, being killed to stop him succeeding, or being kidnapped in case he had succeeded, would be the obvious first explanation, right? To any of this Auror’s friends or superiors who knew Frank’s current assignment? It would rivet attention on what Frank knew (or was in danger of finding out). So Obliviating him and letting him go would be the better course.
And the Lestranges might have had their eye on Frank because they knew him to be one of Dumbledore’s double agents in the Auror Department. When he made a casual visit to the headmaster, they might have decided the time was ripe to invite Frank and Alice to tea.
But there’s one significant bit of canon that this theory neglects: Dumbledore’s assertion that the attacks on the popular Longbottoms “just when everyone thought they were safe… caused a wave of fury such as I have never known. The Ministry was under great pressure to catch those who had done it. Unfortunately, the Longbottoms’ evidence was-given their condition-none too reliable.”
Okay, this is Dumbledore. But even liars speak truth occasionally. And Albus was usually too clever, even with Harry, to come out with a lie that could be easily checked and contradicted. Moreover, there’s no obvious benefit to Albus from such a lie.
And he states outright that it was the publicized attack upon the Longbottoms that drove the public into frenzy, baying for blood. Which Barty eventually satisfied by “catching” the Lestranges and his own son.
However, if it was known, and well-publicized, well before the arrest of the Pensieve Four, the P4 should have known that their former prisoners had turned up drooling at St. Mungo’s, supposedly as a result of recent Death Eater action.
And Bella at least we know to be bright-she should have figured out why the Longbottoms had turned up in that condition, and led the others in a run for it. If for no other reason than to be at liberty to restore her master.
And when/if that failed, Bellatrix should have brought up in court that THEY had left the Longbottoms twitching but coherent, and that it had to be the Ministry that had reduced the poor pair to that state.
Conversely, however, had it been the Lestranges who had reduced the Longbottoms to imbecility, why not brag of it? She did so (implicitly) to Neville years later, after all. Why not add a “So shall fare all Enemies of the Cause!” line to her proud peroration about her loyalty to her master?
Bellatrix proudly owned to casting the Cruciatus on the Longbottoms in an attempt to find out Voldemort’s location. But she showed no sign (then) of knowing that she, or anyone, had reduced them to insanity.
*
So. What if oryx’s suppositions were all correct, but the Lestranges had been out of communication when the ordure hit the fan?
Someplace where English scandals weren’t well reported (and none of their Owl-correspondents happened to report in time)?
Because, you know, there’s another mystery to clear up. Why on earth did “being caught with a group of Death Eaters who’d managed to talk their way out of Azkaban” suffice to indict Barty Junior on a charge of attempting to bring back Voldemort?
The “Death Eaters” in question were Barty’s second cousins, and they’d previously been cleared of Death Eater activity!
Why shouldn’t Barty have had lunch with Cousin Bella and her family? How is that incriminating?
Unless, of course, he were “caught” with them actually on the way to Albania, on their quest to bring Tom back.
*
Let’s back up to early November 1981, when the DMLE was first following up on leads that the Lestrange brothers and that Black bride might have been among Voldemort’s supporters.
We’re quite sure, are we, that Barty Senior was gullible enough to buy the Lestranges’ Imperius defense? Or, alternatively, that he cut a deal to leave them loose (for a price), because he considered them de-fanged? Others (jodel et al.) have speculated that that’s really why Lucius walked free. And the Karkaroff plea deal is canon. So we know that Barty Senior was completely willing to release a guilty man, if that guilty man offered Barty something valuable enough.
Well, what did Barty want more than anything else?
To catch one more Dark wizard. To increase his popularity.
Well, saving the WW from which Dark wizard would increase Barty’s popularity the most?
Maybe Barty released the Lestranges, not because he thought them innocent, and not because he thought them harmless. But because he thought the reverse-that they, out of all Voldemort’s followers, were the ones most likely to try to restore their master to power.
And then Barty could catch them in the act and thwart their attempt, and scoop the Boy-Who-Lived’s renown as the one who’d saved everyone from You-Know-Who.
Making Barty the hero who’d prevented Voldemort’s return, since it was too late to be the hero who’d vanquished Voldemort in the first place.
*
If so, the Lestranges were under surveillance. Heavy surveillance, the whole time they were in Britain.
So Barty Senior was on the alert when Bellatrix decided she needed to recover from her ordeal by heading to Paris for a shopping spree, particularly because she took both her husband and her brother-in-law with her.
Barty hadn’t the same resources in France as he did in Britain, but he did have some.
So he was aware when the trio quietly moved further, to the Lestranges' little vacation place in a Greek Wizarding enclave on the Ionian Sea.
And when the head of the DMLE received complaints that one of his Auror’s job performance had slipped dramatically in the last week or so, that the wizard in question had become forgetful and distracted, Barty remembered that Frank Longbottom had taken his wife to tea with his cousin Bellatrix just a few days before the Lestranges had decided to go on holiday.
Barty remembered, too, that the notorious Sirius Black had been a member of Dumbledore’s Order as well as of Voldemort’s Death Eaters. Black would certainly have told Voldemort the identities of his fellow Order members, and Voldemort might have passed some of that information on to his most trusted subordinates.
Auror Longbottom had visited Headmaster Dumbledore a few weeks back. Not long before Bellatrix’s invitation to tea, and her sudden decision to go abroad.
But Auror Longbottom had reported “no progress” in locating Voldemort to the head of the DMLE.
Now that would be treason. Making Auror Longbottom deserve to be treated as an enemy. And Frank apparently had information well worth taking apart his mind to obtain.
And his wife’s too, who’d taken maternity leave from Crouch’s service, when she turned out to be equally a traitor to the Ministry. To Crouch.
The next morning Barty presented the damage as having been due to the Death Eaters’ wanton attack on an Auror who had been trying to track and kill their exiled master. He promised, in a righteous fury, to determine and catch the Death Eaters involved. The Longbottoms served him better as victims than they had as subordinates.
(No wonder the head of the Order spoke “bitterly” of the Longbottoms’ condition. And didn’t quite attribute the damage to the Death Eaters’ torture, though he led Harry- and us readers-ever so gently to that conclusion.)
*
Pity the Lestranges put a vacation stop on their Prophet subscription. But then they were quite busy combing forests, and had little time to gossip.
And Le monde magique didn’t see fit to mention the latest London scandal except perhaps obliquely-it featured no sex, after all, and no noteworthy (to the French) victims. All that happened was, un gendarme was tortured by the losing side from that English civil war. For information.that he didn’t even have.
No reason to report the victim’s name (no more than the Prophet or Potterwatch ever bothered to give names of Muggle victims). “Longbottom” means nothing to the French.
The Greek press didn’t report the three-days-wonder at all.
Three days, because Barty would have dared to let the frenzy build for only a few days before contacting his Greek counterparts and asking them to arrest the vacationing Lestranges on the basis of information he'd coaxed from the Longbottoms' broken minds. (In a world with Apparition, Floos, and Portkeys, being demonstrably abroad is no alibi at all, not if there’s any doubt as to the exact timing of a crime. The Longbottoms were kidnapped from, and their bodies dumped, in Britain, but their captors could have taken them anywhere for the night.)
But when the Greek Aurors stormed the Lestranges’ villa, they found one person too many.
*
“testimony in trials that never got heard” Judy Grahn, “A Woman is Talking to Death”
According to Barty Junior, what happened was this: his father (whom everyone knows to be positively antique in some of his ideas, and determined to be obeyed in all things by his heir) insisted that Junior make an old-fashioned Grand Tour when he left Hogwarts.
But in Paris, Cousin Bella rescued him from boredom, inviting him to join them at the Lestranges’ place in Greece to explore the local antiquities. Or rather, to explore the local beaches, local wines, and local fauna (those dark, lithe girls. Or boys-I don’t know Barty’s preferences).
The Lestranges’ villa was within easy Apparition distance of Albania, or even broom? Why in Hades should Barty have thought about that, and why should he have cared?
What were his hosts up to? Well, really you know, he’d just arrived two days ago, and he saw them only at breakfast and dinner-they’d left him to find his own amusements. Which he’d been doing, don’t tell my father….
*
Dusts hands in satisfaction. Does that about cover it?
*
I’d add first that if the Longbottoms had been released insane, but still alive, a skilled Legilimens should be able to get identifying images from their minds, even if they were unable to speak. (And Bellatrix, at least, we know to be skilled enough later to teach Draco, so she should have been aware of that possibility.) So it would have been safer to just kill them and add them to the war’s list of “disappearances” than to release them obviously victims of an attack.
But I'd add also that a “catch and release” policy would still make sense, not just if they hoped Frank might dredge up further information later. Specifically, if Frank DID crack and give the Lestranges a clue to Voldemort’s location. Consider. If, not just any old Auror, but one on the team that had been working on finding Voldemort suddenly disappeared (or showed up dead or insane)-well, being killed to stop him succeeding, or being kidnapped in case he had succeeded, would be the obvious first explanation, right? To any of this Auror’s friends or superiors who knew Frank’s current assignment? It would rivet attention on what Frank knew (or was in danger of finding out). So Obliviating him and letting him go would be the better course.
And the Lestranges might have had their eye on Frank because they knew him to be one of Dumbledore’s double agents in the Auror Department. When he made a casual visit to the headmaster, they might have decided the time was ripe to invite Frank and Alice to tea.
But there’s one significant bit of canon that this theory neglects: Dumbledore’s assertion that the attacks on the popular Longbottoms “just when everyone thought they were safe… caused a wave of fury such as I have never known. The Ministry was under great pressure to catch those who had done it. Unfortunately, the Longbottoms’ evidence was-given their condition-none too reliable.”
Okay, this is Dumbledore. But even liars speak truth occasionally. And Albus was usually too clever, even with Harry, to come out with a lie that could be easily checked and contradicted. Moreover, there’s no obvious benefit to Albus from such a lie.
And he states outright that it was the publicized attack upon the Longbottoms that drove the public into frenzy, baying for blood. Which Barty eventually satisfied by “catching” the Lestranges and his own son.
However, if it was known, and well-publicized, well before the arrest of the Pensieve Four, the P4 should have known that their former prisoners had turned up drooling at St. Mungo’s, supposedly as a result of recent Death Eater action.
And Bella at least we know to be bright-she should have figured out why the Longbottoms had turned up in that condition, and led the others in a run for it. If for no other reason than to be at liberty to restore her master.
And when/if that failed, Bellatrix should have brought up in court that THEY had left the Longbottoms twitching but coherent, and that it had to be the Ministry that had reduced the poor pair to that state.
Conversely, however, had it been the Lestranges who had reduced the Longbottoms to imbecility, why not brag of it? She did so (implicitly) to Neville years later, after all. Why not add a “So shall fare all Enemies of the Cause!” line to her proud peroration about her loyalty to her master?
Bellatrix proudly owned to casting the Cruciatus on the Longbottoms in an attempt to find out Voldemort’s location. But she showed no sign (then) of knowing that she, or anyone, had reduced them to insanity.
*
So. What if oryx’s suppositions were all correct, but the Lestranges had been out of communication when the ordure hit the fan?
Someplace where English scandals weren’t well reported (and none of their Owl-correspondents happened to report in time)?
Because, you know, there’s another mystery to clear up. Why on earth did “being caught with a group of Death Eaters who’d managed to talk their way out of Azkaban” suffice to indict Barty Junior on a charge of attempting to bring back Voldemort?
The “Death Eaters” in question were Barty’s second cousins, and they’d previously been cleared of Death Eater activity!
Why shouldn’t Barty have had lunch with Cousin Bella and her family? How is that incriminating?
Unless, of course, he were “caught” with them actually on the way to Albania, on their quest to bring Tom back.
*
Let’s back up to early November 1981, when the DMLE was first following up on leads that the Lestrange brothers and that Black bride might have been among Voldemort’s supporters.
We’re quite sure, are we, that Barty Senior was gullible enough to buy the Lestranges’ Imperius defense? Or, alternatively, that he cut a deal to leave them loose (for a price), because he considered them de-fanged? Others (jodel et al.) have speculated that that’s really why Lucius walked free. And the Karkaroff plea deal is canon. So we know that Barty Senior was completely willing to release a guilty man, if that guilty man offered Barty something valuable enough.
Well, what did Barty want more than anything else?
To catch one more Dark wizard. To increase his popularity.
Well, saving the WW from which Dark wizard would increase Barty’s popularity the most?
Maybe Barty released the Lestranges, not because he thought them innocent, and not because he thought them harmless. But because he thought the reverse-that they, out of all Voldemort’s followers, were the ones most likely to try to restore their master to power.
And then Barty could catch them in the act and thwart their attempt, and scoop the Boy-Who-Lived’s renown as the one who’d saved everyone from You-Know-Who.
Making Barty the hero who’d prevented Voldemort’s return, since it was too late to be the hero who’d vanquished Voldemort in the first place.
*
If so, the Lestranges were under surveillance. Heavy surveillance, the whole time they were in Britain.
So Barty Senior was on the alert when Bellatrix decided she needed to recover from her ordeal by heading to Paris for a shopping spree, particularly because she took both her husband and her brother-in-law with her.
Barty hadn’t the same resources in France as he did in Britain, but he did have some.
So he was aware when the trio quietly moved further, to the Lestranges' little vacation place in a Greek Wizarding enclave on the Ionian Sea.
And when the head of the DMLE received complaints that one of his Auror’s job performance had slipped dramatically in the last week or so, that the wizard in question had become forgetful and distracted, Barty remembered that Frank Longbottom had taken his wife to tea with his cousin Bellatrix just a few days before the Lestranges had decided to go on holiday.
Barty remembered, too, that the notorious Sirius Black had been a member of Dumbledore’s Order as well as of Voldemort’s Death Eaters. Black would certainly have told Voldemort the identities of his fellow Order members, and Voldemort might have passed some of that information on to his most trusted subordinates.
Auror Longbottom had visited Headmaster Dumbledore a few weeks back. Not long before Bellatrix’s invitation to tea, and her sudden decision to go abroad.
But Auror Longbottom had reported “no progress” in locating Voldemort to the head of the DMLE.
Now that would be treason. Making Auror Longbottom deserve to be treated as an enemy. And Frank apparently had information well worth taking apart his mind to obtain.
And his wife’s too, who’d taken maternity leave from Crouch’s service, when she turned out to be equally a traitor to the Ministry. To Crouch.
The next morning Barty presented the damage as having been due to the Death Eaters’ wanton attack on an Auror who had been trying to track and kill their exiled master. He promised, in a righteous fury, to determine and catch the Death Eaters involved. The Longbottoms served him better as victims than they had as subordinates.
(No wonder the head of the Order spoke “bitterly” of the Longbottoms’ condition. And didn’t quite attribute the damage to the Death Eaters’ torture, though he led Harry- and us readers-ever so gently to that conclusion.)
*
Pity the Lestranges put a vacation stop on their Prophet subscription. But then they were quite busy combing forests, and had little time to gossip.
And Le monde magique didn’t see fit to mention the latest London scandal except perhaps obliquely-it featured no sex, after all, and no noteworthy (to the French) victims. All that happened was, un gendarme was tortured by the losing side from that English civil war. For information.that he didn’t even have.
No reason to report the victim’s name (no more than the Prophet or Potterwatch ever bothered to give names of Muggle victims). “Longbottom” means nothing to the French.
The Greek press didn’t report the three-days-wonder at all.
Three days, because Barty would have dared to let the frenzy build for only a few days before contacting his Greek counterparts and asking them to arrest the vacationing Lestranges on the basis of information he'd coaxed from the Longbottoms' broken minds. (In a world with Apparition, Floos, and Portkeys, being demonstrably abroad is no alibi at all, not if there’s any doubt as to the exact timing of a crime. The Longbottoms were kidnapped from, and their bodies dumped, in Britain, but their captors could have taken them anywhere for the night.)
But when the Greek Aurors stormed the Lestranges’ villa, they found one person too many.
*
“testimony in trials that never got heard” Judy Grahn, “A Woman is Talking to Death”
According to Barty Junior, what happened was this: his father (whom everyone knows to be positively antique in some of his ideas, and determined to be obeyed in all things by his heir) insisted that Junior make an old-fashioned Grand Tour when he left Hogwarts.
But in Paris, Cousin Bella rescued him from boredom, inviting him to join them at the Lestranges’ place in Greece to explore the local antiquities. Or rather, to explore the local beaches, local wines, and local fauna (those dark, lithe girls. Or boys-I don’t know Barty’s preferences).
The Lestranges’ villa was within easy Apparition distance of Albania, or even broom? Why in Hades should Barty have thought about that, and why should he have cared?
What were his hosts up to? Well, really you know, he’d just arrived two days ago, and he saw them only at breakfast and dinner-they’d left him to find his own amusements. Which he’d been doing, don’t tell my father….
*
Dusts hands in satisfaction. Does that about cover it?