Neville's parents

[ksmith]

Are Frank and Alice Longbottom dead, or are they in some sort of asylum, never to be released? I'm wondering because in the movies I hear references that they suffered a fate worse than death. There's also the fact that Neville can't see the thestrals, but if he wasn't present when his parents died, assuming they died, then he wouldn't have been able to. I think.

Just wondering. I haven't read Order.

Comments

[naomikritzer]

The scene where you encounter them is in Order of the Phoenix. In the book (and I think this happens in the movie, too), Harry, Hermione, and Ron are at St. Mungo's to visit Ron's father, and they wander accidentally into the ward for people who are permanently spell-damaged. They initially encounter Lockhart, and a nurse shepherds them in because Lockhart seems to pleased to see them.

But then they overhear Neville's voice and they turn and see him leaving with his grandmother, and you realize that Neville's parents are there. They don't recognize him and are non-verbal. After Voldemort's disappearance, his followers (including Bellatrix Lestrange) managed to lay hands on the Longbottoms and tortured them into insanity, trying to find out what they knew about where he'd gone.

It is possibly the most heartbreaking scene in all seven books.

[naomikritzer]

Also, there is a fandom theory that Neville was present when this happened, and the Ministry put a memory charm on him in an attempt to erase the trauma ... and that it was too powerful and permanently damaged his memory, and this is why he struggles so consistently at school.

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

It's not in the movie. It would have been difficult to forget a scene like that.

[phantomminuet.livejournal.com]

No, but knowing about that scene in the book reveals just how vicious Bellatrix's comment to Neville in the Department of Mysteries really is.

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

Oh, I do so want to see Bellatrix get hers.