When were the Longbottoms attacked?
I've always assumed the Longbottoms were attacked in 1982, but of late I've seen people suggest it happened days after Voldemort's fall. I've also recently come across an article that suggested the earliest had to be 1984.
Which leaves the question: what range are we actually looking at, and how does that change our view on Barty Crouch Jr (CANON Barty, I don't want to think about the abomination that's fanon Barty)
Note that we know a few of the events preceding the attack and the arrest of the Lestranges and Crouch.
Voldemort had fallen, and enough time had passed for people to start to feel safe again
The attacks on them came after Voldemort's fall from power, just when everyone thought they were safe.Â
Unfortunately: "just when everyone thought they were safe" can mean a lot of things. We see people celebrating Voldemort's fall like there's no tomorrow on November 1st 1981, but we also know from the trials in GOF that it took time to round up the Death Eaters, and that some believed (rightly) that Voldemort wasn't gone for good. So, how long did Voldemort have to have been gone for people to feel safe? How many DEs had to have been rounded up?
Luckly, we've got other markers of time too.
The Lestranges had talked their way out of Azkaban
"Crouch's own son was caught with a group of Death Eaters who'd managed to talk their way out of Azkaban."
So presumably, after Voldemort's fall, the Lestranges, just like Lucius Malfoy, Avery, Nott, Crabbe, Goyle etc had to be cleared through the mass DE trials.
âYou are merely repeating the names of those who were acquitted of being Death Eaters thirteen years ago!â said Fudge angrily. âYou could have found those names in old reports of the trials!Â
This comment from Fudge also suggests that a lot of the initial DE trials (where people like Avery, Nott, Crabbe, Goyle were acquitted) took place in 1982.
Karkaroff's trial was likely in 1982
We even have insight into some of these trials which help us with the timing. For example, from Moody we learn:
[Crouch]'s done a deal with him. Took me six months to track him down, and Crouch is going to let him go if he's got enough new names.
Six months from what? Some crime he committed? Karkaroff is never really on trial for any specific crime as far as we learn in canon (and we do learn quite a lot about some of these people's crimes). It's more that he was a DE and held accountable for things DEs did:
"There was Antonin Dolohov," he said. "I - I saw him torture countless Muggles and - and non-supporters of the Dark Lord."
"And helped him do it," murmured Moody.
It seems likely we're looking at six months since Voldemort's fall. That's when the DEs fell apart, and the Aurors started rounding them up. That's a natural point for Moody to think about when he says it took him six months. And if so, we're looking at a trial that was held more than six months after October 31, 1981.
In any case, we know the earliest the trial can be is after Voldemort's downfall and enough time to have passed for Snape to have been cleared:
âSnape has been cleared by this council,â said Crouch disdainfully. âHe has been vouched for by Albus Dumbledore.â
âNo!â shouted Karkaroff, straining at the chains that bound him to the chair. âI assure you! Severus Snape is a Death Eater!â
âI have given evidence already on this matter,â he said calmly.
âSeverus Snape was indeed a Death Eater. However, he rejoined our side before Lord Voldemortâs downfall and turned spy for us, at great personal risk. He is now no more a Death Eater than I am.â
At Karkaroff's trial, Crouch is described to look"fit and alert":
Crouch's hair was dark, his face was much less lined, he looked fit and alert.
Some time elapsed between Karkaroff's trial and Bagman's and Crouch's/Lestranges'
The next trial we see is Ludo Bagman, which is a direct consequence of Karkaroff's trial:
"Rookwood, who was a spy, and passed He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named useful information from inside the Ministry itself!"
"Ludovic Bagman, you were caught passing information to Lord Voldemort's supporters," said Mr. Crouch. "For this, I suggest a term of imprisonment in Azkaban lasting no less than -"
...
"Old Rookwood was a friend of my dad's . . . never crossed my mind he was in with You-Know-Who!"
So between the two trials, Rookwood must have been rounded up, and investigated enough to catch some members (at least one unknowing one) of his network.
And time has clearly passed:
Mr. Crouch looked more tired and somehow fiercer, gaunter
I think this is critical to our understanding of Crouch's description at his son's trial:
Harry looked up at Crouch and saw that he looked gaunter and grayer than ever before.
Because I've always put his change in appearance to grey and gaunt down to the "nasty little shock" he got when his son got captured, HOWEVER that doesn't fit with the fact that he's already appearing more tired and gaunt in Bagman's trial, which is otherwise held in such high spirits that does imply the attack on the Longbottom's hasn't happened yet. Contrast the two scenes:
The atmosphere seemed quite different: relaxed, even cheerful. The witches and wizards all around the walls were talking to one another, almost as though they were at some sort of sporting event.
...
Many of the witches and wizards around the walls began to clap.
(...) The dungeon was ringing with applause now. Bagman got to his feet and bowed, beaming.
There was total silence, broken only by the dry sobs of a frail, wispy-looking witch in the seat next to Mr. Crouch.
...
The crowd around the walls began to clap as it had for Bagman, their faces full of savage triumph.
So clearly, Crouch is being worn down by the trials even before his son is arrested, and while the immense workload is the key driver, time has to play a factor too.
So we know that at some point in 1982 "Crouch's hair was dark, his face was much less lined, he looked fit and alert" and some time after, enough time to pass for them to uncover Rookwork's work and for people to feel safe again and the Lestrages to talk their way out of Azkaban and for Crouch to turn grayer and more gaunt his son is caught. As a side note, it has to be long enough after Voldemortâs fall for Bellatrix to proclaim that âthey alone tried to find himâ.
Finally, if the attack on the Longbottoms happened after Bagman's trial (which all evidence suggest), we also need to allow time for the Ministry to go from learning about the attack to making the arrest:
The Ministry was under great pressure to catch those who had done it. Unfortunately, the Longbottoms' evidence was given their condition none too reliable.
On the one hand, one could argue they must have acted quickly because they were under pressure to do so (but then again, does that imply they usually acted quite slow, so we can expect significant time to have elapsed between Karkaroff turning in Rookwood and Bagman being on trial?). On the other hand, clearly they had very little to go on to identify who was behind the attack (ie little to go on to identify who to arrest - Iâm sure once they caught them they moved swiftly to trial), given the state of the Longbottoms and the fact that no one really knew if the boy was or wasn't innocent.
At the very earliest, the trial of Crouch and the Lestranges would have be at end of 1982, most likely it took place in 1983 or 1984.
Crouch's fall in popularity led Fudge to get the job as Minister of Magic
âSo old Crouch lost it all, just when he thought he had it made,â he continued, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. âOne moment, a hero, poised to become Minister of Magic . . . next, his son dead, his wife dead, the family name dishonored, and, so Iâve heard since I escaped, a big drop in popularity. Once the boy had died, people started feeling a bit more sympathetic toward the son and started asking how a nice young lad from a good family had gone so badly astray. The conclusion was that his father never cared much for him. So Cornelius Fudge got the top job, and Crouch was shunted sideways into the Department of International Magical Cooperation.â
In 1981, Fudge was a Junior Minister in the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes, and he's not made Minister of Magic until 1990. I understand politics can drag on, but if we assume Crouch was arrested in 1981, which seems to be the prevailing assumption (but which, for all the reasons above, I consider highly unlikely), then Crouch Jr "dies" in 1982, and Crouch Sr experience a fall in popularity which stops him being appointed as MoM and opens the way for Fudge in 1990. That seems... too long? If we turn it completely around and say it shouldn't take more than four years, then we're looking at a death of Crouch Jr around 1986 and the trials in 1985.
The trial can't be later than 1984
However, that also doesn't quite work, because Barty Crouch Jr is only nineteen when arrested:
âThatâs right,â said Sirius, and he didnât look remotely amused now. âI saw the dementors bringing him in, watched them through the bars in my cell door. He canât have been more than nineteen. They took him into a cell near mine. He was screaming for his mother by nightfall. He went quiet after a few days, though . . . they all went quiet in the end . . . except when they shrieked in their sleep. âŠâ
And he was a "faithful Death Eater". The youngest we've seen Voldemort make Death Eaters is 16 (Draco and Regulus), meaning that if he was 16 at the youngest in 1981, then the latest his arrest could be is 1984.
Conclusion: The window is somewhere between the end of 1982 and the end of 1984
This window would make Barty Crouch Jr born in 1963-1965 which may help explain why Sirius knew so little about himâhe was several of years below the boys.
More than anything, I am intrigued by the trial was 1984 idea, not necessarily as the most likely, but because it fundamentally changes our understanding of Neville's childhood and who Crouch Jr was.
In this world, Neville might have the odd memory of his parents from before they got tortured (whether this be in 1983 with the trial being in 1984 or both events happening in 1984), and he would have been cognisant at the time of how his parents were around one day, and not the next.
Furthermore, Crouch Jr is a completely different person from what I used to picture him as, in this version. He has almost no time with Voldemort, and most of his devotion has to do with the idea of a master he lost, and he wants to find once more. It might also explain why Crouch was never even brought up in any trial prior to this (whereas the Lestranges had to talk their way out). After all, he was literally just a child when Voldemort fell. Even in the Wizarding World.
