Neville Longbottom's Harry Potter Story Is Even Sadder In The Books

There are a lot of characters to keep track of in the magical "Harry Potter" universe, but it's impossible to forget about Neville Longbottom, the shy and forgetful boy (played in the films by Matthew Lewis) who gets sorted into Gryffindor along with Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe) himself. When we first meet Neville in both the book and film of "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" (or "Philosopher's Stone," if you live abroad), he's lost track of his toad Trevor, and his sweet, bumbling behavior persists throughout the story. Unfortunately, during "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire," Harry learns something genuinely devastating about Neville's parents ... and the movies don't actually include all of the tragic details.

On the surface, Harry and Neville have very similar stories. Both of them were the only sons of Aurors, and Harry's parents Lily and Alice, alongside Neville's parents Frank and Alice, were members of the Order of the Phoenix, which rallied against the Dark Lord Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes in the film series) before Harry and Neville were even born. Harry's parents were, quite infamously, killed by Voldemort when he was just a baby; Neville's parents are alive but faced a horrifying fate when they were tortured by a group of Voldemort's supporters and left so mentally damaged that they were never able to fully recover. This fact is revealed in the movies, but a scene in the book version of "Order of the Phoenix" actually features Frank and Alice ... and it's absolutely devastating.

After Arthur Weasley (Mark Williams in the movies) is attacked by Voldemort's snake Nagini, he ends up in St Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries for treatment — and when his family and friends go to visit him, Harry calls attention to a familiar face. That face is Neville's, and he's shocked to see them; as the book reads, "Neville looked as though he would rather be anywhere in the world but here. A dull purple flush was creeping up his plump face and he was not making eye contact with them." Neville is accompanied by his grandmother Augusta Longbottom, who raised him in his parents' stead ... but things go very wrong for Neville when Augusta casually remarks that Neville's father is in the ward.

Thanks to Ron's gawking, Augusta realizes that Neville's friends don't know about his parents (she has no idea that Harry found out by accident a year beforehand), and explains the situation to the group before Neville's mother Alice unexpectedly joins them. "Neville's mother had come edging down the ward in her nightdress," the book says. "Her face was thin and worn now, her eyes seemed overlarge, and her hair, which had turned white, was wispy and dead-looking. She did not seem to want to speka, or perhaps she was not able to, but she made timid motions toward Neville, holding something in her outstretched hand." It turns out to be a Droobles Blowing Gum wrapper, and the book continues, "His mother tottered away, back up the ward, humming to herself. Neville looked around at the others, his expression defiant, as though daring them to laugh, but Harry did not think he'd ever found anything less funny in his life."

Neville pockets the gum wrapper while his grandmother isn't paying attention, leaving Harry, Hermione, Ron, and Ginny absolutely stunned. It's a heartbreaking scene, and it makes Neville's story even sadder.

There's one more thing you need to know about the torture of Neville's parents Frank and Alice Longbottom, which is that they were tormented by specific Death Eaters: Bellatrix Lestrange (Helena Bonham Carter), Bartemius Crouch Jr. (David Tennant), and a few others, including Bellatrix's husband and his brother. Barty Crouch Jr. is defeated at the end of the previous installment, "Goblet of Fire," after impersonating Hogwarts professor and Auror Mad-Eye Moody (Brendan Gleeson) for an entire school year, but in "Order of the Phoenix," Bellatrix breaks out of the wizarding prison Azkaban along with a handful of other sadistic Death Eaters. 

Faced with the prospect of the woman who tortured his parents coming to find him or hurting others, Neville, for lack of a better term, levels up. He practices more than anyone else in the student vigilante group dubbed "Dumbledore's Army" (which studies and practices defensive spells in honor of Hogwarts headmaster Albus Dumbledore, played by Michael Gambon, and in spite of the hated Hogwarts professor and Ministry of Magic plant Dolores Umbridge, played by Imelda Staunton), and in "Deathly Hallows," his true power becomes clear. Not only is he leading the main student rebellion against the Death Eaters openly leading the wizarding school, but he also is continuing Dumbledore's Army in secret — and when Harry, Ron, and Hermione return to the castle to find one of Voldemort's Horcruxes (or a piece of his soul embedded in a magical object), Neville plays a pivotal role in it all. After Harry sacrifices himself to Voldemort to destroy the Horcrux residing in his own soul, Neville, a true Gryffindor, is gifted with the Sword of Gryffindor by the Sorting Hat ... and uses it to kill Voldemort's snake Nagini, the final Horcrux. Harry ultimately takes Voldemort down, but Neville makes it possible.

Harry's parents are pretty famously killed by Voldemort before the narrative even begins — but real "Harry Potter" fans know that, if Voldemort had done one tiny thing differently, Neville could have been "the Boy Who Lived" or even died during the Dark Lord's attack. The prophecy concerning Harry, which Voldemort only hears a small portion of thanks to his bumbling spy Severus Snape (the late Alan Rickman), says that the child born to defy Voldemort will be born as "the seventh month dies" (so the end of July) and born to parents who have "thrice defied" Voldemort. Both Harry and Neville were born in late July — in fact, Neville, born on July 30, is one day older than Harry — and both the Longbottoms and Potters escaped fights with their lives against Voldemort three times.

The part of the prophecy that Voldemort didn't hear, though, came down to his choice ... in that the Dark Lord would "mark him," with him being the prophesized boy, "as his equal." By choosing to attack Harry and the Potter family, Voldemort ensured that Harry would become his rival and didn't understand that, when Harry's mother Lily stood in front of her son and begged for his life to be spared, offering herself in the process, Harry would gain lifelong magical protection. To be honest, though, Neville had plenty going on in the "Harry Potter" books and movies; he didn't also need to be the savior of the wizarding world.

The "Harry Potter" movies are streaming on Peacock now.