Not…really? Because wouldn’t the situations be flipped, then? Like, Alice and Frank were tortured to madness and ended up in St. Mungo’s and Neville went to live with Evil Grandma and the Uncle-Whose-Name-I-Forget-Who-Dropped-Him-Out-A-Window, right? And the Potters were murdered, minus Harry because Mom Magic, right? So wouldn’t it just flip around?
Frank would say, “Alice, it’s him, go, take Neville, I’ll hold him off” right? And Alice would sacrifice herself to save cute little Baby Neville and the house would explode like it apparently did in the book and Baby Neville would get shipped off to…
Well, actually, I don’t know where, because Evil Grandma is Frank’s mother and it would have to be someone related to Alice and we don’t know much about Alice’s fam, do we?
But let’s for theory’s sake say he gets sent to Alice’s sister just like Harry got sent to Lily’s sister. And Alice and Frank are dead. Meanwhile, Lily and James are being tortured by Bellatrix and Barty Crouch Junior (as Alice and Frank were in the canon).
Which sort of reminds me, I’ve always wondered where Neville was when his parents were being tortured because I feel like anyone who would torture someone that much with a curse like that wouldn’t hesitate to torture a child the same way to hurt the parents…
Anyway, Lily and James tortured into madness, Alice and Frank dead, Harry living with…probably Sirius, because Sirius was Harry’s godfather and also wouldn’t have been the Longbottoms’ Secret Keeper (although possibly if Voldy had gone after the Longbottoms, they actually would’ve never died, because the only reason the Potters died was because Voldemort fished the Secret out of Peter Pettigrew, who wouldn’t have been the Keeper for the Longbottoms, and so the whole arc with Sirius in Azkaban and Remus being depressed and alone and James being dead and Peter being a traitor and posing as a rat probably wouldn’t have happened at all).
So, I doubt Snape would let Lily be tortured like that, just like he wouldn’t let her be killed. And since Voldemort himself wasn’t going after the Potters in the Neville-is-the-Chosen-One AU, Snape actually could’ve gone to the Potters’ house himself and killed whoever was there except maybe Bellatrix (say what you want, that b**** can duel) but I’m sure he could’ve fended her off long enough for Dumbledick and Hagrid to show up (and Sirius…I seem to recall that’s when Sirius gave Hagrid his motorcycle). And Dumbledick could’ve handled Bellatrix. Or our Madame McG, absolutely no question.
Anyway, the Longbottoms were tortured for hours. Which means in this AU, instead of dying in 10 minutes, the Potters would’ve been tortured for hours and the Longbottoms killed in 10 minutes. Which means probably someone could’ve popped up - Sirius, Remus, Dumbledick, Hagrid, Snape, or a combination of those five dudes.
Which actually means they probably could’ve saved the Potters from ending up like the Longbottoms in the first place because it seems like the reason the Death Eaters had time torture the Longbottoms for that long in the first place was because no one knew beforehand that they were going to be targeted (it seems like the Death Eaters did it for a lark rather than because they worried about the prophecy)?
But Dumbledore would’ve known who the Prophecy’s “target” would be and if it wasn’t Harry, Snape would’ve had Harry covered and the Order (the Old Order) would’ve had the Longbottoms covered and no traitorous Peter means no sold-off Secret which means no dead Longbottoms, and Snape running to Dumbledick about saving Lily and co. (as he does in the movie, so acted because JK Rowling herself said it made more sense than the book) would’ve meant a PTSD-ridden James and Lily because torture but still very much alive and probably not insane like canon Frank and Alice due to lack of torture time.
And also Bellatrix would be dead, which means no Cursed Child.
So if Neville had been Voldy’s target instead of Harry, we could’ve had:
- Living Potter Parents
- Not crazy Longbottoms
- No abusive Dursleys
- No treacherous Peter
- No incarcerated Sirius
- No abusive grandma
- Possibly a more confident, self-assured Neville
- No dead Sirius (he was killed by Bellatrix)
- Reconciliation between Snape, James, and Lily (honestly, them dudes need to just become friends and let the past go because after this, the Death Eater thing wouldn’t be an issue anymore)
- No dick teachers at Hogwarts (except Umbridge…and does Lockhart count?)
- Possibly less viciousness between Harry and Draco
- Quirrel wouldn’t be possessed
- Harry would’ve grown up knowing Tonks (since Andromeda is Sirius’s favorite cousin)
- No Cursed Child
- Also no Umbridge actually because there would be none of this “Voldy’s dead, Potter’s a nut, be good little children and eat your waffles” because either Voldemort would still be alive or he would’ve been killed via Horcrux doom and not Mom Magic
- Neville would actually be kind of a badass because he’d be like John Conner, ever hunted, trained from babyhood to kick magical butt (I think one of the reasons he was so Squib-ish is because he was so traumatized by the thing with his parents, which wouldn’t have happened in this world)
- Still alive Voldemort though
I feel like this would’ve made for a very interesting alternate history, though. Like, I realize the whole point of this was “Snape sucks,” and I feel you because the man’s a dick (…was a dick…now he’s dead) but actually this turned into a whole thing where I realized it would’ve been so much better for literally everyone except Voldemort if he’d picked Neville.
