Random Questions (Minor Spoilers)

[catlady_de_los_angeles]

Original Yahoo! HPFG Header:
No: HPFGUIDX C5041
From: catlady_de_los_angeles
Subject: Re: Random Questions (Minor Spoilers)
Reply To: [Yahoo! #5024] Random Questions (Minor Spoilers)
Date: 7/25/00 12:51 am  (ET)

Maybe you should discuss these GoF topics in
http://www.egroups.com/messages/gobletoffire -- where I think most of
them have already come up!

>1. It was mentioned in Book 2 "The Chamber of Secrets" that Colin Creevey
is Muggle born (his father was a milkman), so how is it so possible that
he would have a brother who's also a wizard (it didn't happen for Lily)?

If being a mage is genetic (which is a big IF) and it is a recessive gene
(altho' probably it is really something far more complicated), then if
two Muggle parents are both heterozygous, then each of their children
will have a one in four chance of being double recessive, thus a mage.

> 3. About those Muggle born wizards and witches who didn't know they
were wizards until they received the letter from Hogwarts -- who talks
to them, help them go shopping and help their parents understand and
get over the initial shock in finding out the magical world?

For shopping, I'm pretty sure that they only have to be given directions
to the Leaky Cauldron and which businesses to patronize on Diagon Alley:
once they arrive at the Leaky Cauldron and tell the barman that they're
new students for Hogwart's, someone will lead them out back and tap the
bricks with a wand for them.

For talking the parents into letting their children go to a wizarding
academy, someone (maybe just an alumnus who lives in the neighborhood)
must make a personal visit and perhaps use spells of persuasion. And
explain to the parents how magic can alter paper and computerized records
as necessary, so during the school year, the gov't won't even know that
child exists, but during holidays they'll have a fine record trail at
the local comprehensive and their doctor's clinic...

> 4. Will Gilderoy Lockhart make a return appearance in the future books?

JKR said in an interview that Gilderoy Lockhart was in no condition to
go out in public, and will remain for a long, long time in the medical
clinic (where I suppose they are re-teaching him toilet training).

> 6. Also in "GoF", Viktor Krum transfigured (though badly) himself into
a shark -- how is that different from being Animagus?

That's what I keep asking!

> 8. I'm a literature major and I'll be starting to think of a topic for
my thesis next term. It would be a little more enjoyable if I would do
something in the lines of "Harry Potter" -- any suggestions?

Explain a little: is the thesis topic a book about which you must write
a thesis? In that case, why not one or four HP books?