magic late in life - House Elves - Snape - Anagram

[Catlady]

No: HPFGUIDX 16783

Neil wrote:
> I don't think Mrs Figg is a likely candidate for discovering magic
> later in life.  I think that could be Petunia.  JKR has said something

> along the lines of some surprising change of storyline in relation to
> the Dursleys and, IMO, Petunia is more likely to have a dormant
> magical ability than Dudley, because Dudley is too young to be
> regarded as being late in life within the framework of this book
series.

I think if Dudley got magic at age 15, the wizarding folk would consider
that to be late in life, because they expect all wizards and witches to
show their magic by age 11.

I wish  (but don't expect) it would be Petunia who gets magic, because I
would very much like either for Lily and Petunia's Muggle parents to be
Squibs or descendants of Squibs, who already knew all about Hogwarts
when Lily got her Hogwarts letter, or else for Lily's parents to be
Muggles who knew about the wizarding world and therefore were chosen as
foster parents for Petunia who was being thrown away by her biological
family for being a Squib (which would account for her resentment against
magic!) and Petunia was Narcissa's sister.

Jenny from Ravenclaw wrote:
> BTW, Mundungus Fletcher was also mentioned as part of the old
> crowd. I'm very interested to meet the person who tried to get one
> over on the MOM after the World Cup.  I know he was mentioned
> earlier, but can't remember where.  I'll go look!

Relatively early in Book 2. Harry has just arrived at The Burrow. Mr
Weasley comes home from a hard night at work: Nine raids! Nine! and
Mundungus Fletcher tried to hex me when my back was turned.

Jenny from Ravenclaw wrote
> Some people I've spoken to say that JKR is taking a big risk
> with her house elf story line.  I guess I saw it as another way
> JKR was trying to teach about something. (snip)  If I was a
> rich witch, I can't imagine (as me) thinking it was okay to
> have a house elf.

JKR said in an interview that she hadn't intended to have the SPEW
subplot but Hermione insisted.

If I were a rich witch, my conscience would not be troubled by having a
House Elf, but my conscience would force me to go talk to the House Elf
from time to time, and ask her/him if there is anything she/he wants in
the way of vacation time, special food, cleaning supplies, money. If a
House Elf wanted to do all this yucky work for me just in exchange for
room and board, I would feel grateful but not guilty.

Jim Ferer wrote:
> I got the impression that a lot of other people (like Fudge) aren't
> even that aware Snape was a DE.

How big of an idiot does Fudge have to be not to know that Snape was
once a DE when Fudge was working at the Ministry at the time that it was
announced in open court, with reporters present, that Snape had formerly
been a DE but had become a spy for Our Side at great personal risk?

Morag wrote:
>  But why rename Tom Riddle, since Voldemort is a
> French-derived name, anyway?

Because it has to anagram 'Je suis' rather than 'I am'? The new name
doesn't seem to have enough extra letters to say Je m'appelle Lord
Voldemort.
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