Lucius Malfoy (was Houses...)

[Kimberly]

No: HPFGUIDX 11941

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "Amy" <alw at w...> wrote:
> 
> --This could be an explanation I guess. It seems to be generally 
> accepted however that Lucius was older than the Marauders and Snape. 
> More likely he and Arthur Weasely are contemperaries.
> 
> Why is it generally accepted that Lucius is older than the Marauders 
>and Snape and that he and Arthur are contemporaries?  I can see him 
>being a few years older than the Marauders and I can see Snape being 
>a year or two younger than the Marauders, but I can't seem to wrap my 
>mind around Lucius being as old as Arthur and Molly...who are 
>arguably at least 6 (probably more like 8) years older than the 
>Marauders.  

I think Arthur and Molly are much older than the Marauders - more than 
8 years, at least.  They were at Hogwarts before Hagrid was made 
gamekeeper, and that was 50 years ago (even if Hagrid was only the 
assistant for some time, it still makes me think they were at Hogwarts  
way earlier than the Marauders).

>(I've always gotten the impression that Arthur and Molly definitely 
>were not at Hogwarts when the Marauders were).  From what we've seen 
>in the books so far, Draco is an only child...who is the same age as 
>Harry.  I guess Lucius could have gotten married later in life and 
>then waited to have kids, but for some reason that just doesn't work 
>for me.

I've been thinking about this - I always got the impression that 
Lucius was closer Arthur and Molly's age as well (and as I mentioned, 
I think they are quite a few years older than the Marauders), and I 
hadn't had any particular reason in my mind as to why, but now I'm 
thinking about it, there are afew reasons that I've gotten that 
impression:

-Lucius seems to not only have been a Death Eater, but a rather 
high-ranking one, which makes me think he was an adult from the 
beginning of Voldemort's reign, whereas the Marauders and Snape were 
still at Hogwarts.

-Lucius is a very influential wizard with the Ministry, the board of 
Hogwarts (previously, at least), and seemingly all over the place.  
Those who are contemporaries of the Marauders don't seem to have had 
the time to climb the ranks of power and influence quite that high.  
All of the department heads seem to be around Arthur's age or older, 
although that, too, is just an impression.

-He and Arthur have quite a contentious relationship.  Arthur is a 
very even-tempered person, as far as I can tell, and leaves emotional 
outbursts to his beloved Molly most of the time.  I can't imagine 
someone younger and less experienced than Arthur driving him to such 
extremes as we saw in CoS.  There seems to be a long history between 
them.

None of the above are evidence, but they explain why I have the 
impression that I do.  And as for Draco being Harry's age, I don't 
have a problem with that.  Lucius and Narcissa are fairly selfish and 
vain.  I kinda think they put off having a child until it occurred to 
them that they'd better get around to producing an heir to carry on 
the family name.  We know that it's not at all unusual for wizards and 
witches to have children at the age that they would have been if they 
are Arthur and Molly's age (after all, Ron's Draco's age too, and 
Ginny's even younger), so there's no reason that they should have felt 
the need to rush.  I imagine Narcissa was a socialite and didn't want 
to ruin her figure.  As she got older maybe more riffraff was showing 
up to the Death Eater parties, and she decided she didn't mind so 
much. 

It's all conjecture on my part, but it at least explains where the 
impression came from for me.

Kimberly