Marauders

[rja.carnegie at excite.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 19060

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "Claire Weale" <clairey at a...> wrote:
> THE MARAUDERS!!!! I hate that title that people have given to James, 
> Sirius, Peter and Lupin. It makes them sound like a gang! They were 
> FRIENDS! They wouldn't refer to themselves as a gang! It's way too 
> cliche for JK...anyways...know i have the anger out of the way i can 
> get down to my point...that the marauders map i so-called, not 
> because of its creators, but because of its target 
> audience...marauders...
> Main Entry: ma·raud
> Pronunciation: m&-'rod
> Function: verb
> Etymology: French marauder
> Date: 1711
> intransitive senses : to roam about and raid in search of plunder
> ...The Marauders map was "an aid to magical mischeif makers" ie. 
> marauders....
> 
> Any thoughts??? 
> 
> Claire

You're right - it's shorthand, and not necessarily justified.
It's not The Marauders' Map as I've been writing, it's The Marauder's
Map.  But we can't just call them Them, that's another one from
Terry Pratchett.  I suspect that you'll just have to go on hating it ;-)

They did share a great, big secret - three Animagi and a werewolf -
and POA doesn't indicate that Lily was ever in on it.  Perhaps the art
of the Animagus is more aesthetic than useful - admired just because
it's difficult - logically Dumbledore would probably know if any of
them had used it against Voldemort.  It seems that it's bloody handy
if you happen to meet a werewolf, though.

I perceive that I'll make more enemies than friends here if I keep
going on about Peter Pettigrew being gay, but I can't get it out of
my head.

Plunder in the sense of whatever you can buy in Honeydukes and
Dervish & Banges, in Hogsmeade.  However, James used his Invisibility
Cloak at Hogwarts "mainly for sneaking off to the kitchens to steal
food."  I think that counts as one Marauder, anyway.  Perhaps James
did all the Marauding and shared the plunder with the others.

Incidentally, http://www.abcgallery.com/L/landseer/landseer.html
has some nice, traditional pictures of wild life in the Scottish
Highlands - several stags, falcon, ptarmigan, wild bull, Queen
Victoria. ;-)

Robert Carnegie
Glasgow, Scotland

"I read them all when I was seven and I hated them" - unnamed American
office worker on the Harry Potter books (www.dilbert.com, List of
Stupid Things Overheard)