Weasley Ages - Susan Bones - Butterbeer

[Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)]

No: HPFGUIDX 28136

Aurora wrote: 

> Hi I am new so this may have been covered before, but it wasn't in
> the FAQ. At the end of Chamber of Secerets, Ginny is upset because
> she thinks she will be expelled from Hogwarts and says she's been
> Swanting to go ever since Bill started. 

I agree that's an error. The best I can figure is that it is a TYPO 
(like 'unless we do not all work together') and Ginny really said 
'since PERCY went'. 

Cindy wrote:

> In looking up the dates on the Lexicon, I noticed that there is an 
> 8-year age difference between Percy and Charlie, with all other 
> known age differences in the Weasley family at 1-2 years (except 
> for Bill, for whom we don't have a birth year yet).  So what 
> happened in that 8-year span that caused Molly and Arthur take a 
> break from having children?  Or did they have other children in
> that period (during Voldemort's first reign, BTW) who did not 
> survive?

If that question isn't in the 'Mysteries' FAQ, it should be. People 
have proposed innumerable theories: that there were children who were 
killed, and Arthur's mention and what it's like to come home and see 
the Dark Mark over your house is from personal experience, that 
Arthur and/or Molly spent some years held prisoner in Azkaban or by 
the Dark Side, therefore not available for making babies, that they 
originally intended to have only two children but then something 
changed their minds.

Luke wrote:

> JKR has stated in an interview that the Bones family referred to as 
> being killed by Voldy and/or the DEs are the grandparents of Susan 
> Bones.  I don't remember which interview, and am too tired to seek 
> it out at the moment, but it can be found in the collection of 
> interviews at the Harry Potter Galleries.  I think it's one of the 
> AOL or B&N interviews, but I could be wrong.

The interview is at http://www.hpgalleries.com/c103.htm
I found it by using the wonderful search tool that Mike the Goat 
provided: http://www.geocities.com/aberforths_goat/

Susanna/pigwidgeon37's Food Summary included:

> Butterbeer seems to be very slightly alcoholic (at least enough to 
> knock out a House Elf), but is allowed to the students on their 
> Hogsmeade weekends.

Maybe butterbeer is not alcoholic at all and what knocks out the 
House Elves is some other ingredient that has little or no effect on 
humans. Even among humans, some people have abnormal responses to 
some substances, such as a woman I used to know who got tipsy from 
root beer. She said it was some kind of allergy but she liked it 
because it made her a very cheap drunk. I also knew a woman who swore 
that drinking one tablespoon of black coffee would put her to sleep 
in short minutes and that her mother and her mother's mother had the 
same characteristic. Do we know anything about what House Elves eat 
normally, or whether they have to taste what they're cooking? It 
could simply be the refined sugar in butterbeer that is 
intoxicating to them!

> QUESTION 2: What do you think of the attitude towards the "popular 
> drugs" coffee, nicotine and alcohol JKR confers to us by means of 
> her books (cigarettes are never mentioned, alcohol mostly has 
> unpleasant consequences and nobody ever drinks coffee in the 
> wizarding world)? A clear message for Muggles like us or a sign
> that wizards are simply different and don't need certain things? 

Just that they're old-fashioned and smoke pipes rather than 
cigarettes, drink tea rather than coffee (and tea does contain 
caffeine). On Harry's first visit to the Leaky Cauldron: "For a 
famous place, it was very dark and shabby. A few old women were
sitting in a corner, drinking tiny glasses of sherry. One of them 
was smoking a long pipe."