Ends & Means / Weasleys - incl. Percy /

[catlady_de_los_angeles]

No: HPFGUIDX 37300

Abigail Draconi Chyna Rose wrote:

> Who in the Potterverse fighting for the side of good would 
> *willingly* use the same magic as those on the side of evil 
> (such as a group called the `moral "majority"' hacking into an 
> `offensive' group list)? And in doing so, would they still be 
> 'good'?

Well. Umm. There is a lot of not-nice behavior that is considered 
downright heroic in certain extreme circumstances. Killing people is 
generally considered bad behavior, but if Wormtail had his wand drawn 
and was about to Avada Kedavra one of the school kids, and you flung 
yourself upon him biting and punching, in order to stop him, and he 
ended up dead as a result of the biting and punching, you would be 
considered a hero for having saved the kid, not a villain for having 
killed a person.

And I left the bit about hacking in the quote, despite me not wanting 
to stir up yet more controversy about the level of taste of that 
April Foolishness, because hacking into someone's private files in 
order to learn their private information is generally considered bad 
behavior, but it's considered very good behavior when the private 
information is the plans for an upcoming violent crime (bank robbery, 
airplane hijacking, etc) and the information is turned over to the 
appropriate authorities in time to prevent the violence.

Athena wrote:
> Bill... Charlie... David?... Percy... Fred... George...
> Yes, I know that Percy wouldn't follow the naming scheme, nor would
> Ron. Here's my slight modification to allow for that. Possibly, 
> Molly preferred Percy as a name to "Edward" and the family started 
> to call Percy by his middle name. 

Barbara Jebenstreit wrote:
> Besides, we know that Ron is short for Ronald... at some time an 
> angry Molly calls him that, IIRC. Can't remember where, exactly,
> but it supports the idea that the Weasleys are not using each
> others full name.

Abby wrote:
> couldn't Bill also be short for William (or something like it)?
> It just messes up the whole thing... 

Liz Sager wrote:
> I think its a fandom assumption (by some, anyway) that Ginny is 
> short for Virginia.

Boggles wrote:
> Hmm . . . Arthur, William, Charles, Frederick, George . . . no 
> wonder poor Ron feels like he's got too much to live up to; his 
> father and all his brothers except Percy are named after kings!

Bernadette wrote:
> Actually, Percy is also a King's name... a fictional one, but 
> then so is Arthur!
> Even Harry's name is a "king" name. While we don't know if Harry
> is short for Harold, or the nickname for Henry, both were Kings in 
> England, one Saxon, one Tudor.

Personally, I believe that Bill is short for Bilius. I believe he was 
named for his Uncle Bilius, who saw a Grim and died twenty-four hours 
later. If Bilius died when he and his sibling were young, it would 
make sense for the sibling to name hiser first child after the late 
brother. 

I think it was Arthur who was Bilius's sibling, reflecting the 
previous generation using the alphabetic system including the vowels. 
However, that would make Arthur the oldest, therefore not a seventh 
son, therefore Ron would not be the seventh son of a seventh son. 

It seems to me that Arthur is the oldest of his siblings, because I 
thought that the Burrow was the Weasley family ancestral home. Does 
anyone know whether the Burrow is the Weasley ancestral home, or just 
some place that Arthur and Molly bought to have room for all the kids?

I don't remember Molly calling Ron 'Ronald', but Dumbledore did. 
PS/SS, about the Mirror of Erised, Dumbledore said: "You, who have 
never known your family, see them standing around you. Ronald 
Weasley, who has always been overshadowed by his brothers, sees 
himself standing alone, the best of all of them." 

But at the end of the adventure: "I believe your friends Misters Fred 
and George Weasley were responsible for trying to send you a toilet 
seat." If we can take what Dumbledore calls students as their names, 
than Fred is Fred, not short for Frederick or Alfred. (Btw IIRC 
'Alfred' means 'advised by elves' so it is a much nicer name than it 
sounds.)

I've always liked the idea that there was an alphabetic naming system 
for the Weasleys, but I preferred to think that the litter we know 
were named for the consonants in alphabetical order. Then Percy would 
have the name that started with a D, which might have been Dumbledore 
in honor of Albus, and Percy might have insisted on being called by 
his middle name because he HATED the nickname Dumbo. But Ron and 
Ginny show no signs of fitting that system, H and J. Especially when 
it would have been so easy to call her Jinny! 

If it were Percy who had the name that started with D, then there 
wouldn't be a missing child whose name started with D. However, if 
the system included vowels and there was a D who was lost, so that 
Percy was supposed to be E, the parents might have dropped the system 
in their grief.

Other than Bilius by my preference and Ronald by Dumbledore's words, 
I like to think all those Weasley kids really are named what we call 
them, Charlie not short for Charles, Ginny not short for Genevere or 
Iphigenia. I can't think of a name that starts with J that would have 
Ginny as a nickname. 

Anyway, Ron may not have the same name as a king, but he does have 
the same name as a President. Perceval may have been a fictional king 
but the Percy family (surname) were the Earls of Northumberland and 
just as powerful as if they had been kings. Harry's name is Harry, 
not short for anything (JKR said so in an interview) but nonetheless 
counts (to me) as being named after Henry V: "For England, Harry, and 
St. George!"

Unc Mark wrote:
> Bill and Charlie both did well at Hogwart's and Percy worked his 
> best to keep up to the family honor. Plus he's a middle child and 
> want to stand out. Prefect AND Head Boy (I think Bill or Charlie
> did similar)  

Bill was Head Boy. Charlie was Quidditch Captain (of the Cup-champion 
team). It has occurred to me that if Bill was born the month after 
the age cut-off (e.g. in September if the deadline is that you have 
to turn 11 by or on September 1 to be a Hogwarts first-year) and 
Charlie was born 11 months later (August if Bill was September), they 
could have been in the same year at school despite not being twins. 
That would give them the advantage of having a familiar family member 
right there in the same dorm when they went away to school and the 
disadvantage of having to compete with each other. So it would make 
sense for them to reduce the competition by choosing different 
fields: schoolwork and Head Boy for Bill, sports and Quidditch 
Captain for Charlie.

Anyway, when Percy was a Hogwarts first-year, even Charlie had been 
out of Hogwarts for a year already. Percy was all alone in this big 
school for two years, until the twins started. If Bill and Charlie 
were in the same year, then Percy was the only one of the flock who 
had to be in school alone. Being alone could have been scary and he 
could have sought acheivements as an antidote to fear.

Finwitch wrote:

> And... I think Sirius *was* pureblood. I think he lived next door,
> if not same building to Potters'. Sirius and James were friends and
> bloodbrothers. Sirius may never have known his father, and found 
> James' father as father-figure.

Interesting. I, too, have been thinking that Sirius may never have 
known his father, and found James's parents as parent-figures. 
What is it about Sirius that gives the idea of fatherlessness? 
However, I have also been thinking that James and Sirius didn't know 
each other until they met at Hogwarts, and *then* Sirius spent all 
the school holidays with James's family. I was thinking that maybe 
Sirius's mother (I like to name her Scylla) was a professional 
broomstick racer who lived out of a suitcase and dragged her little 
kid all over the world with her. But then I was wondering if he would 
have grown up to be that carefree boy with laughter in his eyes, NOT 
carrying a load of bitterness in those days, from a childhood like 
that.