The Burrow / the name Annabel / Arthur's Age / Death Eater Spawn / Mrs Figg

[catlady_de_los_angeles]

No: HPFGUIDX 42888

I can't believe this is the THIRD time I've written this e-mail -- my 
computer keeps eating it when I'm almost done.

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., I wrote:

<< I have never understood WHY Malfoys share the common prejudice 
against giants and werewolves. Why would people who adore the Dark 
Lord >> and Dark Arts << despise Dark Creatures who are alleged to 
also serve the Dark Lord? >>

I quoted it here to add "and Dark Arts".

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "bboy_mn" <bboy_mn at y...> wrote:

<< Is the Weasley's Burrow, in the wizard's parallel universe similar 
to Diagon Alley, or is it just muggle space that the Weasley's have 
enchanted so the muggles will ignore it? >> 

The Burrow is in the Muggle universe: remember when three Muggle 
taxi-cabs arrive there to take everyone to King's Cross station?

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., Eloise the Hedgehog wrote:

<< However, the site also says that Annabel is *Hebrew*. >>

Maybe that site understands "Annabelle" as I did before I read your 
information: as a fancied-up form of "Anna", which does come from the 
Hebrew name Hannah, which IIRC means 'grace'. A portmanteau of 
Hebrew-derived "Anna" and Latin-derived "Bella".

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., Ginny Merrimom wrote:

<< HF said: <<< However, it's *Arthur* who calls [Mundungus Fletcher] 
old, and Arthur is presumably around 65-70 years >>> Um, I thought we 
estimated that his oldest child was at most 30, and that Arthur and 
Molly got started pretty soon after leaving Hogwarts, so that makes 
him more like 50. >>

I don't know any canon for Arthur and Molly having started having 
children soon after leaving school. Personally, I think they were in 
school with Riddle and MacGonagall, in which case they MUST have 
waited a while before having children. They could afford to wait: 
with those long wizarding lifespans, I expect witches have menopause 
around age 80 instead of around age 50. So a hypothetical witch could 
be 60 when she STARTS her family.

On another tentacle, if Arthur was in school with Riddle and 
MacGonagall, then he wasn't in school with Lucius Malfoy (who was 
younger than Riddle, if Draco can be believed.) 

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., Fyre Wood wrote:

<< As I was reading through the books, the names of the Death Eaters 
popped into my mind: Malfoy, Crabbe, Goyle, Nott, and many many more. 
However, have you all noticed that they're all about the same age and 
are all in the house of Slytherin? >>

We don't know that Nott is in Slytherin. We don't know that Nott is 
male. We may know that Nott's initial is T, from QTTA check-out list, 
unless that is a sibling or cousin.

By the way, neither Bulstrode nor Parkinson is given to us as the 
name of an adult Death Eater. 

<< Is it a conspiracy that Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle are all the same 
age? Or perhaps was it a thing assigned by Voldemort issuing that on 
a certain date, Death Eaters were required to make new recruits for 
his soon to be new squad of Death Eaters? >>

Yes.

My theory is that Voldemort believes in Prophecies and Divination, 
and he discovered that it was written in the stars (or whatever) that 
a boy in Britain conceived around Halloween 1979 and born around 
Lammas 1980 would have exceptional magic powers. He wanted this boy's 
powers to be a weapon he could use AND he wanted to make sure that 
this boy's powers would not become a weapon for the Light Side. He 
figured that the way to do that was for the boy to be born and raised 
among his loyal followers. So he ordered his Death Eaters to go out 
and spawn at the appointed time, and they obeyed, but none of their 
children were the Prophesied Boy: HARRY, of course, was the Prophesied 
Boy.

(I have a Britspeak problem with my theory: I imagine Voldemort 
telling his circle of Death Eaters what to do, and they all 
prostrated themselves and pledged obedience, but afterwards, Crabbe 
and Goyle (whom I imagine to be not too bright) asked Malfoy what had 
the Dark Lord ordered them to do, and Malfoy answered in language his 
thugs would understand. In US-speak, he would have said: "He told you 
to go home and knock up your wives", but "knock up" doesn't mean 
"impregnate" in UK-speak, and "he told you to put your wives in the 
family way" doesn't sound vulgar enough.) 

Also: look at all the names of Death Eaters we have been given in 
canon. Besides Malfoy, Crabbe, Goyle, and Nott, there was Avery, 
MacNair, Lestrange, Rozier, Wilkes, Karkaroff, Mulciber, Dolohov, 
Rookwood -- that's from memory. Our sources for the names of students 
in Harry's year are: the names of students Sorted in the Sorting Hat 
scene in Book 1, Ernie MacMillan added to that in his later 
appearance, and what the TV camera showed of JKR's hand-written list 
of all the students in Harry's year (it was in a show called "Harry 
Potter and Me" and a wise and kindly listie got screen-shots and put 
them in the Photo Section of this very YahooGroup). 

Between those sources, we know all the A thru L surnames of Harry's 
classmates, the T thru Z, and many of the other surnames; I myself am 
terribly confused about the Ms, the first on the hand-written list is 
MacDougal, Isobel (replacing a crossed-out name that looks like 
Kathrine), then there are three or four more Ms that I can't read, 
but assume to include MacMillan, Malfoy, and Moon ... *If* there are 
four, is the fourth Morag McDougal who was Sorted in the book or is 
Morag formerly Isobel, in which case there MIGHT be a MacNair. Who 
might be a girl and we don't know what House. 

We also have a really wretched lack of information on the Rs (not 
mentioned in the book and illegible on the document), so there MIGHT 
be a Rookwood or Rozier whom we have never heard (altho' HOLLYDAZE! 
tried to decipher them and got Rive- Rope- and Runc- in post # 32380 
and around there). I suppose a child of the Lestranges might have had 
his/her name changed because of all the bad publicity... Even so, 
that doesn't seem like a very high proportion of Death Eaters 
succeeded in procreating on command. (More about that below.)

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., Ginny Merrimom wrote:

<< Oooh, this is bleak.  I think it is important, and here's why.  If 
I were Voldemort [accessing latent evil personality traits now] and I 
wanted to ensure another generation of greatness, I would take care 
of that personally. >>

I don't think he wanbted to 'ensure another generation of greatness': 
he planned to live forever and wouldn't have wanted to create any 
rivals. It was only servants he meant to create.

<< In other words, I'd knock up every willing or not-so-willing woman 
I could find.  Sort of a one-man super race. See David Koresh (sp?) 
for a real world example.  Your really loyal DEs (Malfoy, Crabbe, 
Goyle) would surely offer up their wives in a display of loyalty. >>

I think Voldemort at that time could not have begotten his own heirs 
even if he had wanted to: I am convinced that he gave up sex organs 
as well as sex drive when he turned himself into a red-eyed snake-man 
in his pursuit of immortality. I believe that he was already the 
sexless red-eyed snake-man when he began recruiting Death Eaters: I 
suppose that he started recruiting as soon as he had made himself 
immortal. 

<< As to why they're all male, that sort of thing is determined 
by the father (some men make more Y chromosome sperm).  Or, more 
bleakly, he only wanted boys and so all girls were aborted or 
sacrificed at birth. >> 

As I mentioned above, for we know, Malfoy, Crabbe, Goyle (juniors) 
are the three boys and Nott, hypothetical MacNair, hypothetical 
Rookwood, hypothetical Rozier, and hypothetical Lestrange (whose name 
was changed) are five girls.

Altho', speaking of sacrificed at birth, Voldemort failed to follow 
his predecessor Evil Overlords (Pharaoh and Herod, for two) in 
ordering all boys born around the appointed time to be thrown into 
the ocean at birth ... where the harmless ones would all drown, but 
the dangerous one would drift ashore to a foster family.

<< This explains why there seem to be so many only children, too. >>

Does that mean you share my theory that many Death Eater families, 
such as Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy, didn't want to have children, at 
least not for a long time, but submitted to the Dark Lord about 
having this one? 

However, with those long wizarding lifespans I mentioned way up 
there, wizarding couples *could* choose to space their children at 
*twenty* year intervals and *still* have three children, even tho' 
each would have been raised pretty much as an only child. If any of 
the Death Eater were old (middle-aged) wizards (like Rookwood, 
who was a friend of Bagman's *dad*), they might have already had 
grand-children and great-grandchildren when Voldemort ordered them
to make more babies.

My theory on the low rate of compliance is that orphanage-raised Tom 
Riddle was a bit of a prude and only ordered them to get their wives 
pregnant, not kidnapped witches held captive under Imperius, and some 
of the wives were too old for child-bearing, and some of the men 
weren't married.

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "bboy_mn" <bboy_mn at y...> wrote:

<< Rowling doesn't leave much to chance or miss any details, but she 
does have an unusual sense of humor, maybe the Mrs. (cabbage) Figg 
and the Arabella Figg are just fodder for the Yahoo Groups mill until 
the next book comes out. Nothing but Rowling's way of having us on.>>

JKR confirmed it in an interview:
http://www.geocities.com/aberforths_goat/

http://www.yahooligans.com/content/chat/jkrowlingchat.html
Yahooligan_Zeb asks: Does Arabella Figg have an important role in the 
later books?
jkrowling_bn: You'll be seeing Mrs. Figg in book five and you'll find 
out all about her

http://www.scholastic.com/harrypotter/author/transcript2.htm
Q  : Is the Mrs. Figg with all the cats in the Dursleys' neighborhood 
the same Arabella Figg that Dumbledore mentioned at the end of book 4?
JKR: Well spotted!