Molly's Age / US vs UK English / Name: Chang / Shrieking Shack Scene /

[catlady_de_los_angeles]

No: HPFGUIDX 34512

Jo Ellen Rober wrote:

> OK, but can I point out that it is still biologically possible, 
> although rare, for a 57 year old woman to become pregnant. Average 
> age for cessation of menstruation is 55 over here in the US. My own 
> grandmother had her last child at age 54. So, do you suppose Molly 
> and Mr. Weasley kept having children they could not afford because 
> they wanted a girl, and then decided to use birth control after 
> Ginny was born? Or do you think Molly had Ginny as a "change of 
> life" baby as we call it in Alabama?

Considering the two-year spacing of most of the younger Weasleys 
(in Book 1, Percy is fifth year, the twins are third year, and Ron 
is first year), and the seven or eight year gap between Charlie and 
Percy, it seemed that Molly and Arthur did use birth control, at 
least for spacing. I thought they just kept trying for a girl, until 
I thought that it would explain that gap if they had originally 
planned to only have two children, and then when they were fighting 
the Dark Side, so many wizarding people were being killed, they 
eventually decided to replenish the population, and then when 
Voldemort was defeated, they figured that other couples would take up 
that task. I don't understand why they suddenly skipped the spacing 
for the last kid, especially when they didn't know yet that it would 
be the last. I could understand if there were 11 months between the 
FIRST two, as with my domestic partner and his next brother (you're 
the midwife, *you* explain to the list why I said that). 

I think Arthur and Molly are closer to 80 than to 70. Let me do my 
computation on 80 wizarding years old:
80 - 20 = 60
60 / 2 = 30
30 + 20 = 50.
The Muggle equivalent age would be 50, and the information that your 
grandmother had a child at age 54 comforts me, because I have a 
fanfic in which I want a 80 year old witch to have a change-of-life 
baby (I've heard that phrase here in California), and I was worried 
that 80 would be too old.

Chappnee wrote:

> just like I loved finding out that Americans have different words 
> for things like 'pop' in Canada on a cruise I went on. The poor boy
> I was talking to mistook me for saying 'pot', as in the drug, until 
> he realised I was pointing to my drink!

That stuff that Brits apparently call 'fizzy lemonade', causing 
confusion when I told my friend I wanted lemonade and he brought me 
Seven-Up instead; I should have said 'citronade'. Anyway, there are a 
lot of different names for that stuff in USA, probably regional 
differences. New Yorkers apparently say "soda" and a man who grew up 
in North Florida insisted that it was ALL called 'coke'. A man 
who grew up in Oregon said it was called 'pop' and one of my weird 
friends insisted that in his childhood it was called 'mixers'. As 
for me, I didn't know it had any name but "sof' drink" until I went 
away to university.

Tabouli wrote:

> she agreed that Cho Chang sounded like a Hong Kong name, though she
> thought that "Chang" wasn't a typical Cantonese name (which are 
> more likely to have a dipthong, like Cheung).

In my dorm at university, there was a girl from Hong Kong named Miao 
Chang. I love(d) the idea of being named Meow, but Miao had a little 
dog rather than a cat. 

Dicentra wrote:

> they were on opposite sides of the war. Sirius knows Severus 
> supported Voldemort,

You make good points about there having been a war on, but Sirius 
DIDN'T know that Severus had supported Voldemort. GoF, "Padfoot 
Returns", page 461 of UK edition: "As far as I know, Snape was never 
even accused of being a Death Eater -- not that that means much." "I 
know Dumbledore trusts where a lot of other people wouldn't, but I 
just can't see him letting Snape teach at Hogwarts if he'd ever 
worked for Voldemort."

I don't understand how Sirius could possibly NOT know about Snape 
having been a Death Eater. Sirius was gathering information since his 
escape, and the Pensieve memory showed that Karkaroff had accused 
Snape, and Dumbledore had announced that Snape had been a Death Eater 
but come back to the Light Side, in front of dozens and dozens of 
people. How could word possibly NOT have gotten around?

By his own account, even in Azkaban, he heard the other prisoners, as 
they were going mad, screaming at Karkaroff for turning them in, and 
at Pettigrew for having gotten Voldemort destroyed. It doesn't make 
sense to me that they knew about Karkaroff naming names but not about 
Snape naming names, and knew that Pettigrew was V's spy but not that 
Snape had a place in the Death Eater circle. Surely very few Death 
Eaters knew about Pettigrew, or else one of them would have leaked 
word of him to MoM.

If one of the Death Eaters who had got free by naming names had named 
Pettigrew, or if the Dementors had reported to Fudge that prisoners 
were screaming against Pettigrew for leading Voldemort into his death 
trap... 

Cindy Sphynx wrote:

> Bonus question: if Dumbledore had been in the Shrieking Shack,
> would he have been willing to kill Peter like Lupin or would he
> have shown mercy without waiting for Harry to speak up? How about 
> McGonnagall?

Of course it would never even occur to Dumbledore to kill Pettigrew 
out of hand, as it was not a PERSONAL vengeance for Dumbledore. 
He would have cast Petrificus Totalus and Stupefy on Pettigrew 
and turned him over to appropriate representatives of the Department 
of Magical Law Enforcement. NOT to the Dementors. I think not even 
to Fudge, whose job description does not include escorting prisoners. 
McGonagall would do the same, as it happens to be the correct thing 
to do, but Dumbledore would have done it as the most elegant way to 
solve a number of problems (clearing Sirius, depriving Voldemort of a 
servant, etc) at once, not because of law.

I didn't realise until PIPPIN said it, but Dumbledore would also have 
awakened Snape and seen to it that Lupin drank his potion.