It's descendent, not ancestor; Omniscience

[plinsenmayer]

No: HPFGUIDX 40662

Hi --

I realize I'm a little late on this one but I do have a point --

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "judyserenity" <judyshapiro at e...> wrote:
> On the topic of whether Voldemort is Slytherin's descendent or 
> ancestor, David (davewitley) very kindly emailed me the following 
> quote from an interview with JK Rowling:
> 
>              **************************
> Q: Is Voldemort the last remaining ancestor of Slytherin, or the last 
> remaining descendent of Slytherin? 
> 
> JKR Ah, you spotted the deliberate error. Yes, it should 
> read "descendent." That's been changed in subsequent editions. (Keep 
> hold of the "ancestor" one, maybe it'll be valuable one day!)
>               ***********************
> 
> The interview can be found at:
> www.scholastic.com/harrypotter/author/transcript2
> 
<snip>

> So, this clears it up; it should read "descendent".  This means Harry 
> *can not* be descended from Voldemort (or Slytherin) unless
Dumbledore  was wrong when he said in CoS that Voldemort is the last
surviving descendent of Slytherin. 
> 

I agree with the interpretation of her interview statement as reading
that the text *should* read descendant (and not ancestor).  I've
always thought that was the intent since the phrase "last remaining"
doesn't sound at all right for "ancestor" after all.  "Last remaining"
pretty clearly means descendant.

What I find confusing, however, is that once the "error" was
discovered, it has not been uniformly corrected.  I have seen several
later printings of hardback CoS where the wording was changed to
"descendant," but yet my first printing paperback version of CoS
(published *after* these corrected hardback printings) contains the
old "ancestor" phrase.  I fail to understand why they can't get this
right!  

As for the theory that Voldemort is Harry's grandfather, I think we
have 2 pieces of evidence that he is *not* related to Harry.  First,
you have Dumbledore's statement that Voldemort has no descendants (if
he's the last surviving descendent, then he has *no* surviving
children or grandchildren).  Second, you have the JKR interview
statement that Voldemort being related to Harry would be a "bit Star
Wars."  I suppose it's possible to read her response as a "side-step,"
but my interpretation is that she's being pretty clear on that one.  :--)

Penny