Voldemort descendents WAS BRAVE Riddle / Voldemort-Potter connection

[bluesqueak]

No: HPFGUIDX 40321

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., Edblanning at a... wrote:
> Judy:
> > Now, about whether Harry is related to Riddle, Eloise noted:
> > > Dumbledore... tells us that Voldemort is Slytherin's only 
> > > remaining descendent. If this is correct, Harry *cannot* be    
> > > Riddle's grandson. 

> >Judy again: 
> > I used this argument, too, a while back.  However, someone then 
> > noted that the passage reads last surviving descendent in some 
> > versions of the book, and last surviving *ancestor* in other 
> > versions. JKR was asked about this is an interview, and said 
> > something like "You've noticed the deliberate error."  
> > 
> Eloise replied:
> I decided not to get into the ancestor business. But I should have  
> known better: there's always a LOON around somewhere.....;-)
> 
> This may be terribly crass. If it is, please forgive me, only this 
> has been brought up enough times for me to begin to wonder whether 
> this just *could* be one of those English usage things. I'm sure 
> I'm stating the obvious, but,in British usage at least, 'Ah, you've 
> noticed the deliberate error,' is such a common way of admitting a 
> mistake (perhaps JKR's, rather than the editor's, hence the tongue- 
> in-cheek response?) that I've always taken it to be just that. As  
> Judy so graphically demonstrates, you have to jump through a lot of 
> rings to get 'ancestor' to make any sense.
> 
Yes, I'd agree with 'British usage'. At least whenever I say 'ah, 
you've spotted the deliberate mistake' it translates as 'oops, I 
didn't catch that mistake, did I?' :-)

You have to jump through a lot of hoops to get 'ancestor' to make 
sense (a lot more than you have to jump through to get a obviously 
High Medieval castle built in 9th Century Scotland [grin]- apologies 
for going off topic there). And the fact that later editions DO now 
have 'descendant' suggests it was a genuine error in wording.

I think it has to be taken as canon that *as-far-as-Dumbledore-
knows*, Tom Riddle has no children. Of course, this doesn't mean that 
he actually has no children, since it's possible that he may have one 
or two little bastards that he (and Dumbledore) don't know about. And 
the child him or herself may not know the identity of their real 
father. 

It depends how omniscient Dumbledore is - does he have a way of 
finding out things that people don't know about themselves? That 
quite possibly *no-one* living knows and is not in any known written 
record? He knows things about Harry that Harry doesn't know about 
himself; but that might be largely because he knew both of Harry's 
parents.

Equally, the 'little bastard' theory might well apply to the 'last 
remaining Slytherin descendant'. There are no known descendants of 
Slytherin apart from Tom Riddle - but as Hermione points out in CoS, 
it's awfully difficult to prove or deny descent from someone who 
lived a thousand years ago; for all we know Harry, or his mother 
Lily, or Snape, or Hermione, or Dumbledore himself could all be 
descendants of Slytherin without actually knowing it.

Pip