TBAY: Fourth Man Revisited (was:The Real Rita/ Coherence/ Stoned!Harry etc)

[alhewison]

No: HPFGUIDX 38863



 Me:
...hence deleting Rita Skeeter from the original Leaky Cauldron 
scene, and deleting the Weasley cousin from GoF. 

Eloise:
> 
....And who is this mysterious Weasley cousin?'
> 
> Stoned!Harry has mysteriously disappeared again. Eloise follows his 
> distinctive aura up the stairs into the museum proper, where she 
finds him 
> perched upon one of the exhibits, a very small cannon. The 
inscription reads,
> 
>  'Are all your family wizards?' asked Harry, who found Ron just as 
interesting as Ron found him.

> 'Er - yes, I think so,' said Ron 'I think Mum's got a second 
> cousin who's an  accountant, but we never talk about him.'
> 
> Eloise thinks the cannon is rather strange. Why would the Muggle-
loving  Weasleys *not* talk about a squib in the family? Surely 
they're more broad-minded than that. Of course, at the time the 
inscription refers to, we  don't actually know about the Weasleys' 
attitudes. It would be easy to miss.
> 

> Stoned!Harry gives her a look which seems to say, 'At last!'
> 
> This hints at a scheme of great coherence. In PS/SS we should have 
been > introduced to Rita Skeeter. We *were* introduced to a Weasley 
cousin, who  significantly has (IIRC) never been mentioned again
 
I think that the second cousin mentioned in PS/SS and the cousin who 
JKR had intended to put into Gof are different. Sorry, although I 've 
read loads of her interviews I'm useless at remembering where she 
said what. I think though that the cousin in GoF was to be a female 
who would be sending information out of Hogwarts I guess as a fellow 
pupil - actually fulfilling some of the role that Rita Skeeter 
eventually had.

I've wondered alot about the Weasley second cousin, and don't believe 
that he can have been a squib, or that he would have choosen to live 
as a Muggle. It just doesn't seem to be like the Weasleys to 
ostracise him. But the idea that he had done something wrong, had had 
his wand snapped in half - and made to go and live as a Muggle, might 
explain the Weasley attitude. I too wonder if we'll hear anything 
about him again!

Ali