Wand Woods - Gap between Charlie and Percy - Harry's Friends

[catlady_de_los_angeles]

No: HPFGUIDX 43761

Richelle wrote:

<< wands and wood symbolisms.>>

Mitch Bailey wrote:

<< Harry's wand's wood Holly - holly is an evergreen tree (snip) 
As well as the christmas assosciations it is also apparently 
(according to the oxford encyclopedia) a plant surrounded with 
ancient supersition (snip) It is often found growing near churches 
graveyards and it represents eternal life and the cycle of life and 
death in pagan religions. >>

I've never heard of yew being a symbol of 'the cycle of life and 
death', but often of it being a symbol of death. Because it was 
traditionally planted in graveyards as you mentioned (to consume 
the corpses as fertilizer), because its bark, leaves, and berries 
were all poisonous as you mentioned, and because the famous English 
longbow was made out of yew wood, which luckily happens to be a 
natural composite, with two layers that are the perfect combination 
for a powerful bow.

Even tho' being evergreen doesn't make yew a symbol of life, it does 
make holly a symbol of life. Its green leaves in the snowy Christmas 
time representing the defeat of death (by Christ's resurrection, and 
heaven for believers) and its blood red berries (representing the 
*means* of that conquest of death) made it a perfect Christ symbol 
for Christmas (not that I believe in Christianity myself, but JKR 
does), but it earlier appeared in stories -- I think this is Tristan 
and Mark fighting over Essylt, any way some higher king ordered them 
to time-share her, and Tristan offered Mark his choice of having her 
when the leaves are green or when the trees are bare. Mark thought of 
those long winter nights and chose when the trees are bare. Tristan 
exulted that the holly and ivy have green leaves all year and are 
never bare and therefore he gets Essylt year-round. For some reason, 
this was considered legitimate.

Mahogany is the color (dark red) of Lily Evans Potter's hair. 

Michelle wrote:

<< It seems to me that the Weasley family as a whole were lucky the 
first time voldemort was around (I would have thought we would have 
heard by now of any serious death in the family due to Voldemort by 
now)  (snip) Also has anyone else noticed that while there seems to 
be small gaps in age between most of the Weasley kids (1 or 2 school 
years) by my calculations (going on the fact that Charlie seemingly 
left hogwarts 5 years before Ron started) Percy is about 8 years 
younger than Charlie - why such the huge gap? >>

One theory for the big gap (I think I counted on my fingers that it 
was seven years) between Charlie and Percy is that there were one or 
two more kids in the gap, who were killed by Voldemort/Death Eaters. 
One basis for this speculation is that Arthur's mention, in GoF, that 
the young-uns didn't know what it was like to come home to see that 
Dark Mark hanging over your house and know that it meant the house 
was destroyed and all your family killed; some people think he 
sounded like he was speaking from *very* personal experience. 

Emma_look_alike wrote:

<< Does it seem that Harry only has Ron and Hermione for friends? >>

One would not say that the Twins are not his friends ... they joke 
around with him, and give him the Marauder's Map. I think Harry would 
say that Oliver Wood was his friend ... but yes, Ron and Hermione are 
the only people he hangs out with except for Quidditch practise, and 
the only people he comes close to confiding in. Harry never had any 
friends before he came to Hogwarts, and he probably feels that having 
*two* close friends is a great many.