[HPforGrownups] Dean Thomas

[GulPlum]

No: HPFGUIDX 56239

At 02:14 27/04/03 , Rizzo wrote:

><snip>
>
>Okay, I think I'm getting confused here.  Dean supports the West Ham
>soccer/football team, yeah -- I remember Ron poking at Dean's posters to 
>try to get the images to move, like 'normal' photographs.  But isn't it 
>Collin Creevy's father who's the milkman?

We seem to have had a lot of new members since this last cropped up, so 
it's time for me to climb up onto my soapbox and talk about my favourite 
topic (regular readers need not bother reading on)... :-)

Correct. The fact that Dean is black, is a bit of information we 
UK/Canadian readers have never yet had in canon, although it was part of 
his description when he was sorted in the US edition of PS/SS.  We know 
nothing about his background, other than that "like Harry, he had grown up 
with Muggles". We don't find even find out that much until the second half 
of CoS.

The only other things we know about him are that he's a keen West Ham 
supporter, he has artistic talent (in each book, we are reminded in one 
circumstance each that he is good with a brush or quill), and he's Seamus 
Finnegan's best mate (with whom he attends the QWC in GoF).

Note that as of the end of GoF, Dean is the only one of Harry's dorm-mates 
whose parentage (wizard, half/half, Muggle) hasn't been clearly identified; 
not only that, we've even met at least one of each of their parents as well 
- the Weasleys on several occasions, Seamus's witch mum was at the QWC, 
Neville's parents are in St. Mungo's, but we know nothing *at all* of 
Dean's presumed natural or presumed adoptive parents.

Dean's upbringing is compared not to Hermione, but to Harry. As far as I'm 
concerned, this makes him wizard-born, but given up for Muggle adoption or 
to a "children's home" (the modern euphemism for "orphanage").

Assuming West Ham is his *local* team (the team isn't among the more 
glamorous and has few supporters outside its local area - despite the name, 
West Ham is in *East* London), it should be noted that that area is 
infamously the poorest in the UK, and there are many kids on the streets or 
otherwise without parents. West Ham as a team are renowned for being 
involved in local community projects (it's really the only thing the area 
has to be proud of) and so it's perfectly feasible that this (and his 
drawing) kept him going until he got his Hogwarts letter.

This raises several questions:
Is/was he as unaware of his heritage as Harry?
What *is* that heritage?
His artistic skills are clearly important. In what circumstances will they 
come to be an important plot element as they inevitably must?

(One of my gripes with the first movie is that it is Dean who recognises 
the Remembrall for what it is. Is this major foreshadowing - he *is* aware 
of his magical heritage? - or is it a screw-up - having been brought up by 
Muggles, he shouldn't know anything about the wizarding world?)

Anyway, based on the above, I have decided that because of JKR's love of 
parallelism, he must be the son of *evil* folks; given her penchant for 
foreshadowing, we must have been introduced to them at some stage already, 
and thus I propose that Dean's birth surname is - Lestrange.

It makes *so* much sense! Think of the wonders of having the son of the 
people who tortured Neville's parents in his class!  Harry, sent out to his 
Muggle family as a baby to protect him from his fame; Dean, sent out either 
to Muggle relatives or a Muggle orphanage to protect him from his parents' 
*infamy*!

Oh, and another thought (which I haven't presented before): perhaps what 
the Lestranges wanted from the Longbottoms and for which they tortured them 
was the whereabouts not of Harry, not of Voldemort, but of their own son, 
whom the Longbottoms had been ordered to take into the Muggle world to save 
the baby from reprisals?

As I said above, the question remains as to whether or Dean knows about his 
parents' past and his heritage. If he does, has he renounced it? If he 
doesn't, how will he react when he inevitably finds out? And assuming he's 
the Lestranges' son, does Neville know? If not, how will *Neville* react 
when he finds out?

And one further thought: if he lives in a Muggle orphanage, perhaps it was 
the same Muggle orphanage a certain other Hogwarts pupil attended, 50 years 
ago? Perhaps he will find something that pupil hid in that orphanage?

The possibilities are endless...

--
GulPlum AKA Richard, off to bed