Some Discrepancies

[meriaugust]

No: HPFGUIDX 86256

 "greatlit2003" <hieya at h...> wrote:
> In the first book, when Harry looks into the Mirror of Erised and 
> sees his family, he sees his parents and other ancestors, 
> including "other pairs of green eyes" like his own. A few lines 
> later, JKR writes that the *Potters* waved at Harry out of the 
> mirror. The green eyes are a connection between Harry and his 
> mother, and some of the people in the mirror are clearly members 
of 
> the Evans family, so why don't the words reflect that? Did JKR 
have 
> a reason for not telling us Harry's mother's maiden name until the 
> fifth year?

Meri here: 
I think what we have to remember here is that we see the entire 
Mirror of Erised chapter from Harry's perspective: I don't have my 
copy of SS with me right now (it's out on loan) but I'm pretty sure 
that Harry doesn't know that his eyes come from his mother's side of 
the family yet. It's possible that Hagrid mentions something 
like 'you look like your dad but you have your mother's eyes' in the 
Hut on the Rock, but I can't quite remember. I do know, however, 
that DD says this to Harry when he is in the hospital wing at the 
end of the book. Also, since Harry doesn't know his mother's maiden 
name, it's probably safe to assume that he is merely generalizing 
when he refers to "the Potters", even if he is seeing the late, 
lamented members of the Evans clan. And as to why JKR didn't tell us 
what Lily's maiden name was until book 5, I can't really speculate. 
I'm sure she has some grand reasoning behind it, though we did know 
it was Evans before hand, I think she revealed it in a pre-OotP 
interview. 

greatlit2003 also asks: 
> Sirius's mother tells people to get out of the house of her 
fathers. 
> We know that #12 Grimmauld Pl is "the noble and most ancient house 
> of Black". So why does Sirius have his mother's maiden name? I 
know 
> there is a lot of in-breeding in the WW, but still, why was Sirius 
> raised in the house of his mother's ancestors? The Blacks seem 
like 
> a traditional family, and in traditional cultures, women will take 
> their husband's name, and live with the husband and his family. 
So, 
> even if Ms. Black married a Mr. Black (thereby keeping her own 
> name), why did she continue to live in her family's home? The only 
> explanation I can think of is that the Blacks all lived together 
as 
> an extended family. But if that was the case, why do they all live 
> separately now?  Why didn't Lucius move in when he married 
Narcissa 
> Black? The house was abandoned for years before the Order arrived. 
> Surely Narcissa wouldn't have abandoned the old family manor she 
had 
> grown up in?

Meri again: 
I think that because the WW is so traditional that Mrs. Black, who 
had a different maiden name, feels (felt?) herself a member of her 
husband's family. Because the pure-blooded WW is so inbred, it is 
entirely possible that she and her husband (Sirius' dad) were 
related in some way before marriage. And as to why Narcissa didn't 
move into the old Black homestead, she is only a cousin to Sirius 
(as is Bellatrix and Andromeda, Tonks' mother) and she herslef 
married into a pure-blood family with its own noble manor house, 
where she presumably became a full member of the Malfoy family by 
marriage. There is no cannon to support that anyone grew up in 12 
Grimmauld Place besides Sirius and Regelus Black, and the house was 
presumably abandoned because there were no more pure Black sons to 
move in. And, here's a thought that's totally OT, but can a portrait 
bewitch itself to say anything it wants? Perhaps for simplicity's 
sake, Mrs. Black shortened the message: after all, "Defliers of my 
husband's father's house!" doesn't quite have the same bite, does 
it? 
Meri