Mark Evans - evans, Evans, EVANS

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 86282

Pipsqueak: 
> Ah, but the significance of the *name*?
> 
> JKR could have picked any surname she liked for Lily. Anything. 
> There are plenty of surnames in the UK where the holders are almost 
> certainly related to everyone else with that surname. Heck, my 
> family includes one of those surnames, and it's spooky how people 
> can often spot that my unbelievably distant cousins *are* cousins, 
> because of the similarities.
> 
> But she didn't pick that type of surname for Lily. With all the 
> possibilities - the place names where everyone is from the same 
> small area, the names derived from famous families, the names 
> derived from one small family who immigrated to England centuries 
> ago ... she picked 'Evans'. 
> 
> And one thing we know about JKR - she picks character names with 
> great care.

Carol:
And in this case she's taken care to choose a name that could go
either way. If the child were named Mark Lupin, we'd be pretty sure
there was a connection with Remus but wonder what he was doing in a
Muggle neighborhood. But Mark Evans is in the same Muggle neighborhood
as Petunia Evans Dursley, which could be the same neighborhood she and
her sister Lily grew up in. Mark is either a Muggle-born wizard
presumably related to Lily because of the coincidence of names and
exactly the right age to attend Hogwarts next year or a Muggle red
herring with whom JKR has chosen to tease us. I know I can't convince
you, but IMO the first option is much more likely.

Pipsqueak:
> To recap:
> 
> JKR has set up that the *wizarding world* is inbred.
> JKR has set up that *wizards* with common surnames are related.
> JKR has given an off-stage character the same name as Harry's mother.
> JKR has emphasised Harry's mother's surname.

You've forgotten his age. If he were seven or eight I'd think nothing
of it except that Dudley deserved to be "demented" for treating him
that way. If he were twelve or thirteen, I wouldn't give it a second
thought because he would already be attending Hogwarts if he were a
wizard. But ten! Either he's going to get a Hogwarts letter next year
or we've been teased and misled for nothing.

Pipsqueak: 
> JKR has given Harry's mother a surname where NOT all the holders are 
> related.
> JKR has emphasised that Harry's mother is *muggle-born*
> JKR has given the same surname to another *muggle-born* character.
> 
> I think we're being led down a garden path of 'all characters in the 
> Potterverse with the same surname are relatives'. Therefore 'Mark 
> Evans' must be a relative.
> 
> However -
> 
> Harry makes no mention that Mark Evans is a relative.
> 
> Dudley doesn't see Mark Evans as a relative.

Carol:
Probably because he's not a first cousin or other close relative. It's
quite possible for him to be a second cousin to both Dudley and Harry
without their knowing it. For one thing, Harry doesn't yet know his
mother's maiden name. It's possible that Dudley, being the
self-centered pig/thug that he is, doesn't know *his* mother's,
either. (He wouldn't let Mark's being his cousin interfere with
beating him up, anyway. It didn't stop him with Harry.) Not being
aware of a relationship is a very different thing from not being related.


Pipsqueak: 
> The only relative to visit the Dursley household was a Dursley. The 
> only relatives Petunia mentions are her sister, her parents, and 
> Harry. (Plus Dudley's Aunt Marge, mentioned in PS/SS as well as PoA).

Actually the fact that the only relative to visit was a Dursley only
emphasizes a denial of the Evans connection. Almost certainly there
are no more close relatives (I'm not postulating that Lily and Petunia
had a brother who is or was Mark's father), but Vernon wants nothing
to do with any Evanses or Potters, living or dead. As far as he's
concerned, only Dursleys are respectable. On the rare occasions when
Petunia is allowed to talk about her family, she mentions witchcraft,
which is why Vernon bottles her up. It's possible that she may know of
other relatives in the neighborhood whose existence she keeps
carefully concealed. But even she might not know about them if the
relationship is sufficiently distant.

Pipsqueak: 
> Dumbledore refers to the Dursley's as Harry's only family.

Carol:
This point has been dealt with repeatedly in previous posts. A)
Dumbledore may not know about the relationship since squibs merge with
Muggles after only a few generations. B) If he does know about the
relationship between Harry's mother and Mark's father, it wasn't
sufficiently close for them to be considered "family." He wanted a
strong blood connection, available only through Petunia.

Pipsqueak: 
> Evans is a common name. Most people called Evans probably aren't 
> related.

Carol:
Not in real life, true. But this is the Potterverse, where clues are
dropped to be found. Are there any unexplained coincidences that have
turned out to be dead ends? (I'm not being rude; I'm asking if you
know of any.)
> 
> And, most importantly: 
> Both Mark Evans and Lily Evans come from the muggle world. The world 
> where everyone *isn't* interestingly inbred. The world where a 
> coincidence of surnames may well be just a coincidence.

Carol: Or they come from the Squib/Muggle world where they share a
common ancestor. If Mark's father and Lily were first cousins, their
fathers would have been brothers and that ancestor would be Harry's
and Mark's great grandfather, whom we can say for arguments sake was a
Squib who married a Muggle and produced Muggle offspring, one of whom
had two daughters, a Muggle-born Witch and a Muggle (Petunia can't be
a squib with Muggle parents) and the other had at least one son,
Mark's father, who also has to be a Muggle or we'd have heard of him
by now.

I don't want to get back into the question of how witchcraft is
transmitted genetically, but it's pretty clear that Lily must have had
a Witch/Wizard ancestor at some point, and Mark--*if* he's a
Muggle-born Wizard and not a red herring--must have had one also. At
that point, the likelihood of their being related becomes much greater.

I will, at any rate, be seriously disappointed if it's "another
Christie trick." Can you point out an instance of any previous tricks,
other than misleading us as to the identity of the villain on more
than one occasion?

Carol, who thought Steve's post would convince you and turned out to
be wrong, wrong, wrong!