Arthurian names / Married Professors / Weasleys / Malfoys / LupinE

[Catlady (Rita Prince Winston) <catlady@wicca.net>]

No: HPFGUIDX 52726

Seventh Squeal (lovely name!) wrote:

<< Percy Weasley was named after Percival the knight who went to seek 
the grail. >>

I don't have canon evidence, but I strongly believe that Percy's name 
is Percy, not Percival, so in effect he was named after the family 
name of the Earls of Northumberland, who IIRC had a big army and were 
practically kings themselves during The Wars of The Roses. A good 
reason (what this USAmericans thinks a good reason) would be if 
Percy was Molly's maiden name.

Ffred Manawyddan wrote:

<< However, it would seem unlikely that the professors who we know to 
live on the premises at Hogwarts are all married, if only because 
they would (I think) not be prepared to live their entire lives away 
from their families. >>

Hogwarts Castle is BIG. There would be plenty of room for professors 
to have apartments in the castle large enough for their spouses and 
even their young children to live with them. And the students would 
never know: judging from Harry, the students think the professors 
live in their offices, without even beds. Spouses (and offspring) 
living on campus could compute to their jobs (and schools) just 
as easily as you explained that professors living off-campus could 
commute to Hogwarts.

I think it would be non-wonderful for a family if their regular 
procedure was that Mum ate breakfast and dinner at the High Table in 
the Great Hall with the other professors and Dad and the kids ate 
breakfast and dinner alone in their apartment (and lunch at his work, 
their school). And that Harry would have noticed by now if there were 
a sixth table for motley adults and a few young children. 

Depending on how many people dine at the High Table, if spouses ate  
there with the professors, Harry wouldn't know that they weren't yet 
more professors. It seems to me that dinner at Hogwarts is too early 
for the hypothetical young children to have been fed and put to bed 
already by then, but not all professors are required to take all 
their meals at the High Table (Miss Trelawney, for example). The ones 
with young children may avoid the High Table except on Feast Days, in 
favor of family dinners in their apartments. I agree with everyone 
who said that the Heads of the Houses probably are required to dine 
at the High Table, to keep an eye on their students: 

Snape - single, no children. 

McGonagall - I firmly believe that she and Hooch are a couple (and 
that she got Hooch the job at Hogwarts), who live together in their 
quarters, but keep the relationship mostly secret - but anyway, no 
children. 

Flitwick - we don't know his family status, but he's presented as 
being quite old enough to be at least a great-grandfather - no young 
children still at home. One of the not yet introduced witches at the 
High Table could be his wife. Or he could be a widower or an old 
bachelor, for all we know. I think he's so extremely short and 
funny looking as result of a Shrinking Spell that hit him in a 
duel which couldn't be fully removed, but if those who believe he's 
half-Goblin or half-House Elf are right, wizarding racial prejudice 
may have discouraged people from marrying him. 

Sprout - she also is presented as looking middle-aged, which is like 
80 or 100 for witches. I believe that she is a great-grandmother, and 
still married, but her husband spends his time exploring the world to 
discover new magical plants.

<< Are the Weasleys typical (when you consider that puberty seems to 
arrive at the same time of life for wizards and muggles alike, but 
that wizards live twice as long, so that a witch would be fertile for 
twice as long)? >>

I think witches hit the change of life at age 70 to 80, and since it 
DOES seem to be not atypical for the wizarding folk to marry and have 
their first child quite young, a couple could have their first child 
at age 20, their second at age 40, their third at age 60, and maybe 
another (unexpected change-of-life baby) at age 80, so each child 
would live like an only child, go to Hogwarts without any siblings 
there, and readers observing through Harry's eyes would think that 
there were a lot of only children and the wizarding folk weren't 
reproducing enough to maintain their population.

I remain convinced that for Lucius to say (so Draco could echo) that 
"all the Weasleys" have red hair, no money, and more children than 
they can afford, there must be (have been) more Weasleys with big 
families than just Arthur. I'll allow how it could have started with 
Arthur's father ... if Arthur were the youngest of his litter, Lucius 
might have gone to Hogwarts simultaneously with two or three litters 
of red-haired Weasley cousins, all in Gryffindor. That could have 
given him a biased outlook on Weasleys. It could have been that there 
was at least one Weasley in each grade (year) during every year that 
he was at Hogwarts - that would be a minimum of 13 Weasleys.

But that brings us back to Claire Ophelia's original question, where 
did all those other Weasleys go? (The ones who were in school with 
Lucius should have a least a few children Draco's age.) I imagine 
that most were killed*, often by Dark Wizards, and at least one 
emigrated (to France?), from where he sent at least one daughter, the 
GoF rumored Icicle Weasley, to Beaxbatons. I also imagine that this 
question is related to the question of how Hogwarts can have 1000 
students = 143 in each grade, when canon shows that Harry's year has 
8 to 10 Gryffindors, 6 to 10 Slytherins, no more than 10 Hufflepuffs, 
and no mention of there being 100 Ravenclaws ... ]

* Once I said that I think Arthur was raised in better financial 
circumstances than those in which he is living now, and perhaps he 
had many siblings, so when the family inheritance was divided among 
them, each one's share was too small to properly supplement the token 
salaries paid by the Ministry of Magic. I think it was Pip who 
pointed out the English custom is NOT to divide the inheritance, 
instead leaving it all to the oldest son, so the younger sons have to 
support themselves, so perhaps that Arthur was a younger son. In that 
case, another unanswerable question would be, why didn't the family 
inheritance come back to Arthur as all his siblings and nephews and 
neices and grand-nephews and grand-nieces were killed? I don't 
believe that wizards have inheritance tax.

Ali Hewison (whose alihewison ID didn't show on the post) wrote:

<< On a slightly different tack, it may be significant that the 
Malfoys have a French sounding surname. They could perhaps owe their 
name and property to the Norman Invasion in 1066, after which time 
William the Conqueror gave out land to Norman Followers. Old landed 
gentry indeed. >>

I personally believe that the Malfoys were there long before the 
Normans, but changed their name after the Conquest to fit in with the 
new rulers. I believe I mentioned a while ago that I may have found 
one of their ancestors in Patrick Ford's translation of Culhwh and 
Olwen, where a listing of King Arthur's court included "Tathal Twyll 
Golau whose treachery was patent" (mal-foy = bad-faith = treachery), 
which Ffred kindly translated for me as ""twyll" is "betrayal" and 
"golau" is "light" so perhaps "Tathal the bright betrayer" would be a 
translation." Ford apparently interpreted the brightness as that the 
Treachery was Glaring(ly obvious), but it seems to me that another 
interpretation could argue for the Malfoys already being so 
albino-ish-ly white blonde in those days. 

Audra wrote:

<<  "lupin" is also a very light shade of blue >>

I suppose the color is named after the flower "lupine". There's that 
Monty Python sketch I vaguely recall, about highwayman Danny Lupin 
riding out to stick up travellers and demand "Give me all your 
lupines"...