Children of Death Eaters

[jodel at aol.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 60336

Pen points out:

<< It may be that there is some dark reason why Death Eaters were requested 
to produce sons who would be contemporary with Harry Potter, Ron Weasley and 
Neville Longbottom, but we've yet to be given canon evidence for it.   But as 
for it being a coincidence that Malfoy and his sidekicks are the same age - not 
really.   There are probably plenty of other children of DEs who are not the 
same age as Harry.  We just haven't been told about them. >>

And we may just be looking at this issue from the wrong end, too. Pettigrew 
had been spying "for a year" according to Sirius Black's Azkaban recollections. 
That would have had him taking up that role just about the time Harry was 
born. 

Pettigrew's defence was "what could be gained by resisting him?" (an 
unpopular perception, but not a mysterious one). This was Peter's interpretation of 
the direction of the inevitable a full year before Voldemort's eventual defeat.

IF we put these two pieces of info together, it begins to look as if the rise 
of Lord Voldemort had *already* passed a critical level some time before he 
was unexpectedly brought down. It was SAFE for the DEs to start raising 
families. It was *welcomed* that his supporters should be reproducing a new 
generation of followers for the victorius Dark Lord. The battle was all over but the 
shouting. The new order was assured. 

It is not so surprising that there should be four children from families with 
DE connections in Harry's year at Hogwarts (Malfoy, Crabbe, Goyle and Nott. 
Harry has not remembered Nott yet -- or we have not had this pointed out to us 
yet -- but the reader has noticed it) but that there are not more of them. 
That the three children Harry *has* noticed are all boys is probably not all that 
relevant. Three out of three is not beyond the reach of random occurance when 
the outcome has to be a choice between only two possible results.

-JOdel