Caput Draconis, WAS: Re: Fate of HANDSOME guys in the Harry Potter series

[Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)]

No: HPFGUIDX 84459

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "bohcoo" <sydenmill at m...> wrote:

> SS, ch. 7, page 130, American Edition:
> "'Caput Draconis,' said Percy, and the portrait swung forward to 
> reveal a round hole in the wall."
> 
> Remember SNUF-fles?
> 
> Caput Draconis:
>      Caput: Kaput -- "utterly defeated or destroyed; made useless or 
> unable to function." {The Merriam-Webster Dictionary})
>      And, Draconis:  Draco (n) is.
> 
> Sorta looks a good bit like a hint , doesn't it? Maybe that is why 
> JKR didn't want us getting too fond of him. He isn't going to be 
> around that much longer.

Caput Draconis means 'the head of the dragon'. I've always felt it 
was somehow related to 'pig snout', another Gryffindor password, but 
I can't work 'fairy lights' or any of the others into a pattern.

I thought there was a star named Caput Draconis, but what I have 
found between http://www.r-clarke.org.uk/propernames1.htm and 
http://www.ras.ucalgary.ca/~gibson/starnames/starnames.html?o=0 and
http://www.astro.uiuc.edu/~kaler/sow/sowlist.html is:

Thuban (alpha Draconis) 
Rastaban (beta Draconis)
Eltanin (gamma Draconis)
Altais (delta Draconis)

"Thuban is one of the fainter stars that carries a proper name, almost
certainly because of its immense historical role as [a previous Pole
Star]. Its importance is further highlighted in that it is the Alpha
star of Draco (the Dragon) even though it not close to being the
brightest of this long and rambling constellation, easily exceeded in
visibility by Gamma, Beta, and even Eta Draconis. .... Even though the
star is in the Dragon's tail, its name confusingly derives from an
Arabic phrase meaning "the Serpent's head," having been borrowed from
the name for another star."

"The great northern serpent's neck points southward, Draco the
Dragon's two leading stars looking like two eyes staring at Hercules.
The names of both come from the same Arabic root, which means "the
serpent." Eltanin (Gamma, the eastern star) means just that, "the
serpent," while Rastaban (Beta, the western one) comes from a longer
phrase that means "the serpent's head," and in fact was once applied
to the star now known as Eltanin. Shining at the bright end of third
magnitude (2.79), Rastaban is the just barely the third brightest star
in the constellation, beat out by Eltanin and by Eta Draconis, though
it still masters Thuban, the fainter Alpha star (whose name shares the
same root)."

"DELTA Dra : Nodus Secundus or Altais : second knot" or ?? (misreading
of same word as in Gamma Dra)"

btw, let me quite irrelevantly note the names of 3 stars in Libra:
Zubenelgenubi "southern claw" (alpha)
Zubenelschamali "northern claw (beta)
Zubenelschamali "northern claw (gamma)