Mark Evans

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 84953

> Carol wrote:
> 
> >I also think that Mark, like Harry at age ten, has no idea that he's 
> a wizard or he wouldn't let Dudley and his gang beat him up. Enter 
> the owl with a letter from Hogwarts
> 
> Now Astrofiammante:
> 
> I'm really, really sorry to come along with my sceptical attitude to 
> poor little Mark Evans and pour cold water on his head. 
> 
> All I can say in my own defence is that, after reading this thread, 
> I'm a little bit less sceptical than I used to be. 
> 
> I used to think he was an out-and-out flint. Now I think I had 
> overlooked the significance of his being aged ten an there is a 
> slight possibility he is an important future character.


Carol:
I think his name was very carefully planted, much like the reference
to Sirius Black and his motorcycle in SS/PS chapter one or the
references to Cedric Diggory in PoA. JKR could have left the
ten-year-old unnamed if her only intention was to show what a thug
fifteen-year-old Dudley had become. Or he could be Mark Brown, age
nine. But Mark Evans? Age ten? It can't be a coincidence. It has to be
a clue.

Astrofiamante again: 
> But to get back to the point, Carol, if little Mark was a latent 
> wizard, and rotten Dudders and his gang came along and beat him up, 
> wouldn't some latent magic have revealed itself? Wouldn't Mark, as 
> Harry once did, unconsciously defend himself against Dudley and send 
> him packing?
><snip>

I thought about that, too. I think he doesn't know about his own
powers, rather like Neville, and being confronted by a gang of
fifteen-year-olds is almost completely helpless. All I can say is that
he's in OoP for a reason, and I very much doubt he's a flint. (Wonder
if Petunia knows about him? Hm.)

Carol