Lily's and James' Parents

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 84974

Vinnia wrote about Mark Evans:
<snip>
> Sorry, Carol, I should have explained clearer. I did
> not mean Harry's grandparents are Mark's parents. What
> I meant was that Harry's maternal grandparents are
> Mark's paternal grandparents. And only one of them is
> still living, not both.
> 
> As to Petunia being Harry's "only living relative":
> --start quote--
> PS/SS ch 1:
> "They're the only family he has left now."
> 
> Oop p 736 Bloomsbury:
> "I delivered you to her sister, her only remaining
> relative."
> --end quote
> 
> Family could mean someone who shared your blood, or a
> social unit, a father and a mother and possibly
> sibling(s). If Mark's father was not married when DD
> made this comment, then he's a living relative, but
> not family.

Dumbledore makes clear at the end of OoP that it's blood that counts.

Vinnia again: 
> The second quote would kill my theory, but I will make
> a feeble attempt to defend it <g>
> What if DD means her only relative that stays
> behind(in the muggle world)? Mark's father could have
> been a wizard. And his mom/dad could be staying in the
> magical world. Though not magical, he/she could be a
> shopkeeper or a tutor for under-11 magical children or
> muggle studies professor or something like that.
> 
> The ministry doesn't have a record of any wizards
> living in little whinging other than Harry, probably
> because Mark's father is no longer living? Or divorced
> and living somewhere else?

> Personally, I think that Petunia is a squib and that
> her family was a modest wizarding family way back. 
<snip>

The Mark Evans/Harry connection has to be sufficiently distant to
conceal from Dumbledore and the rest of the WW that Harry does have
living (blood) relatives other than Petunia, so for that reason I
think we need to go at least one generation further back than you
suggest. My theory is that Mark's parents, who live in the Dursleys'
village of Little Whinging, are muggles, but his great grandfather,
who is also Harry's great grandfather, was a wizard whose sons
(Harry's maternal grandfather and Mark's paternal grandfather) were
squibs who married muggles. I think Lily's father was aware that he
had wizard blood, which would explain his pride in Lily and his
ability to convince his (purely muggle) wife to share that pride. But
enough generations had passed that he, too, was to all intents and
purposes a muggle and is considered as such by Dumbledore (and Snape).
I agree that Petunia is aware of her heritage (and jealous of Lily for
that reason) and I think that her knowledge of dementors comes from
something more than a remark by "that awful boy" (James), but she
can't be a squib if her parents (and Lily's) were muggles--and that's
the indication we have so far from Dumbledore, Voldemort, and Harry
himself. But it's possible that her father and his brother (Mark's
grandfather) were squibs passing as muggles who had disappeared like
Mrs. Figg from the radar screen of the WW.

Another member and I have created a theoretical genealogy that we hope
at some point might be suitable for TBay, but as I'm a newbie and
she's an infrequent poster, we're a bit shy about presenting it there
or giving it an acronym.

Also, Hermowninny wrote:
> I agree Mark Evans is important
<snip>
> We know Mark is 10 years old in OOP and we assume he's a muggle <snip>. 
> But what if he's not a muggle. What are 
> the chances he will get a Hogwarts letter before book six comes out? 
> The timing is right?


I never said that Mark was a muggle, only that he comes from a muggle
family and lives in a muggle neighborhood (with muggle bullies who
beat him up, one of whom is probably his distant cousin). IMO he's a
muggle-born wizard who doesn't know it yet (exactly as Harry was five
years earlier). And the fact that he's ten when he's first mentioned
has to be an indication that he'll be in Hogwarts next year and his
name indicates that he's somehow related to Harry on his mother's
side. (See my previous posts.) I don't think for a moment that it's a
red herring. Mark will probably join Dumbledore's army. He will also
(I hope) provide us with information about his side of the family.
He'll be important in some way, we can be certain.

Carol