questions about HP (Evans?)

[urghiggi]

No: HPFGUIDX 82369

> Geoff wrote:
> When I first joined the group a few months ago, there were quite a 
> lot of posts at the time involving [mark evans]; I had overlooked the 
> commonality of names when I first read it. Being, like you, puzzled, 
> I entered "Mark Evans" into the Search Archive and got a long string 
> of post references. That might be a good start point.
> 
> It would be quite fun if Harry discovered that he had a cousin or 
> similar at the school!


urghiggi replied:
T'would be fun, but t'ain't cannon. Ddore tells Harry point blank in OoP that 
Petunia is Lily's "only living relative." (Or at the very least that Petunia was 
Lily's only living relative at the time of the Harry hand-off.) So how can Mark 
Evans (and, relevant to some wilder theories, Severus Snape) be related to 
Harry?

But it's strange that JKR chose this name, if not. Red herring? Author throwing 
around names she likes/Flinty selection of names? (Boy, I know no one here 
is going to want to believe THAT.) 

Clearly JKR can't have Mark be related to HP IF she wants to preserve the 
idea that Ddore's statements can be trusted to be correct. If HP and Mark 
Evans are blood relatives, then Ddore is just flat-out wrong in the statement 
above ... so if she wants to imply that, and validate theories about Ddore's 
fallibility and hidden agendas, then perhaps Mark WILL emerge as a relative.

One other "out" I've seen proposed, that ostensibly would allow Mark to be 
related AND allow Ddore's credibility to remain intact, is the interp that 
Petunia WAS the only living relative at the time Harry was turned over to the 
Durselys and that Mark was born later (which of course he would have to 
have been, given his age). But for Mark to be a living relative, then one of his 
PARENTS, who surely were around at that time, also has to be a living 
relative, which blows up the argument....

Then again -- Dudley Dursley was born a month before Harry, apparently, 
and so at the time of the hand-off he, too, was a "living relative" of Lily Potter 
(unless he's Vernon's love child with someone other than Petunia). Now -- did 
the fact that Ddore didn't mention this mean anything (like, Ddore's really not 
to be trusted to be accurate/truthful)? Or did it just mean that, as an infant, 
Dudley certainly couldn't be a potential party for useful employment of the 
blood-charm, and thus wasn't worth mentioning? But if that's the case, are 
there OTHER Evanses out there who weren't suitable, and thus not 
mentioned? In which case, Mark could certainly be related somehow.
 
Lots of questions, no answers -- classic JKR.

urghiggi, Chgo