Is Mark Evans the half blood prince?

[Geoff Bannister]

No: HPFGUIDX 104536

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "justcarol67" 
<justcarol67 at y...> wrote:
 
Carol:
> Even if one of Harry's parents gave birth to or fathered a child 
other
> than Harry, that child couldn't be Mark Evans, who is ten years old 
in
> OoP--five years younger than Harry, whose parents died when he was
> fifteen months old. IOW, they died about four years before Mark 
Evans
> was born.
> 
> By my calculations, the closest he can be to Harry is about a second
> cousin, though of course I could be wrong! At any rate, Mark lives 
in
> a Muggle neighborhood and neither Harry nor Dudley has any clue that
> he's anything other than a Muggle. My guess is that, like Lily, 
he's a
> Muggleborn, not a half blood. But it's a safe bet we'll see him at
> Hogwarts in HBP.

Geoff:
The following is a re-post of some thoughts I put together in message 
85255 on this subject which might be of interest.

"I have mentioned on a couple of occasions that when my father died in
1994 and I went through his address book to notify people,
I "discovered" a family relative about whom I knew nothing; the lady
concerned was a first cousin of my father and the link led back to my
great grandparents. It is fairly obvious that Dumbledore was very
close to James and Lily Potter. "'Naturally,' said Professor
McGonagall. `James Potter told Dumbledore that Black would die rather
than tell where they were, that Black was planning to go into hiding
himself
 and yet, Dumbledore remained worried. I remember him
offering to be the Potter's Secret-Keeper himself.'" (POA p.153).
This implies very close friendship. So Dumbledore would know from
conversations with Lily that Petunia was her nearest relative. But
would it follow that he knew there were /no/ other relatives? Would
the matter of more distant relatives of Lily have surfaced in
conversation with Dumbledore? Do we discuss distant and half-
forgotten family members with close friends? Not often. Dumbledore is
intelligent and knowledgeable but not omniscient. To be fair, he may
not be aware of the existence of other family members.

Let's consider a similar situation to the one I experienced
personally. Petunia's comments imply that the Evans were a magical
family. "'But for my mother and father, oh no, it was Lily this and
Lily that, they were proud of having a witch in the family'" (PS
p.44). If you go back to, say, Lily's great-grandparents and trace
back down other arms on the family tree, there are probably members
of the family who Lily may not have remembered or who were distant
enough either genealogically or geographically to not register
consciously with her; hence the possibility of Mark Evans being a
distant relative.

As for the Little Whinging connection, I have already suggested that
Mark's parents might be two squibs or a Muggle plus a squib. For this
reason, they, like Arabella Figg, would not register at the Ministry
as being in the area. A further question is, when does a young wizard
become known to the Ministry? Would Mark Evans not become known by
the Ministry until he gets a Hogwarts letter? Was Harry only known to
the Ministry because of his special circumstances? "'We have no
record of any witch or wizard living in Little Whinging, other than
Harry Potter,' said Madam Bones at once. `That situation has always
been closely monitored, given
 given past events.'" (OOTP p.131).

So why is the link not known? Again, from my own experience. My wife
began to track her relatives some years ago. About four years ago,
when we had been living in the West of England for five years, we
discovered that she had a second cousin living 30 miles away – an
hour's drive – about whom we knew nothing; probably because her
parents had several siblings and cousins and tracking them was a long
business.

It has been suggested that Petunia is a squib. She has obviously
wanted to live an "ordinary" life with Vernon and disassociate
herself with the magical connections of her sister and family. So she
may have known that there were other branches of the family with
magical connections and decided not to try to keep in touch or find
out who they were. Hence, the Evans family including Mark arrive in
Little Whinging unknown to the Dursleys and also not known to
Dumbledore.

This is, like all the speculation on the group, hypothetical. It
could be confirmed or totally stood on its head by the next two books
but it presents my thoughts for the case that Mark is related to
Harry and also living in the neighbourhood."