Where is our Prince? (And Where Did Those Wizards Get Their Titles?)

[romuluslupin1]

No: HPFGUIDX 111970

Sorry to jump in so late, but I was away for a few days

> Debbie wrote:
> > I think that at least some wizarding aristocrats liked 
> > muggle titles just fine, since they didn't hesitate to
> > use them notwithstanding their muggle origin.  (And the 
> > old-fashioned ones, like Nearly Headless Nick, still do
> > like to use their titles.  NHN had his title on his 
> > Deathday cake.)  Certainly referring to one's family as
> > the "Noble and Most Ancient House of Black" implies that
> > some wizards left their titles -- at least insofar as 
> > they represented notions of superiority -- behind with 
> > some regret.
>  
>elaine adamski <mckinley1eaa at y...> wrote:
> Forgive me, but you have contradicted the string in
> the last sentence.  If your belief is that the wizards
> were titled via a muggle interbreeding, then how could
> the House of Black - a pureblood house - be noble?
> 
Now Romulus Lupin 
Maybe it's my Italian background peeking out, but there are some 
noble European families who can track their ancestors back to the 
Roman empire. One such nobles reportedly answered Napoleon (who was 
inquiring if they really descended from Quintus Fabius Maximus, the 
Roman consul who stalled Hannibal until they could bring the war back 
to Carthago) "It's been rumored for 2000 years".

Don't know if the anecdot is true or if there are any scions of the 
family still alive (they were princes, BTW), but I guess they'd have 
kept their title  in the WW, had any of them possessed magival 
powers. Their title is so ancient it dates back way before King 
Arthur's time. And we all know he had a wizard counsellor. BTW, in 
Mary Stewart's saga, Merlin was a prince himself, as he was the 
illegitimate some of King Ambrosius and nephew to Uther Pendragon, 
Arthur's father. Actually, his mother had some powers herself, so 
Merlin could be the HBP, after all (in this version, she preferred to 
tell her lover was the devil, rather than betray her true love).

So, just to get back to my original point, I think it would be 
perfectly possible for some wizarding families to be part of the 
Muggle nobility and yet be pureblooded. They just need to be old 
enough. I surmise when the prosecutions began (at the latest after 
the schism between MW and WW) these families dropped the titles and 
kept the "Ancient and Noble House of ... " definition for themselves.

Romulus Lupin, who learned the Massimi's legend by a school friend 
who was a noble himself