a lot of Names, interrupted with a lot of Traitors, Lily's Crush, McG/Hooch

[Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)]

No: HPFGUIDX 154739

Dark Ally wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/154286>:

<< Btw, `karkar' means black in Mongol. >>

At one time, a Russian listie told us that it is common for Russians
to name pet crows or ravens 'Karkarov' after their call: 'kar-kar'
(spelled 'caw-caw' in American) and added that his father had a pet
raven named Karkarov. 

According to The Online Etymology Dictionary
<http://www.etymonline.com/abbr.php>, our very words 'crow' and
'raven' originated from the sound of their call:

<< raven : O.E. hræfn (Mercian), hrefn; hræfn (Northumbrian, W.Saxon),
from P.Gmc. *khrabanas (cf. O.N. hrafn, Dan. ravn, Du. raaf, O.H.G.
hraban, Ger. Rabe "raven," O.E. hroc "rook"), from PIE base *qer-,
*qor-, imitative of harsh sounds (cf. L. crepare "to creak, clatter,"
cornix "crow," corvus "raven;" Gk. korax "raven," korone "crow;"
O.C.S. kruku "raven;" Lith. krauklys "crow"). >>

and << crow (n.) : O.E. crawe, imitative of bird's cry. >>

(two more too good to resist: << croak (v.) : c.1460, crouken,
onomatopoeic or related to O.E. cracian (see crack). Slang meaning "to
die" is first recorded 1812, from sound of death rattle. Croaker
"prophet of evil" (1637) is from the raven (cf. M.E. crake "a raven,"
c.1320, from O.N. kraka "crow," of imitative origin). >> Bode and
Croaker, anyone?

and << rook (1) : "European crow," O.E. hroc, from P.Gmc. *khrokaz
(cf. O.N. hrokr, M.Du. roec, M.Swed. roka, O.H.G. hruoh), possibly
imitative of its raucous voice. Used as a disparaging term for persons
since at least 1508, and extended by 1577 to mean "a cheat,"
especially at cards or dice. The verb "to defraud by cheating"
(originally especially in a game) is first attested 1590. Rookery
"colony of rooks" is from 1725. >> Rookwood?)

Crows and ravens are such famously black birds that sometimes 'raven'
is an adjective meaning 'black' (e.g. 'her raven hair'). Similarity to
your Mongol word is probably a complete co-incidence.

But ravens are also famous as carrion-eaters, and 'Karkaroff' has
always sounded to me like 'carcase' (and 'canker' and 'cancer'),
altho' that is purely a resemblance of sound without etymological
value, and possibly idiosyncratic as well.

Tonks_op wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/154288>:

<< Black family names (snip) Walburga is a Saint. Fabian is a Saint
and was a Pope. Gideon was one of the Greater Judges of Israel. I
think the early DE were named the Knights of Walburga. What it all
means is a mystery IMO. >>

IIRC, the Knights of Walpurgis was some organization that pre-existed
Lord Voldemort, but he took it over and renamed it Death Eaters. As
Carol in <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/154303>
has pointed out, that is a pun on 'Walpurgis Night'. I suspect it was
also named after a witch named Walburga who had nothing to do with the
saint. I further suspect that it began as a movement to protect
witches and wizards from Muggles by killing or burning down the houses
of five Muggles for every witch or wizard who was killed or had their
house burned down by Muggles. Maybe the Walburga after whom it was
named was a great Healer who was killed by the anti-wizard relatives
of a Muggle whose life she had saved from a terrible injury or disease.

I think Rowling emphasized that the Prewett brothers were fighters by
naming them after historical war leaders. The Biblical Judge Gideon in
his role as a general. THe Roman after whom 'Fabian warfare' was named. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fabian_Strategy
<< The Fabian strategy is a military strategy where pitched battles
are avoided in favor of wearing down an opponent through a war of
attrition. While avoiding decisive battles, the side employing this
strategy harasses its enemy to cause attrition and loss of morale.
Employment of this strategy implies that the weaker side believes time
is on its side, but it may also be adopted when no feasible
alternative strategy can be devised.

This strategy derives its name from Quintus Fabius Maximus, the Roman
dictator given the thankless task of defeating the great general of
Carthage, Hannibal, in southern Italy during the Second Punic War
(218-202 BC). At the start of the Second Punic War, the Carthaginian
general Hannibal boldly crossed into Italy by traversing the Alps
during winter-time and invaded Italy. Due to Hannibal's skill as a
general, he repeatedly inflicted devastating losses on the Romans
despite his numerical inferiority —quickly winning two smashing
victories over the Romans at the Battle of Trebbia and the Battle of
Lake Trasimene. After these disasters the Romans appointed Fabius
Maximus as dictator. Well-aware of the military superiority of the
Carthaginians and the ingenuity of Hannibal, Fabius initiated a war of
attrition which was designed to exploit Hannibal's strategic
vulnerabilities. >>

Sherrie Snape wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/154290>:

<< [Puddifoot] is a perfectly normal surname - if you're a Hobbit.
(snip) In the first "book" of FotR, the Puddifoots are listed as a
Hobbit family that lives in Stock and the Marish; their name is
supposedly derived from "puddle-foot", a reference to the marshy
nature of the land they inhabit >> 

Thank you. I was misled by my obsession, thinking only of 'pussyfoot'
plus 'puddytat', and not at all of puddles. The former idea made me
contemplate changing my middle name from Prince to Puddifoot!

It does make sense to me that a retail businesswoman whose customers
are mainly adults would use Madam Firstname for a friendly atmosphere,
but a retail businesswoman whose customers are mainly children
(teen-age students -- the 17-18 year olds among them are only LEGAL
adults) would use Madam Lastname to maintain some authority and order
in her business.

Pippin wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/154292>:

<< perhaps even supplied Draco with Peruvian darkness powder. (Do we
really think Fred and George would sell Draco anything?) >>

They're businessmen. I doubt they would reject a good customer simply
for being loathsome. Especially his owl orders. Even if they did
reject Draco, they wouldn't reject the whole House of Slytherin, so
Draco could have had Pansy or Blaise buy it for him.

<< I do think it was Lupin, but in fairness Tonks and McGonagall are
also suspect. >>

Considering that Tonks was acting like a fake Tonks (someone else
using Polyjuice) all through HBP, which was supposed to be explained
away as the effects of unrequited love, maybe the unrequited love was
the fake and the real traitor was the person Polyjuiced into Tonks.

Geoff wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/154313>:

<< First witch: I come, Graymalkin.

All: Paddock calls anon;
Fair is foul, and foul is fair,
Hover through the fog and filthy air."

(Macbeth Act 1: Scene 1)

Paddock is apparently an old name for a toad.

Seeing Catladfy's comment in reply, I've never heard of a cat called
Malkin. The only place I've come across this is in the Shakespeare
quoted above. >>

I wasn't clear. Male cats are called tomcats because it was popular in
the twentieth century to name male cats Tom. Female cats were called
malkins in the past because it was popular to name female cats Malkin
in Shakespeare's time, not now.

I may be influenced by the American version of a tale about a man who
came home late at night and told his wife that he had seen a big
funeral procession of cats crossing the bridge. lots of cat mourners,
and cat pall-bearers carrying a cat-sized mahogony coffin, and one of
the cat mourners saw him and called out to him: "Tell everyone that
Old Tom McGillicuddy the miser is dead!"

And when the man said that, the sleeping tabby, Molly, who had been
purring in his wife's lap, leapt up and shouted: "Old Tom is dead and
I, Molly McGillicuddy his only daugher, am his heir! I'm the richest
cat in America!" and she leapt out the window and was never seen again.

In one of the British versions, there is a cat-sized golden crown
being carried on the coffin, the announcement is 'Tell everyone that
King Tim is dead!" and the sleeping tabby, Tom, shouts: "King Tim is
dead! Now I, King Tom, am King of All Cats!" before leaping up the
chimney to never be seen again.

Rebecca quoted in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/154412>:

<< "Yes indeed," said Dumbledore, and he raised his blackened,
burned-looking hand. "The ring, Harry. Marvolo's ring. And a ter­rible
curse there was upon it too. Had it not been - forgive me the lack of
seemly modesty - for my own prodigious skill, and for Professor
Snape's timely action when I returned to Hogwarts, des­perately
injured, I might not have lived to tell the tale. However, a withered
hand does not seem an unreasonable exchange for a seventh of
Voldemort's soul. The ring is no longer a Horcrux. >>

And, in fact, he DID not live to tell the tale. He kept PROMISING to
tell it when there was time to do justice to the drama, but he was
killed before that happened.

Alla wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/154478>:

<< But once again, how does Marietta comes into play? Is the argument
that good guys like traitors IF they are good guys? I did not see it
anywhere. >>

Once again, Dobby and Kreachur. Both are House Elves who betray their
owners in order to advance the faction whose beliefs they sincerely
support. Kreachur betrayed the last remaining Black because of his
loyalty to pureblood supremacist ideology. Dobby betrayed the Malfoys
because of his loyalty to House Elf Rights (that most House Elves
don't want). Dobby is viewed as a good guy who did the right thing
even by those who find him exceeding annoying to associate with (and
even tho' his motives are largely selfish: his own freedom, himself
not being tortured any more).

Snape and Pettigrew (as Alla points out in more recent posts) are
another pair of traitors who did the same thing: betrayed their
organization AND their old school friends to their deaths at the hand
of the other side by way of joining the other side and serving it as
spy. This case is not as equally balanced as Dobby/Kreachur, because
it is emphasized that Pettigrew was joining the then-winning side for
self-protection while Snape joined the then-losing side to help it at
'great personal risk' because he made a judgment of right and wrong.
Those who accept this view of Snape regard him as a good guy (not
neccessarily a good person) despite his magor flaws. Liking him is
more variable.

Firenze is a traitor to his Centaur herd, who broke Centaur law, and
is viewed as a good guy because his treason consisted of saving Our
Heroes.

Honeykissed wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/154550>:

<<  I am curious to see exactly "HOW" James and Lily got together.
(snip) What if James put Lily under a "love spell". I am saying this
because Lily obviously did not like James initially. How and why did
she all of the sudden like him enough to marry him?? >>

To me, Lily in the Pensieve scene ranting: "Messing up your hair
because you think it looks cool to look like you've just got off your
broomstick, showing off with that stupid Snitch, walking down
corridors and hexing anyone who annoys you just because you can — I'm
surprised your broomstick can get off the ground with that fat head on
it. You make me SICK." is So Obviously a teen-age girl who is in
denial about having a crush on the boy she is condemning. She watches
him closely enough to see the hair-mussing, Snitch-playing,
corridor-hexing because he is a magnet for her eyes because of the crush.

Pippin wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/154646>:

<< if a criminal's record has been sealed by the court, for example
because he was a juvenile, do the aggrieved parties have a right to
look at it? Do you think they deserve to? >>

I recall reading a newspaper article a few years ago about adoption
records, including original birth certificates, that were sealed by
courts (20 to 50 years ago now) to protect the birth mother's privacy,
that were being opened, without even notifying the birth mother (which
would be difficult if she hadn't kept a steady stream of Change of
Address notices there), by lawsuits by the adopted children claiming
that they had a right to information about their biological parents.
Some of them used the information to seek and contact their birth
mothers for various reasons. Some of the birth mothers were pleased to
see their former baby had turned out all right; one woman's current
husband found out who this stranger was, and the woman had told him
she didn't have any previous children, and they had a big fight about
it, ending in divorce. My point is only that records being sealed by
the courts cannot be trusted to stay sealed.

"wombknower" wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/154680>:
Professor Hooch. Besides the fact that I thought she was hot - she
wore no hat, was as tom-boyish as JKR would allow any of the profs to
be; and she had a butch hair cut. Anyone else notice that? .. oh, and
she barely had any lines.. folks love to do that for those queer
characters that get tossed into the movies. >>

I'm pretty sure that Hooch in the book of PS/SS was somewhat less hot
and more old-lady-ish than Hooch in the movie of PS/SS, but I have
been certain since reading the PS/SS, CoS, and PoA in one week (before
the movie rights were even sold) that Hooch and McGonagall are a
couple, have been a couple for a long time, and probably Dumbledore
hired Hooch for the Flying teacher position as kind of McGonagall
nepotism: thus they can live together in their quarters in Hogwarts
Castle without incurring much comment. I think (with no canon basis)
that Hooch was a professional Quidditch player before she retired to a
teaching position, and that she teaches a lot more Quidditch skills
and strategy than we see; maybe the Gryffindor Team doesn't want it,
but kids who failed the team try-outs might.