Dumbledore's Age

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 155087

Tonks wrote:
<snip>
> I am not well versed in alchemy so I have been reading on the 
> subject in my detective work to decipher the HP series.  I am 
> current reading something called "Aurora Consurgens" which was 
> thought to have been written by Thomas Aquinas, but was probably 
> not.  It was thought that he, like many other Religious of the time, 
> was an alchemist.
> 
> The first thing I noticed about this was the title.  Auror plus an 
> a.  hum
  This is a very obscure work and I am sure that JKR has 
> never seen it, but still..  makes you wonder how she came up with 
> the Auror title for the police force of the WW.

Carol responds:
I'm sure that Geoff will correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that
the title translates to something like "rising dawn" or "Break of
dawn." At any rate, "aurora" means dawn and Aurora was the Roman
goddess of the dawn, analogous to the Greek Eos. "Consurgens" is a
form of "Consurgo, consurgere," meaning "to rise up" (sometimes to
stand as a mark of respect to someone, but that doesn't seem relevant
here).

There's an etymological connection between "aurora" (dawn) and
"aureus" (gold). (The sign for gold on the periodic table is AU,
FWIW.) Since "auror" is defined in canon as "Dark wizard catcher," I
think the connection with dawn (the rising sun, light, etc.) is
probably deliberate. The connection with gold is also possible but
more iffy. "Auror" could be a shortened form of "aurorus," the male
form of "aurora" (possibly never used by actual Romans or medieval
writers who used Latin, as the alchemists would have done). But the
implication of the noun "Auror," as I read it, is that the Aurors are
on the side of Light. (Fits in nicely with Albus, meaning "white.")

Interesting question. Maybe Geoff can further enlighten us?

Carol, who couldn't resist that last feeble pun