Shunpike/PottersInHiding/SmallFamilies/JamesMoney/MuggleMoney/Prophecy/LVbio

[Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)]

No: HPFGUIDX 186927

Carol wrote in <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/186904>:

<< I think that "put a bit of work our way" means that he's an informant like Runcorn at the MoM except on a lower level (reporting to Snatchers rather than to MoM officials). He would probably provide information on runaway Muggle-borns or anyone else that the Snatchers could get a reward for turning in. (What Stan's reward would be is unclear; I suppose that's his job as a junior DE, perhaps without the Dark Mark.) I'm only guessing, but that's what it sounds like to me. However, we still don't know whether he joined willingly or was Imperiused, >>

Stan is such a babbling fool that he could give the Snatchers useful information just by his usual mindless gossip.

Carol wrote in <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/186923>:

<< It took Voldemort an inordinate amount of time even after he'd
decided to target the Potters. Couldn't he have killed them at any time before they went into hiding? Or did DD send them to Godric's Hollow as soon as Snape told him they were in danger, perhaps a whole year before they were killed? And, if so, why didn't he suggest the Fidelius Charm right away? >>

I believe the Potters were in hiding for a year before they were killed. I believe that Peter kept telling LV their hiding place, and Snape kept telling DD that LV knew their hiding place, so DD moved them to yet another hiding place... The pace kept increasing, so eventually LV would act before Snape notified DD, so then DD suggested the Fidelius Charm. As for why he treated the Fidelius Charm as if it were some kind of last resort, it must have more risks than just that if the Secret Keeper dies, the spy can tell LV the Secret, or have some other way of being an expensive spell: if it takes years off the Secret Keeper's life, then Sirius would have been a selfish coward to make Peter do it, but perhaps it takes years off the life of the person who casts it...

All I recall in the way of canon evidence for a year in hiding is Rowling's answers to two times she was asked about Harry's godmother. She said he didn't have a godmother because the ceremony was in such a hurry because the Potters were about to go into hiding (one time) or he didn't have a godmother because the ceremony was while they were in hiding (the other time).

Marianne wildirishrose wrote in <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/186796>:

<< Why is it in the WW it seems the families are small - 1 maybe 2 children. With the exception of the Weasleys. With WW families that small no wonder the pureblood status would be hard to carry on. >>

I feel sure that two major reasons why Rowling wrote mostly small families are 1) to resemble the modern real world with which she is familiar, 2) to limit the number of characters she had to invent and remember and portray. Even so, she had very many characters to work with.

It may be that wizards live a great deal longer than Muggles. Canon is not very clear on this matter, but IIRC one of Harry's OWL examiners had been one of Dumbledore's OWL examiners, indicating that he'd been in that job for like a hundred years. If their fertility is prolonged in the same ratio as their vigor, wizarding couples could have numerous children, but spaced so as to have only two or three being dependent minors at the same time.

There could be two children the same age with the same surname in the same Hogwarts House, but one's parents are the other one's great-grandparents.

Still, families with inherited wealth might choose to limit the number of children so as not to split the wealth too much. The Muggle English custom is for the oldest son to inherit the family fortune and the other siblings are on their own to earn or marry money to live on, but arrogant wizarding families like the Blacks could feel that it would diminish the glory of their family if some Blacks had to work for a living.

Marianne wildirishrose wrote in <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/186864>:

<< there was a question how James made his money, considering he spent some time in hiding. It was suggested that he was independently wealthy, and all went to Harry. >>

Marianne, this is a website that makes it easy to find what Rowling said in her interviews through the years: 
<http://www.accio-quote.org/>

JKR herself said that James inherited his money. <http://www.accio-quote.org/articles/2000/1000-aol-chat.htm>

<<Q:  What did James and Lily Potter do when they were alive?

JKR: Well, I can't go into too much detail, because you're going to find out in future books. But James inherited plenty of money, so he didn't need a well-paid profession. You'll find out more about both Harry's parents later. >>

The money wasn't the only thing he inherited.

<<Q:  Where did James get his Invisibility Cloak?

JKR: That was inherited from his own father -- a family heirloom! >>

Steve bboyminn wrote in <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/186865>:

<< I don't think it is a question of how James made his money, the money was already there. So the real question is how James' parents made all that money they left to him. >>

<< I did find it odd that there was no ancestral home and accompanying land for the Potters, nor a business to be
carried on. >>

I suspect the money was made by far more distant ancestors. 

Since DH, we know that that Invisibility Cloak was inherited through the generations from Ignotus Peverell. Maybe some of them used it to be master burglars.

Did DH disprove the theory that the house where the Potters hid in Godric's Hollow was James's ancestral home? Since we learned that the Golden Snitch was invented by Bowman Wright who lived in Godric's Hollow, some have speculated that Bowman Wright was the ancestor who made the money that James Potter inherited. 

And if James really was a Chaser at Hogwarts rather than a Seeker, then him playing with the Snitch in SWM could be a way for him to call attention to his inherited wealth as well as his quick reflexes. However, since Bowman Wright's Famous Wizard card said he was a Half-Blood, if James made a big deal of being descended from him, people wouldn't have said James was a pureblood.

I don't think old wizarding families have to own land. I don't think the Blacks own any land but their house. I imagine it was originally the manor house on their estate, in the countryside where a 'don't think about it' spell was enough to hide an estate, but London grew around them like a fungus, making it too difficult to hide a large amount of land, so they sold the land and hid the house more thoroughly. Of course one could fanfic that they still owned the land, disguised as a Muggle corporation that collected rent from everyone.

<< The Grangers, who are muggles, seem to be able to buy what ever Hermione needs, so certainly that bank can do muggle to wizard, and wizard to muggle money exchange. >>

That's canon. From CoS: "the sight of Hermione's parents, who were standing nervously at the counter that ran all along the great marble hall, waiting for Hermione to introduce them.

"But you're Muggles!" said Mr. Weasley delightedly. "We must have a drink! What's that you've got there? Oh, you're changing Muggle money. Molly, look!" He pointed excitedly at the ten pound notes in Mr. Granger's hand."

There happened to be a question about that in the interview I just quoted: <<Q:  When people trade in Muggle money for Wizard money, what does Gringotts do with the Muggle money?

JKR: Those goblins are sneaky people. They manage to put the Muggle money back into circulation. They are like "fences" -- British slang, do you understand it? >>

Pippin wrote in <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/186801>:

<< The thing is, in the Potterverse, living means dying at the appropriate time, which Harry cannot do once Voldemort has taken his blood, >>

But Harry CAN die even after Voldemort has taken his blood -- for example, he could have drowned in the sword-pond. Voldemort having Harry's blood protects Harry only when in the physical presence of Voldemort.

<< The thing is, in the Potterverse, living means dying at the appropriate time (snip) People seem to think this is too tricky or perhaps too sentimental about death >>

Whether it is sentimental about death is irrelevant; what it is *very* tricky. Since canon was completed, it has become apparent that Rowling doesn't read her text as subtly as you do, Pippin, so I feel no confidence that this is the trick that Rowling intended. 

Pippin wrote in <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/186877>:

<< We don't know what power is behind the prophetic messages of the Potterverse, but if it can arrange the stars and planets to spell out messages, surely it is no trouble to communicate with Voldemort, and if Snape does not do it someone else will. >>

If real prophecies always come true and this is a real prophecy, then it will come true even if no one repeats it to anyone. If no one had heard the prophecy about Oedipus so that his parents kept him and raised him as a beloved son, he would have killed his father under some other set of circumstances --  accidentally hitting him with a thrown discuss, gathering wild mushrooms for him that accidentally included a poisonous one, going violently mad, or being a nastily ambitious person who wanted to inherit the crown quicker. (I haven't forgotten the 'marry his mother' part, but am too lazy to write anymore Oedipus AU fanfic.)

And if no one had told Voldement about The Prophecy (and it was a real prophecy), it would have come true anyway, just in a different way. Harry's parents could have lived to raise him to a young man who joined the Order and was sent on missions before Voldemort 'marked him as equal' by the Priori Incantatum Effect, and the Power that Voldemort knew not was that the holly and phoenix feather wand fought Voldemort on its own and with unknown spells, rather than Love. And Harry might have been a bit of a 'pampered prince', but he wouldn't have been treated as The Chosen One nor even The Boy Who Lived, because that wouldn't have happened. Of course, then the story would have been much shorter, action-adventure instead of bildungsroman.

And the Order would not have been dropping like flies if Peter's espionage had been eliminated. They wouldn't have had to know that he was the spy to get rid of him by a lucky coincidence, an accidental serious accident, or sending him to America to wait out the war in safety.

Magpie wrote in <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/186890>:

<< Especially when the guy's been gone for over a decade. In the real world, that seems to be the way it goes, without these dire results. Everybody would want to know about the guy. Frankly, it's a bit of a cheat to say nobody studied the guy and wrote an indepth biography in Harry's childhood anyway. >>

Although Voldemort's been gone well over a decade, the British wizarding folk are still too terrified to say his 'name' and they like not to remember the war. It seems they take a lot longer to get over things than modern Muggles do. If someone did write a biography of Voldemort, no publisher would take it so they'd have to self-publish. No bookshop would take it so they'd have to sell it by owl mail order. And no one would buy it except for kids trying to shock their parents. H'm. Maybe children of Death Eaters would read it to find out what they believed in, and thus decide that they didn't believe in it, so that would be a good but small effect.