WMG / Harry Potter Minor Characters

Bertha Jorkins was pregnant

Voldemort's new body resembles a baby or a fetus, which came from Bertha after they had no more use for her memories. Her mind was too broken to possess, but she was already pregnant when they found her so they used her baby instead. I'd say Wormtail raped her, but considering he'd only been around Voldemort for that summer, that would only be possible if the Volde-fetus was only a month or so old. Though it would explain the tail...

• Confirmed. This is canonically what happened.

Xenophilius Lovegood is the bastard child of Albus Dumbledore

They are both more than a bit odd, and this would of course mean that Luna herself is the direct descendant of Dumbledore.

• Hello, new God. Where would you like the temple for me to worship you at?
  • There is, however, the minor snag of Dumbledore... not liking women in that way.
    • Well, first of all, being attracted to men doesn't preclude also being attracted to women. And, second of all, while JKRowling said that after Grindelwald, Dumbledore didn't love anyone romantically ever again, that doesn't mean that he never had sex ever again. Besides, there are ways around that. Artificial insemination, etc.
    • JK Rowling has flat out said that Dumbledore is GAY, meaning he's not sexually attracted to women AT ALL. Therefore he wouldn't have sex with them. Gay men and women are not into the opposite sex. Period.
• Or he could be Aberforth's son, which would account for why Xenophilius and his daughter are both Cloudcuckoolanders. So Luna would be Albus's great-niece.

Aberforth Dumbledore is almost as powerful as Albus

Come on: he's the brother of the most powerful wizard in history. It makes sense that he'd be extremely powerful too. The only reason he couldn't defeat Grindelwald's was because he was caught completely off-gaurd by the unimaginable agony (Cruciatus) curse.

• Red Hen suggests that all of the Dumbledore siblings are affected by various manifestations of autistic spectrum disorder. If Aberforth isn't as high-functioning as Albus, that could have affected his education and, in turn, how he publicly manifests his magic.
  • Or Albus was simply an intellectual genius, which allowed him to learn the complexities of magic much faster than his brother, who was more or less an extremely powerful wizard with average (perhaps a bit below average) intellect and very little ambition. Or, in layman's terms, Aberforth was some combination of Unskilled, but Strong and Brilliant, but Lazy. In any case, the fact that Aberforth is depicted in the films as wrecking an entire Dementor battalion with a nonverbal Patronus on steroids probably gives credence to the above theory.

Merope Gaunt's 'dying wish' was a final spell

Specifically, that he would look like Riddle Sr. Descriptions in the book state "He was his handsome father in miniature." Could be simple genetics, but with a bloodline as tangled as the Gaunts, magic seems more likely.

Grindelwald surrendered.

Rita got this much exactly right. Facing a duel against Dumbledore which could only end one way, Grindlewald allowed himself to be defeated. Perhaps there were a few minor sorties at the beginning, with both sides doing impressive looking but ultimately ineffective spells because of their unwillingness to strike the killing blow; in the end, Dumbledore backed Grindlewald into a corner and gave him no choice but to strike true or surrender, and Grindlewald folded. Cagey Dumbledore probably considered what his sacrifice would mean for the people of England: a win-win situation.

• But in this case the Elder Wand would not've pledged itself to Dumbledore - its previous owner must be forcibly defeated for it to swing allegience.
  • Define "forcibly." According to the fairy tale in-story, the brother with the wand had his throat cut at night- no magic duel or anything. So, the end result would be- if you lose in any way, you lose the wand. If Grindelwald surrendered, then he lost the battle. The fact that Dumbledore used psychology instead of magic or bullets seems irrelevant.
• The "rules" for transference of allegiance seem sufficiently loose for almost any purpose.
• For the Elder Wand to switch allegiance, its master needs to lose a confrontation against their will. Antioch Peverell getting murdered in his sleep obviously counts as this.

Ariana Dumbledore was raped.

The nature of Ariana's attack is left deliberately ambiguous. If what happened had been anything besides rape, it would have been described or at least directly stated.

• Given the primary target audience of the books (older kids and teenagers), describing a rape scene wouldn't be nice to the readers. It would be traumatizing.
• The exact quote is "They got a bit carried away trying to stop the little freak doing it. (...) It destroyed her, what they did: She was never right again." There were three guys, and one girl. Normal beatings normally don't have such traumatizing effects on girls, so it definitely had to be something much stronger. Also, the father wouldn't have risked himself Azkaban just because some punks beat his daughter, but I bet he would if she had been raped.
  • Anything JKR could write would pale in comparison to our sick imaginations.
  • It doesn't stop people who aim for Newbery Medals.
• While this troper agrees it was suspiciously ambiguous (and I came to this conclusion myself), I can't fathom a 6 year old girl being raped just for doing magic, or even the implication of it being in a children's book. Picturing the Salem Witch Trials (movies/books, mind you), I can see them stoning her and yelling at her to the point where a 6 year old might be unstable. Or maybe I'm just in denial...
  • If they were throwing stones at her, then they would have been standing far enough away from her that she could have run away. The fact that she didn't implies that she couldn't, because they were forcibly holding her.
    • As this troper can attest, a sharp blow to the right (or rather, wrong) portion of the head by even a relatively small rock can instantly drop you and render you dazed for at least a minute, even if you are a twenty year old male in good health and the thrower was just tossing the rock aside fairly lightly. To a six year old girl who is being deliberately aimed at, I wouldn't be very surprised to find out that she suffered severe permanent trauma to her brain and enough temporary/permanent trauma to her limbs to keep her from running away. A thrown rock to the knee from a older teen/adult male would have a good chance of just cracking, or even outright breaking, her kneecap, for instance.
• Or maybe they just got scared of her, thought she could hurt them, and beat her up just a little too hard out of fear. (is it wrong that this troper is disturbed by the fact that people seem to want this theory to be true?)
  • That's what I get out of the "They got a bit carried away trying to stop [her]" line above. That makes it sound like they were just scared and did something stupid in a panic. I don't see rape coming from that. The trauma could have been from her thinking they were going to kill her (near-death experiences really change people), or the event could have simply been the straw that broke the camel's back.
• I think most people who subscribe to this theory forget that the muggles who hurt Ariana were children who were only a little older than she was. Rape probably wouldn't have even occurred to them and it's disturbing enough as it is that they traumatized her that much simply through torture without them being capable of something like that at that age..
  • Although in Brisbane in 2008 a 14 year old boy raped an older teenage girl. And there may have been adults involved that aren't specified. I don't think people "want" this to be true but applying Rape as Drama - which can be therapeutic for people who have been raped, especially if they were children at the time. The fact that people won't talk about traumatic things like this is why childhood rape victims repress it for so long.
• Considering Ariana and her entire sad story is pretty much "My Sweet Audrina" dressed up as a backstory... Rape should really be assumed to be the case. Someone did a comparison:

The character's name is Audrina/The character's name is Ariana.The character has "chameleon hair" of many shades that nevertheless looks blonde/The character is blonde.The character is a small girl (aged nine)/The character is a small girl (aged six).The character was attacked by three boys/The character was attacked by three boys.The character was attacked in a forest near her home/The character was attacked in the back garden of her home.The boys rape the character, in addition to beating her/The boys "got a bit carried away trying to stop the little freak."The character is kept home and not allowed to go to school until she can function as a different girl from the one who was raped./The character is kept home and not allowed to go to school.The character's father feels his daughter has been murdered by the beating and rape/The character's brother Aberforth says that the assault "destroyed her."

• Consider also that, when her father was caught, he refused to tell why he attacked those Muggles. Now, a nine-year-old kid beaten into insanity is horrible, but it's hardly something he would be ashamed of telling about. A rape is a different matter. The society in which Ariana's parents grew up and lived was probably still very patriarchal and traditional, and, if they told that their daughter was raped, this would probably ruin their reputation, even though she was nine-year-old. Case in point, in countries like Somalia and Pakistan, victims of rape, even children, are often condemned to stoning for adultery. We've seen that magical society is kind of frozen in time: they use archaic clothing and refuse to adapt Muggle technology, even though it clearly unconveniences them. Frankly, ostracising a child's family because of her being raped doesn't seem much of a stretch. That, of course, opens a whole different can of Fridge Horror, especially if you consider that Ariana could be sent to St. Mungo, where her mental condition could have been treated.
  • I thought the book states her father refused to tell why he attacked them precisely so that she wouldn't be locked up at St. Mungo's.

Lockhart was already under a memory charm

Think about it. He claimed that he tracked down these people who saved lots of lives, found out how they did what they did, and wiped their memories. But for no one to call him on it, he would also have to wipe the memories of those they saved, everyone in the chain of information that eventually led him there, and anyone else in the chain of information that led him there. It's much more logical to assume that he DID those things himself but, realizing that he could be a serious threat if he ever came after former death-eaters, the Death Eaters put him under a memory charm to make him forget his skills and become incompetent. He was always a braggart, but once he was at least an HONEST braggart.

• Jossed by Word of God; she wanted him as a joke character, as she knew a guy exactly like that.
  • This sort of thing makes Death of the Author tempting.
• What reason do we have to assume that Death Eaters would solve the problem of this dangerously talented wizard by Obliviating him instead of simply killing him like they do to every single other one of their enemies throughout the series?
  • As a form of mockery. They're sociopaths, you must remember.
  • Since when is Lockheart a "dangerously powerful wizard"?
    • Since he obviously knows his way around a memory charm, and can use it often to great effect, added on to the fact that he has no scruples in using it whenever. He would have gotten Harry and Ron, had it not been for Ron's broken wand, which didn't work right, and he ended up getting himself. He's just too much of a pompous idiot to think of using it for anything other than fame.
    • Alternatively, he's so dangerous because he isn't powerful. He is a huge narcissist, and he thinks he is a great wizard who can take care of it all, and thus he is a danger to everyone around him. In Chamber of Secrets, he ends up removing all the bones in Harry's arm, trying to fix his (Harry's) broken arm, and thus necessitates an overnight hospital stay. He completely trashes his classroom when he brings in (and lets loose) the Cornish Pixies, and he is not a good D.A.D.A. teacher, to the point that the parts of his books he obviously expected students to pay attention to were the parts concerning him, and, had he stayed, students would have left his class about as unprepared to face the Dark Arts as they would be with Umbridge. He is a danger to everyone else around him, but through lack of power, and not his power itself.

Mrs. Norris is an animagus.

Possibly failed partway through her unauthorized training, so she can't turn back. Not just a really smart animal owned by an obsessive lunatic. So... yeah, that's all.

• It's more probable that Mrs. Norris is part Kneazle, which are smarter than average cats (as Harry's Crazy Cat Lady squib neighbor can attest).
  • Rowling says that Mrs. Norris is just a very unpleasant cat.

Arthur Weasley is more competent than he lets on.

HE works in the department that is basically MIB for wizards keeping the locals from drawing suspicion not to mention the study work and trying to create great feats in magic and technology combination.

Gilderoy Lockheart is a Muggleborn.

At the end of Chamber of Secrets, after his memory is erased and Fawkes is getting them out of the Chamber, he screams something to the effect of "Amazing! It's just like real magic!" Except that if he'd grown up knowing about magic, he'd assume it WAS magic. He still knows how to talk, and presumably he'd been exposed to magic before learning to speak enough times that it was an accepted part of life by then, so you'd think that if he'd grown up in a magic household, he'd remember the existance of magic. Since he didn't, it can be assumed that he was a muggle-born.-This could explain his whole bragging schtick-he has an inferiority complex. He was teased mercilessly while at Hogwarts as a student, especially if he was a Slytherin, so he grew up with a need to prove those people wrong. He wasn't sure how to go about doing that so he just ripped off stories from a bunch of other people instead.

• I'd assume he was a Squib. It's not accidental that we are introduced to the Magic Course for Squibs (or whatever it's called) in the very same book Lockheart appears.
  • But the original argument still stands because squibs are born into magical families and raised around magic and if he were a squib, he'd never have been able to do all those memory charms, especially not the one so powerful that when it backfired, he lost all memory of who he was but could still sort of function. If that's what he was intending to do to Harry and Ron, that'd have taken some finesse.

Ariana Dumbledore received brain damage from the beatings.

That's why she was "never the same" afterwards. I don't really remember the rest of the situation, but based on comments further up the page, don't you think someone breaking his daughter's skull when trying to stone her to death would be a sufficiently Azkaban-worthy reason for vengeance for Dumbledore Sr.? Especially if she had a shield like Neville, when he fell out the window and bounced, so they'd probably keep going bigger and bigger with the intent to inflict pain and/or injury until something broke through as she showed more magical effects.

• While I do like this explanation, I think that the wizards could have fixed it. Brain damage is physical, not psychological. It does influence a humans behaviour, but in this case, a physical wound would have been the cause. I'm pretty sure a wizard could reverse a lobotomy, for example.
  • We went through this with the glasses thing. Brains, like eyes, could be "difficult".

James Potter got some Character Development ^note This is mostly because, due to what J.K.Rowling herself has said about Lily, I find it hard to believe that Harry is a rape baby, or that James 'tricked' her or whatever. YMMV

That's why Lily fell for him. At first he was a Jerk Jock, but stuff happened and he grew as a person. Lily genuinly fell for the person James became, and he fell for her as well. She didn't fall for Snape because Snape had Character Development, but it was in the "wrong" direction. (Calling her names, using the Dark Arts etc.)

• I love this theory for two reasons: One, people's personalities are never set in concrete, and if James wanted Lily badly enough, he would have changed and improved himself for her; and two, what if Voldemort had gone after the Longbottoms instead of the Potters? Snape wouldn't have had any motive to stop being a Death Eater or turn to Dumbledore, and probably would have ended up in Azkaban with Bellatrix, et al.
• Uh, isn't this canon? That's what Remus and Sirius told Harry via flue in Order of the Phoenix when he asked them about it, that in his sixth and seventh year James stopped being such a jerkass. Possibly due to him reconsidering and stopping Sirius's 'prank' on Snape. (Sirius, OTOH, never seemed to change, at least not before Azkaban.)
• Confirmed

Harry's grandparents on Lily's side were murdered by Death Eaters.

After the prophecy was discovered and James and Lily went into hiding, Lily's parents would have been in grave danger. This would also explain why they never showed up in Harry's life. They accepted Lily, they'd have no reason not to accept Harry, and even if the Dursleys told them to stay away, I'd imagine that once Harry knows that he's a wizard, they might try to force the issue. The real question here is: does Petunia know the truth?

Tom Riddle Sr had a Muggle child.

When Merope was looking out the window at Tom Riddle, we hear him talking to his beloved, a Muggle girl by the name of Cecelia. Soon afterwards, Marvolo and Morfin are imprisoned and Merope gives Tom a love potion and runs off with him.

What we weren't told in the book is this: Cecelia was pregnant with Tom's child when he left her for Merope. When Tom broke free of the spell and returned to Cecelia, she was unwilling to accept him, as she still felt hurt and betrayed by his abandonment. She elected to raise the child herself, which is why the child was never heard from in the books. The child was a girl. Let's just call her Jane.

Jane grew up and married a man. Let's call him John Evans. John and Jane had two children: Lily and Petunia...

That's right. Voldemort is the half-uncle of Petunia and Lily Evans, and the half-granduncle of Dudley Dursley and Harry Potter. This also explains the physical resemblance between Harry and Riddle, which was mentioned by the latter in the Chamber of Secrets. Incidentally this theory means that Harry was tied to the gravestone of his own great-grandfather in Goblet of Fire.

• The child would have been born about 1926, (Same as Voldy,) and that gives 34 years to have Lily who was born 1960. So the math works.
  • The math works? That's as good as Jossed. If that was the intention, the ages would be way off.

Salazar Slytherin's wife and/or family were burned at the stake by Muggle witch-hunters.

Hence, his anti-Muggle bias is not just bias, it is a personal grudge. Slytherin could not have been massively prejudiced all his life if he were best friends with Godric, the Muggle-Lover, and he would not have abandoned his best friend and his beloved school over a simple clash of ideologies unless the ideology was immensely important to him. Therefore, his anti-Muggle prejudice had to have sprung up sometime after he became friends with Godric and built Hogwarts. The huge fight between Godric and Salazar could have been Godric, fed up with Salazar's personal vendetta, telling him to stop being so obsessive, and that just because some Muggles killed the Slytherins, not all Muggles and Muggleborns were evil. Salazar would have countered that Godric was being naive to assume that Muggleborns would be loyal to wizards, and also lash out at his friend for supposedly betraying him/not caring about him, unable to be reasonable because of his grief over his family.

The Weasleys are descendants of Godric Gryffindor.

Think about it — the Weasleys are a very old family, and according to the Blacks, one of, or possibly the biggest family of blood traitors alive. Also, the Weasleys are extremely well-known, and held in uniform derision by both dark-leaning pureblood families like the Malfoys, and high-ranking Ministry officials like Fudge, who spend their entire lives getting through one headache after another, all caused by Muggles. Godric Gryffindor was evidently a Muggle-Lover, probably something of an Arthur Weasley type, and it's likely that Slytherin's descendants, pupils, and veterans of his house would hold animosity towards Gryffindor. Plus, Gryffindor was portrayed as red-haired on Rowling's website, and was described as being from the moor — possibly Ireland. Finally, the Weasleys are perhaps the most perfect textbook examples of Gryffindors. "...where dwell the brave at heart. Their daring, nerve and chivalry set Gryffindors apart." They all have bravery, nerve and daring in spades — Arthur's crusading on the part of Muggles despite ridicule, Bill's willingness to work in his dangerous job, ditto with Charlie, as well as his athletic prowess, Percy's going against his family (brave, even if not honorable), Fred and George's daring with their pranks, Ron's various acts of bravery that are beyond his years, Ginny's ability to defy Tom Riddle, even temporarily. They have chivalry too — like Ron's continuous defense of Hermione and all the brothers' relationship with Ginny. All the Weasleys also have a general lack of concern about what others think of them or their choices — hence "nerve". And they have all the attendant negative characteristics that goes with bravery in varying degrees — recklessness, impulsiveness, stubbornness, bluntness, rudeness, sensitivity to slights, etc. In short, they do not lack any of the traits attributed to Gryffindor, nor do they have any very prominent traits that are not in-sync with what is attributed to Gryffindor. They are the perfect Gryffindors, perhaps not just by house, but by family line as well.

• Good theory, but no way was Godric Gryffindor from Ireland. We don't have very many moors, and isn't Godric an old English/Saxon name?
• Maybe he was half-Irish? And anyway, you don't have to be Irish to be a ginger.
  • PEOPLE. Scotland. Moors - lots of them. The Brave Scot trope, which fits Gryffs to a tee. Scottish clans, particularly the Highlanders, were heavily influenced by Norse raiders, especially in the far north. Hogwarts is in Scotland. Scotland has the highest population of redheads per capita in the world. Not only is this theory true, but Godric Gryffindor is Scottish. Hell, Godric Gryffindor may have provided the land and possibly the castle for the school!! (Yes, he was born in Godric's Hollow in the West Country, but both Scotland and Cornwall are easily accessed from the Irish sea, and it's no great stretch to imagine that his parents or grandparents were Scottish stock.)
  • Alternatively, he was Cornish. Cornwall is also noted for its moors, and is noted as one of the last bastions of Celtic culture.
  • Alternatively, you're all reading into it wrong, and the poem meant Gryffindor had an African parent. He was the darkest-skinned redhead of all time!

Why was James was so horrible to Snape?

He thought Snape was in an emotionally abusive relationship with Lily. Think about it. A creepy guy who knows an unhealthy amount of the Dark Arts and who is a member of the wizarding equivalent of the skinheads or neo-nazis (face it, fangirls, he was) is constantly hanging aroung the wizarding equivalent of insert-oppressed-minority-here. She, who is normally a smart intellegent person capable of seeing people for who they are, constantly makes excuses for him and defends him even when he ruthlessly insults other muggleborns. This might not have been true, as Snape clearly loved Lily enough to switch sides later on, but James doesn't know that. All he sees is a Manipulative Bastard taking advantage and breaking down a woman he sees as smart, intellegent, and whom he is slowly beginning to respect and even love. So when Snape calls her a mudblood, that is it. He's unforgivable. Although Lily might have told him to back off of Snape later when they began dating, he can't. Her asking him to lay off Snape actually cements in his head that Snape was mentally breaking her down and as such hates him even more. Of course Snape wasn't, but all James can see is that bad side of him, just as all Snape (and 90% of the fandom) can see is James's bad side.

• Since they were eleven years old, though? That's rather dubious. (Unless you mean "emotionally abusive platonic relationship".) But even then, James began sniping at Snape and vice versa on the train to Hogwarts before James had even met Lily. It could be a motivation for the escalation of hostilities between James & Snape, but not for everything.
  • James had a crush on Lily according to JK. This fueled his dislike of Snape because he most likely figured out that Snape had a crush on her or something. Anyways Snape had what James wanted and he acted accordingly. So Jossed. James just was a dick and didn't like Snape and wanted Lily.

The Downfall of Voldemort was orchestrated by Rodolphus Lestrange.

It all makes sense. He has a motive (Bellatrix loves Voldemort and not him). He somehow gains knowledge of the prophecy (he could have been around at the time), and decides to lend all of his energy to making sure Voldemort dies. He gets imprisoned in Azkaban, waiting for Voldemort to make his move, and escapes. From there, he slowly assists everyone from behind the scenes, possibly letting Snape in on it (He's not a double agent, he's on his own side). Then, during the battle, he allows himself to be captured. The only thing that goes wrong is that Bellatrix dies, while he only wanted Voldemort dead.

Gilderoy Lockhart is a sociopath

He has no empathy for anyone but himself and yet convinces everyone else he's absolutely charming. Plus he's very ambitious.

• I think what you mean is Psychopath. Sociopaths are the result of a terrible environment. Furthermore they are not charming what so ever. Psychopaths are charming and manipulative. Since Lockhart was charming and able to fool many many people into believing and loving him I would put him as a psychopath or just a narcissist.
  • You've got the two terms mixed up. They're both the result of terrible environments, but sociopaths are the ones who are usually charming and manipulative. Some psychopaths can have some sociopathic symptoms, but they're the ones who most likely turn out to be serial killers. Sociopaths are the ones who can charm and connive their way into positions of power because their best ability is manipulating people to their own advantage.
    • He's a psychopath, not a high-functioning sociopath! Do your research!!

Lily and Petunia's parents were stage magicians.

Petunia said that her parents were ecstatic over having a witch in the family. This might be because they themselves were "magicians" but of the Houdini variety and loved that Lily's magic was "real."

• Stealing for fanfiction. :3

James Potter and Sirius Black were mild sociopaths.

I'm a little flaky on how sociopathy works - can you have a "mild" sociopath? But if you can . . . James and Sirius showed definite sociopathic tendencies in Snape's worst memory. It certainly wasn't what I would call a casual incident, but the Marauders went about it casually and it was certainly implied that this horrific bullying was pretty normal for them. James and Sirius did it because they were bored and showed no remorse later (sociopaths don't have much of a conscience,) and after Lily told James what she thought of him and stormed off, instead of letting it go and leaving, which is what most bullies I know would do, James actually ups the ante. The only problem with this theory is that James goes on to have a pretty normal relationship with Lily, which sociopaths can't do . . . But Sirius doesn't have many close relationships, and his relationship with Harry was subject to mood swings, and he showed bad judgment . . . hmm.

• Then again, what Harry saw of his fathers childhood was through Snape's memories. It's possible they might have been caricatures of their actual personalities, warped through Snape's eyes (I'm not saying that they never bullied him, or had at least some of the personality traits Snape remembers them having - merely that his mind turned it up to eleven).
  • Jossed because JKR says that Pensieve memories are completely third-person, so the memories were not warped in the slightest - they weren't affected by Snape's mind at all.
• Possibly this applies to Sirius, who not only declined to show remorse (and remember, he actually willingly sent Snape into the habitat of a werewolf!) but also still acted like a bully towards Snape. Can't be sure about James though, considering we don't really know how he acted as an adult, and also remember he didn't agree on the whole "kill the unhygienic emo kid" thing to be a very funny joke. A cruel kid, sure, but I'm pretty sure we all know people who were jerks in school and grew up to be completely normal people.
  • Not really, but I'm sure they exist. From personal experience I mostly know of people who were cruel as teens and grew up to be criminals. I keep an open mind though . . . As for Sirius, yeah; I don't think he even had a particularly healthy relationship with anyone - not even Harry; he seems able to show affection but he's extremely irresponsible and careless as an authority figure, and I don't view his relationship with Harry as particularly healthy from his side anyway.
• So, is "such-and-such is a sociopath" the new "such-and-such has Asperger's"? Because it certainly seems like it.
  • Haha, I don't know - is the Asperger's thing some kind of meme? I hadn't heard of it . . . But in my case I don't actually think that James, at least, was an actual sociopath. Sirius *is* a bit dodgy though . . .
• Jossed

Blaise Zabini's mother's character is a Stealth Pun.

Despite previous fandom portrayals to the contrary, Blaise Zabini is black - almost certainly through both parents. His mother was/is famous because she was a witch who had married several rich husbands, each of whom died not long afterward and left her and Blaise a rather large sum of money. The implications here are pretty obvious. In any case, Mama Zabini is a Black widow - paralleling the namesake spider, whose females kill (eat?) a male shortly after mating with him.

• Okay, how the hell did no one notice this before?
• I'm pretty sure he's only black in the movies, and the books say nothing about his race. Which means, if it's a pun, it wasn't Rowling but Casting Agency who came up with it.
  • No, Zabini was described as being black in his only proper appearance in the series (on the train to Hogwarts in book 6).

Mrs. Norris is more than Filch's magical familiar.

• Filch likely had Mrs. Norris since he became caretaker of the school, if not longer. If Filch had been there for a while before Harry's first year, that would have made Mrs. Norris a very old cat. On top of that, Mrs. Norris had to have been living at Hogwarts for an extremely long time to memorize nearly every passageway in the castle. Not to mention the fact that she seems to know where Filch is at all times is a bit strange. Also, while some people can certainly be ridiculous about their pets, Filch and Mrs. Norris always seemed a bit too close. Like the scene in the fourth movie where's he's dancing with her at the Christmas party? Creepy. Not to mention his over-the-top reaction to seeing Mrs. Norris petrified in Chamber of Secrets. In the book, he yells that he wants to see some "punishment." And, given the methods of punishment Filch would have really liked to use if he could have gotten away with it, he might as well have said "I want to see some torture!" In the movie, he was a bit less ambiguous. As mentioned before, some people can get really ridiculous about their pets, but Filch seemed especially emotional. The answer? Mrs. Norris is really a witch - or, more specifically, an unregistered Animagus. She and Filch fell in love at some point during their younger days, but since he was a Squib, her parents didn't approve and she ended up marrying Mr. Norris instead. Then, if she wasn't already an Animagus beforehand, she became one, faked her own kidnapping and/or death to get away from her husband, and ran off with Filch to become his 'assistant.' But she has to stay in her cat form so no one ever figures out her identity. (Or alternatively, she somehow botched the transformation process and can't turn back, and Filch can't/won't tell anyone for fear of her being exposed.)

Tonks is so clumsy because she's a metamorphmagus.

It must be tricky keeping everything symmetrical if you can give yourself a pig snout at will, right? And that's likely to make you a little uncoordinated; "two left feet" means "clumsy" for a reason. Not to mention that if she decides she feels like being 5' one day and 5'10" the next, she's likely to forget exactly how tall she is and, again, that's likely to throw you off balance. If she changes the shape of her eyes, she might see things differently and expect her field of vision to be different than it is, and not see something out the corner of her eye that she's about to whack into. So she's a little bit Blessed with Suck.

Helena Ravenclaw is an illegitimate child

This is mostly to do with her surname. She bears her mother's surname, implying that her mother was not legitimately married to whoever the father was.

• But if Rowena were married a man with the last name Ravenclaw, it wouldn't be an issue for her daughter to have the same last name. I have my mother's surname because she took my father's when they got married. That's generally how things work. Plus, it explains why the symbol for Ravenclaw is an eagle, not a raven. Maybe her maiden name had something to do with eagles.
  • By that logic, Godric Gryffindor changed his name to fit his wife's, since his symbol is a lion. Slytherin is the only one with a clear connection between his name and his symbol.
• Or it's possible that Rowena married 'down' - that is, fell in love with a man of lower social class. In which case, he took her surname instead of the other way around. It wasn't completely unheard of.
  • And by 'down', we could mean 'muggle'. Which would also explain Helena's apparent inferiority complex. The truth is that exceptional skills at magic in general have nothing to do with 'blood purity', and do not seem to run in families anyway, as neither Dumbledore or Voldemort's magical family members seem very powerful. However, it seems reasonable for Helena to think her 'averageness' is due to being half-blood, which would explain her issues with her mother.
  • Alternately, of course, she might not have married the Muggle at all, or married him in a Muggle marriage the Wizarding world didn't recognize.
• Alternately, the four founders were only given those surnames retroactively. The founding of the school would have been sometime in the ninth or tenth century, and family names did not come into use in the British Isles until several hundred years later.
• There's more evidence for this theory than the surname, or at least evidence for something odd. The books state that Rowena was desperate to find her daughter before she died, but not a single mention is made of the father, either helping look for Helena or being with Rowena as she died, which seems a rather glaring oversight in the history unless this was a subject you Don't Talk About. Even Helena doesn't talk about him! (It's possible, though, that he was dead at the time and thus completely irrelevant to the story.)

Eileen Prince was bullied by Gryffindors during her time at Hogwarts.

• It's a known fact that Gryffindors not mature in their traits could be quite brutal to people they disliked. One would imagine that being captain of the Gobstones team at Hogwarts was somewhat analogous on a social totem pole to being the leader of the Chess club at your local muggle high school because Gobstones is, essentially, wizarding marbles. It seems strange that Snape, on his first train ride to Hogwarts, shows almost immediate contempt for Gryffindor unless there was some prior experience there.

Mark Evans was in fact a distant relation of Harry.

Yes, "Evans" is a fairly common name, but it's not impossible that both Mark and Harry share a common Evans ancestor. It's not that uncommon for descendants of one family to live in the same general vicinity, while at the same time the various branches often do lose touch with one another over the generations, especially if one side starts displaying more magical tendencies than the rest. Mark Evans and his people may have been a third cousin once removed or the like in regards to Harry; they may have heard of Lily's death as a family tragedy, but it had no immediate effect on them other than general condolences, and the overly proper Dursleys saw no need to pursue any further connections.

Salazar Slytherin was descended from snakes.

Or was himself a snake, made into a man. There seems to be little other explanation as to why or how he'd be able to pass the gift of Parseltongue to his distant descendants, when it can be learned just as well. Some other ancient wizards might've once been serpents as well, such as Herpo the Foul.

Lily and Petunia Evans' parents were Squibs.

Which is why they were so extremely happy that Lily was a witch,and may explain whyLily was allowed to use magic at home (they knew how the tracking system actually worked).

Lily and Petunia are actually the same person.

In some of of literal split personality way.Maybe it was from spontaneous magic,ormaybe Snape did it deliberately, but this is why Lily is all good and Petunia is all bad.

• There are a few issues with this. 1, it's not fair to say that Lily is all good (we only see idealized images of her from Harry and Snape's memories) and that Petunia is all bad (she'll never win Aunt of the Year, but she loves her immediate family and took Harry in when she didn't have to); 2, it would have had to happen when they were younger than 11 because Petunia has hated (or at least been jealous of) Lily's magic since she found out about it and both existed separately when they were in school and both shortly thereafter got married and had sons; 3, Mr & Mrs Evans would probably have noticed that they used to have one daughter but suddenly have two and, being muggles, thought that was a bit off; and 4, how would that even work? If it were intentional magic, it'd have to be some ancient, forbidden, dark magic (you can't just create a person out of thin air and you'd have to make up at least half a person twice to do it and would splitting someone into two involve splitting the soul? Would that make one or both of them a horcrux? I don't think Snape killed anyone in his childhood and the way Voldemort's soul going into Harry's body let him speak parseltongue seems to imply that the non-magical half would at least have some magic which Petunia definitely does not) and splitting a person into two people does not seem like the type of magic that can happen accidentally because it would be pretty common if wizarding babies could do it and splitting someone seems like it would take a lot of effort, power and concentration.

At one point in his life Ollivander picked up a muggle pencil...

...and immediately said "Ah, 7.5 inches, firm, balsa wood with a graphite core."

• Alternatively, "Cedar with a graphite core, 7 3/8 inches."
• In fact (in a WMG sense of the word fact) witches/wizards can't use pencils, or pens for that matter, because in their hands they act as crappy out of control wands.
• But somewhere out there is that one wizard who picks up a pencil and since the wand chooses the wizard, his wand is a number 2 pencil.

Blaise Zabini's mother is a master potioneer and/or very adept with the Imperius Charm.

• This might go a long way toward explaining Zabini's presence in the "Slug Club" in Half-Blood Prince. Even for Slughorn it seems a bit dubious to associate oneself with a guy whose claim to fame is that his mom keeps coming up with money after her rich husband mysteriously snuffs it. On the other end of that, at about the sixth husband, someone had to have gotten a clue and thought, "But the first five guys this lady married all wound up dead..." Which indicates that, in order to keep doing the same thing over and over again without getting caught, there was likely some spellwork involved. Which dives right into Fridge Horror if you consider that Blaise himself might have been conceived under the effects of a Love Potion.

Ariana Dumbledore's eyes were green.

• That's why Dumbledore frequently tells Harry that 'he has his mother's eyes' (namely green eyes)-because looking at Harry reminds him of Ariana.
  • HPWiki sez Ariana's eyes were bright blue/dark.

Aberforth did not get in trouble for screwing a goat, but for cursing a Muggle sports team.

In fall 1945 he was visiting a friend who had moved to the States, and said friend (in the Muggle Liason department) talked him into going to a baseball game. He tried to bring a goat along, and was told to leave. He jinxed the Chicago Cubs in his anger. It just so happened that there was a local Muggle tavern keeper who had goats, a few Muggles escaped the Memory Charm, and so a legend formed around the Muggle tavern keeper.

The Dusleys were tongue-tied into keeping the truth from Harry.

In "Philosopher's Stone", when Hagrid lashes out at the Dursleys for not telling Harry anything, Vernon Dursley whisper "something that sounded like 'Mimblewimble'". Mimble Wimble is the incantation for the tongue-tying spell and in a later book Dumbledore tells Harry that he wanted Harry to grow up as normal and happy as possible, which is why telling him the whole Horrible Truth was stretched out over seven books.

Lily stole Snape's textbook when she found out what was in it

With Sectumsempra and other spells and potions with "for my eniemys" Lily might have thought Snape was going to pull the magic vertion of a school shooting starting with James and Sirius. So Lily swiped the book when Snape wasn't looking and gave it to Professer Slughorn and this would explain why James knew Levacorpus, a spell Snape also made.

Grindlewald's twisted experiments involved necromancy

Could Grindlewald's obsession with death be due to the death of a close relative? Maybe he was expelled for experimenting with death. Are Grindlewald's parents mentioned? Could it be that they died? Or maybe I am thinking of Doctor Doom. But if Grindlewald lost a parent that would give more connection to Dumbledore.

Lavender Brown was either a girl or a composite of several girls that JK Rowling disliked from her teenage years.

Lavender's honestly treated as a bit of an idiot in the book series despite being in the House known for bravery. Most mentions of her (beside in passing with Parvati), something or other is happening at her expense - either a slightly dirty joke directed her way by Ron, or getting her throat chewed out by a quasi-werewolf man-beast. For a long time, the book was ambiguous about her fate. The movie solved that problem, but the books themselves (which most sensible people will uphold as the final word on canon) still leave the fate ambiguous. Up until the point where someone asks JKR about it, and her basic response is, "Yeah, let's go with that." Not only does she apparently die in the book, but she dies more slowly than in the movie, where it's obvious that she died instantly or close to it - or might have been dead already via killing curse before Greyback started biting her. All of this adds up to: JK didn't like Lavender very much at all.

Sirius really was the secret keeper.

He betrayed James and Lily, then used the False Memory Charm on Peter andhimself (probably in conjunction with other spells.

• And then Peter went running off to Voldemort, who was cunning enough to realize what had happened, and that he could use Pettigrew? It doesn't explain how Peter found Voldemort in the first place, although that was always left rather ambiguous. Presumably, Voldemort didn't tell him he'd be hiding out in Albania in the event he was "killed". I know he was supposed to be good at finding out secrets, but the idea that he'd locate Voldemort over the course of a summer when Dumbledore couldn't do it in 11 years seems a stretch.

Dudley's Worst Memory is the night when Harry learned he was a wizard.

Not because his whipping boy finally got some happiness. Not because he had to live with a potentially dangerous freak. Not even because he had to go to the hospital to get a pig's tail removed from his behind. Because, for all of his parents' talk of normalcy, Dudley really did want to be special. His parents made him feel special by spoiling him. When he got desensitized to that, he made himself feel special by leading gangs of bullies. But that night, Dudley learned that there were special people out there, and he wasn't one of them.

The Mirror of Erised was created as a soul-searching tool.

Look in the mirror to see just what you want more than anything else. If it's not something you want to desire, or it's something you know you shouldn't desire, you know. The next steps depend on your character.

Kingsley Shacklebolt created a new security force for Azkaban after the war.

• Word of God says that many Death Eaters and Death Eater sympathizers that weren't killed in the final battle were carted off to Azkaban. Only problem is that Azkaban is specifically stated by Sirius in Book 3 to have had (or needed) no extra enchantments or security forces except the Dementors. Since the Dementors were outed during the war as creatures of pure evil that didn't really answer to humans at all (and since long-term exposure to them is something of an inhumane punishment anyway) Kingsley needed several Aurors to serve as Azkaban's security. (This may have been used as a punishment-by-way-of-transfer to the Aurors that served the puppet regime of Pius Thicknesse. It's hard to imagine anyone volunteering for that job.)

Margaret Thatcher was Confunded out of her mind whenever Fudge dealt with her

Like her or hate her, can anyone see her as putting up with the Wizarding World's shennanigans? The fact that she let The Masquerade, driven by convenience for them and not for Muggles as it is, stand is somewhat suspect, for starters.

Vernon was a Squib from a pureblooded family

When his parents realized that he had not inherited any magical abilities, they felt betrayed that magic had not been passed to their son and, rather than endure the scorn of their pure-blooded associates, chose to leave that lifestyle behind them. They destroyed their wands and tried to shield their son from anything having to due with magic, leaving Vernon with an intense aversion to anything "unnatural".

The forewords to Quidditch Through the Ages and Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them were dictated by Dumbledore's portrait in the headmaster's office.

This ties into the "J.K. Rowling is a witch who wrote the books as both non-fiction for a magical audience and as 'fiction' for Muggles" theory. If you look at the timeline, you'll realize that by the time Philosopher's Stone came out, Dumbledore was already dead, or at least close to it. It's not very likely that Dumbledore would have known that the books would be popular enough with Muggles that they'd end up resulting in books from the Hogwarts library being reprinted for Muggles as part of a charity drive- Divination's not that clear after all! So, he can't have written those forewords himself before his death. More likely, they were dictated by his portrait, and since he was a man who liked a good story (witness his delving into literary criticism with Beedle the Bard), he phrased everything as if he were still alive in order to avoid spoiling his death for the Muggle audience. Alternatively, if you think the portrait wouldn't have been capable of that, they were just written by somebody else using his name, also to avoid spoilers.

Godric Gryffindor is both the Giant Squid and Herpo the Foul.

Because it would be more interesting if the creator of the Horcrux was the founder of the house that's famed for goodness.

Ariana was also

in love with (or at least infatuated with Grindelwald.

• The way the account of her death was written would make it seem like she got caught in the middle of a spell aimed for one of her brothers... but if Albus Dumbledore was the one that killed her, it might have been a result of her jumping in front of a spell to save Grindelwald. She would have been in her early- to mid-teens when it happened, and it's probable that Grindelwald was the first young male wizard she'd met outside of her own family. She could have very well been taken with him and, confused at what was going on, jumped between them in an effort to stop the fighting.

Salazar Slytherin never objected to Muggles or Muggleborns at all.

• Rather than an anti-Muggle elitist, he was an anti-commoner elitist. The "pure blood" referred to in the Sorting Hat's lines about him wasn't wizard blood, but that of the British noble classes: the only ones who, a thousand years ago, were likely to be educated in any respect, either magical or mundane. It was superstitious peasant folk who'd been so very hostile to witches and wizards in his day, and Salazar disliked such people because they were lower-class and ignorant, not because they were Muggles. This explains why so many of the ghosts have noble or knightly titles, even though the wizarding world doesn't have such ranks: Salazar was actively recruiting students from the noble classes, in a time when Muggles still knew about magic and such open recruitment was an option. The whole business of "pureblood = wizard-only ancestry" arose generations after Salazar's death, after wizards' society had cut itself off from that of Muggles, altogether, and more or less forgot there'd ever been a difference between noble and commoner within their own social ranks.

Abraxas Malfoy was not a Death Eater, he was a Knight of Walpurgis

This started off as part of the previous WMG, but is too convoluted to be there.

Rowling has said Death Eaters used to be called called the Knights of Walpurgis at some point. And we know that Abraxas Malfoy was possibly part of a plot to overthrow the Muggle-born Minster for Magic in early 1968. And we know that, during the flashback of Voldemort applying to Hogwarts in the mid-60s, that he had a gang of people following him around, and a 'Malfoy' does not seem to be one of them. We also know that V started to gain power near the end of the 1960s, and the 1970s 'got progressively more dangerous and violent'.

We assume that's all part of a single story, but what if it's two stories that join together?

Imagine the pre-Voldemort Knights of Walpurgis as a sort of pure-blood wizarding secret society. Somewhat like the Skull and Bones, existing for hundreds of years. They are pro-pureblood, and anti-Muggle and Muggle-born, but they're not attempting to overthrow society...they are society. Abraxas Malfoy is, like all Malfoys, a member of the Knights.

Imagine Tom Riddle making his way into that group. There are a lot of references that talk about him 'gaining power', but that makes very little sense for someone leading a terrorist organization. But him climbing his way up to the top of a secret society makes sense, as he slowly becomes one of the society's 'important people' without most people understanding why or how that's happening.

With this premise, it seems likely that the first Muggle-Born Minister for Magic offended the Knights. Either the Knights on their own, or with V's urging, decided to remove him. Abraxas might have been involved in that process, or with suspected Knight involvement, he (As a known member of the Knights) could have been 'linked' to that despite not really having anything to do with it.

Voldemort, if he was involved in pushing for that, might have had a more sinister purpose. We know that, during the 1970s, the Death Eaters arose as a terrorist force, and we've somehow never been told who was the Minister between 1968 and 1980. So perhaps it was one of Voldemort's men, allowing them free reign. Or perhaps not one of his men, but just someone very ineffectual on purpose.

There's always been the odd problem of how exactly Voldemort was able to collect thugs and the cream of society. Well, the Knights are where he recruits the cream of society from, but they are not automatically Death Eaters. The Death Eaters are a conspiracy inside a secret society.

There are a lot of possibilities from this point.

• Perhaps Voldemort is 'Lord' Voldemort because 'Lord' is a title within the Knights. (Steal one Muggle title, steal more than one? And how does 'Nature's Nobility: A Wizarding Genealogy' fit in this? Someone check if the author is a Knight.)
• Did Abraxas ever join the DE, or was he even ever asked? Did Lucius get recruited out from under his nose?
• Did the Knights of Walpurgis ever figure out what going on? Did they get entirely taken over by Voldemort? Do they still exist? We see no sign of them by the books, did the Ministry crack down on them?

In defense of the Dursleys.

So the Dursleys were horrible to Harry, unforgivably so...but there is reasonable perspective for some of their abusive attitudes.1- They know that magical children can be dangerous, sometimes even despite themselves. It's like having a sentient 55 gallon barrel of nitro glycerin. They have to keep Harry because his parents were killed by wizarding people who are now looking to possibly kill him...and anyone who gets in their way. They were FORCED to take him in by a bunch of other wizards. So they are basically being blackmailed/threatened by wizards into keeping this utterly dangerous child, marked for death by other wizards. They fear that if Harry develops magical ability he may become dangerous on his own and/or attract the attention of the other wizards, which to them there are no good wizards and bad wizards, only dangerous wizards. So they want to do EVERYTHING they can to make sure he does not develop magical abilities, I mean, they are willing to run far the fuck away and live alone in a lighthouse rather than let Harry learn the truth. Even if his magical nature is suppressed they still know he is being hunted, so they, at all costs, want to hide him away from the public view.Now they also spoil Dudley and let him run rough shod all over Harry. There's 2 reasons for this. For one, they fear that if Harry's magical nature becomes known then Dudley will feel un-special like Petunia herself. So they just lavish the spoiling on him to let him know that he is special, in an effort in their minds to balance out the inferiority complex that Harry being a wizard will give him. Also, I imagine a lot of their spoiling of him comes from the fact that they fear for his life. As far as they know any second now their son could be murdered by forces they can't comprehend, and there's not a damn thing they can do about it. While an a-hole Dudley does go through some traumatizing events; he gets trapped in an animal cage at the zoo, he gets a pig tail which I imagine they had to have removed OR he's still got a mutant pig tail, and he needs who knows what therapy after getting hit by a Dementor. On that note, Aunt Marge does get blown up and floats away and a bizarre creature ruins the best deal of Vernon's career. And in the end, they do have to go into hiding.And hell the wizards treat their own kids in fucked up ways. The Slytherins live IN A DUNGEON. Child endangerment is standard operating procedure. The kids live with ghosts and learn to make poisons. Hell, compared to daily life in the wizard world, living in a cupboard under the steps is cush.The Dursley's live under duress in constant fear of death, the threat both within their home in the form of Harry, from without their home in the form of the dark wizards looking to murder Harry and all around him, and all under threat from the GOOD wizards as well, basically being held hostage and used as human shields in their own home, their own child a target. These poor, poor, traumatized people.

• Alternately, even though their attitude toward Harry is treated as extreme, it may not be that much. Real Life history is a sad account of how human beings are capable of treating other human beings that are different than they are.

The Malfoys (at least, Lucius and Draco) have trace Veela ancestry, and may be distantly related to the Delacours.

• Both good-looking, unnaturally silvery-blond hair, and they're of partial French descent. (Their name is etymologically French, and Word of God says a Malfoy ancestor immigrated to Britain from France.) The only other people described as such in the books are the Delacours, who established that Veela will sometimes couple with humans. It also seems that Veela genes run very strong (both Delacour girls are implied to look almost exactly like their mother and next to nothing like their father.) This goes for the Malfoys as well, as Draco is a carbon copy of Lucius, and then later Scorpius is a carbon copy of Draco. The silver-blond hair, which one would think would be hard to duplicate three generations in a row, actually does. Both the Veela ancestry and the French in the Malfoys would seem to lend themselves to them coming off much more aristocratic and snobbish than even the majority of the other pure-blood families. Excepting Louis Weasley, who would be 1/8 veela through his mother's side, we're not shown any male part-veela in the Potterverse, although that one example is enough to establish that every veela-human pairing hasn't resulted in a daughter. So with all of that, Lucius and Draco Malfoy (not counting Narcissa, who obviously married into the family) could very well have a Veela in their family tree.

The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black has muggle ancestry.

That's how they got such a common surname. With their habit of erasing the members of the family they don't like, it's not unlikely.

The House of Black originally obtained their fame and fortune through breakthroughs in Astronomy.

That would go a long way toward explaining the family tradition of naming all of their children after stars. Originally, it was a pride thing - their way of reminding the wizard world of their achievement. It had the added effect of also ensuring that other British wizards would have a good way of being able to tell who had Black blood even if that person was a married daughter or the descendant of one. But, of course, that was years ago. Now that everyone's forgotten what made the Black family famous other than being pure-blood, it just sounds ridiculous.

Argus Filch reads Jane Austen

The proof is Mrs. Norris's name: Mrs. Norris is an important character in Mansfield Park, Austen's third novel.

"You're joking, Perce! I don't think I've heard you joke since-"

• Probably Chamber of Secrets, five years ago, where his being clearly in love with Penelope Clearwater resulted in quite a few Out-of-Character Moments from Percy.

Blaise Zabini graduated from Hogwarts and went into robe modeling for ads in the Daily Prophet.

• It stands to reason he inherited some of his mother's good looks, and he was also "so talented... at posing..."

The Malfoy family descend from the Normans.

I'm not sure if that's even a WMG or straight-up canon, but here you go: the family name is sorta French ("mal foi") and they're blond, because Scandinavia.

• Confirmed as canon. The family's progenitor was a man named Armand who was explicitly stated to have been an old friend of William the Bastard/Conqueror who accompanied him on the invasion of England. Some time after that, for services performed for the new king (probably helping William subdue the last as was usually necessary after taking a medieval throne), he was given a noble title and the manor in Wiltshire that the family holds to present day. This adds an extra bit of irony into the family's pride as wizards, as they obtained their lands and status by befriending and helping a Muggle, something Armand's present-day descendents would have certainly thought to be far beneath them.

Remus Lupin is a Legilimens.

More information found here. In Prisoner of Azkaban, Remus is awfully quick to believe that Sirius wasn't the Secret Keeper after all. Also, as pointed out on the Ho Yay page, Remus stares at Sirius for like 40 lines. I seem to recall Legilimency working best with eye contact. The phrase "as if he could read minds" is also dropped a few times with Lupin—just as it is for Snape, who is canonically a Legilimens.

Only the cool families, like the Blacks, Prewetts (hence the Weasleys), and ^spoiler Peverells get vaults at Gringott's.

Everyone else just has to make do with the usual "give the goblins your money, get credit for an equal amount" deal, but since you have to be physically present to withdraw from your account, there's no inconvenience of having it in a vault along with your other valuables instead of opening a checking account (beyond personal IOUs to people who know you're good for it, of course).

• Keep in mind the Weasleys were in themselves an old pure-blood family - they just didn't hold with the supremacist beliefs of some of the others. Very likely they had a vault at one point that just got passed down to Arthur via inheritance, actual income notwithstanding.

Adrian Pucey was kicked off the Quidditch team for being too nice.

Adrian Pucey is like a Token Good Teammate for the Slytherin Quidditch Team, since he's never seen cheating or committing fouls. Marcus Flint replaced him with Warrington in Prisoner of Azkaban because he thought that Pucey wasn't being aggressive enough to help them win. He was only allowed rejoin the team in Order of the Phoenix because Flint was gone and they needed another Chaser.

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