In Search of Potter Relatives
You really have to feel sorry for Harry, don’t you? Left all alone in the world, with only the horrible Dursleys for relatives. He’s surrounded by people with plenty of family, but has none himself. In a culture where everyone is related to someone, Harry is an orphan, with no one to turn to. Heroically, the Weasleys all but adopt him, apparently unfazed by his celebrity.
Um... Am I the only one who sees a problem with this?
The pure-blood wizarding world is the most inbred group since 18th century royalty. James Potter has been stated several times to be pure-blood. Why wouldn’t there be any relatives left? How wouldn’t there be any relatives left, for that matter?
Now, we know that James was an only child, and also that his parents are dead of natural causes. When JKR tells us something as explicitly as she’s said this (except when in regards to Weasley ages and the like…) we can generally trust it. I can also accept that there might not be many close relatives left. Certainly other families were decimated during the first voldie war; the Boneses, for instance, and Molly Weasley lost at least two brothers. In fact, if we assume that there were several other Potters who were killed within a few years of James and Lily’s deaths, that puts another layer of meaning on the morbid whispers going around in the first chapter of PS/SS - it wasn’t just the Potters who were killed, it was quite possibly the last of the Potters. While it was rumored that Harry had survived, very few people knew that for sure, and even the fandom, from our relatively objective view, has trouble accounting for just where the kid was for about a day there. We’ve seen significance put on the extinction of a wizarding bloodline before. Kreacher spends a great deal of time mourning the Blacks, and even Dumbledore mentions that Barty Jr. was the last of the Crouches.
However, this is not to say that there are no Potter relations left at all. There would have to be - they were certainly part of the group of families considered marriage material by the Blacks, thus putting them in a very small gene pool. Even though Charlus and Dorea Potter are not likely to have been Harry’s grandparents - the ages simply do not match up with what was have been told about Grandma and Grandpa Potter’s deaths - Charlus was almost certainly a close relative. The odds of there being two, unrelated pure-blood Potter families in the same wizarding community are so small as to be insignificant. I think it’s safe to assume that Harry has at least third or fourth cousins left in the Wizarding world, if not second or first.
So why has no one mentioned this to Harry? Because it’s his mother’s family that gives him protection against LV, not his father’s. The fact that he’s got other family would have to be concealed for his own good - even if the situation were explained to him, he would probably still try and leave the Dursleys to go live with his OMG Magic Fambly of Happiness. When presented with the idea of leaving the Dursleys, he rarely shows much sense. To date, he has climbed into a flying car driven by a fourteen-year-old Weasley Twin in the middle of the night, and decided to move in with Sirius less than an hour after discovering that the man was not, in fact, a homicidal maniac after Harry’s blood. As he’s shown this type of behavior, would anyone have told him that he had family on his father’s side? I rather suspect that Dumbledore forbade any mention of surviving relatives in any situation where Harry might possibly overhear.
So where are these elusive Potter relatives? Chances are, they don’t have the surname of Potter. In fact, Harry could be closely related to just about anyone who has been specified as a pure-blood. For relatively close, sympathetic relatives, I would suggest that we look no further than our favorite household of redheads.
The connection could be on either Molly’s or Arthur’s side of the family. Both Potters and Prewitts were in the pool of potential Blackmates, so it’s not inconceivable that they could have intermarried as well. Molly’s adoption of Harry could certainly have something to do with them being related - she treats him as one of her own. The twins are at least as close to Lee Jordan as Ron is to Harry, but he never seems to visit over the summer (and Harry has a couple of years to have noticed). Luna Lovegood is Ginny’s age and lives within a few hour’s walking distance, yet Molly doesn’t even seem to realize the poor girl exists. Harry is welcome any time he wishes to come visit, and gets the same holiday packages from Molly as do the Weasley children.
On Arthur’s side of the family, well, I’d like to point out that to be a blood-traitor, one must first be a pure-blood. Half-bloods are not blood-traitors, it’s their pure-blood parent who dared to marry outside of his or her class who is the blood-traitor. That there are families, such as the Weasleys, that are implied to have had multiple generations of blood-traitors indicates that the label also applies to those who sypathise and associate with muggles and muggle-borns, but still marry other pure-bloods. These other pure-bloods would have to be fairly moderate, but still would be part of the general pure-blood pool. Otherwise, you’d end up with either: a) two separate groups of pure-blood wizards who never intermarry, which seems unlikely given the small size of the wizarding population; or b) the only blood-traitors being of the Sirius Black variety, because all blood-traitors would breed into the half-blood population in the first generation. I suspect that the Potters could have been one of those moderate pure-blood families - decent enough to associate with the Weasleys, but respectable enough to also associate with the Blacks.
Of course, I doubt that Harry having surviving relatives will make much difference to DH. He’s nearly of age, at which point, it’s been implied, he can go off and live with the giant squid if he so pleases. Still, it’s an interesting point to ponder.
Um... Am I the only one who sees a problem with this?
The pure-blood wizarding world is the most inbred group since 18th century royalty. James Potter has been stated several times to be pure-blood. Why wouldn’t there be any relatives left? How wouldn’t there be any relatives left, for that matter?
Now, we know that James was an only child, and also that his parents are dead of natural causes. When JKR tells us something as explicitly as she’s said this (except when in regards to Weasley ages and the like…) we can generally trust it. I can also accept that there might not be many close relatives left. Certainly other families were decimated during the first voldie war; the Boneses, for instance, and Molly Weasley lost at least two brothers. In fact, if we assume that there were several other Potters who were killed within a few years of James and Lily’s deaths, that puts another layer of meaning on the morbid whispers going around in the first chapter of PS/SS - it wasn’t just the Potters who were killed, it was quite possibly the last of the Potters. While it was rumored that Harry had survived, very few people knew that for sure, and even the fandom, from our relatively objective view, has trouble accounting for just where the kid was for about a day there. We’ve seen significance put on the extinction of a wizarding bloodline before. Kreacher spends a great deal of time mourning the Blacks, and even Dumbledore mentions that Barty Jr. was the last of the Crouches.
However, this is not to say that there are no Potter relations left at all. There would have to be - they were certainly part of the group of families considered marriage material by the Blacks, thus putting them in a very small gene pool. Even though Charlus and Dorea Potter are not likely to have been Harry’s grandparents - the ages simply do not match up with what was have been told about Grandma and Grandpa Potter’s deaths - Charlus was almost certainly a close relative. The odds of there being two, unrelated pure-blood Potter families in the same wizarding community are so small as to be insignificant. I think it’s safe to assume that Harry has at least third or fourth cousins left in the Wizarding world, if not second or first.
So why has no one mentioned this to Harry? Because it’s his mother’s family that gives him protection against LV, not his father’s. The fact that he’s got other family would have to be concealed for his own good - even if the situation were explained to him, he would probably still try and leave the Dursleys to go live with his OMG Magic Fambly of Happiness. When presented with the idea of leaving the Dursleys, he rarely shows much sense. To date, he has climbed into a flying car driven by a fourteen-year-old Weasley Twin in the middle of the night, and decided to move in with Sirius less than an hour after discovering that the man was not, in fact, a homicidal maniac after Harry’s blood. As he’s shown this type of behavior, would anyone have told him that he had family on his father’s side? I rather suspect that Dumbledore forbade any mention of surviving relatives in any situation where Harry might possibly overhear.
So where are these elusive Potter relatives? Chances are, they don’t have the surname of Potter. In fact, Harry could be closely related to just about anyone who has been specified as a pure-blood. For relatively close, sympathetic relatives, I would suggest that we look no further than our favorite household of redheads.
The connection could be on either Molly’s or Arthur’s side of the family. Both Potters and Prewitts were in the pool of potential Blackmates, so it’s not inconceivable that they could have intermarried as well. Molly’s adoption of Harry could certainly have something to do with them being related - she treats him as one of her own. The twins are at least as close to Lee Jordan as Ron is to Harry, but he never seems to visit over the summer (and Harry has a couple of years to have noticed). Luna Lovegood is Ginny’s age and lives within a few hour’s walking distance, yet Molly doesn’t even seem to realize the poor girl exists. Harry is welcome any time he wishes to come visit, and gets the same holiday packages from Molly as do the Weasley children.
On Arthur’s side of the family, well, I’d like to point out that to be a blood-traitor, one must first be a pure-blood. Half-bloods are not blood-traitors, it’s their pure-blood parent who dared to marry outside of his or her class who is the blood-traitor. That there are families, such as the Weasleys, that are implied to have had multiple generations of blood-traitors indicates that the label also applies to those who sypathise and associate with muggles and muggle-borns, but still marry other pure-bloods. These other pure-bloods would have to be fairly moderate, but still would be part of the general pure-blood pool. Otherwise, you’d end up with either: a) two separate groups of pure-blood wizards who never intermarry, which seems unlikely given the small size of the wizarding population; or b) the only blood-traitors being of the Sirius Black variety, because all blood-traitors would breed into the half-blood population in the first generation. I suspect that the Potters could have been one of those moderate pure-blood families - decent enough to associate with the Weasleys, but respectable enough to also associate with the Blacks.
Of course, I doubt that Harry having surviving relatives will make much difference to DH. He’s nearly of age, at which point, it’s been implied, he can go off and live with the giant squid if he so pleases. Still, it’s an interesting point to ponder.