Is a Phoenix rare in the magical world? I can't seem to remember what they say about them in the books. The reason I ask is because I always wondered how Ollivander managed to get feathers for his wands, aside from Voldemort's and Harry's, if they were indeed rare.

Or perhaps there is a rather limited supply of wands with Phoenix feathers for their core to start with, so there might not be a high demand for their feathers.

 

I would risk saying they're probably on the rare side, although who knows, maybe there are tons of them living in volcanos and shit. I mean, if they're immortal, then it's not like their population would decrease or anything, right?

 

Perhaps they're less commonly sighted than any other magical creature, preferring to avoid human contact altogether?

 

Whatever. Myself, I prefer hippogriffs anyway, as far as magical creatures go. They're the Potterverse version of griffins/gryphons and they're fucking awesome.

 

Here's a question because I've been looking around for it. Where would I go to find a beta reader? Do I post a general shout-out or what?

 

Ok, I've done a read through of the wiki, and feel a bit foolish for asking. Is it ever stated anywhere who Harry's closes wizarding relatives are? The only implication that I have found is a several generations old connection to the Black family, and everything stems out of there. Am I missing something, or is that accurate?

 

Provided that Dorea Potter, former Black, was indeed James Potter's mother, Sirius would be the closest family member (back when he was alive), and then the rest of the surviving Blacks, including Narcissa (along with Draco), Andromeda and Bellatrix.

As far as anyone knows that's the best we got.

Oh and I suppose some rather distant connection to Voldemort, seeing as they're both descendants from two of the Peverell brothers.

 

Post your story to the Work by Author forum and you'll get Beta'd like ballistae. Of course, if the members aren't keen on the story idea, they won't necessarily get down to the grammar/spelling/style level of constructive criticism.

Alternately, post the first chapter to fanfiction.net and include a Beta request as an author's note. Be specific about the kind of beta-help you want.

 

@ehrenyu - you can post your stuff in WbA, that is Work by Author section of the forum, but as far as I know, there are no actual beta-readers on DLP. Peple in WbA will help you out or not, depending on whether your work catches their attention and they feel like reviewing.

edit: ninjas...

 

I really don't think Dorea and Charlus were James' parents. Besides the fact that they would have been blasted off the tapestry for sure, Sirius would almost definitely have brought it up. I think it might have been said in the movie or some shit that they were, but that makes absolutely no sense to me.

As for the Sorting Hat, maybe it takes into consideration which house the student would do best in? For instance, though Hermione seems like a shoo-in for Ravenclaw and Neville seems like he'd be better suited to Hufflepuff, the Hat figured Gryffindor would help them fulfill their potential.

 

I'm pretty sure Dorea and Charlus are ambiguous characters that were only meant to signify a familial relationship between Sirius and Harry. The direct relationship was never mentioned in books or movies.

 

It's implied that James' parents died from old age, by wizarding standards, without external interference. Dorea Potter (nee Black) died at 57 years old, that's near a wizard/witch physical prime. She can’t be her mother.

Also they had James very late in their life.

 

Don't get me wrong, Dorea and Charlus being Harry's grandparents is fanon, not canon. But the reasons you mentioned aren't really the compelling ones.

Fear not, folks: This is interesting stuff and, as I've explained to other skittish, new, initiates, "Just because it's long, doesn't mean it's angry... just eager." :twisted:

It wouldn't be the first time a character in Harry Potter had a backstory that was left on the metaphorical cutting room floor. There was a bunch of stuff about Dean Thomas and his missing father that got left out.

Sirius failing to comment isn't any kind of proof. First off, there were a lot of things Harry wasn't told simply because no one thought to tell him. How long did it take for someone to tell him what his mother was good at in school, or that his father played quidditch? No one told him he had a godfather, either (though that was probably less about thoughtlessness and more about them thinking he was the reason his parents were murdered).

Secondly, what would Sirius have said beyond, "Well, Harry, I'm sure you've realized that your parents didn't spring fully-formed from the aether, so naturally you must have had grandparents. In point of fact, you did have grandparents, but they're dead and gone, now. I'm glad we had this talk."

Finally, Sirius was obviously barely holding his shit together, after Azkaban, so... yeah.


As for blasting Dorea off the tapestry: Why would they?
Andromeda was removed for marrying a muggleborn, which is why Nymphadora isn't on it either. Isla Black was removed for marrying a muggle. Marius was removed for being a squib. Cedrella was removed for marrying one of those blood traitor Weasleys. And, Sirius was removed for being himself.

Dorea, on the other hand, married into the Potter family, who as far as we know were purebloods in good standing. Nothing says they were considered blood traitors, whether 'they' means Dorea/Charlus, or whoever else James's parents might have been. Also, this marriage would have been well before James married a muggleborn and took part in the resistance against Voldemort. In fact, James didn't even leave Hogwarts until the Summer of 1978, with Dorea dying in 1977. By the time James married Lily and fought Voldemort, Dorea was gone. Charlus probably died around the same time.


So, what are the more convincing reasons they weren't James's parents? As Henry Persico pointed out, there is JKR's comment that James's parents were already kind of old when he was born, which would seem to take Dorea and Charlus out of the running, since she was only 57 when she died.

And, the characters themselves are only shown on the Black Family Tree, which never appeared in the books, so if you consider the tree extra-canonical, then it doesn't matter whether they were James's parents or not, because they'd might as well not exist anyway, as far as canon is concerned. It's worth noting, though, that Arthur's being related to Sirius IS canon, lending more credibility to the canon validity of the tree.

For that matter, JKR has changed her mind about her characters before. She changed the blood status of several of her characters. She changed Hermione's name AFTER it had been published. I'm not talking about the Puckle/Granger switch, either, but changing Hermione's middle name, five books into the series, from Jane to Jean, after JKR realized she'd also given Dolores Umbridge "Jane" as a middle name.

She gives a boy in Harry's neighborhood, who later goes to Hogwarts, the last name Evans, stirring up tons of fan speculation about him being related to Lily, and doesn't even blink when she realizes what she's done... but she balks at two characters having the same hardly-ever-mentioned middle name? WTF. I think she just wanted an excuse to stick part of her daughter's name on her most prominent female character... which is really weird, considering Hermione was partially based on herself, who she later marries off to Ron, who she later decides might not have been right for her. What, if anything, does that say? I don't know. Anyway...

And, of course, there's her second thoughts on who her main characters should have married... So, it's not unthinkable that she might change her mind about Dorea and Charlus, either.

Heck, the Black Family Tree, itself, was changed at some point. Originally, Bellatrix's father had a birth date of 1938, while she was born in 1951. Do the math and you'll realize that when Bellatrix was conceived, her father would have been between 11-13!

Taking social mores of old into account, along with the (mostly fanon) assertion that the Wizarding World is stuck a century or so behind the muggles, this isn't totally crazy (just very crazy). Either JKR didn't get how bad this might look to the average reader or it's another example of her bad math.

Whether someone else realized how this looked and pointed it out to her, or she realized it herself, the tree has since been changed, with Cygnus Black's date of birth pushed back just shy of an entire decade!

Back to Dorea/Charlus: No matter how you look at it, there are certainly sillier and flimsier pieces of fanon out there, and I would never turn my nose up at a story just because it stated Dorea and Charlus were Harry's grandparents. Actually, it opens up a lot of interesting possibilities.

------

Now for some real fun, for those interested.

If Dorea and Charlus are James's parents, then Harry is a descendant of, among others, a Bulstrode and a Flint.
Sirius, I believe, would be Harry's second cousin.
This means Bellatrix, Andromeda, and Narcissa would also be Harry's second cousins, making Nymphadora and Draco his second cousins once removed.
Teddy would be Harry's second cousin twice removed.
Phineus Nigellus Black, former Hogwarts headmaster and current douchey painting would be Harry's great great grandfather.

Assuming that Septimus Weasley is Arthur's father, that would make Arthur Harry's second cousin once removed, while Ginny and all the other Weasley children would be third cousins to Harry. Even if that's not the case, Arthur would then almost certainly have to be Septimus's grandson, making him Harry's third cousin and the Weasley children Harry's third cousins once removed.

If the Weasley children are Harry's third cousins, then their children would be Harry's third cousins once removed.

So, Hermione's children would not only be Harry's niece and nephew by marriage, but also his third cousins once removed. In point of fact, this also makes Harry's own children his third cousins once removed (not that anyone would think of them that way)!

Among Harry's great grand uncles and aunts, by marriage, would be a Burke, a Yaxley, and a Gamp... which makes him very distantly related, through marriage, to the Crouch, Longbottom, and Prewett families. So, he could possibly be related to Molly as well as Arthur.

Fun, huh?

 

That would make Dorea 40 years old when James was born - I think most people would call that 'kind of old' for a new mother. For James' mother to have died of old age as Henry Persico says is 'implied' (where?), taking into account that she must have predeceased James that only gives her 21 years at the absolute outside between giving birth and dying - not quite The Last Crusade, but pretty unnatural aging all the same.

Of course you can say she gave birth at 70 or whatever because magic, but from where I'm standing the dates you've mentioned combined with JK saying she was an oldish mother are evidence for Dorea being James' mother, not against.

 

I honestly think Rowling is just plain bad at math, where it concerns when someone was born and when someone died.

 

For how much harping there is here about JKR's bad math, DLP sure makes some mistakes of its own.

Using only the most basic information: Harry was born in 1980, and if he'd attended the seventh year, he'd have graduated in 1998. That means that if James was born in 1960, then he left school in 1978, not 1979, Warlocke.

If Dorea was 57 when she died in 1977, then she was born circa 1920, which would indeed make her at least 40 at the time of James' birth if she was his mother, which at most gives her 17/18 years between James' birth and her death, not 21, Tinder. 3/4 years is a significant difference.

[/asshole]

 

Scott, you're failing to account for the academic year starting in September. What year you leave school will depend on if you're born before or after Sept 1st.

 

Thank you for the clarification. I haven't decided if I want my work gang-piled or not. Plus both are 80,000 + stories and I didn't know if there was a way to post each easily since I'm not that handy with BBC code and it said no outside linking.

 

James Potter: born March 27th. Still graduates from Hogwarts in 1978.

 

Wait a minute. There was someone in Privet Drive who went to Hogwarts?