Remember my Last Petunia

[pandora315]

I not meaning to sound argumentative (I swear!!) its just that sometimes I read a post and I say WHAT! out loud and laugh to myself (My husband thinks I'm nuts since I usually do this between midnight and 2 in the morning but he's gotten used to it). I just have to say that theres just as much if not more evidence supporting the theory that DD is a relative of Harry's as opposed to a relative of the Weasleys. I mean the fact that Ron has a second cousin who is a muggle and Harry's mom was born from a muggle born witch with red hair is really stretching it as evidence don't you think? The whole thing is that there isn't enogh evidence for Harry being related to one person to put the odds above some otehr person. I think Rowling knew everyone would want Harry to have family somewhere and thats why she left all these open ended questions- you think you have and answer but then again maybe not- and gave just enough to support aprobable cause for relatives being any one of three main characters and possibly Mark Evans who has so far only appeared once.

[Athena Appleton]

I know what you mean about your husband thinking your nuts... mine is the same.

I don't think there's enough evidence to show that Harry is related to the Weasleys or Dumbledore. I think it's silly to make anyone with reddish hair related. I liked the idea of Molly's second cousin the accountant being Lily's dad, but it's more just a cool idea, not a real theory, since there's not any evidence that he is, just like I don't think there's evidence that Dumbledore is related to Harry, outside of the he-used-to-have-reddish-hair theory...

I do think, however, that Mark Evans is almost certainly going to be a relative of Harry's, as Rowling would not (in my opinion) have a non-important person have the same last name as Harry's mom's maiden name. She hasn't shown a trend of doing this, and there are jillions of last names she could use... in fact, if she weren't going to use it, I don't think she would have had that line about Mark in there at all. If it were to show that Dudley beats up younger and (MUCH) smaller kids, Harry would have just said "I know you beat up a little ten-year-old yesterday" instead of calling Mark by first and last name.

[Alice I]

Here is a thought:

Does Harry know his mother's maiden name?
If he does do you think he might wonder about Mark?
I know that Evans is Lilly's maiden name but is it also Petunia's?
Could it be that Petunia and Lilly have the same mother but different fathers?

*shrugs* just a thought.

[Athena Appleton]

I think it's one of those things that Harry knows, but he hasn't "got it"... I mean, he clearly had enough evidence from Snape's memory to know that Lily Potter was once Lily Evans. But I don't think he's put it together (he heard it, but was so focused on what he was seeing at the time, he didn't pay attention to what they called her)... Even if he does know that her maiden name was Evans, I don't think he's put the Evans-Evans thing together... Mainly because he is working from the "knowledge" that he has no other relatives. If you "know" you have no relatives, you don't stop and ponder if the same name thing is a coincidence. It's kinda like, in the Mirror of Erised, Harry's greatest desire is to see his dead relatives, since, supposedly, all his relatives are dead except the Dursleys.

That, along with the fact that Evans is really a fairly common name (common in Harry's world) makes me think that he wouldn't put a lot of thought into Mark Evans. Really, the only reason we question it is because it's against the nature of J.K. Rowling to put even a small character in there with the same name as Lily without there being something involved with the story. But if we look at it like Harry's looking at it, unless our mother had a VERY odd maiden name, we wouldn't assume or even usually think about the possibility that they're related, especially if we don't think we have living relatives.

My mom's maiden name is Jones. Any time I meet someone with the maiden name Jones, it doesn't cross my mind to ask if they're from the same little town, or if they know someone or are related to someone in Hallsville. A kid my sister went to school with had the last name (and I can't spell it, I'll have to sound it out) hab-bib-bli-ah-hi-an. It would be fairly safe, if he met someone with the same name, to ask if they are from or know someone from the same general area, and chances are more with him that they would be related somehow. Evans is a more common name, so it's not that odd (to Harry) that there's a kid down the street with the same name as his mom's maiden name. Even more reason to think this is the fact that he would probably assume that if Lily had a relative on Privet Drive (or the surrounding area) then Petunia would have a relative on Privet Drive (or the surrounding area), and since he's never met this relative, he would assume there isn't one.

[Meg Boyd]

exactly...in Harry Potter books the characters seem to miss a lot of details (like the readers do at first glance) I'm sure he just finds it a coincedence if anything. This comes from my own experience as when i was ten years old my class was doing a family geneology project. My new friend Nicki and i were working together and we both found that our great grandfathers' names were Ferdinand Jury. We laughed and thought it was neat, but Jury is a surname dervived from the lands of Jura, so we assumed that they were merely from the same place in the Old Country...come to find out Nicki and I were distant cousins and our great grandfathers were one in the same!!! It's easy to just assume that just because it isn't a given that you and some one are related, that you just aren't!

[dancinquyn]

I think 'last' refers to something that happend between her and Lily. There also is a possibility that she could be a squib, and holding it against Lily. She could have fealt jealous that Lily could perform magic and everything, but she was stuck being a squib.

[Athena Appleton]

yeah, but Dumbledore doesn't send a howler for Petunia to remember her last... it was something between Dumbledore and Petunia, not Lily and Petunia

I do think you're right on the mark about Petunia's jealousy with Lily, though

[Enchanter]

i dont think Mark Evans is related to Harry. Wouldnt Petunia mention that a relative lived in the same neighborhood? The Dursleys do mention the Potters a little even tho they dont like to talk about them. It stands to reason there would be a mention of Mark Evans

[Athena Appleton]

*shrug* could be... but I do know some families where it would be quite normal in the circumstances involved to have relatives nearby and not realize it.

I'm no good past midnight... nothing's making a lot of sense right now.

Petunia doesn't purposely tell Harry anything of importance, it's part of her and Vernon's childraising method of keep-him-lower-than-dirt-and-he-won't-be-a-threat thing... So a few things are possible:

1. Mr. Evans or whatever is only distantly related (before I married, I shared a last name with my second cousin, because of how the marriages and stuff happened), so if the charm works the way I think it does, not just any relative would work to keep Harry safe with the charm Dumbledore put on him. The closer the blood relation, the more protection there is. Generally, I don't think she'd care that much, but I think Petunia realizes that there would be some seriously ugly ramifications if anything happens to Harry and Voldemort is able to keep on keepin on.

2. Petunia doesn't speak with the Evans relative, and hasn't in a long time. All the grandparents are dead (it's in an interview), so there's no one around to let Harry know that he really has an uncle or a cousin nearby. If Petunia doesn't speak with the Evanses, it's possible she doesn't even know they're nearby.

3. For some other reason (the previous marriage idea, for example), Petunia doesn't know about the Evans character.