The Burrow: Others in James’ Year
by Javier Ruiz de Ojeda Fernandez
This month’s The Burrow article was meant to deal with what will happen to the HP characters in books 6 and 7, but in order to keep the articles length reasonable and to give a more exhaustive analysis on this issue, my article will deal mainly with three characters, who are very closely related, for several reasons.
Imagine the HP world around 1960, more or less when Harrys parents were born. Well, a child born at that same year could have several personalities, though at the moment well only pay attention to three of them. One was magically very powerful, intelligent, and handsome. Another was very ambitious, and would make friends with anyone to be popular and powerful. And the third was extremely curious and clever, and had a special affinity with dark and mysterious things. With the right upbringing, and after 11 years, these three kids would become, respectively, Sirius Black, Peter Pettigrew and Severus Snape (if thats his real name, but well get to that later), all three of them becoming important in the HP series for the simple fact of being in the same year as James Potter, and getting to be a very important and relevant part of his school life.
So now, lets analyze each of them separately. Lets begin with my favourite character in the whole series, from the moment he appeared (even before we found out he was a good guy): Sirius Black. I must confess I cried when I read the end of OotP, though when I came to think about it I was quite relieved to find a pattern in our modern literature. Sirius is actually Obi Wan Kenobi, the character who, from his position of age and wisdom teaches the main character, and then dies confronting the forces of evil. However, there is one more important fact about Obi Wan, which I firmly believe will ultimately apply to Sirius in books 6 and 7: He came back from the dead, living on to give advice to the main character while he prepares to have his own go at the bad guy, meaning sooner or later well hear a good deal more about Sirius, who will come back either through the veil or through the mirror he gave Harry (I still think there is more to it than meets the eye, ya Harry broke the mirror, but why would J.K. bring it up for nothing?).
The second character I believe is important, and from I can guess quite a lot (right or wrong, time will tell), is Peter Pettigrew, a.k.a. Wormtail. There are two fundamental theories Ive developed about him. The first is shared by all of us with a small knowledge of folk culture. Wormtail has a silver hand + Lupin is a werewolf = quite a disgusting end for the best Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher Hogwarts has seen since Harry has been there. I think its quite obvious, since J. K. Rowling never places a single fact for one or even two reasons. Most elements in the series have more than one meaning, such as the firebolt, the boxing tree or even the Ministry of Magic. And my second theory concerning Wormtail also relies on literature. Now, what important character could Wormtail resemble? Once again, its quite obvious: Gollum! (skip the rest of this paragraph if you dont want LotR spoiled) A character of dark nature, allied with evil beings only to achieve its goals, and who is forgiven, by pure pity, by the main character. Once again, the end of his story is what I expect to happen to Wormtail before the end of the series. It will be him (and not Harry) who saves the day in book 7, in the final battle. If you read Lord of the Rings, youll know its actually not Frodo who defeats Sauron, but Gollum, though of course not voluntarily, but Im sure that is something to take into account (lets remember Wormtail is indebted to Harry after book 3). Another argument to support this theory is Hermiones quote in book 5, when she talks about Harrys thing with saving people. That way, Harry does not achieve victory through killing the bad guy, but through showing mercy to those who deserve it.
And finally, I believe Snape also saves quite a lot of surprises. I said before Im not sure that is his real name. I suppose youd have read the Perseus theories, but in case you havent, here goes a summary. Snape could be faking his name for several reasons, taking the letters in Persues Evans to make Severus Snape. So, if we rearrange Severus Snapes name, we get thousands of possibilities, one of which is specially attractive, and if you have read any Harry Potter at all, you will agree NOTHING is ever coincidental. This is Perseus Evans, a more than plausible name in the HP series. And since not in all the series has a single name been repeated without there being a relation between those who have it, this would mean Perseus is the third (but unkown to the Lily and Petunia) Evans sibling. That way wed get an answer to the Mark Evans riddle (since I DONT believe him to be a coincidence at all). Surely whether or not this is true will be found in book 6, for if Mark Evans was 10 in book 5, next year hell go into Hogwarts! Finally, since Ive done it with Sirius and Peter before, Id like to relate Snape/Evans to a famous character. This time its a little wilder, but I still stick to Snape being a traitor to the Order of the Phoenix. That, in case you havent noticed, is Boromir. Which means he is bound to die.
So, thats that for the moment. I hope you have found my article entertaining as well as informative. I dont expect everyone to agree with me, but these are educated guesses, based upon previous facts, and so Id say there is about a 30 or 40% chance that most of this will be true.
