Lately I have found myself reacting fairly strongly to the common fan fiction decision to reject the secondary source information released/published about The Potter Family. Mrs. Rowling tells us that while The Black Family Tree lists a marriage between Dorea Black and Charlus Potter, this couple is not in the direct line of Potters, that is, they are not direct ancestors of Harry. Instead, Harry’s paternal grandfather is Fleamont, and his great-grandfather was Henry. While some versions of the page had a graphical depiction of a family tree, it seems evident that the picture represented only a partial tree with some generations omitted. Despite the fact that it is fairly certain that the information on this Potter specific page is partial, we can make certain conclusions. From the birth and death dates for Dorea, we can conclude with a reasonable level of certitude that she does not represent a missing generation in Harry’s family tree, despite our certainty that such generations exist. Rather, she must have married into an un-described side branch to the family. The dates provided simply do not allow for any other reasonable conclusion.
Many authors find the above logic chain unsatisfying for one of several reasons.
- They became attached to the idea of Charlus and Dorea as grandparents before it was released. For older works this is reasonable, and these do not really bother me except when I fail to notice they are in fact older.
- The writer is unaware of the extent of the released information. To me, this feels like failure to do a simple google search. If you want to explore an aspect of the books, you ought to be willing to verify what is and is not known before inventing something. I find that writers that go this route tend to also demonstrate greater familiarity with the movies than with the books, and, in comment reactions to their work, disdain for the idea that the difference matters. They are not really writing fan fiction about the books at all, but rather about the movies. I dislike that, and it does bother me.
- The writer is aware, but finds the closer connection to the Black family too useful a plot device to give up. I understand this. The author is trying to make rational/logical sense of the fact that Harry is Sirius‘ heir despite the fact that we are told that the estate is, or has been, entailed. I am not a lawyer, far less a British legal expert. I have done only a small amount of reading of publicly available and easily found information on how England handles entailed estates. It seems evident to me that it would take an expert to truly make heads or tails of what should happen in the situation that Mrs. Rowling has created with Sirius’ death, and that the rest of us are just guessing. I suspect it is fairly safe to bet that what did happen in the books and what should have happened per normal non-magical law differ, and we need to introduce some magical reasoning that the books may or may not allude to, but certainly do not outright state. This, however, is probably the second best reason for the substitution.
- Similar to the previous, the writer is aware, finds the closer connection too useful to give up, but not because the writer is trying to make the universe sane. No, the writer finds it useful because the writer wants to make Harry close family with the Blacks in some version of redeemed Black Family, and/or “dark is not evil” political plot story. The political plot is an interesting avenue for a responsible adult story, but when mixed with the “dark is not evil” concept, becomes distasteful more often than not.
- Again along similar lines, the writer wants to use this connection, but rather than going the political plot, with redeemed characters, the writer is looking at a ‘Dark Harry’ plot line, with the idea that only by embracing the power of ‘[dark magic]’ can Harry become powerful enough to really take on his enemies.