Minor Characters

[cmwinters]

The Lexicon has nothing on Penelope Clearwater other than what you've already mentioned.

http://hp-lexicon.org/wizards/a-z/c.html

Wikipedia has this on Homer's Penelope, for whom Miss Clearwater was presumably named:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penelope

However, that says precious little about her appearance as well.

Being that Penelope was a Homeric Greek, you should feel reasonably free to base your appearance on any Homeric Greek if you'd like to go with that template, otherwise you are quite open.

[dancingcarrot21]

Thank you for the information. It really doesn't give too much description on her in the books does it? The girl can really have a mind to mold then.

[MarauderMaiden]

I have a few questions about Filch.
On the Lexicon, he's simply described as "older". How long do you think he's been the caretaker at Hogwarts? Was he the caretaker when Lily and James were at school?
If he was the caretaker, would he be the same horrible pain-lover that he is in Harry's time? Or would he not be to that stage of cruelty because the event that made him that way wouldn't have happened yet?
Tell me what you think! Any help is much appreciated!

[Mind Games]

He definitely could have been the caretaker during the time when the Marauders were at school. No other caretaker has been mentioned during that era. I imagine him being the caretaker at Hogwarts for a very long time. However, we do know that he was not the caretaker while Molly and Arthur were at school, so he could not have been there in, say, Dumbledore’s or McGonagall’s era.

I actually believe he was always as nasty as he is in the trio's era. I think this is mainly due to jealousy. We know how much he craves magical abilities and he lives and works in a school full of children, teens, and adults who all use magic as if it's no big deal. Picture that: You're surrounded by people who all have special magical abilities that you'll never have. Everything comes easily to them, and they usually don't have to work the hard way since they can just use magic. If I was in this type of situation, I think I would feel jealous as well. Not to the extent that Filch is, but definitely jealous and irritated by the students at times. Maybe what really pushes him over the edge is when he sees students abuse their magical abilities, such as hexing each other or using magic when forbidden to. He feels jealous that they can use magic and when they are constantly using it for the wrong reasons, he wants to be nasty to them. I don't think that's an excuse for his cruel behaviour, but that could be the reason for it. However, none of that is canon, so if you want to create an event that lead up to his hatred for the students, feel free to do so.

Good luck!

[MarauderMaiden]

Thanks so much! I totally agree with the fact that he is jealous and that is the reason for his cruelty. I just have one more question.... would it be canon to have him in, say, his thirties at that time? Thanks!

[no_day_but_today]

I figured tht Filch came to the school a couple years before Dumbledore became headmaster in 1970 according to the Lexicon. That would be around the time that the Marauders started their schooling. I think that Filch was there for part of the Dippet (I assume since no other headmaster is meantioned). Filch often says that he wants permission for whipping to be brought back again, which implies ot me that he was able to do it before. We know from GoF that Dippet let the former caretaker, Apollyon Pringle, use physical punishment against the students because Molly said that Arthur still had the marks form the night that they went out for a walk. Filch was just as mean a piece of work when the Marauders came, since I'm inclined to think that up until that term he had been able to strap students up by their ankles.

Now the age, Jo describes Remus as being young in PoA, and he'd be in his mid-thirties at that point. Ergo, it is my opinion that old has got to be pretty old in HP universe and if Filch was just in thirties when the Marauder were at school, the oldest that he could be when Harry gets there is in his fifties. I'd put him in his forties and fifties when the Marauders were at school, putting him in his sixties and maybe early seventies during Harry's time.

[cmwinters]

I heard it theorised, and I'm ALMOST POSTIVE this came from either Pottercast or Mugglecast, that Filch is at Hogwarts basically under Dumbledore's protection, and that the REASON for this is that Filch was actually a contemporary of Riddle's while they were at school, and that Riddle *did* something to Filch (like . . . perhaps . . . making him into a Squib), and that as Riddle rose to power Dumbledore feared that Filch would be targeted again and so brought him to Hogwarts for his protection. As far as I know there's absolutely nothing in canon or any interviews to counter this theory. In fact, Hagrid's is almost certainly at Hogwarts under Dumbledore's protection, and it's quite clear that Trelawney certainly is, Snape states that he HIMSELF was, and there are those that theorise that Dumbledore brought Lupin there for his protection against the escaped convict Sirius Black, as well.

I did a fairly lengthy timeline for the fic I'm writing and with Bill's birthday in November 1970, and assuming that Muggle pregnancy and a Wizarding one last the same length of time, then that puts his conception around Valentine's Day 1970. Ginny busts her mom out in HBP saying that Arthur and Molly had run off and eloped and it's indicated that it was because of the escalating war, so if that's the case, it's quite likely that one or the other, if not both of them, graduated in June 1969.

My calculations (look below) have MWPP, Lily and Snape starting school in September 1970. There's probably not more than a year of leeway in either direction for any of these calculations.

So assuming all these calculations are accurate, it's entirely possible taht Apollyon Pringle resigned/retired/died/won the wizarding lottery/whatever sometime between June 1969 and September 1970.

It's also quite possible that whoever preceeded Pringle was at the school during Filch's supposed schooling at Hogwarts was someone entirely different, and that *that* caretaker was the one that exacted corporal punishment, and you could do all of this without, so far as I know, violating canon in the least.

---

My calculations:

In OotP, Harry sees his "fifteen year old father" taking his OWLs "twenty years ago". So assuming that's right, that puts James at 15 in 1975. Snape, being born in January, would have been 16. So James' birthday would have been in June, July or August for him to have still been 15, which would have placed his birth year in 1959, and his first year at Hogwarts in 1970 (the September 1st that he was 11).

[MarauderMaiden]

Wow! Thank you both for your extensive work and time put in to your explainations! I appreciate it and definitely have what I need. Thanks again!

[Elisabeth]

*wanders in*

So I've searched for what seems like hours for an answer and have yet found one. It seems like Trelawney has just dropped in from nowhere. There's no record of her school years anywhere I've looked. Nor her age, even.

My questions are these: When did Sibyll attend Hogwarts? How old is she? And lastly (and most importantly), what house was she in?

Thanks, guys!

[cmwinters]

Trelawney

*wanders in*

So I've searched for what seems like hours for an answer and have yet found one. It seems like Trelawney has just dropped in from nowhere. There's no record of her school years anywhere I've looked. Nor her age, even.

My questions are these: When did Sibyll attend Hogwarts? How old is she? And lastly (and most importantly), what house was she in?

Thanks, guys!

We don't know. It's not that you're failing to find it, it's that the information hasn't been publicised. (http://hp-lexicon.org/wizards/trelawney.html)

We know, vaguely, about her ancestory Cassandra Trelawney, we can kind of randomly infer that the author of Unfogging the Future (Cassandra Vablatsky) may be a relative of hers, and it's POSSIBLE that she may be a descendant of Cassandra of Troy, but we don't know any of that.

Which, actually, gives you a great deal of leeway.

To be honest, I'd say that it's probably best to put her in Ravenclaw, and put her at the school arriving sometime after Riddle's fifth year (he would have graduated in June 1945), and graduating sometime before Arthur Weasley and Molly Prewett were likely to have arrived at the school (which would, most likely, have been no earlier than September 1961), because those are the years where nobody that Harry's had any regular contact with so far appear to have attended the school, and you have quite a bit of leeway either way, and also explains why Harry wouldn't have remarked on her age the way he most likely would have if she were older than the Dark Lord. That also gets all of the Dark Lord's earliest followers out of the school before she arrived, and gives Tom no reason to have known of a truly gifted Seer in his general vicinity.

As she doesn't appear to exhibit any bravery, loyalty or cunning, that rules out Gryffindor, Hufflepuff and Slytherin. She does have a particular talent in her own subject, though, which to me just seems more Ravenclaw-ish than anything.