The Mystery That Is Mark Evans

Before I delve into this week's column, there are couple things that need addressing. First, I'd like to welcome Erin Linn to the MuggleNet writing team. I hope you guys show her the same support you've shown Dan and myself. Welcome aboard, Erin! Secondly, my home computer had some trouble, so if you emailed me this week and didn't get a reply, I'm sorry. If you sent me an email, I read it, but my replies were being sent back to me. However, I'm at school now, and on my beautiful new laptop, so fear not, I'll be emailing you all again shortly. Now on to the task at hand.

In OotP, we find that Dudley beat up a 10-year-old kid named Mark Evans. We learn nothing else of young Mr. Evans during the whole book, and yet, the one line about him, in my opinion, has major significance on the rest of the series. There is no doubt in my mind that he is, in one way or another, related to Harry in some way. Many of you were quick to point out that Harry had to go live with the Dursleys because they were his "last living relatives." That may be true, but Mark Evans wasn't alive when Harry had to go live with them, so he couldn't exactly be a living relative, now could he? Using this information, however, you can rule out that Mark is Lily's child, because she was dead before he was born. So, unless Lily can somehow conceive and give birth to a child from beyond the grave, she is out as mother.

So, now that we have established that Lily can't be Mark's mom, we are left wondering who it is our little mystery man belongs to. Natural progression leads us to Petunia, being the only character in the book that ever had a last name of Evans (or so we think; more on that later). Well, I think it's unlikely that he's Petunia's child for the following reasons.

A) She obviously didn't have him with Vernon, or he'd be living with them.
B) Petunia doesn't seem like the type of person to cheat on her husband...and if she did, how would she hide a pregnancy from him?
C) On that same token, she couldn't have had him before she met Vernon, because he'd be older than Harry and Dudley, which he isn't.

So then, with seemingly all the Evans accounted for, it would seem that it's impossible for Mark to be related to Harry, right? Wrong.

Recently, there has been a theory around about Severus Snape. If you re-arrange the letters in his name, you can come up with Perseus Evans. I want you all to go back and consider the memory from Snape's pensieve in OotP. As he's being ridiculed, Lily Evans rushes to his defense. She seems stunned when he calls her a mudblood. Not angry so much, but taken aback. Could this be because they are related, and she knows for a fact that Snape himself is a mudblood? I know it would surprise me if someone I knew to be a mudblood called me one. Is it at all possible that Snape changed his name going into school to distance himself with the Evans family and feign being a pure-blood so he could be in Slytherin? Is it far-fetched? Sure, but not impossible. Also, bear in mind that Snape is around 35, which would mean if he had a child at 25 years old, the child would be 10...like Mark Evans. Also remember that JKR said that students aren't privy to information concerning teachers and their spouses, so it's also possible that Snape is married. My guess is somehow Mark is related to Snape (probably his son), and that Snape is therefore related to Harry. It sounds crazy, but stranger things have happened. My guess is we will be seeing Mark entering Hogwarts next year, and we will learn all about him.

I'm very excited to introduce a new section of the Pensieve this week. As I am a movie buff, every week I'm going to leave a movie quote at the end of my column. The first person to correctly email me with the movie the quote is from, the name of the character who said it, and the name of the actor/actress who played the character will receive 5 galleons for MuggleNet Interactive. Here is the first quote:

"If we all go for the blonde and block each other, not a single one of us is going to get her. So then we go for her friends, but they will all give us the cold shoulder because no on likes to be second choice. But what if none of us goes for the blonde? We won't get in each other's way and we won't insult the other girls. It's the only way to win."

Good luck, and I'll see you next week!

[This contest is completed.]

8/31/2003

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Joshua Smith is a 20-year-old journalism student at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and an avid Harry Potter fan.

If you'd like to contact Josh, you may do so here.