I just love the Weasley's to pieces. They were, hands down, my favorite part of the whole series. Maybe in part because they reminded me of my mom's family a bit (who I grew up in the middle of, my mom is the oldest of 7 and my younger uncle is only 7 years older than me).

I just love the Weasley's to pieces.

Me too. They seem like a very real, well-drawn family.

My complaint about Ginny is than she's never really more that a romantic foil for Harry. She's one of the more one-dimensional characters in the books.

But ALL teenagers are self-absorbed. I say this with all love for them as a former teacher, but, they are all off in their own universes for a while.

One of my favorite Ginny moments was when she and Harry had their little talk over Easter Eggs in the library in OotP. She drew him out about his brooding over Sirius and then offered to help him--that didn't strike me as self-absorbed.

Merlin had kids?

Not that I've found explicitly stated, no. He was imprisoned in an invisible tower by Viviane (the Lady in the Lake). She did it out of crazy stalkerish love, so...

You know. He coulda t'rown a fuckin' on her.

You know. He coulda t'rown a fuckin' on her.

That's what I love about you, MM. You're a romantic. (:

That's what I love about you, MM. You're a romantic. (:

Down to the very bloody bottom of my fuckin' heart.

Merlin had kids?

Not that I've found explicitly stated, no. He was imprisoned in an invisible tower by Viviane (the Lady in the Lake). She did it out of crazy stalkerish love, so...

You could definitely fanfic or midrash Merlin/Viviane. I'm trying to remember if there was anything in Mary Stewart's Merlin Trilogy (I know, I know, not the definitive source on Merlin, but if he got busy with someone it would be in a Mary Stewart book).

There's Nimue, who was his apprentice and may have entombed him in the Crystal Cave. And there's Nimue who shut the bard Taleisin (Merlin's mentor, occasionally) in a tree...those stories always seem like the guy and Nimue had something going on.

How would the surname Weasley come about from Arthurian decendence?

Possibly Merlin practiced droit de signeur with an innocent farm girl who later married a Weasley?

The writer of the Teddy Lupin fanfic had an aborted (after only the second chapter) story about the beginnings of the Weasley name, starting with this:

The family had been granted the name of "Gillivray," servant of judgment, by King Arthur himself, near the end of the days of light, when Parlen of Ottery had served as the king's man in a wizards' duel in the North Country. Merlin himself had been shut away in a rock by Niniane only five years before, and his name had still been spoken freely and with wistful longing. The dark sorcerer Eilag the Formidable had transfigured himself into a serpent, and Parlen had responded by becoming a weasel to hunt him into the narrow lairs, where they had battled to Eilag's death. Parlen had come out of the battle with a scar on his hand from a sharpened fang, and the noble title of Gillivray.

He had also been given a royal crest that depicted a weasel destroying a serpent. It hung prominently on the gates of Gillivray Manor, and because of it, the largely illiterate populace took to simply calling Parlen's descendents the Weasel family.

I like the Slytherin = serpent implications of why Weasleys were always anti-Slytherin.