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.

BWAHAHA!!

[link]

Odd thing I've noticed -- I don't recall ever noticing one any of the characters reading fiction, or reading anything other than for research or class, except for the ocassional Quidditch book. Seems like the sort of thing that Neville or Luna would do, curl up by the fireplace with a book, or Ginny, at least in the first few books, seems like the type of kid who'd get involved in a story and you'd have to drag her away from it, but I can't remember any scenes like that.

well, there was that whole thing with a diary . . .

Nonfiction!

And yet there are special wizarding fairy tales. You'd think that there would be wizarding kids adventure stories.

Okay, reading DH a second time has made me decide to read them all again. So far I've got the Philosopher's Stone and Chamber of Secrets done. Chamber of Secrets is a lot weaker than I remember.

Chamber of Secrets is a lot weaker than I remember.

Yeah. The first two books are fun and all, but the series doesn't take of until PofA.

JKR's growth as a writer is evident as you read them in rapid succession.

There is also some truth to the concept of sophomore slump, but she got past it.