Cornelius Hargrave

**Cornelius Hargrave** (born 10 March, 1955) was a pure-blood wizard who attended Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry from 1 September, 1966 to June 1973. He was a student of Ravenclaw House, and played on the Ravenclaw Quidditch Team as Beater. He married a witch called Floriane Aubrey in October 1977. He was the father of Arthur, Marnie, Alice, and Doris Hargrave.

He was widowed in 1988, but despite this, he tried to give his children the happiest childhood he could despite the circumstances. He took them to many Quidditch games in the hope that all four children would catch, but only Arthur and Doris became such fans of the sport. They supported the Falmouth Falcons.

Two of his daughters, Marnie and Alice Hargrave, fought in the Battle of Hogwarts on 2 May, 1998, and both of them survived the battle, showing their skill as witches.

## Biography

### Early life

Cornelius Hargrave was born on 10 March, 1955, into the Hargrave family of Truro, Cornwall, England. He was a pure-blood wizard, however, the Hargrave family was never apart of the Sacred Twenty-Eight, a term coined in a book titled *The Pure-Blood Directory,* which was published in the 1930s. The Hargrave family's exclusion could be explained by the fact that like the Bones, and the Potters, the Hargraves often married muggles and were not considered "pure" by the likes of Cantakerous Nott, who was widely considered to have authored the book. Other pure-blood but impoverished families were excluded from this work as well, such as the Goshawks, which could suggest that the Hargrave family did not have enough money or landholdings to qualify.

#### Hogwarts years

Cornelius Hargrave received his Hogwarts letter in the summer of 1966. That same summer, he presumably visited Diagon Alley, located in London, and purchased a wand made of beech and unicorn hair from Ollivander's Wand Shop.

On 1 September, 1966, he boarded the train for Hogwarts and was sorted into Ravenclaw House that same night. He was in the same year as Reginald Cattermole and the two shared a dormitory together. They were very good friends and still to this day meet up for pints together.

In his fourth year of school he was selected to play Beater for the Ravenclaw Quidditch Team. He played on the team from the Autumn of 1970 to June of 1973, when he left the school. His main focus of study had become Care of Magical Creatures.

#### Employment

Cornelius left the school after completing his seventh year in June 1973. At some point between his graduation from Hogwarts and 1977, Cornelius gained employment in the Pest Advisory Bureau at the Ministry of Magic. The Pest Advisory Board was a service of the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures in the Ministry of Magic. Its role was to provide assistance with serious Bundimun infestations of wizarding homes, deal with serious infestations of Chizpurfles, take responsibility for the Ghoul Task Force, and maintain a pack of a dozen albino bloodhounds to deal with Nogtails. He soon became trained to handle infestations of very large magnitudes.

#### Marriage

He married Floriane Aubrey, a fellow Ravenclaw student, on 18 October, 1977, in Truro. Both of them were 22 years old at the time. The couple would later have four children together, including, Arthur, born in 1978, Marnie, born in 1980, Alice, born in 1983, and Doris, born in 1988.

#### Early widowhood

The birth of their fourth child in 1988 proved too much for Cornelius's wife, Floriane, who was already ill before she gave birth to Doris. Floriane passed away on 11 August, 1988, one day after their fourth child was born. Cornelius, as well as his oldest, Arthur, aged nine, and daughter Marnie, aged seven, were there with her when she passed.

Floriane was buried in the parish graveyard in the village of Truro. Elizabeth Aubrey (née Meadowes), Cornelius's sister-in-law, came to Truro with her husband Bertram and son Bertie to help take care of the family for a brief time while they grieved her.

### Later life

Cornelius had been fearful that his youngest child would have inherited the incurable illness that had taken his wife, but thankfully that was not the case, and Doris grew into a healthy and happy tot.

#### On his own

Cornelius tried to give his children the happiest childhood he could despite the circumstances of his wife's death. He took them to many Quidditch games in the hope that all four children would catch, but only Arthur and Doris became such fans of the sport. The family all supported the Falmouth Falcons. Marnie, on the other hand, preferred to stay inside and read. She was a quiet child. Alice liked wandering outside in the marshes.

His son, Arthur Hargrave, began attending Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry in September 1990. Two years later, in September, 1992, his oldest daughter, Marnie, began her attendance. Arthur and Marnie were both sorted into Ravenclaw like their parents. Marnie was a friend of her cousin, Bertram Aubrey Jr.'s, but other than that she did not have many friends at all.

#### Second Wizarding War

In September 1994, his daughter, Alice, was sorted into Gryffindor House, which did not surprise Cornelius. Alice quickly befriended a boy called Nigel Wolpert, and Natalie McDonald, a muggle-born. At the end of the year Alice was supposed to have her first ever End-of-Term Feast, but due to the circumstances surrounding the Triwizard Tournament and the murder of Cedric Diggory, this feast was cancelled and instead a memorial feast was held by Albus Dumbledore for students and staff to pay their respects to the late Diggory and grieve the loss.

At the end of this year Dumbledore had declared, based on Harry Potter's word, that Lord Voldemort had returned to power. Cornelius Hargrave was amongst a very small group of adults to believe this claim and not be persuaded otherwise by the Ministry of Magic and the Daily Prophet which in later months would slate Harry and Dumbledore as liars. Alice was very insistent on her belief that something terrible had happened at the end of that tournament, which was instrumental in persuading him and her brother, Arthur, as well as her sister, Marnie.

#### Open warfare

At the end of his daughter Alice's second year of school, and his daughter Marnie's fourth year of school, an incident at the Ministry of Magic led the Minister for Magic, Cornelius Fudge, to announce publicly that Voldemort had indeed returned, on 18 June, 1996. In the autumn of 1996, Cornelius's children returned to Hogwarts: Arthur as a seventh-year, Marnie as a fifth-year, and Alice as a third-year. His youngest daughter, Doris, was still at home, being only eight years old.

At the end of the 1996-1997 school year, Hogwarts Headmaster Albus Dumbledore, was murdered, and once Cornelius found this out by means of the newspaper he arrived to collect his children along with several other parents who refused to allow their children to remain at the school. But his daughters, Alice and Marnie, refused to accompany him. Arthur also elected to stay for the memorial service and Cornelius returned to his home in Truro.

#### Ministry takeover

Cornelius would have been at work the day of 1 August, 1997, the day that Rufus Scrimgeour mysteriously disappeared. That same day, Voldemort's Death Eaters had successfully placed the Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, Pius Thicknesse, under the Imperius Curse- however, they had murdered his undersecretary, Godiva Smith, in the process of doing so, when she resisted. It is unknown what Cornelius would have thought about the matter, but it is likely that he was afraid of losing his own job or life, like several other employees, such as Arthur Weasley.

In the autumn of 1997, Cornelius begrudgingly sent his daughter, Marnie, then a sixth-year, and daughter Alice, then a fourth-year, to Hogwarts, which had suddenly become mandatory for all witches and wizards.

#### Battle of Hogwarts

On 2 May, 1998, Cornelius's two daughters, Marnie and Alice, then sixth and fourth year Hogwarts students, participated in the Battle of Hogwarts, when Lord Voldemort and his Death Eaters stormed the castle, despite Alice being underaged. Cornelius would have likely feared for his daughter's lives when they did not arrive at home, despite the order for all underaged students to be evacuated.

Alice and Marnie participated in the battle alongside their friends against the Death Eaters and Voldemort's army of Dark creatures. Neither Alice nor Marnie were listed among the 50 casualties, and presumably survived to witness Harry's final defeat of Lord Voldemort and the end of the Second Wizarding War.

## Etymology

Cornelius is an originally Roman masculine name. Its derivation is uncertain but is suspected to be from the Latin cornu, "horn".

The history of the Hargrave family goes back to the ancient Anglo-Saxon culture of Britain. It is derived from the family living in *Hargrave*, a place-name found in the counties of Cheshire, Northamptonshire, and Suffolk. There is also a Hargrave Hall in Cheshire. The place-name is derived from the Old English elements *har,* which meant "hare" or "on the border," and *graf* or *græfe,* which meant "grove." The place-name as a whole meant "grove filled with rabbits" or "grove on a border."

Alternatively, the name could have been derived from a Saxon occupation, as "the provider or commissary of an army, from *Here* or *Har*, an army, and grave, a steward or disposer."