House of Abbott

## The Ancient House of Abbott

**Abbott** is the surname of a pure-blood wizarding family, and one of the Sacred Twenty-Eight. They are related through marriage to the Macmillan family and, more distantly, to the Potter and the Proctor families. The family motto is "*Deo patria amicis*," translated as *"A friend to God and my country."*

## Family history

### Early history

The Abbott family consists of an ancient line of pure-blood wizards, most of whom attended Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and were traditionally sorted into Hufflepuff House, though there have been many Abbotts over the years who have ended up in other houses. They initially made their home in near Barnstaple, Devon, England, in the West Country.

#### Origins

Abbott is an old Anglo-Saxon name that was given to a person who was a superior of a monastery, an Abbot. The family was in this area before the Norman Conquest of England by William, Duke of Normandy in 1066 AD. The very first Abbotts could be found in the counties of Oxfordshire, Huntingdon, Bedfordshire, and Cambridge from ancient times. Thus, the family has an extremely long history, which stretches multiple generations.

#### Statute of Secrecy

Giffard Abbott was head of the family at the time of the witch burnings and the decades preceding the International Statute of Secrecy; Ludovicus Abbott was head of the family when a vote for the Statute was ongoing in 1689. The Abbotts were in strong support of the Statute from the very beginning.

After the implementation of the International Statute of Secrecy in 1692, the Abbott family, along with many others, followed a pattern of settlement first observed by magical historian Bathilda Bagshot in her book *Hogwarts: A History,* where many wizarding families faced with persecution banded together to better support each other in a community. The Abbotts abandoned Devon in favour of Godric's Hollow, a village in Somerset.

### Recent history

The Abbott family were included in the Sacred Twenty-Eight list, published in a book titled *The Pure-Blood Directory* in the year 1931. Widely assumed to be the work of Cantankerous Nott, this genealogical text was particularly selective about which wizarding families were included, and only considered families who were Pure-blooded and had also proven themselves to be sufficiently ancient. That being said, a large number of these families practiced pure-blood supremacy. The Abbott family, along with the Weasleys, proved themselves in the 20th Century to be one of the few outliers.

A member of this family, Isobel Abbott, attended Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry from September 1941 to June 1948 and was a member of Hufflepuff House. She travelled abroad after leaving school and became briefly engaged to a Polish wizard named Piotr Leszczyński, but broke it off. She had an illegitimate son, Adrian Abbott, by way of Leszczyński. Isobel Abbott fought in the First Wizarding War, and was killed on 27 December, 1979, in London.

Her son, Adrien, later became a member of the Slug Club and a photographer for *The Daily Prophet*.

Jane Abbott (née Miller), wife of Maurice Abbott II, was the mother of Hufflepuff student Hannah Abbott. In 1996 during the Second Wizarding War, the muggle-born Mrs Abbott was found dead in her home. She was murdered by Death Eaters, followers of Lord Voldemort.

Hannah Abbott was a half-blood witch who was in the same year as the famous Harry Potter. She started attending Hogwarts in 1991 and was sorted into Hufflepuff House. In her fifth year, she became both a prefect and a member of Dumbledore's Army. Dumbledore's Army was an organisation taught and led by Harry Potter. In 1996, Hannah was pulled out of school after her mother was murdered by Death Eaters, but she returned the following year and was again a member of the D.A. She fought in the Battle of Hogwarts on 2 May, 1998.

## Etymology

Abbott is an old Anglo-Saxon name that was given to a person who was a superior of a monastery, an Abbot. The name Abbott may also be a nickname applied to someone who played the part of an abbot in a medieval pageant, or to a person thought to be particularly pious and devout.