Extra Froth: Beware the Grangers! By Lainey Spoy-Right

This is a reprinting of an article originally done by Lainey Spoy-Right for The Quibbler on March 18, 2006. It is being reprinted here as my esteemed colleague, Annie, does not remember this very revealing investigative report. Originally, the information used to create this article was found at one of my former recapping sites, Fandom Talk.

With the most recent revelation about Colby's character, Ms. Spoy-Right reports she's working on a follow-up piece about Hermione's connection with either Voldemort, or some shady anti-establishment organization called SPEW. Ms. Spy-Right released the following statement. "While the whole Voldemort thing has been done to death, we're fearing this new upstart anarchist organization, SPEW. ...they have buttons. Any organization with buttons is cause for a concern according to our highest standards here at The Quibbler."

The Quibbler

Hermione Granger with American Ties?

By: Lainey Spoy-RightSenior Obscure Connection Analyst

Hermione Granger and Colby Granger share little in this world, other than a common last name. She is British. He is American. She is the most exceptional witch of her generation. Although Colby has yet to have his intellectual moment in the shade, glow in the dark stars, candlelight sun, he is the greatest sidekick FBI Agent David Sinclair ever had. Hermione speaks English. Colby ties to speak English, but also tries to speak Spanish. We do understand that some coincidental similarities, such as hair colour do exist; for instance, Hermione can correctly use the word loquacious in a sentence and Colby once drank at a bar called Loquacious, during Spring Break, junior year. (Yes, we here at The Quibbler do recognize that not everything is part of the international garden gnome conspiracy.)

Despite the suspicious coincidences of the hair colour, last name and the loquacious connection, Hermione and Colby Granger have nothing to do with one another.

OR DO THEY?

This Senior Obscure Connection Analyst has discovered that these two people are in fact, long lost cousins.

The history of the Granger family is long and sordid. The name Granger means “One who superintended a large farm, or grange.” It has been identified that the first Granger first got his name from tending the large Yorkshire farm, Thrushcross Grange – as owned by the Linton family. The Grangers stayed out of sight during the decades long feud between the Lintons and the neighbours, the Earnshaw / Heathcliff household. The name of the Earnshaw /Heathcliff farm has been lost to history as this Senior Obscure Connection Analyst cannot find it.

After the family grew too large to tend the two large granges, one son, Hindley and his wife Eunice, moved to London. Childless for many years, it was a surprise birth of twins, Benjamin & Samuel, in 1900, that allowed the line to continue. Benjamin was a bright child, into reading and arithmetic, but Samuel, was the physical child, and was an avid golfer. By the age of 12, Samuel was invited to compete in a tournament in New Haven, Connecticut and was booked passage on a new steamliner, the Titanic, and for many years, his family believed him dead.

Meanwhile, Benjamin married twice, fathering 15 children, the 8th one, Delbert, born in 1943, eventually became a dentist, and in 1979, became the proud father of Hermione Jane Granger. Her grandfather’s love for math is evident in his young granddaughter, who, though she is the first witch in her family (although there were always questions about Great Aunt Philomena seeing ghosts back at Thrushcross Grange), Hermione’s best subject is Arithmancy – the telling of the future through mathematical properties prescribed to letters. When Hermione’s name is entered into the arithmancy calculator, one has to wonder if the whole fortune telling through numbers has a point. (Which we at the Quibbler have been asserting that opinion since our inception.)

Samuel, it turns out, never made it on the Titanic and not having thought to ask for money for a coach home, in case the whole steamliner thing didn’t work out, spent several years working in a coal mine in Wales. There he met and married a coal miner’s daughter – thought about entering into the music business, but instead immigrated to Lawrence, Kansas, to try his own hand at the old family business of running a farm. When Samuel and his wife learned of the tradition to do with males in Lawrence Kansas, he up and moved the family to Winchester Idaho – as it sounded like a good name, considering he knew a Winchester family in Lawrence.

Samuel’s second son Lawrence, born in Lawrence but raised in Winchester, married and became the proud father of Colby Granger – named in honour of his grandfather’s coal mining days. After college, Colby went forward and learned to be a skilled army interrogator and took up the family tradition of playing golf on the weekends. Eventually, Colby found himself working for the FBI, where he often solves cases by using math, which often uses mathematical properties prescribed to letters when the values are unknown. (Colby’s name also works out according to the arithmancy calculator. His overall number is his personality!)

Samuel’s former family friends, the Winchesters from Lawrence, (who also left Lawrence, as a precaution as Sam and Dean are two males) started investigating the concept of magic being present in the Granger family, when six obscure manuscripts (although there is suspected to be a seventh manuscript in the works) were found telling the story of the heroic life and times of the Granger’s British branch of the family. They uncovered the connection and found shocking similarities between these second cousins. Both use math as a way of telling the fortunes of friends or criminals. Hermione has a vine wand and Colby is known to enjoy the products made from the fruit of the vine. It has been suggested, though documentation is lacking, that Hermione might make an excellent auror, or a dark wizard catcher. Colby catches criminals. Both are superior sidekicks. It’s all in the genes.

The last connection between these two families is that Colby’s first cousin (son of Samuel’s first son) whose name is only Granger (like Cher), shows some tendencies towards the more intellectual pursuits of Benjamin’s line. Recently, he moved to an undisclosed city where he has started reading and memorizing books (like Hermione Granger) as he claims that soon the fire department won’t be used to put out fires, but will be used burn books instead, making him an intellectual exile. Perhaps the arithmancy runes are telling him something we need to know.

In conclusion, coincidences connecting these two second cousins can only lead to one conclusion – they too must be in on the international garden gnome conspiracy.

Beware the Grangers!