harry potter - Do any of the Hogwarts founders have living descendants?

Of the four founders we know that at least one line has died out. Ravenclaw has definitely died out as Helena was the last descendant and she's long dead. Slytherin may have also died out but that depends if the Cursed Child is canon or not. Also Hufflepuff may have died out but it depends if Hepzibah Smith has any descendants.

Answer

(SPOILER ALERT)

You are right that Ravenclaw's line died out. And Valorum is right that Hepzibah Smith's family being descended from Hufflepuff.

Slytherin's descendants have many possibilities. Delphini Riddle, Voldemort and Bellatrix's daughter, is definitely a descendant. There may also be American descendants. Isolt Sayre came to America in 1620. She married a Muggle (No-Maj in America), James Steward, and had 4 children. Two were adopted, so they didn't carry the Slytherin bloodline. They also had biological twin girls, one of which married:

Martha, the elder of James and Isolt’s twins, was a Squib. Deeply loved though Martha was by her parents and adoptive brothers, it was painful for her to grow up at Ilvermorny when she was unable to perform magic. She eventually married the non-magical brother of a friend from the Pocomtuc tribe and lived henceforth as a No-Maj.

We do not know if she had children, but if she did she may still have living descendants, although they would be Muggles (Until a Muggle-born is/was born).

Godric Gryffindor is the most difficult to find descendants of. I could find no article containing his family tree. One photo showed descendants of every founder but Gryffindor. So I looked over lists of families who lived in Godric's Hollow. I found this:

Godric Gryffindor † Ignotus Peverell † Bowman Wright † H. Knighton † D. Williams † Bathilda Bagshot † Dumbledore family (formerly) Potter family (formerly) Abbott family

And my theory began. When searching through Pottermore I found this:

Many readers suspected Harry might be descended from a powerful wizard like Godric Gryffindor. Book seven would reveal his famous ancestor was Ignotus Peverell, the youngest sibling from ‘The Tale of the Three Brothers.'

What if there was a connection between the two? Maybe the Peverells were descendants of Gryffindor. We know Cadmus Peverell (2nd brother), was an ancestor of the Gaunts, meaning he married a Slytherin descendant. So Ignotus could have married a Gryffindor descendent. His son's wife is unknown. Linfred and Henry Potter also have no records of their spouse. That leaves a lot of space for "Ms. Gryffindor" to marry into either the Potters or Peverells. The two families joined some time in the twelfth century:

Linfred’s eldest son, Hardwin, married a beautiful young witch by the name of Iolanthe Peverell, who came from the village of Godric’s Hollow.

Lastly, the etymology of the names. Some of Harry's name definitions are: army commander, mighty in war, and rules the home. Some Godric definitions are: God ruler, rules with God, powerful ruler. They sound very similar. And on one site, part of the descriptions sounded alike. For Harry:

...they often feel misunderstood and could suffer from loneliness...

For Godric:

...often afraid of being misunderstood or unfavourably judged.

I may be totally wrong, or it may have all been J. K. Rowling's master plan.

Both families have a strong tie to Godric's Hollow. The Potters are also a very Gryffindor family (not including Albus Severus). And Harry pulled Gryffindor's sword out of Gryffindor's hat! I think that must have some importance. So that is my theory.

Sources:

https://www.pottermore.com/features/the-potter-family-tree https://www.pottermore.com/features/clues-jkr-gave-us-about-the-harry-potter-books-harrys-friends-and-family
https://www.pottermore.com/writing-by-jk-rowling/the-potter-family http://harrypotter.wikia.com/wiki/Peverell_family https://www.pottermore.com/writing-by-jk-rowling/ilvermorny http://www.first-names-meanings.com/names/name-GODRIC.html http://www.first-names-meanings.com/names/name-HARRY.html

harry potter - Do the Kwikspell courses work?

In Harry Potter we are introduced to Kwikspell course in The Chamber of Secrets (and never hear about it again). We see Filch taking courses, presumably by mail. The descriptions of Kwikspell make me think it is for people who are weak in magic (kind of like how Neville was supposed to be when he was younger), but had magic in them nonetheless. However, Ron's comments later in the chapter make it sound like it is mainly for Squibs to learn magic. However, it is strongly implied through out all the books that Squibs are essentially Muggles, and will never be able to do magic. How then is a Kwikspell course supposed to work? Do we have any information to know if it works at all? Is it a scam? An answer from any level of canon is welcome. Answer Kwikspell courses are (probably) useful to some wizards, but not to squibs. The Kwikspell course literature comes with two testimonials. Madam Z. Nettles of Topsham writes: ‘I had no memory for incantations and my potions were a family joke...

futurama - How much time is lost in 'Time Keeps on Slippin''

In time Keeps on Slippin' , Farnsworth creates a basketball team which he matures by abusing Chronitons. This leads to time skipping forward by random, but ever increasing amounts. How much time was skipped in this way? Answer Unfortunately, I don't think a good estimate can be made for this, for two reasons: Many of the time skips move forward by an indeterminate amount of time. At one point, the Professor mentions localized regions of space skipping forward much more than others. We then see two young boys on the street below complaining about having to pay social security, only to suddenly become senior citizens and start complaining about wanting their money. Thus, each individual could have experienced a different amount of time skippage.

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In Empire Strikes Back , we see a transcription of what R2's beeps and bloops mean, but it's not English (sorry for the low quality, it's from the 2004 DVDs): I'd assume it's what Basic looks like when written, but is there some point in the the Star Wars films we see written English instead? (This sort of spun off from a discussion in How do people understand astromech droids? .) Answer At one point there was English but it has been phased out in subsequent versions of the films. Chris Gould at DVD Active did a comparison of all versions of each of the Star Wars films, and in his comparison of Episode 4 , there are a couple of screenshots showing how the power gauge for the Death Star tractor beam was changed. I imagine there are probably more to be found in his other comparisons but I haven't got around to reading those yet.

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When I saw the original Star Wars saga as a kid, the concept of the Dark Side imprinted in me was quite simple. You did a bad thing, so you're a bad person so you go to the Dark Side and keep doing bad things. Now, obviously this doesn't hold true in reality. In my mind it is perfectly reasonable for Luke to kill the Emperor and Vader and then just flee the Death Star and rejoin the Alliance. After all they are at war, those are enemy officers that have captured him and are taunting him by threatening with death of all loved ones and the whole operation was intended to kill the Emperor anyway. The same would hold true for Anakin. He could have killed Mace Windu to save the Chancellor and Padme but that doesn't mean he's going to then go mad and kill all Jedis including children. It doesn't add up from a merely psychological point of view. He had a set of objectives and that made him want to keep the Chancellor alive (quite valid by the way, Mace Windu is quite clums...

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