Perpetua Fancourt

Perpetua Fancourt (1900-1991) was a witch who is credited with the invention of the lunascope, an astronomical device used to analyse the phases of the moon.

Early life
"Ravenclaw house has an illustrious history. Most of the greatest wizarding inventors and innovators were in our house, including Perpetua Fancourt, the inventor of the lunascope […]."

- Robert Hilliard.

Perpetua Fancourt was born in 1900, somewhere in the British Isles.

In her youth, she attended Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry from around 1911 to 1918, where she was Sorted into Ravenclaw.

Adulthood
"It's a lunascope, old boy — no more messing around with moon charts, see?"

- A diner at the Leaky Cauldron in 1993.

After her graduation from Hogwarts School, Ms. Fancourt studied further into Astronomy, becoming an accomplished and celebrated Astronomer. Perhaps in an attempt to further the study of her area of expertise, she invented an optical device to counter the difficulty of working with moon charts, which she named lunascope.

Death and post-mortem
Ms. Fancourt died in 1991, aged around 91. In her honour, her achievement, the invention of the lunascope, was recorded on a Chocolate Frog Card.

On 1 September, 1991, Prefect Robert Hilliard welcomed the Ravenclaw first years to Ravenclaw Tower with a short speech in which he mentioned inventor Perpetua Fancourt as one of the many notable Hogwarts students who had been Sorted, like them, into Ravenclaw.

Etymology
The name "Perpetua" is derived from Latin perpetuus meaning "continuous".

Appearances

 * Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (video game)
 * Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (video game)
 * Pottermore

Notes and references
Perpetua Fancourt