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Philosopher's Stone Chapter Six

On the way to Hogwarts!

Philosopher’s Stone Chapter Six

*Harry does some reading of text books for the first time. It is also the last time he does so with any kind of eagerness.

*Dud’s tail has got to be removed my non-magical means since Hagrid couldn’t be bothered to get rid of it. This is another way the Dursleys are treated differently to other muggles. Not only are they spared mind wipes, but they are given constant reminders of the existence of the magical world they would much rather forget.

*JKR had forgotten the layout of King’s Cross Station. The sign for platform 9 ¾ has been placed on a wall a short distance away from the other platforms as its location in the book is totally inconsistent with the way the real platforms are positioned. They have also bolted half a trolley to the same wall :p Makes you think you are really in the Potterverse.

*Naturally Hagrid cannot be relied on even for the simplest thing.

*The conversation Molly is having with her kids is strange. Surely she can’t have forgotten that the Hogwart’s Express leaves from platform 9 ¾ seeing as she was there the previous summer...? Perhaps she is as innumerate as JKR.

*What must it be like to have twin sons who don’t have distinct personalities? Molly must really have trouble telling them apart.

*Ron is the quintessential sidekick. It is readily apparent that he will never be the sex magnet that Malfoy will become.

*The Twins are uncharacteristically helpful in assisting Harry with the trunk. Perhaps they only become really horrible as the series develops.

*Ron immediately greases up to Harry on the grounds of his being Harry Potter. Just imagine how differently the series would have progressed if it had been Ron and not Draco who was unaware that Harry was the Boy Who Lived on first meeting him.

*Oh don’t worry Ron, in my estimation you will at least compare favourably to Fred and George in the end.

*It clearly must be a passive-aggressive gesture on Molly’s part to give Ron Charlie’s old wand.

*Why is Ron shocked that Harry can say Voldemort’s title? Surely he realises that Harry was just that awesome, even from birth?

*Again, those horrible sandwiches must also be a sign of Molly’s displeasure. She really ought to get over it. She has had her Mary Sue (to be) daughter now after all, can’t she give Ron a break for being born a boy and a stereotypical sidekick?

*Chocolate Frog cards remind me of collectable football player stickers. And they are equally dull. Still, they are the most advanced children’s recreation the magical community seems to have.

*It’s Dumblesnore. I wonder how Harry would react to the card if he had been introduced to the magical community by the Malfoys. I began an AU fanfic on that topic as a matter of fact.

*Great idea, the every flavour beans including flavours that are unpalatable. I suppose the horrible flavours must be for Gryffindors to dare each other to eat them.

*Here’s Neville, the might have been. Push off Neville, Harry Potter’s the centre of this universe.

*Ron’s spell for turning Scabbers yellow does not sound remotely like any other incantation we read in the series. I suppose the fact that Ron doesn’t realise it is a fake is an indication that he is not all that bright?

*I can imagine that I would be very much more provoked by Hermione rudely butting in and insulting me than I would have been by Draco in Diagon Alley. And surely any gruesome girl must be much more irritating by very definition than a kid who is just a bit snobbish but not actually provoking in any way? I suppose we have to infer that Draco went wrong by reminding Harry of Dud at the beginning and the rest is just in the script.

*I suppose Ron might have unwittingly strengthened Harry’s prejudice against Slytherin house had that ship not already sailed.

*It must’ve been a powerful dark wizard to get round Gringotts? Arthur seriously overestimates Gringotts security in that case.

*Ron explains the rules of Quidditch to Harry. The ensuing conversation really ought to have unfolded like the very funny excerpt from a fan fiction that another member posted on my commentary to the previous chapter. What a joke the position of Seeker makes of the entire sport!

*Enter Malfoy again. Too late Malfoy, you already reminded Harry of Dud. And you didn’t introduce him to the magical world or buy him his first birthday present so his views are set in stone. It’s no good pointing out that Hagrid is riffraff or insulting the Weasleys now.

*JKR couldn’t be bothered to write out this entire vignette in a logical fashion, so Wormtail bites Goyle and then Malfoy, Crabbe and Goyle just evaporate. It is odd as JKR could not have known when writing this that her work would be made into a video game which is a medium where this kind of thing can happen.

*Oh come on can’t you see Hermione’s angling for a fight much more than Malfoy was?

*Hagrid’s in charge of the entry ceremony to Hogwarts. Whose great idea was that...?

*It is ominous to be thrust into the same boat as both Neville and Hermione.

*We’re at Hogwarts!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Harry does some reading of text books for the first time. It is also the last time he does so with any kind of eagerness.

Well, after Halloween he has Hermione to do his studying - and thinking - for him.

The conversation Molly is having with her kids is strange. Surely she can’t have forgotten that the Hogwart’s Express leaves from platform 9 ¾ seeing as she was there the previous summer...? Perhaps she is as innumerate as JKR.

I've seen anti-Ginny/Molly/Dumbledore fans quote that dialogue as proof that Molly was in on some sort of plan to deliberately snare Harry's attention and bind him to the Weasleys. I guess that *is* possible, it's an interesting notion to explore in fan fiction. But it's also quite routine for adults to ask redundant questions to keep young children engaged or amused, and that works in this case too IMO.

The Twins are uncharacteristically helpful in assisting Harry with the trunk.

Their author knew in advance that Harry would be anointed as a fellow Gryffindor. :-)

Actually, it would have been nice to have seen the twins be more *helpful* in the series, maybe, rather than agents of mayhem purely for their own pleasure. Like they helped Harry in OotP firecall Sirius? Sort of Gryffindor Robin Hoods? But instead they even pranked their own housemates, like poor Neville.

Why is Ron shocked that Harry can say Voldemort’s title?

What bothered me is how quickly Hermione became indoctrinated into not saying the name. It's only in book 5, when she's trying to urge Harry to form the D.A., that she manages to say it, stammering and all. Which is silly, because (a) anyone muggle-raised wouldn't attach any stigma to the name, and (b) Hermione of all people would refuse to be intimidated by what is only emotional hysteria of the wizarding public. Oh, and (c) Dumbledore tells Harry (and others?) not to fear the name, and Hermione very much tried to follow the dictates of authority figures?

I suppose the fact that Ron doesn’t realise it is a fake is an indication that he is not all that bright?

Heh, that really has to be the case; he'd spent all his life around people learning and casting authentic magical spells, after all. Stupid Ron. Or silly author.

I can imagine that I would be very much more provoked by Hermione rudely butting in and insulting me --

But how did Hermione *insult* anyone? Yes, she was rude, by butting in and being bossy, but she wasn't trying to put anyone down, as Draco did?

*The Twins are uncharacteristically helpful in assisting Harry with the trunk. Perhaps they only become really horrible as the series develops.*

The only people who didn't become more horrible as the series developed were the actual antagonists.

"*It clearly must be a passive-aggressive gesture on Molly’s part to give Ron Charlie’s old wand."

Surely I can't be the only one to have noticed that the Weasleys are only ever as poor as the script wants them to be? Here, for example, and throughout Book 2, they are allegedly so poor that they cannot even afford a wand for Ron, but they never seem to have any trouble feeding and looking after Harry when he turns up to stay with them.

Their state of impoverishment will change as the plot demands :) There really is no logical reason for their being so hard up even here. Are Bill and Charlie really this tight fisted that they won't assist Molly and Arthur in any way?

That, or this is yet another shining example of Rowling's mathematical and analytical prowess.

They are poor in the sense that rich, famous, legendary, Quidditch champion and serial hero Harry Potter is required to occasionally be the object of hatred - so that sympathy can be evoked in the reader.

I have pretty much been "poor" all my life. My dad was a single parent raising his teenage daughter, struggled to make ends meet, but still managed to feed me, cloth me, and occationally feed my friends. I always figured the Weasleys were the same. Not enough money for brand new things (I don't have my books, but weren't wands expensive?), but enough to feed every one. And didn't miss Weasley have a garden?

Plus, I am short on cash right now. But when friends are around, I'll fiddle with it more to hide some of that, because I don't want them to feel bad for me. So I might eat out even if I have to cut back on some driving or something. Or eat more Ramen at home. So, to me, it made sense that they could support having Harry around for a while.

I agree--having one extra mouth to feed would mean that much. Actually, I think that probably fits onto the real world and the way people view people with less money. People will often judge what they should be spending it on if they don't have a lot of it? But everyone decides what they think is worth it.

For me the odd thing about the used wand isn't that it proves they're poor (if wands work just as well when used there's no reason not to use an older one--Neville's using his father's because his grandmother thinks he should) but that according to everything else Charlie should be using it. People don't really have spare wands or old wands. Unless, I suppose, we assume that it was never really Charlie's but had belonged to a dead person. Charlie inherited it, then Ron, and they both eventually got their own a little later on.

Feeding Harry once in awhile...maybe. But don't forget Hermione spends many summers there as well. There is no way a very poor large family can afford to have house guests all the time.

Yes and no about Hermione. She does appear to spend practically the whole summer there in HBP, true. But in OotP, she's at Grimmauld Place rather than the Burrow, and there's no particular reason to think that the Weasleys are paying for what she eats. (They might not even be paying for what they themselves eat, there; everyone was Sirius' guests, really.)

She spends time with the Weasleys in GoF, but it's only four days, now that I've gone back and counted. According to Ron's letter, she arrived the day before Harry, and they left for the World Cup the day after Harry arrived. The game itself is only one day; then they spend one full day at the Burrow, and the next morning they're off to Hogwarts.

(Of course, this shows that someone can't count, because the last full day at the Burrow, Harry notes that it's "been over a week" since he sent Hedwig to Sirius. Except that he sent Hedwig to Sirius the same day that he got Ron's letter, the same day that Hermione arrived. So unless *I've* miscounted, it's been four days, which is well *under* a week.)

Er, anyway...

You're right about HBP and DH, where both Hermione and Harry are around for a while.

Still, the affordability of long-term guests could depend somewhat on how much food the Weasleys grow/raise from their land. They've got a garden, and an orchard, and chickens, that we know of. It seems possible that food might not be that much of an expense for them, and they could still lack money for things they needed to buy.

Been there myself. No single parent until I was 15 but a very sick parent and one in a minimum-wage job, borrowing from Peter to pay Paul and so on.

We could have someone over for a few days but not for a whole summer. A week would have been a stretch. You're likening it to eating out and covering the shortage elsewhere - I doubt if you're eating out so regularly that you eat nothing but Ramen at home. That would be the result of a summer-long visitor. There's also a difference between going out occasionally with the people from work or church and covering elsewhere and having those people eating, sleeping and using the utilities in your home.

If I were feeling generous I would suggest that the potential shortages at the Weasley abode were covered by other interested parties such as Dumbledore, McGonagall, maybe a little something from the Ministry, and perhaps a legacy stipend from the Potter vault meant for the Wizarding folks who cared for their son in case of an emergency. It might even have been a financial decision on the Weasleys' part - they would get more in food than they would expend by having Harry there.

If I was feeling less generous but still not wholly miserly I would suggest that, in the beginning, Rowling imagined she could conjure food up via wand as we see Molly doing with her sauce but figured out it didn't work with the story as the kids matured and so had to scrap it.

I think that suddenly not being able to conjure food was a last minute change bunged into the story in order to give the trio something to be at odds over and give Ron a secondary reason to leave. Because I suspect that probably always intended to have him walk out, and then come back.

As for the poverty of the Weasleys; I think that Arthur probably makes a wage that would support a family of 4 or 5 in comfort. However, he and Molly have had a family of 9 until shortly before we met them. If Charley finished his NEWT studies (rather than leaving school to take a job in Romania before finishing), then he was only just out of the house the year Harry and Ron started Hogwarts, and Bill had only been gone for two years.

There is a practical limit to how much magic one can remember all the time. Molly has specialized in cooking and cleaning charms, so the Burrow is clean (if probably untidy) and the family eats well, but she doesn't seem to know any sewing or tailoring charms -- which we know must exist, so the kids wear 2nd-hand clothing, and it isn't in the best of condition.

As to the hand-down wand, given that it already had the unicorn hair poking out of it on the first trip up to Hogwarts, I wouldn't be surprised if it was a hand-down from an uncle or other relative when Charlie got it, and that he bought himself a new one when he got the job at the Dragon reserve, and passed the old one down to Ron, then.

I know that, in one of your articles at Red Hen, you suggest that Arthur got himself eddied into a stagnant pool with his fascination for Muggle things, which is a reasonable assumption given what we have and the 'Harry Filter,' the close POV from Harry's shoulder. Other possibilities might be that he ticked someone off and moved laterally but not up for a few years (maybe Crouch? did he move up shortly after Crouch died?) or that he is unambitious.

As for the poverty of the Weasleys; I think that Arthur probably makes a wage that would support a family of 4 or 5 in comfort. However, he and Molly have had a family of 9 until shortly before we met them.

Putting this together with what Robina was discussing, if the Weasleys are lately able to afford more with two sons out of the house, it could still be habit to think and, therefore, act poor. They might also still be paying down debt incurred while they had too many kids around. They're shown at one point to have very little in their vault (didn't they also have a very little vault?) so they may be playing catch-up as well as buy-down.

One disconnect with the Weasleys' poverty is Harry's impressions, for me. He's been in the habit of wearing ill-fitting hand-me-downs so he has no real room to make this sort of comparison but he does, the same as he does in "The Prince's Tale" about young Snape's ill-fitting smock. To me, this should have sparked some sort of sympathetic feelings in Harry, both with Snape's smock and Ron's moth-ball-smelling dress robes but, it doesn't that I recall. IMO, and of course this is subjective, Harry should have had more of a 'hey, that was me at the Dursleys!' sort of reaction, which I never did see in him.

We got that glimpse into the Weasley's vault at the beginning of CoS, iirc, and that would have been just about at the Weasley's low-water mark financially. By GoF Percy was also put of school, and employed, and still living at home. I suspect that he was contributing something. And by HBP the twins were also gone and Molly and Arthur had only Ron and Ginny still living at home.

And, for that matter, even though they do still *talk* poor, by the time Ron gets a Prefect badge they can afford to buy him a broom. And brooms do not come cheap.

For that matter, the twins have matched Cleansweeps, and I'm reasonably certain that they got those as a reward for making the team. (Bill was out of school and working by then, so he may have contributed something toward them.)

But, yeah, I suspect that they probably had to play catch-up for a couple of years at least. And, yes, Arthur did allow himself to be dead-ended rather than to keep on moving up the ladder inside the Ministry. I suspect that Head of Misues of Muggle Artifacts was a minor promotion when he got it, but it rapidly turned into his "dream job" and he wasn't budging, even though he probably could have moved up sooner. He doesn't lack for contacts, even if he wasn't one of Slughorn's little stars.

Yeah, Harry's lack of empathy or curious aphasia about his own "hard times" is a major clanker.

Heck, I still talk poor. My family thinks I'm nuts but, IMO, it couldn't hurt to remind people that one must learn how to make choices even though, at the moment, one doesn't need to because one can afford both/all - think candy bars. I also think poor - I don't go out and spend, I double-check finances before I do spend, I worry that one purchase will hinder other, more necessary, purchases. I imagine that, if the Weasleys were real people, even before each kid went to school they would have gone over the finances and maybe even scrimped a little over time instead of suddenly just buying brooms and suffering the fall-out from an unplanned-for purchase.

Sluggy. I think his club opened the first doors - it would be up to the club member to carry on after that. I expect that part of the club, too, was teaching general methods on doing that. People can learn to network and to make friends even without Slughorn's guidance and Arthur is amiable. I can see most people liking him while only a few would get fed up with his laid-back attitude. I was just thinking that Crouch may be one of those people who assume that, if someone isn't visibly on fire for their job, they think they're not interested and treat them accordingly.

Yeah, Harry's lack of empathy or curious aphasia about his own "hard times" is a major clanker.

Aphasia is the "loss of ability to understand or express speech, caused by brain damage." Hmmm. Perhaps Voldemort did more than just implant an accidental horcrux into baby Harry's head. Brain damage would explain a lot about Harry that otherwise doesn't make sense. :D

One disconnect with the Weasleys' poverty is Harry's impressions, for me. He's been in the habit of wearing ill-fitting hand-me-downs so he has no real room to make this sort of comparison but he does, the same as he does in "The Prince's Tale" about young Snape's ill-fitting smock. To me, this should have sparked some sort of sympathetic feelings in Harry, both with Snape's smock and Ron's moth-ball-smelling dress robes but, it doesn't that I recall. IMO, and of course this is subjective, Harry should have had more of a 'hey, that was me at the Dursleys!' sort of reaction, which I never did see in him.

I don't remember the scene in PS/SS, but having just skimmed DH again, it's clear from at least chapter 28 onward that Harry is going into shell shock and starting to dissociate. There's a reference to him consciously choosing to put his emotions aside to deal with later, and many references to his feeling numb, or or feeling like the people and events around him aren't real. Those are all symptoms of dissociation, and people in that state are largely incapable of empathy. He probably needed treatment for PTSD when the war was over. By contrast, in SWM, Harry does empathize with Snape's distress and humiliation.

This just occurred to me, but why do Ron's robes smell like mothballs, anyway? Even those dimwitted Muggles know that, if you're taking clothes out of storage, you should let them air out for several days before wearing them. Have those superior wizards not figured that out yet? Even after sending five other kids to school before this? And why do wizards need mothballs? Shouldn't they use some kind of charm instead, with a name like Insectus Preventus?

He had some empathy for Snape being bullied but he was somewhat disassociated when considering Snape's graying underpants. He noticed, but no connection to his own graying, over-sized wardrobe at home.

If it isn't conscious then it's more disturbing, IMO. The association should leap to mind, not automatically suppress itself. Petunia is shown bleaching out some shapeless old stuff of Dudley's for Harry, turning the clothes gray. That made enough of an impression that it was specifically noted. Why is there no answering echo in the SWM scene?

Maybe because he's so traumatized by what he found out about his loved ones--and his enemy? It's clear he was ecstatic about seeing his dad, as well as Sirius and Remus. Then he found out Dumbledore and Remus had lied to him while that awful Snape had been telling the truth all along: James really was a POS (not POA ; )) and thug. Even worse, he had to have backup for his bullying, which made him a coward as well. So much for Gryffindor courage! He was just like Dudley! Aaaaaggggghhhhh!!!!! While Harry was absorbing that, he found himself feeling sorry for Snape, which he never expected. Then along came Harry's mom to rescue Snape, and she turned out to be a better man than any of the boys.

What did his mom do after that? She made fun of Snape's gray underwear--which was just like Harry's. Sure, he called her a bad name first, but she still chose a particularly intimate way to hit back. It's not as if she called him a "greasy git," like everybody else, and told him to wash his hair instead of his underwear. She used the one insult that applied to both Severus and her son. Maybe Harry was reeling too much from all these shocks to consciously absorb that last, ugly little detail.

Lily really does not come out of it well at all now we know that Snape was a girl hood friend of hers. If he had been just a stranger and in a gang of budding Death eaters then her intervention would have done her some credit - in 2003 I inferred that she had a sense of duty to live up to her prefect role even if it compromised her popularity in Gryffindor. If Snape had been *just* a budding Death Eater it would also have excused her smirking when he was suspended and her umbrage at his calling her a mudblood.

However, from the shocking mess of the Prince's Tale, we learn that Snape was in fact her childhood friend, so it indicates she was a pretty nasty person. She most likely would not have intervened at all if the Marauders had been picking on anyone else.

At the same time he still had empathy for the kid being teased, even if it was Snape. Teasing is an obvious, OTT thing to be done to someone but gray or graying clothes is a life-long shame one wears under the skin.

I think, in this case and in the others we've discussed, Rowling didn't think things through. She has stated that she never re-reads and it appears she tosses things in just to ramp up the moment - Petunia blanching those clothes, for instance, purposely shaming Harry. There's no association in Harry because the incident meant nothing to the author other than to make the Dursleys into petty monsters yet again. There's no real link between these incidents and Harry's actual life in the Potterverse, they're just sympathy grabbers.

But is disassociation a conscious mental state? The fact that Harry can choose to put his emotions aside means he is in control of this emotions. And Harry really hasn't had much empathy in the entire series. Not even with his friends.

He chose to put them aside in that one particular instance. The impression I got from the other mentions was that he was just so worn out from being on the run, being at war, and probably malnutrition (since they didn't eat well on the endless camping trip) that the emotional numbing happened of its own volition in the other cases. That's particularly true of his shock after he found out he'd been set up to die.

You're correct he's not a warm and fuzzy guy, though. IIRC, most of the series characters are rather cold.

Not a word on how annoying Ginny is in this chapter? *spits* you bring great shame and dishonor upon the DTCL name.

Just kidding.

"*The conversation Molly is having with her kids is strange. Surely she can’t have forgotten that the Hogwart’s Express leaves from platform 9 ¾ seeing as she was there the previous summer...? Perhaps she is as innumerate as JKR."

You'd think Ginny was 3 years old here: where is the train, honey? platfortm 9 3/4/? clever girl! and how does the doggy do? clever girl! and how does the horsey do?

Maybe she's talking to the demon she'll implant into Ginny for OotP?

If Bill's been out for two-ish years, she's been to King's Cross every year for 9 years! That's long enough that I would think even trying to keep the kids engaged with remembering the number would have gotten old years ago.

The first time I read the book, I thought Ginny must be 6 years old, plus or minus maybe a year. I was quite surprised to open CoS and discover she was only a year younger than Ron. Ginny Weasley, Empress of Inconsistent Characterization.

The more I think about this chapter, the less difference I start to see between Ron and Malfoy. Both seem to get their views from the parents (and, in Ron's case, elder siblings), but we're obviously meant to think that Draco's all evil and prejudiced whereas Ron's open-minded and tolerant, even though that's just because Draco happened to be born into a more/differently prejudiced family, rather than any moral difference between them.

But, that's the way most kids are at eleven. I've been involved in discussions where people think that these kids make a conscious choice to be Slytherins. They point to Sirius rejecting his family's values as if this is perfectly normal for an eleven year old, particularly one who has been home-schooled and not exposed to various values.

Myself, I've come to the unsavory conclusion that this is yet another indication of Determinism in the text. Sirius was able to reject his family's teachings, not because he's smart or more liberal or whatever but, because it is his destiny.

Which removes any possibility, IMO, for judging people based on what they do. Draco can't help being a Mudblood-hating jerk because he's set up that way from day dot; James is a hero not because he acts like one (he doesn't) but because that was pre-determined. These qualities are inherent in these characters, they have no say over them, they cannot expunge them, they are not responsible for them. They have no more culpability than a fox who kills chickens - it's so deeply ingrained, embossed on their souls, even, by their Creatrix, that they can't do anything otherwise. The famous quote, after all, is that one's choices show, not determine, who we are.

To be more Watsonian, Sirius thought James was cool and was surprised when James diss'ed Sirius' family's House. Knowing that as a Black he'd be Sorted among the first ones (some families actually inform their sons correctly about Hogwarts procedures) he asked James for his preference and made sure to ask exactly for that. IOW Sirius didn't make a grand moral choice, he simply preferred his cool new friend over his family (knowing James would be at Hogwarts in his year while his family wouldn't, at least not for long).

Oh, yeah, from Watson's perspective that's exactly what Sirius did. Cool James v. slightly strung-out Mrs Black (I can remember her husband's name but not hers off the top of my head - Andromeda?) and there's no contest - Cool James wins. I've seen, though, where people will say that it was something within Sirius himself that made him realize instinctively that Gryffindor was the better house. The readers' perspectives are the most interesting sometimes.

Walburga Black. Yeah, I think Watson wins this round, hands down.

Of course I have been saying for years that Sirius had already decided that whatever his family wanted of him he would give them the opposite. And that they never figured out how to handle it.

Got him attention that would have gone to his baby brother otherwise, anyway.

What was surprising to me in the glimpse we get in DH is that Sirius seemed initially offended that James objected so clearly to Slytherin House. I don't think he became that openly rebellious until he realized there was a reason to choose some other House.

Oh, yeah, but then there is the way James phrased it, too. Gryffindor, the home of the brave. So does that mean everyone else is a puling coward?

Plus there is also the fact that Severus had already said *he* wanted to go into Slytherin. And Let's face it. we may like him, but any other kid would peg him as a loser at first sight.

I note that Harry's first response to Malfoy's taunts is to threaten physical violence. And the Hat is supposed to have difficulty sorting him?

(PS, I hope you do the next chapter soon, I've been really enjoying your commentaries. :) )

Now the series is over it is all explained. Harry was guaranteed to go into Gryffindor from birth. It's so anticlimactic; the first few chapters of Philosopher's Stone build such high expectations for the series...

Since I have grown impatient for the next spork I'll add a few comments:

The Twins are uncharacteristically helpful in assisting Harry with the trunk. Perhaps they only become really horrible as the series develops.

Ron says of them:"Fred and George mess around a lot, but they still get really good marks and everyone thinks they're really funny". Note that Ron reports 'everyone's opinion, not his own. By now the twins have already transfigured Ron's teddy bear, thus giving him lifelong arachnophobia, given him the acid pop that burnt a hole through his tongue and attempted to trick him into making an Unbreakable Vow to Fred. (Just imagine this had gone through - would Ron have died when Fred got crushed by masonry?). They also gave him a fake spell to use on Scabbers and, as Ron would find out in the following chapter, gave him incorrect and frightening information about Sorting at Hogwarts.

Well, Hagrid thought of them as funny, I think. I'm not really sure about anyone else.

But in this scene, to the twins' credit, they helped Harry before figuring out who he was, or so it appears.

Anyway, they go from getting good marks in their first two years to barely passing 3 OWLs each. It looks like they changed their priorities at some point.

*It must’ve been a powerful dark wizard to get round Gringotts? Arthur seriously overestimates Gringotts security in that case.

Like Mr Twinkle, the goblins mostly have their reputation (and that rhyme) going for them. Nobody breaks into the bank because nobody thinks it can be done.

The rest of the series has a lot of Hermione in it and she really makes my blood boil, especially in retrospect. It's difficult to prevent commentaries involving her from deteriorating into a catalogue of her demerits. I will post a commentary on chapter seven though.

Ach, Hermione. Another character who starts acting like a kid with traits that could have been something she had to overcome and grow out of, but instead not only did she not do so, she ended up quite monstrous in the end.

The trio all got worse, Ron the least because he became quite hapless and clueless so can't really be blamed for any of his shortcomings.

I have never hated Harry, even though he does become weird and nasty. Furthermore he does have the dubious, though badly written excuse, of the fragment of Voldemort in him. But Hermione really does become a monster with no excuse at all. In an experiment in fanfiction where I tried writing a story with an all-female cast of *important* characters, it was a real challenge to write a villain who is more horrible than Hermione is in canon :s

By the end of the series I highly disliked the trio...the so called heroes. Ron not as much as the other two but as you said...he was made clueless.

Were all the characters from the Potterverse? There is of course Umbridge who is too much like Hermione's future. There's Bellatrix who is both a Dark!Sirius and a Dark!Ginny2.

No :p Scrimgeour was in it and Madam Bones gets a line, but that's it for canon characters. Part of the exercise was for my female OCs to control events. I think that it made for a suitably eerie atmosphere even if the story didn't get much traffic.

Do you have a link?

Here:

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5544688/1/The_Longest_Night

My mum and a corworker did like it at least, but then they are people who are obliged to ;)

Ron says of them:"Fred and George mess around a lot, but they still get really good marks and everyone thinks they're really funny". Note that Ron reports 'everyone's opinion, not his own.

Also, who is this "everyone"? Ron's only just going to Hogwarts for the first time. Is this intended to be "everyone in the family" or "everyone at school"? Surely it isn't Percy's opinion, or Molly's. Although Percy might have said negative things about the twins that conveyed that Fred and George *are* popular. I suppose Charlie might've said something.

You forgot one thing they've already done: one of the twins killed a puffskein, or whatever they're called, by using it as a bludger. I *think* that would've already happened by this point.

Yes, JKR takes an objective view of that kind of early sadistic tendency with young Voldemort and the rabbit. It must be the rule of designated heroes and villains favouring the twins and condemning Little V.

You forgot one thing they've already done: one of the twins killed a puffskein, or whatever they're called, by using it as a bludger. I *think* that would've already happened by this point.

That one is hard to time. Who knows when the twins decided that their preferred position was going to be that of Beaters and when they decided they needed to practice the beating of bludger-substitutes specifically?

True, we don't know for certain. Still, Fred and George were on the Gryffindor team as second years. When Oliver Wood gives his pre-game speech for the first time in PS/SS, we get the line,

"We know Oliver's speech by heart," Fred told Harry, "we were on the team last year."

There's also the fact that we never hear about the puffskein except from Ron's written addition in Fantastic Beasts, and what he says is,

i had one of them once
what happened to it?
fred used it for bludger practice

If it really was Ron's (he does use "I"), then it's kinda odd that we heard about Scabbers but not the puffskein. Even if it wasn't just Ron's, the fact that he says *he* had one indicates to me that it wasn't exclusively Ginny's pet. I'd've expected something like "and my sister Ginny wanted to keep the puffskein at home with her" in his discussion of Scabbers and Percy getting a new owl for being a prefect. That makes me tend to think that the puffskein was no longer among the Weasley household's current pets.

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Philosopher's Stone Chapter Six

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Oh dear, money

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Ron and Draco

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Sorting

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Sorry for the delays

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Puffskein

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