GOF Chapter 5: Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes
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deathtocapslockFred is excited at the thought of Dudley eating deadly candy. Oh, *untested* deadly candy, that's even better!
Harry takes an instinctive liking to Charlie because everything in his appearance says 'physical, uncomplicated'. Bill is more of a surprise - you can be a Head Boy *and* 'cool'. (Just like your dad, Harry. Now you don't have to worry he was anything like Percy, in case you ever were.) How does Harry know what people who attend rock concerts look like? Probably from TV.
Yes Arthur, pranking Muggles in life-endangering ways without doing the responsible thing and mind-wiping them in the aftermath undermines wizard-Muggles relations. Unlike, say, taking their magical kids and turning them against their parents.
The Dursleys excuse away Dudley's misdeeds. Arthur is a much superior parent - he doesn't let his wife know about the twins' (or at least tries to avoid letting her know). It does seem as though Hermione caught on quickly and tried to do her bit of protecting the twins from Molly.
This is Hermione's first stay at the Burrow - and she is here even before Harry, who has been here before and who might need 'rescuing' from his home. I wonder how long Hermione was there before Harry's arrival. Nevertheless, this was the last summer she will spend any significant time with her parents. And she will only spend Christmas of 6th year with them because of the Ron/Lavender relationship. To remind you, Hermione will turn 15 next month - an emancipated minor for all intent and purpose.
For the first time in canon, Ginny isn't at all awkward around Harry. Despite not having started dating any other boys yet. (Or has she and we weren't told? We don't know when she and Hermione had their little talk.)
I'm supposed to think Percy is a pompous, ambitious idiot for taking work home and caring about it. Being an adult I see Percy as acting normally and Ron being an immature idiot. BTW after seeing Neville's molten cauldrons can't Ron appreciate looking into safety standards? (No, because danger everywhere is what makes life worth living for most Gryffindors.)
Why are Bill and Charlie staying in the twins' room? In later books (HBP and DH) Bill will suddenly have his own room, which he will also share with Charlie. See www.hplex.info/wizworld/places/w_pl_burrow.html. Did Molly and Arthur decide to add rooms (on the lower floors!) after their sons started leaving home?
Ron is annoyed by his owl. This is typical of Ron - he laments not having things, and when he does he laments them again, even when they aren't obviously unsuitable or in bad shape or taste.
Ron makes a homophobic wisecrack at Percy and his boss. BTW according to the Black Family Tree, it appears Bartemius Crouch Sr is Arthur's first cousin. This together with his outward personality and his position all make him an ideal surrogate father to Percy. (Which starts the theme of disappointed sons in this book.)
Ginny is still an outsider to the trio's adventures - as far as Harry knows. Neither of them had openly shared their involvement with Sirius' escape. (BTW Harry still hasn't questioned if perhaps Albus was a tad responsible for there not being more people aware of what Sirius was or wasn't guilty of.)
Crookshanks was one of the heroes of last year's adventure - sniffing Peter out in his rat disguise, communicating with Sirius, sending messages by post. This year he's just a cat who chases gnomes.
Molly rants about the twins. She blames them of lacking ambition. No Molly, they are more ambitious than anyone in the family. It's just that their ambition is to make a lot of money fast, while causing as much property destruction and humiliation to those around their customers as possible, instead of doing well at school and getting a government job. Oh, Molly did receive the occasional owl from the school about the twins. Though I do wonder if Albus or Minerva framed their actions as bullying the way Dudley's teachers apparently described his stunts. Also, Molly mistakes a twin-made fake wand for her own, thus starting the emphasis on wands in this book. (There will also be emphasis on wands in DH, but everything will work completely differently, despite Rowling's claims about planning and plotting. You have been warned.)
There was a time I found Bill and Charlie's table-duel endearing. By now I have had enough of Gryffindor boisterous behavior.
Even Bill joins those who dis Percy. Because while he works for a bank, his job description is robbing graves, which is much better than working in an office regulating international commercial transactions.
I love Percy's earnestness and enthusiastic attitude. His criticism of Bagman is on relevant points - organizing the Quidditch World Cup sounds like something that should have fallen mostly on a department dedicated to Magical Games and Sports (an entire department for that? not a subdivision of a Department for Cultural Affairs or similar? Tells you everything about wizards and their priorities), and an employee going missing for 'over a month' in a place known to be the location of Voldemort in whatever form he was isn't something to ignore. But to Arthur what matters is that by covering up illegal activities of Ludo's brother he got tickets to the Top Box, so he won't be hearing criticism of his friend. Who had bribed him. However having grown up in the Weasley household I think this goes over even Percy's head. Understandably but tragically Percy interprets Bartemius' concern for Bertha's whereabouts as that of a caring boss for a former underling. Of course he is actually concerned because she had subconscious information that might be of use to Voldemort (as well as cause much trouble to Crouch himself if revealed to the public). It has been several years since Bertha became brain damaged. Since Harry forgot all about his dream the mention of her name rings no bells.
Ginny defends Bill's hairstyle to Molly. Showing us that despite lack of awkwardness around Harry this is still her first personality, whose favorite brother was Bill. Next year we'll see Ginny v 2.0 whose role models are the twins.
The Quidditch chatter reveals that like in football (soccer for USians), Britain has separate 'national' teams for England, Scotland and Wales. But all three lost at some point.
Harry confirms - the letter about his scar hurting was the first he sent to Sirius, after receiving 2 from him in addition to the letter he got at the end of POA. Sirius 3, Harry 1. Even with people who are close to him he is more of a taker than a giver.
The twins sent Percy dragon dung in the mail, how hilarious! How kind, how mature.
Harry takes an instinctive liking to Charlie because everything in his appearance says 'physical, uncomplicated'. Bill is more of a surprise - you can be a Head Boy *and* 'cool'. (Just like your dad, Harry. Now you don't have to worry he was anything like Percy, in case you ever were.) How does Harry know what people who attend rock concerts look like? Probably from TV.
Yes Arthur, pranking Muggles in life-endangering ways without doing the responsible thing and mind-wiping them in the aftermath undermines wizard-Muggles relations. Unlike, say, taking their magical kids and turning them against their parents.
The Dursleys excuse away Dudley's misdeeds. Arthur is a much superior parent - he doesn't let his wife know about the twins' (or at least tries to avoid letting her know). It does seem as though Hermione caught on quickly and tried to do her bit of protecting the twins from Molly.
This is Hermione's first stay at the Burrow - and she is here even before Harry, who has been here before and who might need 'rescuing' from his home. I wonder how long Hermione was there before Harry's arrival. Nevertheless, this was the last summer she will spend any significant time with her parents. And she will only spend Christmas of 6th year with them because of the Ron/Lavender relationship. To remind you, Hermione will turn 15 next month - an emancipated minor for all intent and purpose.
For the first time in canon, Ginny isn't at all awkward around Harry. Despite not having started dating any other boys yet. (Or has she and we weren't told? We don't know when she and Hermione had their little talk.)
I'm supposed to think Percy is a pompous, ambitious idiot for taking work home and caring about it. Being an adult I see Percy as acting normally and Ron being an immature idiot. BTW after seeing Neville's molten cauldrons can't Ron appreciate looking into safety standards? (No, because danger everywhere is what makes life worth living for most Gryffindors.)
Why are Bill and Charlie staying in the twins' room? In later books (HBP and DH) Bill will suddenly have his own room, which he will also share with Charlie. See www.hplex.info/wizworld/places/w_pl_burrow.html. Did Molly and Arthur decide to add rooms (on the lower floors!) after their sons started leaving home?
Ron is annoyed by his owl. This is typical of Ron - he laments not having things, and when he does he laments them again, even when they aren't obviously unsuitable or in bad shape or taste.
Ron makes a homophobic wisecrack at Percy and his boss. BTW according to the Black Family Tree, it appears Bartemius Crouch Sr is Arthur's first cousin. This together with his outward personality and his position all make him an ideal surrogate father to Percy. (Which starts the theme of disappointed sons in this book.)
Ginny is still an outsider to the trio's adventures - as far as Harry knows. Neither of them had openly shared their involvement with Sirius' escape. (BTW Harry still hasn't questioned if perhaps Albus was a tad responsible for there not being more people aware of what Sirius was or wasn't guilty of.)
Crookshanks was one of the heroes of last year's adventure - sniffing Peter out in his rat disguise, communicating with Sirius, sending messages by post. This year he's just a cat who chases gnomes.
Molly rants about the twins. She blames them of lacking ambition. No Molly, they are more ambitious than anyone in the family. It's just that their ambition is to make a lot of money fast, while causing as much property destruction and humiliation to those around their customers as possible, instead of doing well at school and getting a government job. Oh, Molly did receive the occasional owl from the school about the twins. Though I do wonder if Albus or Minerva framed their actions as bullying the way Dudley's teachers apparently described his stunts. Also, Molly mistakes a twin-made fake wand for her own, thus starting the emphasis on wands in this book. (There will also be emphasis on wands in DH, but everything will work completely differently, despite Rowling's claims about planning and plotting. You have been warned.)
There was a time I found Bill and Charlie's table-duel endearing. By now I have had enough of Gryffindor boisterous behavior.
Even Bill joins those who dis Percy. Because while he works for a bank, his job description is robbing graves, which is much better than working in an office regulating international commercial transactions.
I love Percy's earnestness and enthusiastic attitude. His criticism of Bagman is on relevant points - organizing the Quidditch World Cup sounds like something that should have fallen mostly on a department dedicated to Magical Games and Sports (an entire department for that? not a subdivision of a Department for Cultural Affairs or similar? Tells you everything about wizards and their priorities), and an employee going missing for 'over a month' in a place known to be the location of Voldemort in whatever form he was isn't something to ignore. But to Arthur what matters is that by covering up illegal activities of Ludo's brother he got tickets to the Top Box, so he won't be hearing criticism of his friend. Who had bribed him. However having grown up in the Weasley household I think this goes over even Percy's head. Understandably but tragically Percy interprets Bartemius' concern for Bertha's whereabouts as that of a caring boss for a former underling. Of course he is actually concerned because she had subconscious information that might be of use to Voldemort (as well as cause much trouble to Crouch himself if revealed to the public). It has been several years since Bertha became brain damaged. Since Harry forgot all about his dream the mention of her name rings no bells.
Ginny defends Bill's hairstyle to Molly. Showing us that despite lack of awkwardness around Harry this is still her first personality, whose favorite brother was Bill. Next year we'll see Ginny v 2.0 whose role models are the twins.
The Quidditch chatter reveals that like in football (soccer for USians), Britain has separate 'national' teams for England, Scotland and Wales. But all three lost at some point.
Harry confirms - the letter about his scar hurting was the first he sent to Sirius, after receiving 2 from him in addition to the letter he got at the end of POA. Sirius 3, Harry 1. Even with people who are close to him he is more of a taker than a giver.
The twins sent Percy dragon dung in the mail, how hilarious! How kind, how mature.
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no subject
Date: 2011-02-01 07:05 pm (UTC)Nothing particularly direct, but you have to consider the possibilities. Not all purebloods are rich. Besides, where would Eileen have managed to even *meet* someone like Toby Snape if she grew up inside the (secluded) ww?
For that matter, we have no direct evidence that she was even a pureblood. We are led to leap to that conclusion because her son dubbed himself the *halfblood* Prince. But since we get no suggestion that degrees of magic (a la degrees of color in the antebellum US south) are tracked and categorized in any whatsoever, and that Harry, a child with two magical parents is nevertheless regarded as a halfblood, I suspect it doesn't make a bean's worth of difference whether Snape had two muggle grandparents or four to be able to call himself that. I admit that it is unlikely that it was as many as four, but not outside the realm of possibility.
The possibility (such as it is) of the house having been the Prince house, to me is suggested by the size of the book collection. Books are not really all *that* cheap. And that is a lot of books. And they are described as being *old* books, leatherbound. Now, I do not know what kind of prices 2nd hand books ran in Britain in the '70s and '80s, nor do I know what kind of prices books fetch in the ww, but that is still a rather large, and potentially valuable collection for one man to have built from scratch, by himself, before even reaching the age of 40, without having an independant fortune or at least some kind of a financial nest egg to do it with. And we have been given to understand that Snape started with nothing. To have inherited at least some of them would make a degree of sense.
Of course the Doylian view is that Rowling was simply painting with too broad a brush and overstated the case. But it is obvious that the house we saw has been lived in *by wizards* for a long time. The modifications that have been made are not ones that muggles would be able to establish and maintain without throwing a lot more money and engineering skill at it than seems to have been available (covering a door with bookshelves, having it continue to function, and being invisible when closed is simply not on under muggle technology).
Of course we have no way of knowing that the house we saw was the one Snape grew up in either. The real estate market in that area is probably pretty flat, and does Snape really strike you as someone who would want to go on living with his parents in his 30s? Toby and Eileen could both be alive and well and living in a similar house two streets over. Or in a similar town halfway across the country.
no subject
Date: 2011-02-01 07:43 pm (UTC)James Potter was pureblood, Lily Evans was from a Muggle family, therefore their son is literally a half-blood.
The possibility (such as it is) of the house having been the Prince house, to me is suggested by the size of the book collection. Books are not really all *that* cheap. And that is a lot of books. And they are described as being *old* books, leatherbound.
And there is nothing to say that Eileen ever owned them; those books could have been acquired by her son once he started working at Hogwarts, it could have been what he spent his salary on.
but that is still a rather large, and potentially valuable collection for one man to have built from scratch, by himself, before even reaching the age of 40, without having an independant fortune or at least some kind of a financial nest egg to do it with.
But what else did Snape have to spend his salary on?
Perhaps his parents were not rich, but that is not to say that they may not have saved some money which he inherited when they died (which everyone presumes they did, since there is nothing in canon saying what happened to Eileen and Tobias).
Presumably the house at Spinner's End is paid for, so Snape wouldn't have had to make mortgage payments. From what we see in HBP, he seems to utilize candles and oil lamps when there, so no electricity bill to pay. There is presumably running water, so perhaps he has a water bill, but even then he may only have it turned on for July and August and turned off the rest of the year.
He probably relies on the fireplace for any heating that is necessary in the summer months that he is there. If he keeps the water on thru out the year, then he'd need to heat the place in the winter, but only enough to keep the pipes from freezing. But if he has the water turned off at the end of August, and he drains the pipes, then he wouldn't need to heat the house in the cold months.
IOW, whatever expenses he has are minimal, and he is free to spend his salary on what he wishes. I don't see him as the type to just build up a big savings account at the bank, especially since as a spy he knows his chances of surviving are low. So I really think he would indulge himself in a simple pleasure of buying good books, new or used.
To have inherited at least some of them would make a degree of sense.
Oh, I agree. I just don't accept that all those bookcases filled with books were there in Snape's childhood, I always had the feeling that the way the room looked in HBP was purely Severus' modification.
But it is obvious that the house we saw has been lived in *by wizards* for a long time. The modifications that have been made are not ones that muggles would be able to establish and maintain without throwing a lot more money and engineering skill at it than seems to have been available (covering a door with bookshelves, having it continue to function, and being invisible when closed is simply not on under muggle technology).
I don't see why it couldn't have been Severus' doing when he inherited the place from his parents.
does Snape really strike you as someone who would want to go on living with his parents in his 30s? Toby and Eileen could both be alive and well and living in a
similar house two streets over. Or in a similar town halfway across the country.
I'll leave that premise for some writer of fan fiction to tackle! LOL
no subject
Date: 2011-02-01 08:07 pm (UTC)They were very grumpy over the fact that Eileen chose to marry a local boy rather than making a more advantageous connection at Hogwarts.
But then, I don't have a storyteller's imagination.
no subject
Date: 2011-02-02 07:03 am (UTC)I wonder about that. If he only acquired the books once he started teaching, why not keep the books at Hogwarts, only taking the ones he was planning to read in the summer to Spinner's End? I think he keeps them there because that was their place since before he moved out. Of course he might move the entire collection back and forth in a container like Hermione's bag.
no subject
Date: 2011-02-02 06:49 am (UTC)Petunia refers to him as the Snape boy from Spinner's End. As an adult he lives on Spinner's End. It might be a street by the same name in a different town, but I doubt it. I'm pretty sure it is at least the same street, if not actually the same house. We don't know if his parents are both dead, in a nursing home, psychiatric ward, on the run from him, living with distant relatives or any combination of the above.
We don't even know if the books are all from the wizarding world or if some of them are Muggle books. Let alone how long they have been there.
no subject
Date: 2011-02-02 07:04 am (UTC)But there really isn't any proof of it, and there is a lot of wiggle room if someone wants to write a fic or spin a theory.