GOF Chapter 5: Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes

[oryx_leucoryx]

Fred 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.

Comments

[seductivedark.livejournal.com]

I lived in a not-so-great section of town, not the projects because that would have meant being on welfare for the most part, with the Section 8 on and all. Everyone where we lived back then were either retired and on soc sec or had low-paying jobs. (Now, the same neighborhood has a lot of welfare people along with low-income and retirees.) Clothes range from some new, some thrift-store to hand-me-downs, often severely out of date. Little Sev could have worn hand-me-down clothes from a neighbor or friend.

My parents fought all the time, too. All our neighbors fought and the walls were thin enough to hear through. If you asked anyone, even people who had sound effects of breaking things going on behind their doors, they were in good relationships. Aside from a few people, there was nothing to stop someone from just picking up and leaving if they weren't satisfied, certainly not social pressure. With all the screaming and the occasional broken whatevers, the kids, for the most part, weren't abused. It was between Mom and Dad or Parent and this month's Aunt/Uncle. There was some measure of neglect as the parents couldn't afford sitters except for special occasions - lots of latch-key kids. I started staying home alone at seven, older than a lot of my contemporaries.

The rules were clear: stay indoors (we didn't;) don't open the door for anyone unless you know them; don't play with matches or with the stove. Neighbors watched out for egregious problems with the neighbor kids but otherwise were too wrapped up in their own problems to bother. If this was the case due to lack of work there on Spinner's End, Tobias probably did have a Dark Night of the Soul as he couldn't perform his major male role as defined at the time - support the wife and kid. Maybe Eileen had a low-wage part-time job or took in laundry/sewing (and, boy, wouldn't magic help with that!), further feeding his emasculation.

If he didn't outright work at the mill, his job in that town and in that part of the city would still depend on the mill. School janitor - if people were leaving with their kids, they might even close the school and ship out whoever's left to the next closest school. When the mill workers leave, everybody's affected.

I've wondered if that one argument that seemed memorable enough to dredge up during Harry's lesson wasn't because little Sev accidentally, magically, did something to Tobias, like setting his trousers on fire or whatever. Or if it was about money, or if it was just Tobias ranting about something that had happened at work (like a lay-off.) I doubt if something like that would lead to sex due to the subject matter, though it isn't impossible.

[majorjune.livejournal.com]

There was some measure of neglect as the parents couldn't afford sitters except for special occasions - lots of latch-key kids. I started staying home alone at seven, older than a lot of my contemporaries.

The rules were clear: stay indoors (we didn't;) don't open the door for anyone unless you know them; don't play with matches or with the stove.

Sounds fairly similar to my childhood, except we were upper-middleclass because both my parents worked outside the home. My sister and I were given housekeys on ribbons that we wore around our necks under our dresses when we went to school; I was 6, my sister was 7, and rarely was my mother home for when we came home for lunch, nor when school let out at the end of the day.

We also had a "stay indoors" rule, but it was couched in terms of "no going outside to play until your homework is done", and of course homework was never done before one or both parents got home.

Neither were we allowed to have friends over when our parents were at work; but the "don't open the door" rule was for everyone, even if we recognized them. My mother's job was one where she was an adjunct to the local police, in fact she actually carried a badge and had the power to arrest people. She hit the roof when she found out one day that one of the local cops who lived in the neighborhood had stopped by to give her a message. It was warm weather and the inner door was open, the outer screendoor was locked, and my sister and I talked to the cop thru the door.

We felt we'd abided by the "don't let anyone in" rule, we couldn't help it that it was hot and the front door was already open. But my mother (who apparently felt that some of her coworkers had questionable morals) stressed that even if we DID recognize someone as a policeman, TO NOT OPEN THE DOOR! :-o

But she was fine with us using the stove; at the beginning it was my older sister just heating up a can of soup or frying an egg, but by the time I was nine I'd taken over all of the cooking chores.

[oryx_leucoryx]

Latchkey kid since about 9-10 (with a brother 3 years younger than me). My parents started out working class and ended up middle-to-upper-middle class. (My mother worked outside the home most years of my childhood but earlier we were taken care of by our grandmothers or sitters.) The municipal law forbade noise between 2pm and 4pm. After 4 we were allowed out if homework was reasonably done, we had friends over or went over to friends' homes, as long as we left a note saying where we went and when we expect to be back, and locked the door.

We were expected to use the stove - to heat up our food, or to fry stuff my mother had ready (no microwaves yet).

[majorjune.livejournal.com]

Maybe Eileen had a low-wage part-time job or took in laundry/sewing (and, boy, wouldn't magic help with that!), further feeding his emasculation.

It seems to be the general consensus by most fans that Eileen couldn't handle a good many domestic duties, especially by magikal means. I wonder if Rowling, in drawing a parallel between Eileen and Merope, is perhaps suggesting that Eileen's magik was weak, or like Tonks, it got weak due to love problems?

And there's always been the Big Question of just how Eileen and Tobias met. Did Eileen have a job at the mill where Tobias worked? Did she work as a barmaid at the pub he frequented? Was she a checkout girl at the local grocery store?

I've wondered if that one argument that seemed memorable enough to dredge up during Harry's lesson wasn't because little Sev accidentally, magically, did something to Tobias, like setting his trousers on fire or whatever. Or if it was about money, or if it was just Tobias ranting about something that had happened at work (like a lay-off.)

Perhaps it was the last time Eileen bought new clothes for Severus that actually fit. Tobias could have been upset because they didn't have the money to spend on new clothes and didn't understand why she didn't buy clothes at a thrift store.

I doubt if something like that would lead to sex due to the subject matter, though it isn't impossible.

That's just the thing, we don't know what they were arguing about. Tobias could have had a bee in his bonnet because they were having macaroni and cheese for dinner for the 3rd night in a row. Maybe Eileen hadn't bought Toby's favorite brand of tea. Maybe Eileen had compared Toby unfavorably to other husbands in the neighborhood, maybe she had even let slip the term "muggle"...

Most fans assume that Toby had a drinking problem; point of fact, Rowling doesn't show that. Perhaps Toby did, but perhaps Eileen also took a nip too many. That may have been the glue that held their relationship together. And their arguments may have been about anything or everything, big and small. And it's not unusual for such people who can get into passionate arguments to subsequently have passionate sex.

All I am saying is that we see a memory of a little boy who is perhaps 5 or 6 (maybe younger) at the time the memory was created, who is frightened by this passionate fight between his parents. So the memory is already being subjectively filtered, and it gets furthered filtered because we are seeing it thru Harry's brain.

The Snapes may have had only periodic, albeit dramatic, fights, the rest of the time living their lives in quiet desperation. Or maybe they fought whenever they laid eyes upon the other. We don't know.

[seductivedark.livejournal.com]

The Snapes may have had only periodic, albeit dramatic, fights, the rest of the time living their lives in quiet desperation. Or maybe they fought whenever they laid eyes upon the other. We don't know.

Right. To assume that there was a cycle of abuse or that Eileen was magically disempowered or that Tobias was a cruel SOB is to assume too much, IMO. Between us we've come up with enough alternatives to show that anything is possible, the only constant being that, once, there was shouting and cowering going on.

For their meeting, maybe she frequented the same pub he did or maybe they lived close together or knew each other since childhood. They might have belonged to a neighborhood club or taken some night courses on clay modeling. Or, maybe, one enchanted evening they saw each other across a crowded room and the rest is musical history.

[cured4life.livejournal.com]

Usually when someone cowers though it's due to living in fear of the individual. Not one argument. I'd imagine JKR was trying to set the tone for the early family life of Snape but didn't have enough examples in the memory.

Anyway I got the impression she wanted to convey an unhappy home life. Like with Tom or Harry. She did keep the three of them somewhat similar for her closing remarks about lost boys of Hogwarts or however she worded it.

[seductivedark.livejournal.com]

Sure. Author intent seems to point to an unhappy home life. I'd take exception to cowering as only being a sign of fear of an individual, though (not that you're implying it's the only reason.) Cowering could be a reaction to an unfamiliar, violent, situation as well. Imagine a usually soft-spoken, or at least usually reasonable, person suddenly going off the deep end and carrying on like that. Or, it could be a guilty reaction - "Yes, I did lose the grocery money gambling!"

Author intent here might also be to show that Snape's supposedly unreasonably horrible personality comes from his horrible Muggle father. It's in-born, he's reprobate from birth. If that's the case, then it also says, along with the Dursley example, that Muggles are horrible people.

[karentheunicorn.livejournal.com]

Author intent here might also be to show that Snape's supposedly unreasonably horrible personality comes from his horrible Muggle father. It's in-born, he's reprobate from birth. If that's the case, then it also says, along with the Dursley example, that Muggles are horrible people.

Lest we not forget Severus' only comment about his father 'He doesn't like anything much'

That could almost describe Severus himself in a lot of instances. Severus tends to be the guy who always has something to complain about or is able to find inperfection where most people just overlook it.

Look at how he always describes Harry - yes, he's got his opinion colored by how he sees James the father. But still a lot of what Severus says about Harry is considered by a lot of fans to be nasty and mean - but for some fans (like most of us here) we can see that there is a lot of truth in what Severus sometimes complains and bitches about.

So to a lot of people that comes across as mean, but in another way a objective person could view it as having truth in it. Someone might say he's just a nasty guy that hates everything, but maybe it's just a personality trait he got from his father but Severus never got to learn how to use the trait in a good way and only ended up following the example his father set; even if he didn't want to.

The old saying is we become our parents even when we don't want to.

But someone objective looking at Snape could say well even if it does seem mean there is a lot of truth in what he is saying, etc.

[majorjune.livejournal.com]

Severus tends to be the guy who always has something to complain about or is able to find inperfection where most people just overlook it.

He is Eeyore to Dumbledore's Winnie the Pooh and Harry's Christopher Robin...

Someone might say he's just a nasty guy that hates everything, but maybe it's just a personality trait he got from his father but Severus never got to learn how to use the trait in a good way and only ended up following the example his father set; even if he didn't want to.

This gets us into the whole nature vs. nurture debate. Even tho in my fan fic I'm actually going with the "nature" argument, I personally don't feel that children inherit personality traits from their parents, but they will learn certain "emotional habits" based on observing their own parents (or whatever adult guardians raise them).

So I don't believe Severus was destined to be like Tobias because he inherited that strand of DNA from his father that causes one to be sarcastic and mean. Rather, he probably saw that trait in his father -- and for all we know, in Eileen also -- for the first 11 years of his life (and during school breaks for however long after his parents lived), so that was his primary basis for learning how people interact with each other.

If a 4 or 5 y.o. Severus was taken away from his parents and given to foster parents who were warm, demonstrably loving (both physically and verbally), and emotionally supportive of the little boy, you would have had a totally different adult Snape than what is seen in canon.

[oryx_leucoryx]

This gets us into the whole nature vs. nurture debate. Even tho in my fan fic I'm actually going with the "nature" argument, I personally don't feel that children inherit personality traits from their parents, but they will learn certain "emotional habits" based on observing their own parents (or whatever adult guardians raise them).


This is tricky. In childhood children resemble the parents who raise them - at least when they are at home. (Outside the home they resemble their peers more.) But adult personality of adopted children is closer to that of their birth parents than of their adoptive parents. See Judith Rich Harris, The Nurture Assumption. This applies to things like how much one conforms to social norms, how likely one is to form stable relationships, whether one is likely to take risks or play safe etc.

If a 4 or 5 y.o. Severus was taken away from his parents and given to foster parents who were warm, demonstrably loving (both physically and verbally), and emotionally supportive of the little boy, you would have had a totally different adult Snape than what is seen in canon.

He would have been more at peace with being the same type of person he was in canon. But what would have made more of a difference in the long-term would be landing him in a different school.

[majorjune.livejournal.com]

I'd imagine JKR was trying to set the tone for the early family life of Snape but didn't have enough examples in the memory.

I agree that that is probably what Rowling was doing. And I've already stated that I think she meant to draw a parallel between Tom Riddle's life regarding his parents, and Severus Snape.

But it does really all come down to that one memory. Tobias is yelling, Eileen is cowering, little Severus is crouched in the corner crying.

It could have been a one-time event, which is why it stuck in Snape's memory. That argument could be when Tobias first learned that Eileen was a witch, and perhaps had "tricked" him into marriage (or Tobias believed she had), much as Merope had tricked Tom Sr.

Whatever that one argument is supposed to convey, the only other image we have of Eileen is when she's sending 11 y.o. Severus off to Hogwarts. Tellingly, Tobias isn't there to see his son off, and Eileen is described as having a "sour" look. Of course this is being interpreted thru the Harry filter, but I think we can reasonably assume that Eileen's life isn't all that great if she can't even pretend to be happy to see her wizard son starting his new life in the magikal community.

I've wondered if Eileen's unhappiness in this scene doesn't perhaps reflect her dreading now having to share the house with only Tobias, without her son to offset things.

[condwiramurs.livejournal.com]

Well, one memory and the hints Severus drops in his conversations with Lily. I don't have the books to hand so I can't quote exactly, but he does indicate to her that scenes of conflict between his parents were not unusual happenings.

That doesn't necessarily indicate the abuse scenario (many possibilities have been raised here), but I don't think that the shouting was supposed to have been a one-time incident by any means.

[cured4life.livejournal.com]

True. I do think we are supposed to see the family was not a happy one from the memories and conversations.

[majorjune.livejournal.com]

True. I do think we are supposed to see the family was not a happy one from the memories and conversations.

I think we all agree that the Snapes weren't the happiest of families. My point is that with so little evidence to go on, no one can automatically assume that abuse was involved in that unhappiness.

[cured4life.livejournal.com]

I didn't say anything about abuse. Just that cowering tends to relate to fear.

[oryx_leucoryx]

Or guilt. Feeling deserving of mistreatment.

[majorjune.livejournal.com]

Or guilt. Feeling deserving of mistreatment.

Exactly.

Tobias is yelling, Eileen is cowering. It could very well imply that Tobias was at least verbally abusive to Eileen, it could also mean that he was physically abusive.

Or it could have been the very first time Tobias ever "lost it" like that, creating a terrifying situation that caused Eileen to cower and their very young son to cry in the corner.

Or, as you point out, Eileen could have done something wrong which set Tobias off, and her cowering reflects that she understands that she messed up somehow.

Since Severus Snape grew up to be such a powerful wizard, and indeed seemed to have a fair amount of power even before going to Hogwarts, my personal opinion is that Eileen had to have been at least a fairly adequate witch before marriage.

But Rowling eventually presents us with the story of Merope Gaunt, with whom I believe she wanted us to draw a parallel with Eileen, whose magik prior to Riddle Sr. was "erratic" at best, but I don't believe she was a squib. But whatever magik she had she loses because of Riddle Sr.'s unrequited love.

We see the same story play out re: Tonks' love for Lupin, which at first is unrequited. While Tonks never completely loses her magik, it becomes weak, and even once she "catches" Lupin she never really seems as powerful as she was when we first met her in OotP.

So I suspect that Rowling meant something similar for Eileen Prince's story; she was probably at least an adequate, if not relatively powerful witch who subsequently either lost her magik, or had it greatly diminished, due to her unhappy marriage with Tobias Snape.

I think Eileen is probably somewhere between Merope, who was practically a Squib, and Tonks, who is/was a powerful witch who had her magik diminished, but not completely vanquished.

Eileen perhaps felt ashamed at losing some or all of her powers, perhaps it is she who decided to segregate herself from fellow wizards and witches, maybe she was ashamed. And any negative comments from her husband could have just reinforced her depression and growing feelings of inadequacy. She was no longer quite a witch (at least in her own mind), but definitely was never going to be completely Muggle (or even that good at attempting to be).

Her only recourse, once it became obvious that her son had magikal abilities, was to encourage those abilities, let him know that she too was a witch and had attended a school just for wizards and witches and that he too would go there when he turned 11.

For Eileen there was no hope (at least in her own mind), but for her son there was.

[seductivedark.livejournal.com]

Eileen's sourpuss could just as well mean she's defensive around other witches and wizards. She was probably a Slytherin, probably subjected to the same discrimination we've seen other Slytherins face. She may have experienced bias for having married a Muggle. She might be a naturally sour person (the pic Hermione digs up of Eileen the Gobstones captain might tend to support this.)

[majorjune.livejournal.com]

She might be a naturally sour person (the pic Hermione digs up of Eileen the Gobstones captain might tend to support this.)

Well Tobias must have thought her sweet enough at one time. Or he was drunk. ;-)

[oryx_leucoryx]

I don't think anti-Slytherin prejudice existed in Eileen's generation, definitely not to the extent we see in Harry's years. Hagrid developed a personal hatred after he was betrayed by Slytherin prefect Tom Riddle (note that Aragog's hiding place was in the dungeon and that Tom and Hagrid are on first name basis in Tom's memory - I think it was Tom who arranged the place; he may have, of course, been the source of the egg in the first place). Some families had strong preference for one House and a strong antagonism for another but I doubt Slughorn's club could have been such a success with its home base in a generally hated House. Nor do I see a reason for ganging up of 3 Houses against Slytherin before the more intense years of VoldieWar I. Unless encouraged from above, and even that could have only started when Albus became headmaster. Both Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs have common ground with Slytherins. And a non-Slytherin headmaster appointed Tom Head Boy.