Harry Potter Abridged! GOF Chapter 5

[sweettalkeress.livejournal.com]

[Harry arrives with Fred and George at the Burrow.]

Harry: So, what was that super-special-awesome tormenting candy you gave my cousin?

Fred: Oh, it’s called Ton-Tongue Toffee. George and I invented them. Aren’t we just ingenious and not at all dangerous or scary?!

[Turns out, all the elder Weasley brothers are there as well.]

Charlie: Allow me to introduce myself. I’m Charlie, and you met me in Book 1. I am here to do something important—ssssssh, I can’t say what lest any premature revelations spoil the plot—in this book, and then to vanish and never appear again. Oh, yeah, I was good at Quidditch. But not quite as good as you, Harry!

Bill: And I’m the other older Weasley brother. I’m a totally awesome tomb robber, dude! Oh, and I’ll marry a hot chick you meet later on for no reason. But other than that I have no real purpose either. Peace, man!

[Just then, Mr. Weasley appears, looking very angry.]

Mr. Weasley: It was very wrong indeed of you to mistreat that poor Muggle boy. Note, however, that I am not going to punish you, but merely give you a slap on the wrist. In fact, I am not even going to tell your mother.

Mrs. Weasley: Somebody call me?

Fred and George: AAAAAAAAH!

Mr. Weasley: Oh, it’s nothing—they were just tormenting a Muggle who was a bully to Harry to begin with!

[Just then, Hermione and Ginny enter.]

Ron: By the way, Fred and George are opening a joke shop. Do not ask me how they can turn a profit from doing that, but they can. Now let’s go to our room.

[Percy is the last one on the scene.]

Percy: Oh, hello, everyone. I’m just working on a report about cauldron thickness, and how we, surprise surprise, need some sort of standard or else people will sell dangerously-thin cauldrons just to save money, which will lead to a great many injuries that could have easily been avoided—

Ron: Yeah, whatevs. We’re wizards—pointless danger is our game. If everyone were Gryffindors we wouldn’t worry about this crap.

[Ron, Harry, Hermione, and Ginny all go to Ron’s room.]

Ron: So, you like my new baby owl? His name’s Pigwidgeon, which Ginny called him.

Ginny: He won’t answer to anything else. How he even learned his name in the first place, with how stupid owls are, is another matter….

Ron: Oh, by the way, Percy is very enamored of his employer, Mr. Crouch. Gee, I wonder if that could possibly be important in any way.

Harry: Oh, goodie! We have a genuine…bi character in this story!

Ron: I was joking! Alright, he’s desperately trying to shadow this man because he’s his slave in his quest for power. Or something!

[After a time, the Trio and Ginny go down to help out with dinner. Mrs. Weasley causes creamy sauce to flow from her wand.]

Mrs. Weasley: Any Freudian implications of this image are purely coincidental.

Ginny: You’re secretly a man?!

Mrs. Weasley: Purely coincidental! Now get ye gone!

[The family ends up eating an idyllic dinner outside while Crookshanks chases Gnomes and everyone makes spirited and plot-heavy conversation.]

**LET’S PLAY: SPOT THE PLOT POINT! WITH OUR HOST, PERCY WEASLEY!**

Percy: Alright, I’m going to say a number of words here, and I want you to tell me which ones you think will be plot-relevant! Cauldron bottoms! World Cup! Ludo Bagman! Bertha Jorkins! Missing! Secret Mystery Event for After the World Cup!

Mr. Weasley: Ahem, you will never be the star of anything. Let me just say that Ludo Bagman is awesome because I was able to get my tickets to him through bribery and cutting deals and generally breaking my own laws!

Percy: Alright, at least let me discuss the Secret Mystery Even for After the World Cup?

Ron: No, you can’t do that—we can’t have any Premature Revelations spoil the book’s plot.

Fred: Mind if I cut in? I’ve got a plot-important keyword of my own: Viktor Krum!

Harry: Who?

Charlie: He’s a famous Quidditch player from Eastern Europe. His team will be competing against Ireland in the Quidditch World Cup.

**PREVIOUSLY ON HARRY POTTER**

[Harry Potter is the best Quidditch player in his school.]

Wood: Harry, you’re the best!

Angelina: Oh, Harry, I love you so much. Will you let me kiss you?

Harry: Ah… no….

Ron: Wow, I wish I was as good as Harry.

[The only character in the series so far to be comparable to Harry is Charlie.]

Charlie: But now I’m graduated so Harry has no competition in Hogwarts whatsoever!

[Harry owes most of his success to his spectacular broom, the Firebolt!]

Harry: My broom is the best! Even pros don’t always have it! And this does not give me an unfair advantage or anything!

**END OF FLASHBACK INFO DUMP**

Harry: Wow, this is wonderful! I could just stay here for the rest of my life!

Mrs. Weasley: Oh, look at the time! We need to get to bed—we’ll be getting up early to go to Diagon Alley and the Quidditch World Cup!

Harry: Why are we getting school supplies before the big game?

Mrs. Weasley: Because professional games sometimes last for many days.

Percy: Oh, I hope that doesn’t happen! I still have to turn in my report before Fred and George put dragon dung or something in it!

Fred: Sorry Percy—your research just isn’t as important as our amusement. And we are totally likeable pranksters!

Comments

[oryx_leucoryx]

Tom may have still been 'running the show' when they died. There were 3 months between Harry's birthday and Tom's defeat.

[corycides.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but that is giving me far too much credit. I had it my head it was waaaaaay back, possibly when she was pregnant with Percy.

Occasionally, my brain decides something is a 'good idea' and just runs with it. Still, it was a nice bit of twistedness regarding family dynamics so I can maybe recycle for my own stuff now I won't be stealing.

[oryx_leucoryx]

Anyway yes, Molly and Arthur had no idea how to deal with a family that size. Off-canon Rowling says Arthur had 2 brothers. Molly may have had no siblings besides the two who died - in fact, Muriel seems to be the only surviving relative on her side by the time of Bill's wedding. Having large families may have been a new phenomenon for the Weasleys in Arthur's generation. (The only other large wizarding family we know of is the family of Phineas Nigellus Black, father of 5, back in the 1880s. Three children were probably common enough - there are several instances among the Blacks, as well as the Dumbledore set and a family in Harry's generation, but anything more was probably considered unusual in some way.) Also, note that none of Molly and Arthur's children repeated the pattern. I don't think any of them liked it.

[dungeonwriter.livejournal.com]

Hehe, at least all the kids had ample incentive to use birth control potions. I have a niece and nephew and they tucker me out. I couldn't imagine 5 more.

My friend Ezi is from a family of 11, my friend Ree is from a family of 12 and another friend is from a family of 13 (I live near Hasidic Jews) and I notice the major difference between them and the Weasleys is that the older kids are expected to care for the younger kids, the parents actually step in and punish the kids if there is bullying, and everyone has duties.

Molly here gets little help. We don't see the kids pitching in much (de-gnoming the garden?) and we don't see anyone but Percy trying to step in and make order out of chaos.

And now it makes sense. Arthur likely thought Bill, Charlie and Percy were not too bad, maybe one more. Two more came. And Molly really wants to try once more for a girl. And now the house is chaos. And then she tries just one more time.

I suppose Arthur treasures Ginny for being a girl. Otherwise, he'd be finished.

[sweettalkeress.livejournal.com]

I've met the family of an Orthodox Rabbi, as well as a farm family, who both did have about 11 kids. It struck me that their kids that I met did seem more mature than I probably would have been at their ages, presumably because they had more duties (the farm family had a pre-teenage son who made *really good* ironworks which he sold himself at my city's farmers market). But in Harry Potter, pretty much everyone acts like an overgrown five-year-old anyway, and the only exceptions are mocked for it! So it's sort-of no wonder the Weasley kids are so disobedient.

That actually seems like a really worrying trend in a lot of the children's fantasy I've seen: this underlying message that being an adult is for losers.

[oryx_leucoryx]

Well, contrast them with Tiffany Aching (Pratchett) - at 15-16, as the local witch she is the healer, social worker and many other things of her community. She does deal with the occasional major magical crisis, but most of her effort is to deal with mundane but serious stuff like making sure the elderly are not alone or that new mothers have support with their babies, caring for abused spouses and children etc.

Though this is one of the differences between witches and wizards in Pratchett's world. The wizards mostly live in their closed world of Unseen University, playing (OK researching), eating big meals and doing very little for the greater community.

[sweettalkeress.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it strikes me that Pratchett seems to be deliberately trying to counter a lot of those annoying notions about fantasy. I remember reading somewhere that Pratchett's idea of helpful Witches and unhelpful Wizards was based on inverting the old idea that Wizards were strange but good people and Witches were always evil (which appears to be supported by the behavior of his characters in the books I've read, even if the wizards aren't evil per se).

[dungeonwriter.livejournal.com]

It's enormously obvious in HP. Any serious character needs to loosen up and grow up. Even McG is brushed off. Most authority is useless.

I wonder if JKR is an anarchist, (in a positive way)

[the-bitter-word.livejournal.com]

I wonder if JKR is an anarchist, (in a positive way)

Anarchists oppose authority of one person or group over another, most especially state authority. In Rowling's world, we have the hero following unto death a cult leader who demands that Order members and Harry obey his every command without question. Then, at the end of the story, the hero takes part in the reestablishment of Ministry state power, with the hero as Head Auror top enforcer of that authority. We are not shown a change in Wizarding society that eliminates central authority or social prejudice. In fact, we see abuse of power continue with Ron Confunding the Muggle driving instructor, with no criticism expected or received.

In a trouble-making, mayhem way, Rowling might be said to be "anti-authoritarian," but that is only a temporary, non-grown-up frame of mind for the heroes in the books. For the adult who chiefly foments anti-government ideas (Dumbledore), it's a way to get children on his side while devaluing other adult voices. This is actually not what anarchism is about.

[terri-testing.livejournal.com]

Nice summary!

[charlottehywd.livejournal.com]

You know, it kind of makes me think of those old Apple Jacks commercials from the 90's in which adults are shown to be complete idiots and never call out the kids for their terrible attitudes. I hate to sound like an old woman here, but this trend sure would account for the large number of obnoxious kids I had to deal with when I worked retail.