(no subject)
The writing of my Tom Sawyer adaptation fic got me thinking about a few things, which I feel compelled to address. For once, there is the question of Molly's reaction to a werewolf living in Grimauld Place. I assume that Molly didn't know Remus previously: his name wasn't known to her children when he started teaching, she wasn't in the Order during the first war, and there isn't really any connection between them. She is Sirius' cousin by marriage, but nothing indicates that they've known each other previously, either. Consequently, there must have been a moment between GoF and OotP when Molly learned that a werewolf would be moving in the house she and her family were staying in. (Or vice versa.)
From all that we know about Molly, she is not the most open-minded person on earth. Her reaction to the werewolf at St. Mungo's shows very clearly that she does not want any of that kind around her family. She is worried about Arthur's safety and asks whether the werewolf shouldn't be kept in a seperate ward. This happens after she had spent several month living with a werewolf under one roof, with whom she seemed to be getting along quite well. During all this time, she had the chance to learn that being a werewolf doesn't mean a person's a bloodthirsty maniac all the time and that even during the full moon, a werewolf can be kept under control. However, Molly doesn't trust werewolves as such at all. She has learned to accept Remus, but she fears 'his kind'. Consequently, she is one of those people who, in RL, don't want foreigners coming into their country because they are a smelly, stealing and generally untrustworthy bunch, but who is willing to accept that the foreign family next door is rather civilised and clean and 'not at all as the rest of them.' (I speak from the position of someone who lives as a lower-rank foreigner in a country that is not the one of my birth, and I do encounter people who tell me that they 'don't mind me' not being a native and that 'I am not at all as the rest of my lot' *rolls eyes*)
Arthur and Molly are, in spite of their acceptance of Muggles, very traditional with regard to their view on other groups: The indicators are not only their total ignorance about the Muggle way of life, but also the way Ron reacts when he learns about Remus' being a werewolf and Hagrid's being a half-giant. Plus, the Weasleys are supposedly tolerant and Muggle-loving, but they are pure-bloods. The whole clan is. (There seem to be more Weasleys, though we haven't met them yet.) In a society where pure-blood wizards are a minority, maintaining the pure-blood status requires some effort. It is therefore safe to assume that the Weasleys do marry their kind on purpose. Without a malicious attitude towards Muggles, but because of a certain distrust towards them.
I think that Remus had to fight hard to gain Molly's trust and respect. When she met him, she probably knew he was a werewolf and there was no reason whatsoever she would trust him a priori. Dumbledore probably vouched for Remus, but I doubt that would Molly make trust him. She might grudgingly accept his presence, but she would still eye him suspiciously as though expecting him to grow fangs and make for people's jugulars at any moment.
Remus, for his part, has developed a method to deal with such distrust: He does everything to appear sweet and harmless, offers the shoulder to cry on and is generally disgustingly understanding. I'm not sure whether OotP Molly genuinely likes Remus or not, but from how I interpret Remus' character, his behaviour towards Molly does not derive from friendship and respect but from necessity: He has to prevent, at all costs, to give her any ground to attack him on.
The other thing I want to mention is the sheer idiocy and blatant incompetency of the Death Eaters who fought Harry and the other children at the Ministry. This scene annoyed me more than anything else in the novel. I haven't got my OotP copy here, but from what I recall, Harry & Co. used hexes and curses such as Tarantallegra, Petrificus totalus and Stupefy - and so did the Death Eaters, because Neville ended up being hexed with Tarantallegra.
Even though their priority might have been getting the prophecy and they didn't want to risk destroying it under any circumstances - surely a bunch of skilled Death Eaters could do better than that? We haven't learned much about hexes and curses, but the fact alone that Moody's face is horribly scarred and he's got one eye and one leg missing indicate that some really badass hexes do exist, which can really, really hurt a person. Like, really. Wizard healers are, after all, able to re-grow a person's bones from the scratch (cf. CoS and OotP, where Muggles are brought to St. Mungo's for bone re-growing after encountering Willie Widdershin's (?) door knobs, or so). Unless Moody was hit by a particularly nasty form of Tarantallegra which made his leg dance even after the curse was lifted, I suppose that he was subject to something much worse. The Death Eaters who were sent to get the prophecy should have been able to use, oh, 'may your eyeballs pop out' or 'may your flesh dissolve and fall off your bones' curses and most certainly, they should have been able to block the hexes which the children were taught in their second (Duelling Club), third and fourth year.
These are just random thoughts that popped into my head whilst writing. Consider them as lengthy author's-notes-in-advance.
From all that we know about Molly, she is not the most open-minded person on earth. Her reaction to the werewolf at St. Mungo's shows very clearly that she does not want any of that kind around her family. She is worried about Arthur's safety and asks whether the werewolf shouldn't be kept in a seperate ward. This happens after she had spent several month living with a werewolf under one roof, with whom she seemed to be getting along quite well. During all this time, she had the chance to learn that being a werewolf doesn't mean a person's a bloodthirsty maniac all the time and that even during the full moon, a werewolf can be kept under control. However, Molly doesn't trust werewolves as such at all. She has learned to accept Remus, but she fears 'his kind'. Consequently, she is one of those people who, in RL, don't want foreigners coming into their country because they are a smelly, stealing and generally untrustworthy bunch, but who is willing to accept that the foreign family next door is rather civilised and clean and 'not at all as the rest of them.' (I speak from the position of someone who lives as a lower-rank foreigner in a country that is not the one of my birth, and I do encounter people who tell me that they 'don't mind me' not being a native and that 'I am not at all as the rest of my lot' *rolls eyes*)
Arthur and Molly are, in spite of their acceptance of Muggles, very traditional with regard to their view on other groups: The indicators are not only their total ignorance about the Muggle way of life, but also the way Ron reacts when he learns about Remus' being a werewolf and Hagrid's being a half-giant. Plus, the Weasleys are supposedly tolerant and Muggle-loving, but they are pure-bloods. The whole clan is. (There seem to be more Weasleys, though we haven't met them yet.) In a society where pure-blood wizards are a minority, maintaining the pure-blood status requires some effort. It is therefore safe to assume that the Weasleys do marry their kind on purpose. Without a malicious attitude towards Muggles, but because of a certain distrust towards them.
I think that Remus had to fight hard to gain Molly's trust and respect. When she met him, she probably knew he was a werewolf and there was no reason whatsoever she would trust him a priori. Dumbledore probably vouched for Remus, but I doubt that would Molly make trust him. She might grudgingly accept his presence, but she would still eye him suspiciously as though expecting him to grow fangs and make for people's jugulars at any moment.
Remus, for his part, has developed a method to deal with such distrust: He does everything to appear sweet and harmless, offers the shoulder to cry on and is generally disgustingly understanding. I'm not sure whether OotP Molly genuinely likes Remus or not, but from how I interpret Remus' character, his behaviour towards Molly does not derive from friendship and respect but from necessity: He has to prevent, at all costs, to give her any ground to attack him on.
The other thing I want to mention is the sheer idiocy and blatant incompetency of the Death Eaters who fought Harry and the other children at the Ministry. This scene annoyed me more than anything else in the novel. I haven't got my OotP copy here, but from what I recall, Harry & Co. used hexes and curses such as Tarantallegra, Petrificus totalus and Stupefy - and so did the Death Eaters, because Neville ended up being hexed with Tarantallegra.
Even though their priority might have been getting the prophecy and they didn't want to risk destroying it under any circumstances - surely a bunch of skilled Death Eaters could do better than that? We haven't learned much about hexes and curses, but the fact alone that Moody's face is horribly scarred and he's got one eye and one leg missing indicate that some really badass hexes do exist, which can really, really hurt a person. Like, really. Wizard healers are, after all, able to re-grow a person's bones from the scratch (cf. CoS and OotP, where Muggles are brought to St. Mungo's for bone re-growing after encountering Willie Widdershin's (?) door knobs, or so). Unless Moody was hit by a particularly nasty form of Tarantallegra which made his leg dance even after the curse was lifted, I suppose that he was subject to something much worse. The Death Eaters who were sent to get the prophecy should have been able to use, oh, 'may your eyeballs pop out' or 'may your flesh dissolve and fall off your bones' curses and most certainly, they should have been able to block the hexes which the children were taught in their second (Duelling Club), third and fourth year.
These are just random thoughts that popped into my head whilst writing. Consider them as lengthy author's-notes-in-advance.