A Weasley's Affair
Whew! This took a couple hours to revise and type up… I hope you enjoy it, and it’s fairly new take on the Weasley’s. Again, this is meant to coincide with Red Hen’s essays. Just so you know.
It is with relief that I finally voice a long time annoyance. And that is that Harry’s only view of a modern wizarding family is the Weasleys.
I agree with Red Hen. Somewhere, at some point in the Weasley family’s history, something went wrong. I’m not sure what it was, but it probably occurred towards Bill and Charlie’s end of school days. It could have been what Red Hen has surmised, or something entirely differed, but there is something wrong in that house that I so identify with my own family.
You can see, by the way that the Weasley children gravitate to other outsiders (Neville Longbottom, Penelope Clearwater, Hermione Granger, Lee Jordan, etc) that they consider themselves to have many of the same qualities. Possibly, they could feel ousted by their large family size. Possibly, because they are all immediately assumed to share their father’s “muggle love affair” and so deserted by wizarding society. There is also a good chance that the children do so, because of the underlying tensions within the Weasley home. (keep in mind that at this point, we are Pre-OotP)
While it is obvious that Molly Weasley loves all of her children, she has such a personality that she is often at odds with them. She’s always fussing and worrying over Bill and Charlie. And why shouldn’t she, after all, they aren’t settling down, and god only knows what they get into all the way over in Egypt and Romania. They’re her two oldest, but somehow they don’t seem to bear the brunt of her attentions.
There is an easy alliance between Bill, Charlie, and Percy. All of them seem to share the “older brother” role, and they each take different parts of the responsibility. Bill, while level headed, is the “cool” brother. He wears his hair long and works in an exotic place, and seems to be the most popular with all of the siblings. Charlie is the risk taker, he knows what he wants to do, and what he needs to do, and the younger kids know they can approach him with difficult problems. (Sorry, but how many brothers would -you- trust to take illegal cargo - a dragon - by broom across Europe?) Percy is the conscience, and the closest to his mother. He wants to be admired for how gallant and intelligent he is, but none of the younger siblings seem to understand. He gets along reasonably well with Ginevra, but she’s working hard to stay out of the limelight in the family.
Molly and the twins seem to have longstanding problems. From what Jo Rowling says, Bill and Charlie are 8 and 6 years older than Fred and George (and if making their birthday April Fools Day was just smart. Predestinate them, why don’t you, eh?). the twins probably grew up hearing great stories about Hogwarts from their brothers, how popular Bill was, and just how reckless Charlie had been. They knew that Percy was nothing they wanted to do with, so they left him alone. That is, until their mother decided to fall in on them one day, when they pulled a joke on Ron, or maybe Ginny. And Percy sided with her on it. This would put the twins directly opposite of their mother and older brother. And however they did it, they have never been particularly forgiving either way.
Ron, who was only a young kid when all the tensions began developing, was easily conned into believing Fred & George. It isn’t that hard to get a younger sibling to believe you, especially if you act like you know what you are talking about. So we have Ron, who doesn’t realize it, on a very short leash regarding the twins. Add this to Ron’s sudden and desperate desire to be his own person, and not like his brothers, and you have a wonderful recipe for more tension. It’s entirely possible that Percy tried at some point to be nice to Ron - we do see evidence that Percy doesn’t really hold anything against him in the first three books - and has just now given up.
Ginevra, everyone seems to be convinced, will just fall into line and be good without any guidance from her family. Even after the CoS Incident, which you would think would open their eyes to how much Ginny needs to be noticed, they still seem content to shove her off to the side. This doesn’t seem to have done much for her, other than make her blossom outside the home, and she has a deep understanding of relationships for someone of such a young age. She knows when to avoid people, and when it’s okay to approach them.
But the whopper - and I mean the WHOPPER - of all of the territorial lines of unspoken anger is the one between Molly and Arthur themselves. (This is, by the way, where I find such a chilling resemblance to my family.) Molly will never say anything about it directly, at least not in front of Harry - which means we will never see it - but she wants nothing to do with Muggles. She’s always commenting about muggle things in a way that isn’t openly hostile, but more an inflected bitterness. She comments on the throngs of muggles at King’s Cross in PS/SS. She makes several cutting remarks to Arthur about his sons driving his mundane car, and it seems to me almost as if she thinks he gave them the suggestion.
All of this becomes even more apparent at the beginning of OotP. Percy’s disagreement with his father, and subsequent alienation of the whole Weasley Clan, breaks his ties within the family, and puts even more strain on the remaining members.
Arthur - who can be said to rarely find real fault with his children - refuses to try and keep some common ground with Percy. He blames the Ministry. Molly is devastated, so she blames Arthur, because he didn’t put up a fight when her child walked away. To people of Molly’s personality, to alienate one of the “group” or family is akin to a mortal sin - which is why she will never completely turn away from her children. Fred and George stand by their original belief that Percy got what he deserved, and won’t budge from it, furthering the rift between themselves and Molly. Ron seems appalled that Percy would side with the Ministry over his family - but not that surprised (again, here we see how much control the twins actually have over Ron). He’s even willing to write Percy off completely.
Of all the Weasleys, I believe Bill, Charlie, and Ginevra have the best grasp of the situation. Bill and Charlie got out - quickly - after they graduated, and so missed most of the developmental stages of this “Weasley Affair”. When they come back, they’re able to stay publicly neutral and carefully out of the way of both their father and Percy - though they obviously don’t agree with their brother’s decision. And Ginevra just keeps her head down. I get the feeling that she knows exactly how to appear to everyone so as to not upset them, and keeps her real feelings hidden from her family. After all, besides her oldest brothers, she was the closest to Percy before.
So, we have to ask ourselves why Jo felt it necessary to place Harry in the near “foster care” of a family that seems to be considered eccentric and strained, even by wizarding standards.
It is entirely possible that Jo wanted us to note, and not in passing either, that the wizarding world is not perfect. Being a witch/wizard does not automatically (/magically) solve all your problems. It is not an easy out of life.
Quite the opposite in fact.
What I mean to say, is, we’ve been seeing everything in the series through a set of Rose-Tinted Harry Goggles. At 11, magic was the thing that fixed Harry’s world. It was the missing puzzle piece that made his picture complete. So, through the R-THG, we see magic as being perfect, which Jo has gone out of her way to prove it is not.
(Case in point: Voldemort. Tom Riddle’s Diary. The possession of Quirrel. The possible hexing of the Firebolt. Dementors. Azkaban. Death Eaters.)
What better way than to place Harry with a wizarding family that is as dysfunctional as the Dursleys - though in an entirely different way.
Of course, this in itself begs another question.
If the Weasleys are the Wizarding Dursleys, and the Dursleys are the default muggle family for the series, then are we meant to view the Weasleys as a normal wizarding family? Is this horrible reverse tension, where the family is both holding as tightly as they can to each other and pushing away to spread their wings, more common in the Wizarding World than our R-THG have allowed us to see?
Are the Weasleys really our base in Wizarding Society?
If they are, then what does this mean for out view of the practices of other purebred families? Are the horror stories that Sirius Black so glibly feeds us of his family the attitude of only a small faction of the pureblood lines - already few in number?
Will Jo ever tell us? I doubt it. The way the series is heading, unless Ron, Ginny, or Molly has a major breakdown in the future, it doesn’t seem like the Weasley’s domestic issues are ever going to be at the forefront of the HP series. As I feel the need to constantly remind myself, these books are All About Harry. Unless he suddenly becomes both socially and emotionally mature in the next two books, I’m afraid that this particular question will never be answered.
(Cross posted in a lot of places. LOL)
It is with relief that I finally voice a long time annoyance. And that is that Harry’s only view of a modern wizarding family is the Weasleys.
I agree with Red Hen. Somewhere, at some point in the Weasley family’s history, something went wrong. I’m not sure what it was, but it probably occurred towards Bill and Charlie’s end of school days. It could have been what Red Hen has surmised, or something entirely differed, but there is something wrong in that house that I so identify with my own family.
You can see, by the way that the Weasley children gravitate to other outsiders (Neville Longbottom, Penelope Clearwater, Hermione Granger, Lee Jordan, etc) that they consider themselves to have many of the same qualities. Possibly, they could feel ousted by their large family size. Possibly, because they are all immediately assumed to share their father’s “muggle love affair” and so deserted by wizarding society. There is also a good chance that the children do so, because of the underlying tensions within the Weasley home. (keep in mind that at this point, we are Pre-OotP)
While it is obvious that Molly Weasley loves all of her children, she has such a personality that she is often at odds with them. She’s always fussing and worrying over Bill and Charlie. And why shouldn’t she, after all, they aren’t settling down, and god only knows what they get into all the way over in Egypt and Romania. They’re her two oldest, but somehow they don’t seem to bear the brunt of her attentions.
There is an easy alliance between Bill, Charlie, and Percy. All of them seem to share the “older brother” role, and they each take different parts of the responsibility. Bill, while level headed, is the “cool” brother. He wears his hair long and works in an exotic place, and seems to be the most popular with all of the siblings. Charlie is the risk taker, he knows what he wants to do, and what he needs to do, and the younger kids know they can approach him with difficult problems. (Sorry, but how many brothers would -you- trust to take illegal cargo - a dragon - by broom across Europe?) Percy is the conscience, and the closest to his mother. He wants to be admired for how gallant and intelligent he is, but none of the younger siblings seem to understand. He gets along reasonably well with Ginevra, but she’s working hard to stay out of the limelight in the family.
Molly and the twins seem to have longstanding problems. From what Jo Rowling says, Bill and Charlie are 8 and 6 years older than Fred and George (and if making their birthday April Fools Day was just smart. Predestinate them, why don’t you, eh?). the twins probably grew up hearing great stories about Hogwarts from their brothers, how popular Bill was, and just how reckless Charlie had been. They knew that Percy was nothing they wanted to do with, so they left him alone. That is, until their mother decided to fall in on them one day, when they pulled a joke on Ron, or maybe Ginny. And Percy sided with her on it. This would put the twins directly opposite of their mother and older brother. And however they did it, they have never been particularly forgiving either way.
Ron, who was only a young kid when all the tensions began developing, was easily conned into believing Fred & George. It isn’t that hard to get a younger sibling to believe you, especially if you act like you know what you are talking about. So we have Ron, who doesn’t realize it, on a very short leash regarding the twins. Add this to Ron’s sudden and desperate desire to be his own person, and not like his brothers, and you have a wonderful recipe for more tension. It’s entirely possible that Percy tried at some point to be nice to Ron - we do see evidence that Percy doesn’t really hold anything against him in the first three books - and has just now given up.
Ginevra, everyone seems to be convinced, will just fall into line and be good without any guidance from her family. Even after the CoS Incident, which you would think would open their eyes to how much Ginny needs to be noticed, they still seem content to shove her off to the side. This doesn’t seem to have done much for her, other than make her blossom outside the home, and she has a deep understanding of relationships for someone of such a young age. She knows when to avoid people, and when it’s okay to approach them.
But the whopper - and I mean the WHOPPER - of all of the territorial lines of unspoken anger is the one between Molly and Arthur themselves. (This is, by the way, where I find such a chilling resemblance to my family.) Molly will never say anything about it directly, at least not in front of Harry - which means we will never see it - but she wants nothing to do with Muggles. She’s always commenting about muggle things in a way that isn’t openly hostile, but more an inflected bitterness. She comments on the throngs of muggles at King’s Cross in PS/SS. She makes several cutting remarks to Arthur about his sons driving his mundane car, and it seems to me almost as if she thinks he gave them the suggestion.
All of this becomes even more apparent at the beginning of OotP. Percy’s disagreement with his father, and subsequent alienation of the whole Weasley Clan, breaks his ties within the family, and puts even more strain on the remaining members.
Arthur - who can be said to rarely find real fault with his children - refuses to try and keep some common ground with Percy. He blames the Ministry. Molly is devastated, so she blames Arthur, because he didn’t put up a fight when her child walked away. To people of Molly’s personality, to alienate one of the “group” or family is akin to a mortal sin - which is why she will never completely turn away from her children. Fred and George stand by their original belief that Percy got what he deserved, and won’t budge from it, furthering the rift between themselves and Molly. Ron seems appalled that Percy would side with the Ministry over his family - but not that surprised (again, here we see how much control the twins actually have over Ron). He’s even willing to write Percy off completely.
Of all the Weasleys, I believe Bill, Charlie, and Ginevra have the best grasp of the situation. Bill and Charlie got out - quickly - after they graduated, and so missed most of the developmental stages of this “Weasley Affair”. When they come back, they’re able to stay publicly neutral and carefully out of the way of both their father and Percy - though they obviously don’t agree with their brother’s decision. And Ginevra just keeps her head down. I get the feeling that she knows exactly how to appear to everyone so as to not upset them, and keeps her real feelings hidden from her family. After all, besides her oldest brothers, she was the closest to Percy before.
So, we have to ask ourselves why Jo felt it necessary to place Harry in the near “foster care” of a family that seems to be considered eccentric and strained, even by wizarding standards.
It is entirely possible that Jo wanted us to note, and not in passing either, that the wizarding world is not perfect. Being a witch/wizard does not automatically (/magically) solve all your problems. It is not an easy out of life.
Quite the opposite in fact.
What I mean to say, is, we’ve been seeing everything in the series through a set of Rose-Tinted Harry Goggles. At 11, magic was the thing that fixed Harry’s world. It was the missing puzzle piece that made his picture complete. So, through the R-THG, we see magic as being perfect, which Jo has gone out of her way to prove it is not.
(Case in point: Voldemort. Tom Riddle’s Diary. The possession of Quirrel. The possible hexing of the Firebolt. Dementors. Azkaban. Death Eaters.)
What better way than to place Harry with a wizarding family that is as dysfunctional as the Dursleys - though in an entirely different way.
Of course, this in itself begs another question.
If the Weasleys are the Wizarding Dursleys, and the Dursleys are the default muggle family for the series, then are we meant to view the Weasleys as a normal wizarding family? Is this horrible reverse tension, where the family is both holding as tightly as they can to each other and pushing away to spread their wings, more common in the Wizarding World than our R-THG have allowed us to see?
Are the Weasleys really our base in Wizarding Society?
If they are, then what does this mean for out view of the practices of other purebred families? Are the horror stories that Sirius Black so glibly feeds us of his family the attitude of only a small faction of the pureblood lines - already few in number?
Will Jo ever tell us? I doubt it. The way the series is heading, unless Ron, Ginny, or Molly has a major breakdown in the future, it doesn’t seem like the Weasley’s domestic issues are ever going to be at the forefront of the HP series. As I feel the need to constantly remind myself, these books are All About Harry. Unless he suddenly becomes both socially and emotionally mature in the next two books, I’m afraid that this particular question will never be answered.
(Cross posted in a lot of places. LOL)