#ron meta

[shelyue99]

Full cast interview, TV Guide September 2001 issue

[hollowed-theory-hall]

We don't talk enough about Ron's mean streak

Like, I saw a lot of people talk about how funny Ron is (which is true, he's genuinely one of the funnier characters in the series), how loyal he is when it counts, he's brave as hell, and he is really smart, just not book smart. But what I don't see talked about enough (maybe it's just me though), is Ron Weasley's mean streak.

I talked about how Harry most definitely has what it takes to be a Slytherin, can be scary, and is willing to kill when push comes to shove. I also mentioned Hermione's ruthlessness, but I didn't discuss Ron's mean streak which is a joy when I see it crop up in the book. When it comes up, it always reminds me of the twins, and I feel like that's where Ron got it from.

So I'm just going to bring up a few quotes I had in my notes showing Ron's mean streak, I'm sure I missed some from the earlier books, but I find it a fun aspect of his character.

Snape cried: “Expelliarmus!” There was a dazzling flash of scarlet light and Lockhart was blasted off his feet: He flew backward off the stage, smashed into the wall, and slid down it to sprawl on the floor. Malfoy and some of the other Slytherins cheered. Hermione was dancing on tiptoes. “Do you think he’s all right?” she squealed through her fingers. “Who cares?” said Harry and Ron together.

(CoS, 178)

This type of reaction is seen with Ron pretty often. He really doesn't care when someone he dislikes is hurt or injured and he is very vocal about it. He and Harry kinda share this trait, as seen above.

Later in the other quotes I bring up, I show that Hermione is the one usually playing morality police for Ron and Harry even if she herself isn't as innocent as she likes to act.

He raised Ron’s Spellotaped wand high over his head and yelled, “Obliviate!” The wand exploded with the force of a small bomb. Harry flung his arms over his head and ran, slipping over the coils of snake skin, out of the way of great chunks of tunnel ceiling that were thundering to the floor. Next moment, he was standing alone, gazing at a solid wall of broken rock. “Ron!” he shouted. “Are you okay? Ron!” “I’m here!” came Ron’s muffled voice from behind the rockfall. “I’m okay — this git’s not, though — he got blasted by the wand —” There was a dull thud and a loud “ow!” It sounded as though Ron had just kicked Lockhart in the shins.

(CoS, 280)

I love this, Lockhart explodes the cave, obliviates himself, and Ron's reaction is to kick him in the shins. I don't know, I just find it hilarious.

“Don’t talk to me,” Ron said quietly to Harry and Hermione as they sat down at the Gryffindor table a few minutes later, surrounded by excited talk on all sides about what had just happened. “Why not?” said Hermione in surprise. “Because I want to fix that in my memory forever,” said Ron, his eyes closed and an uplifted expression on his face. “Draco Malfoy, the amazing bouncing ferret . . .” Harry and Hermione both laughed, and Hermione began doling beef casserole onto each of their plates. “He could have really hurt Malfoy, though,” she said. “It was good, really, that Professor McGonagall stopped it —” “Hermione!” said Ron furiously, his eyes snapping open again, “you’re ruining the best moment of my life!”

(GoF, 207)

Here you see Hermione the morality police crop up, but I'm talking about Ron here.

Hermione is definitely right in that Draco could've been seriously hurt, but Ron is just glad he saw Malfoy suffering. Actually, in the scene before it, Ron was the one who wanted to curse Malfoy and was held back by Harry and Hermione (as well as in the eat slugs situation in CoS), like, with as much as Harry calls Draco his nemesis, it really feels like Ron is the one that hates Draco and thinks of him as his nemesis.

“She’s an awful woman [Umbridge],” said Hermione in a small voice. “Awful. You know, I was just saying to Ron when you came in . . . we’ve got to do something about her.” “I suggested poison,” said Ron grimly.

(OotP, 324)

I love you, Ron.

This is one of my favorite quotes for him. Hermione shuts down the poison idea, but I think they should've given it a shot, I think it could've been fun.

It would've been cathartic for them at least.

“You take Remedial Potions?” asked Zacharias Smith superciliously, having cornered Harry in the entrance hall after lunch. “Good Lord, you must be terrible, Snape doesn’t usually give extra lessons, does he?” As Smith strode away in an annoyingly buoyant fashion, Ron glared after him. “Shall I jinx him? I can still get him from here,” he said, raising his wand and taking aim between Smith’s shoulder blades. “Forget it,” said Harry dismally. “It’s what everyone’s going to think, isn’t it? That I’m really stup —”

(OotP, 528)

I love how Ron always has Harry's back and is ready to fight anyone (including Sirius who he thought was a mass murderer when he was 13 with a broken leg) for Harry's sake. It's a real vibe the Golden Trio has that they're just ready to drop everything and curse out anyone for each other's sake. They are just so protective of each other and I love this for them, how they are all just each other's people, yk.

It's also another example of how Ron is the one of the trio that offers violence as the answer the most often.

“Reparo!” said Hermione quickly, mending Ron’s cup with a wave of her wand. “That’s all very well, but what if Montague’s permanently injured?” “Who cares?” said Ron irritably, while his teacup stood drunkenly again, trembling violently at the knees. “Montague shouldn’t have tried to take all those points from Gryffindor, should he? If you want to worry about anyone, Hermione, worry about me!”

(OotP, 679)

Again Ron doesn't care for the injury of people who he considers deserving.

“Madam Pomfrey says she’s just in shock,” whispered Hermione. “Sulking, more like,” said Ginny. “Yeah, she shows signs of life if you do this,” said Ron, and with his tongue he made soft clip-clopping noises. Umbridge sat bolt upright, looking wildly around.

(OotP, 849)

Like, regardless of whether Umbridge was SAed or not (for the record, I don't think she was) it's not a nice thing to do. Umbridge is awful, but this is Ron literally spreading salt on the wound. but like I mentioned above, she's in the "deserving it" category.

“will you stop pretending to be asleep when Lavender comes to see you? She’s driving me mad as well.” “Oh,” said Ron, looking sheepish. “Yeah. All right.” “If you don’t want to go out with her anymore, just tell her,” said Harry.

(HBP, 411)

That is honestly so mean. Like, I'm not Lavender's biggest fan, I find her annoying, but she's a teenage girl in her maybe first relationship and she did nothing really wrong. I feel truly sorry for her for how Ron treated her, it wasn't really her fault. It's just mean that he pretends to sleep instead of talking to her.

“Same as he wanted at Christmas,” shrugged Harry. “Wanted me to give him inside information on Dumbledore and be the Ministry’s new poster boy.” Ron seemed to struggle with himself for a moment, then he said loudly to Hermione, “Look, let me go back and hit Percy!” “No,” she said firmly, grabbing his arm. “It’ll make me feel better!”

(HBP, 650)

Like, this is peak sibling behavior, but as I mentioned earlier, Ron tends to want to resort to violence more often than Harry and Hermione do (especially in the earlier books, as Harry does grow angrier after Sirius' death). He is usually the one to bring violence up, and I find it an interesting aspect of his character.

And Ron is correct in the fact hitting Percy would make him feel better. Not saying if it's the right thing to do, but Ron really would experience it as satisfying because Percy would deserve it in his mind.

“What are we going to do with them?” Ron whispered to Harry through the dark; then, even more quietly, “Kill them? They’d kill us. They had a good go just now.” Hermione shuddered and took a step backward. Harry shook his head.

(DH, 167)

As I mentioned in one of the Harry posts, Harry is calling the shots, but Ron is the one who offered to kill the Death Eaters. He put that idea on the table. He was relieved when Harry said they shouldn't kill them, but if Harry said it'd be better if they killed them — Ron would've backed him up and done it, while Hermione might've preferred to pretend it wasn't happening.

“That treacherous old bleeder.” Ron panted, emerging from beneath the Invisibility Cloak and throwing it to Harry. “Hermione you’re a genius, a total genius. I can’t believe we got out of that.” “Cave Inimicum. . . Didn’t I say it was an Erumpent horn, didn’t I tell him? And now his house has been blown apart!” “Serves him right,” said Ron, examining his torn jeans and the cuts to his legs, “What’d you reckon they’ll do to him?” “Oh I hope they don’t kill him!” groaned Hermione, “That’s why I wanted the Death Eaters to get a glimpse of Harry before we left, so they knew Xenophilius hadn’t been lying!”

(DH, 424)

Again, Ron not caring/enjoying when people who deserve it suffer. Xenophilius wanted to help them, he tried to persuade them not to come into his home at first so he wouldn't give them in, he tried so hard even though the Death Eaters had his daughter! Harry rightly feels bad for Xenophilius and Luna, it's easy to understand why he did what he did.

Hermione and Harry hope he is fine, but Ron is the one who thinks he has it coming. That he deserves to have his house blown up for betraying them, regardless of his reasoning.

I think Ron is the most black-and-white in his thoughts about people among the trio. There are those who deserve anything that comes to them and those who don't. Specific circumstances and context don't really play a part in what bad people deserve coming to them.

I don't know, I just find this interesting.

Harry has the compassion to understand people, even ones who harmed him or the people he cares about, he is capable of forgiving Voldemort and never really hated Draco.

Hermione is pretty black-and-white in her view of people, having the people she trusts and those she doesn't. She trusts Snape because he's an authority figure trusted by Dumbledore (and Hermione is the one who is truly Dumbledore's woman true and true in the books). Her view on people has less to do with their actions, but who they are endorsed by. She is compassionate to Xenophilius because he's Luna's dad, and Luna is good, therefore, she wouldn't love someone who is bad.

Ron is black-and-white in how he sees people in a very different way than Hermione. He looks at actions, and if you do anything to try and harm him or people he cares about, you get on the shit list. Getting out of Ron's shit list is probably not easy, he doesn't strike me as one who forgives easily and readily the way Harry does, but he does forgive. Like actions can get you on his shit list, actions can get you out. But once a person is on the shit list, they deserve any harm that comes their way.

But Ron is really loyal, and there are people he loves who are basically immune from going on the shit list (like his family, yes, even Percy. While he wants to hit him, I don't believe Ron ever really wished death on Percy). And there is just something interesting about Ron, with his mean streak and everything, being the glue that holds the trio together. Like, in Deathly Hallows once he leaves, Harry and Hermione barely talk to each other, they are barely friends without Ron there.

I don't know, I just love Ron. I love how he is loyal, and friendship glue, but has just as much of a mean streak to him as Harry and Hermione can pull. I just feel like he's sometimes left out of the discussion of how ruthless Harry and Hermione could be. Like, it's true, both of them can be ruthless, but don't leave Ron out. He can be ruthless and actually offers violence as a solution more often than Harry or Hermione do.

[arkadijxpancakes]

Yes. The Weasleys had too many kids. An analysis. (Part 1 of 2)

Everyone who read Harry Potter read about the prejudices regarding the Weasleys: They all have red hair, are poor and have more kids than they can afford. Insert a sneering Malfoy here.

The books were adamant that that was not the case. The Weasleys are depicted as the best family in the books. (Just look at the others. The Dursleys were narrow-minded, bigoted and abusive. The Malfoys were bigoted terrorists. The Lovegoods were weird. Let’s not even start about Merope and Riddle.)

However, if you look closer, the prejudices have some truth to them: They had more kids than they could afford. However, money isn’t the issue here, not really.

Yes, the Weasleys are clearly depicted as members of the working class. They don’t have much money and fall back on second-hand stuff a lot of the time. Ron in particular is shown to be using hand-me-downs in book one.

However, they don’t live in abject poverty. The family owns their own home on their own land. They have a garden to grow their own vegetables and they have chickens. This means that food scarcity shouldn’t be a big issue for them, because they can produce a lot of it on their own. (Magic should make this even easier, because they can use it for the gardening stuff. And if we assume that you can duplicate food, this should keep everyone well-fed.)

The main issue when it comes to money isn’t that they don’t have anything. They have clearly enough money to stay comfortably over water. They just don’t have enough money to buy all the fancy shit the wizarding world uses as status symbols. (Like racing brooms and dress robes.)

Could things be better, money-wise? Sure. But one can have a loving, comfortable childhood, even with second-hand clothes and working class food. So no. It’s not about the money.

It’s about time. 

And it's also about how the parents divide that time (and the work that comes along with it.)

The Weasleys follow a family structure one would expect from a muggle family of their time (the second half of the 20th century): Arthur is the one who goes out to work and earns money, while his wife Molly is a stay-at-home-mother who takes care of their home and kids. It’s also just their nuclear family that lives in the burrow. There are no other relatives (no grandparents and no aunts or uncles, either) living there.

I find this a little bit weird, tbh. The nuclear family (parents and kids) living alone, without any other relatives and with the father as the sole breadwinner, is a pretty new development. The practice only really established itself after the Statute of Secrecy went into effect. It developed first in the upper classes (who used this to flaunt their wealth) and in urban centers (where there was no space to live together with your extended family.) Before this, living with one's extended family was very common, especially in rural areas, where it was beneficial to stick together. The Weasley’s don’t really have a reason to live as a nuclear family. There is no need for wizards to follow the Muggle trend, and things were different before the statute. Living with other, adult family members would also be beneficial, especially for Molly. And the books do suggest that the extended family is quite large, so “They don’t live with other relatives, because they don’t have any” doesn’t fit their situation either.

This is a common theme for Rowling, by the way. She tends to ignore the extended families of her characters, whenever it is possible. The numbers of grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins that get mentioned in the book is incredibly low. (The only character who seems to have close connections to his extended family is Neville – and that’s because the other members of his nuclear family are completely absent because of health reasons.)

Anyway. When we look back at the Weasleys, this leaves Molly basically as a tradwife. (Minus the religious baggage.) But let's start at the beginning. 

(Note: I will focus on the books in this. I don’t consider the games canon and will not use them as a source.) Arthur and Molly were born around 1950. We know that he went to Hogwarts from 1961 to 1968. They were close enough in age to start a relationship while still at Hogwarts, and they married shortly after graduating. For this to work, she must have been in his year or maybe the year below or above.

Bill was born in 1970 and was followed by six siblings, the last who was born in 1981. So from the age of ca. 20 to the age of ca. 33 Molly was either pregnant or nursing at least one baby at any given time. (There might have been a short break in that pattern between Charlie and Percy, but it only got worse after that.)

As I said before, Molly and Arthur seem to have a very traditional division of labor between them: He works at the ministry and earns money, she takes care of their home and kids. This means that Molly has drawn the short end of the stick.

While Arthur is working one job 9-5, Molly has to work three jobs and at least one of them is 24/7. Let’s pick them apart:

Her first job is to take care of the home. Molly cleans the house and does the laundry. It is also very likely that she is not only responsible for cooking, but for food production in general. This means that she takes care of the garden and chickens. This would be pretty exhausting, if not for her magic. She can likely cut down on time and effort by using magic for most of those tasks.

On top of this, she is also producing at least some of the clothing her family wears. We don't see her sewing, but she knits a lot. She is using magic for that, too.

Her second job is to raise their kids. Molly is their primary caregiver and does most of the parenting. This is a difficult job to begin with, but there are seven of them. This is where her workload starts to stretch her thin. It can’t be easy to do the laundry, while Ginny needs to be fed, Bill and Charlie are arguing in the backyard, and the twins have just vanished. Magic is less helpful here, because a lot of the work requires her to interact with her kids. She can’t really flick her wand to speed that up.

On top of that - and this is where things get even worse - there doesn't seem to be any kind of elementary school in Wizarding Great Britain. At the very least, the books do not mention any form of primary education and Hogwarts seems to be Ron’s first school. But Hogwarts still requires its students to be able to read, write and do math. Having some education about the Wizarding World couldn’t hurt, either.

However, someone has to teach the kids. And this someone is probably Molly, because Arthur is at work, and they don’t have the money for a private tutor. They cant sent their kids to an elementary school, because there is none. (And they obviously did not send them to a muggle school.) 

So this is her third job. This is another job she can’t really speed up with magic, because she can’t hex the knowledge into her kids’ brains. (Or at least I hope she can’t, because everything else would be disturbing.)

This means Molly has to take care of their home, produce their food, take care of their kids and teach them elementary school-stuff. All while being pregnant and/or nursing for circa 13 years straight.

Her workload just isn’t doable for a single person. It might have started off okay, when she only had Bill and Charlie, and it probably got better once most kids had left the house to study at Hogwarts. But the years in between must have been hell. And she did not really have any help to do it.

Arthur was off to work most days and seems to spend quite a lot of time on his hobby. Additionally, he just doesn’t seem to be all that involved as a father and seems to take care mostly of the fun stuff. 

His parenting style is much more relaxed than Molly’s, too. He’s probably the parent the kids go to when they want to do something their mother would say no to. This, of course, makes parenting even harder for her, because she doesn’t just have to deal with the kids, but also with Arthur’s parenting decisions. There are no other adult family members around to help her, either. They also don’t have the money to hire help. (No wonder Molly dreamed of having her own slave house elf. It would have allowed her to drastically reduce her workload. It’s a really disgusting wish, but I understand where it comes from.)

This is where the family dynamics probably took their first severe hit: It’s very likely that Molly’s workload left her with more work than she was able to do consistently. Whether Arthur pulled his weight in that regard is questionable (and he was at work for most of the day anyway.) She also had no other adults to help her, so she probably offloaded her workload elsewhere: her kids.

Yes. I think it is very likely that the Weasleys parentified their kids, especially Bill, Charlie and Percy. We don’t see it with Bill and Charlie, probably because they had already left the house when Harry meets the family. Still, it’s a little weird that both of them went to live so far away from home. Yes, sure, exploring tombs in Egypt and taming dragons in Romania is fun and exciting in and off itself – but being so far away from home that mom can’t rope you into household chores and babysitting duty is probably a really nice bonus. It would also relax their familial relationships quite a bit, because moving away gives them control over when and how they want to engage. (And it’s probably easier to be the fun big brother to your younger siblings when you aren’t required to watch and control them every day.)

We do see it with Percy, however. He looks after and take responsibility for his younger siblings a lot, especially at Hogwarts. You can see it in the way he looks after Ginny and how he’s constantly at odds with Fred and George because they refuse to follow any rules.

Fuck, he still does this after the big row with his father. Yes, the letter he sends to Ron is pretty obnoxious, but he still wrote it. He did not need to. At that point he had cut all contact, after all. He clearly cared for his younger brother and wanted to look out for him, even if he did it in the most annoying way possible. It would be interesting to know whether he also wrote to Ginny or the twins or not.

Also, did I mention that the Weasleys have too many kids?

They have too many kids.

It’s a numbers game, really. The more kids you have, the more time you have to use for household chores (you need to clean more, wash more, cook more, etc.) You also have less time to spend time with each kid individually. This is especially true for quality time – so time that isn’t spent on chores or education. Time that is spent playing and talking with each other, just to enjoy each other's company.

Molly is already working three jobs. She doesn’t really have any opportunity to spend time with her kids equally. She’s too busy looking after the home and teaching the older ones, while watching the younger ones and making sure the twins don’t burn the house down. 

I just don’t see her spending quality time with her kids regularly, because of this. It’s just difficult to talk with Charlie about his favorite dragons or read something to Percy or to play with Ron, when there is always someone else who needs her more. Full diapers. Empty stomachs. Unyielding stains of unknown origin on Arthur's work robes. A sudden explosion on the second floor. And probably everything at the same time and all the time.

So yeah. Chances are that her attention and her affection can be pretty hard to come by at times. (To a certain degree, this also applies to Arthur, because he is away from home so much.)

Let’s look at the timeline.

It probably starts pretty harmless:

1970 - Bill is born, and he’s the only kid for two years. Yeah, it’s Molly’s first child, and she is a really young mother, but she is a stay-at-home-mum, and it’s just one kid. It’s mostly her and Bill who are at home, and her workload isn’t all that big, because she can use magic for most stuff. The war has started, but it probably hasn’t kicked into overdrive just yet, so this shouldn’t affect her too much either.

1972 – Charlie is born. Molly’s workload is expanding, but things should still be pretty manageable. Also, they don’t have another kid for almost four years. This allows Molly to adjust to caring for two kids. She can also relax from both pregnancies and births. If it wasn’t for the war, this might be her favorite years as a mother.

When Arthur is involved in parenting Bill and Charlie, it’s probably on the weekends. I can imagine him taking them out to do fun stuff, so their mother can get some rest. It’s probably a great time for him, because he can bond with his boys. I can’t see him do much more than that, though. Molly has a handle on things, and interfering could be seen as overstepping.

1976 – Percy is born. This is probably the moment, where the attention-distribution in the family gets a little bit wonky. Molly has three kids now, and it’s the middle of the war. Bill is almost six, which means that she has to start teaching him, while simultaneously nursing Percy and keeping Charlie entertained/away from trouble. This is probably still manageable. She can wait a little longer with teaching Bill, so she can teach him and Charlie together. She can also hand him (and maybe Charlie) over to Arthur, so he can teach him/them on weekends.

Additionally, Arthur is probably still taking Bill and Charlie out for some bonding-fun-time. However, the war is in full swing now, so leaving the house gets increasingly dangerous. Their trips will get shorter and stay closer to home. They will happen less frequently, too. He will also end up working more because of the war, doing overtime much more frequently. When he is home, he is going to be exhausted, as a result.

1978 – Fred and George are born. The attention-distribution in the family falls off a cliff.

This is when Molly's workload starts to become overwhelming. Charlie will be 6 at the end of the year, Bill will be 8. She has to start teaching them, if she hasn’t already. Otherwise, Bill will not be ready when he starts Hogwarts.

And on top of everything, Molly has to take care of the twins. She has to do everything that needs to be done for a newborn – times two.

So her workload explodes. Molly is raising five kids, now. She needs to educate Bill and Charlie, nurse Fred and George, and has to make sure Percy doesn’t fall to the wayside completely. She also has her household chores that aren’t related to her kids. The war is still raging on. Arthur is probably tied up at work most of the time, and when he is home, he’s exhausted. And Molly will be pregnant again in a year. (Really, why do they have so many kids during a war? One or two, I would understand, but this is getting irresponsible.)

This is probably the time when Bill has to take over at least some chores, not just to learn how to do them, but to take some pressure off of his mother. This might not be parentification yet, but it will get worse over time. I assume he has to look after his younger brothers a lot.

On top of all that, it is increasingly hard to shield the kids from the war. At least Bill and Charlie are old enough to understand that things are really, really wrong and scary. And there is not much Molly can do about it.

1980 - Ron is born. The twins are already old enough to open cupboards. Molly is not having a great time. She probably hands over Percy to Bill and Charlie (“Go, play with your little brother!”), so she can take care of baby Ron while keeping an eye on the twin shaped chaos that is growing by the day. She will be pregnant again in a couple of months.

Bill (who will be 10 at the end of the year) and Charlie (8) still require teaching. Percy (4) isn’t old enough just yet, but he will be, soon. (And, let’s face it: It’s Percy. Chances are that he wants to learn, even now.)

The war is still in full swing. Arthur is still overworked and underpaid. Everyone is tired and scared. This also affects the kids. There is probably a lot of pressure on Bill as the oldest brother to watch over his younger siblings, to make sure all of them stay safe. They don’t spend much time outside their home, because it’s just too dangerous to do so.

Around 1980/81 is also the time when Molly’s brothers Fabian and Gideon die. (Gideon can be seen in the photograph that was taken of the Order before James and Lily went into hiding, so he was still alive back then. But we know that he dies soon after the photograph was taken.) Molly never talks about her brothers in canon, but this must have been horrible for her.

1981 – Ginny is born. They are seven kids now. Fabian and Gideon will be dead by the end of the year (if they aren’t already.) Molly’s workload is at its peak, while her ability to pay equal amounts of attention to her kids is at an all-time low. She’s grieving, the rest of her family is in danger, and Arthur is stuck at the ministry. This means that she will likely lean on Bill’s support even more. As Charlie is 8 now (and will be 9 at the end of the year), Molly might consider him old enough to help, so he might see an increase in responsibility, too. At this point, we are in parentification-territory.

With each day, the twins grow more into the troublemakers we see in canon. This sucks away attention and affection from their siblings (simply because they need to be watched and disciplined).

I think the following years are very formative for the family dynamics between the kids. It’s probably less pronounced for Bill and Charlie (who are stuck with chores and babysitting-duty and will leave for Hogwarts soon-ish) and Ginny (who gets more attention because she is the youngest child and only girl). It’s worse for the others. Percy, Fred, George and Ron are basically in direct competition for their mother's attention. I think the dynamic develops as follows:

Fred and George are active and pretty extroverted. They explore a lot and start to play pranks on their family members. This is overall harmless, but Molly has to pay attention to them, to make sure that no one accidentally gets hurt. From this, the twins learn that they can get Molly’s attention by causing trouble, so they will lean into it even more.

This sucks away attention from Percy and Ron. It causes Percy to veer hard into the opposite direction: He tries to gain Molly’s attention by following all her rules and fulfilling her wishes. This earns him her affection and will turn him into her golden child in the long run. It will also put a strain on his relationship with the twins, because Molly compares them a lot, especially when angry. This will cause Percy to perform the “Good boy”-role even harder (because he doesn’t want to be treated like the twins), while they start to resent him on some level.

Ron on the other hand is still too young to affect the family dynamic on his own. He internalizes that his mother cares more about his siblings and that there is nothing he can do about it.

The only good news: At the end of the year, the war ends. This will bring a lot of relief. (It’s short term relief for now, things will need some time to go back to normal.)

However, the end of the war also means, that Percy gets a pet. Either late in 1981 or early in 1982 he (or another member of the family) finds a rat that is missing a finger on its front paw. Percy keeps him and calls him Scabbers.

We all know who Scabbers is, of course. I just want to highlight how fucked up this situation is. Percy is 5, when he adopts him. Because he was a little kid, he probably took him everywhere without a second thought – into the bathroom, into his bed, you know, everywhere. There is probably no part of Percy’s body Scabbers hasn’t seen. Percy probably told him everything, too, all his worries, all of his fears. It’s just creepy.

And keep in mind, Scabbers – Peter – is not just a random wizard. He is a Death Eater and mass murderer. We don’t know if he ever hurt Percy (there are fanfics that do explore that possibility). He probably didn’t, but the idea alone is nightmare fuel.

To get this back on track: This could have impacted the sibling-relationship, too. It depends on whether the other kids were allowed to keep pets.

With that, we are done with the war and with Molly’s time being pregnant. The family dynamic is already fucked up – and it will get worse, as the kids get older. However, this post is long enough, already. So we’ll take a break here. Next time, we will look at how the dynamics shift, once the kids start to go to Hogwarts. See ya!

[indigo-scarf]

Did you know?

Hermione doesn't actually call Ron "Ronald" like he's an idiot and she's a nagging wife from a 2000s heteropessimism comedy.

She only calls him "You — complete — arse — Ronald — Weasley!" the one time when he comes back after leaving in DH.

[whinlatter]

What’s something about Ron Weasley as a character that you think is underrated?

That Ron is really, really funny, and that his sense of humour isn't a sign of immaturity or gratuitous comic relief for the reader's sake, but an absolutely essential part of what both Harry and Hermione value in Ron as a character as an antidote to their own tendencies (moodiness and seriousness/anxiousness, respectively). Ron makes bad days bearable to get through for the people around him. I think people mistake Ron making jokes for a lack of emotional awareness, but I actually think it’s the opposite. By the series end Ron is literally the most emotionally well-adjusted of the central canon characters. That line about Peeves’ poem right at the end of DH when the war is won (“Really gives a feeling for the scope and tragedy of the thing, doesn't it?”) is a) brilliant and b) such a great manifesto for how Ron’s outlook on the world — not humour as emotional avoidance, but humour that sits within all the grief and pain and suffering, and makes it that bit more bearable. So yeah Ron Weasley’s love for chuckles is Important and Overlooked and I will keep saying it til I am blue in the face

[toorumlk]

Hi I'm so freaking obsessed with your twitter.

Also what's your favorite Romione moment in the books and why?

ohohoho thank you, friend, i’m quite proud of some of the stuff i’ve posted on there B)

and as for my favourite romione moment in the books, when i read the question i first blanked out for a couple minutes, thinking of a bunch of smaller, sillier scenes. but then i remembered that i do have a favourite and it’s from chapter 11 of DH, when remus visited the trio at grimmauld place and filled them in on he goings on of the war -including the implementation of the muggle-born registry. ron’s response upon hearing this (after his immediate outrage) was

and it’s not just the hand holding and the “‘you won’t have a choice’ said Ron fiercely” that played out so vividly in my head like this:

but this scene demonstrates so perfectly the political weight of this pairing (muggleborn/blood traitor) which i think is the immovable narrative foundation of romione. all of their silly moments and idiosyncrasies aside, there is genuine narrative purpose behind this love. ron has always had an astute understanding of the blood supremacist politics of the wizarding world (need i remind that he was ready to curse shitco at the ripe age of 12 for calling hermione the in-universe slur) and just how wrong it is. ron is a pure-blood wizard and by design has so much privilege in this society bc of it, but by virtue of having parents like arthur and molly, he’s grown up knowing the importance of fighting against blood supremacist ideology. always.

so, after hearing about the completely horrifying muggleborn registry ("People won't let this happen," said Ron. "It is happening, Ron," said Lupin.), he immediately turns to his muggleborn best friend and love of his life and says “i’m making you a family member, i’m going to use the protection my family-name has and use it to protect you from the awful injustice of our situation, no you won’t have a choice but to let me help you”

i remember having such a… visceral reaction while reading this scene like holy shit .. these kids, THESE KIDS!!!!! this is the bone-marrow-deep love that makes me feel insane. this dynamic of the blood traitor/muggleborn always there, from CoS all the way to the epilogue. We get to see that romione is the story’s pure blood/muggleborn that finally made it (rip jily and tedromeda :(). we see it in hermione keeping her muggle last name after they get married (oh my god these two actually got married) and we also see it in the hyphenated Granger-Weasley (granger being first!) in their kids’ last names (oh my gof these two had TWO kids). they are a true symbol of change and progress in their world.

also this is one of those moments where i’m so glad that our only window to romiones relationship development is through harry’s narration because it so brilliantly shows the readers this blossoming love story instead of just telling us about it because harry obviously doesn’t have access to the inner thoughts of his two best friends, he can only witness them fall deeper in love. showing the audience acts of love is always more powerful and my god is this an act of showing your love to your beloved.

(and not to go on an unrelated tangent, but this is exactly why i could never ship my girl hermione w any DE or DE-adjacent character. no fucking way. not when the concept of a muggle-born registry exists in this universe, not when the antagonists in this story wish to eradicate people like her from their society. idk about the rest of y’all but im going to keep taking the narrative seriously bc the worldbuilding obviously has real world ties/implications and i like engaging with the canon. tangently to the tangent, i saw someone (a ron basher) on twitter say that ron, OUR RON FROM THE ABOVE EXCERPT, was “one bad day away from becoming a death eater” ohhhh ohhh i ought to beat you with sticks bc HUH? this is the same kid who said he would’ve boarded the train back to kings cross if he got sorted to slytherin, the house notorious for birthing DEs, at the tender age of 11)

anyways, all this to say is that romione is incredibly, realistically, materially romantic and i love them and i love their love <3

[arliedraws]

Has anyone written a micro fic about the five-ten minutes when Sirius and Ron were alone in the Shack before Harry and Hermione burst in?

Lol @ Sirius hiding behind the door btw

I started writing something myself but it’s blah.

[constitutionalweasleymonarchy]

I really wish some Ron fans would take a step back and realize how Ron antis have successfully lured you into playing on their field via the neverending social media moral purity circlejerk, buying into their arguments in your efforts to debunk them.

Whenever I hear a Ron fan say something about how the author did him dirty in HBP and how HBP was written in some kind of weird effort to malign him while glorifying Hermione and everyone else, i want to flip a table. You know why? Because in making this argument you are buying into the idea that Ron was some kind of awful person in that book (or at least really looked like one) and the only way you can combat that notion is by saying, "uh, well, yes, but the author intentionally wrote him wrong because we all know Hermione is her self-insert so she had to level the playing field."

I read HBP before social media had become anything like it is today, and before I was involved in any way with fandom online. HBP did nothing to lessen my love for Ron -- absolutely nothing. It did nothing to lessen my love for Hermione. It made me love them more, individually and together. The fucking humanity and heartache evoked in those characters in that book -- via their imperfect and completely fucking human attitudes and actions -- is wonderful. These are two young people each convinced that they are not being seen by the person they want the most. And they're dealing with this on top of the stress of school and the impending war and just how much it fucking sucks to be 16 years old. (And the fact that they have "more important" problems, by the way, doesn't magically make people behave more maturely and rationally when it comes to "silly" personal issues. That's some other pure unrealistic nonsense I've heard.)

I'll bet when you read it, HBP did nothing to lessen your love for Ron either. It was only after you began entertaining and internalizing garbage on tumblr and twitter about how awful and "abusive" they were, because people like pretending they've never behaved similarly in their lives, and social media isn't known for fostering nuance.

I behaved at age 16 in ways I really wouldn't like to have held against me forever. In ways I wouldn't have liked -- or deserved -- to have held against me for even a month. Same at age 20. And 25. And sometimes even today. If you claim you haven't behaved in harmful ways rooted in your own hurt, I won't even engage with that. Because it's delusional.

Forget this "who was worse" trap. The great thing about Ron and Hermione is how evenly matched they are -- in force, in fury, in passion, in loyalty, in pigheadedness, in their desire to be loved and needed, in their deeply-embedded sense of right and wrong, and not least of all, in their ability to know exactly how to push each other's buttons when they're pissed off. They both have moments where they behave shitty in this book, but none of it is in a vacuum and none of it is without a catalyst. And that doesn't mean the action itself is okay, but it's a hell of a lot different from someone like, say, Malfoy, who is maliciously cruel without provocation, or Cormac "Her Lack of Interest Means Try Harder" McLaggen.

Sometimes in a relationship, you need to say you're sorry for causing hurt even if you didn't mean to do it, or even if you believe you were in the right or the hurt was started by the other person in the first place. Because that's part of having a loving, understanding, gracious relationship. It's also being willing to admit you've done something uncool without falling into a sense of despair that you're suddenly a bad person. And it's no different when you're talking about these two idiots. If someone points out Hermione behaved like x because she was upset when Ron did y, it doesn't mean we need to do mental gymnastics to prove that y was completely justified. Y might not have been justified. Or maybe it was. Either way, we can acknowledge Hermione was responding out of hurt, without it having to mean that Ron is the devil incarnate. And vice versa. We don't need to do the proverbial "oh you like pancakes so you must hate waffles" bullshit.

The first stop in combating Ron hate, should be for self-proclaimed Ron fans to stop trying to reason his bad moments into nonexistence. Stop giving the time of day to people who believe someone's dipshitted moments of indiscretion during a time of learning and growing somehow make him less worthy. You were never going to win an argument against that kind of mindset anyway.

[vivithefolle]

Hi Vivi! I'd like to ask something as a Ron fan. How abusive is Ron really in book six? He gave Hermione the silent treatment, and when I decided to research about the silent treatment I found it's a form of psychological abuse???? WHAT??? I love him so much but he literally disgusts me in this book, making girls cry, and what he did to Hermione isn't exactly forgivable. The more I think about it the less I like him which is a shame, because I would defend him with my life but the hbp makes it IMPOSSIBLE for me to feel sympathy for him. And it kinda icks me how hermione keeps crying over a boy who might not even be worthy her tears. Jkr clearly wants to villainize him in some way and make us hate him and think he's gross and unworthy. And unfortunately, that bitch succeeds by ruining his arc

Okay okay, valid. Somewhat.

Because. Really. Remember.

Who's the one who later *extends* the silent treatment?

I'm sure you've read some asshole basher's take on HBP!Ron and yeah it's certainly not his proudest book. But know who else is an absolute dickface who's not worthy of Ron's tears in that book?

Hermione.

Hermione and her "spared Ron one look of disdain". Hermione and her treating Ron coldly when he reacts to Lavender being nice to him (while Hermione withholds attention from him deliberately, WHICH IS ABUSIVE BEHAVIOUR but Rowling justifies with "oh but that's how girls are like tee hee"). Hermione and her "golden bullets", Harry and his "yeah Ron you may have just gotten assaulted but shouldn't YOU apologize to Hermione cause yknow it's basically your fault if she's an unhinged violent asshole who thinks she's allowed to hurt you as a form of retribution?". Hermione and her "I like really good Quidditch players". Hermione and, when Ron *immediately* tries to talk to her once he sees her upon returning from Christmas, her blatantly ignoring Ron and keeping the silent treatment going UNTIL RON'S BIRTHDAY IN MARCH. RON KEPT THE SILENT TREATMENT GOING FOR LIKE ~3 WEEKS, HERMIONE KEPT IT UP FOR MONTHS.

You see, the book keeps crowing that Ron is immature and stupid and isn't Hermione just so out of his league and so much better than him, isn't it such a tragedy that such a good girl cries over such an unworthy boy?

But then you remember the actual events, you remember the stuff that Hermione actually did and that Rowling treats as though it's just desserts for Ron or "girl stuff", you remember that Rowling talks at length about all that Ron fucks up and how he's sooo mean and horrible for making girls cry waaah... but then remember. Remember Hermione's actions, remember how Hermione treats Ron as though he belongs to her, how she consciously withholds affection from him to control him and once he subverts that control? She consciously, deliberately, physically attacks him. Then starts months of silent treatment that only end when Ron ALMOST FUCKING DIES.

At every turn, she proves worse than Ron ever is - Ron accidentally harmed Demelza, Hermione deliberately harmed Ron; Ron did the silent treatment a bit, Hermione prolonged it even as Ron tried to reconnect; only thing she didn't do is make Ron cry and that's because Ron isn't allowed to express hurt by crying because he's a boy, but she definitely hurt him just like he hurt her, and perhaps even worse because she deliberately targeted his insecurities.

And remember, Hermione is supposed to be "the mature one". "She who is out of Ron's league". The sacred all-knowing brilliant girl who is so nice and loving and only the worthy may wield, or something.

This is the behaviour of our "mature above all" goddess? Ron's behaviour, except worse because she does it for longer and with full intent? If Ron's behaviour in HBP makes him unworthy of Hermione, then what does Hermione's behaviour in HBP make her? I think, perhaps, it makes her unworthy of being considered someone Ron should "prove" worthy of.

In short: whatever Ron does in HBP, Hermione does, and worse. It's just that Rowling deliberately puts more emphasis on Ron's behaviour so you will think he's bad, and "softens" Hermione's bullshit with "oh but she's a girl, she's emotional, and it's really just Ron's fault she acted like an abusive dick :/" which in my language we call victim blaming and sexist double-standards.

Ron gets ruined by Rowling. And Hermione? Hermione is Rowling's idea of a perfect girl. A bossy, controlling nightmare who can make your "best friend" think it's YOUR fault she hit you. A dickhead who weaponizes her tears as a shield to deflect any form of criticism, an actual child who can't reflect on her behaviour for shit and will always make it everyone else's problem, a tantrum-throwing brat who for all her supposed "intelligence" has nothing to show for it but grades that don't mean shit in an actual job.

If Ron isn't "worthy" of this, then I'm happy for him. Indeed it feels more like Hermione, despite Rowling's intent, is less of a prize and more of a curse.

[artbyblastweave]

Years ago my father made a really astute observation about Ron Swanson, which is that the character is engineered in such a way that he’s going to have a polarized opinion on almost anything that comes up, *but* that opinion could be positive or negative, breaking in whichever direction is funniest. He picked up an umbrella and said, “Ron would look at this, and he’d go, “The noble umbrella has a clarity of purpose largely absent in todays youth; it’s the product of thoughtful and driven engineering, a market-provided means for the individual to solve their own problems instead of complaining about the weather and waiting for the government to do something about it . We should all be like Umbrellas.” Or he’d say something misogynistic about people who won’t expose themselves to the forces of nature now and again. And you’d just nod along no matter what he said.”

[dcafpaperback]

I was re-reading Goblet of Fire and something about the Quidditch World Cup chapter caught my attention-

"As Mullet shot towards the goalposts yet again, clutching the Quaffle tightly under her arm, the Bulgarian Keeper, Zograf, flew out to meet her."

"Dimitrov shot straight at Moran, who had the Quaffle, nearly knocking her off her broom."

So we can see from here that the Wizarding World doesn't gender discriminate women when it comes to sports. I mean, an international team participating in the World Cup consists players of both sexes. And that was the case for Hogwarts quidditch teams too. All houses had female players except for Slytherin but later I think around the sixth book even Slytherin had female players. But Slytherin just didn't have players who happened to be girls, not because of the fact that they were girls. Then why the fuck am I supposed to believe that Ginny's brothers didn't let her play merely because she was a girl ? I mean her brothers grew up in a world where intersex sports teams are the norm. Because she was the youngest, yes that's more plausible. But not because of her gender. This entire "Ginny trained herself by stealing her brothers' broomsticks" sounds inconsistent to the plot and very random. It would've made more sense if she was written to be naturally good at the sport much like Harry.

JKR sucks at writing female character arcs thanks to her internalized misogyny.

[sxnshxnxxnddxxsxxs]

how poor are the weasley’s?

i think this question really just encapsulates jkr’s shitty world building because there are so many interconnected elements.

oh and as always fuck jkr for the antisemitism, transphobia, racism, holocaust denial, barely veiled misogyny and the rest of her sins.

why is there poverty in the first place?

in a world with magic where you can create practically anything but food out of nothing why are people poor. especially when the you can’t create food rule has the caveat if you already have food you can just duplicate it. moreover in a world where theoretically you can get everything you need with the right spell why do you need money? the answer in all likelihood is probably convenience because most people don’t have time to find the spell for this that and the other. but if you don’t have money theoretically there is still a away to provide for yourself. also i’m pretty sure there’s no lore against just conjuring gold so theoretically there’s no reason to be without money.

the weasleys and mismanaging their money

in harry and ron’s first train ride we get the introduction to the weasleys poverty and the frankly ludicrous mismanagement of their funds. first of all we get that percy got brand new robes not because he had grown out of his old ones but because he was made a prefect and that he also got a new owl. then we get ron who has bill’s old robes, charlie’s old wand and percy’s old rat and no money for the trolley just his least favourite sandwiches. now i’ll come back to my thoughts on the robes in a bit. now charlie’s old wand is a known plot hole but still why did he get a new wand especially considering that charlie graduated from hogwarts in the summer of 1991 if you have money to buy a wand at that point in time surely it should go to the child who needs a wand and doesn’t yet have one. but say charlie just really needed a new wand then use the spare cash you spent on percy’s robes and owl. like it just gives irresponsible to not dedicate money to the kid that needs it the most.

what are the indicators of the weasleys poverty?

i ask this because while poverty certainly manifests differently in different situations i find that the way the weasley finances are described and how they are portrayed to live don’t quite match up. now the big one is when they go to gringotts in CoS when all that’s in the weasley vault is a small pile of sickles and one galleon. but i’d also say that that is the only real indicator of the weasleys being poor because the two main other factors are the hand me down clothes and books. now i personally don’t find this to be an indicator of poverty at all i actually find it entirely normal. as some who had a school uniform (i went to state school in the uk) they are not cheap one full set of my uniform (blazer, jumper, shirt, kilt and socks) cost upwards of £200 and in a pair of shoes that will last at least the year and that’s at least another £50 or so. so it was the unquestionable norm in my school that if you had an older sibling who had spare uniform because they were graduated or had grown out of it then you would wear it (provided it was in good nick) and it was the same with textbooks the syllabus barely changed unless the entire national curriculum was updated so if you could inherit a textbook or set text you would, in fact you were at an advantage if it was for something like english lit because the annotations would already be there. and even if you didn’t have an older sibling in my school we were actively encouraged to buy second hand books. like i’m sorry but i just don’t accept hand me downs especially in this context as being a sign of poverty. now there are very big indicators of poverty that the weasleys don’t have (and obviously irl you can still be poor and not have these apply to you i just think it’s worth mentioning) which are food insecurity and housing insecurity.

now i would like to make it clear that i don’t think that the weasleys are particularly well off i just don’t think that they’re destitute in the way jkr wants the audience to believe (possibly because she’s never interacted with poverty on a significant level) which leads me into my next point.

comparative poverty

most of the times that the weasleys poverty is being examined it’s in the context of a comparison to either harry or the malfoys who are all significantly wealthy (the malfoys more so than harry) which provides a very skewed perspective of how poor the weasleys are because i’d wager that hermione (who is implied to be upper middle class considering her parents are dentists) would look poor certainly next to the malfoys. with harry it’s harder to say just because we really have no clue how rich harry actually is.

class vs money

now this is both related and unrelated but partially because of jkr’s very inconsistent writing of the weasleys being poor and her world building or lack there of but the weasleys very much come off to me like an upper class family. and this is a reminder that in the uk money and class are very different and that one does not inform the other. money can help you present your class but that’s about it. it is more than possible to be upper class and not have a pot to piss in (or in the forever iconic words of beverly: not have a pot in which to piss). and i think that the weasleys being an upper class family that lost their fortune at some point really informs some of their decisions like the fact that they are a single income household when after ginny goes to hogwarts i don’t really see why molly wouldn’t get a job. and the fact that when when arthur and lucius fight it’s generally about money and arthur being jealous of lucius’s fortune which would make even more sense if at one point the pair were equals in the social hierarchy. not to mention that the weasleys are part of the sacred twenty eight and class and blood status are very closely linked in the narrative.

all this to say that when you examine the nature of poverty in the wizarding world especially when your case study is the weasleys it makes very little sense. not only the first question of why is there poverty in the first place (and why the hell is there inflation i could write a whole separate think piece on this tapped fucking money system). but since it does exist how does it manifest itself? like bills aren’t really a thing because houses are powered by magic and rent isn’t really mentioned i don’t think, the weasleys own their house (another class indicator). it just really doesn’t make sense to me. also i haven’t really included ron being bullied for being poor by draco because the majority of people are poor compared to draco and draco is a dickhead eleven year old like i doubt he even knows how money works.

[hollowed-theory-hall]

Hello!! So, I saw an argument about Harry's uhm looks? I guess. A lot of people basically headcanon him as someone buff. I digress, I'm part of the uhm more realistic? group. Harry's been starved and abused his entire life. I doubt he'll gain the weight and the height everyone else wants him to have. Years later. maybe. But in 6th year? While on the run? 3 years after the war? Doubt. do you think he would be able to get super tall and buff? Also, do you think its possible he used the same methods the dursleys used to punish himself?

I mean, anyone can headcanon whatever they want, but, I'll try to explain via quotes, what Harry's height and muscle situation is likely to be. I believe the reasons some headcanon him as buff and tall are:

Harry had pinned Mundungus against the wall of the pub by the throat. Holding him fast with one hand, he pulled out his wand.

(HBP)

He lifts Mundungus by his throat with one hand easily, and he practices Quidditch like 3 times a week at least. This implies that Harry has some muscle on him.

And he's mentioned to be James' height when he's 17:

James was exactly the same height as Harry.

(DH)

Which was supposedly tall, according to both, Harry:

tall and untidy-haired like Harry, the smoky, shadowy form of James Potter

(GoF)

And Voldemort:

the tall black-haired man in his glasses

(DH)

Now, let's put Harry's height in the context of other character heights. Particularly of interest are characters taller than him, to get an image of how tall is "tall." And some shorter characters to help figure out his exact height.

Sirius, Ron, Voldemort, and Dumbledore are all taller than Harry and exceptionally tall in general. They are each likely to be over 6 feet tall, making Harry likely less than 6' (183 cm). Supporting this is this quote:

Once the painful transformation was complete he was more than six feet tall, and from what he could tell from his well-muscled arms, powerfully built.

(DH)

This means Harry is less than 6' and isn't super buff. But, I want to get to his specific height, because I have a lot to say about character heights.

Like, Dumbledore is probably the tallest character who isn't a half-giant because he's towering over everyone except Hagrid and Maxime. In book 6, he's literally taller than all the inferi in the cave:

Dumbledore was on his feet again, pale as any of the surrounding Inferi, but taller than any too,

(HBP)

And Abeforth (who's as tall as Dumbledore) is taller than Ron, who's one of the other tallest characters in the books:

Ron looked slightly sick. Aberforth stood up, tall as Albus, and suddenly terrible in his anger and the intensity of his pain.

(DH)

Making the Dumbledores really tall. My estimate is around a whooping 6'5 (195 cm).

Sirius is mentioned to be taller than Snape, and the tallest Marauder:

said Sirius, standing up. He was rather taller than Snape

(OotP)

To Sirius’s right stood Pettigrew, more than a head shorter

(DH)

A head, in height, should be around one foot (30.48 cm). As the average height of a man in England in 1998 was around 5'8 (174.4 cm), this would make Sirius around 6'2 (188 cm), therefore taller than average, and Pettigrew around 5'2 (157 cm), shorter than the average, but still both at a reasonable height.

Ron is almost as tall as the twins at 11:

“Shut up,” said Ron again. He was almost as tall as the twins already and his nose was still pink where his mother had rubbed it.

(PS)

And, just, really tall in general:

He stepped forward. Not as tall as Ron, he had to crane his neck to read the yellowish label affixed to the shelf right beneath the dusty glass ball.

(OotP)

So I estimate Ron at around 6'3 (190 cm).

Voldemort who grew up on war rations is still described very consistently as tall, regardless of childhood malnourishment:

He was his handsome father in miniature, tall for eleven years old, dark-haired, and pale

(HBP)

tall, pale, dark-haired, and handsome — the teenage Voldemort.

(HBP)

Taller than Bellatrix (who's taller than Harry). Voldemort is also considerably taller than Pettigrew, as he has to bend to reach Pettigrew's arm when both are standing:

Voldemort bent down and pulled out Wormtail’s left arm; he forced the sleeve of Wormtail’s robes up past his elbow

(GoF)

I usually place Voldemort at around the same height as Ron, so 6'3 (190 cm).

Fred and George, though, are mentioned to be shorter and stockier, more similar to Molly's build:

Charlie was built like the twins, shorter and stockier than Percy and Ron, who were both long and lanky.

(GoF)

but are mentioned to shrink to become Harry in book 7:

Hermione and Mundungus were shooting upward; Ron, Fred, and George were shrinking

(DH)

I actually place the twins around 6' (183 cm) so they could be taller than Harry, but shorter than Ron. The twins are likely taller than Charlie.

Bellatrix, as a woman, should also be shorter on average, but considering how tall Sirius is mentioned to be, it appears the Blacks are just considerably taller than the average, even the women:

a tall dark woman with heavy-lidded eyes, who had stood at her trial and proclaimed her continuing allegiance to Lord Voldemort

(OotP)

She was taller than he was, her long black hair rippling down her back, her heavily lidded eyes disdainful as they rested upon him;

(DH)

So I place her at around 6' (183 cm) as well, as an exceptionally tall lady.

So where does this place Harry?

During the first 4 books, Harry is short and small for his age. When he's 13, he and Hermione are bit shorter than Pettigrew:

He was a very short man, hardly taller than Harry and Hermione.

(PoA)

(Ron, noticeably, is taller than Pettigrew at 13)

So, so Harry at 13 was around 5'1 (155 cm). And so was Hermione.

Then in between books 4 and 5 puberty kicks in and probably causes a slight growth spurt that makes him more attractive to girls around him:

Parvati Patil and Lavender Brown, the last two of whom gave Harry airy, overly friendly greetings that made him quite sure they had stopped talking about him a split second before. He had more important things to worry about, however:

(OotP)

And then he has another, larger growth spurt between books 5 and 6:

“You’re like Ron,” she [Molly] sighed, looking him up and down. “Both of you look as though you’ve had Stretching Jinxes put on you. I swear Ron’s grown four inches since I last bought him school robes.

(HBP)

“And it doesn’t hurt that you’ve grown about a foot over the summer either,” Hermione finished, ignoring Ron. “I’m tall,” said Ron inconsequentially. [Ron is objectively correct]

(HBP)

Post book 6 growth spurt, we know Harry is below 6' (183 cm) but close enough to 6' to be above the average of 5'8 (174.4 cm) and be considered "tall", and grow "about a foot" after said growth spurt.

I personally place his height at 5'11 (180 cm), to make all of the above make sense.

And while he is physically fit, he is likely very thin from years of malnourishment. So, he likely has some muscle on him, but he's very lean with little to no fat during his Hogwarts years (he'd likely gain more weight as an adult living peacefully with regular meals). So, Harry in the books isn't what I'd call buff, but he has some muscle and can definitely through a punch. As he grows older post-canon, I think he could get buff if he set his mind to it.

(I actually have notes about the height of a bunch of other characters. Hermione is shorter than Harry and Ron, but noticeably taller than Ginny (5'2 or 157 cm) and probably around 5'4 (162 cm) by book 7. Draco is said to be slightly taller than Harry "Harry did not dare look directly at Draco, but saw him obliquely; a figure slightly taller than he was" - DH, placing Draco at around 6' (183 cm))

For your other question, no, I don't think Harry self-harms, definitely not in any way related to the Dursleys, but that's a different post because I went off about heights.

[arkadijxpancakes]

Yes. The Weasleys had too many kids. An analysis. (Part 2 of 2)

So, where were we? Right. The Weasleys have so many kids that it fucks with their family dynamic and with the mental health of everyone involved. Last time, we looked at Molly and Arthur during the war. We ended in 1981, which means that all kids are born, now. Molly is still nursing. (It’s common to nurse kids up to two or three years, while slowly weaning them, so I assume that this is what Molly does.) She’s finally done with becoming pregnant every other year, however. And it’s about time, because her workload is bigger, than any single person can handle. And while it will decrease over time, it will stay enormous for the next couple of years.

1982 – Bill (who will be 12 at the end of the year) starts Hogwarts. It’s his first lick of freedom. There is no babysitting-duty at Hogwarts. All he has to do is stay out of trouble and earn good grades. Other than that, he is free to do what he wants. He will be the only Weasley-sibling in Hogwarts for two years. Because of this, his parents probably have enough money in reserve to buy him a full Hogwarts-kit without resorting to second-hand-stuff too much. (He might get second-hand books, but his robes and wand are probably new.)

At home, life is still hard for Molly. She has one less kid to take care of, but the kids who are still in her care are a handful. She still needs to teach Charlie. Percy got 6 over the summer and is a little nerd, so she is likely teaching him, too. Fred and George are still chaos incarnate. (And they are just getting started, really.)

Bill’s duties (chores around the home and watching his younger brothers) get passed down to Charlie. Percy might try his hand on this, too, because he is still in direct competition with the twins and Mum gives him attention when he helps her.

The war is over and the Weasleys start to feel the effects of this. As Death Eaters are captured and sentenced, the Wizarding World starts to feel safe, again. The stress eases off (but Molly is probably still grieving.) 

Arthur’s work schedule slowly goes back to more normal levels, allowing him to spend more time at home. However, he missed out on a big chunk of his children’s childhood. It’s also hard to return to his role as a parent, because at this point, the roles of the family are pretty much established: Molly is in charge and does most of the work. Some of the easier chores are passed down to her kids (first Bill, now Charlie, later Percy). This includes watching over his younger brothers while Molly takes care of her toddlers. It’s kind of hard for him to integrate himself into this dynamic. (Just imagine him doing the laundry or the dishes – it’s very likely that he has a different way for doing this, which could easily disrupt Molly’s workflow or simply just annoy her.) 

I think he will mostly stick to the stuff he did when Bill and Charlie were little. So he’s taking his kids out for trips on the weekends. But this is difficult, too, because it’s not Bill and Charlie anymore, but Charlie, Percy, Fred and George. Their dynamic is entirely different, and it’s hard to keep an eye on all of them, while also satisfying their needs equally. (Especially because Percy, Fred and George start to clash.) As a result, the trips are probably not as frequent as they once were.

It’s also possible that Arthur picks up his Muggle-hobby at this point. (Picking up this hobby causes him to spend at least some evenings in his shed, tinkering with Muggle-stuff instead of helping his wife. I imagine him to fade into the background a little bit, while he leaves the household and child-rearing to his wife.)

1984 – Charlie starts Hogwarts.

There are now two Weasley-Siblings at Hogwarts, but things are still pretty chill for them. It’s still just Bill and Charlie, after all. Bill is probably considered trustworthy enough by his teachers to receive a time-turner, so he can take all electives Hogwarts has to offer. (I do wonder how much Molly’s expectations are playing into this. She clearly expects her children to do well at Hogwarts, both in terms of grades and behavior. At this point, he is either a massive nerd like Hermione, trying to perform well to fulfill his mother’s expectations, or both. He is also setting a standard for his siblings here, whether this is on his own accord or because of pressure he receives from Molly.)

At home, Percy (now 8) takes over Charlie’s duties. He tries to control Fred and George. It’s likely that he fails miserably. They are just too close age-wise for this to work. 

Fred and George are 6 now and start to play rough. Last year, Fred turned Ron’s teddy bear into a giant spider (which probably caused Ron to develop arachnophobia). Next year, they will try to talk Ron into making an Unbreakable Vow with them. So keeping an eye on them is getting harder, not easier.

At this point in time, Scabbers exceeds the life span of his species. Rats can get up to two or three years old. (And Rowling knows this. This information is included in book 3, when Ron takes Scabbers to the pet store to have the witch there check on him.) This is Scabbers third year with the Weasleys, so his time is up. No one seems to notice, though. I don’t blame Percy (or the other kids) for this, but Molly and Arthur should notice that they don’t have to replace a rat or have a talk about how Scabbers is happier in the great rat heaven. They don’t and I wonder why. My suggestions are: a) They are either not paying any attention to Percy and his pet (which would suck) or b) Scabbers is turning into Peter and uses a wand (his own or Molly’s) to confund them as needed (which would suck even more).

1987 – Percy starts Hogwarts.

At the end of the 1986/87 school year, Bill (who is a prefect now) takes his OWL in all 12 courses Hogwarts has to offer. It’s possible he returns his time turner after this or keeps it until his graduation to deal with his NEWT-workload. He now starts his sixth year. Charlie is in his fourth year and is already on the Quidditch team. Molly is very, very proud of both of them.

Percy is a wee first year and doesn’t have to watch out for any younger siblings for once. He can focus on learning instead. He is probably the first boy in the family to end up with hand-me-down robes, as he has a similar build as Bill and Bill has probably outgrown his first set.

Scabbers is six, now. So he has lived twice as long as a normal rat would. Still, no one has caught up to the fact that he is awfully old for a rat. It’s very likely that he accompanies Percy to Hogwarts. (It should be noted that Hogwarts only allows cats, owls and toads as pets, so Percy probably got a permission to bring a rat instead. However, no one at the school notices Scabber’s age either.)

Life at home is still chaotic. Fred and George are 10, Ron is 8 and Ginny is 7. Molly is probably teaching all of them. Her workload is slowly going down to a more manageable level, but keeping the twins in check is still a challenge.

She probably doesn’t expect Fred and George to do chores and watch over their siblings. (At least not in the same way she expected from her older kids.) Mostly, because she can’t trust them to do it. (Remember the Unbreakable Vow? Yeah, that.) Additionally, Ron simply has no authority over them, so that’s not an option either.

1989 – Fred and George start Hogwarts.

In his seventh year, Bill was made Head Boy. By now, he took his NEWTs and left school. He probably returns home for a little while, before he takes the first chance he gets to fuck off to Egypt and play with cursed tombs. (We should probably talk about English wizards, Egyptian treasures and colonialism here, but that’s a completely different can of worms.)

Charlie took his OWL and is now in his sixth year. He’s still on the Quidditch team and should be Quidditch Captain by now. He’s also a prefect. So between them, they got all the big achievements Hogwarts has to offer: Prefect (both of them), Head Boy (Bill) and Quidditch Captain (Charlie). Bill also got 12 OWL, which is an achievement on its own. Molly will measure her other children against this later.

Speaking of Molly: While her home life is going to relax a lot this year, her expectations are still around. She is still expecting her kids to do well in school. Considering that Fred and George are now at Hogwarts, the old demand “Watch over your younger siblings!” is back and in full swing. I can’t see Charlie doing it – he has his head full of dragons and Quidditch and lived five blissful years in Hogwarts without the need to look after anyone all that much. Sure, Percy was at school, but he has already learned to look after himself. I don’t think Charlie will start with this now. Not unless the twins interfere with his prefect- or Quidditch-duties or are completely out of line.

Percy is a different story, however. He is in his third year and still taking after Bill. Just like Bill he takes all electives, so it is likely that he also gets a time turner for this. At this point, Percy has ingrained the idea that he needs to perform exceptionally well at school and Bill set an incredible high bar to reach, but he is willing to do just that. He also spent a lot more time at home dealing with the twins. Molly’s expectations for him to be a good boy and to look after his younger brothers will now put pressure on him again. He will probably try to control their chaotic behavior, but they are 11 now, and they will listen to him even less than before.

For Fred and George, this is heaven. They finally escaped the watchful eyes of their mother and have a whole new world to explore. So many secret passageways and even more victims to play pranks on. Percy is annoying, but they can play pranks on him, too. They will soon steal the Marauder’s Map from Filch’s office, which will open up even more possibilities. It’s great. 10/10, no notes.

Life at home is finally manageable. It’s just Molly, Ron and Ginny (and also Arthur and his Muggle-stuff). This is probably a nice time for Ron, because there are no older siblings around to steal his limelight. However, at this point he has the family dynamic internalized and his self-esteem is pretty low overall.

1991 – Ron starts Hogwarts.

By now, Charlie has left Hogwarts. It is unlikely that he actually finished his education, however. When Harry becomes a member of the Gryffindor team in Philosopher’s Stone, Fred says: “We haven’t won since Charlie left, but this year’s team is going to be brilliant.” Had Charlie finished his education, he would have left in summer 1991. The quote is from autumn 1991. In this case, the quote would make no sense, because there were no matches for Gryffindor to lose between Charlie leaving and Harry becoming Gryffindor’s new seeker. So he must have left before then, probably sometime in his sixth or seventh year, after his seventeenth birthday.

It’s important to note that we don’t read about any fights over this. I can’t imagine Molly being happy with this, but he must have had her permission. (Otherwise we would know about it. Molly can’t shut up about the failures of the twins, she would not shut up about Charlie’s failures either.)

Percy is in his fifth year and a prefect. By now he is the career-driven rules lawyer we meet in canon. He will end this school year by taking all 12 OWL – just like Bill. (When Ron is made prefect in OotP, Molly makes sure to tell everyone that he is now a prefect, just like his older brothers, and she seems very comfortable doing so. I assume, Percy heard his fair share of this, when he was made prefect.)

The twins are in their third year and members of Gryffindor’s Quidditch team. By now, they have earned themselves a reputation as pranksters.

Ron is the sixth Weasley-kid to enter Hogwarts. While his older siblings might have gotten some second-hand stuff, everything he owns was basically handed down to him: Bill’s old robes, Charlie’s old wand and Percy’s old pet rat. To be clear: none of those things make much sense to hand down (or at least not to Ron).

Bill’s old robes should have gone to Percy after Bill left Hogwarts. They should be of a similar height, while Ron (as an eleven-year-old) should be somewhat smaller. Instead of handling it that way, Percy got new robes as a reward and Bill’s robes were handed down to Ron. This is clear favoritism on Molly’s part. It’s no surprise that Ron (who already feels overlooked by his parents) feels upset about it.

Giving him Charlie’s old wand makes even less sense. We know, that the wand chooses its wizard. Charlie’s wand did not choose Ron, so it would not perform as well for him. In addition, in book 1 the wand is described as follows: “He rummaged around in his trunk and pulled out a very battered-looking wand. It was chipped in places and something white was glinting at the end.”

That thing is basically falling apart. That was either a lot of wear and tear during Charlie’s time at Hogwarts (considering the fact that we have not heard anything about this with other wands, this is unlikely) or the wand was already a hand-me-down when Charlie got it. In either case, giving Ron a wand that has its core more or less poking out, doesn’t sound very safe. I wonder why Arthur and Molly decided to do this. Did they expect Ron to have a great learning experience with a damaged wand? Did they want Ron to use the wand until it eventually did break, saving them another year or two before they had to buy a new one? (And yes, they would indeed need to buy him a new one in his third year, but they had no way of knowing that. Unless there are prophecies for that kind of shit. And even then. The fuck?)

Money is tight, of course. But is it really that tight? They could afford to get Percy an owl, after all. And buying a wand for their son is an expense they've had 11 years to plan. I understand getting second-hand robes and cauldrons, as they see a lot of wear and tear. But this should not apply to a wand in the same way. This is just really, really odd.

And then there is the elephant – and with elephant I mean rat – in the room: Scabbers. Firstly, that rat should be dead for at least seven years by now. No one seems to notice. No one cares. What the fuck.

Secondly, why is Percy giving his pet to Ron? There just isn’t a great explanation for this. Scabbers has been his pet for ten years. TEN. Percy should be attached to his pet like glue. After all, he has Scabbers since he can remember. Why is he willing to part with his rat? The only reasons I can think of:

1) He does it because Molly asks him to. She is clearly playing favorites, here. Not only does he get new robes when he becomes prefect, but he also receives his very own owl as a gift. It’s possible that this owl comes with strings attached, and Percy is required to give Scabbers to Ron to get the owl. Which would be a pretty fucked up situation for every child involved and should’ve been handled differently.

2) Percy wants to get rid of Scabbers. He doesn’t know about Scabbers’ Peter-shaped secret, of course (otherwise he would’ve reported this). But it is possible that he feels, on a subconscious level, that something about Scabbers is off. Not in a dangerous way (again, he would’ve reported this), just in an unpleasant way. (This would still be odd. Especially when we consider that no one noticed Scabbers age.)

3) Scabbers has decided that it’s time to jump ship. Percy just turned fifteen this year. He is old enough to grow suspicious of his seemingly immortal rat. It’s possible that he cozied up to Ron to manipulate both boys into making the switch. Or he turned into Peter and confunded some Weasleys. Who knows. He’s still a Death Eater and mass murderer on the run, after all.

1992 – Ginny starts Hogwarts.

The flock has left the nest. Molly’s work is mostly over. It’s just her and Arthur who stay at the burrow. She still takes care of the household, but the responsibility for her kids rest on other people’s shoulders, now. There is nothing left to do, except knitting, sending care packages, worrying about her kids careers and hexing the occasional howler. Molly could get a job now or pick up a hobby or two. I mean, she does read Gilderoy Lockhart’s shitty books. She is a fan of his, after all. But she doesn’t seem to enter any community over this (no fan club, no reading circle, no nothing. It’s just her). And there are no other hobbies outside of that. 

Apropos community: We don’t really see her having a community. She is a pretty important side character, but the books never mention that she has friends or other contacts outside her family. It seems like she is focusing on her kids and only on her kids.

Which would explain her meddling. Because Molly meddles a lot, when it comes to her kids and their futures. She keeps putting pressure on Percy to look after his younger siblings – this will expand to Harry after she gets to know him. Percy (still a good boy) does as she wishes. It’s not healthy, neither for him nor for his relationship with his siblings (who are mostly annoyed by him), but Molly either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care. In the future, she will be very cross with Hermione after reading Rita Skeeters articles about her. She will also be upset about the twins' career choice and Bill's choice of girlfriend…

And yeah, that’s basically it. At this point, the family dynamic is firmly established and ingrained in her children’s heads. Percy is already set up to explode in the near future. Being Molly’s Golden Child is neither good nor healthy, especially considering all the pressure that comes along with it. His relationship with his siblings isn’t all that great, either.

Fun fact: We don’t know if anyone ever told him about Scabbers’ Peter-shaped secret. If it did happen, it was probably pretty traumatic. That shit-show was his pet for ten fucking years and he handed it down to his younger brother. That’s nightmare fuel, even if Peter never hurt any of them.

The twins have firmly established themselves as troublemakers. At least some of their “jokes” really aren’t funny and border on cruel, neglectful and/or harmful. (Remember the Unbreakable Vow? Yeah, still not funny. In 1993, they also tried to lock Percy in a pyramid. Yes, I don’t think they wanted to hurt him, not really, but that thing was still a cursed tomb. Things could have gone wrong, and at that point they were old enough to know better. In their last year they tested their joke-sweets on younger students who were neither adequately informed nor old enough to consent for something like this. Yes, they tested the sweets on themselves first, but something could still have gone wrong because of allergies and all that stuff. And after they left Hogwarts and started their joke shop, they do sell love potions to students, complete with options to smuggle that shit into school. Additionally, instead of going bad/losing their potency, those love potions get stronger with age. This alone is a horror story waiting to happen.)

Ron is affected, too. His self-esteem is pretty low when he starts Hogwarts and it will stay that way throughout the series. This will inform a lot of his decisions (especially the bad ones) in the future. 

We don’t know much about how all of this affected Bill, Charlie and Ginny. Bill and Charlie just aren’t as involved in the narrative, and Ginny stays kind of… bland and love interest-ish… throughout the story.

So… yeah?

Am I saying that the Weasleys did not love their kids? No, of course not. Especially Molly shows her love regularly. (Her love is more like a water hose than a watering can, however. Very intense and focussed on a single spot at a time, instead of reaching all her kids equally.)

What I am saying is that the Weasleys, as a family, are pretty dysfunctional. Many factors are playing into this – Molly’s and Arthur’s dynamic as a couple and as parents, the number of their kids, the war, etc. It’s impacting all of them negatively. Molly is stressed out, Arthur is out of touch and some of their kids lose their trust (either in their parents, in their siblings or in themselves.) It also makes their love feel conditional. The twins feel this whenever Molly is comparing them with their older (more well-behaved) brothers. Percy feels this when he comes home with that promotion and is demoted from Golden Child to family-traitor within a heartbeat. Ron has internalized it and desperately seeks attention and affection elsewhere.

They still love each other, but it’s a difficult position to be in for most of them.

And the worst thing: I don’t think Rowling notices any of this. She did not intend the family to be as dysfunctional as it is. She keeps portraying the Weasleys as this great, loving family who took Harry in when he needed it the most. And of course they did – but that’s not all there is to it. There are so many issues that go unresolved in the books. Molly never learns to back off. The responsibility for the conflict between Arthur and Percy is placed entirely on Percy, despite Arthur being at fault, too. The twins never really learn that a prank can go too far. Ron doesn’t really solve his self-esteem-issues. Rowling does start to give him some character development regarding his self-esteem-issues multiple times, but he always seems to revert back over the course of the summer holidays. 

The family really deserved more effort to go into the writing.

Note: This analysis is not meant to say that stay-at-home parents are bad or that Molly should have gotten a job while having seven little kids at home. What I am criticizing is the way we treat care work. Because it is work, and a lot of work. A stay-at-home parent is often on call 24/7. A stay-at-home parent never really gets to take a break, never can take a day off, and never just can leave their work for another day. But they do deserve breaks and days off, just like any person with a day job. And that is where their partners and the rest of their families come in.

And this is the other thing I wanted to criticize here: The way we glorify living as a nuclear family. It’s said that you need a village to raise a kid and I do think this is true. Having more people involved in child-rearing (be it relatives, neighbors or professionals like teachers) is a boon. Families had access to this for millennia. Raising your kids with the help of your family and your village was normal, up until very recently. And it’s a shame that the Weasleys seemingly had no help like this. And yes, I do see the fault with Rowling, who wrote them that way. She basically took the concept of the nuclear families of the 1980s and 1990s and slapped it onto the family, without any world building at all.

(Please also note, that I consider stay-at-home parents to be different from tradwives. When I use the term “tradwife”, I am specifically referring to stay-at-home mothers who do not just take care of their household and their kids, but who also commit themselves to having as many kids as possible and who tend to take on other duties (like homeschooling) as well. The most common examples of this are probably families who belong to fundamentalist Christian churches or cults.)

[saintsenara]

What do you think of the trio's post-canon careers? Because recently, something that has really captured my imagination has been the idea of healer Ron.

The profession, of course, most often crops up in Dramione fic where Hermione has taken up at St. Mungo's (laughable-- this is a girl who needed Harry to unstopper the dittany because her hands were shaking so bad, and frankly, I shudder to think of her bedside manner) but it is predictably absent when veering off the canon course with Ron. This is such a shame because his willow wand is outright good for healing magic (and it is a fairly uncommon combination that he has! The only other person with a willow and unicorn wand, fascinatingly enough, is Lily Potter.)

Ron is also the only person who's canonically interested in healing as a profession (he's immersed in the leaflet for it at breakfast.) He remembers the spattergroit incident from OOTP and then uses it as a cover story in DH. In Half-blood Prince, he takes the exact same classes Harry does, which means he has the grades required to go into auror training, yes, but they are coincidentally the same requirements a student needs to meet in order to apply to be a healer. (On that note: Ron and Harry were clearly high academic achievers and the fanon assertion otherwise needs to be beat back with hammers.)

But the reason why I think healer ron would've been a cracker of a route to go down is just how refreshing it would've been. The Girl of the team, the gang, the trio, being the Healer and Caretaker is such a TRITE trope at this point. DADA Professor Harry is a classic, but this is my case for Healer Ron deserving to be up there. Send his ass back to Hogwarts again if you have to (Hermione will definitely be pleased). Have him intern with Madam Pomfrey for a year and then grumble behind Neville while he takes notes on medicinal herbs. Healer Weasley, who's a big hit in the paediatrics ward because he makes the kids laugh. Who flirts with the oldies and plays chess with the curmudgeons. Who just cares, more than anything, and will bring you a cup of tea no matter the hour, no questions asked. I really do think he's got the disposition for it. What do you reckon?

thank you very much for the ask, anon!

i am immediately compelled by the concept of ron-versus-wizarding-medicine. because, certainly, i never see him as someone who stays in the auror office long-term - i think it makes sense for him immediately post-war, especially when he will undoubtedly just want to keep busy and hunt down baddies as a reaction to fred's death, but i think he only stays in the role after this initial burst of vengeance until he feels comfortable leaving harry in a high-risk situation on his own.

because, of course, ron's vibe with everything he touches in canon is influenced by the fact that he's someone predisposed to being caring [right down, as you say, to his wand]. the bit in prisoner of azkaban when he offers to make a cup of tea while hagrid's in hysterics about buckbeak's death sentence is something i find genuinely lovely, for example, and i do think - as you note - that there's something really striking about ron occupying that caring role within the trio which a fanon deviation to trite gender dynamics in which men are stupid and women are nurturing undermines in a supremely tedious way.

i'm not sure, though, that i would back ron in any specialism of healing that could be classed as emergency medicine - he has the vibe of, and i mean this with great affection, the sort of surgeon who habitually leaves sponges behind in patients - but i would back him in specialisms which need to be a bit more holistic or slower in pace. his chess skills - and his good intuition - suggest to me that he'd be a pretty effective diagnostician, and i obviously think he'd have a great bedside manner.

healer ron, then, is going to be at his best, absolutely, in something like paediatrics, which means that i'm going to take your suggestion about him interning with madam pomfrey and run with it to say that ron as hogwarts matron [or whatever the non-gendered version of that term would be] is his ideal career.

think about it! the work's varied and sometimes complicated, but it's not too high-pressure because really serious cases will be sent to st mungo's. the work will frequently relate to things that ron is interested in, like quidditch. and the work will frequently require ron's key talent - being sound - to shine. this is a man who would do an excellent job, i think, of handling mishaps caused by teenagers trying to hex their own acne off, or offering tea and sympathy to the homesick or the recently dumped. i think he'd do a great sex-ed presentation, would manage to charm honeydukes into giving the school its medicinal chocolate at a huge discount, and would be considered a huge legend by the student body for always being willing to certify to the teachers that someone who used a puking pastille to get out of class was actually sick.

as for the other two, i much prefer hermione as a barrister than as a civil-servant - not just because of her temperament but because i think the change she wants to bring to wizarding society is going to be won primarily by her slapping on a wig and gown and being condescending to witnesses.

as for harry, i like to stick to him as an auror. while i have some exceptions, i'm actually really not fond at all of professor potter as a trope - and, even more controversially, i really don't like the concept of professor riddle - largely because teaching is far too sedate for someone who runs on adrenaline as much as harry does.

and - i must be honest - i think the idea of harry as a teacher [or a healer or a quidditch player] often hangs on people feeling uncomfortable with the idea of him as, to all intents and purposes, a police officer. but i quite like taking that in the opposite direction, and playing with harry's canonically black-and-white morality and capacity for self-righteousness to have him - while not a corrupt or sadistic auror - a complacent one. i like the idea of him as someone who thinks that he always applies the law justly and so the law is therefore just, and so on - and the fact that this would allow him to overlook his own childhood lawbreaking is part of that...

[thecarnivorousmuffinmeta]

I just realize something about Ron having a secondhand wand. He got it from… Older brother, right? And that older brother presumably got a new wand? So if they could afford to buy the older brother a new wand, why did he give up a wand that was presumably semi-suited for him (and poorly suited for his younger brother), Instead of them using the money to buy Ron a wand suited for him instead? Is there some sort of licensing scheme where baby’s first wand costs more than buying a “replacement” ? I am so confused. Can you help?

Ron is not the favorite son.