Chapter Five: The Whomping Willow
In chapter five of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets Harry and Ron steal a car, fly it for hours, and crash it into a tree instead of y’know, waiting two minutes for Mr. or Mrs. Weasley to come back and help them get to Hogwarts. In other words, a typical PotzWeaz adventure that the very presence of one Hermione Granger would’ve solved.
(Please be advised that this is a reread and I will be discussing book and movie spoilers.)
We start out our chapter with 7 Weasley’s and a Potter (a fantastic band name) frantically getting ready to make the train, which they drive to in the car for what is clearly the first time, which seems like not a big deal but leaves me with two thoughts. One, how exactly the Weasley’s got to King’s Cross every other year and two, the interesting notion that even nice witches and wizards like Mrs. Weasley can make comments about Muggles that are rather condescending. This is a recurring theme in our books with almost every witch or wizard who isn’t part Muggle or Mr. Weasley that I find fascinating. We get our clearly bigoted purebloods who hate and sneer at all things Muggle, and we get little comments like “Muggles do know more than we give them credit for, don’t they?” I mean yes we, the Muggles, are boring compared to the fascinating wizard world, that’s why we love these books. But we also have a reliable method of communicating called telephones that don’t involve a creature with feathers carrying a note for days, hours, or weeks in their beak.
In any case, the Weasley’s are super late, and the Weasley parents make the phenomenally short sighted decision of going through the barrier before Ron and Harry, as if PotzWeaz are known for behaving rationally without Hermione around.
Also, it is really lucky for Dobby that the Weasley’s did so, or else what would he have done to stop Harry from going back to Hogwarts?
So Ron and Harry can’t go through the barrier, and decide the most reasonable course of action instead of waiting a few minutes for Ron’s wise magical parents is to drive an illegal flying car for hours. I jest but honestly, this completely and entirely sounds like something two young boys would get up to, especially without Hermione there to do this at them when they suggest it
Our lovable boy hero idiots proceed to fly an illegal car for hours and in the movie this is a long scene full of wild action, Hedwig praying for someone to just let her out to fly already and Ron making this face
but in the books is more realistically actually kind of boring, as is almost any car trip, until they crash into the Whomping Willow and sneak into school. In the movies for some reason we are deprived of this truly hilarious moment
“Hang on…” Harry muttered to Ron. “There’s an empty chair at the staff table…. Where’s Snape?”
“Maybe he’s ill!” said Ron hopefully.
“Maybe he’s left,” said Harry, ‘because he missed out on the Defence Against the Dark Arts job again!”
“Or he might have been sacked!” said Ron enthusiastically. “I mean, everyone hates him –”
“Or maybe,” said a very cold voice right behind them, “he’s waiting to hear why you two didn’t arrive on the school train.”
Harry spun around. There, his black robes rippling in a cold breeze, stood Severus Snape.
Snape even more hilariously pretends to be mad that the Whomping Willow was damaged when we all know he plots how to burn it to the ground for it’s role in James Potter saving his life. McGonagall punishes them with a normal detention for flying a car and being spotted by Muggles instead of oh, taking 50 points each and assigning them a detention of possibly getting eaten by a monster in the Forbidden Forest, leaving me to wonder who this imposter is and what she’s done with Minerva McGonagall who is supposed to punish students by almost killing them.
Enough of me, though, what I want to know is
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Be honest, would you have flown the car?
What was Dobby’s plan if Harry and Ron hadn’t gone through the barrier last?
Do you wish Snape had caught Ron and Harry in the movies instead of Filch?
And did the punishment fit the crime?
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