Chapter Two: A Peck of Owls
In chapter two of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix Mrs. Figg is a boss, Aunt Petunia’s hair is full of secrets, and Uncle Vernon gets off a good one-liner for once.
(Please be advised that this is a reread and I will be discussing book and movie spoilers.)
Mrs. Figg opens our chapter by bossing Harry and Dudley around, beating Mundungus Fletcher with cat cans, and revealing she’s been watching over Harry this whole time and hold on just a second here. This woman, a Squib, with no magical powers, has been watching Harry for 14 years stealthily (thanks for making sure she wasn’t nicer to Harry, Dumbledore! *eyeroll*) and comes to his aid after he’s been attacked by dementors even though she has no ability to defend herself from soul sucking monsters. What I’m saying is, Mrs. Figg is a badass and I want more of her.
Finally the world’s second most awkward three-legged race (first place of course, is given to Ron/Lupin/Pettigrew) ends and Aunt Petunia is, as usual, only concerned about the health of her own son and not Harry because she’s a horrendous aunt.
So Aunt Pee, Uncle Vomit and Dud are all freaking out in the kitchen while Harry tries to escape but too late, because an owl shows up, and whoops, he’s been expelled! Excuse my language, but at this time I’d like to say
From what we learn later on, underaged wizards are creepily “traced” for all magical activity but not, and I repeat NOT, those who live in households with grown wizards because it’s impossible to track who is doing magic in a house with multiple magical people. This is honestly one of the most egregious mistreatments of wizards and witches growing up with Muggles. Yes, the adult wizards are “supposed” to monitor their children’s magical activities (like the Weasley’s do) but are you telling me that the Malfoy’s don’t let Draaaaco use magic outside of school?! Of course they do! With no punishment! Man this book makes me heated on behalf of Harry.
Harry, as any reasonable person at this point, is like eff this I’m running away and not surrendering my wand, and then he receives an incredibly unhelpful owl from Arthur Weasley telling him not to surrender his wand but also somehow not do magic (!?!??) which…thanks, I guess Arthur?
Uncle V interrogates Harry about what’s wrong with Harry and we get a little glimpse on a mystery concerning Dudley that I was dying to find out for years. Dudley is strongly effected by the dementors. But what does he hear? What effects Dudley so strongly his personality changes from this point on?
But Order of the Phoenix doubles down on the mysterious, and we get the reveal that Aunt Petunia knows what dementors are when she references “that awful boy” (somewhere James Potter nods vigorously) telling Lily about them.
The Ministry, that bastion of upright morality, has changed it’s mind about expelling a kid and destroying his wand without a trial and then Sirius somehow sends an owl even more useless then Arthur’s that tells Harry to stay inside.
Uncle V pries some more details out of Harry, not knowing the fire he’s playing with, that he might unless the mightiest of beasts: CAPSLOCK!Harry.
Aunt P finds out that Voldemort’s back, and she reacts like she actually might’ve loved and cared about her sister and stick a pin in that one, because it will never, ever come to fruition and we’ll all be disappointed that she ever tries to make up for her shitty treatment of Harry.
Uncle Vernon for once entertains me (…ok, the fruitcake hammer was amazing) by calling Voldemort “Lord Voldything” and look, we need to owl Malfoy to borrow his button maker so we can make these badges.
Uncle Vernon tries to kick out Harry, a fifteen year old minor in his legal care, and then Aunt Petunia gets a mysterious (take a shot!) howler telling her to remember something or other and she refuses to kick out her nephew to get murdered.
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Why is the system to monitor underaged magic so unfair?
Why doesn’t Dumbledore let Mrs. Figg tell Harry who she really is?
Who has the less helpful owl: Sirius or Arthur?
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