Chapter Four: Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place
In chapter four of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix Harry is in a RAGE, the twins try their best to be awesome, and I talk maybe my most unpopular opinion about anything in the books.
(Please be advised that this is a reread and I will be discussing book and movie spoilers.)
Harry’s been hit with the triple weirdness of a random phrase about a phoenix, a secret hidden house, and Mrs. Weasley being in said house with a bunch of other wizards and witches Harry’s never met. But no matter, no one thinks it’s important to explain to the traumatized and brave child what’s going on!
Piling on, he’s informed he can’t attend whatever meeting is going on, and then is told to be super quiet for reasons unknown before being punted sideways to the other children and DANG Harry is so justified in his capslocky!rage and I will never be convinced otherwise.
Hermione and Ron unknowingly poke Harry until he’s like:
Yet don’t sense their full danger and plow on, revealing that Dumbledore made them swear not to tell Harry anything, and look, I get that Dumbledore is scary, but when I was a teenager, there was absolutely no chance that I would’ve listened to Dumbledore and not told my friend Harry what was up. No. Chance. I am terrible at keeping secrets! (Do not tell me your secrets.)
Even WORSE, they reveal that they were aware that Harry was being tailed by wizards/witches even though Harry WASN’T aware and NSFW comment ahoy, but dang were those spying adult wizards and witches lucky they didn’t catch Harry errr….engaging in…um…teenage boy activities since he thought he was ALONE YOU CREEPS.
Ron and Hermione set Harry off worse by giving each other looks that say “wow Harry’s being a problem” and before they know it, they’ve got CAPSLOCK!HARRY aimed at their heads.
Harry screams his little heart out and while I usually don’t advocate screaming at your lovely friends my goodness does this boy get a pass from me. Hermione tries desperately to apologize (that’s my girl) and empathize (love you Herms) and then answers Harry’s questions about the Order of the Phoenix.
Fred and George show up and remind us again that the Fred/George/Harry friendship is seriously undervalued, because HPotz chills the hell out almost immediately. New!Ginny shows up to be confident instead of writing terrible love songs and making buttons with the Creeveys (come on this totally happened at some point) and we get some hot, delicious Weasley gossip!
First, Bill is dating Fleur, and in retrospect this is a tad creepy since Fleur is 18/19 and Bill is roughly 25 or so, but let’s skip past this because we love Bill but YIKES.
Ok, are you offended by that controversial Weasley opinion of mine? Because in the infamous words of Samuel L Jackson in Jurassic Park:
I was debating even saying this because I’m pretty sure absolutely no one will agree with me. But…here goes!
I talked before about growing up poor, and relating to Ron for this reason. We’ve discussed my feelings on #JusticeForPercy. And I can’t help it, I do feel Percy has a kernel of truth in the awful, terrible things he says to Arthur in this book. Do I think Percy was right and behaved well? Absolutely not. But Arthur took his son’s excitement at his promotion and shit all over it, saying Percy only got it because Fudge wants to spy on him, Arthur. This is probably true. But this is a horrible thing to say to your hardworking son. Percy goes nuclear, and says it’s Arthur’s fault that the family is poor and…well. I am touchy about a few things. Sexism. Unfairness. But one of my button pushers is parents who don’t do what they can so their children don’t suffer in poverty. And I think Percy has a point. Arthur’s not pursued better paying jobs in the Ministry. Molly is a homemaker even though all of her kids have been out of the house for years. And that makes them happy, and that is their right. But because of these choices, the Weasley kids had second hand stuff. Ron didn’t have a working wand for a year. We see instances where Ron, Ginny, and the twins get bullied for owning second hand items. I’ve been there, and I can’t discount how horrible and hurtful this is for a kid. I think the Weasley’s are great people and great parents. But if Percy is upset that they didn’t try harder to provide for their kids? I can’t argue with that. I do feel horrible for poor Molly, and I do think Percy handled this very badly. But so did Arthur.
Now that I’ve offended everyone!
Has Harry’s day sucked enough? No? Well now he’s got to learn that the Daily Prophet is shitting all over him, turning him into the butt of jokes about how craaaaazy Harry Potter is to discredit him and AUGHHH this book makes me like a mama bear over Harry.
HPotz tries to apologize for being a raging a-hole to his best friends and Ron and Hermione act like the amazing BFF’s they are and tell him no apology needed. Also, watch out for the local crazy house elf, surely there will be no repercussions for being rude to this guy!
But nevermind all of that, because SIRIUS IS BACK and he’s got five new layers to his personality!
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What is your most unpopular (for the fandom) Harry Potter opinion?
Does the age difference between Bill and Fleur matter?
Seriously, why didn’t Hermione and Ron tell Harry something in their letters? Was Dumbledore that terrifying?
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