Percy Weasley - Tumblr Posts
Gorgeous
🎤🎤🎤 Them softest boys
(Heavily inspired by 'good old-fashioned lover boy' by aeoneskova, one of the best perciver fic!!!!)
Gorgeous
🎤🎤🎤 Them softest boys
(Heavily inspired by 'good old-fashioned lover boy' by aeoneskova, one of the best perciver fic!!!!)
Gorgeous
🎤🎤🎤 Them softest boys
(Heavily inspired by 'good old-fashioned lover boy' by aeoneskova, one of the best perciver fic!!!!)
The last goodbye
Pairing Harry Potter x Gn Weasley reader
Summary the Y/n Weasley Ginnys twin brother/sister dies in the battle of Hogwarts.
A/n I felt like writing something sad before I go to sleep. I'll probably writing something Happy in the morning. I don't own any gifs used. Based off the song All I want.
Warnings death, blood, sad
Y/n Weasley and Harry Potter were the perfect couple. The couple everyone would talk about . It was the Ball of Hogwarts and Y/n and his/her twin Ginny had refused to go home. They wanted to fight. " Stay safe Y/n." Harry said. " Same to you Potter. " Y/n replied before pressing a quick kiss to Harry's lips. Yet Harry couldn't shake the feeling that this would be the last time he saw Y/n alive.
All I want is nothing more
To hear you knocking at my door
'Cause if I could see your face once more
I could die a happy man I'm sure
Y/n was cautiously walking down the halls looking for anyone who may be in need of help. That's when he/she saw his/her older brothers Fred and Percy. Fred was laughing at something and didn't notice the wall about to crush him. Y/n did though and did the only thing he/she thought to do push Fred out of the way. " FRED!" The last thing Y/n saw was Fred and Percy getting up before the world went black.
But if you loved me
Why'd you leave me?
" Y/n?" Fred called. " Y/n come on stop messing around. " Fred called again. " Fred over here!" Percy called. There lied the motionless and bloody body of Y/n. Their little sister/brother. " NO!" Fred screamed and Percy brought your body to the Great hall.
Take my body
Take my body
All I want is
And all I need is
To find somebody
I'll find somebody
Like you, oh, oh, oh
Oh, oh, oh, oh
You
Like you
The family of gingers slowly started coming in. Molly let out a heart breaking cry but that wouldn't be the one filled with the most pain.
But if you loved me
Why'd you leave me?
Take my body
Take my body
All I want is
And all I need is
To find somebody
I'll find somebody
Harry. Harry had seen your dead body. He had a feeling he shouldn't have left you but another part of him had told him you would be ok. Harry let out a scream so heartbreaking and desperate you could hear it from were you were now.
Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh
Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh
Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh
Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh
Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh
Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh
You watched your family break down from Heaven. You whispered I love you to your family and Harry and some how they heard you.
All I want is
And all I need is
A few years later. Harry is talkingtoyourgrave . " hi Y/n the burrow feels so empty without you. The Weasleys are starting to get better and Ginny is starting to eat a little again. I miss you and wish more than anything that you could just come home.
To find somebody
I'll find somebody
Like you, oh, oh
I feel like not enough people ship Percy/Oliver. Hear me out
They are both obsessive (Percy with rules, Oliver with quiddich) and with them being in the same dorm (and they were roommates :)))). Also Percy was a headboy and Oliver sneaked out a lot for quiddich (sooo late night meet ups ;))))). There isn't a lot of talk about Oliver losing house points, boyfriend privilege ;)))) ?????)
Just a thought but I love them so yeah :)
Percy: Mother, it's time to stop treating me like a child. And it's also time to stop feeding us dragon-shaped chicken!
Molly: But you love your dragon chicken!
Percy: Yeah...when I was eight.
Fred & George: We are men now, Mum!
Charlie: *playing with his chicken* Rawr rawr rawr rawr!
OLIVER AND PERCY THO
If Harry Potter characters had a PowerPoint night
Fake Dates & Family Dinners | Percy Weasley x F!Reader
Description: Fed up of his brother’s teasing, Percy enlists the help of a friend to act as his girlfriend during a family dinner.
Warnings: food + eating, cheesy, female pronouns (let me know what i’ve missed)
authors note: fuck it *posts fic i promised a year ago*
It's a short walk from the apparation point to the front door of the burrow, a stroll really. (Y/N) eyes everything around her in unbridled awe, the tree swing made from an old broom stick and dirt path snaking towards the small pond she recalls from Percy’s stories.
She tries now to pull them from him again, anything to ease the nerves that have taken up in his body at the sight of the lopsided house growing closer upon approach.
She toys with the idea of taking his hand, clenched a mere few millimetres from her own by their sides, easing his fingers flat and linking them with her own, squeezing to remind him that, somehow, his ludicrous plan will work.
Ludicrous, but in some twisted way it is genius, because it was designed by him.
He was similarly awkward when he first told her, the bell above the door drawing her eyes to him as it has million times before only to give way to a sheepish wreck of man, starting with apologies before even saying hello. A startling transformation from the level-headed, ministry employee who first walked into her book shop a year before.
Still he explained his predicament, that, in desperate need for peace from his brothers teasing, he blurted out a declaration of a relationship that did not, in fact, exist, and with it, her name.
“You told your family that we’re dating?”
“Your name just slipped out,” He admitted sheepishly, “Like some instinct I never knew I had.”
She's still telling herself that she’s just his most recent friend, or that her name slipped out because he knew she’d help him, anything to dismiss the fuzzy feeling in her chest.
Still, she agreed to do him the favour, and the honour, of being his fraudulent girlfriend and he laid out his plan, one sure to save him from brotherly teasing and motherly matchmaking attempts for at least a month or so.
All they need to do is make it through dinner.
They made rules of course, sat down together days ago and wrote them out on a scrap piece of parchment, no doubt tucked somewhere in one of Percy’s pockets as a reminder, as if he might forget, as if Percy Weasley has ever forgotten a rule.
Still, written in his usual haphazard handwriting, molded from years of frantic note taking, they agreed on the following:
Hand holding ✓
Kissing ✗ ( no matter how much the twins pester )
Pet names ✓ (Sweet Cheeks, Pumpkin, Freckles, Darling✓)
Even at the top of the list, hand-holding with no one to witness, with no benefit to the ruse, feels too intimate and so (Y/N) keeps her hand hidden in her pockets all the way to the front door, resisting the temptation.
“Are you ready?”
Facing him, (Y/N) traces his face for the concern he hasn’t let slip in his voice, the subtle scrunch of his brows illuminated by the flickering lamp screwed above the door as the sun begins to set. She breathes out a small laugh, shaking her head.
“Are you?”
She pulls her hands free to fix his collar with a disapproving tut, muttering about how he’s going to give them away instantly looking like such a nervous mess. He watches her as her fingers straighten the knot of his tie in stunned silence, gulping softly as she rambles.
“I mean honestly- weren’t you head boy?” She shakes her head, “Surely dinner with your family will be a breeze.”
“It’s different with family,” He manages, regretting it only when her hands freeze in surprise and he’s suddenly compelled to joke his way awkwardly out of it. “Especially with the twins… they’ll tease me for the rest of my life if they find out this isn’t real and I suspect I’ll be getting enough of that from you anyway.”
She chuckles.
“The chances are pretty high,” She agrees, “But don’t worry about them, you’ve got me tonight.”
“I suppose I do.”
Her hands are still on the curve of shoulders when the door swings open, breaking their locked eyes and causing the goofy quirk in their smiles to drop as they spring apart.
“I knew I heard someone outside!” Mrs Weasley’s voice announces, “You must be freezing-”
Percy recovers first, clearing his throat and straightening in an almost professional manner that makes the blush taking front on his cheeks look ridiculous. His mother, smirking subtly, gives him a look that only makes it worse.
“Sorry, dears,” She smiles warmly, “I never meant to interrupt…”
“You didn’t,” Percy assures quickly, “I was just about to knock.”
“Good evening, Mrs Weasley,” (Y/N) greets, smiling sheepishly by Percy’s side, “I’m (Y/N).”
“Of course!” Mrs Weasley beams, “We’ve all been excited to finally meet you- Percy’s been quite secretive you know.”
(Y/N) grins back at Percy, nudging him with her elbow as they’re led into the house by his mother. He rolls his eyes as he pulls off his coat, holding his arm out for hers and hanging them by the door.
“Anyway, you’re here now,” Mrs Weasley concludes, “Dinner is just about ready so we’re all in the kitchen- come on,”
She’s already starting down the corridor and Percy nods (Y/N) forward with her, gulping to himself as they approach the room full of laughter, instantly met by the greetings of Percy’s red-headed family.
Percy is pulled into a sea of open arms, met with cheerful hellos and haphazard hugs across tables before returning to (Y/N)s side apologetically, straightening his glasses with a sheepish smile.
“Look who finally arrived- we’ve been waiting hours to meet your special someone,”
Nudged childishly with an approving snigger by his mirror-image, (Y/N) recognises him as one of the twins. She hears the slightest of sighs from Percy’s lips and catches his eyes roll with familial affection.
“This is (Y/N),” He introduces, throat catching on the title that comes next, “My girlfriend...”
“Nice to meet you,” (Y/N) smiles politely, feeling suddenly victim to Percy’s nerves under the watchful gaze of his family. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”
“All good things,” Mr Weasley smiles from the end of the table, “I hope.”
“Oh, of course,” She assures, “I feel like I’ve been here a million times before just from his stories… you have a wonderful home.”
Mrs Weasley, a dish hovering above her wand as she slips behind them, breathes out a soft chuckle, warming at the compliment before instructing to them their seats.
Percy cringes at the places left, across from the Cheshire Cat grins of Fred and George. As he pulls a chair for (Y/N), he finds himself fixing them a stern warning glance that sends him momentarily back to his head-boy days.
“Thanks, Darling,”
He blinks in surprise as it hit his ears, startled for a second at hearing it aloud, no longer confined to the small crumbled note in his back pocket. (Y/N) smiles up at him, a smile he’s used to, a smile that’s greeted him a million times before each time he steps into the shop.
He feels that ease of familiarity unfurl in his chest again, nodding subtly before taking his seat beside her.
“This all looks lovely, Mrs Weasley,”
“Thank you, Dear,” Mrs Weasley beams, “Help yourself- quickly, before they take the lot.”
(Y/N) does as instructed, joining the mild chaos, in the most affection way, that is a Weasley family dinner. Percy, watching her almost in awe, nearly misses his chance at the potatoes, only realising as she’s spooned some knowingly onto his plate.
He’s glad for the initial distraction of the food’s arrival, then, for the dull clink of cutlery and the occasional compliments to the chef as the meal begins. Anything to drag the attention from himself, the eyes watching in wonder, sparkling with what he knows well as mischief.
For a while, Fred and George’s animated stories from the store allow him to slip into a false hope that perhaps the evening will go smoother than he’s imagined, perhaps he’ll be able to avoid any questions about his fraudulent relationship all together
However, it’s his father who shatters his false sense of safety, filling a lull in conversation with the topic everyone’s been waiting for.
“So, (Y/N),” Mrs Weasley begins, “All we’ve gotten out of Percy is that you have a store yourself. What’s that like?”
“I love my little shop,” She admits honestly, “I’ve always loved to read… you can hardly tell my flat from the store I've that many books, so it’s my ideal career, really.”
It’s the safest question anyone could ask, Percy realises. He loves to hear her talk of books, to see how animated and bright her face becomes, as though she’s brimming with so much passion it overflows. He thinks back to weekday evenings, just before closing, listening as she rambles about her latest read.
“It’s actually where I met Perce,” She adds, startling him as she turns to face him, “Right?”
“Eh, yes,” He blushes, “It was.”
“He came in like five minutes before closing, stressed out of his box- I brought my wand out thinking he was in some sort of danger-“
“I wasn’t that bad,” He argues.
“I thought you were being chased, Freckles.” She grins, “Turns out he was just in desperate need of a book on pixies.”
“My flat was becoming overrun,” He defends, though a grin has begun to twitch at his lips, “You felt bad for me, made me a cup of tea while you went to find them… then you read them with me for a few hours until we decided the best way to get rid of them.”
He can remember it so clearly, her hand dipped into her robes, eyes wide with shock. He was exhausted, desperate for a moment's peace from the pixie giggles in his floorboards.
Part of him was always hoping she forgot about his terrible first impression, but now, something in his chest warms at her recollection of it and the amused twinkle in her eyes as they hold his.
“Romantic,” George chuckles across the table, breaking their shared moment, “Could have guessed he’d pick a girl up at the bookstore.”
“Oh leave them be,” Mrs Weasley dismisses scoldingly, “It’s a very sweet story, Dear,”
“Thanks, Mum,”
“Aw, you’re all red, Perce,”
Part of him hates how quickly meals around the family dinner table make him feel like an awkward teen again, as if he hasn’t a full time job and a flat of his own. Then again, beside him, his fake girlfriend makes him feel utterly, helplessly boyish in away only a pretty girl ever could and in a way she never has before.
“Oh, leave them be,” Mrs Weasley scolds suddenly, to Percy’s, admittedly disbelieving, relief. “At least let them finish their dinner first.”
.
“Merlin,” (Y/N) says, the delight of a smile in her voice, “Look at your hair.”
Percy grimaces as his eyes land on the picture, promoted by the soft nudge of (Y/N)’s elbow against his side. He should have known the photo album would star in the after-dinner events.
“Thank you, George,” Percy looks up across the room, “The photo album was an inspired idea.”
“Oh, you’re welcome.”
Percy rolls his eyes before returning them to the album on (Y/N)’s lap. He chances a glance up to her face, her lips-parted in delighted awe with smiling eyes as she turns the pages with a gentle touch to the ageing paper.
“Are you studying… at Christmas?”
Blushing as her eyes meet his, caught in his observations, he clears his throat before following her finger to the picture in question. He’s maybe fifteen in it , scowling over the top of a textbook, displeased at being disrupted, or perhaps at the flimsy paper crown balanced precariously on his mop of red curls, procured from some Christmas cracker and undoubtedly placed upon his head against his will.
“Yes... “ Percy admits sheepishly, “It is.
“Christmas?” She repeats softly in disbelief. “Percy…”
“He was always studying,” Mrs Weasley sighs. “Always working too hard - that’s why we’re all so glad he’s got someone looking after him now.”
(Y/N) smiles over at her fake boyfriend, sneaking her hand into his and squeezing it gently. Mrs Weasley eyes the interaction with a mischievous look in her eyes.
Even as the conversation moves on, and long past the retirement of the photo album, their hands stay joined. His thumb traces back and forth over her knuckles as they listen to the other talk and occasionally (Y/N) glances down and wonders if it's a conscious decision, specifically designed to stir butterflies in her chest, because he’s certainly doing a good job of it.
It’s late into the night when they stand to make their goodbyes. Percy is left startled by the cold absence of (Y/N)‘s hand as she’s pulled into a chain of hugs and promises of next times.
It’s George who claps him on the shoulder on the way out of the living room, grinning on his way past.
“She’s lovely, Perce.” He says, “Perfect for you, actually.”
“Yeah…” Percy glances over at his friend, her head flung back with a laugh at some joke Ginny is telling, and his lips quirk into a small, proud smile at the sight of her. “She’s pretty great, isn’t she?”
George rolls his eyes at the smitten look on his older brother’s face, that only softens more when (Y/N) meets his eyes and grins. George pulls him into a hug, then slips around him into the hall.
“Night,” He says, “Loverboy.”
After more goodbyes than (Y/N) can count, she finally finds herself back by Percy’s side, searching, on some strange new instinct, for his hand. When she finds it, she smiles up at him and he feels that warm rush again.
“It’s lovely to have met you, (Y/N).” Mrs Weasley smiles from beside Mrs Weasley. “I hope we haven’t put you off with all the ruckus.”
“Oh, never.” (Y/N) assures. “I’ve had such a nice time, and the food was amazing - The cheesecake will be in my dreams for years to come.”
“Oh you should have said, there’s plenty left over.” Mrs Weasley says, with a strange edge to her voice that makes Percy give her a look of subtle suspicion. “Arthur will take you through to grab a few slices if you like.”
“Huh?” Mr Weasley blinks in surprise, “Oh, of course.”
“Really?” (Y/N) asks in surprise, “That’s so kind.”
Mr Weasley nods the young woman down the hall and Percy’s brows twitch with disappointment as (Y/N) disappears from his side. Mrs Weasley gives him a knowing smile and he can’t help but gulp nervously.
“She’s a lovely girl, Percy.”
“Yes,” Percy agrees, clearing his throat awkwardly. “She is.”
“You look wonderful together.”
“Thank you,” Percy says. “I’m glad you think so.”
His mother’s eyes narrow just slightly and Percy shifts uncomfortably under her scrutinising look. For a second he tries convincing himself that she’s bluffing, that she knows nothing.
But this is a woman who raised six trouble-making children, and when she folds her arms and tilts her head towards him, she knows he’s been caught and his shoulders sink disappointedly.
This must be how Fred and George felt their entire adolescence.
“You know.” He exhales. “How do you know?”
“I’m your mother, Dear.” She says, “I know everything.”
He manages a small laugh, exhaled from his nose. She places a hand on his arm, squeezing as she used to when he was little, when his siblings were teasing him, or when he wasn’t happy with his grades.
“Why did you feel the need to make up a relationship, Percy?” She asks softly. “I hope I wasn’t putting any pressure one you-“
“No,” Percy assures sheepishly, “I just needed a break from Fred and George constantly teasing me about being single… I guess I’ve not quite grown out of getting wound up by them yet.”
Mrs Weasley manages a chuckle, shaking her head in disbelief. She lifts her hand to cup Percy’s cheek, unable to resist the urge to then straighten his lopsided glasses.
“What silly children I have.” She shakes her head with a sigh. “But, I’ll give you that you certainly fooled your brothers.”
“Yeah?”
“You’re all too young to know the difference between the look of someone in love, and the look of someone still falling.” Mrs Weasley says, “And you were falling in love tonight, Percy, you know that, don’t you?”
Percy feels his cheeks warming. He glances subsconscious down the hall, where he can hear (Y/N) laughing. He thinks back to the living room, their joined hands and secret glances, that warm feeling in his chest everytime she smiled at him.
He nods.
“I think so.”
The chatter down the hall begins to get closer and Mrs Weasley smiles sympathetically at her red faced son.
“I meant what I said though,” She adds. “I like her and she’s great for you, Dear. It’s nice to see you having fun, getting up to nonsense for a change.”
“I’m not sure how I feel about that compliment.”
Behind Mrs Weasley, (Y/N) appears from the kitchen, holding the box of cheesecake in the air excitedly. Percy can’t help but grin at her excitement, and how his father seems just as excited for her.
“I secured the goods.” She jokes, “Thank you so much, Mrs Weasley! For the cake and for the lovely evening.”
“No need to thank me.” Mrs Weasley chuckles, pulling the young woman into a hug. “We hope to see you again soon.”
“That would be wonderful.”
“Get home safe.” Mr Weasley nods. “And enjoy the cake.”
Percy opens the door, the cool night air calming his warm cheeks. He gives his dad a final hug, and then, with a final sheepish look, he turns to his mother.
“Thanks, Mum.”
“Goodnight, Dear,” She sighs quietly. “and she’s falling in love too, you know.”
She lets him go then, a mischievous look in her eyes once more as she waves them out the door. Percy, a little dazed by this final conclusion, allows (Y/N) to lead him down the path with their arms linked as she calls a soft final goodbye to his parents.
The moon is large in the cloudless sky and it illuminates their path with subtle pale light. The stars are extraordinary here, without street lights and headlights. (Y/N) beams up at them as they walk, but Percy can’t bring himself to tear his eyes away from her.
“My mum knew.” He blurts after a moment, causing (Y/N) to slow to a stop. “That we were faking it.”
“Oh no.” (Y/N) says. “I’m sorry… she must be annoyed.”
“I think she found it rather funny, actually.” Percy smiles a little. “And she really likes you, regardless.”
“Yeah?” (Y/N)‘a face brightens, proud of this. “I’m glad, I was really worried she wouldn’t.”
“Really?”
“She’s you mum, and she’s important to you… of course I want her to like me.”
She says it’s so flippantly, but it makes Percy feel close to melting. He doesn’t think she notices when she takes his hand this time, beginning to lead them towards the apparition point again.
“It was still a good night though, wasn’t it?” She rambles softly, “And I am obsessed with this cheese cake- we should go back to the shop and eat it there, if you like-“
“Can I kiss you?”
(Y/N) freezes, turning to face Percy in surprise. He’s blushing, she can see it even under only the light of the moon, the red rushing to his cheeks and engulfing his freckles one by one. She feels herself growing just as flustered, gulping to herself.
“What?”
“I- I think, maybe, the reason I blurted your name out when the twins were teasing me was because I’ve been wanting this for a while.” He admits, “and mortifyingly, my mother made me realise that today and I’ve decided nothing can really be as embarrassing as that, so I’m asking you if I can kiss you…please.”
She bites her lip to hide the smirk threatening to take over at his ever so polite rambling. With one hand still held in his, the other holding the leftover cheesecake, she slips her fingers from his and lifts her hand to rest on his chest. .
“But Sweet Cheeks,” She says, batting her lashes innocently, head tilting teasingly to the side. “That's against our rules, and I know how much you like your rules.”
With the realisation he’s being teased, he rolls his eyes and dips his free hand into his pocket for his little post-it note of rules, crumpling it into a ball with a half hearted look of annoyance that makes her laugh.
“I’m sure I’ll live with breaking this one.”
(Y/N) smirks at the cheesiness of the statement, shaking her head in disbelief.
“You dork.”
Sighing, he pulls her in with his hands on her waist, a smirk of his own beginning at the sound of her hitched breath. She glances from his eyes to his lips, biting her own in nervous anticipation.
“Can I kiss you now?”
“Yes please.”
She leans in first, lips finding his softly, moving slowly, tentatively. She expects it to feel odd, to kiss her closest friend, but something clicks, falling into place and she finds herself pulling him closer somewhat needily with her hand behind his head. He’s just as quick to return the sentiment.
They pull apart breathlessly, and Percy finds himself wondering how they’ve deprived themselves of such a pleasure for so long. Her own surprise morphs into a short laugh.
“We’re removing the no kissing rule.” She decides. “That’s going to have to be a regular thing.”
“Oh, definitely.” He agrees with a laugh. “Pumpkin.”
Her head dips back with a laugh and he prides himself in being the cause of such a reaction. He can’t help but steal another kiss when she straightens again, feeling her smile beneath his lips.
“Let’s go back to the shop and eat cheesecake.” He says. “It can be our first real date.”
Stepping back, (Y/N) glances down at the cheek cake still balanced on one hand, slightly crushed from their kiss. Another laugh escapes her, but she’s nodding, reaching for his hand again.
“That sounds like a perfect first real date.”
Today, we've got letters to Charlie from his siblings throughout the years created by @liiilyevans. They're filled with angst, happiness, and apprehension. Enjoy and make sure to click on the photos for better quality.
strict parents with bill weasley
u n e x p r e s s e d
fandom- Harry Potter
pairing(s)- billy weasley
a/n: I've never done him before, so im happy that i'm expanding the characters i write for, hope you're happy with how this turned out :)
requested- yes
warnings- none i hope
Billy Weasley was the original, the one with all the cards up his sleeve and plenty of quick retorts and answers. He'd manage to climb your window and perch himself upon its sill, his favourite spot to make a quick escape from your parents.
what you wouldn't give to see Molly have a look at her son now, her sweet, obidient and charming son sneaking around and climbing fences to spends a few minutes to see a girl he's in love with.
it was past twelve, and your parents had found themselves in some meeting, a perfect oppertunity for a certain red head to keep you company.
Just the sight of you would have been enough, even just letters, but billy has always been marked as an overachiever. So why would he not take a few risks to see a sight as pretty as you? I mean he'd just do about anything to make that eye contact that would stop his heart just to get beating again when she turns around blushing.
that's all the Weasley needed, that and maybe a kiss to keep him warm on the way back?
It was'nt a secret that you adored the boy and appreciated the ends he would go for you but his presence in your bedroom was very much a secret.
it was annoying really, he could only stay for maybe a few minutes at most and has to rush before your parents take a whiff of any funny buisness, but i supposed you could say it worked.
he passed you a box of candies he's got from god know's where and leans in and goes for a peck, then quickly jumps off and leaves.
your knees buckled.
holy god he just kissed you
for the first time-
weasley just stole your kiss
and brought chocolates
oh my fuckin god
Lately, I have some plot bunnies gnawing at my brain cells. The newest: Percy never broke off contact with Charlie. It was very low-key. Every other week or so, Charlie would send a letter. No accusations, though. No demands. No questions either. Just pictures of his cute*, scaly babies.
And sometimes, Percy would send pictures back.
(* "Cute" by Charlie's standards. Percy would have used very different descriptions.)
Now I picture something like this.
Percy:
[image.png]
Charlie:
You’re avoiding the question
Charlie:
That dog looks so done with your shit and I’m living through him vicariously
Percy snorted.
-
okay so i might be having too much fun with this-
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!
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.)
The additions are awesome, yes! I completely forgot about Sirius. It is interesting to see, how this scene compares to others.
When it comes to Percy, I'm still surprised how subdued his crying in that scene is. Because, yeah, Rowling does respect him less. She also has a tendency to write him in a pretty feminine manner. It's still a stark contrast to his mother, however. She gets mentioned just before the quoted scene and is described as bursting into tears. This is the whole exchange:
Mrs. Weasley burst into tears. She ran forward, pushed Fred aside, and pulled Percy into a strangling hug, while he patted her on the back, his eyes on his father.
“I’m sorry, Dad,” Percy said.
Mr. Weasley blinked rather rapidly, then he too hurried to hug his son.
“What made you see sense, Perce?” inquired George.
“It’s been coming on for a while,” said Percy, mopping his eyes under his glasses with a corner of his traveling cloak. “But I had to find a way out and it’s not so easy at the Ministry, they’re imprisoning traitors all the time. I managed to make contact with Aberforth and he tipped me off ten minutes ago that Hogwarts was going to make a fight of it, so here I am.”
It's a pretty sharp contrast between the woman (who shows her emotions freely, but is depicted as kind of unreasonable for this) and both men (who suppress their emotions). I also wonder what this says about their conflict. It doesn't really feel solved, to me.
Guys who Cry in the Harry Potter Books (and Why)
Men do 30% of the crying in the Harry Potter books, even though they represent 66% of the characters (and that's pretty much as expected).* I’m interested in why the crying happens though, and what it says about the characters. For the ladies, crying is neutral - they all cry, and for all sorts of reasons (tired, frustrated, stressed, emotionally overwrought...) Bellatrix, Augusta Longbottom, Ginny, Tonks… all cry. *Hermione* cries thirty separate times over the course of the books.
Male crying though, that's something that gets mocked (usually by Slytherins.) Pansy calls Neville a “fat little cry baby,” and after Rita’s article (falsely) describes Harry crying, Draco comes in with “Want a hanky, Potter, in case you start crying in Transfiguration?” Of course there’s also “D’you think [Hagrid]’ll cry when they cut off his hippogriff’s - ” right before Hermione slaps him. So making fun of guys for crying is bad right?
Let’s get into it.
1 : Crying because of a death
The most “acceptable” reason for male crying. This happens a lot, we are definitely not supposed to think any less of the guys who do it. Mostly it happens *right* at the moment of death, or maybe at the funeral. The exception is Harry, who cries in Book 3 after talking about hearing his parents dying (although the narrative voice DOES let us know that he’s kind of embarrassed about this...)
“Harry suddenly realized that there were tears on his face mingling with the sweat. He bent his face as low as possible, wiping them off on his robes, pretending to do up his shoelace, so that Lupin wouldn’t see.”
Then he cries again in Book 7, while visiting his parents' graves. But it’s definitely still crying over a death. Just one that Harry takes a little bit longer to process.
Crying over a Death: Full Breakdown:
Amos Diggory: 1 (Cedric’s death)
Arthur Weasley: 1 (Fred’s death)
Harry Potter: 3 (Hedwig, Lily, James)
Rubeus Hagrid: 4 (Dumbledore, Buckbeak, Aragog, Harry)
Argus Filtch: 1 (thinks Mrs. Norris is dead)
Xenophillius Lovegood: 1 (thinks Luna is dead)
Fillius Flitwick: (thinks Ginny is dead)
Ron Weasley: 1 (Dumbledore’s funeral)
Elphias Doge: 1 (Dumbledore’s funeral
2: Crying because of Pain
You’d think this one would also be acceptable. But… it really isn’t? Dudley cries when Vernon hits him (but Harry doesn’t.) Peter Pettigrew cries when he cuts off his own hand, Saw style, but it gets framed as blubbering weakness. Pettigrew framed SO pathetically for the entire resurrection scene - and honestly, for the entire rest of the series.
(Which is strange when you think about it. Like objectively, Pettigrew did GOOD. Sure he only likes Voldemort because he’s powerful, but so do most of the Death Eaters, that’s nothing special. Peter found Voldemort, resurrected him single-handedly (ha.) Found Bertha Jorkins, i.e. the reason Voldemort was able to plan his comeback. Obviously he has god-tier bluffing and lying abilities, as well as enough willpower to cut off a limb. Being able to turn into a rat would make him a really useful spy. Also his spell, the one that killed thirteen muggles and destroyed a street? Most magic we see does not have a blast radius like that. Either he’s extremely powerful, or he somehow rigged the whole street up to blow beforehand? Maybe he planted magical bombs everywhere, and triggered them after luring Sirius to the right place. Either way, Peter’s formidable. But somehow his job is to hang out and be Snape’s servant? (Is it because he’s not cute? Is this JKR’s fatphobia rearing its ugly head? Unclear.)
Our last guy crying in pain is Book 1 Neville, after he breaks his wrist during flying lessons. He also “sniffs,” while walking into the Forbidden Forest for detention, which *might* count as crying? But really, Neville cries surprisingly little. We get a lot of “looked as though he might cry” and “on the verge of tears”... but that's not actually crying. And I think that’s because… early-books Neville, yes we’re supposed to see him as a little pathetic. But definitely not as pathetic as Dudley or Pettigrew.
3: “Childlike” Crying
Sometimes the people who cry are literally little boys. This is also okay. No one is going to judge infant Harry for crying when Voldemort is in the house, or little Severus for crying when his parents are fighting. Interestingly, when Myrtle is talking about Draco crying in her bathroom, Harry assumes she’s talking about someone much younger:
“There’s been a boy in here crying?” said Harry curiously. “A young boy?”
But of course, when an adult is crying in a childlike way, it immediately becomes… pathetic. Again we have Pettigrew, who “burst into tears. It was horrible to watch: He looked like an oversized, balding baby, cowering on the floor.” In the Horcrux cave, crying Dumbledore is described “like a child dying of thirst.” Which is also meant to be pathetic, but in more of a ‘Harry has to be the adult now’ sort of way. Also, the potion seems to have made Dumbledore mentally regress back to his youth, so it’s *closer* to a literal “child crying” moment.
(I considered putting Dumbledore drinking the potion in the ‘pain’ section, but at least in the book I think it’s clear he’s mostly in emotional rather than physical pain.)
Where this gets messy is with the house-elves. House-elves are not children, but they are presented as childlike. They are small and in-your-face, direct even though their problem-solving tends to be very convoluted/not especially logical. I like the present-tense, no pronouns way they speak, but I can’t deny it is kind of baby-talk adjacent. And… house elves are *really* emotional. Dobby, Kreacher (and Winky) cry a LOT. If I had to guess, I would say JKR likes treating house-elves as childlike so it’s more of a surprise when it turns out that one of them was behind everything. But considering that they are slaves, it is gross considering that one of the main real-world justifications for slavery was ‘slaves are childlike, and unable to take care of themselves.'
There’s also Hagrid. With seventeen separate instances of crying, Hagrid easily cries more than any other guy in the Harry Potter books. And… well… he’s also presented as oddly childlike. He seems much more like Harry and Ron’s contemporary than a peer of the other professors - which is weird, since if he went to school with Voldemort fifty years ago, he’s in his sixties now. But still, he’s helpless in the face of criticism, he’s comically out of his depth whenever he deals with the Ministry, he’s constantly letting things slip or drastically misjudging danger levels. The first three books use “Hagrid gets in trouble, the gang has to bail him out” as a plot point, and in Book 4 his sideplot with Madame Maxime gets treated like a schoolboy’s first crush, with all these jokes about him wearing suits that don’t quite fit, and trying and failing to style his hair. Not to mention, we know she’s flattering him because she wants insider info on the Tournament. But he doesn’t know that.
4. Crying because of Sports
Oliver Wood cries when Gryffindor wins the Quidditch cup. That's all.
And that brings us to our stragglers. The only non-childlike guys who cry for reasons other than death, pain, or sports are as follows:
Harry Potter: 1 instance of crying
Draco Malfoy: 2 instances of crying
Severus Snape: 2 instances of crying
Albus Dumbledore: 4 instances of crying
Horace Slughorn: 1 instance of crying
Let’s see what’s going on here.
Harry Potter
Dumbledore had weakened himself by drinking that terrible potion for nothing. Harry crumpled the parchment in his hand, and his eyes burned with tears as behind him. Fang began to howl. He clutched the cold locket in his hand so tightly that it hurt, but he could not prevent hot tears spilling from his eyes
There’s a lot going on in this moment: Harry is tired, frustrated, disappointed, overwhelmed. But even though it is a complex moment, probably the main emotion is still Harry’s attempt to process Dumbledore’s death, now that he finally has a second to do so. So this honestly could have gone in the “Crying because of a death” category. It’s just different enough that I want to specially call it out.
Draco Malfoy
We hear about Draco crying once from Myrtle, and then see it first hand:
Malfoy was crying — actually crying — tears streaming down his pale face into the grimy basin.
The narrative takes a second to let us know that he was ACTUALLY CRYING, just to hammer in that this is something unexpected and not-normal. I think I want to attribute Draco’s tendency to cry - and cry because he’s overwhelmed, scared, lonely - to the character’s slight femme coding. What can I say, he cries for ""girly"" reasons. And so does Snape!
Severus Snape
“Snivellus” is clearly a nickname meant to evoke the idea of “crybaby,” since “sniveling” is a synonym for crying. We also get this:
Snape was kneeling in Sirius’s old bedroom. Tears were dripping from the end of his hooked nose as he read the old letter from Lily.
Crying over Lily’s letter could count as crying over a death… but since he’s crying over a letter, not over a grave or her body (like in the movie), I’m going to say that he’s probably crying because of guilt, emotional overload, or love (especially because he rips the ‘love Lily’ off the end of that letter.) Like Draco, Snape might be getting little bit of femme-coding here. He’s the mean-girl type of bully (versus the mean boy) He cries, he threatens to poison people, which is something we only see women (and Draco) actually doing in these books. Idk, he’s an odd one who JKR clearly has very complicated feelings about.
Albus Dumbledore
I was actually really surprised that Dumbledore cries as much as he does, and at such unusual times! He cries when he sees Snape’s doe patronus - because of love or just because he’s emotionally overwhelmed. He cries all through the Horcrux cave, primarily because of guilt. He cries twice during the King’s Cross Station vision-quest, once because of his complicated feelings about Harry while he asks for forgiveness, and once over … Grindlewald.
“They say he showed remorse in later years, alone in his cell at Nurmengard. I hope that it is true. I would like to think he did feel the horror and shame of what he had done. Perhaps that lie to Voldemort was his attempt to make amends . . . to prevent Voldemort from taking the Hallow . . .” “. . . or maybe from breaking into your tomb?” suggested Harry, and Dumbledore dabbed his eyes.
And okay. JKR announced that Dumbledore was gay just a few months after book seven was published, and I think she was folding in deliberate queer-coding as early Book 6. My proof of that is Dumbledore's increased emotionality - as we can see, it’s pretty unusual for men to cry in the Harry Potter books because they’re feeling “softer” emotions like love, regret, stress etc. It’s something she associates with femininity, and I’m sure she associates gay guys with femininity as well (I mean, that’s a very common thing to do.)
There’s also this interesting passage from Book 6:
This younger Albus Dumbledore’s long hair and beard were auburn. Having reached their side of the street, he strode off along the pavement, drawing many curious glances due to the flamboyantly cut suit of plum velvet that he was wearing. “Nice suit, sir,” said Harry, before he could stop himself, but Dumbledore merely chuckled.
Now, this is subtle. Wizards out and about in the muggle world often wear unusual colors like purple and emerald green. However. That adjective flamboyantly is only used one other time in the entire series, to describe Fudge’s hand gestures. But here, it is used to describe an outfit, a purple velvet suit which is honestly a little bit Oscar Wilde. And “flamboyantly gay” … those are two words often heard together.
Also, correct me if I’m wrong, but I am pretty sure this is the only opinion about clothing Harry ever expresses aloud. And, I think @niche-pastiche hit the nail right on the head when were talking about this and they said, "'Nice suit, sir,' said Harry, before he could stop himself," is SO the response of a young adhd boy in the early 2000s trying not to say "thats gay."
Horace Slughorn
Horace Slughorn cries at Aragog’s funeral, not really out of grief for Aragog, but mostly out of a maudlin sense of togetherness, nostalgia, and camaraderie. And… I do think we have one more slightly morally ambiguous femme-coded guy on our hands? Like Dumbledore, Slughorn is very much a flashy dresser, with shiny hair and gold buttons on his waistcoat. He loves treats and candies (hey… so does Dumbledore. They’re the only adults with a sweet tooth like that.) He loves fancy dinner parties, and is well-connected without being ambitious the way Lucius is. He also (like Draco) is aligned with pureblood-supremacy, but hyper avoidant of violence and confrontation. Except for the Harry example, I think I’d be comfortable with calling all of these last few instances “Femme-Coded Crying.”
* Methodology - My list of 208 Harry Potter characters comes from TV Tropes, which had the most complete list. I am excluding characters from Cursed Child and the Fantastic Beasts Films.
In order to find instances of crying, I searched for the words “cried/cry/crying” “tears” “sob” and “sniff.” I counted each crying episode as one, even if crying was brought up multiple times throughout the scene. I made the fairest call I could whenever I hit a “the crying intensified” or the “the tears restarted,” but I mostly judge pretty conservatively when I’m ringing up data.
I agree, the conflict between Harry and Ron really isn't resolved. They barely scratch the surface of their conflict, when they "resolve" it. They fix the issue that has bubbled to the surface (Ron's feelings about Hermione), but they don't fix the iceberg underneath. They never do.
There are multiple opportunities for Ron to learn from and overcome his insecurities, but the narrative never really allows him to have lasting character development. Every time one of those conflicts comes up, he starts to have some growth - just to revert to his factory settings (I like how you mentioned this for Percy and I do think, this applies to other characters as well, including Ron), once the inciting incident is dealt with.
It's the same for the conflict between Arthur and Percy. Because, yes, their differing opinions on how to deal with the news about Voldemort did spark their argument, but it isn't really the reason they argued and it's also not the reason Percy went no-contact with his whole family for three fucking years.
So Percy apologizing for being wrong might solve the inciting incident, but it also doesn't solve the conflict underneath. Him fighting Thicknesse also doesn't do that. Because, in the end, the conflict wasn't really about Voldemort being back or about Dumbledore.
It was about their dysfunctional family dynamics (not just between Percy and Arthur, but also between Percy and everyone else). It was about Percy's status as golden child of the family (and how fragile that status really is) and about them not really knowing each another. And it was also about Percy growing into his adult self, while separating who he wants to be from what his parents want him to be. One could also make a point about how this conflict was about their socioeconomic status and the discrimination that came with it. But all of this was completely dropped, after the conflict was introduced in Order of the Phoenix. From that point onwards it's just about Voldemort being back and about Percy being wrong about it.
And the "resolution" in Deathly Hallows treats the conflict as such. Percy stumbles into the situation, apologizes (he's basically groveling), mom and dad hug him, Fred and George make some jokes, the conflict is solved, all is well.(1) And afterward, Percy really does go back to his factory settings.
And it's not just Ron and Percy this is happening to. Rowling seems to have an aversion to writing character development. Harry does grow as a character, but he's basically the only one. She attempts to give Snape some development, but it's mostly of the "and he was good all along!" kind of development, where he doesn't really change at all. Draco starts to become a better person, but she never really commits to a redemption arc (probably, because she hates Drarry shippers...)
(1) Side tangent: I just - once again - realized how fucking Christian the series (especially Deathly Hallows) really is. I wonder if Percy's arc was supposed to be read that way. Him denouncing JesusHarry and leaving his congregationfamily, just to realize the error in his ways to return just in time for the final battle and his congregationfamily welcoming him back with open arms ... There would be no character development needed, after that.
Guys who Cry in the Harry Potter Books (and Why)
Men do 30% of the crying in the Harry Potter books, even though they represent 66% of the characters (and that's pretty much as expected).* I’m interested in why the crying happens though, and what it says about the characters. For the ladies, crying is neutral - they all cry, and for all sorts of reasons (tired, frustrated, stressed, emotionally overwrought...) Bellatrix, Augusta Longbottom, Ginny, Tonks… all cry. *Hermione* cries thirty separate times over the course of the books.
Male crying though, that's something that gets mocked (usually by Slytherins.) Pansy calls Neville a “fat little cry baby,” and after Rita’s article (falsely) describes Harry crying, Draco comes in with “Want a hanky, Potter, in case you start crying in Transfiguration?” Of course there’s also “D’you think [Hagrid]’ll cry when they cut off his hippogriff’s - ” right before Hermione slaps him. So making fun of guys for crying is bad right?
Let’s get into it.
1 : Crying because of a death
The most “acceptable” reason for male crying. This happens a lot, we are definitely not supposed to think any less of the guys who do it. Mostly it happens *right* at the moment of death, or maybe at the funeral. The exception is Harry, who cries in Book 3 after talking about hearing his parents dying (although the narrative voice DOES let us know that he’s kind of embarrassed about this...)
“Harry suddenly realized that there were tears on his face mingling with the sweat. He bent his face as low as possible, wiping them off on his robes, pretending to do up his shoelace, so that Lupin wouldn’t see.”
Then he cries again in Book 7, while visiting his parents' graves. But it’s definitely still crying over a death. Just one that Harry takes a little bit longer to process.
Crying over a Death: Full Breakdown:
Amos Diggory: 1 (Cedric’s death)
Arthur Weasley: 1 (Fred’s death)
Harry Potter: 3 (Hedwig, Lily, James)
Rubeus Hagrid: 4 (Dumbledore, Buckbeak, Aragog, Harry)
Argus Filtch: 1 (thinks Mrs. Norris is dead)
Xenophillius Lovegood: 1 (thinks Luna is dead)
Fillius Flitwick: (thinks Ginny is dead)
Ron Weasley: 1 (Dumbledore’s funeral)
Elphias Doge: 1 (Dumbledore’s funeral
2: Crying because of Pain
You’d think this one would also be acceptable. But… it really isn’t? Dudley cries when Vernon hits him (but Harry doesn’t.) Peter Pettigrew cries when he cuts off his own hand, Saw style, but it gets framed as blubbering weakness. Pettigrew framed SO pathetically for the entire resurrection scene - and honestly, for the entire rest of the series.
(Which is strange when you think about it. Like objectively, Pettigrew did GOOD. Sure he only likes Voldemort because he’s powerful, but so do most of the Death Eaters, that’s nothing special. Peter found Voldemort, resurrected him single-handedly (ha.) Found Bertha Jorkins, i.e. the reason Voldemort was able to plan his comeback. Obviously he has god-tier bluffing and lying abilities, as well as enough willpower to cut off a limb. Being able to turn into a rat would make him a really useful spy. Also his spell, the one that killed thirteen muggles and destroyed a street? Most magic we see does not have a blast radius like that. Either he’s extremely powerful, or he somehow rigged the whole street up to blow beforehand? Maybe he planted magical bombs everywhere, and triggered them after luring Sirius to the right place. Either way, Peter’s formidable. But somehow his job is to hang out and be Snape’s servant? (Is it because he’s not cute? Is this JKR’s fatphobia rearing its ugly head? Unclear.)
Our last guy crying in pain is Book 1 Neville, after he breaks his wrist during flying lessons. He also “sniffs,” while walking into the Forbidden Forest for detention, which *might* count as crying? But really, Neville cries surprisingly little. We get a lot of “looked as though he might cry” and “on the verge of tears”... but that's not actually crying. And I think that’s because… early-books Neville, yes we’re supposed to see him as a little pathetic. But definitely not as pathetic as Dudley or Pettigrew.
3: “Childlike” Crying
Sometimes the people who cry are literally little boys. This is also okay. No one is going to judge infant Harry for crying when Voldemort is in the house, or little Severus for crying when his parents are fighting. Interestingly, when Myrtle is talking about Draco crying in her bathroom, Harry assumes she’s talking about someone much younger:
“There’s been a boy in here crying?” said Harry curiously. “A young boy?”
But of course, when an adult is crying in a childlike way, it immediately becomes… pathetic. Again we have Pettigrew, who “burst into tears. It was horrible to watch: He looked like an oversized, balding baby, cowering on the floor.” In the Horcrux cave, crying Dumbledore is described “like a child dying of thirst.” Which is also meant to be pathetic, but in more of a ‘Harry has to be the adult now’ sort of way. Also, the potion seems to have made Dumbledore mentally regress back to his youth, so it’s *closer* to a literal “child crying” moment.
(I considered putting Dumbledore drinking the potion in the ‘pain’ section, but at least in the book I think it’s clear he’s mostly in emotional rather than physical pain.)
Where this gets messy is with the house-elves. House-elves are not children, but they are presented as childlike. They are small and in-your-face, direct even though their problem-solving tends to be very convoluted/not especially logical. I like the present-tense, no pronouns way they speak, but I can’t deny it is kind of baby-talk adjacent. And… house elves are *really* emotional. Dobby, Kreacher (and Winky) cry a LOT. If I had to guess, I would say JKR likes treating house-elves as childlike so it’s more of a surprise when it turns out that one of them was behind everything. But considering that they are slaves, it is gross considering that one of the main real-world justifications for slavery was ‘slaves are childlike, and unable to take care of themselves.'
There’s also Hagrid. With seventeen separate instances of crying, Hagrid easily cries more than any other guy in the Harry Potter books. And… well… he’s also presented as oddly childlike. He seems much more like Harry and Ron’s contemporary than a peer of the other professors - which is weird, since if he went to school with Voldemort fifty years ago, he’s in his sixties now. But still, he’s helpless in the face of criticism, he’s comically out of his depth whenever he deals with the Ministry, he’s constantly letting things slip or drastically misjudging danger levels. The first three books use “Hagrid gets in trouble, the gang has to bail him out” as a plot point, and in Book 4 his sideplot with Madame Maxime gets treated like a schoolboy’s first crush, with all these jokes about him wearing suits that don’t quite fit, and trying and failing to style his hair. Not to mention, we know she’s flattering him because she wants insider info on the Tournament. But he doesn’t know that.
4. Crying because of Sports
Oliver Wood cries when Gryffindor wins the Quidditch cup. That's all.
And that brings us to our stragglers. The only non-childlike guys who cry for reasons other than death, pain, or sports are as follows:
Harry Potter: 1 instance of crying
Draco Malfoy: 2 instances of crying
Severus Snape: 2 instances of crying
Albus Dumbledore: 4 instances of crying
Horace Slughorn: 1 instance of crying
Let’s see what’s going on here.
Harry Potter
Dumbledore had weakened himself by drinking that terrible potion for nothing. Harry crumpled the parchment in his hand, and his eyes burned with tears as behind him. Fang began to howl. He clutched the cold locket in his hand so tightly that it hurt, but he could not prevent hot tears spilling from his eyes
There’s a lot going on in this moment: Harry is tired, frustrated, disappointed, overwhelmed. But even though it is a complex moment, probably the main emotion is still Harry’s attempt to process Dumbledore’s death, now that he finally has a second to do so. So this honestly could have gone in the “Crying because of a death” category. It’s just different enough that I want to specially call it out.
Draco Malfoy
We hear about Draco crying once from Myrtle, and then see it first hand:
Malfoy was crying — actually crying — tears streaming down his pale face into the grimy basin.
The narrative takes a second to let us know that he was ACTUALLY CRYING, just to hammer in that this is something unexpected and not-normal. I think I want to attribute Draco’s tendency to cry - and cry because he’s overwhelmed, scared, lonely - to the character’s slight femme coding. What can I say, he cries for ""girly"" reasons. And so does Snape!
Severus Snape
“Snivellus” is clearly a nickname meant to evoke the idea of “crybaby,” since “sniveling” is a synonym for crying. We also get this:
Snape was kneeling in Sirius’s old bedroom. Tears were dripping from the end of his hooked nose as he read the old letter from Lily.
Crying over Lily’s letter could count as crying over a death… but since he’s crying over a letter, not over a grave or her body (like in the movie), I’m going to say that he’s probably crying because of guilt, emotional overload, or love (especially because he rips the ‘love Lily’ off the end of that letter.) Like Draco, Snape might be getting little bit of femme-coding here. He’s the mean-girl type of bully (versus the mean boy) He cries, he threatens to poison people, which is something we only see women (and Draco) actually doing in these books. Idk, he’s an odd one who JKR clearly has very complicated feelings about.
Albus Dumbledore
I was actually really surprised that Dumbledore cries as much as he does, and at such unusual times! He cries when he sees Snape’s doe patronus - because of love or just because he’s emotionally overwhelmed. He cries all through the Horcrux cave, primarily because of guilt. He cries twice during the King’s Cross Station vision-quest, once because of his complicated feelings about Harry while he asks for forgiveness, and once over … Grindlewald.
“They say he showed remorse in later years, alone in his cell at Nurmengard. I hope that it is true. I would like to think he did feel the horror and shame of what he had done. Perhaps that lie to Voldemort was his attempt to make amends . . . to prevent Voldemort from taking the Hallow . . .” “. . . or maybe from breaking into your tomb?” suggested Harry, and Dumbledore dabbed his eyes.
And okay. JKR announced that Dumbledore was gay just a few months after book seven was published, and I think she was folding in deliberate queer-coding as early Book 6. My proof of that is Dumbledore's increased emotionality - as we can see, it’s pretty unusual for men to cry in the Harry Potter books because they’re feeling “softer” emotions like love, regret, stress etc. It’s something she associates with femininity, and I’m sure she associates gay guys with femininity as well (I mean, that’s a very common thing to do.)
There’s also this interesting passage from Book 6:
This younger Albus Dumbledore’s long hair and beard were auburn. Having reached their side of the street, he strode off along the pavement, drawing many curious glances due to the flamboyantly cut suit of plum velvet that he was wearing. “Nice suit, sir,” said Harry, before he could stop himself, but Dumbledore merely chuckled.
Now, this is subtle. Wizards out and about in the muggle world often wear unusual colors like purple and emerald green. However. That adjective flamboyantly is only used one other time in the entire series, to describe Fudge’s hand gestures. But here, it is used to describe an outfit, a purple velvet suit which is honestly a little bit Oscar Wilde. And “flamboyantly gay” … those are two words often heard together.
Also, correct me if I’m wrong, but I am pretty sure this is the only opinion about clothing Harry ever expresses aloud. And, I think @niche-pastiche hit the nail right on the head when were talking about this and they said, "'Nice suit, sir,' said Harry, before he could stop himself," is SO the response of a young adhd boy in the early 2000s trying not to say "thats gay."
Horace Slughorn
Horace Slughorn cries at Aragog’s funeral, not really out of grief for Aragog, but mostly out of a maudlin sense of togetherness, nostalgia, and camaraderie. And… I do think we have one more slightly morally ambiguous femme-coded guy on our hands? Like Dumbledore, Slughorn is very much a flashy dresser, with shiny hair and gold buttons on his waistcoat. He loves treats and candies (hey… so does Dumbledore. They’re the only adults with a sweet tooth like that.) He loves fancy dinner parties, and is well-connected without being ambitious the way Lucius is. He also (like Draco) is aligned with pureblood-supremacy, but hyper avoidant of violence and confrontation. Except for the Harry example, I think I’d be comfortable with calling all of these last few instances “Femme-Coded Crying.”
* Methodology - My list of 208 Harry Potter characters comes from TV Tropes, which had the most complete list. I am excluding characters from Cursed Child and the Fantastic Beasts Films.
In order to find instances of crying, I searched for the words “cried/cry/crying” “tears” “sob” and “sniff.” I counted each crying episode as one, even if crying was brought up multiple times throughout the scene. I made the fairest call I could whenever I hit a “the crying intensified” or the “the tears restarted,” but I mostly judge pretty conservatively when I’m ringing up data.
This was an interesting read. It definitively fits the picture I have of the family and their dynamic. I guess Percy turned into Molly's Golden Child, once Bill and Charlie left. But he didn't become her Golden Child for who he was as a person, but for what he did for her: mostly for becoming Prefect and later Head Boy (Just like Bill!) and probably also for keeping the twins in check while they were at Hogwarts. And the moment he dared to have a differing opinion (one she and Arthur did not agree with), he immediately slipped from the pedestal she put him on.
Side note: When he became Prefect, it was Arthur who made the big present (Hermes), not Molly.
Ive just realized Percy calls Molly Mother a lot but with Arthur its Dad, not always but you see that appear more than mum.
I’ve always thought that Percy was never close with Molly. She may have favored him and while I think he wanted to make her proud and be seen as perfect I’d think he find it suffocating with her at times. With constantly being compared to his siblings, even if it was a good light for him I feel like that would add to his stress of having to be perfect.
I’m sure he loves Molly but I think it was far more difficult for Percy to fight with father than hurt his mother
I never noticed this, so of course, I had to go back and search, and you are absolutely right. There is not one instance in the entire series where Percy calls Molly 'mum' and yet there are many instances of him calling Arthur 'dad'.
This realization sent me down the rabbit hole, so I went back and analyzed all of Percy's interactions with Molly, and... there's literally no textual evidence that Percy was Molly's favorite.
We, as a fandom, tend to buy into this idea because of how upset Molly was at Percy disowning the family, but now that I'm looking back, I genuinely think she would have reacted the same way if any of the kids had left the way Percy did. In fact, I realized upon rereading that Molly's "love" of Percy was more like a love of Percy's prefect and Head Boy status.
Here is every interaction with Percy & Molly.
There is only one in Book 1:
“Can’t stay long, Mother,” he said. “I’m up front, the prefects have got two compartments to themselves —” “Oh, are you a prefect, Percy?” said one of the twins, with an air of great surprise. “You should have said something, we had no idea.” “Hang on, I think I remember him saying something about it,” said the other twin. “Once —” “Or twice —” “A minute —” “All summer —” “Oh, shut up,” said Percy the Prefect. “How come Percy gets new robes, anyway?” said one of the twins. “Because he’s a prefect,” said their mother fondly. “All right, dear, well, have a good term — send me an owl when you get there.” She kissed Percy on the cheek and he left. Then she turned to the twins.
The kiss on the cheek is not indicative of any close bond, because we also see later on that:
Mrs. Weasley kissed all her children, then Hermione, and finally Harry. He was embarrassed, but really quite pleased, when she gave him an extra hug.
As for her excitement with Percy being a prefect? Here was her reaction to Ron being a prefect:
“His badge,” said Fred, with the air of getting the worst over quickly. “His lovely shiny new prefect’s badge.” Fred’s words took a moment to penetrate Mrs. Weasley’s preoccupation about pajamas. “His . . . but . . . Ron, you’re not. . . ?” Ron held up his badge. Mrs. Weasley let out a shriek just like Hermione’s. “I don’t believe it! I don’t believe it! Oh, Ron, how wonderful! A prefect! That’s everyone in the family!” “What are Fred and I, next-door neighbors?” said George indignantly, as his mother pushed him aside and flung her arms around her youngest son.
She's excited that her child got recognition - and by extension, she got recognition. It had nothing special to do with Percy.
There are no interactions between Percy and Molly in Book 2, but we do have this conversation:
“Beds empty! No note! Car gone — could have crashed — out of my mind with worry — did you care? — never, as long as I’ve lived — you wait until your father gets home, we never had trouble like this from Bill or Charlie or Percy —” “Perfect Percy,” muttered Fred. “YOU COULD DO WITH TAKING A LEAF OUT OF PERCY’S BOOK!” yelled Mrs. Weasley, prodding a finger in Fred’s chest. “You could have died, you could have been seen, you could have lost your father his job —”
She mentions Bill & Charlie first, and she only focuses on Percy after Fred does.
There are two interactions between Percy and Molly in Book 3, one of which was Molly asking Percy to look out for Harry, which doesn't imply any sort of favoritism, and the other was:
“I said, that’s enough,” said Mrs. Weasley, depositing her shopping in an empty chair. “Hello, Harry, dear. I suppose you’ve heard our exciting news?” She pointed to the brand-new silver badge on Percy’s chest. “Second Head Boy in the family!” she said, swelling with pride.
Yet again, we see Molly more excited about the accomplishment of being Head Boy, and she is quick to point out that Percy is the second one in the Weasley family, because of course that's a status symbol.
There is only one interaction between Percy and Molly in Book 4, and it's not a positive one:
“Your father hasn’t had to go into the office on weekends since the days of You-Know-Who,” she said. “They’re working him far too hard. His dinner’s going to be ruined if he doesn’t come home soon.” “Well, Father feels he’s got to make up for his mistake at the match, doesn’t he?” said Percy. “If truth be told, he was a tad unwise to make a public statement without clearing it with his Head of Department first —” “Don’t you dare blame your father for what that wretched Skeeter woman wrote!” said Mrs. Weasley, flaring up at once.
She's definitely not showing favoritism here - she doesn't even let Percy get away with saying a mildly offensive thing about Arthur.
In fact, in Book 4, when the whole Weasley clan returns from the disaster at the Quidditch World Cup, and Molly has been worried sick, she hugs Fred & George first - she doesn't even address Percy.
It isn't until Percy leaves the family that Molly focuses on him, and I really do think she would have done that for any of her children.
To summarize, there is no actual evidence to prove that Percy was Molly's favorite child - in fact, there's more evidence proving that he wasn't! 😱
So thank you for this comment, because it seriously made me reevaluate my thoughts and headcanons about their relationship, which was fun! 😊
Oh, I like this idea!
Considering Molly tried to do something like this with Tonks ... yeah, I could definitively see her do something like this.
I think I would prefer this with an amicable break-up, where they stay friends or become over time. (Maybe because of Molly's meddling and the shared misery?) And after a dozen or two of those invitations, Percy will bring Oliver with him and then he will encourage Audrey to bring her new girlfriend and Molly is just like ... wtf is this couple doing here?
in worlds where Audrey is magic in someway or another and she and Percy were to get divorced after having Molly 2 and Lucy i can 100% see Molly 1 inviting her to Weasley events behind Percy's back and I think it would happen even more often if he was trying to move on and was seeing someone else
one of those things where Molly does think she's doing a good thing by trying to get her grandchildren's mother back in the picture
because she just honestly feels like they need a mother even though they are perfectly fine on their own but not understanding that its actually a really bad thing to be doing and that this isn't a romance book where they'll realize they just needed a break and fall back together
now if Audrey would even show depends a ton on like why they broke up in the first place obv like if she even knows Percy's seeing someone or just expecting this to just be one of those things where she shows up and like 40 people are there. Just to actually show up and realize it's only the main family and every single one of them is looking at her like "oh no oh fuck" except Molly
then there's like her still being in love with Percy and her and Molly working together but while that would make more sense in like a long term situation where it happens over and over i don't like the way it makes me feel so I'm sweeping it under the rug feels too close to bashing to me
Oliver: What's wrong with you?
Percy: Off the top of my head, I'd say low self-esteem, a lack of paternal affection, and a genetic predisposition for anxiety and depression.