Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Chapter Nine:
The Woes of Mrs. Weasley

Synopsis by Maureen Knight
Notes and links by Michele L. Worley

U.S. hardcover edition: pages 152 - 178
U.K. hardcover edition: pages 139 - 162
U.K. paperback edition: pages 171 - 200
Timeframe: Thursday, 12 August through 31 August, 1995 [Y15]

In which Ron and Hermione become prefects, Harry is jealous, and Mrs. Weasley's boggart is revealed.

Interesting facts and notes about the text of this chapter:

Harry's struggle with his feelings when Ron is made Prefect is eloquently portrayed. Molly's encounter with the Boggart is a fascinating moment as well. Rowling was wise to include this passage, since the reader needs to have some deeper understanding of Molly Weasley in order to accept the change in her personality between the previous four books and this one. In OP, Molly is a crabby, shrill, argumentative woman whose role in the story seems to have degenerated into that of a person to outwit or fool, nothing more. In chapter 9, we discover the weight of worry and fear which she has been carrying.

'Merlin's beard!' exclaimed Mr Weasley wonderingly, pulling Harry aside to let them all pass. 'You were tried by the full court?'

'Oh, its a simple enough anti-jinx,' said Mr Weasley as they mounted the stairs, 'but it's not so much having to repair the damage, it's more the attitude behind the vandalism, Harry. Muggle-baiting might strike some wizards as funny, but it's an expression of something much deeper and nastier, and I for one -'

'Trying to sneak down to the courtroom, if you ask me,' said Mr Weasley...

Harry turned his moneybag upside-down and emptied not just ten Galleons, but the whole contents into the pool.

'Gold, I expect,' said Mr Weasley angrily. 'Malfoy's been giving generously to all sorts of things for years...gets him in with the right people...then he can ask favours...delay laws he doesn't want passed...oh, he's very well-connected, Lucius Malfoy.'

'Booklists have arrived,' he said, throwing one of the envelopes up to Harry, who was standing on a chair. 'About time, I thought they'd forgotten, they usually come much earlier than this..."

The reason the booklists are late, of course, is that Dumbledore was unable to find a teacher to fill the Defense Against the Dark Arts position, so he didn't know which book the students would need for that class. We learn in chapter xxx that Fudge passed Educational Decree Number 22 just the day before, thereby allowing himself the authority to appoint Dolores Umbridge to the post. Umbridge choses the book by Slinkhard.

Harry swept the last of the droppings into a rubbish bag and threw the bag over Ron's head into the wastepaper basket in the corner, which swallowed it and belched loudly.

One sacked, one dead, one's memory removed and one locked in a trunk for nine months,' said Harry, counting them off on his fingers.

George leapt forwards, seized the envelope in Ron's other hand and turned it upside-down. Harry saw something scarlet and gold fall into George's palm. Harry took it. A large P was superimposed on the Gryffindor lion. He had seen a badge just like this on Percys chest on his very first day at Hogwarts.

'Match his what?' said Mrs Weasley absently, rolling up a pair of maroon socks and placing them on Ron's pile.

'I don't believe it! I don't believe it! Oh, Ron, how wonderful! A prefect! That's everyone in the family!'

he could hear were the blank picture on the wall sniggering again...

'Drawing room...' he growled, as the pupil contracted. 'Desk in the corner? Yeah, I see it... yeah, it's a Boggart... want me to go up and get rid of it, Molly?'

'We're having a little bit of a celebration, actually...' She gestured at the scarlet banner. 'Fourth prefect in the family!' she said fondly, ruffling Ron's hair.

No one would have made me a prefect, I spent too much time in detention with James. Lupin was the good boy, he got the badge.'
'I think Dumbledore might have hoped I would be able to exercise some control over my best friends,' said Lupin. 'I need scarcely say that I failed dismally.'

Harry's mood suddenly lifted. His father had not been a prefect either.

'nought to seventy in ten seconds, not bad, is it? When you think the Comet Two Ninety's only nought to sixty and that's with a decent tailwind according to Which Broomstick?'

Which Broomstick is a take-off on the magazine called Which? in the UK. This magazine is similar to Consumer Reports magazine in the US. Both of these magazines test and report on a variety of products, recommending some over others. Neither magazine accepts advertising. [http://www.which.net/]

'Venomous Tentacula seeds,' said George. 'We need them for the Skiving Snackboxes but they're a Class C Non-Tradeable Substance so we've been having a bit of trouble getting hold of them.'

Ten Galleons the lot, then. Dung?' said Fred.

'Yeah, his best one so far has been six Sickles for a bag of Knarl quills,' said George.

From an inner pocket of his robes Moody pulled a very tattered old wizarding photograph.
'Original Order of the Phoenix,' growled Moody.

• Moody

• Diggle, Dedalus

• Marlene McKinnon, she was killed two weeks after this was taken, they got her whole family

• Frank and Alice Longbottom

• Vance, Emmeline

• Lupin

• Benjy Fenwick, he copped it too, we only ever found bits of him

• Edgar Bones- brother of Amelia Bones, they got him and his family, too, he was a great wizard

• Sturgis Podmore

• Caradoc Dearborn, vanished six months after this, we never found his body

• Hagrid

• Elphias Doge

• Gideon Prewett, it took five Death Eaters to kill him and his brother Fabian, they fought like heroes

• Aberforth

• Dorcas Meadowes, Voldemort killed her personally

• Sirius

• mother and father

• Wormtail

'Riddikulus!'
Harry's body vanished. A silvery orb hung in the air over the spot where it had lain. Lupin waved his wand once more and the orb vanished in a puff of smoke.

'This isn't like last time. The Order are better prepared, we've got a head start, we know what Voldemort's up to -'

Characters introduced in this chapter:

• none

Characters returning in this chapter:

• Black, Phineas Nigellus (as the blank picture on the wall)

• Black, Sirius

• Bones, Amelia

• Fletcher, Mundungus

• Fudge, Cornelius

• Granger, Hermione

• Lupin, Remus

• Malfoy, Lucius

• Moody, Alastor (Mad-Eye)

• Potter, Harry

• Shacklebolt, Kingsley

• Tonks, Nymphadora

• Umbridge, Dolores

• Weasley, Arthur

• Weasley, Bill

• Weasley, Fred

• Weasley, Ginny

• Weasley, George

• Weasley, Molly

• Weasley, Percy

• Weasley, Ron

• (unnamed) members of the Wizengamot

Characters mentioned in this chapter:

• Bones, Edgar

• Dearborn, Caradoc

• Diggle, Dedalus

• Doge, Elphias

• Dumbledore, Aberforth

• Dumbledore, Albus

• Fenwick, Benjy

• Goshawk, Miranda

• Hagrid, Rubeus

• Hedwig

• Kreacher

• Longbottom, Alice

• Longbottom, Frank

• Longbottom, Neville

• Malfoy, Draco

• McKinnon, Marlene

• Meadowes, Dorcas

• Munch, Eric

• Pettigrew, Peter (as Wormtail)

• Podmore, Sturgis

• Potter, James

• Prewett, Fabian

• Prewett, Gideon

• Quirrell, Professor

• Riddle, Tom Marvolo (as Voldemort)

• Shacklebolt, Kingsley

• Slinkhard, Wilbert

• Vance, Emmeline

Settings and locations introduced or returning in this chapter:

• Ministry of Magic Headquarters

  • atrium

  • corridor to the Department of Mysteries

  • Courtroom Ten

• number twelve, Grimmauld Place

  • drawing room

  • Harry and Ron's bedroom

  • kitchen

Settings and locations mentioned in this chapter:

• Bethnal Green

• Diagon Alley

• Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry

  • Gryffindor Tower Common Room

Exceptional character moments:

• Still to come....

Spells

• Apparation

• Imperius Curse

• Permanent Sticking Charm

• Riddikulus

Links and Resources:

• Atlas: Map of Ministry of Magic Headquarters, levels nine and ten

• Bestiary:

  • basilisk

  • boggart

  • centaur

  • goblin

  • house-elf

  • knarl

  • werewolf

• Death Eaters

• Essay: Prejudice: A Great Theme of the Books

• food and drink

  • butterbeer

• items and devices, magical

  • Extendable Ears

  • invisibility cloak

  • photographs

• organizations

  • Order of the Phoenix

  • S.P.E.W.

• Venomous Tentacula

• Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes

• Wizengamot

Memorable lines:

• Fred and George Apparated right beside Harry.  He was so used to them doing this by now that he didn't even fall off his chair.

• 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.

Strictly British:

• lift

• prefect

• skiving

Timeline/Calendar of the Chapter

Here we encounter an example of the impossiblility of the dates in this book. Since we know from chapter 8 that August 12 was a Thursday, August 31 has to be a Tuesday. September 1, then, is a Wednesday, but we will discover in the next chapter that September 2 is not a Thursday, as one might expect after a Wednesday, but a Monday.