pauraque_bk | CoS 3

CoS 3: The Burrow

'Well,' said Fred, 'put it this way -- house-elves have powerful magic of their own, but they can't usually use it without their masters' permission.[...]' (27)

'Well, whoever owns [Dobby] will be an old wizarding family, and they'll be rich,' said Fred.
[George:] '[...]House-elves come with big old manors and castles and places like that, you wouldn't catch one in our house...' (27-28)

More info on the nature of house-elves, the extensive discussion of which is still going in Chapter 2. I've been mostly sitting back and watching, and loving you guys for being so smart.

For more house-elf fun, check out

manu86's instructive article on HP dialects and accents, including analyses of Winky, Dobby, and Kreacher's speech patterns. They're all different, which I hadn't consciously noticed.

It seemed to go on for hours. Mrs Weasley had shouted herself hoarse before she turned on Harry, who backed away.
'I'm very pleased to see you, Harry, dear,' she said, 'Come in and have some breakfast.' (30)

As usual, Molly is harsh on her own kids, and startlingly gentle towards Harry by contrast.

Also, the punctuation on that dialogue is as-printed. Typesetting error?

'I've heard Dad talking about [Lucius],' said George. 'He was a big supporter of You Know Who.'
'And when You Know Who disappeared,' said Fred, craning around to look at Harry, 'Lucius Malfoy came back saying he'd never meant any of it. Load of dung -- Dad reckons he was right in You Know Who's inner circle.' (27)

This is apparently news to Ron. I think there's a lot the older kids know that Ron and Ginny don't. I really like the theory that the history between Lucius and Arthur has something to do with Arthur having been under Imperius during the war. (Here I wanted to link to

skelkins's essay on the subject, but was thwarted by the fact that his/her site is down. Bah.)

Four or five chimneys were perched on top of the red roof [of the Burrow]. (29)

Books were stacked three deep on the mantelpiece[...] (31)

'I don't blame you, dear,' she assured Harry, tipping eight or nine sausages onto his plate. [...] 'But really' (she was now adding three fried eggs to his plate), 'flying an illegal car halfway across the country[...]' (31)

There's an idea

idlerat has mentioned once or twice in discussing the way the HP books are written, that of superabundance. You always get more of everything in the wizarding world -- particularly evident when food is mentioned.

Ratty has also connected this to the overlapping of symbolism and literalism, as here:

"Like she likes to have every magical creature you've ever heard of, all mixed together. Like there are 12 kinds of meat at every meal. And that superabundance carries over into her stylistic choices. Sirius' incarceration in Azkaban symbolized his depression, but he was also depressed..."

And unless Harry's ears were deceiving him, the old radio next to the sink had just announced that coming up was 'Witching Hour, with the popular singing sorceress, Celestina Warbeck'. (31)

Ron's school spellbooks were stacked untidily in a corner, next to a pile of comics which all seemed to feature The Adventures of Martin Miggs, the Mad Muggle. (35)

I point these out because they're examples of native or near-native wizarding culture, something we don't see much of.

I really wonder what goes on in Ron's comic books.

[Ron] raised the gnome above his head ('Gerroff me!') and started to swing it in great circles like a lasso. Seeing the shocked look on Harry's face, Ron added, 'It doesn't hurt them -- you've just got to make them really dizzy so they can't find their way back to the gnomeholes.' (33)

Somewhere between this and the Puffskein incident, Harry loses a bit of his compassion for small animals.

The de-gnoming sequence is a bit tedious, isn't it? Besides introducing Lockhart, it doesn't accomplish much. Also, I kept thinking of that part of the CoS video game.

[Arthur:] 'There was some pretty nasty stuff that wasn't my department, though. Mortlake was taken away for questioning about some extremely odd ferrets, but that's the Committee on Experimental Charms, thank goodness...' (34)

It's always ferrets.

'Why would anyone bother making door-keys shrink?' said George.
'Just Muggle-baiting,' sighed Mr Weasley. 'Sell them a key that keeps shrinking to nothing so they can never find it when they need it...' (34)

This and the title of Ron's comic books seem a tad sinister when taken in the context of the larger themes introduced in CoS. This is the first time the concept of "Muggle-baiting" is put to us, presented as a joke and taken lightly.

I wrote the above paragraph on another computer, and when I came back,

arclevel had left this comment in Chapter 1:

"Additionally, I believe late(?) in GoF, there's a scene where Harry notices Molly talking to Ginny and Hermione about love potions she used to make. It's a tiny mention, but I think it's important. Love potions combine various themes and motifs -- binding, romance (yes, the order is deliberate), chaos to some extent, removal/imposition of will, and power. Moreover, they're among the the things lightly and casually used or mentioned by the good/neutral guys which send chills through me.

And to bring this back to CoS, they're first mentioned here, by Lockhart. Are memory charms (which fit into every category above except romance) also introduced here, or are they first mentioned in SS? In any case, both are associated with Lockhart in this book. Perhaps we need to watch Gilderoy for more of the darker aspects of wizarding society, presented lightly -- certainly issues of celebrity and popular opinion come into play here."

'Arthur Weasley, you made sure there was a loophole when you wrote that law!' shouted Mrs Weasley. 'Just so you could carry on tinkering with all that Muggle rubbish in your shed![...]' (34)

You wouldn't think Arthur could draft legislation in his capacity as an investigator. Maybe he had a different position in the Ministry before this.

Phew. Past re-read posts are here.