Ron's academic achivements in book 5

[Przemyslaw Plaskowicki]

No: HPFGUIDX 77394

Hello,

During 3rd reread of OotP, I focused mainly on Ron & Hermione 
interactions (which I'll try to deeper describe in another post coming 
real soon now), but accidentally I find out, that I had collected some 
interesting quotes regarding Ron's academic achievements during 5th 
year. So I decided to post those here.

Odd thing is, that every time Ron is making some mistake during lessons 
it is accompanied by similar error made by Harry (all quotes from 
Bloomsbery edition):

See those 2 different charms lesson:
 >>'- He'd probably be back in Azkaban this morning.' He [Harry] waved 
his wand without really
concentrating; his bullfrog swelled like a green balloon and emitted a 
high-pitched whistle.
[...]said Ron. 'He's not stupid, he knows she nearly got him.
Silencio.'
The large and ugly raven in front of him let out a derisive caw.
'Silencio. SILENCIO!'
The raven cawed more loudly.<<
And the second:
 >>He and Ron both tapped the teacups they were supposed to be charming 
with their wands.
Harry's spouted four very short legs that could not reach the desk and 
wriggled pointlessly in
midair. Ron's grew four very thin spindly legs that hoisted the cup off 
the desk with great
difficulty, trembled for a few seconds, then folded, causing the cup to 
crack into two.<<

They also didn't do any good during Transfiguration:
 >>By the end of a
double period neither he nor Ron had managed to vanish the snails on 
which they were
practicing, though Ron said hopefully he thought his looked a bit paler.<<

The same is still true during OWLs. The only time we hear about Ron's 
results is when Harry was not happy about his exam:
Charms exam:
 >>His is Levitation Charm was certainly much
better than Malfoy's had been, though he wished he had not mixed up the 
incantations for
Colour Change and Growth Charms, so that the rat he was supposed to be 
turning orange
swelled shockingly and was the size of a badger before Harry could 
rectify his mistake.[...]
He could tell Ron, though; Ron had caused a dinner plate to mutate into 
a large
mushroom and had no idea how it had happened.<<
and Divination:
 >>Even by Harry's low standards in Divination, the exam went very 
badly.[...]
He [Ron] had just made Harry feel rather better by telling him how he 
had told the
examiner in detail about the ugly man with a wart on his nose in his 
crystal ball, only to look
up and realise he had been describing his examiner's reflection.<<

There are some places in the book, when Ron actually did something 
(presumably) better than Harry. He received better grade for Moonstone 
essay:
 >>[...]when they arrived for double Potions, where Harry's moonstone 
essay was handed back to him with a large, spiky black 'D' scrawled in 
an upper corner.[...]'I got a "P",' said Ron, ladling soup into his bowl.<<

Ron also made some progress in Vanishing spell:
 >>'Well, it's a start,' said Ron, holding up a long wriggling 
mouse-tail and dropping it back into the box Lavender was passing 
around.<< -- here he almost mastered vanishing mammals during one lesson.

So it seems, that in the 5th book Ron made some progress -- he is no 
more as bad in magic as he was before -- I believe he is as good as 
Harry at least in Charms and Transfiguration.

Therefore I respectfully submit notion of Ron being worse than Harry in 
classes is no longer valid.

Regards,

-- 
Pshemekan