Percy and Pyramids

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 190130

<ncfan at ... wrote:
>
> Does anyone else find it disturbing that Fred and George once shut their brother Percy up in a pyramid?
> 
> What I'm talking about is a throwaway line on page 63 of PoA. George tells Harry that he and Fred "tried to shut [Percy] in a pyramid", but that their mother caught them.
> 
> While this only says that Fred and George tried to shut Percy in a pyramid, there's nothing that suggests that they didn't actually manage it.
> 
> I know Percy isn't the most popular of characters (please don't kill me for going to bat for him), but I have to feel for him. He was never arrogant as much as he was painfully insecure and hiding it in all the wrong ways, and the Twins both seem to delight in making life harder for him. The rest of his family, even his mother, seems rather contemptuous of him or at least bemused by him. Percy is, plainly, the Odd Duck of the Weasley Clan long before he's the Black Sheep.
 <snip>

Carol responds:

First, I agree with you in feeling somewhat sorry for Percy. I was quite happy when he finally had the courage to apologize to his family. I think the usually delightful Mr. Weasley was in the wrong to make no attempt to understand him and convince him rationally that his promotion was a little too quick and he might be being used by the Ministry. And I agree that the Twins are quite insensitive to the psychological harm that their pranks might do, especially with regard to Dudley Dursley and the Ton-Tongue Toffee incident. (Don't worry; I'll get to the pyramid!) I think, however, that JKR herself finds these incidents funny and sympathizes with the mischief makers. She also seems remarkably unconcerned about the animals that get Vanished or turned into teakettles or pincushions.

As for the pyramid, it would have taken magic to shut Percy in the pyramid, so I doubt that underage magic is a concern. (The Twins perform magic all the time under cover of the adults with them; in the Weasley household, underage magic or magic performed in the presence of a minor is an everyday occurrence. (Remember, the Ministry didn't know that Dobby had performed the Hover Charm in CoS, only that it had occurred in the Dursley household in the presence of a minor Wizard--and in the presence of Muggles, which was probably more serious.) And it's unlikely that the Ministry's powers of detection reach as far as Egypt.

Percy, of course, would also have needed to perform magic to get himself out, but that wouldn't matter for the same reason. Also, even though he's not as clever in inventing uses for magic as the Twins, he's no slouch at magic, considering that he got twelve OWLs. If the Twins could trap him in a pyramid (and we don't know whether they would have succeeded because their mother stopped them), Percy could have gotten himself out again. The Twins don't know any Dark magic as far as I know.

At any rate, the Twins also played tricks on Bill, putting a beetle in his soup, as I recall. No one except Harry is really safe in their presence. As for Percy, he probably had to develop a thick skin (and a healthy sense of denial) early on: he thinks the dragon dung the Twins send him to analyze is a genuine assignment. (Forgive me; the details of that little incident are a bit fuzzy in my mind. It's been ages since I reread the books.)

Carol, who is pretty sure that JKR expects the reader to side with the Twins and to appreciate the sometimes dark humor of the books