Chapter Discussion: Goblet of Fire Ch.11: Aboard the Hogwarts Express

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 192044

 
> Questions:
> 1. Mr Weasley is asked to - and apparently is willing to - use his position at the Ministry of Magic to help Mad-Eye Moody avoid punishment for attacking Muggles. What does it say about the Wizarding World that even the 'good guys' are apparently willing to ignore their laws when they are inconvenient?

Pippin:
The casual croneyism is disturbing,  even more so because nobody seems to be disturbed by it. B

 Some have seen this as moral blindness on JKR's part, but I think the parallels with the bad guys' actions are too carefully drawn for that.

McGonagall will have a few words to say in OOP about Umbridge using the justice system to keep her cronies out of trouble. Ideally, Arthur would not be doing the same thing. But Arthur doesn't live in an ideal world, he lives in one where the justice system is badly broken, and he knows it. 

Mad-eye is not going to get an unbiased investigation or a fair trial if people like Umbridge and Lucius have anything to say about it -- and they probably will. There'd be  people who would have liked to see Mad-eye locked up in Azkaban or St Mungo's for a long, long time. He'd already been forced to retire. 

I would like to think that if there had been a careful investigation then maybe the real Mad-eye might have been rescued and Voldemort's plot foiled. But Voldemort had been eluding careful investigators for over fifty years. He was good at it. And honestly, if Mad-eye had reported seeing Voldemort in the form of a monstrous baby, supported by Peter Pettigrew and Barty Crouch Jr  --  two men whom most people believed to be dead -- well, that would sound delusional whether he had a reputation for it or not. 

 Arthur will bend the rules to keep his fellow good guys out of trouble. Harry will do the same. In this case the good guy Arthur thinks he's protecting has been replaced by an impostor.  But I can't recall that either Arthur or Harry ever  deliberately framed a bad guy  or planted evidence against them. Arthur's standards may not be as lofty as we'd like but he's  got some, IMO -- that's one of the reasons he's poor. 
 
> 
> 2. The Wizarding World is concerned about secrecy - to the extent that it is a significant issue to use magic in front of Muggles. But apparently, there is far less concern about potential giveaways like carrying owls through London in Muggle taxis, accidental setting off of magical fireworks, and the mere fact that hundreds, if not thousands of Wizarding children and their families all descend on one Muggle train station en masse at once. If you were in charge of a Ministry department, trying to ensure the Wizarding World remained secret, would you make any changes to how things operate?

Pippin:
As far as the Muggles know, there's nothing magical about an owl in a cage. Even in real life, you can see  stranger things than that in a London railway station.  And in the Muggle world, where Dudley, that scion of arch-conformity, has a school uniform involving orange knickerbockers and a boater, it probably just looks like some kind of oddball school project. I think in real life Britain there are laws about keeping birds of prey as pets, but we don't have to assume that Muggle Britain has them. 

Pottermore has some info about the Hogwarts express, and also  the practice of some wizards to deliberately push the boundaries on Muggle dress and customs. Given that, it makes sense to put all the eggs in one basket and keep an eye on it. 

I'd try to come up with a better way of detecting underage magic, that's for sure. 

> 
> 3. Adults seem to enjoy keeping secrets from Harry. This might be understandable in cases where they are hoping it will help keep him safe (whether they are right or not) but here, Mrs Weasley, Bill, and Charlie all seem to take pleasure in teasing him (along with Ron and Hermione) by dropping hints that something is going to happen. What do you think of the fact that so much is concealed from Harry, even when there doesn't seem to be a good reason for it?

Pippin:
I think the Tournament was being kept secret because the arrangements were fragile. Dumbledore did not want to raise hopes only to have them dashed because things fell through at the last moment. 

> 
> 4. Once again, we are reminded of the fact that the Weasley's are not well off. But Mr Weasley has what seems to be a fairly high level position at the Ministry, and while they do have a large family, their older children (Bill, Charlie, and possibly, Percy) are presumably financially independent by now - what do you think they spend their money on when it actually leaves them short of what is needed to pay for things their children need for school?

Pippin:
Um, have you  priced putting seven children through school? Yes, Hogwarts provides a fund for the financially embarrassed.  I'm sure that the Weasleys were far too proud to take so much as a sickle from it. 

Pippin