Can you imagine what it must have been like growing up for George and Fred. Notice how I said George and Fred because we always call them ‘Fred and George’ as if they were one person – just like their mum. Their own family couldn’t tell them apart. They didn’t have perfect grades like Percy. They weren’t as cool as Bill or Charlie. They weren’t the youngest male like Ron and they obviously weren’t female like Ginny. So they created a niche for themselves – The Pranksters. Because if people weren’t even going to bother to tell them apart then they were going to make people pay attention by pranking people and acting out. Then some scruffy looking boy in their younger brother’s year (ickle Harrikins) can tell them apart.
There’s a reason George Weasley and Fred Weasley never pranked Harry Potter – because he’s the only one that bothered to try.
I SWEAR I WILL REBLOG THIS EVERY TIME BECAUSE OF THE TEARS WELLING UP IN MY SOUL
I like to thing that George and Fred thought of Harry as their little brother too way before Harry had any romantic interest in Ginny.
Harry was also the one who invested in their niche fully, rather than being annoyed by it, he celebrated them for it. That’s why they gave him the Marauders Map and then he gave them the Triwizard gold:
‘
‘Take it,’ he said, and he thrust the sack into George’s hands. ‘What?’ said Fred, looking flabbergasted. ‘Take it,’ Harry repeated firmly. ‘I don’t want it.’ ‘You’re mental,’ said George, trying to push it back at Harry. ‘No, I’m not,’ said Harry. ‘You take it, and get inventing. It’s for the joke-shop.’ ‘He is mental,’ Fred said, in an almost awed voice. … ‘Harry – thanks,’ George muttered, while Fred nodded fervently at his side’
It’s why they agreed to his request Ron get some new dress robes out of it. They’re clever not just funny ‘they always get really good marks’ but as OP says they’re not as good as Percy, Bill or Charlie. They helped Ron get him out of the Dursleys:
‘But you can’t magic me out either –’ ‘We don’t need to,’ said Ron, jerking his head towards the front seats and grinning. ‘You forget who I’ve got with me.’
They get him into Hogsmede , they (unknowingly) helped the trio break into Umbridge’s ministry office. They liked Harry for himself
‘This is all your fault,’ George said angrily to Wood. ’“Get the Snitch or die trying” – what a stupid thing to tell him!’’
And cheered him up when things went wrong, such as Harry being accused of being the Heir of Slytherin
‘They went out of their way to march ahead of Harry down the corridors, shouting, ‘Make way for the heir of Slytherin, seriously evil wizard coming through …’ Percy was deeply disapproving of this behaviour. ‘It is not a laughing matter,’ he said coldly. ‘Oh, get out of the way, Percy,’ said Fred, ‘Harry’s in a hurry.’ ‘Yeah, he’s nipping off to the Chamber of Secrets for a cup of tea with his fanged servant,’ said George, chortling
‘
Or when Ron and Hermione were made Prefects and Harry felt left out:
‘Yeah,’ said Fred slowly. ‘Yeah, you’ve caused too much trouble, mate. Well, at least one of you’s got their priorities right.’ He strode over to Harry and clapped him on the back while giving Ron a scathing look.
They tricked Dudley because they know how crappy Harry’s home is:
‘We didn’t give it to him because he was a Muggle!’ said Fred indignantly. ‘No, we gave it to him because he’s a great bullying git,’ said George
And of course:
‘Give her hell from us, Peeves.’ And Peeves, who Harry had never seen take an order from a student before, swept his belled hat from his head and sprang to a salute as Fred and George wheeled about to tumultuous applause from the students below and sped out of the open front doors into the glorious sunset.
Harry frequently heard students saying things like, ‘Honestly, some days I just feel like jumping on my broom and leaving this place,’ or else, ‘One more lesson like that and I might just do a Weasley.’
Harry’s relationships with George and Fred are some of my favourites
How much longer until the utopic Solarpunk future where Capitalism is dead and we all live in ecologically sustainable high-tech forest cities? Asking for a friend.
Until we make those ecologically sustainable high-tech forest cities ourselves. It’s going to take a lot of us to do it though, so best to spread the word (and gather native tree seeds).
And, like, get started now. Then our “weirdo houses” will be the only thing functioning when everything falls apart!
The only reason why we don’t live in a solarpunk world right now is because no one has bothered to make it yet.
We’ll have to make it ourselves, and we’ll have to help each other make it. That’s why it is solarpunk.
Some resources to consider creating or joining or doing:
Repair cafes – create or join your local repair cafe! Repair stuff, learn how to repair stuff, teach others how to repair stuff.
Map of Makerspaces – make some things! learn how to make some things! teach others how to make some things!
Community Garden Map (note that this is US-only, and not a complete list) – join a local community garden
Learn some basics on passive solar design – clever use of the sun can create extremely energy efficient homes and buildings. You can use these principles to save on energy bills, even if you’re renting.
Free USDA Complete Guide to Home Canning, 2015 revision – cut down on personal food waste! Learn how to safely preserve food. Very useful if you suddenly harvest / purchase for crazy cheap in season / dumpster dive a ton of perishable food.
Donate to One Acre Fund, which provides training and capital to farmers (making them more productive and pulling them out of poverty) in various east African countries
Donate to Bridges to Prosperity, which provides technical expertise, money, and volunteers, to help local people build and maintain their own footbridges in extremely isolated rural areas
joining r/solarpunk, and sharing links/ideas/art/music with the community. Also, upvoting stuff for greater visibility. There’s over 900 members!
normal people: I am from Russia/Brazil/Italy/Australia/etc 🙂
Americans, assuming studying the specific geography of their country was ever relevant to me: Oh I was born in iower but went to school in Oregano (My parents come from East Carolina though):~)
Someone finally said it it’s so annoying!
One day I was eating at a restaurant in Peru with the 3 guys who were volunteering with me and someone asked us where we came from. So I said France, the German guy said Germany, the Maltese guy had to say Italy because almost no-one in Peru knows where Malta is, and then the American guy said Portland, like he didn’t even specify the state he just thought everyone knew where Portland is 😤
i can’t tell whether this is better or worse than
european: where are you from
american: i’m italian
european: omg same! da dove vieni?
american: wait what lol i don’t speak mexican i only speak english
and
european: where are you from?
american: (monolingual english speaker, white, never left Marietta, GA in 23 years of life) well i’m 1/5th irish, 1/7th german, 32% greek, 4/9ths native american, 1/12th swedish, a little bit filipino, my mother was a hamster and my father smelt of elderberries, but i just call myself african 🙂
The American comments on this post are so irritating. I think that some of them don’t realise that the USA is just a country while Europe is a continent made up of different countries where you can find different religions, different autochthonous ethnicities, different languages etc; You can’t compare a single country’s diversity to the diversity of an entire continent.
“But Texas is so different from Oregon! People need to know which state I’m from because they’re all so different!” We don’t care. We are going to see you as an American, not as a Texan or a Californian or whatever, just like you’re going to see someone from Bavaria as a German, someone from Normandy as a Frenchman or someone from Piedmont as an Italian, not as a Bavarian, a Norman and a Piedmontese. European countries have regional differences too, even more than US states yet we don’t feel the need to specify that to foreigners when they ask us where we’re from unless they ask us to elaborate.
“But the US is so big! Some of our states are even bigger than your countries!”
Russia is the largest country in the world and undoubtedly more diverse than the US. If you were to ask a Russian where they’re from they would say that they’re from Russia, not Komi or Tuva unless they’re speaking to another Russian or someone they know to be familiar with Russian geography.
You’re not special nor does the world revolve around you, just accept that and move on.
Gringos just think that their states are equal to entire countries and thats fact.
Deleting all comments because only in this site you will find people throwing shit at a 17 year old boy who has voluntarily fed 80’000 people by starting his own business because he has a very particular idea lf masculinity which happens to threat only people with paper feelings.
His business has a line of ‘SheCans’ with names like ‘Unstoppable’, ‘Awesome’, ‘Fearless’ and ‘Beautiful’. Anyone who is bitter about this kid’s business needs to step back and reevaluate their life.
^^ Reblogging again because of that comment
also this article is misleading. there is nothing on the site that says the lad was “sick of his sister’s flowery candles” he got the idea from his sister who was selling them for a school fundraiser and wanted more scents that appealed to him, as the overwhelming majority of scented candles are marketed towards women.