#the weasleys deserved better

[fannedandflawless]

Arthur Weasley’s Salary: Magical Living on a Non-Magical Budget

Let’s talk about the quiet financial absurdity hiding in plain sight in the Harry Potter universe: Arthur Weasley’s salary. Because when you actually run the numbers? It makes Severus Snape’s meagre income look like luxury. In a previous post, I explored Severus Snape’s likely annual income using real-world UK academic pay scales from the 1990s—if you’ve read Part III – The Rise of Severus Snape: Finances & Survival, you’ll know his life was far from luxurious, but it was stable, controlled, and financially self-sufficient.

Because when you actually map out how Arthur managed to raise seven children, maintain a multi-storey home, own a car, and send everyone to Hogwarts—all on a single income?

It stops being whimsical. It starts sounding impossible.

—

Arthur Weasley’s Canon Income – The 700 Galleon Problem

According to J.K. Rowling via early Pottermore content, Arthur Weasley earned ~700 Galleons per year working at the Ministry in the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts Office.

Rowling also suggested 1 Galleon ≈ £5. That means:

700 Galleons/year = £3,500/year

Even in wizarding terms, this is shockingly low. It explains why the Weasleys are constantly portrayed as financially struggling—but it raises even more questions when you actually compare this to what’s considered "meagre" elsewhere in the same world. (See The Great Galleon Plot Hole for the full breakdown of how absurd wand pricing is next to broomsticks and household budgets.) It’s this level of visible frugality that explains why, even at age eleven, Draco Malfoy sneered at the Weasleys' lifestyle—not merely out of cruelty, but because their second-hand robes, patched belongings, and obvious lack of status clashed so sharply with everything he’d been taught to admire.

—

🧪 Severus Snape’s Salary – The "Meagre" Benchmark

In The Half-Blood Prince, Slughorn refers to the Potions Master salary as "meagre."

However, based on real-world equivalents (1990s UK academic salaries at private boarding schools or junior lecturers), a realistic conversion puts Severus' Hogwarts salary at roughly:

£25,000–£35,000/year = 5,000–7,000 Galleons/year

Which means…

Arthur Weasley earned one-tenth of what Snape did.

So if Severus’ salary was “meagre,” then Arthur’s was barely magical subsistence.

—

How Did Arthur Weasley Survive on 700 Galleons?

Let’s break it down based on previously established lore:

🏡 The Burrow – But They Own Property

The Burrow is most likely inherited or acquired magically (via family or local wizarding means).

They pay no rent or mortgage, which massively reduces cost of living.

Magic allows them to extend or repair it without outside labour.

🚗 The Flying Car

Arthur likely salvaged or bought the car second-hand (Muggle world).

He enchanted it himself, which means no magical modification costs.

��‍👩‍👧‍👦 Raising 7 Children

Clothing, books, and wands are reused or second-hand.

Molly grows/cooks meals at home using magic.

Children attend Hogwarts, where tuition, housing, and food are included.

Brooms and pets (like Scabbers) are often hand-me-downs.

Their survival hinges on:

Inherited property

Magical self-sufficiency

Extreme frugality

Hand-me-down culture

And probably a bit of unspoken help from Dumbledore, McGonagall, or the community.

—

What Would Arthur Need to Earn to Survive Like He Does in the Books?

Let’s say:

Groceries for 9: ~700 Galleons

School supplies (4 children at once): ~240 Galleons

Clothes & basics: ~100 Galleons

Utilities, owl care, car upkeep: ~100 Galleons

Emergency/miscellaneous: ~60 Galleons

Total: ~1,200 Galleons/year (ultra-frugal estimate)

Arthur earns 700 Galleons… so they’re likely (as explored more fully in Spinner’s End Wasn’t Poverty—It Was Privacy, which breaks down how Severus could afford his life with strict control):

Living in deficit

Receiving help

Magicking needs into being

Or all three.

—

The Bigger Picture – A Broken Economic Logic

A wand costs 7 Galleons. A broom costs 1,000 Galleons. Arthur Weasley earns 700 Galleons a year.

Somewhere, the economic logic is being levitated off a cliff.

—

This entire post builds on the ideas explored in:

📎 The Great Galleon Plot Hole – How the wand-to-broom pricing gap makes no sense 📎 Part III – The Rise of Severus Snape: Finances & Survival – How Severus navigated post-Hogwarts life with control, not comfort 📎 Spinner’s End Wasn’t Poverty—It Was Privacy – A full economic breakdown of Snape’s home, Hogwarts salary, and lifestyle control

Let the Ministry explain that.

[chwlips]

Always.

[sparsilees]

it’s almost the end of 2024. can we drop this absolutely inane fanonical idea that harry james potter is “oblivious” or “unobservant” or “average”?

fuck your fanon harry. fuck that soggy tissue who doesn’t inspire confidence in others. fuck that lummox who cannot string a sentence together. fuck that hothead who’d lash out in anger and throw punches at every provocation. fuck that namby-pamby who can’t read clues or between the lines or come up with a plan of action. fuck that sheep who can’t function without hermione’s direction. fuck that neanderthal who’s a messy eater, messy writer, messy speaker, and has poor manners.

who the bloody hell is that? that’s not harry james potter. why are you twisting and malforming him into a bloody clown?

why are you undermining the main character of his own series? boy has an abysmal self-esteem, stays quiet and lowkey, bottles up his truest feelings and thoughts (that we as readers are privy to, but not the other characters!), and has a calm and composed mien so you think you too can dismiss his character easily and strip him down to a skeleton of his canon self and instead carve out huge character growth, redemption arcs, and love letters for everyone else?

you wish to evoke sympathy for draco by making lucius out to be an abusive father and crafting a pitiful childhood for draco when they have an affectionate parent-child relationship canonically, but downplay harry’s abuse? you realise that tom riddle, sirius black, james potter, and hermione granger are acknowledged to be the brightest of their generation, yet forget harry potter and tom riddle are two sides of the same coin, even sharing a similar appearance, and reduce harry to a silly caricature? you make harry magically powerful but wrest his smarts away to highlight someone else’s big brain?

you make him out to be a short dork with a shorter fuse and no idea what’s going on around him when harry and tom are both described as woe-ridden orphans—with all that entails from constant hunger to cold sleepless nights to hypervigilance to the forced, quick maturity—but treat tom true to canon as tall, cunning, and clever, then do an about-face to conveniently slap the malnourished, oblivious, and slacker labels on harry to make him as lesser than?

when he picked up the impervious spell simply from having seen hermione perform it once, when his closest friends have difficulty gleaning his thoughts, when his anger is cold and sharp like dumbledore (ootp was a study in ptsd, next!), when he’s just as tall as his father, was just as ill-treated as a house elf, and rightfully brilliant as the son of lily and james potter—the two powerful and talented individuals who once had voldemort trying to recruit them to join his cause?

the sheer disrespect on his name. the sheer mockery of his character. the absolutely mind-boggling erasure of his most defining traits.

who do you think sussed out most of the big clues, and stowed away all the little, random bits of information in his memory bank, to ultimately piece the puzzle together at the final showdown every end of the school year? who realised as a mere firstie that quirrel was the man hagrid blabbed to about fluffy and the dragon egg? who noted that ginny was withdrawn and unlike herself? who had an inkling fleur had taken a fancy to bill? who picked up on what was brewing between ron and hermione before their own selves? who noticed that hermione cast a confundus on cormac mclaggen during the match? who caught on instantly to the change in tense used for the diadem’s existence and confidently tracked it down? who cottoned on to luna’s longtime disappearance from her cold, untouched bed and the layer of dust? who did voldemort consider his equal? who actually has an uncanny sense of intuition? who calls the shots when the trio gets into a pickle? who?

mcgonagall? flitwick? draco? hermione? blaise zabini? no!

excuse harry for that one time he did not look deeply into the mental workings of a grieving girl because he’s not equipped to deal with them, and has in the first place never been taught to process his own emotions properly because he didn’t grow up in a healthy environment, prohibited from expressing his feelings, let alone vulnerability, and voicing his thoughts!

let’s bury this annoyingly stupid narrative for good. go read the books and refresh your perspective. stop doing him dirty. you’ve already butchered sirius black’s character into a pathetic sisspot. and now you want to assassinate harry’s too.

[dtilmnh]

"If James was here-", Molly said, clearly not done yet and Sirius actually laughed. Of all the arguments she could have chosen, she went with that one.

"James would have never allowed me to be locked up here", he said. Sirius had never truly been sure if he deserved James's love and friendship, but if there was one thing he knew it was that James would have defended him until the very end. Remus opened his mouth, presumably to warn him not to leave the house.

"Relax Remus, I'm not going anywhere", Sirius said, waving him off. "But you and I both know that James would have burnt this place down before letting me so much as step foot in here again."

This time, no one said a word as he spun on his heel and walked away.

[cl0wnstuff]

no one will ever make me hate you ronald weasley

[elevenenthusiast]

The Irony Behind the “Cliché” Argument Against Harry and Hermione

One of the most common arguments I see against Harry and Hermione as a romantic pairing is that it would’ve been “too predictable.” You know the type: “It’s nice the male and female lead didn’t end up together for once,” or “It would’ve been so cliché if the hero and the heroine got together,” or even worse “Hermione would’ve been reduced to just a love interest if she ended up with Harry.”

But here’s the thing: that argument kind of falls apart when you actually look at the relationships in Harry Potter — especially Harry and Ginny’s.

Because if we’re really talking clichés, Harry and Ginny is the actual trope. The classic “hero gets the girl.” Let’s go back to Chamber of Secrets Ginny gets possessed by the villain, and needs to be rescued by him. It’s very knight-saves-princess. That’s their dynamic in a nutshell. And later, after barely any meaningful development between them they’re suddenly together in Half-Blood Prince. It’s not earned through shared struggle or slow emotional build-up — it just happens. And somehow that isn’t considered cliché?

Meanwhile, Harry and Hermione have one of the most emotionally rich relationships in the entire series. They’ve been through so much together pain, loss, war and yet there’s this quiet loyalty that holds between them. Not once does Hermione turn her back on Harry, even when it would’ve been easier. She’s there through his worst moments, and not out of obligation or duty, but because she chooses to be. She understands him in a way that’s rarely acknowledged not just as “The Chosen One” or a symbol, but as a person.

And what frustrates me is how people downplay the dynamic between them by saying “they’re not compatible.” As if compatibility has to look like constant flirting or textbook romantic tension. In reality, Hermione’s brilliance her love of learning, her deep empathy, her sense of justice is exactly what steadies Harry. She’s not just “the smart one.” Her intelligence isn’t just about knowing spells or solving riddles. It’s emotional and moral. She sees the bigger picture, pushes Harry to be better, and holds him accountable when no one else does. She isn’t a strategist in the same way Ron is in the books (who deserves more credit for that, by the way), but her mind is grounded in principle and truth the kind of wisdom that Harry leans on, over and over again.

And that’s what makes the argument that “she’d be downgraded as his love interest” feel hollow. If anything, Harry and Hermione would be a relationship built on mutual respect, trust, and emotional history. Not a prize to be won or a plot device. Hermione would never be “reduced” to anything least of all by Harry. Their bond was already strong before any romance was ever considered, and that’s what makes it powerful.

So no Harry and Hermione wouldn’t have been the cliché. They would’ve been the quiet, earned, slow-burn connection that made actual sense. The kind of love that’s built on years of seeing each other through the worst and choosing each other anyway. And in a story that’s ultimately about love, loss, and growing up, that would’ve felt like a real, meaningful conclusion not a trope.

[snowtaeey]

i never knew being a Ron lover would be so hard since half the fandom mischaracterizes him or just straight up hates him for the two times he "lashed" out ( one was influenced by the hocrux mainly and the other one was just my boy showing FEELINGS everyone has ffs😭). Like he's so overhated for absolutely no reason but then y'all go and praise Draco to the sky like cmon

[fanfic-lover-girl]

Canon shipper salt

Canon shipper: You may not like the ship but the characters are in love and happy together and that's all that matters. Go eff yourself.

Me: I don't care how happy the character supposedly is. My poor baby is clearly delusional and/or trapped in toxicity. He/she deserves better.

[winn-wynn]

I have to come out and say I might be a Ron Weasley stan

Of course I like the Weasleys the fandom tends to hate

[bonniesfamiliar]

Why do people hate Percy Weasley??? Like can someone give me a genuine reason He didn't do anything wrong, unlike a lot of characters in the HP Universe.

*cough* Umbitch* cough*

[aelincreativ]

Percy Weasley AU - Hostile Government Takeover

I love me a Percy was secretly a spy or double agent whatever against the Ministry AU so have this!

So! You all know the song currently trending on Tiktok because of the rotting orange in the USA, "Hostile Government Takeover" by AGiftFromTodd and Vinny Marchi? Also inspired by whoever called the orange some form of cheese voldemort.

Percy blasting that every morning while getting ready for work in his tiny flat (that he secretly shares with Oliver cuz Perciver yes, but Penelope or someone else also works) every single morning. The tiny flat that he has to have because he turned down a higher paid position as like an assistant department head to be Fudge's assistant. (There's a couple fics that have this, Lily's Boy and Survival is a Talent are the ones I can think of off the top of my head)

"We're in the middle of a hostile government takeover" - very obvious with the death eater controlled ministry

"I wanna talk about it but I'll be late for work" - having to be as perfect as possible or he'll be punished and only surviving because everyone thinks he betrayed his family and hates them

"and if you say hey wait a minute do we have to stop this?" - the fact that he is directly opposing the hostile government takeover from the inside by smuggling out muggleborns and faking paperwork and protecting his co-workers. doing his best to make sure that the world is still running and that there is something left after the world to rebuild from and be worth saving.

"we had one but you didn't want a lady in office" - Amelia Bones for minister always! Can't remember which fic it is exactly but there's one where Percy basically runs the ministry and if he wanted could be minister but doesn't want to be and could pick who he wanted for minister and no one would be able to stop him. I'm all for Percy wanting to have Amelia elected instead of Scrimager. And him directly blaming her not getting Minister for how things unfolded since Rufus took either too drastic or not drastic enough measures to fight back.

Every morning as part of his way to keep his sanity and will to live he screams this and very dramatically ends the song with the pop of apparation. Leaving Oliver, Penelope, or your Weasley partner of choice just fondly smiling after him until their smile drops and they offer a wish of safety and hope that Percy is able to survive another day and make it home to do his silly little ritual again.

Just some light funny Percy Weasley angst :D

[random-writer-person]

GUYSSSS

I MET A REGULUS BLACK LOOK ALIKE AHH

he was online and the way i ran to his dm’s

AND HE ANSWERED

edit from a few hours later…

he’s just a man 😐

[just-two-blokes]

'But the Golden Trio had it so easy! At least, they had adults on their side to support them.'

Yeah.. right.

Where were those adults when eleven year old Ron sacrificed himself in the chess game and Harry almost got killed by his own teacher?

Where were those adults when two second graders walked into the forbidden forest to face a gigantic spider because they just wanted to help their friend while all the teachers did.. nothing?

Where were those adults when a student got dragged into the chamber of secrets but they didn‘t even try hard enough to find the chamber (but two twelve year olds were able to figure it out by themselves)?

Where were those adults when three teenagers stood face to face with the murderer of Harrys parents and then almost got killed by a werewolf?

Where were those adults when a fourteen year old was forced to compete in a deadly tournament and then had to face the darkest wizard of all time, dueled him and barely escaped?

Where were those adults when a fifteen year old (traumatized) Harry Potter was called a liar by the press and got tortured by his teacher only for saying the truth?

Where were those adults when Harrys friends found out he lived in a CUPBOARD for eleven years???

Almost every adult in Harrys life failed him but for some reason barely anyone recognized that.

Harry James Potter, you deserve the world (same goes to Ronald Bilius Weasley and Hermione Jean Granger).

[sillygoofygooberguy]

what i imagine one of post-war percy’s nightmares could look like

fred.. you good bro? you look a bit down

do you see the vision, blood on his hands, distorted face, and unforgiving eyes looking at you, knowing you deserve no less because everyone knows it should’ve been you

quick percy doodle i did to match with this but didnt finish!! ^^

the blood on his face is the same blood from when he leaned over fred’s body and begged his corpse to live, because they just became family again, THEY JUST BECAME FAMILT AGAIN 💔💔

[starchaser45]

I'd like to say something that's very obvious but none ever talks about

In Harry Potter whether its the canon books or the marauders era they're were kids calling a child evil is insane

Biggest examples

Draco, James Potter, Sirius black, young Severus snap , Regulus black and so on

They were kids but weren't treated as such they were all groomed as soldiers whether its for the good side or the bad side they were still too young and the cycle repeated itself when the kids that survived the first war grow up to do the same things that happened to them in the second war

[echostalker]

Den Mom Ron

(First Year)

Ron meeting Harry for the first time: Awe baby. He my friend now.

Ron after the Sorcerer’s Stone: Momma Potter forgive me but I’m Harry’s mom now.

Ron meeting Hermione for the first time: Oh my god! Calm down girl! Drink your tea! Bloody hell, I’m not your mom.

Ron after the Troll and lighting the teachers on fire: BLOODY FUCK! DRINK YOUR TEA AND CALM DOWN! I’M YOUR MOTHER NOW.

Ron meeting Neville: Awe my baby now. I’m gonna teach you how to fuck someone up.

Ron after Neville stood up to him and his friends: That’s my baby!!! That’s my baby! Wish he didn’t use that on us but I’m so proud!

Ron meeting Lavender: Ah a fellow pure-blood. You’ll make a great Beauty Witch like your foremothers. May you bring them honor. Good luck in your future medical profession!

Ron after watching Lavender shut Hermione down after she talked down about Beauty n’ Love Witches: Get her, Lav! Get her! That’s my baby girl! What Harry? Mione was asking for it. Just because she’s been here for two months, doesn’t mean she knows everything. Lot of Beauty Witches work in the hospital. One even created that bone-regeneration potion, ya know.

Ron meeting Seamus: Hello new roommate! Hope we can get along for the next six to seven years.

Ron after seeing Seamus blowing things up: BLOODY FUCK! FUCK FUCK FUCK!!! GET A TEACHER! YOU ARE GROUNDED SEAMUS FINNIGAN! GROUND!

Ron meeting Parvati: Huh…did I see her with blu-Oh! Right, she’s like the twins. She seems like the calming sort.

Ron after watching Parvati play switch-a-roo with her twin: I now understand my mum.

Ron meeting Fay: Oh she’s studying to an Auror? Sweet, can’t wait to see her there.

Ron after seeing Fay throw hands with a six year: Nooooo! Why?! My baby!

Ron meeting Kellen: Ah I see she likes Care Of Magical Creatures. A very hard profession. Good luck to her. She seems like she’ll make it far.

Ron after seeing Kellen try to smuggle a magical creature: YOUNG LADY! YOU PUT THAT CREATURE BACK WHERE YOU FOUND IT OR SO HELP ME, MORGAN LE FAY!

Ron meeting Dean: Thanks for helping me with the boys new friend.

Ron after watching Dean team up with Seamus: How can you betray me like this? You were the only one I can trust to keep a good head in his shoulder. Shut up Harry. I’m not being dramatic.