Molly Weasley, the Potion Mistress?
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:date: 2022-11-17T11:48:52
:category: literature
:tags: review, harryPotter, blogComment

(a record of discussion about the topic on the Reddit thread
“`Could Molly and the ‘Love Potion’ incident be a communications
misunderstanding?`_” started by `u/varrsar`_; more discussion on
that thread)

The biggest problem with Molly Weasley and Love Potions is that
everybody seems to remember something completely different than
what actually is in the canon:

    [Harry and Weasley boys] headed down to breakfast, where Mr.
    Weasley was reading the front page of the Daily Prophet with
    a furrowed brow and Mrs. Weasley was telling Hermione and
    Ginny about a love potion she’d made as a young girl. All
    three of them were rather giggly. (Chapter 5 of PoA, “The
    Dementor”)

That’s it. There is nothing more on the topic. We don’t know what
kind of potion it was, we don’t know if she ever used it (and
certainly we don’t know that she used it on Arthur, who was,
mind you, sitting next to them), we don’t know whether she was
successful in making it, we don’t even know whether it was some
fun concoction she made even before Hogwarts (note that “a young
girl” doesn’t feel like a Hogwarts-age teenager). We know almost
nothing about it.

    Huh, so it could well be a “look how dumb I was when I was
    a kid” story. Possibly even in response to Hermione’s story
    of the polyjuice potion brewing. This was, after all,
    probably the first time Molly could get some more of the
    details about what happened to Ginny the previous year from
    other people’s perspectives. (`u/HairyHorux`_)

Yup. I think there are more versions of love potions. Yes,
Amorentia is on the top as a rape drug, and it is quite horrible
(see “`An Hour of Wolves`_” by solvskrift for a rather horrific
treatment of the matter; all trigger warnings apply!) to
something which the Weasley brothers were selling (which I would
expect could just persuade a girl to enjoy her date more or
something of that kind) to some complete nonsense. I am a bloke
so mysteries of young girls’ play are still mostly a mystery to
me (although, I have a daughter), but I know there are various
silly girly games about whether she will find a boyfriend or not
via kind-of-divination from flowers and such. Why shouldn’t there
be in the magical world something similarly silly for young
girls?

And yes, that giggling feels more like “we are all idiots
sometimes” than Amorentia.

.. _`Could Molly and the ‘Love Potion’ incident be a communications misunderstanding?`:
   https://www.reddit.com/r/HPfanfiction/comments/n94v6l/could_molly_and_the_love_potion_incident_be_a/

.. _`u/varrsar`:
   https://www.reddit.com/user/varrsar/

.. _`u/HairyHorux`:
   https://www.reddit.com/user/HairyHorux/

.. _`An Hour of Wolves`:
   https://archiveofourown.org/works/14164617