Happy June! As many of you will know, last month a generous wizarding family opened their home to the wider magical community. In a time of need for everyone, Arthur and Molly Weasley, along with their various children, hosted hundreds of other magical folk at their residence, fondly known as The Burrow, near Ottery St. Catchpole. Since this issue is all about celebrating this altruistic family, we put our noses to the ground to find out what people thought of the family and their gesture.
A great majority of the Weasley family's guests - and others who did not stay - were only too eager to praise the redheaded crew. "Such a poor family. I mean you only have to look at their embarrassing excuse for a house to see it - but so generous!" was the dubious description of one reader. Others were more genuinely grateful, with many mentions of Mrs. Weasley's now-famous cooking, countless gifts showered upon the guests camping on every inch of real estate, and entertainment for all. According to Terri Tubsworth, "It was what we all needed, I think. A bit of time away from the world; a distraction from distressing current events; a reminder that all is not wrong with the world." Another lovely sentiment shared was, "It made me so aware of how small my social circle is. I'm determined to branch out after this and make more friends and acquaintances outside of work."
As one might expect, there were plenty who were happy to say something negative, too. From complaints about the upkeep of the house to reports of mysterious pranks interrupting the staycation, it seemed some of the guests had not heard the phrase 'Never look a gift thestral in the mouth'. While some of these grievances were fairly reasonable ("A gnome made off with my wand, and it took three days for me to get it back - that twerp Arthur just laughed and said, 'That's gnomes for you'!"), your humble writer may be bold enough to suggest that others were thinly-veiled excuses to slander the thoughtful gingers. A fellow with white-blond hair and a suspiciously fake-looking moustache claimed that the Weasleys had turned Gringotts goblins into pigs and served them for dinner, but the tentative investigation regarding that statement does not look like it will go anywhere.
We also thought it only fair to give the Weasleys a chance to give their own views on how the whole thing had gone. Mrs. Weasley looked exhausted but cheerful as she directed fourteen buckets of laundry to scrub themselves and eight potato peelers to trim and slice behind her. Between chores she told us, "I've loved having everyone here. I don't think too many people took advantage of us, and there's been a surprising amount of help around the place - more than I'm used to, anyway!" Mr. Weasley seemed to mostly want to talk about something called elektickity but did say that he was pleased people had been sharing resources and making room for each other. Ronald "Call me Ron" Weasley told us that "[he knew] some teenagers had nicked off with [his brother] Percy's chess set the first night, but since [Percy] forced [him] to listen to a two-hour report on sickle forgeries, [he] thought it served [Percy] right." Sadly, we will not be able to witness the fallout of that little kernel, but we can always imagine!
To the Weasley clan, thank you for your generosity! It is not often such an unreserved display of kindness happens on such a scale. Overall, we think it is fair to say that the gesture was well-received, and let us all do it again sometime