Molly Weasley

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Harry Potter character
Julie Walters as Molly Weasley in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone.
Molly Weasley
Gender	Female
Hair colour	Red
Eye colour	Brown
House	Gryffindor
Parentage	Pure-blood
Allegiance	Order of the Phoenix
Actor	Julie Walters
First appearance	Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone

Molly Weasley, née Prewett (born 30 October c. 1949)^[1] is a prominent fictional character in the Harry Potter series. She is a witch housewife, married to Arthur Weasley and mother of Bill, Charlie, Percy, Fred, George, Ron and Ginny. She is most probably the niece of Ignatius Prewett (who married Lucretia Black).The name "Molly" may come from the word "mollycoddle", meaning to be overprotective toward. Arthur Weasley's nickname for her is "Mollywobbles".

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

1 Background
2 See also
3 External links
4 References

[edit] Background

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Her youngest children, Ron and Ginny, are best friends with Harry Potter and Hermione Granger (Ginny dated Harry during her fifth year to boot). Molly seems to have taken Harry and Hermione, both of them without magical families, under her wing and treats them with motherly affection as unofficial members of her family. Harry especially is treated with her over-protective tendencies, because he is an orphan whose adoptive family mistreats him. When Molly heard the false stories about Hermione cheating on Harry with Viktor Krum in The Goblet of Fire, Molly began to treat Hermione coldly and unkindly until Harry explained to her that the stories were nothing but lies by Rita Skeeter (in reality Hermione had never been Harry's girlfriend, so her romance with Krum was not cheating), after which Molly began to treat Hermione with more respect. In Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Mrs Weasley declares Harry just as good as a son.

It sometimes appears that Molly treats Harry better than her own children. For example, she consistently argues with Fred and George, and treats Ron somewhat callously. For example, she sends Ron away to Hogwarts for the first time with sandwiches she knows he hates and consistently gives him maroon jumpers for Christmas (despite knowing that he hates maroon). The most obvious example of this would be in the fourth book, when Molly gives Ron a horrible set of worn out dress robes for his fourth year in case of formal occasions (they look more like something a girl would wear) after having gone to much more length to make sure Harry got a considerably better set of robes, and she appears quite insensitive to his embarrassment over the unflattering dress robes; when he says he won't wear them, Molly flippantly tells him to go naked and then tells Harry to get a photograph of him because she could do with a laugh. It should be noted, however, that Harry's robes were purchased using Harry's money, whereas Ron's robes were purchased second-hand because the Weasleys are far less wealthy than Harry; however, given that Ron made them appear better by removing the lace from them, it is odd that Molly did not do so. On the other hand, in a complete reversal of this seemingly callous behaviour towards her youngest son in the fifth book, Molly is overcome with joy when she learns Ron has been made a Gryffindor prefect and gushes with love, pride, and affection, much to the disgust of Fred and George, and even goes so far as to offer to buy Ron a nice new set of dress robes and a new rat (to replace Scabbers) as a reward. Since Fred and George already bought him new dress robes, Molly agrees to buy him a new broomstick instead.

Molly does care deeply for her children. She is rather stern with them, however, and aspires for them to "do better." For instance, when her twin sons Fred and George wanted to open a joke shop, she felt it was inappropriate and wanted them to join the Ministry of Magic. Fred and George do open a shop later on in spite of her feelings on the subject, but she later comes around (after the twins begin making money and buying her presents). She had nightmares about her husband's and children's deaths during the events of Order of the Phoenix, but it is unknown whether or not these nightmares have stopped as of Half-Blood Prince.

Molly appears to lack a sense of propriety: she publicly, loudly and rudely tells off her husband for experimenting with stitches to close a wound in a St Mungo's hospital ward, she demands that her husband back her up in an argument with her host, Sirius Black. She and her future daughter-in-law, Fleur Delacour, treated each other with demonstrative dislike, until the two women reconciled at the end of Book 6.

Molly tries to keep order in her house, a task made difficult by Fred and George. Molly appears to be a stickler for following the rules; however, while she was at Hogwarts, she and her future husband violated the midnight curfew (see Book 4).

Her greatest fear, shown by a boggart attempting to frighten her, is the death of those she loves, which is understandable, as her brothers, Gideon and Fabian Prewett, were both killed when they were part of the original Order of the Phoenix^[2]. When the Death Eaters caused mayhem after the Quidditch World Cup, she worried that she might never see Fred and George again after she'd been angry with them when she saw them last.

Molly disapproved of Sirius Black and Mundungus Fletcher, Sirius because she thought he acted rashly and irresponsibly, Mundungus because he left while he was supposed to be guarding Harry (resulting in Harry being nearly expelled for using a Patronus Charm on two dementors) to go and pick up some stolen cauldrons. In turn, Sirius disapproved of Molly, who he thought was overprotective of Harry and treated him demeaningly without recognising his abilities. Even though Molly disapproved of Sirius, and the feeling was mutual, she often helped him with cleaning and cooking in Grimmauld Place.

When Molly met Fleur, who was engaged to her oldest son Bill, she immediately took a dislike to the girl, a feeling shared by her daughter Ginny and by guest Hermione, though she wouldn't admit it. Molly couldn't grasp how Bill had fallen in love with Fleur because, as far as Molly could tell, Fleur was nothing but a vain, self-absorbed snob. Molly objected to the wedding of Bill and Fleur on the grounds that they were both too young and the timing was just not safe, even though she and Arthur had married young and during a dangerous period of time. Ginny even thought Molly was trying to get Tonks to come over for dinner in hope of Bill leaving Fleur for Tonks, when in reality she was counselling Tonks about her relationship problems with Remus Lupin. Molly finally accepted Fleur after Bill was badly scarred in a fight with a werewolf at Hogwarts (though the werewolf had not bitten him during his transformation); Molly assumed, and perhaps hoped, that Fleur would be far too vain to marry Bill after he had been disfigured so badly and been possibly infected with werewolf blood. However, Fleur surprised her and those present when she passionately professed that she loved Bill and that she was still going to marry him regardless of his facial scars, even regarding the scarring as proof of his valour. Molly reevaluated Fleur's worth after that.