"Now, behave, won't you? Won't you, Fred? And you, George?"
-- Molly Weasley (PS6)
"The thing about growing up with Fred and George is that you sort of start thinking anything's possible if you've got enough nerve."
-- Ginny Weasley (OP29)
Fred Weasley is one of the seven children of Arthur and Molly Weasley and twin brother to George Weasley. The twins are co-owners of Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes, a highly successful joke shop in Diagon Alley. Sadly, Fred was a casualty of the Battle of Hogwarts.
The Weasley twins are the staunch enemies of pretension, authority, and pessimism. Their weapons? A pointed, wicked sense of humor and inventive, original charmwork coupled with a good business sense. Like Peeves and Dumbledore, the twins show how handy disruption and laughter can be when you are fighting tyranny and hatred. Fred and George are sons of Arthur and Molly Weasley, falling between Percy (who is two years older) and Ron (who is two years younger). They entered Hogwarts in September 1989 and were sorted into Gryffindor.
Fred and George are very similar in personality. The two find themselves at odds with their mother quite frequently, partly because she doesn’t think they take things like school work seriously enough and partly because they just enjoy pestering and teasing her. They greatly enjoy badgering their older brother Percy as well, whose personality is completely opposite from theirs. They like to be the life of the party and the center of attention. Adventurous boys who push the limits, they spend a lot of time exploring areas of Hogwarts castle and grounds that students aren’t supposed to enter. The twins have a special knack for finding secret passages; they found one their first week at Hogwarts, behind a statue of Gregory the Smarmy on the second floor.
Their frequent escapades and shenanigans get them into plenty of trouble. Argus Filch has an entire file drawer devoted to the rule-breaking of Fred and George, and Hagrid says he’s spent half his life chasing the twins out of the Forbidden Forest. When the Goblet of Fire was charmed with an Age Line so that no one under the age of 17 could enter the Triwizard Tournament, Fred and George took an Aging Potion to try to fool it. The attempt failed, and they were left with long white beards for their trouble. They tend to be disrespectful to teachers in general, even going so far as to throw snowballs at Quirrell’s turban.
Early in their career at Hogwarts, Fred and George were in trouble as usual and were in Filch’s office when they noticed a drawer marked “Confiscated and Highly Dangerous.” That was all the incentive they needed. They grabbed the first thing they could from the drawer and in that way discovered a most unusual map of Hogwarts. It was the Marauder’s Map and they considered it to be the secret of their success over the years. In 1993, they gave the map to Harry Potter, saying that they didn’t need it anymore.
Fred has freckles, and a body type similar to his shorter, stockier brother Charlie (GF5). For Christmas their third year, Molly gave him a blue "Weasley" sweater, with a large yellow F on it (PS12). The twins were some of the first wizards to meet Harry, and they have always been unhesitatingly loyal (in their own way). They helped Harry deal with being ostracized over being a Parseltongue by preceding him through the hallways shouting "Make way for the Heir of Slytherin, seriously evil wizard coming through." (CS12) They were also members of Dumbledore's Army (OP).
"We've been hearing explosions out of their room for ages, but we never thought they were actually making things," said Ginny. "We thought they just liked the noise." (GF5)
Fred and George were beaters for Gryffindor, they use Cleansweep Five broomsticks (CS). Banned for life by Dolores Umbridge after post-game brawling with Draco Malfoy (OP19). He got 3 OWLs (OP12). Fred went to the Yule Ball with Angelina Johnson (GF22). During the Quidditch World Cup, they placed a bet with Ludo Bagman for all of their money (thirty-seven Galleons, fifteen Sickles, three Knuts) that Ireland would win, "but Viktor Krum gets the Snitch." (GF9) They won, but unfortunately Bagman cheated them by giving them Leprechaun gold that vanished the next morning (GF37).
Fred and George have a whole drawer in Filch's "punishment" cabinet all to themselves (CS8). Professor Flitwick was so taken with the Portable Swamp that the twins created on a school corridor that he left a small part of it in their honor (OP38). The twins quit school before the end of their 7th year in a final act of defiance against Headmaster Dolores Umbridge (OP29).
Although their mother wanted the twins to work for the Ministry of Magic like their father, the twins' ambition was to open a joke shop to sell their inventions (GF5, 29). With Harry's seed money, the twins did just that, first testing their product ideas (OP6), then launching a mail-order business "Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes," during their last year at Hogwarts (OP6). After they quit school they opened a very successful shop at 93 Diagon Alley (OP29). With the 1996 closure of Zonko's in Hogsmeade (HBP), the twins now appear to have a monopoly on the magical joke and gag industry, in fact, the twins told Harry were considering buying the Zonko's shop (HBP19).
| GALLONS OF GALLEONS! Pocket money failing to keep pace with your outgoings? Like to earn a little extra gold? Contact Fred and George Weasley, |
Fred and George always wanted to own a joke shop; from a young age explosions could be heard coming from their bedroom as they created and tested products (GF5). When Harry won the Triwizard Tournament in 1995, he gave them his winnings for the shop (GF37), and they dove in; less than a year later, with Umbridge taking over Hogwarts, they quit school in a blaze of glory – setting off fireworks and planting a swamp in a corridor on their way out – and moved to Diagon Alley to open up Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes (OP29). It soon became one of the most successful shops in the Alley (HBP6), and even their mother – despite her initial worries (GF5) – eventually came around to feel proud of them (HBP5).
|
WHY ARE YOU WORRYING ABOUT YOU-KNOW-WHO? |
Despite their jokes, Fred and George also understood the importance of the serious times; they joined Dumbledore’s Army (OP16) and took the spells taught them seriously (by their standards, anyway) (OP18). They later joined the Order of the Phoenix and impersonated Harry to help get past the Death Eaters, putting themselves at great risk. When Voldemort began planning to attack Hogwarts, they were some of the first to arrive for the fight (DH29) and took charge of defending the school’s secret entrances. When an explosion rocked the school, though, Fred was killed in the battle (DH31).
The twins' Patronuses are magpies (JK:Tw)
Family
Ancestry: Pure-blood.
Mother: Molly (Prewett) Weasley.
Father: Arthur Weasley, Head of Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office, Ministry of Magic.
Maternal grandparents: Molly and Sirius are "cousins by marriage," (OP6) so Molly's parents are probably related in some way to the Prewetts listed on the Black Family Tree (see BFT and my notes).
Paternal grandparents: Septimus and Cedrella Weasley (see BFT and my notes).
Aunts & Uncles:
- Weasley: Arthur had 2 brothers, but we don't know their names (JKR). According to Jo, Ginny is the first female to be born into the Weasley family in generations, so we can deduce that Arthur had no sisters (JKR).
- Prewett: Molly's brothers Gideon and Fabian Prewett (OP9).
- Surname unknown:
Cousins: Mafalda, a cousin who never made it into the books (
JKR) and her father the Muggle accountant (PS6).
Siblings: George, Bill, Charlie, Percy, Ron and Ginny.
Location of childhood home: "The Burrow," near Ottery St. Catchpole, Devon (second floor bedroom) (HBP5); in 1997, moved to a flat above their shop at 93 Diagon Alley (HBP5), and again to Aunt Muriel's Eastertime in 1998 for better security (DH24).
Creatures associated: The family owl (Errol), family ghoul, Nifflers (OP31), garden gnome disguised as Christmas tree angel (HBP16).
Skills
The twins are unusually adept at charms as their many inventions show; they also have a flair for business and a knack for finding secret passages at Hogwarts.
Other canon notes and references
Inventions:
- fake wands (GF5),
- Weasleys' Wild-Fire Whiz-Bangs (OP28),
- Canary Creams (GF21),
- Extendable Ears (OP4),
- Skiving Snackboxes (OP),
- Headless Hat (OP24),
- Nosebleed Nougat (OP12, HBP6),
- Portable Swamp (OP29),
- Puking Pastilles (OP6),
- Ton-Tongue Toffees (GF4, GF5)
- Punching telescope (HBP5)
For sale at Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes (HBP6):
- Skiving Snackboxes (Nosebleed Nougat is the most popular)
- bins full of trick wands
- boxes of quills (Self-Inking, Spell-Checking and Smart-Answer)
- Reusable hangman
- Patented Daydream Charms
- Muggle card and rope tricks
- Edible Dark Marks
- Shield Charms (hats, cloaks, gloves)
- Instant Darkness Powder (imported from Peru)
- Decoy Detonators
- Joke cauldrons
- "WonderWitch" products (love potions, Guaranteed ten-second pimple vanisher)
- Pygmy Puffs (miniature puffskeins)
Commentary
Etymology
About the name Weasley: "In Britain and Ireland the weasel has a bad reputation as an unfortunate, even malevolent, animal. However, since childhood I have had a great fondness for the Family Mustelidae; not so much malignant as maligned, in my opinion." (JKR)
This genus includes weasels, stoats, polecats, ferrets, mink, wolverines, badgers, skunks, otters, and others.
From the Web
Harry Potter and the Order of Archetypes: The Weasley Twins, the Jesters by Katie Majka
Pottermore features:
Harry Potter Wiki: Fred Weasley