Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (novel)/Recap/C05 Weasley's Wizard Wheezes

No sooner has Harry stepped out of the Weasleys' fireplace, Fred asks if Dudley ate the toffee and Harry confirms that he did. It turns out that it was Ton-Tongue Toffee, which Fred and George invented.

Meanwhile, Harry meets Ron's eldest brothers, Bill and Charlie, for the first time. Charlie, who works with dragons in Romania, is stocky and muscular. Bill is a surprise to Harry. He had only known that Bill was once Head Boy and so he had imagined that he would be like Percy. Instead, Bill has Badass Long Hair and dresses like a Muggle rock star.

Mr. Weasley arrives by Apparation and scolds Fred for giving Dudley the toffee. Then Mrs. Weasley enters the room with Hermione and Ginny. Mrs. Weasley angrily asks why her husband is mad at Fred and suggests it has something to do with "Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes". Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Ginny slip out of the room before the yelling starts. As they climb the stairs, Ron and Ginny explain what Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes is. (Apparently, Ginny has matured enough to be able to speak freely in front of Harry, though he still causes her to blush.) The long and the short of it is that the twins have invented several joke items and are hoping to open a joke shop some day, but Mrs. Weasley wants them to have respectable careers at the Ministry of Magic. Domestic unrest has ensued.

They meet Percy on the way up and he is his usual stuffy self. Percy has taken to his new job at the Ministry like a fish takes to water. He is particularly enamored with his boss, Mr. Crouch, who is the Head of the Department of International Magical Cooperation. ("They'll be announcing their engagement any day now," says Ron.) Once they reach Ron's room, Harry learns why Ron calls his tiny owl "Pig". It turns out Ginny named him "Pigwidgeon" thinking it was cute and now the owl won't answer to anything else, so Ron nicknamed him "Pig". Everyone heads back downstairs to help with dinner. The argument is over, but Mrs. Weasley is still fuming. They'll be eating outside since there's not enough room inside for all eleven of them. Out back, Bill and Charlie have a mid-air fight with two tables they are levitating through the air. Percy is annoyed by the disturbance, but everyone else is amused, including Hermione slightly.

Eventually, everyone settles down for dinner. Percy complains about Ludo Bagman, who is the Head of the Department of Magical Games and Sports. Mr. Weasley points out that Bagman was the one who got them such good tickets for the Quidditch World Cup. Percy concedes that Bagman is likeable personally, but still believes that he's not professional enough. A member of Bagman's department, Bertha Jorkins, has been missing for over a month now and he's not taking it seriously, insisting she must have just gotten lost again on account of her Cloudcuckoolander personality. Of course, we know what really happened to her. Percy also rubs in his siblings' faces the fact that he knows all about some top-secret event that's being put on after the World Cup.

Away from Percy's turn as Mr. Exposition, Mrs. Weasley is chiding Bill for a fanged earring he is now wearing. Bill says no one at Gringotts cares what he looks like as long as he brings in plenty of treasure from Egypt and Ginny takes his side. Meanwhile, the twins and Charlie are talking about the World Cup. The game is going to be between Ireland and Bulgaria. Charlie thinks Ireland will win, but Fred points out that Bulgaria has a player named Viktor Krum. "Krum's one decent player, Ireland has got seven," Charlie replies. As dinner ends, Mrs. Weasley says they better get to bed since they will have to be up at the crack of dawn. She adds that she will be getting all their supplies from Diagon Alley while they are at the match.

The chapter ends with a joke about how the twins had sent Percy dragon dung and tricked him into thinking it was "a sample of fertilizer from Norway".