The Burrow
Somewhere in the south of England lies the small village of Ottery St. Catchpole. It is a village like many others: a few houses, a pub, two or three shops. It is surrounded by a soft hilly landscape with mellow meadows, fields and here and there a few trees which close ranks and try hard to seem to be a small forest.
A typical British hamlet, lovely, sleepy … and famous in the whole magical world.
Ottery St. Catchpole is that famous, that it was mentioned in Bathilda Bagshot’s book ‘A History of Magic’. This small village became the home of a whole lot of wizarding families who settled there to live incognito among muggles after the International Code of Wizarding Secrecy was released in 1689.
One of these families that live near the little village these days are the Weasleys. They are highly distinguished in the magical world even though they are neither rich nor very influential. In exchange, Arthur Weasley, his wife Molly and their seven children belong to the oldest pure-blooded wizarding families in Britain.
The Burrow, that’s what the Weasleys call their home, is possibly a former agricultural building built by Muggles or a former stable, which was altered little by little to suit the requirements by the wizard families living within.
Magic truly is necessary to keep such a house from caving in against all the laws of statics. It looks so crooked and awry that a muggle house would have collapsed a long time ago.
In the course of time the inhabitants just attached rooms and floors to the house as it crossed their minds. There are five rickety floors which latch onto each other and a red tiled roof with four or five crooked chimneys on top.
In the garden next to the house there is a shed which is just as out-of-repair as the house. It is Arthur Weasley’s hobby room.
Here he has cumulated his valuable collection of motor parts, plugs, light bulbs, other eclectic gadgets, rummage and all kind of muggle objects.
Orderly muggles like the Dursley’s are lucky that the Weasley’s property is encircled by a high hedge, which obstructs the view to the big savaged garden which extends over the area around the house. With its rampant grass, weeds, rare flowers and gnarled trees it accommodates many non-human inhabitants: chickens, several garden gnomes and frogs which noisily populate the garden pond.
Passing through the garden, you reach a small hill with a small, former paddock behind the house. Here, hidden from the muggles by close trees, the Weasley’s have enough space to indulge in their favourite hobby – Quidditch.
Not later than you enter the Weasley’s kitchen on the ground floor after blazing your way through the garden with its rampant flowerbeds, clucking chickens and rubber boots lying around, you know that you are in a wizard’s house.
The old wooden dinning table and the battered pantry may be of muggle origin but a talking mirror, self-washing dishes and a clock showing anything but the time are fairly magical.
The big fireplace offers the possibility to travel via the floo-network and on the mantelpiece stands the edifying literature of Gilderoy Lockhart covering all questions of the world.
Behind the kitchen a small corridor leads to a caved stairway which winds crooked and awry to the bedrooms in the upper floors. Percy’s room is on the second floor, Ginny’s is above his. Fred and George live on the forth floor and Ron sleeps on the fifth.
His attic room is as red as his hair. The walls are covered with innumerable pictures of red clad Chudley Cannons players and even the bedspread flashes in the colours of Ron’s favourite Quidditch team. Apart from that there is the same chaos as in every other boy’s room: haphazardly scattered comics, schoolbooks which are shoved under the bed and an aquarium with mouldy frog spawn on the windowsill.
If you can here something making loud noises it is not the infirm owl Errol but an incarnate ghoul who lives in a garret under the roof ridge right above Ron’s room and makes sure that it is never too quiet in the Weasley’s house.
