Warning: Contains spoilers for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Harry, Ron, and Hermione take
polyjuice potion to turn into three seemingly random Ministry of Magic
employees. I have no doubt that their choices were fairly random based on who
entered the building by that specific door at a certain time, but I think
Rowling had a lot better idea of what she was doing when she chose Mafalda
Hopkirk for Hermione and Reg Cattermole for Ron to impersonate.
By impersonating Mafalda Hopkirk
Hermione got a front row seat at the trials of muggle-born witches and wizards.
She got to see what would have been her future if she had not already been a
wanted criminal for helping out ‘Undesirable No. 1’. She remembers getting her
Hogwarts letter and discovering she was a witch and buying her wand just like
the muggle-borns on trial did. She can relate to the horror and fear that they
are feeling because she feels it as well as she watches the dementors hover
threateningly nearby.
As Reg Cattermole Ron got to
experience what it would be like to be married to a muggle-born in that dark
new world. It’s safe to say that by this point in the series Ron has figured
out that he has feelings for Hermione. His family have always been ‘blood
traitors’, but his personal connection to Hermione makes the idea of the
Muggle-Born Registration Commission even more disgusting to him, if that is
possible. As Cattermole he had to run around the building trying to stop the
rain in Yaxley’s office in the small hope that his “wife’s” sentence would be
less. In this chapter Ron gets a glimpse of what his and Hermione’s life could
have been under different circumstances if Voldemort was never defeated.
If Harry had gotten the identity of Mafalda
Hopkirk or Reg Cattermole that chapter would have been very different. Yes, he
was just as disgusted by what was going on in the Ministry of Magic. He had a personal
connection to muggle-borns himself, but it would not have had the same effect
on him as it did on Ron and Hermione. By taking over those identities they got
a look at what their own future could have been.
-Christina
You make an interesting point! Those specific characters that Ron and Hermione 'became' really did double as a a sort of harsh awakening for both of them. I'd never thought of it hat way but it makes sense. It proved to them that hey really were fighting for the right thing because the alternative was terrifying.
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