Harry Potter - Tumblr Posts

@throwthemanaway Did you even fully read anything I said? Where did I condone the assault? I never said Snape wasn’t a clear victim. To speaking of Lily-Snape during that scene I think it was hypocritical of her to only choose to sever ties with him only when he hurt her and chose to turn a blind eye to his other behavior outside of the Marauder interactions. I agree you can criticize her willful blindness to both his behavior and James’s horrendous behavior when she agreed to date him. I never said that was misogyny-in fact I said that is a perfectly acceptable thing to criticize in my second paragraph (which you would know if you took the time to read and response thoughtfully). Third, I will not tolerate condescending or rude responses like yours which clearly aren’t meant for having the end result be a debate/discussion of characters and their choices, flaws, or tropes. I will be blocking accounts in the future whose users are incapable of acting like mature adults and choose to engage in a hostile manner. Have a good day.

The take from a small sect of Snapedom asserting that Lily should’ve remained friends with Snape and that she “shouldn’t have abandoned her friend who was having a tough time fitting in” as well as “she should’ve inquired more into his home life” even when he showed signs of not being willing to talk about the full extent of it are ones rooted in misogyny. Women should be allowed to be supportive to an extent but also have boundaries on what they are willing to accept. We aren’t therapy centers for men. Let Snape be someone who was both a victim and had agency over making his ultimate decisions-it makes his character more compelling.

What you can criticize Lily for is turning a blind eye to the flaws of those close to her such as choosing to date James in her later years despite him being a horrendous bullying ass and Snape as mentioned previously. You can also say that her brushing off Snape with a “you should be grateful” after the werewolf incident was an extremely callous response to someone who went through a very traumatic incident.

Thanks @snapesnailtape for the idea to post this.

Not James’s puppy 🤣. But seriously it’s ok to accept their flaws and their assholeness as part of the character it makes them more interesting-more Sirius than James for me. (I loathe James).

something I find annoying about snape stans is the fact we do not know the context of what happened between the marauders and Snape excluding two flashback chapters

and remember the conversation about SWM included Sirius a man who spent 12 years of his life in a prison that has guards who suck out souls ( so he probably doesn’t remember everything properly)

It’s a bit scary to me how much people deferred to Dumbledore during the war effort. It makes it satisfying when characters like Snape and Harry (in DH) question and challenge him.

This is coming from someone who actually likes Dumbledore-it’s both astounding and amazing how he has people wrapped around his finger.

Forget the aftermath of the Marietta SNEAK jinx incident. Harry and Cho were def not gonna work out considering when going to Madam Pudifoot’s for their cringe date Cho remarked “Remember when that Sirius Black escaped…” lol can you imagine Harry not telling a girl he’s honestly into about Sirius? Granted the situation is trickier than that but still…

It is very odd to me when some people downplay what Harry went through with Dudley like Harry hunting pre-Hogwarts because Harry “baits him.” There are explicit parallels in the text between Harry empathizing with Snape after seeing SWM as he “knew how it felt to be humiliated” and the recounting of general humiliation both during SS and during Occlumency lessons.

Here is a friendly reminder that abuse victims don’t need to be “perfect” for their abuse to be valid and they can cope with it in different ways.

So good! I will also add that we truly see the roles between mentor/student change to one of equals especially during the Grimmauld Place scene in DH. Besides the instance you pointed out about Harry reminded Remus he’s a soon to be parent, it’s also the instance where Remus finally lets down his guard about what it means to be a werewolf in society and how he views himself as a dark creature (as seen by his exclamations vs his dry humor in OOTP). In text this behavior from him is only seen when he was in the company of close friends like Sirius and later Tonks (implied).

Nearly Always Right: Remus and Harry

By @thecat-isblogging-blog , me, featuring inputs from @dragonlordette

I have talked about Harry and Remus' relationship before in Resurrection Stone meta, where Harry sees Remus as a mentor. A mentor who consistently equips him with tools - his favourite subject (DADA), his strongest spell (Patronus), a connection to his father and godfather. But there are themes in their conversations in POA that sets off seeds in Harry's arc. This conversation for example:

Harry sat stunned for a moment at the idea of someone having their soul sucked out through their mouth. But then he thought of Black.

"He deserves it," he said suddenly.

"You think so?" said Lupin lightly. "Do you really think anyone deserves that?"

From the beginning of Prisoner of Azkaban, the moral theme is "do bad people deserve bad things done to them". It starts with Uncle Vernon saying Sirius deserves the death penalty:

"When will they learn," said Uncle Vernon, pounding the table with his large purple fist, "that hanging's the only way to deal with these people?"

And, of course, the delightful Aunt Marge about Harry's case in "St. Brutus' Secure Centre for Incurably Criminal Boys":

"Do they use the cane at St Brutus' boy?" she barked across the table.

"Er-"

Uncle Vernon nodded curtly behind Aunt Marge's back.

"Yes," said Harry. Then, feeling he might as well do the thing properly, he added, "All the time."

"Excellent," said Aunt Marge. "I won't have this namby-pamby wishy-washy nonsense about not hitting people who deserve it. A good thrashing is what's needed in 99 cases out of hundred. Have you been beaten often?"

[ Quick note, because I can't resist pointing out more connections the book sets up between Harry and Sirius from the beginning, apart from them being in innocents in these instances:

"No need to tell us he's no good," snorted Uncle Vernon, staring over the top of his newspaper at the prisoner. "Look at the state of him, the filthy layabout! Look at his hair!"

He shot a nasty look sideways at Harry, whose untidy hair has been a source of great annoyance to Uncle Vernon]

Justice and Mercy

Harry completely rejects the Dursleys as caregivers in this book by running away and he gains a mentor figure and a godfather in this book. The mentor, asks him a moral question that sets up an arc: "Do you really believe anyone deserves that?"

The question sets up seeds of mercy that Harry grants not only Peter, but also makes him the deliverer of justice to innocents: Sirius and Buckbeak. He drives the Dementors away from Sirius with a powerful Patronus, a spell Remus taught him and frees Buckbeak, delivering the justice promised at the beginning of the book.

Another notable factor is that Remus didn't answer the question for Harry (although it's clear he has his own feelings about it, especially since he brought up the idea of Sirius getting the Dementors' Kiss unprompted - a first for him in a book). He is opening space for Harry to process what he is thinking and feeling by asking the right questions, and trusting that Harry will make the right decision.

In the Shrieking Shack scene, both Remus and Sirius defer to Harry's judgement on what must be done with Peter. Harry also similarly rejects Remus' stance in Deathly Hallows about using Expelliarmus on Stan Shunpike - "I won't blast people out of the way. That's Voldemort's job."

In the final book of the series, Harry will come to a position where he will grant mercy to many: Draco, Snape, and even Voldemort. Have a look at how he reacts to Voldemort's mutilated soul:

He was afraid of it. Small and fragile and wounded though it was, he did not want to approach it. Nevertheless, he drew slowly nearer, ready to jump back at any moment. Soon he stood near enough to touch it, yet he could not bring himself to do it.

And Harry does not believe that Voldemort deserves it, a mutilated soul, stuck helplessly in a limbo and unable to go on. He offers Voldemort a chance to heal his soul:

"But before you try to kill me, I'd advise you to think about what you've done... think, and try for some remorse, Riddle..."

"What is this?"

Of all the things Harry had said to him, beyond any revelation or taunt, nothing had shocked Voldemort like this. Harry saw his pupils contract to thin slits, saw the skin around his eyes whiten.

"It's your one last chance," said Harry, "it's all you've got left...I've seen what you'll be otherwise...be a man.. try...try for some remorse..."

[Another note: a soul is sacrosanct in the series. That specifically Voldemort's mutilated soul being stuck and unable to move on, and the question of whether Sirius "deserves" to be rendered soulless - it is a strong thread in the series, and as @artemisia-black pointed out to me, in keeping with ideas of annihilationism: "hell is not existing"]

The Idea of Shame

Another theme that comes up prominently in conversation between Remus and Harry are the ideas of shame (and self loathing).

"Why? Why do they affect me like that? Am I just-?"

"It has nothing to do with weakness," said Professor Lupin sharply, as though he had read Harry's mind. "The Dementors affect you worse than the others because there are horrors in your past that the others don't have. (...) The worst that has happened to you Harry is enough to make anyone fall off their broom. You have nothing to feel ashamed of. " - POA

Remus picks up on Harry's feelings of embarrassment and insecurity and just like how Remus plants the seed of justice and mercy in Harry's mind, he also starts it with getting Harry to be kind to himself. Harry feels really vulnerable and insecure about "weakness", and Remus gets him to forgive himself for it before he even fully articulates that he shouldn't feel that way.

The roles reverse in Deathly Hallows, and Remus runs to Harry with his deep rooted shame and self-loathing:

"How can I forgive myself, when I knowingly risked passing on my own condition to an innocent child? And if, by some miracle, it is not like me, then it will be better off, a hundred times so, without a father of whom it must always be ashamed!"

(...)

"If the new regime thinks Muggle-borns are bad," Harry said, "what will they do to a half-werewolf whose father's in the Order? My father died trying to protect my mother and me, and you reckon he'd tell you to abandon your kid to go an adventure with us?"

Harry, of course, can't solve Remus' problems or his own internalised shame and self-loathing due to the stigma he faces as a werewolf in the wizarding society. But Harry can remind him what's important - the feelings of the child that will be left behind ("Parents shouldn't leave their kids unless they've got to").

And Remus gets the message, and is grateful for it - and he names Harry godfather to Teddy in honour of it.

Like many mentor figures and fathers Harry surpasses in the series as part of his arc (James, Sirius, Dumbledore), Harry surpasses Remus as well and Remus chooses to display trust in Harry's moral compass and instincts:

"I'd tell him to follow his instincts, which are good and nearly always right," - Remus Lupin, Deathly Hallows

These are the questions we need answers to 🤣

Albania is way too small in the HP world. 

The Bloody Baron tracked down Helena Ravenclaw in an Albanian forest with no problem. 

Voldemort finds Ravenclaw’s diadem in an Albanian forest with no problem.

Peter finds Voldemort in an Albanian forest with no problem.

Bertha Jorkins who’s literally on holiday in Albania somehow is close enough to Peter in the same forest.

Quirrel also ran into Voldemort in an Albanian forest

Like…how is this forest so small that anyone can run into each other?? Also there is more than one forest in Albania. How are they all ending up in the same one? They’re all going to a park and just calling it a forest to look cool. 

Amazing. Another way Harry and Voldemort are foils for each other is by looking at their wand woods: Holly and Yew respectively. Holly is considered to be a symbol of protection and prosperity, Jesus’s sacrifice, and has symbolism connected to Christ’s Crown of Thorns.

Yew, on the other hand, is a tree known for its ability to regenerate once it’s branches touch the ground. Its berries and wood are also known for their poison: in fact it was planted in churchyards to ward off animals from grazing there and has been used in literature to represent darkness.

The symbolism of the wand woods tie themselves back into the different methods of resurrection Harry and Voldemort undergo in the series, with Voldemort’s representing a darkness devoid of “willing submission and sacrifice” much like the symbolism of the Yew.

Yew Trees: https://www.ancient-yew.org/mi.php/trees-in-mythology/79

Holly Trees: https://www.flowerkingdom.com/blog/the-symbolic-significance-of-holly/amp/

“The Death Eaters" is not a lame name for a villainous group

I don’t think the name was supposed to inspire fear. While it did have that effect, its purpose was to inspire its members, and for the inner circle who truly aligned with Voldemort, it was the name for their purpose. Of course, I think few were ever as obsessed with defying death as Voldemort was, but I do think there’s something delightfully taboo about it. Eating death…we usually don’t care about what we eat–it sustains us, it’s beneath us, its only purpose is to fulfill our will. We bend it to our use. There are things we treat with respect for their strength exceeds ours, Death foremost. To bend Death to our will, to have no fear at all, to eat it–this is powerful in a way that breaks all taboos, just as Voldemort did in creating horcruxes.

Then there’s the irreverent context–the Death Eaters eat death for immortality, but in a perverse way, not as a religious or pious symbol. Or they are religious, but worship the works of their own hands. So to me it’s quite effective and perfectly capable of inducing fear, for those who bear the title of Death Eater do not play by our rules and care nothing for our laws. They are strange and fearless of the things we treat with reverence.

Then there’s the metatextual layer from the Christian undertones of the book, particularly sacrificial love unto death enabling rebirth. Harry and Voldemort are foils for each other (Snape as well, but I’ll save that for another day). Voldemort’s actions are the artificial or perverted inverse of the things Harry does: He survives by fleeing from death, not embracing it. He resurrects himself through a ritual based on mastering others, rather than being resurrected because of willing submissiveness and enabling sacrifice. Communion, one of the most important Christian rituals, involves eating and drinking in remembrance of Christ, the savior who willingly embraced death for the world to live and be free from spiritual chains. Death Eaters and Voldemort in particular are characterized by ignorance:

“That which Voldemort does not value, he takes no trouble to comprehend. Of house-elves and children’s tales, of love, loyalty, and innocence, Voldemort knows and understands nothing. Nothing. That they all have a power beyond his own, a power beyond the reach of any magic, is a truth he has never grasped.”

Prisoners x Harry Potter Part 1: The Villains

These are notes from a conversation with @snapesnailtape:

While I was watching the 2013 thriller Prisoners, I noticed the series’s main villain Holly Jones has many parallels with Lord Voldemort, the villain of Harry Potter. In this meta I will be exploring their respective life experiences which formed their ignorance, disillusionment in positive supernatural forces, and the methods which they use to subjugate people into darkness. 

Prisoners, directed by Villeneuve, utilizes the imagery of the maze to deconstruct the process by which characters in the film process their trauma or imprisonment, leading themselves or others to a doomed fate. (For the purposes of this part, I will be focusing on how Holly uses it to hurt other people).

The mythology of the maze dates back to the King Minos of Crete creating a complex labyrinth with his wife Pasiphe’s son, the Minotaur (a half bull), in the center to devour any prisoners who were placed into the maze. Famously, the Athenian Theseus defeated both the labyrinth and the beast by using the golden thread gifted to him by Princess Ariadne.  While the origins of the labyrinth are a myth, the symbol itself is now regarded as an object of fear and damnation by the population. 

Keeping with the imagery of the labyrinth, the villain in Prisoners uses it as a spiritual compass. As context for the adoption of the labyrinth as seen in the film: the plot follows the Jones family consisting of Holly and her husband who were once devout Christians, until they lost their beloved son to cancer. After he had passed away, they grew disillusioned with the power of Christ as a supernatural force and adopted the pendant of the maze in lieu of the cross, thereby rejecting the positivity and faith associated with Christianity with the despair and evil of the labyrinth. 

Similarly, in the Harry Potter series, the primary villain Lord Voldemort frequently mocks and underestimates the supernatural power of love which leads to his downfall two times. His actions, while irredeemable and wholly evil, are not without a sympathetic background much like the Jones’s.  In fact, Voldemort or Tom Riddle, as he was known before his formal ascent to power, was conceived in a symbolic loveless union, orphaned and abandoned at an early age, and forced to grow up a penniless orphan during the 1940s. 

Secondly, the methods which Holly Jones uses in  Prisoners after her disillusionment with Christ are very similar to the ones Lord Voldemort uses in Harry Potter to both lure followers and handle victims.  

In Prisoners, Holly would drive to nearby homes and abduct children. Once the children were abducted, they would be injected with LSD drugs ensuring that they forgot their identity and sense of purpose before succumbing to the “Minotaur” death.

Likewise, Lord Voldemort was known to “trick, jinx, and blackmail” innocent people via magic into being loyal death eaters or otherwise appeal to  them with the illusion of grandeur and power they may have never hoped to have achieved otherwise. The targets of Lord Voldemort are either immediately greeted by the “ignominy of death” or treated to a show of “torture” or fright before being murdered. 

However, there are a couple people who manage to theoretically escape the restraints of both Holly and Lord Voldemort, but none of the people who escaped were able to live their lives completely rid of their abuse, sin, or guilt. 

Two victims of Holly’s–Bob Taylor and Alex– are examples of how the effects of abuse manage to permeate their actions during their lives. In the case of Bob Taylor, he manages to escape Holly’s house physically but recreates patterns from the home in which he was kept captive by stealing clothes from other abducted children of Holly’s, covering them in pig’s blood, burying mannequins of children in yards, and drawing mazes on the walls in his home. In a somewhat similar fashion, Alex Jones is physically given the freedom to escape from her house via an RV, but ends up returning to her house to sleep every night. 

In Harry Potter followers of Lord Voldemort’s are branded with the Dark Mark which functions as a Protean Charm, meant to burn the bearer’s skin whenever Voldemort desires his followers to answer his summons. Two former Death Eaters, Igor Karkaroff and Severus Snape both infamously feel the dark mark both grow clearer and burn during the installation’s Goblet of Fire. For Snape, however, the mark also serves as a manifestation of his deep seated guilt in joining the organization and his role in Lily’s death. (Note: I’m keeping this section superficial since this will be a separate meta). 

Finally, both Holly and Lord Voldemort meet their ends by the Christ or God figure of their creations via Loki–named after a Norse God–and Harry respectively.

Bibliography:

Loyola University Chicago. Labyrinths: Their Origins & Development: Medieval Studies: Loyola University Chicago. (n.d.). Retrieved August 27, 2022, from https://www.luc.edu/medieval/labyrinths/index.shtml

What an icon. This incident is right up there with him speaking about the nickname in HBP.

i know i use the word iconic a lot in relation to harry james potter but i feel it bears repeating here

This ficlet is so beautiful yet heartbreaking knowing what happens at the end of OOTP 💔🥺. I also love the callback to the SS chess games between Harry and Ron during Christmas time as well.

Finally getting to know his godson.

-

Sirius: Your mother used to sing in the school choir. Do you sing? Harry: No……. Sirius: That’s what everyone who sings in secret says.

Expecto Patronum!

Day 21: Hogwarts

You might belong in Gryffindor, Where dwell the brave at heart, Their daring, nerve, and chivalry Set Gryffindors apart

Megan as a Gryffindor is mainly as a result of a popular fan theory that Houses are awarded based around what values more than what one ‘is’ since these are traits any decently well rounded person could exhibit. Elsewise she’d likely fall into Ravenclaw, or Hufflepuff.

Fun fact; she doesn’t get her own wand till third year. First and second are spent with her trying to wrangle the family Cherry wood wand her own mother got honors with in Mahoutokoro, but it winds up combusting in disappointment. She finally screws up the courage to earn her own money and purchase a nice Ollivander; Alder wood and Phoenix feather, 12 ¼th inch, slightly yielding. Her patronus is a crow. 

Harry: fucking Draco, fucking quidditch, fucking cheating, fucking Draco trying to fuck me in the arse

Draco: Potter, if you wanted me to do that,then all you gotta do was ask and I would have gladly done it

Harry: WHAT?!!

Draco: what?

Dang Draco, you the smoothest f*cker I have seen

Draco: Can I call you Oreo?

Harry: Because I am sweet?

Draco: No. Because I want to split your legs and lick what in between.

Spoilers for the last movie of Harry Potter (also book)

In general, I have a lot of mixed feelings for these movies and books.

I love them because I grew up on them. One of my first ships ever was Dramione in fanon. I could never see it in canon.

I was always in love with the story and how it developed and how it made me feel.

Yesterday, I ended up rewatching the last film with my family because it was showing on the TV. And watching that film as an adult now, it made me realise just how many of the adults in the film did their best to protect the next generation. They weren't always successful. However, Voldemort ultimate died because Harry had been protected by Lily and James's sacrifices; through the efforts of Narcissa Malfoy to keep her son, Draco, alive and through the pact that she and Severus Snape made; through Snape and Dumbledore working together because Snape's love for Lily is everlasting.

There are many more examples of love throughout the entire story of Harry Potter. They remind us that as much as love can be our greatest weakness with people like Voldemort and his deatheaters using loved one's to control a person's actions; love is also what allows rebellion and change to flourish. Love is our greatest strength, no matter which form it takes.

The Battle of Hogwarts is won because people believed that kindness, love and acceptance can overcome hatred, cruelty and bigotry and ignorance.

I guess, that is why it never made sense to me why an author who preached about love, kindness and acceptance in her stories could be so hateful to people who are already hurt by how society is.

Nothing that I have said in this post is new or profound. This is however the first time that I could finally express my feelings on the matter of Harry Potter. It feels good to talk about a fandom that I am sort of a veteran of xD.

I know that nowadays there is even more to explore within this fandom with the Marauders side of the fandom exploding on Ao3 and on here. I just might dip my toes in there for a little while and explore the world of Harry Potter from a different perspective.

But honestly fuck J K Rowling. There's enough bullshit going on in this world already. Stop adding to it.

Taurus, Hufflepuff, and Book of Mormon!

rb with your zodiac sign, hogwarts house, and favorite broadway musical

i’m curious to see

My inner nerd told me to buy them, and I did

I love this

Credit to owner

The struggles

Everytime I start to ship characters, I always look at posts about them for hours and hours. But no matter how many posts I see, it’s like I can’t get enough! Forget drugs, I’m addicted to fictional relationships…