Any one of these would have been an improvement

18 year old Regulus Black willingly drinks a torture potion and dies alone in a cave so that some day, someone will be able to defeat Voldemort.

Horace Slughorn (albeit reluctantly) shows Harry a part of his past he’s kept hidden for years, even from himself, which is a key part of defeating Voldemort.

Narcissa Malfoy looks Voldemort, a man who is not only notoriously evil but also has the ability to READ MINDS, right in the eye and lies to him for the chance to save her son.

Andromeda Tonks’ entire family is killed at the hand of her own sister and some other death eaters and she still finds the strength to go on and be a guardian to her orphaned grandchild.

But Severus Friendzone Snape, that’s the “brave Slytherin” Harry chooses to name his kid after. Ok, sure.

Raise a glass for Slytherin heroes

And then throw the contents of that glass right into Snape’s face

au where harry names his daughter lily “ruby” after hagrid

and hagrid can’t stop crying when harry and ginny tell him and he loves that little girl like no tomorrow, brings her treats and little mice in his pockets and lets her ride on his shoulders everywhere 

ruby minerva potter bc //of course//

i forgot about this and now i’m crying

one april fools day, fred and george decide to play the ultimate prank - doing absolutely nothing but pretending like they have

by midday, most of gryffindor house is on edge

fred - george, shall we go down for lunch?

george - yes, frederick.

entire gryffindor class - (nervously follow fred and george out of the common room, to find them setting up folding chairs in the cloister)

ron - aren’t you going to the great hall for …lunch?

george (looking in small notebook, consults watch) - no, ronald, that could get a bit …swampy. for next, oh, hour?

fred (pulling a picnic basket from behind a bush) - cheese, georgie?

george - delightful.

ron - …i’m going in.

{ some minutes later }

dean - well?

ron - nothing happened, i just ate some toast and got out of there.

seamus - what was all that clattering? we thought, perhaps…

ron - oh, professor flitwick got so nervous opening up a server of muffins that he knocked over a whole table off the pulpit.

george (consulting watch) - frederick, shall we take a stroll on the grounds?

fred - capital idea, georgie. wouldn’t want to be …inside? the castle for the next few hours, would we?

george (pulling umbrellas from the bush, handing them to ron and hermione) - shall we, freddie?

hermione - …someone go get mcgonagall, we have to clear the castle.

ron - after you.

hermione (looking back into main entrance) - …i’m not going back in there.

{ some hours later }

mcgonagall (quite perturbed, sitting along the lake with all of gryffindor house) - this is absurd. we have found //nothing//.

hermione - well, we ought to be safe as long as stay near them. …unless that’s what they want us to think.

ron - hey, you jerks, can you at least give us a rough indication of when to expect-

fred and george (leap up and sprint back to the castle) - YOU MIGHT WANT TO MOVE UPHILL

mcgonagall - OH FOR GOD’S SAKE

SNAPE - this is outrageous, not a single student attended any of my classes yesterday. in fact, attendance has been notably light all week leading up to this …holiday.

DUMBLEDORE - oh yes?

SNAPE - and a group of no less than thirteen, but as many as seventy-nine students on an overnight basis, have been camped out in the corridor outside my classroom all week, along with a reporter from the daily prophet. this was planned. they had a special dispensation from yourself, headmaster.

DUMBLEDORE - yes, as i recall they got their request in months ago. it was something of a to-do among the gambling community, as i understood it.

SNAPE - they weren’t even my students! many of them had //graduated//.

DUMBLEDORE - well, we do like to keep an open-door policy to our former students, as you know severus-

SNAPE - this level of disruption of school administration is unacceptable, and i for one-

MCGONAGALL - we all had disruptions to our lesson plans, severus.

SNAPE - i for one must formally-

DUMBLEDORE - oh, is this to be an official complaint?

MCGONAGALL - if so, why don’t you just come right over here to your office door, and open the door to your office, and go in and sit at your desk, and pull a form out of your desk and fill it out with your inkwell?

SNAPE - …

MCGONAGALL - in //your// office?

FRED - professors, we swear, we have done nothing to warrant this, but we humbly accept any official action taken at this time.

DUMBLEDORE - well, severus?

SNAPE - …i have just suddenly remembered a lunch appointment, in cornwall. (swoops off)

GEORGE - professor mcgonagall, we swear, we haven’t set any kind of traps in snape’s off-

MCGONAGALL - well then you had damn well better get started, because watching that man complain about being put in his place by his own students is one of the purest joys i have access to in this world.

self-care is ignoring canon

Happy 1st of September!

19 years later is today!

harry **albus severus** potter voted leave.

tbh the only evidence i need that harry’s a gryffindor is the fact that he kept going back to the forbidden forest after voldemort tried to kill him, aragog tried to eat him, lupin turned into a wolf and attacked him, the dementors tried to kiss him, barty crouch was murdered and turned into a bone, umbridge was kidnapped by centaurs,, boy had to die in that forest before he stopped going back

we have no evidence he stopped

harry - rubeus aragog potter, i named you after the bravest man i ever knew, and a giant spider who helped saved the world once in a complicated way.

ruby - awesome! i'm telling uncle hagrid you called him a spider.

harry - he'll be thrilled. go to sleep, little one.

Listen I’ll stop trashing Snape as soon as someone can give me a good reason for Neville Longbottom, the boy whose parents were tortured to insanity by someone who is still alive, to be more afraid of Snape than anything in the world.

18 year old Regulus Black willingly drinks a torture potion and dies alone in a cave so that some day, someone will be able to defeat Voldemort.

Horace Slughorn (albeit reluctantly) shows Harry a part of his past he’s kept hidden for years, even from himself, which is a key part of defeating Voldemort.

Narcissa Malfoy looks Voldemort, a man who is not only notoriously evil but also has the ability to READ MINDS, right in the eye and lies to him for the chance to save her son.

Andromeda Tonks’ entire family is killed at the hand of her own sister and some other death eaters and she still finds the strength to go on and be a guardian to her orphaned grandchild.

But Severus Friendzone Snape, that’s the “brave Slytherin” Harry chooses to name his kid after. Ok, sure.

Raise a glass for Slytherin heroes

id literally rather die than click on this

In two weeks J. K. Rowling is going to confirm this and it’s going to be the catalyst that causes Cassandra Clare to snap and rob a liquor store

trans people: wouldnt it be nice if we had characters like us that we could look up to :)

vice: hey what about this child-abusing misogynist? y’all feeling that one?

Decades after the series is done: oh yeah this person is bi and trans! Couldn’t you tell?!??!

au where harry names his daughter lily “ruby” after hagrid

and hagrid can’t stop crying when harry and ginny tell him and he loves that little girl like no tomorrow, brings her treats and little mice in his pockets and lets her ride on his shoulders everywhere 

ruby minerva potter bc //of course//

i forgot about this and now i’m crying

au where harry names his daughter lily “ruby” after hagrid

and hagrid can’t stop crying when harry and ginny tell him and he loves that little girl like no tomorrow, brings her treats and little mice in his pockets and lets her ride on his shoulders everywhere 

ruby minerva potter bc //of course//

i forgot about this and now i’m crying

“Do you know what it’s like to be named for the dead?” James asks his father in the middle of one of many arguments. “Do I remind you of a man we’ve never met? Am I in honor of someone you watched die? Because I don’t want it.” When James Sirius Potter looks at himself in the mirror, he sees a mess of reddish brown curls and slightly askew glasses and freckles everywhere. He sees hands that climb trees and grip tightly to broomsticks. He sees his mother’s smile and hears his father’s voice. Because James seems like the thick goofball of the family, but he reads history book after history book, wishing to never repeat the sins of their fathers. If he saw any of James Potter he wouldn’t recognize him at all, and maybe, he fears, that’s where he falls short.

“Do you know what it’s like to be named for the dead,” Albus says one day to Rose as they sit by the Great Lake. “Names of men who I think aren’t the heroes I’ve been told about. Men I’m told are brave but seem just as bad as the rest.” Albus Severus Potter loves being called Al and having his hair ruffled by his friends. He loves sitting on high ledges and looking out at the vast sky and thinking about what is on the other side of the earth. Albus Potter sticks his nose in old books and keeps to himself and has no desire for greatness in any form. He doesn’t want to lead a war or be a spy. He wants to be Al and bake with his grandmother on Sundays and give his sister piggyback rides. And, most days, that feels like admitting failure. 

“Do you know what it’s like to be named for the dead,” Lily shouts one day with tears in her eyes. “I’m not her, I’m not her, I’m not her,” she repeats over and over again. Because Lily Luna Potter is a Slytherin and brutal and fierce and full of fire and made of stone. She is not soft and kind - she is not the woman who saved her child from death. Because she can be selfish and harsh and unforgiving. She spends her mornings running through the icy, frozen woods and her nights leaning over windowsills because the rush is just right.  Lily Potter will fight to the death, but for no one but herself. And does that make her somehow distorted, she wonders as she flips through photo after photo of a young woman with pretty eyes she doesn’t have and gentle hands that she will never understand. 

“Do you know what it’s like to be named for the dead?” Fred chokes through sobs as he rushes past his mother. “Do you have any idea what it’s like to be named for someone who haunts us every day and every night? Can you imagine being named for someone you can never look like because of your skin?” Because Fred Weasley ties up his wild dark hair into a thick ponytail when it’s time to play Quidditch and sees deep brown eyes when he looks at his reflection. Because Fred is dark skinned like his mother and will never look like his namesake, and is he resented for that? Is it worse to look like the brother that his father lost or to not resemble someone he loved at all? Because, most days, Fred is already different than the rest of his cousins and friends. Fred loves to laugh and play the highest caliber of pranks, because Fred is a Weasley…but that is something that no one can physically see, and that’s what’s the most terrifying. 

“I know what it’s like to be named for the dead,” Teddy tells them all at some point, his hands on their shoulders or pulling them into a tight hug. “I know what it’s like to remind the person you love of all who they’ve lost. How much it hurts.” Because Teddy Lupin is named for a man who was killed alone and frightened in the woods over twenty years ago. He is his mother when he decides he likes the color pink and his father when his eyes morph into an almond amber. Because he is an orphan and no different from Harry…and he can understand how their father feels, because he wishes to honor those who died for him, too. Because he knows he is nothing like Ted Lupin, and yet his name carries a piece of his grandfather with him and that’s why Grandmother can only call him “Teddy,” otherwise she’d burst into tears. Because Teddy Lupin lives in between Harry and George and their children - born into war and only knowing peace. And so Teddy understands exactly what it is to be named for the dead, and knows exactly why it is so important to do so. 

And even as he tries to tell them all this, he feels hot tears running down his cheeks and wonders to his parents, who have never been there, “Do you know what it is to be named for the dead?”