⚡️ Summer ⚡️

people love to shit on the failings of a classic protagonist in favor of more interesting side characters but what appeals to me about a harry potter is that he’s a huge bitch

the minister for magic will say “sirius black has escaped from azkaban prison” and harry will be like “and what do you want me, a 13 year old with much more serious 13 year old problems (can’t go to hogsmeade), to do about that 🤨?” he’ll have his first kiss with a girl he’s been crushing on for Years and his review? wet. someone will bring up his parents and he will not hesitate to tell them to put their manners back in. umbridge assures her students that voldemort hasn’t returned and he interrupts in front of the whole class with “so, according to the ministry, cedric diggory dropped dead of his own accord?” and he rocks for it.

“THERE’S NO NEED TO CALL ME ‘SIR’, PROFESSOR.”

They’ve got… they’ve got Ron? The thing Harry Potter will miss most.

Draco Malfoy + textposts

I see a lot of posts talking about Harry being oblivious. About how he would have failed if he hadn’t had Hermione (and Ron). Some of this is true. He could be oblivious at times and Ron and Hermione and everyone else who fought helped win the war.

But I think something that is severely overlooked is Harry’s interpersonal skills.

People joke about him not having any. He was crap at flirting and he wasn’t always easy to be around. But those were social skills he never learned.

But his inate skills…inspiring confidence and trust? They were incredible.

It wasn’t just his defeat of Voldemort - Harry commanded power as he got older. People trusted him.

The way he got the DA to trust him.

The way the students rallied around him when he returned to school while the Carrows were in power.

Weasling the horcrux memory out of Slughorn.

Learning the Grey Lady’s secrets.

Harry was able to get people to confide in him. To trust him. To believe in him.

This is a boy who was abandoned. Mistreated. Unloved and ignored.

And he innately knew how to make people feel good about themselves, how to make people trust him, how to build meaningful relations with people.

These were skills he was never taught but possessed in great magnitude.

And that is something I think people really over look about Harry.

Can we just talk about the fact that Harry cried when he first heard his father’s voice? He didn’t cry when he first heard Lily’s voice trying to protect him but he cried when he heard James’.

If I’m not mistaken, this is one of only two accounts we’re given of Harry crying in the books. The second would be at his parent’s grave.

Can we just - let that sink in.

Can we also talk about how Harry cried out for James in his sleep when he was having nightmares in OotP about Voldemort and Cedric’s death, aka the Graveyard scene all over again? 

All I could think of when I read that passage was this quote:

sneaky pic of JKR’s plan of Order of the Phoenix from the exhibition at the BL - she has an entire column dedicated to Cho/Ginny. Some interesting things here (Contrasting Ginny’s presence compared to Cho’s/Ginny’s feelings about Harry going out with Cho/Ginny and Seamus?). I’m going to shove this in the face of anyone who says Hinny wasn’t thought out or developed enough.

This is gold!

romione + relationship development (◡‿◡✿) [insp.]

a harry potter au where everything is exactly the same except harry’s glasses have transition lenses

Albus Severus Quirrell Tom Barty Cedric James Igor Aragog Hedwig Rufus Ted Peter Dobby Vincent Lily Fred Remus Nymphadora Broderick Colin Nagini Bellatrix Flobberworm Potter, you were named after all the dead men and women I knew, and several creatures. Good luck son. 

who’s broderick

I think he’s the guy who the trio meet at St Mungo’s in OOTP. He’s being gifted a plant or something and then a couple of days later they find out that we was killed by the plant

omg poor broderick

originally, hermione’s full name starts out as “hermione jane granger,” and by book seven, jk rowling changed hermione’s middle name to “jean” so that way hermione didn’t share the same middle name with “dolores jane umbridge.”

this is one small choice that jkr made that’s always bothered me. it’s a little indicative, i think, of her fundamental beliefs and the bigger choices––(both writing choices as well as post-publication choices, let alone her current social commentary). umbridge is a horrific person who does immense amounts of harm to children not only because she’s under direction, but because she enjoys it. it makes umbridge a fantastic character, in the sense that’s she’s horrific, but unforgettable. everyone knew a teacher that made their life at school terrible.

but. i think there’s something to be said about sharing something with people we are horrified by––harry shares the same backstory as snape; he shares the same looks with voldemort; he shares the same wealth as malfoy––and it’s this acknowledgement of our shared characteristics that can be a driving force in ourselves for working to improve ourselves and our behavior, and make us better and unlike these people we are horrified by.

in order of the phoenix, one of hermione’s understated but much discussed moments in when she hexes the membership list of dumbledore’s army, resulting with scars on marietta edgecombe’s face. when asked about it, jkr said, “i loathe a traitor.” it’s a deeply decisive preemptive action to take, pointing out that hermione is much more calculating and less trusting than either harry or ron––but, that being said, it strikes as being cruel. marietta’s mother’s job was on the line; she was blackmailed by an authority figure; and she was left permanently (as far as we know) scarred. dumbledore’s army was not the only thing on the line for marietta.

whoa, hermione. that’s a strong reaction, and it’s one that hermione refuses to back down on, even after a year later. it’s also decidedly unsympathetic to marietta’s circumstances, and harry refuses to hear out cho’s pleas on her friend’s behalf. despite the fact that umbridge has equally made marietta a victim as almost anyone else in dumbledore’s army (or indeed the rest of hogwarts), hermione’s concern is only on the cause of dumbledore’s army.

and it’s a little bit reminiscent of umbridge. hermione “makes an example,” out of marietta, just as umbridge made an example out of marietta, too. hermione refuses to back down on her decision, just as umbridge remains equally as strident in her cause when we see her again in book seven. and both hermione and umbridge share the same streak of fervent loyalty to a higher cause.

this isn’t, of course, to say that hermione has done anything like the amount of damage and cruelty umbridge has––but the parallels are there. it’s the same potential that harry worries he shares with voldemort. and i think jkr should have let the parallels exist, and certainly should have explored them more. so, yeah. i think “hermione jane granger” worked really well.

Casual reminder that Harry left his date with Cho, the biggest crush he'd ever had on anyone, just to go see Hermione without even knowing why he was meeting her. <3

Just imagine though all the letters that must have been sent home about the shit Hermione did at school or updates the school sends to muggle parents so they’re kept in the know. And she’s never been in trouble before so her parents think this is just regular wizarding school hijinks because it obviously never has context for them and Hermione just rolls with it

“She saved the philosophers stone.” “Oh good for her! She must have gotten there before everyone else in class”

“People must get petrified all the time. It says not to worry though so it can’t be a serious illness”

“It says they’re obliged to inform us that ‘dementors’ will be at the school all year.” “That sounds exciting, I wonder what subject they’ll be teaching?”

“She’s been selected to participate in the second triwizard tournament task.” “Yes we had a letter about the tournament, she must really be getting stuck in with it and making all sorts of foreign connections.”

“Says she was part of a secret defence club?” “Oh I’m so glad she’s finally getting involved in the clubs, it’ll be good for her, you know she studies too much”

“I wonder why we didn’t get any updates from the school this year? They always seem to have something going on.”

“I’ve been thinking you know, about moving to Australia. We did always want to.” “I don’t know what’s been stopping us all these years to be honest. Let’s do it.”

Can somebody tell me how Pansy is racist? I'm not finished reading all books but I have seen people attacking other ppl for shipping Pansmione for this reason but the same people be hcing Pansy to be best friends with Blaise who is black? Or the fact that She is canonically married to him????🧍🏾‍♀️

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix chapter 14 "Percy and Padfoot"

That what made her a racist? People insult everyone’s hair nowadays...I thought she said a slur or gave an implication that she’s racist but this isn't what I expected but okay🤷🏾‍♀️

Angelina Johnson is a black woman and cornrows (a type of braids) are a traditional black hairstyle. Disrespecting that means disrespecting black culture. She targeted her hairstyle specifically to mock black culture. That's racism.

My Top 10 Male-Female Friendships in Film & TV

(in no particular order):

obviously I could blather on for ages about all the things the Harry Potter movies got wrong, but I think there’s one particular scene in Order of the Phoenix that sums up the problem very well. the thing is, though, it’s a good scene. Harry’s finally voicing his anxiety about both his confusing emotions and his possible connection with Voldemort to someone he really looks up to and trusts. and Sirius does everything right: he affirms Harry’s feelings while still reassuring him that no, he’s not a bad person, and drops a very memorable quote for good measure. “what matters is the part we choose to act on.”

in the book, like in the movie, the very first person Harry chooses to confide his fears in is Sirius. unlike in the movie, Sirius’s response is pretty similar to what every other adult has been telling Harry throughout the book about, well, everything: you’ve had a shock, you’re worrying too much, let the adults handle this. small wonder, then, that when Harry overhears more adults that he trusts discussing the possibility that Voldemort is actually possessing him, his immediate reaction is to retreat and shut down. he’s the weapon.

here is where the difference between the books and the films becomes painfully clear. it’s not an adult who sheds light on Harry’s situation and calms his fears, because how could it be? this is all theoretical for them: inexplicable mental connections to dark wizards, the emotional minefields of fifteen year old boys. while the adults hypothesize and plan and do all they can to “protect” the children, the children are already living this war just the same. and so instead of wise reassurances about light and dark, we have this:

Ginny’s not only providing the slap in the face Harry needs - her response to his fears is immediate, tangible, real. he’s not the only one here with a dark connection to Voldemort. he’s not as alone as he always thinks he is. and he has not been possessed: she’s able to prove that almost at once. Hermione and Ron’s responses are equally to the point, equally reassuring, and equally in character: “one day, you’ll read Hogwarts, A History, and perhaps that will remind you that you can’t Apparate or Disapparate inside Hogwarts.” “you didn’t leave your bed, mate. I saw you thrashing around in your sleep about a minute before we could wake you up.”

taking this scene out of the film removes a crucial development in Ginny and Harry’s relationship - it’s the first time Harry sees her as someone unafraid to confront him at his darkest, and more than that, as the only person who has known that darkness in the way that he does. replacing this scene with a conversation with an adult, though, completely misses the point of the story. Order of the Phoenix, more so than any of the preceding books, is a story where the adults fail the children, over and over again. no matter how wise they are, no matter how much they care, they fail, and that’s important. it’s the children who are living this war, and who will end up fighting some of its most crucial battles. try as they might, the adults simply can’t understand the war from their perspective. the best will support, protect, and guide however they can, and the worst will actively fight against them, but none will fully understand what it’s like to be fifteen years old and confused and angry and all the time facing this terrifying, powerful darkness. that understanding and support can only come from their peers. and it can only be gained, as Harry learns, when they communicate with each other and face the darkness together. the clouds part a bit then, the burden eases somewhat. “you don’t have to do this all by yourself.”