“If only he had died like Hedwig, so quickly he would not have known it
happened. Or if he could have launched himself in front of a wand to
save someone he loved… He envied even his parents’ deaths now. This
cold-blooded walk to his own destruction would require a different kind
of bravery.”
I have a theory that the valued quality of each of the four Houses isn’t really about the personality of its students.
The valued quality of each of the four Houses has to do with how they perceive magic.
Stick with me a second: Hogwarts is a school to study magic. Magic as Hogwarts teaches it can be seen as many things: a natural talent, a gift, a weapon, etc.
So how you believe magic should be used will both reflect your personality and change how you handle that power.
“Their daring, nerve, and chivalry set Gryffindors apart,” Gryffindors perceive magic as a weapon. Gryffindors tend to excel in aggressive forms of magic, like offensive and defensive spells, and they are good at dueling. But a true Gryffindor knows that the power is a responsibility, and so they must always use their powers to stand up for what’s right. They are the sword of the righteous, which makes them as good at Defense Against the Dark Arts as they are at combat magic.
Hufflepuffs believe that magic is a gift and that the best gifts are to be given away. Hufflepuffs, “loyal and just,” would naturally abhor the idea of jealously guarding magic or using it to hurt someone else. So Hufflepuffs share their magic to benefit of Muggles, like the Fat Friar, to protect the overlooked, like Newt Scamander with his creatures, or to oppose those who would use magic to torment and bully, like the Hufflepuffs who stood with the DA and the battle of Hogwarts.
Slytherins are the opposite: they believe their magic is a treasure that they have been entrusted to protect. The Slytherin fascination with purity, with advantage, with cunning and secrecy–all of which were perverted by the Death Eaters–comes from the idea that people with magic in their veins have been given something special that it is their duty to protect at all costs. And perhaps they aren’t entirely wrong: power in the wrong hands can be dangerous. And power interfering at will with Muggle affairs is a gross presumption that could turn the course of history. Though the series shows some of the worst that Slytherin can be, “evil,” is not a natural Slytherin tendency. “Cautious,” is.
Ravenclaws believe that magic is an art form, one that is beautiful and should be appreciated and studied for its own sake. If “wit beyond measure is man’s greatest treasure,” then asking what magic is for is useless. It’s more important to immerse oneself in magic for its own sake. Ravenclaws push the boundaries of magic to see if they can, hence Hermione’s spell experiment on the DA coins being dubbed a Ravenclaw quality, but like Luna Lovegood in the pursuit of extraordinary creatures: they can also be content to plumb the depths of what already exists.
So while you can see where personalities will overlap over Houses, perhaps in Sorting we should be asking ourselves less what we think we are and more what we think we believe.
that’s much more interesting and substantive than “brave, smart, evil, miscellaneous”
yknow the more jk rowlings world falls apart in america (race relations, international history, population, etc) the more i like to think that america just straight up doesnt have the statute of secrecy. european countries are falling over themselves hiding magic but come to georgia and theres a drunk redneck wizard wingardium leviosa-ing the shit out of a tractor to the delight of his drunk redneck muggle buddies in a walmart parking lot.
wizard on muggle violence is prevented by virtue of there being like a 50/50 chance that muggle is packing heat. muggle on wizard violence is prevented by knowing that wizard can give you boils spelling LIL BITCH on your forehead if you try to start something.
america is the weird redheaded stepchild of the magic world.
im not gonna stop reblogging this until this is the next Hot Fanon
english muggles come back to england and suspicious wizards meet them at the airport.
‘did you witness any strange or inexplicable acts while you were in america?’ they demand.
the english muggles just laugh in their dumb fucking faces. mate, it’s america.
what’s the difference between a werewolf and an animagus?
english wizard: *two hour lecture on legal history*
american wizard: six beers
@jumpingjacktrash congrats ive read hundreds of comments on this dumpster fire of a headcanon and yours is the best
thank you my patronus is a monster truck
I have reblogged this I don’t even fucking know how many times but I still completely lose it every time I see the words “My Patronus is a monster truck” because that is the most AMERICAN thing I’ve ever seen in 29 years of being ‘merican.
Variant: What with the International Statute of Secrecy being an international law, the American magical community suffered quite a bit at the hands of forcible attempts to make everyone conform to it, until anti-seclusionist magical forces got their hands on the sort of magics being used to hide the wizarding world from nonmagical society, and hid themselves and their communities from the magical government and its institutions.
That’s why Ilvermorny is “the only American wizarding school.” That’s why the American magical population feels like something the size of the British one pasted on something a couple orders of magnitude bigger. That’s why Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them is so white. That’s why nonmagical people have a persistent quiet willingness to believe in magic just enough to allow for the possibility of its existence, and fill their stories with it, and readily interact with the idea of it. It’s an elaborate homegrown smokescreen to hide hundreds of integrated magical communities from the magical community that demands magical communities keep themselves secret.
The forces behind the International Statute of Secrecy made themselves such an absolute nuisance that some 95% of the magical population of America stole their hide-from-the-muggles spells and locked them out of knowledge of their existence.
The International Wizarding Community: “You are now forbidden to let any nonmagical people know you exist.”
Six Gazillion American Wizarding Communities: *Jedi mind trick hand motions* “Fuck you, we don’t exist. Nothing to see here.”
The International Wizarding Community: “Looks like the problem’s been solved, I guess. Pip pip cheerio.”
Six Gazillion American Wizarding Communities And Their Muggle Friends: “OK I’mma cast Engorgio on my tires and invent Monster Trucking, hold my beer.”
When Ron, frustrated with studying for NEWTs and with Hermione’s anxious sixth-year nagging, explains to her what reading is like for him, Hermione’s breath catches. “Ron, you’re dyslexic,” she says, softly, and instantly regrets every snide comment she’s ever made towards his study habits.
Soon, by asking around, Hermione amasses a list of spells for Ron to try – some stilling the page, some changing the font of books for easy reading, some going after Ron’s temporal lobe directly.
These help, a little, but not as much as knowing there’s a word for why reading is so hard for him. That it’s normal, that he’s not stupid, and that Hermione suddenly helps instead of criticizes, looks for solutions rather than complains, praises instead of gloats.
Headcanon that an outraged 6-year-old Charlie Weasley writes to an elderly Newt Scamander wanting to know why Gringotts keeps a dragon locked up underground and begging him to fix it. Newt writes back saying that sadly he’s been fighting that fight for years and no one ever wants to listen to him because the powerful families whose money is being kept safe by the dragon always shut him down, and that Charlie is the first person he’s heard of who’s as angry as he is about it. Charlie decides that day to dedicate his life to finding out everything he can about dragons so that one day he can free the poor Gringotts dragon. After the war, when they hear that Harry, Ron and Hermione freed the dragon, they celebrate and immediately begin petitioning to have it made illegal to imprison dragons so that nothing like that ever happens again. It’s only when Hermione becomes Minister that it’s finally signed into law.
This is the best Harry Potter headcanon I’ve ever seen
yes yes yes
Just imagine how that conversation would go though, like Charlie’s been learning about dragons his whole life, studying them, learning about the laws surrounding them, practising the jailbreak of dragons by smuggling one out of Hogwarts, preparing for the moment when, one day, he can free the Ukrainian Ironbelly from Gringotts.
And Ron’s like “Oh, yeah, don’t worry about it—we broke into Gringotts and used him as our get-away vehicle. He’s just chilling in the wilds somewhere now so, yeah. Job done.”
I want an AU where Ron, completely convinced that he’s overshadowed by all his brothers and will never be as remarkable or as well-recognised as any of them, just accidentally achieves all of their major life goals without noticing. They’re all super jealous and think of him as The Golden Brother and he’s completely clueless.
I’m not sure this is an AU to be honest. I mean:
Bill Weasley: Curse-breaker, works for Gringotts breaking into cursed tombs and distributing valuables to heirs. Ron Weasley both broke into Gringotts itself and destroyed the ultimate cursed object, a Horcrux. Check.
Charlie Weasley: Aforementioned dragon stuff. Check.
Percy Weasley: Social climber, status seeker, desperate for attention and approval from his superiors. Ron: Literally married to the actual Minister of Magic. Check.
Someone else add on to this with Weasley-twin eclipsing stunts and hijinks, I’m sure there are some but my brain isn’t thinking of them right now.
if helga hufflepuff isn’t ur favorite founder then ur wrong because when all the other founders were like ‘i’ll teach the smart ones’ and ‘i’ll teach the aristocratic ones’ and ‘i’ll teach the ones who r willing to fight bears with their teeth’ helga was just like ‘fuck that i’ll teach anybody who wants to learn’ and thats how u do education
just moving along like everyone else 