The Magic Begins | #17. Favourite Marauder → Remus Lupin
I never had any particularly strong feelings about Remus Lupin until the other month when I was suddenly bombarded with them while re-reading OotP.
I suffer from mental illness and I am also autistic. While my disabilities are very different to Lupin’s in a lot of ways, there are also a lot of ways in which I can relate to him. I know what it’s like to have people think you’re a bad person because of your illness [just try googling “are people with bpd…” and seeing the suggested searches], and I know what it’s like to be ashamed of your disabilities, and want to keep them secret to keep yourself safer. When I recently re-read the books I felt really close to Lupin. He does some things I don’t agree with, but overall it makes me really happy to see the way he deals with his lycanthropy and the way I can compare my struggles to his to help me deal with my own disabilities.
The Magic Begins | #13. Favourite Wizarding Family → All of them.
“The pureblood families are all interrelated. If you’re only going to let your sons and daughters marry purebloods your choice is very limited, there are hardly any of us left. Molly and I are cousins by marriage and Arthur’s something like my second cousin once removed.” - Sirius
All the information of this tree is canon - it is based on information from the books, movies, drawing by Jo [including the family tree she drew for the OotP film], and things she’s said in interviews. I uploaded this in two parts so you can see larger versions when you click on them.
The Magic Begins | #15. Dreamcast for your favourite character(s).
At first I was going to Harry, Cedric, Dean, and Luna [as they are my favourite characters] - but Alfie and Evanna are so perfect for Dean and Luna already that I didn’t want to recast them. Then I thought of McGonagall but the same thing happened. So in the end I decided to do “Dreamcast For My Favourite Characters That I Have Dreamcasts For”
The Magic Begins | #15. Dreamcast for your favourite the male character(s).
- Lucy Liu as Harry Potter
- Lucy Liu as Ronald Weasley
- Lucy Liu as Draco Malfoy
- Lucy Liu as Cedric Diggory
- Lucy Liu as Rubeus Hagrid
- Lucy Liu as Severus Snape
- Lucy Liu as Albus Dumbledore
- Lucy Liu as Tom Riddle/YKW
The Magic Begins | #14. Favourite villain/anti-hero/antagonist → Dolores Umbridge
I absolutely adore Umbridge as a character. I think she’s one of the best written characters in the entire series. As well as her being brilliantly written, deliciously evil, an incredibly strong female character, and the fact that any scene she has with McGonagall is hilarious, I love Umbridge because of her relatability to real life villains.
One of the reasons I love the Harry Potter series so much is because it helps me understand the world with it’s real-life analogies. We see people like Umbridge in the real world all the time - people who step on others to gain power and who see oppressed groups as genuinely less than them, such as when Umbridge attempts to get Hagrid fired simply becuase he’s part-giant. People who try to pass laws that discriminate again PoC, queer people, and disabled people, such as Umbridge does to Lupin with the anti-werewolf legislation. There are people in the real world who abuse those they have power over, such as when Umbridge makes Harry write lines with his own blood. There are people in the real world who do evil but are still seen by the government as good people because of the money and privileges they have, such as how Umbridge gets away with so much because she’s pureblood and works in a high class job.
The Magic Begins | #12. Favourite [non-]canon ship/couple. → Deamus
Well the thing is, this asked me for my favourite canon ship but I’d already done that for number four! So I decided to instead to my favourite [and pretty much only] non-canon ship. Dean and Seamus!
The Magic Begins | #11. A character death you wish didn’t happen.
Okay, I really thought hard about this one, hence why I’ve not done any of these in a while. But all the characters who die do so for a reason, so I couldn’t think of anyone who I would “save”. Even characters like Colin [to show that the innocent aren’t spared] and Tonks [so that Teddy would be parentless but but be raised in a better environment to Harry because the war was ended and “all was well”].
So in the end I decided that instead I’ll just do some drawings of the trio as kitties instead. Don’t hate me.
The Magic Begins | #10. Saddest Scene → Jame and Lily’s Grave
This was hard to choose, because their are so many sad scenes through out the series. I first thought about Harry dealing with Cedric’s death, but I eventually decided on this scene. It’s not necessarily the saddest scene, but more “my favourite sad scene” if that makes sense?
This scene has a strange beauty to it. Harry doesn’t think deeply about his parents often through out the novels. I mean he thinks about them and when he finds the mirror of Erised he has a very strong longing, but he never really mourns them. Most of his thoughts of wishing they were with him come and go quickly. But here Harry mourns his parents for the first time. Not because he doesn’t want to live with the Dursleys or because he desire’s them, but simply because he loves them and misses them and they were stolen so terribly from everyone.
“And tears came before he could stop them, boiling hot then instantly freezing on his face, and what was the point in wiping them off or pretending? He let them fall, his lips pressed hard together, looking down at the thick snow hiding from his eyes the place where the last of Lily and James lay, bones now surely, or dust, not knowing or caring that their living son stood so near, his heart still beating, alive because of their sacrifice and close to wishing, at this moment, that he was sleeping under the snow with them.”
The Magic Begins | #9. A Character you feel the need to defend → Cho Chang
“Obviously, she is feeling very sad, because of Cedric dying. Then I expect she’s feeling confused because she liked Cedric and now she likes Harry, and she can’t work out who she likes best. Then she’ll be feeling guilty, thinking it’s an insult to Cedric’s memory to be kissing Harry at all… And she probably can’t work out what her feelings are towards Harry anyway, because he was the one who was with Cedric when Cedric died, so that’s all very mixed up and painful.” - Hermione
The Magic Begins | #8. A scene you really wanted to be in the movies, but wasn’t. → Kreacher’s Redemption
My first thought for this was Merope’s storyline, or at least showing more than two memories in HBP [seeing as that’s supposed to be the main theme of that book!], but then I thought about how terrible the HBP film actually was and realised they probably would have completely ruined it anyway.
So for this one I’m choosing Kreacher’s storyline, in particular when he received the locket from Harry. I think it’s really beautiful that all Kreacher needed was for someone to show him love. He’s so childlike and everything he had done wrong was only because that’s how he had earned love from the Black family in the past. And when he finally get’s treated with respect from Harry, he becomes this sweet, kind, dear little thing who loves the trio and fights for what’s right.
The Magic Begins | #7. Favourite scene → The Department of Mysteries/Beyond The Veil
So I went off-course a little on this one and instead of a scene I chose two consecutive chapters. These are my two favourite chapters in the whole series. The reason I love them so much is not because of any plot developments, but because of the imagination that Jo puts into them.
We’ve got a entry hall that spins around so you don’t know what door you’ve come through, an ever-locked love room full of Amortentia, a thought chamber full of brains in tanks with memories flying behind them like film, a room of time with time-turners and time in a bell jar that makes a baby bird hatch and die and shrink into an egg again, a chamber room with a huge working model of the galaxy where the planets float about, and a room with a veil to the other realm.
The Magic Begins | #6. Most powerful quote/favourite lines. → Harry’s Amortentia
This was a really difficult one for me because I have SO MANY favourite quotes. And I like made a list of funny quotes, and then I made a list of meaningful ones and then I decided to do a quote from each book and then one by every character but I couldn’t choose just one because like some are really beautiful but some are really funny and how do a choose a group of quotes without doing more than fifty?!
So in the end I just decided to choose something that wasn’t crazy-amazingly-deep or the funniest line in the book, but something that I just thought was really sweet. It’s what Harry smells in the Amortentia when he’s sixteen.
Treacle tart, his favorite food, and also to him the taste of Hogwarts. The smell of a broomstick handle, which is the smell of Quidditch, his passion and the first thing he used to prove himself and was admired for. And Ginny. The girl who he loves, and this is before he even realises he fancies her which I think is really lovely because it’s like the feelings were always there but Harry was to busy saving the world to notice.
The Magic Begins | #5. Favourite house/your house → Hufflepuff
Hufflepuff is my house and my favourite and my best, and it has been since I was about 14, before which I couldn’t decide if I was best for Hufflepuff or Ravenclaw. The way I chose was by looking at which traits I valued most, rather than those which best fit me. I’m probably more smart than I am hard-working, but when it comes to what I value Hufflepuff has the right kind of traits for me. I value determination, equality, loyalty, and fair play. Patience I don’t hold dear as much, but that’s probably because I’m so bad at it myself.
When I went on Pottermore and was sorted into Hufflepuff I was so happy. I was really worried I’d get into another house and would have a big identity crisis, and I know it doesn’t seem like that big a deal but it was to me. So when I was put into Hufflepuff I was so relieved and it was really cool to be a kind of “official” Hufflepuff rather than it just being a self-identity.
I also think all the ‘Puff characters are really cool characters. Cedric was brave and loyal and was the Hogwarts Champion, Tonks was a pink-haired bamf of an auror, Hannah Abbott is super relatable to me because of her break-downs and nervousness [I have a “head canon” that she has anxiety because then she’s like me :3] who married Neville, and Helga Hufflepuff was all Fuck Yeah Equality in a time where that was so rarely said. Oh, and also Sue Upton, even if she’s not a Harry Potter character.
I think it’s important for me to say that I do not think Hufflepuff is necessarily “better” than the other houses, but rather it’s just my favourite. I have lots of love for my house and also a lot of pride, but I don’t think that any one house is better than the other. We need Slytherins and Ravenclaws and Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs to make the world awesome! Just like Doctor’s are super cool and important but we also need teachers and nurses to make our society work.
I’ll leave you with my favourite quote about Hufflepuff, which is from the Hufflepuff welcome message of Pottermore: “Hufflepuffs are trustworthy and loyal. We don’t shoot our mouths off, but cross us at your peril; like our emblem, the badger, we will protect ourselves, our friends and our families against all-comers. Nobody intimidates us.
The Magic Begins | #4. Favourite ship → Romione
It’s cliché, but for a good reason. They need each other. Without each other they would never have learned important lessons. Ron helps Hermione learn to relax and have fun and the importance of friendship, and Hermione teaches Ron maturity and trust.
