#Jewish Harry Potter

[nina-scribbles]

(Click for better quality! and Shana Tova to all my fellow celebrators!!) The open window invites an autumnal breeze into the kitchen - momentarily displacing the heat. Inviting the sweet scent of honeysuckle in to blend with the yeast of freshly baked Challah. Rustling the eternally messy curls on Harry’s head as he bows to check the steaming oven.

With a satisfied nod from Harry, the Chalah floats from the oven to it’s plate on the table. Wandlessly, of course - because he's always been a show off. The prat.

“Almost done?” Draco asks.

“Depends,” Harry says without looking up, “how long do you want to stare for? I'll see how much time i can buy.”

Draco lets out a short laugh, and steps quietly into the kitchen. Depositing the bundle of herbs onto the far counter by Harry's cutting board, and receiving a kiss on the cheek in payment. A damn good deal - if Draco says so himself. Read more on Ao3

[schmem14]

(Hello, my Tumblr is the only account I have that isn’t Katbeth86, but I love it’s name too much to change it 🙈)

Peculiar Prompt: Harry/Luna, Hidden Soulmarks (each person know where their own are, but the marks can’t be seen by others unless they choose to expose them), angst is fine, but I would please request a happy ending 🙈

What are peculiar prompts? Click HERE to find out and join in the fun!

Lost and Found

CW: none

Pairing: Harry Potter x Luna Lovegood

Rating: T

WC: 1.9k

*Disclaimer: There is a depiction of the Jewish Holiday of Passover/Seder in this story. I am not of the Jewish faith, but I did my best to research the traditions and holiday in preparation for this ficlet.

*****

“All finished, Harry,” Ron grunts as he stacks his stack of gleaming plates on the counter. “I think I did a fair job of it.”

Harry looks up from dusting a bookshelf to where his friend has been scouring every dish until they’re clean enough for tonight. 

Harry sets his rag down.  “Thanks for helping me. I’ve got the rest squared away.”

He plasters what he hopes is a pleasant smile on his lips, but for some reason, it’s harder this year to pretend he’s okay. 

“No problem, mate. I should get going. Gotta pick up the kids from King’s Cross on the way to get Hermione from work. We’ll all be back by sundown, brisket and all.” 

Harry nods but doesn’t trust his voice not to wobble. He’s grateful Ron came to help, but even his leaving for a few hours feels treacherously like abandonment. Every goodbye does when you’re as alone as Harry is.

Ron sees something in Harry’s expression and pauses. 

He ambles over to Harry to enfold him in a hug. 

A torrent of vulnerability so long dammed breaks free. Harry’s breath shudders and hitches with pitiful sobs that soak into Ron's sleeve as he pat's Harry's back. 

“Harry—”

“—I know, alright? I—I can’t find her, whoever she is. I can’t seem to fill the hollow space here,” Harry pulls away to clutch his heart. “I’m not getting any younger, Ron. I’m not sure when I’ll find my soulmate, not after two decades of searching. I feel so alone. I need her.”

Ron sighs and leans against the couch opposite Harry, arms folding as he contemplates. He finally asks the thing he’s suspected, ever since Harry first told him about the soul mark hidden on his palm. “Does Ginny know that’s why you divorced her?”

Harry nods and flips his hand to rub his thumb over the smooth skin, concentrating on making the glamour dissipate. 

The mark had appeared in the centre of his palm eight months after the last battle. At first, he’d thought Ginny would possess its twin, but when he’d asked her about it, she’d been as bewildered as him. 

They’d both been too young and too in love to fathom the weight of marrying when he was soul-bound to another. It became a widening chasm between them, preventing him from feeling at home in Ginny’s embrace. 

“Hermione and I worry about you,” Ron says. Of course, they do. “I know you have the kids, but they’re at Hogwarts most of the year. And even if Ginny is still on good terms with you, it’s not enough. Maybe you should try again, Haz. Maybe it’s time to give up on your mystery soul mate and find someone a little closer to home.”

Ron’s only being a good friend, and Harry doesn’t bother to explain that someone who hasn’t been soul marked can’t understand how every other intimate relationship is a poor imitation of who and what he yearns for. 

Ever since divorcing Ginny, he feels the lack more than ever. He cherishes a hope after this month of preparing, the Passover celebration tonight will spark some much-needed joy after a lonely winter. He’s even prepared this home, pretending she’s coming like Elijah of old to fill the space he left her. 

“I’ll be okay, Ron. I’ll see you later.”

Ron claps his large palm on Harry’s shoulder. “You sure?”

“Yes, Ron. And thanks.”

“Anything for my best mate.”

*****

Hours later, guests begin to arrive. 

Ginny is first with their kids, who fling shoes and coats onto the floor of his sparkling entryway. 

“House looks great, Har…” Ginny kisses him on the cheek. “Jamie! Get back here and hang your coat! You too, Al and Lils!”

They grumble under their breaths but comply. Normally, Harry’s house isn’t so immaculate, but this is a special time of year. 

Ginny produces a crock from under her arm, charmed to stay hot. “I made the matzo ball soup, just like you asked.”

“Smells amazing, Gin. Thanks! I’ll take this to the kitchen.”

Next to arrive is Harry’s one Jewish friend from Hogwarts, Anthony Goldstein and his dangerously pregnant wife, Padma Patil. “Good to see you, Harry! Thanks for hosting this year…” Anthony winks before herding Padma to find a comfortable seat on the couch.

Hermione and Ron arrive next with the precocious Rose and exuberant Hugo in tow. 

“Mum, can I try the wine this year? I’m fourteen, and Jamie gets to have some!” Rose whines at Hermione. 

“Absolutely not. Jamie is nearly of age, and you’re not quite old enough,” Hermione explains in a longsuffering tone. 

“I’ll give you a little sip of mine,” Harry catches Ron whispering to Rose seconds later as he winks at his scowling wife. 

Anthony calls from the kitchen where he’s removing several parcels from the bag he’s brought. “Where do you keep the seder plate, Harry?”

“Just a sec, I’ll grab it.” Harry dodges the giggling train of Lily and Hugo as they race past him. He locates the precious porcelain plate with its six cups and unwraps it with careful fingers. It’s one of the few things he’d been able to salvage from his childhood home and his first clue of the lost heritage of his father’s family. 

He sets the plate on the counter and helps place each element—Horseradish, Charoset, Potato, Shankbone, Egg, and Lettuce. 

When they sit at the table together, Harry opens his copy of the Haggadah and begins to read. 

“Prepare the meal of the supernal King. This is the meal of the Holy One, blessed be He, and His Shechinah…”

It’s a solemn affair, less boisterous than in years past. 

They speak in hushed words as they sample the Karpas. 

The crack of matzah is loud in the reverent silence that even the kids seem to be observing this year. 

Lily’s voice is soft and melodic as she recites the four questions. 

Later, when she and Hugo search for the afikoman hidden earlier by Anthony, they don’t shriek and thump about quite as loudly as they usually do. 

The candles burn low. 

The food dwindles from plates and bowls. 

Harry pours the fourth round of wine followed by Elijah’s cup at the last empty chair of the table. 

Every year, he waits for this moment, secretly hoping that as the Jews hope Elijah will grace their tables, his soulmate will somehow be waiting at the door. 

Harry stands and walks to the entryway with shaking fingers. His heart pounds faster and faster. He feels hot inside, burning, full. 

He lifts a hand to the doorknob, ready to open it when three sharp raps on the door splinter the silence. 

The room seems frozen in amber, every eye huge and expectant, craning to watch Harry welcome the unexpected guest. 

Harry twists the knob, pulls it open, and sees her. 

*****

When the soul mark appears on her palm on the day of Xenophilius’s funeral, eight months after the end of the war, Luna sees it as an omen. 

Not in the sense that she longs to chase it, but that she longs to turn the other way and never stop running. 

She’s not one for great displays of sadness, but that doesn’t mean her foundations don’t crack with the newfound knowledge that one thread of love has the power to hurt her this much. 

Luna leaves Hogwarts, education incomplete.  She flits from country to country discovering all manner of cultures and magic. She loves people and things with her body and her mind, but her heart is reserved for the one whose sign she hides under a permanent glamour. 

Years pass, and she never stops moving, though she does stop marking time. 

Sometime around the first silvery grey strands threading through blonde, Luna finds herself getting pulled in the undertow of fate to the thing she’s avoided for so long. 

It’s an early spring morning and she’s curling her toes and arching her back in a languorous stretch, wiggling closer to the warm body beside her in their battered canvas tent.  A surge of urgency wakens within her. 

He needs her. 

She’s known his identity for years but refuses to get in the way. Last she heard, he married her best friend, had a litter of kids, and got a proper job at the Ministry. 

Huddled and comfortable as she is against Rolf in their campsite in Grindavik, Iceland, Luna realises it’s time to come home. 

She rolls off his cot and locates a pair of cargo trousers—hers, she thinks, but they’re about the same size and colour. He’ll never know either way, hyper-focused as he is on his research. 

Rolf rolls over, grumbling for her to come back to bed, but Luna’s already in a rhythm, the need to move so powerful she has no time to waste.

Everything she owns fits in a shabby rucksack patched with scraps of fabric scrounged on her travels. She slings it over her shoulder now, toeing on her boots as if she’s running the race of her life. 

Luna dashes out into the cold dawn air, the last vestiges of northern lights snaking away from view. Luna quickly locates her broomstick and flies toward the glowing embers of sunrise. 

Toward home. 

She flies all day, never stopping once, not even when her fingers ache and her stomach growls in hunger. She follows the homing beacon in her heart, getting closer and closer to him. 

To Harry. 

She’s never been to his cottage, but it looks warm and comforting in the glow of lights from the window. Luna stops before the gate, her heart thrumming with nervous energy. There’s a large oak tree out front, the sturdy boughs bending in a protective shade over the yard, a crude swing hanging from the lowest of them. 

Luna can see herself on that swing, his hands warm on her back as he pushes her. 

She can see herself kneeling in the humble garden, planting all her favourite clippings from every land she’s ever seen. 

She can imagine spreading a tablecloth on the weathered picnic table while Harry brings dinner out, their towheaded child tottering along behind him, thumb in her mouth as she follows the smell of food. 

She can imagine cosy nights before the fire, and eternal mornings binding every sinew of hers to his as they make love. 

Her heart clenches at the sudden longing, the unfamiliar desire to put down roots.

She opens the gate and approaches the house. Her fingers won’t stop shaking as she raises her fist to knock. 

The door creaks open, and there he is. Time has worn crinkles in the corners of his eyes, and there are whips of grey in the curls at his temples, but other than that, he’s the same. 

“I’m home,” she says, the words tasting right in her mouth. She lifts her palm and concentrates, making the glamour fade. 

Harry’s heart is in his eyes as he presses his palm to hers, a perfect mirror of marks humming against one another. She’s never felt so complete in her whole life. 

“Welcome home,” he says. “You’ve come at just the right time.”

[hanmegumi]

LMAO

edit: turning off reblogs because some of the people that are reblogging are extremely fucking moronic. holy shit

[evilwickedme]

I really really REALLY don't want to be the antisemitism mutual again bc y'all do not know how much damage that did to my mental health. But the fact that goyim only ever mention the antisemitism in what is literally blood libel: the game as an afterthought, sometimes not even expressing it by name, and instead focusing on the trans issue - I'm saying this as a trans Jew: fucking stop it. Even if not one single penny ended up in jkr's hands bc of this game it would still be extremely harmful. Stop saying "even ignoring the game's moral problems" or "not even mentioning the antisemitism". MENTION THE ANTISEMITISM. This is a game teaching fascist ideals to PRETEENS. It is teaching them that Jewish caricatures deserve to DIE for the crime of wanting their cultural artifacts back, it is teaching them that Jewish caricatures wanting to no longer be oppressed is equal to murdering "wizards" (aka white goyim) (while the main character literally discovers they're pure bloods...) and kidnapping children - THE OLDEST FORM OF BLOOD LIBEL. Jewish lives MATTER. I'm saying this as a trans Jew, but cishet, able bodied, white, neurotypical Jews also deserve to be safe. We all deserve to be able to exist as Jews without being targeted. Antisemitic hate crimes has been on the rise by hundreds of percentages worldwide, especially in the US and Europe. Stop treating us as afterthoughts.

[myboobsaresentientbeeings]

okay so i have a question:

i have a lot of Harry Potter merch. Not new one, i bought the last one like two years ago, but i still have it.

However I don't feel like wearing it anymore. I basically have this dilemma where the clothing is very comfortable and fits me well, but i don't want to be seen as supporting J.K. Rowling (which i am not).

What's your thought on this, would you think a person wearing hp merch is a J.K Rowling supporter if you saw them on the street ?

(If you're trans and or jewish, your opinion on this is especially appreciated, but i'll take opinions from anyone but Terfs, you can fuck off)

[poitionsprince]

Marauders fandom challenge (impossible):

Stop calling Death Eaters yatzees.

There's an entire difference between seeing similarities in events, especially since j*r took inspiration from them in writing.

But comparing one for one is:

Simply factually incorrect since you actually CAN'T do that. As in to compare specific groups in real life events to those in the books - meaning comparing muggles to Jews, but then what about half bloods? Polish? But what about half bloods with Muggle parents?

Is belittling the holocaust and the memory of it and trying to oversimplify it to a book written by someone who only made Voldemort a half blood because she believes mustache man is half Jewish (and said so herself in 2011, also made him a half blood by his father being a muggle - like it was suspected that mustache man's father was the Jewish one).

I'm sick and tired of people calling fictional characters over people whom hunted down my own family while in the same time have not even studied the holocaust in-dept enough to be even opening their mouths about it.

[catgirl-kaiju]

even more than ever, i'm endorsing that every person who is still an active harry potter fan and is reading the books, watching the movies, playing the games, and/or buying the merch is a monster who will ultimately be condemned by history. i hope you carry a deep personal shame with you until you grow the fuck up and stop supporting media made by the most prominent figure in a global hate movement.

stop putting your comfort and desire to consume above the safety and well-being of trans people, jewish people, and people of color.

i grew up with this series. it's meant a lot to me over my life. my dad used to read the books to me and my sister as kids, and we continued that tradition until the last book. we went and saw the movies together as a family. we went to a book release party dressed as characters from the books. even after i came out as trans, i had a hard time letting go. i kept harry potter merchandise around with me and had a little hufflepuff keychain. but i gave that up almost a decade ago because of the harm it started to cause to me and my community. i can't engage in these stories anymore; they make me feel sick. and the realization that antisemitism, racism, misogyny, and transphobia have been a part of these stories since the beginning means that it would be wrong to try and engage with them even without financial support and even under death of the author.

harry potter is, at this point, a symbol of hate. one that makes me feel unsafe. i don't care if you, yourself, are a member of the communities affected by jkr's hate or the hate expressed in the series. you should know better if anything.

fuck you. you can't do the bare fucking minimum to support us, jewish people, or people of color and that's sad. i legitimately hope you die so that there will be one less person in the world giving support or indifference to fascists. the world would be better without you in it, as long as you refuse to let go of a series of antisemitic, racist books written by one of the most prominent and active transphobes alive today.

sincerely,

a trans woman that you are statistically likely to ignore or harass

[aroarachnid]

all the people who r like : "its fine to play hogwarts legacy, just pirate it!! ^-^" "donate to trans charities!"

im sorry but if u want to play antisemitism: the game i don't care whether u pirate it or not i dont fucking trust you

also donating to a trans charity is nice but unfortunately wont undo transphobes taking away our rights

jkr is massively influential and her actions have and continue to directly harm trans people. i, as a trans man in the uk, have personally experienced the effects of this but im not comfortable going into detail here.

excerpts from Wikipedia of jkr directly affecting laws and societal views on trans people:

In October 2022, Rowling voiced opposition to the Scottish Gender Recognition Reform Bill aimed at expanding the rights of transgender people, calling Nicola Sturgeon a "destroyer of women's rights".[125]

May 2022, Rowling criticised an incident where a student was hounded out of her school after questioning a speaker about what defines women.[123] The writer called the treatment of the schoolgirl "utterly shameful", adding, "The girl's crime? Saying 'sex exists'." Education secretary Nadhim Zahawi called the incident "hugely concerning" and "unacceptable".[124]

In June 2020, the Equality Act was blocked in the U.S. Senate. Republican senator James Lankford cited Rowling's essay as part of his reasoning for opposing the bill.[97]

im sure theres more but. im tired.

the antisemitism in this game is absolutely abhorrent. heres a discussion of some of its awful tropes.

harry potter has already been criticised for its antisemitism, so to have this plot is ABSOLUTELY INTENTIONAL. not to mention the game being made by an alt right figure, so you can shut up about "oh but jkr has no creative infulence so its fine!! i wanna support the devs!!"

the hp franchise also has a long history of racism, and support of slavery. the treatment of the very few people of colour is offensivley stereotypical.

if you still want to play this game after knowing all this, i want nothing to do with you. if youre a content creator of any kind, i will unfollow you if you play this game. no exceptions.

[faggilyeverafter]

I hate to have to say this but people can recognise stereotypes without thinking they're real. Cannot count the amount of times I've seen someone say "the goblins in hp aren't antisemitic and if you think they're caricatures of Jewish people then you're the antisemitic one for making that connection". No the goblins aren't actually what Jewish people look/act like! We know that! Bigots don't care about that though!

[eccentricphilosoph]

It’s not the Jewish star on Gringotts Bank floor… it’s the Commonwealth Star on the old Australian flag because it was filmed in Australia House.

People are using this to say JK Rowling is a racist, as if she chose this film location herself knowing full well there was a 6 pointed star that she thought could, instead of the Commonwealth Star, in her mind, be the Jewish Star of David. No. Also, the goblins aren’t racist. They’re based on dwarves from legends and mythologies that are very old and established.

If anyone were to have done this convoluted thinking to be subtly racist, but out in the open, it would’ve been the set designer, the location scouts, the director, the producer, etc. But it’s highly unlikely.

I was flabbergasted to know that people actually keep spreading this lie and made people believe it.

If people are willing to spread this lie, what other lies are being spread??

(Remember to think critically and do your research. It doesn’t matter if you do or don’t think Rowling deserves any defending, just don’t tell lies or you’ll discredit anything you think or say.)

[companionplanting]

This shitty Harry Potter game has been making my blood boil so let me get personal real quick.

I am not Jewish. This body is not Jewish. Didn't grow up with Judaism, or practicing any of those beliefs.

But for the majority of our life on this Earth, for whatever dumb reason, people believed we were Jewish.

I was beaten to a pulp, made fun of, called names for years on the simple fact that people thought I was Jewish. Teachers would not intercept. No adult would try to stop it.

"They're just expressing their own personal beliefs."

This followed me from when I was about 5 or 6 all the way to my adulthood. I would have everything threatened towards me, people trying to come to my house to hurt me.

Of course over the years they found more reasons to try and hurt me (being queer and disabled for starters). But from the very beginning people hated me because they assumed I was Jewish.

Despite this, I will never fully be able to understand actually living as a Jewish person. I was never Jewish and I don't practice any similar faith.

But when I hear desperate calls for help from actual Jewish people, begging and pleading to not give money to antisemitic bigots who will fund efforts to hurt them, I unfortunately still (on some level, not entirely) understand where they are coming from.

JK Rowling is not the only one you will support if you buy the game. You will support the game devs who share the same exact views.

The only difference between Hogwarts Legacy and donating directly to antisemitic causes is you're getting Nazi Propaganda The Game out of it.

I do not care if this makes you feel bad, because it should.

-🍂 & ☣️

[shynerdwantscuddles]

Ok, so I’m going to walk y’all through some of the basics of spotting antisemitism as gently as I can muster, considering a lot of y’all have been ignoring Jews trying to teach you this stuff for years:

Jews controlling the world, banks, or media is rooted in antisemitic conspiracy theories. Another version of this is the idea that Jews are a part of some secret organization.

Jews being stereotyped as greedy, rich, and untrustworthy is an antisemitic trope that has existed since well before the Holocaust.

Anything involving Jews drinking blood, killing babies in rituals, or stealing children is rooted in blood libel, which is old antisemitism and VERY antisemitic.

“Noticing patterns” is an antisemitic dog whistle. Also sometimes spelled “noseticing” to mock Jewish people's noses. It’s tied into the conspiracy theory that Jews control everything.

If you see someone’s name surrounded by parentheses like this ((insert name here)) that’s called the “echo” and is used by neo-Nazis to signal to other Nazis that a person is Jewish.

Saying Jews are in league with Satan is an obvious antisemitic thing, but it can sometimes be snuck into media, statements, and posts in more subtle ways. If someone has the Bible verse John 8:44 in their bio or posts, they’re probably a Nazi. Jews are also sometimes portrayed as having horns or other devil like characteristics. This is also old antisemitism.

Media that portrays characters as having very exaggerated, hooked noses while being stereotypically mean, unattractive, or greedy-looking is often intended to be Jewish caricatures. This one’s a bit harder to explain, but if you want a perfect example of this, look up a Nazi-era propaganda poster and compare it to the goblins in the Harry Potter movies and video game. There’s even a Star of David in the goblin run banks in one of the movies. It’s so blatant.

These are just some common, basic examples of antisemitism. I’ve witnessed almost every single one of these multiple times on Tumblr alone. Some other things to keep in mind are that Jews are only .2% of the population, and I’d be suspicious of anyone trying to make that percentage look bigger to suggest we have more influence and control than we do.

[gryficowa]

Boycott!

Now that I have your attention:

[poitionsprince]

Jewish!Severus Snape 🤝🏼 Jewish!Remus Lupin

Being asked why they're eating giant crackers during Passover

[rmoony12]

I wish I could make all the marauders characters Jewish without it being unrealistic asf.

I mean, yeah "they're wizards, everything is realistic in that world". Sure. Whatever.

But it's actually make sense like jegulus makes sense (hint - it doesn't).

[therobishow]

I am so done arguing with people about Hogwarts Legacy. At this point, if you don't get why supporting the game is harmful, it's because you've chosen not to.

The reasoning has been laid out in the most hand-holding way possible by so many people. Many of whom have been extremely nice and calm about it. But that doesn't stop y'all from whining about how everyone against the game is a mean ole bully harassing you for no reason. (I am begging you to read the last part of that sentence in a highly condescending old-timey prospector voice)

I could go on all day about the bad faith arguments that keep popping up about why the game is good actually. Nevermind that it's about stopping a rebellion by Jewish stereotypes because it would be disadvantageous for the oppressors Wizards to not have them be subservient. They also really want to gloss over the game having an MtF character with a fully masculine voice and face named Sirona Ryan.

(Sorry, tangent, this is a world wherein people use magic to alter the appearance of themselves or others in literally every book, but it's not possible to fully transition????)

Anyway! I don't want to, and shouldn't have to, spend any more of my time explaining why capitalism isn't a free pass to buy a game that supports a racist, transphobic, and honestly just plain evil person. If you can't comprehend why using Twitter is different from spending $80 on a game, it's because you don't actually care. It's not because the Jewish and trans communities didn't spend months explaining it to you in ways that infants could understand. You just do not care about those communities.

And I wish you would just admit it.

Just say that you value your personal entertainment over other people's actual lives.

Stop pretending that it is anything else.

It isn't. And you know it.