#also hogwarts mystery

[midnight-train-of-thought]

It’s that time of year where I’m on vacation and bored and consume a bunch of media about spies and princess academies and desperately want to be one of them even though I would be terrible at it and am quite against working for the government

Would I sell my soul and change my entire personality for power, knowledge, and a sick wardrobe?

…

hell yes

[lilithofpenandbook]

Snape, after telling me he most definitely WONT give me advice on getting a date for the ball

[wisteria-lodge]

What do you think about the take that Lucius is a little neglectful towards Draco?

It comes from how 1. When Harry and Draco met, Draco is by himself in a street, feeling bored. 2. Lucius scolds Draco about his grades and complaining about Harry yet seemingly failed to get a tutor or therapist or consider Draco’s feelings. 3. During Hogwarts Mystery, Lucius often leaves Draco in the Hands of others or by himself. (Even During a Christmas event, Draco is found on the streets by himself, upset and annoyed because he felt Lucius was not spending enough time with him.)

Okay, I'll play.

1 ~ Draco and Harry meet in a clothes shop, not the street, and here's the quote:

“My father’s next door buying my books and Mother’s up the street looking at wands,” said the boy. He had a bored, drawling voice. “Then I’m going to drag them off to look at racing brooms. I don’t see why first years can’t have their own. I think I’ll bully Father into getting me one and I’ll smuggle it in somehow.”

I actually don't think Draco's bored at all. I think he's having a good time being independent and showing off in front of the new kid. He's got a bored-sounding voice, which is different. A bored-sounding voice is low energy, too-cool-for-school, which is very Draco. And apparently, Lucius is running Draco's errands, and Draco thinks he can get him to buy him an extra present. That seems the opposite of being neglectful.

2 ~ Therapists aren't a thing in the wizarding world, and mind-healers are fanon, so I don't expect that would be on Lucius' radar. But here's the complaining about Harry bit:

“. . . everyone thinks he’s so smart, wonderful Potter with his scar and his broomstick —” “You have told me this at least a dozen times already,” said Mr. Malfoy, with a quelling look at his son. “And I would remind you that it is not — prudent — to appear less than fond of Harry Potter, not when most of our kind regard him as the hero who made the Dark Lord disappear —"

I wouldn't describe this as scolding. If anything, this is just advice. Yes, Lucius is clearly pretty done with the subject - and if this is indeed the twelfth time Draco has brought it up, I get that. But just the fact that Draco has been able to complain about Harry Potter so much to his father does mean that he had to have been around his father a lot in order to do it. And Lucius wasn't completely zoning out. So, that also does not read as neglectful to me.

“Ah, the Hand of Glory!” said Mr. Borgin, abandoning Mr. Malfoy’s list and scurrying over to Draco. “Insert a candle and it gives light only to the holder! Best friend of thieves and plunderers! Your son has fine taste, sir.” “I hope my son will amount to more than a thief or a plunderer, Borgin,” said Mr. Malfoy coldly, and Mr. Borgin said quickly, “No offense, sir, no offense meant —” “Though if his grades don’t pick up,” said Mr. Malfoy, more coldly still, “that may indeed be all he is fit for —" “It’s not my fault,” retorted Draco. “The teachers all have favorites, that Hermione Granger —” “I would have thought you’d be ashamed that a girl of no wizard family beat you in every exam,” snapped Mr. Malfoy.

This is the angriest Lucius ever gets with Draco, and I think it's an interesting snippet. Yes, Lucius is embarrassing Draco by bringing up his grades - but in a way that seems to be intended to correct or undercut Borgin's attempt to flatter Draco and butter him up. Lucius has also switched out of the more respectful "Mr. Borgin" he was using earlier in the scene to just "Borgin" - communicating to Draco that Borgin isn't actually important (unlike Draco, who is.)

Draco then talks back a little, comes up with an excuse which is - a lie. Hermione is a muggleborn, which Lucius comments on, so she's unlikely to be every teacher's favorite. Especially since one of those teachers is Snape, Lucius' buddy, and he knows for a fact that Draco is Snape's favorite.

This whole scene is really about Lucius telling Draco that he needs to be more tactical, and check his privilege. Lucius is in this shop because he's selling dark artifacts - he's powerful, but he's worried. He's not so powerful that no one can touch him. Draco's the same. Lucius is telling him he can't afford to make an enemy of Harry Potter, and he can't afford to just coast through his classes and blame bad grades on teachers playing favorites. Draco's catchphrase at this point is "Wait Till My Father Hears About This," and I think that's slightly worrying to Lucius. He *can't* swoop in and solve all Draco's problems.

(although he does try - buying the Slytherin team brooms is basically just a way to buy Draco friends, and when Draco says he's been mauled by a hippogriff, Lucius does everything he can to get rid of it. And Hagrid says, "’Spect Lucius Malfoy would’ve come marchin’ up ter school if yeh’d cursed his son [to vomit slugs]. Least yer not in trouble.” If anything, Lucius is slightly overprotective.)

Like, it's a plot point in Book 6 that Lucius cares so much about Draco that Voldemort is able to punish (and control) him through Draco. Also, just a detail I like - in Books 2 and 5, Lucius sends Draco newspaper clippings about the Weasleys getting in trouble because he (correctly) thinks that Draco will find them funny. I think that's kind of cute, in a very Malfoy sort of way.

3 ~ I've never played Hogwarts Mystery, and don't consider it canon. But honestly I just find it adorable that Lucius is taking Draco with him on errands? It's very bring-your-kid-to-work.

And getting your co-workers/employees to look after your kid on a bring-your-child-to-work day is pretty normal. In my experience anyway.

Draco "Wait Till My Father Hears About This" Malfoy is... kind of a daddy's boy, so it doesn't surprise me at all that he's kinda clingy and needy as a kid.

[myokk]

Some sketches of Eloise…not sure if I uploaded all of these💓💓💓

1 & 6: Eloise with her hair down🥹 she barely ever wears it down bc she HATES her unruly hair but…I personally LOVE drawing it. (It’s also extremely scandalous in Victorian times to have your hair down…I imagine wizarding society is more accepting but Eloise spent 5 years living as a proper muggle lady and could NEVER😳

The rest of the drawings are just random sketches that were for asks or don’t deserve their own post bahahahahahahahah💓💓💓 the penultimate was one of my first drawings of her though…I want to redo it!!

[weirdcursedvaultkid]

my crack ship is rowan/corey

rowan isn't corey's biggest fan at first but she warms up to her and then they are just nerds together

[marmotish]

Male!Freyja with Female!Chester interacting at work? Or just sitting next to each other working as M!Freyja eats some bread and F!Chester drinks some coffee?

Just another day in the Ministry…

“I thought you were going on lunch break.”

“I am on lunch break.” *raises coffee cup*

[jxurnes]

if james potter knew about how many interhouse friendships hphm mc made i fear he'd go into a state of cardiac arrest

[morrowlegacy]

Revelio!

Here’s a funny little comic I did awhile back about how Revelio is so different in Hogwarts Mystery versus Hogwarts Legacy! I found it really amusing that Hogwarts Mystery made learning Revelio seem like it was this really complicated spell for the students to learn while Meredydd mastered it first try and still can’t find what she’s looking for! 😂

I tried something different with my lineart this time and even though it was fun using thicker lines, I really do prefer my thin line style. Also comics are really hard. I need to find a better way to do speech bubbles because I feel like they look a little wonky. Other than that I really like how it turned out, even if I did draw this a few months ago. Anyways I hope you guys find this as amusing as I do! 💜

[eternalchaoschocolaterain]

[unfortunate-arrow]

𝙋𝙧𝙤𝙢𝙞𝙨𝙚 𝙏𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙄’𝙡𝙡 𝙇𝙤𝙫𝙚 𝙔𝙤𝙪 𝙁𝙤𝙧 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙍𝙚𝙨𝙩 𝙤𝙛 𝙈𝙮 𝙇𝙞𝙛𝙚

⤷ happy holidays! this is my gift for @ameliathefatcat as part of @hphm-fandom-events’s secret santa event.

The first time that Ben Copper saw Amelia Goldstein he was eleven years old and scared of his own shadow. She was, perhaps, the prettiest girl that he’d ever seen. Certainly, she was one of the most unusual girls he’d ever seen. And yeah, that scared him, although not nearly as much as her reputation as that cursed kid did. 

He certainly hadn’t had the courage to approach her himself. Not while he was trying to figure out a brand new world with a lot of terrifying possibilities and talking to a pretty girl was one step too far for eleven-year-old him. So, he’d pushed those thoughts out of his head because, really, why would she ever approach him? Even if they were both Gryffindors, Amelia Goldstein was clearly much stronger than Ben would ever be.

The first time that Ben Copper met Amelia Goldstein he had fallen off his broom… for like the fiftieth time that class alone. Now, in Ben’s defense, flying was terrifying. You could fall and kill yourself. And these brooms didn’t look that sturdy. He’d quietly noticed that Amelia had mastered the art of simple broomstick flying within the first month of classes. A small, silent part of him was jealous. He didn’t much care for that part of himself. As the fifth child out of six, Ben had realized that jealousy was not something to indulge. All it did was make more fights and Ben hates fighting with his siblings. 

“Do you need any help?” The girl’s voice startled Ben out of his thoughts.

He looked down at the broom and sighed. “Yes, please. I’d really appreciate it.”

The first time that Ben Copper was kissed by Amelia Goldstein, he was twelve. And it wasn’t so much a kiss kiss as it was a peck on the cheek, but Ben was still left thinking about that moment for weeks. It was the eighth night of Hanukkah that year and Amelia had offered to share it with him as they were not yet on break. They’d been given a special, and temporary, pass to break curfew and use one of the empty classrooms for their traditions. It wasn’t perfect, but it did feel special. The room was filled with soft flickering candlelight from the menorah. Dancing lights were cast across Amelia’s face, highlighting the golden spun in her light brown hair. It drew him in a surprising way. After all, he’d always felt a little funny towards Amelia but it wasn’t romantic was it? 

“Thank you for lighting the menorah with me. It made this Hanukkah feel a little better than it would have if I was alone,” Amelia said, breaking their cozy bubble of silence. It was weird, just how comfortable and safe Ben had felt in that silence. 

“Oh, it was no problem. I likely wouldn’t have observed much of Hanukkah otherwise. Passover was always the big holiday in our house,” he replied. “The Hanukkah story is better though. Oil burning for eight nights is a lot less scary than ten plagues!”

Amelia laughed and leaned over to press her lips gently to his cheek. Heat blossomed in his cheeks and he knew that his face would be a bright red.

The first time that Ben Copper celebrated Hanukkah while married, he was nineteen. They were young. He knew that. She knew that. But they both knew that this was it for them. They’d been together since Hogwarts and had gone through more ups and downs and angst than most other couples their age. They’d been married for approximately six months, and as he’d decorated for Hanukkah, he’d wanted this to be perfect. Despite being married, he and Amelia hadn’t had much time to just be together. Between his training as a hit wizard and Amelia’s training as a cursebreaker, they hadn’t had much time to be with each other. 

He grinned as he set the gift down on the table. He’d painstakingly wrapped it in dark blue paper with a white bow. He’d wrapped it in the dead of night to make sure that Amelia didn’t see it by accident. He wanted to be sure that this gift was a surprise. This was to be their first official gift as a married couple and Ben wanted it to be perfect, especially for the first night. 

“Happy Hanukkah, Ben.” He started at the sound of Amelia’s voice. He turned to face her, a grin breaking out over his face. 

“Happy Hanukkah, Amelia,” he responded, reaching over to squeeze her hand. “I got you this.” He grabbed the gift and thrust it towards Amelia.

She let go of his hand and reached over to take it from him. Then, she placed a gift bag into his hands. He grinned, placed the bag on the table, and he prompted her to open the gift he’d given her. She ripped the paper open and gasped as she opened the box.

“Oh, Ben. This is lovely!” she gushed, pulling out the gold heart necklace.

“I’m glad you like it,” he said, his face coloring.

“Put it on?” 

He took the necklace from her hands and gently swept her hair away from the back of her neck. He gently hooked the necklace around her neck. 

“You look pretty,” Ben said quietly. 

“Open yours,” Amelia said. 

Ben lifted up the gift bag and gently pulled out the white tissue paper. He pulled out the box and grinned as he opened it. A pair of silver Star of David cufflinks stared back up at him. 

“Thank you, Amelia. But this is almost too much,” he said, staring in awe at the cufflinks.

“It’s not, Ben. You deserve it. And if the cufflinks  are too much, then clearly the necklace is too much too.” 

Ben sighed. “I guess you’re right. They’ll be great to wear to some of the fancier events that we need to attend.”

“Happy Hanukkah, Ben.”

“Happy Hanukkah, Amelia.”

divider credit

[hollowed-theory-hall]

I think in terms of canon the developers even outright stated that Hogwarts Legacy is meant to be it's own thing, basically an alternate universe set within the wizarding world but giving them the freedom to play around with it.

I liked Hogwarts Legacy, it reminds me of the older Harry Potter games I played when I was a kid but on a much bigger scale. Although, it does have some problems. I do feel the story was rushed at the end, the RPG elements were a little light and there is a ludonarrative dissonace between the MC's polite, kind, sweet personality and the fact they're a mass murderer in gameplay.

Seriously, the countryside of the game is littered with the bodies of goblins and dark wizards. Especially if you learn the unforgivable curses. The MC is terrifying.

But, I still had a fun time with the game.

(Referring to this post regarding HL's canonicity)

I didn't actually watch/listen to any interviews with the creators, but it makes sense they intended it to be its own thing. It definitely feels like it.

I sorta wish the game didn't try to be an open world RPG so much ("try" because your choices in the game mean nothing) and instead was just a Hogwarts student life simulator, without a grand goblin rebellion to fight and whatnot. Like, I would have liked spending more time in the castle, actually making friends, going on quests within the school. I just wish Hogwarts was actually the center of the game, I mean, it is called "Hogwarts Legacy" but Hogwarts barely played a part in the latter stretch of the game. There's a reason most players' favorite questline is with Sebastian — it's basically the only questline that feels like an HP Hogwarts adventure. Especially the first quest, which is a trio of students exploring a hidden scriptorium at Hogwarts and dealing with family drama and a mystery from one of the founders.

I still enjoyed playing it though, and I still open it up from time to time just to run around the school, because even if their Hogwarts isn't book accurate, it's gorgeous.

I will say the murderous tendencies of the MC in the game, while odd, can be fun at times, when you're in the right mood to just not think about it too much and enjoy the shenanigans. They certainly helped me get a better understanding of Voldemort in a really funny way. I'll explain it since it's a silly anecdote from my first playthrough:

For those who don't know, at the end of the game, you duel a dark wizard named Harlow. Now, by that point (which is after the main quest is over) you have already unlocked the Killing Curse if you wanted to. Now, for some reason, probably a bug, the game let me use the curse on Harlow, even though the plot wanted him to stay alive. But I didn't know that, so I cast AK and he dropped dead.

"Great," I thought to myself, "that was kinda anticlimactic,"

And then, a cutscene started to play....

And lo and behold, Harlow was now alive and getting arrested. And I was sitting there, staring at the screen, going: "No, you're dead. I cast the Killing Curse, you dropped, you're dead. I know you're dead, you're not alive."

Which turned into: "Game, I want to try and kill him again. Let me cast AK again! He's supposed to be dead!"

And that's when I had my: "oh, that's probably what Voldemort felt about Harry" moment.

I then started laughing and missed most of the cutscene, but it wasn't anything too interesting. The entire ending is pretty rushed, and after you're done with the quests, there is literally nothing to do.

My dream Harry Potter game will have the graphics and duelling mechanics of Hogwarts Legacy, a plot similar to Hogwarts Mystery (since that game really does let you be a student who solves mysteries with freinds) just with no shitty energy system like HM and no real-time events and microtransactions. And it won't be a mobile game. And it would let you choose two friends (out of a limited selection) to accompany you and won't force friends on you. And unlike both HL and HM, I'd like the RPG elements to exist and for your choices to actually matter.

(Note, I haven't played through all of HM, I dropped it because of the energy system, so maybe there are choices that matter later on, but I haven't seen any choices that made a real difference in the plot)

But, a game like that would take a lot of money and work to make, and I don't think it's very realistic. Honestly, if the gameplay is good I'd be fine with crappy/more cartony graphics. The graphics are optional. And I'm not sure I really want my dream HP game to exist, it's probably better in my head than if WB actually tried to make it.

[seriousbrat]

gamp's law of elemental transfiguration

I was talking about this briefly in @fiendishfyre's replies but I love thinking about magical theory and expanding on it beyond what we're given in canon (honestly class scenes in fics are some of my favourite to write). So I'm going to take a stab at filling in the blanks of this tantalising (for me. lol) bit of lore we get from Hermione. Also I know the magic system in HP is silly and doesnt make sense, I just like thinking about it for fun.

So we don't actually know what the law is. We just know that there are five Principal Exceptions to it, one of these being food:

"Your mother can’t produce food out of thin air, no one can. Food is the first of the five Principal Exceptions to Gamp’s Law of Elemental Transfiguration... It’s impossible to make good food out of nothing! You can Summon it if you know where it is, you can transform it, you can increase the quantity if you’ve already got some..."

So what could the others be? These are my suggestions:

Food. the known exception, but there's more to it, as I'll explain next:

Life. True life. We see that animals can be conjured; however my belief is that this is more an 'illusion of life'- those aren't really animals that could run away and become one with nature, rather they're imitations that would quickly die. In keeping with the first exception, these animals also wouldn't provide nourishment if you ate them. This would also extend to plants- you could conjure a tomato plant but the tomatoes wouldn't actually nourish you if you ate them.* I think this is almost synonymous with the first law, or serves as the explanation for it. The reason they're separate exceptions is because technically food is dead, even though it comes from and provides life- perhaps instead of 'food' it's actually 'nourishment', and Hermione was just kind of oversimplifying. Maybe you can create something that looks like food but doesn't provide nutrition or satiety.

Sapience: you can't create a 'being', a human or a house-elf etc, not even the illusory kind as you can for lesser animals. Barty jr transfigures his dad into a bone which leads me to the kind of creepy idea that you could potentially make a bunch of body parts and put them together into some kind of frankenstein thing, then charm it to move around. But that's obviously not the same thing as creating a human, and it wouldn't be sapient. It's also possible that this 'sapience' might also be understood as 'a soul' which is something that exists in HP lore, as we know. Though perhaps animals have souls too, we don't know.

Inherent magic: while you can create animals, you can't create creatures with inherent magical properties of their own. So you can't transfigure something into a bowtruckle, or summon a phoenix. if this happens in canon at some point then idk lol, but as far as I can recall it never does. It's possible this could also extend to magical objects; right now I can't remember if there's a clear example of this happening in canon either. Probably easier to conjure an item and then charm it, anyway.

Gold: and I mean the metal. Gold is the most magically powerful metal, the 'purest' metal; what alchemists are trying to produce. We know there are alchemists in canon and presumably if it was as easy as transfiguring things into gold it wouldn't be a job lol. My belief is that gold has some inherent magical quality that makes it impossible to produce through magic, which is why it's highly prized by wizards and goblins and used as currency, and why poor families like the Weasleys can't 'conjure more money'.** I'd say that sickles and knuts have trace amounts of gold in them, basically being alloys, and that goblins can tell just by looking at them whether they're real or not. The philosopher's stone breaks this rule, but that's fine imo because that's what alchemists are trying to do, circumvent the rule- and these rules were written by humans trying to understand the nature of magic, so they're not infallible.

All that being said, what could the law itself be?

Another tantalising bit of lore is the question the Ravenclaw door asks McGonagall, and her answer: "Where do Vanished objects go?" / "Into nothingness; that is to say, everything." That line has fascinated me so much that I have it memorised lol, I always imagined there was some big swirly void thing that contained the essence of everything vanished and anything conjured was taken from that pool. It's possible it's just a metaphysical question with no real meaning.

However, I kind of like the idea that all things, all matter, is part of the same mega-thing. So the essence of everything is present in everything else, therefore transfiguration is kind of just shifting the nature of one object through that into another object. I always saw transfiguration as wizard physics and I imagine there are complex algorithms involved lol. Obviously it's magic so there's no way I can fully make sense of it but within this theory, conjuring something would be 'taking' from 'the essence of everything' and Vanishing something would be 'returning' it to 'the essence of everything'. Here's my attempt:

Gamp's Law of Elemental Transfiguration: the essence of everything is present in all things; all things are present in the essence of everything.

Basically, that's saying that all things share the same essential nature and transfiguration is just altering them physically/superficially. even when you seemingly conjure something out of nothing, it's still coming from that 'everything' that McGonagall references, literally out of thin air.

Hence, the exceptions- things like life (which relates to food), sapience/souls, magic (which relates to gold) exist outside of this 'essence of everything' and therefore can't be created.

ANYWAY, this got very metaphysical lol. Perhaps that helps someone with fic-writing or, if you're like me, provides a potential answer to something you've been desperately curious about in the HP lore.

*re: plants, I think there are ways around this to create more permanent plant situations- basically if there is any live plant matter in the vicinity, which is generally likely, one could transfigure those into different plants. in this case you wouldn't be creating life, just changing the nature of the life that's already there. similarly it could be that animals transfigured into other animals would actually exist as those animals.

however, being as how you can't create nourishment, a blade of grass transfigured into a tomato plant would still have the nutritional value of the grass.

** hermione does say that food can be increased in quantity if you already have some. obv if this applies to gold that makes no sense but it doesn't necessarily apply; it could be that multiplying gold, as we see in the Lestrange vault with Geminio, creates 'fool's gold' similar to what Leprechauns produce and that, again, goblins can tell the difference. The explanation being that gold is too magical and pure and special to be multiplied or even magically altered, being the 'purest' metal and the 'final stage' of metal in alchemy. I'm obsessed with alchemy and could write a whole post about this and how it relates to goblins. so i'll stop.

[lilithofpenandbook]

That tracks

[akaisenhatake]

hi chat its been ten million years since i posted and i must unfortunately say that i got back into hphm again idek if theres even ppl i know who still stayed in this fandom after 2 years guys pls come back :[[[[

[ad-astra-per-aspera-1389]

The differences between Merula and Draco are fascinating to me (all my knowledge of hp comes from hogwarts mystery and posts on pinterest) bc Draco is a spoiled brat, and he gets it from his father. Meanwhile Merula's parents are in Azkaban, and it's not difficult to put yourself into her shoes. Of course she's bitter. If anyone found out her parents were in magic prison, it's all she'd be known for, so it makes sense she'd become a bully with her heart set on "most powerful witch", in order to make a name for herself before people put the "troubled kid" label onto her. The player character is even defined by their brother at first. It's obvious that your reputation follows you to hogwarts whether you want it to or not. Draco uses that to his advantage, while Merula wants to bury her family reputation at all costs. Merula is misunderstood, her pursuit of power serving as a ticket out of her parents' shadow, while Draco revels in his parents' power and social standing.

[project-ared]

So I've been replaying the 1st xmas TLSQ and chose for mc to tell a story and-

Wha-

That's so cute-

D:>

ε':

smol mc gives me life

ಠ⁠_⁠ಠ u know what i did not need my heart today c'mon 😭

NOOO DON'T BE SAD