#hogwarts meta

[pangaeaseas]

Thinking about the nature of Hogwarts as the one and only formative experience for the whole society is fascinating. Like everyone you know you probably already have known your whole life . Your coworkers WILL be the people you had middle school beef with. You better figure out who you are at Hogwarts because unless you leave the country that's who youre gonna be. You better make yoour friends and romantic relationships! Also the smallness and universality of it all kind of explains the obsession with houses....

i think maybe wizarding britain is small enough that you meet basically every romantic option at hogwarts. so like. there aren't any other fish in the sea. u get what u get. better lock it down by newts

[hollowed-theory-hall]

Hello!

What tipe of student do you think Harry were? Was he academicaly average? Do you think that any professor had him as favorite student?

Well, we know his O.W.L grades:

(HBP)

And these are great grades. Like, E is Exceeds Expectations because it exceeds expectations, it's beyond what's required.

O.W.Ls loosely mirror irl O-levels that are taken at 16, and N.E.W.Ts loosely mirror A-levels that are taken at 18 (the grading system and the exam system have changed over the years). But, if we look at the grades for the GCSE and O-Levels compared to the O.W.L, I think it would be something like this:

GCSE grades 9 to 4 (A* to C) – Certificate and qualification awarded. At GCSE, considered a 'standard pass', and awards a qualification at Level 2. GCSE grades 3 to 1 (D to G) – Certificate and qualification awarded. At GCSE, awards a qualification at Level 1. U: ungraded/unclassified – no certificate or qualification awarded.

(From Wikipedia + my WW additions)

Since, let's be real, the Wizarding World is using an older standard than the muggle one. Also, this fits the descriptions we get of the grades in the W.O.M.B.A.T.s exams pretty well:

Passing: Outstanding - CONGRATULATIONS! Your exemplary powers of deduction and a formidable knowledge of the inner workings of the magical world reveal you to be a witch or wizard of genuine skill and learning. This first examination has barely tested you. We look forward to challenging you to a further and more difficult examination in due course. Exceeds Expectations - Well done - a most creditable performance! We are impressed by the breadth of your magical knowledge and your level of insight into the wizarding world. We hope that you will attempt our next, and more difficult, examination in due course. Passing: Acceptable - We are pleased to tell you that you have passed your Grade 1 W.O.M.B.A.T. Your knowledge of the workings of the wizarding world demonstrates real magical potential. We hope that you will continue to study further and attempt W.O.M.B.A.T. Grade 2 in due course. Failing: Poor - Alas - we regret to inform you that you have narrowly failed your Grade 1 W.O.M.B.A.T. This may have been due to factors outside your control (eg: poltergeist intervention, examination nerves or a malfunctioning quill.). Please do not disconsolate. Another examination will present itself in due course, should you wish to try again. Dreadful - We are sorry to inform you that you have failed your Grade 1 W.O.M.B.A.T. A little further study of the textbooks is recommended. Should you wish to try again, a grade 2 W.O.M.B.A.T. will present itself in due course. Troll - You would appear either to have abandoned the test due to factors outside your control (eg, earthquake, poltergeist attack), or else you are a troll, in which case you are to be congratulated on being able to use a computer and have achieved the grade of O.F.T. (Outstanding for Trolls).

(Source. If you want to take the W.O.M.B.A.Ts exams, you can here)

The point is that E is a good grade and Harry (and Ron) can get very good grades with little to no study. If they had studied as much as Hermione, they would be O students too.

Like, we see N.E.W.T Potions has only 12 out of the original 40 in the whole year:

When they arrived in the corridor they saw that there were only a dozen people progressing to N.E.W.T. level. Crabbe and Goyle had evidently failed to achieve the required O.W.L. grade, but four Slytherins had made it through, including Malfoy. Four Ravenclaws were there, and one Hufflepuff, Ernie Macmillan, whom Harry liked despite his rather pompous manner.

(HBP)

Only 12 out of 40 get an E or O in Potions (Harry, Ron & Hermione are the only Gryffindors in the class). We know Neville managed an E in Charms but only got an A in Transfiguration. Getting an E is considered hard and not something everyone does. I mean, in DADA, even Hermione didn't get an O! Becouse being "really good" gets an E, you gotta be truly exceptional to get an O.

The "average" student passes 3-5 O.W.Ls (Neville only passed 4 O.W.Ls. Fred and George passed 3 each and it doesn't seem odd to anyone - though in their case it's not because they're average, but because they didn't care about school), good students probably get 6-7 O.W.Ls and very good students get 8-10 O.W.Ls with only extremely talented students passing more than that. And passing doesn't inherently qualify you for N.E.W.T classes. So, Harry (7 O.W.Ls, and he might've passed history with an A if it wasn't for the visions from Voldemort since he didn't even finish the exam) and Ron (7 O.W.Ls) are actually above-average students in terms of grades.

(Some subjects, like Charms, are considered easier than subjects like Potions and Transfiguration, so the percentages there would look a little different)

And his teachers think of him positively for the most part:

“You see what you expect to see, Severus,” said Dumbledore, without raising his eyes from a copy of Transfiguration Today. “Other teachers report that the boy is modest, likable, and reasonably talented. Personally, I find him an engaging child.”

(DH)

McGonagall has no qualms about Harry wanting to be an auror because she knows he is intelligent:

“You’d need top grades for that,” said Professor McGonagall, extracting a small, dark leaflet from under the mass on her desk and opening it. “They ask for a minimum of five N.E.W.T.s, and nothing under ‘Exceeds Expectations’ grade, I see. Then you would be required to undergo a stringent series of character and aptitude tests at the Auror office. It’s a difficult career path, Potter; they only take the best. In fact, I don’t think anybody has been taken on in the last three years.” [...] “I would also advise Transfiguration, because Aurors frequently need to Transfigure or Untransfigure in their work. And I ought to tell you now, Potter, that I do not accept students into my N.E.W.T. classes unless they have achieved ‘Exceeds Expectations’ or higher at Ordinary Wizarding Level. I’d say you’re averaging ‘Acceptable’ at the moment, so you’ll need to put in some good hard work before the exams to stand a chance of continuing. Then you ought to do Charms, always useful, and Potions. Yes, Potter, Potions,” she added, with the merest flicker of a smile. “Poisons and antidotes are essential study for Aurors. And I must tell you that Professor Snape absolutely refuses to take students who get anything other than ‘Outstanding’ in their O.W.L.s, so —”

(OotP)

Harry reminds me a lot of my younger brother when he was a high school student honestly (Ron, too, tbh). Because he's really smart, and he could get Os (As) in all his subjects if he felt like it and put it the effort, and McGonagall knows this. The only reason he doesn't get top grades is because he doesn't apply himself, and we see it in the books repeatedly.

We see he does his homework on time, but he usually stays up on the last night to make it, like Ron:

“Come on, we’ve got to get this finished some time before dawn,” he said briskly to Harry, pulling Professor Sinistra’s essay back toward him. Hermione was looking at Ron with an odd expression on her face. “Oh, give them here,” she said abruptly. “What?” said Ron. “Give them to me, I’ll look through them and correct them,” she said. “Are you serious? Ah, Hermione, you’re a lifesaver,” said Ron, “what can I — ?” “What you can say is, ‘We promise we’ll never leave our homework this late again,’ ” she said, holding out both hands for their essays, but she looked slightly amused all the same. “Thanks a million, Hermione,” said Harry weakly, passing over his essay and sinking back into his armchair, rubbing his eyes.

(OotP)

And that he doesn't study for exams as much as he could (he usually spends the end of the year at the hospital wing, so, it makes sense). Basically, Harry is really smart and he manages to get passing grades on basically no study at all. That's really impressive. Like, McGonagall, I believe that with just minimal effort he could be an almost all-Os student. And when he does study just a little more (like to the O.W.Ls) he does get higher grades.

But he did read his school books before his first year:

Harry kept to his room, with his new owl for company. He had decided to call her Hedwig, a name he had found in A History of Magic. His school books were very interesting. He lay on his bed reading late into the night, Hedwig swooping in and out of the open window as she pleased.

(PS)

And he entered his first Potions class with the intention of studying properly, he read the books before class in the measly month he had to prepare:

“I don’t know, sir.” “Thought you wouldn’t open a book before coming, eh, Potter?” Harry forced himself to keep looking straight into those cold eyes. He had looked through his books at the Dursleys’, but did Snape expect him to remember everything in One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi?

(PS)

So, I think, in canon, since Harry has so much else going on (mysteries and misadventures) and Ron is a bad influence on his studies (I love Ron, but he is a bad influence on Harry's studies), he waits with most of his assignments to the last moment and doesn't study as much as he could. But he does make them and except for Potions with Snape, he gets decent grades for them. If he had more free time without a mystery to solve, we'd probably see him doing homework earlier and maybe putting in more effort. But even with close to minimal effort (which is what he does), he is a student with good grades who most teachers clearly see as smart and capable.

Edit becouse I forgot to mention it: we see Harry apply himself to studying potions in HBP when he spends hours deciphering the Prince's notes, and lo and behold, when Harry takes time to study he becomes an O student at the top of the class in his supposedly "worst subject". Just goes to show it's all about effort for him because he has the brain and talent.

Harry is the student that if Hogwarts had parent-teacher conferences (and Harry had parents), McGonagall would be all like: "He is bright and has potential if he only applied himself".

And that sentence is Harry as a student in a nutshell.

[teacup-gathering-itself]

Severus getting a prep cook job in Cokeworth one summer and picking up solid mf knife skills. Like those culinary school chopping videos. Just fast asf precise knife work and handling.

He gets back to Hogwarts and it’s just business as usual until he’s DEAD tired one day and is prepping ingredients in Slughorn’s class. He gets to something that needs to be sliced uniformly and is similar in shape/size to food he prepped at the restaurant and muscle memory just kicks into overdrive.

The whole classroom freezes and looks at him because idk if y’all know this but that shit is LOUD compared to hesitant knife work. It smacks the cutting board and has a way different rhythm than normal kitchen noise.

Yeah it’s a skill no one has encountered unless they have been back of house at a restaurant.

Severus is too exhausted to process that anyone is paying attention to him so he just keeps going. Ingredients? Prepped? Potion? Brewed with gusto, like he was born to do it. His brain isn’t online so he’s acting like it’s a dream and adds in some flourish and flair, a trick to catch a knife, a fancy stir to help aerate the brew, a crazy amount of multitasking just because he can.

Jaw dropping behavior.

Slughorn doesn’t know how to react honestly, and is spared needing to praise him considering Severus is half awake when he hands his potion to his head of house.

[saintsenara]

Is the rest of the order also a part of the upper wizarding class (other than snape ofc)? Like Lupin, Tonks, Kingsley, etc. ?

thank you very much for the ask, anon.

the context for this question is here, and the answer is... yes, but not in the way you'd think.

with the exception of mundungus, who remains working-class, and snape, who was raised working-class and is something more tenuous as an adult, the order come from various middle- to upper-class backgrounds, the three members of the second order you mentioned - lupin, tonks, kingsley, as well as mad-eye moody - among them.

as with the weasleys, these four characters' class backgrounds can be identified from their class performance, rather than from their financial circumstances. so things like dress, language use, jobs, hobbies, names, manner of living, and so on.

for example, ted and andromeda's house - which we see in deathly hallows - is as much a middle class stereotype as vernon and petunia's. its description - which comes just before harry sees andromeda for the first time and mistakes her for bellatrix - is to hammer home that she made a choice [and, of course, a choice the text considers to be noble] to go down in class-status in defiance of blood-supremacy.

but - while tonks is clearly part of a lower class-bracket than sirius [hence her pointing out to harry at the beginning of order of the phoenix that she's still riding a mid-tier broom, while he has the firebolt which sirius bought for him] - she, like the rest of the order, has access to a shared marker of elite status notwithstanding her middle-class upbringing...

that she went to hogwarts.

it's clear throughout canon that lupin's statement in deathly hallows that "nearly every witch or wizard in britain has been educated at hogwarts" cannot be correct, because we meet numerous characters throughout the series - such as mundungus, stan shunpike, the snatchers, anyone in a service role, etc. - who transparently were not.

and we can say that they weren't because these characters' presentation is as unambiguously working-class, above all, in that they are written as speaking with regional accents which are intended to be interpreted by the british audience as indicating working-class backgrounds and the stereotypes which accompany them, such as unsophistication, irrationality, and a lack of intelligence.

the only person we meet at hogwarts who has a similar manner of speaking is hagrid - who is, of course, supposed to be interpreted similarly. while there are a couple of hints in the text that harry's classmates speak regional dialects - seamus says "me mam" on a couple of occasions, dean says "my parents don't know nothing", both of which are non-standard phrases in british english but which make sense for an irishman and a londoner respectively - none of them are subjected to having their speech written out phonetically. that only happens to the english-speaking characters in the series who are meant to be interpreted as existing on the rung below everyone else on the class ladder.

the distinctions the text draws between hogwarts students seem fairly profound - and fairly rooted in financial circumstances - but they actually exist within a homogenous class performance. hogwarts students identify difference on the basis of things like brand of racing broom, or brand of wand [we learn in half-blood prince that there are various wandmakers working in britain, but anyone going to hogwarts wouldn't consider going anywhere other than ollivanders...] or whether your robes were tailored for you or are perfectly serviceable hand-me-downs. we don't see differences which come cross-class - someone who couldn't even afford a wand, even from an inferior maker; someone who not only can't afford secondhand robes, but doesn't have shoes or underwear or pyjamas.

the only people we meet who seem to stand out from the rest in terms of class performance are hagrid - and, yes, this is to do with his size, but it's also to do with his accent, rough-and-ready physical appearance, tendency to be driven by his base impulses, and fondness for manual labour - and snape. tom riddle - when we see him as a student - speaks and comports himself indistinguishably from the rest of the student characters.

[the eleven-year-old riddle very much does not.]

while we never actually learn whether the school is state-funded or not [although even if it is, it requires a colossal financial input from parents in terms of buying all the equipment], hogwarts is an elite institution. it's the main [and, apparently, only] source of new employees for the state and its institutions - such as st mungo's, gringotts, etc. it is considered shocking that one of its graduates would end up working in retail.

it exists to maintain the class system by which the wizarding world is governed. and, therefore, it exists to inculcate its students in the class performance which signifies being an upright citizen of the wizarding state.

and lupin tells us clearly what that means:

"I am not complaining; it is necessary work and who can do it better than I? However, it has been difficult gaining their trust. I bear the unmistakable signs of having tried to live among wizards, you see, whereas they have shunned normal society and live on the margins, stealing - and sometimes killing - to eat...  I cannot pretend that my particular brand of reasoned argument is making much headway against Greyback's insistence that we werewolves deserve blood, that we ought to revenge ourselves on normal people."

the language here is so instructive! "normal society"! "normal people"! no suggestion that werewolves have been deliberately made an underclass by the wizarding state! no suggestion that lupin's "unmistakable signs" of playing the wizarding class game aren't correct or admirable! lupin's attempts to win his fellows over to dumbledore's side being described as "reasoned" arguments, which fail to work against the base and violent greyback!

one of the things which is really interesting about the series is that voldemort is - by far - its most radical character. even more strikingly, voldemort's radicalism has a clear populist element - despite the fact that he's set up as the champion of a posh, pureblood elite whose aims are violent oligarchy.

it's fascinating how many working-class-coded characters are in his service - the doylist text clearly intends this to suggest that his ranks are full of idiots, but we don't have to accept it! and it's also fascinating how almost all non-humans we meet in the text either openly support him - he has huge support among goblins and werewolves, for example - or clearly regard him as no worse than the current system - hence the centaurs' policy of non-intervention in the war.

the order, in contrast, are profoundly unradical. the thing they oppose is voldemort's revolution. the thing they're working in defence of is the status quo - the homogeneity which hogwarts teaches and maintains.

[that's what the series understands as the "all" in "all was well".]

and they therefore all exist in a world where the class performance they learned at school becomes a shared language which can be used to establish common ground with someone across age, gender, and [certain] class lines... but only if that other person also went to hogwarts.

[the best analogy for this is what it's like to be a graduate of oxford or cambridge. where this benefits a person isn't so much down to the quality of the education they would have received from either university, it's because every time they meet someone who also went to oxbridge they have a shared language they can use to establish a rapport, making it vastly easier to network at the upper levels of almost every british profession.]

the order is an elite organisation, then, but it's not elite because it's members were all born into elite families. it's elite because they were offered access to an elite institution and gradually came to see that institution as the default.

[nuninho2000]

what' your thoughts on harry/cho?

The reason why Cho came into the picture was to show why Ginny was ‘ideal��� for Harry.

Harry liked Cho because she was pretty and small, had freckled face, seemed to be fun (she grinned when Oliver scolded Harry for being too gentleman-ly toward her during quidditch match), enjoyed quidditch and was friendly toward him.

Ginny was pretty and small, had freckled face, shared the same sense of humor with Harry, enjoyed quidditch and, after she got over her Harry-was-too-good-for-me-phase, she was also fun and friendly toward Harry.

Harry did not know what to do with grieving Cho. She was the type who would reach for someone for support. Harry, grew up as orphan with his bully cousin and abusive aunt and uncle, was not the type who would patiently hold her hands, wipe her tears and listen to her rambling for hours about the dead ex-boyfriend.

Ginny, who must have been shaken badly due to her mind-rape experience courtesy of Tom Riddle, sorted her PTSD without Harry’s help. If anything, she tried to be strong on her own.

Cho was jealous of Hermione. Harry loved Hermione very much, she was his bestfriend. It’s not easy to accept your straight-boyfriend has female best friend. Hell lots of readers could not accept they’re just best friends.

Ginny loved Hermione like a sister. Instead of being jealous of her, she confided in Hermione and took her advice by heart.

Cho’s defending Marietta was seen by Harry, in true Gryffindor manner, as misplaced loyalty. Harry could not excuse any form of betrayal. But Cho’s a Ravenclaw, she defended Marietta less for her being Cho’s friend and more because she had logical reason to tell on DA to Umbridge (Marietta’s mom worked for the Ministry).

Ginny hexed Percy for ‘betraying’ the family and (along with Harry) defended Hagrid’s questionable skill as teacher because he was her friend. For Harry, whose parents died because their best friend sold them to Voldemort, loyalty to family, friends and comrades was something he valued most.

Ginny and Harry were both strong. They shared common interests and humors and values. They’re both family-oriented and fiercely loyal.

Also it’s not easy to be with someone who would risk his life everytime he saw someone, even his enemy, was in danger. Ginny did not only accept it about Harry, she loved him for it.

[thecarnivorousmuffinmeta]

Not sure if this has been asked before, but what the heck, I'll ask anyway.

Why do you think most kids struggle with learning to use magic? It seems like most people who leave Hogwarts barely improve from when they started. Your average wizard isn't all that impressive while prodigies like Tom, Lily and Dumbledore are few and far between.

Even decently competent wizards like the Golden Trio seem like a uncommon occurence. So, what gives?

Is it like a Star Wars midichlorian thing? Do wizards all have different sized MP bars? Or is the Hogwarts curriculum really just that bad?

Bold of you to call the Golden Trio decently competent on this blog, but alright.

We see the Hogwarts curriculum, it's... I don't know if I should say bad but it is what it is. What is it? Students aren't there to learn magic, they're there to learn key spells. That's it.

All the classes we see are "memorize X spell" if you do it wrong, you're probably flicking your wand wrong or saying it wrong. Will a professor help you? Fuck you, no. Just keep practicing. Will you ever learn the phonetics of how you generally should be pronouncing spells? No, fuck you.

Hogwarts isn't about learning how magic works, how to use the toolset you have, it's just memorization which means if you go outside that box you're looking pretty fucking smart.

And we're talking learning spells where "turning a raccoon dog into rubbish" and "turning a chicken into a cup" are somehow completely different from one another and no one will tell you why.

The other time is spent on essays that seem to be mostly "name X thing" and write as many words about it as possible because inches == better.

So, you can be perfectly intelligent, but if you have a bad ear or coordination you're going to suck as a wizard. There's also weird shit that seems to go wrong such as a) your wand just isn't working for you (see Neville and Ron) b) you lack confidence apparently (see Neville).

Further, because Hogwarts is designed so that Crabbe and Goyle will never fall too far behind, that means the pace is fucking slow. And if you're average/not super motivated, you can cost and get along just fine. You don't need to be super awesome amazing wizard which means a lot of people are just going to settle for passing their classes.

[maxdibert]

Hi, I really like your blog. I have two questions. Why is Gryffindor supposedly "good" and Slytherin supposedly bad?

What about the other Hogwarts houses?

I think Rowling didn't anticipate that her saga would become so popular and probably had an idea of how she wanted to approach it at the beginning, which revolved around classic English children's literature, heavily inspired by Dickens or Dahl. We can see this in how the characters are initially presented in a completely one-dimensional way, with the magical world serving as a backdrop, a fantasy lacking depth, simply meant to make not only Harry but also the readers (who are children too) dream through Harry's eyes. The good characters are very good, and the bad characters are very bad—there's not much more to it. This is where Slytherin comes in as the rival house, the nemesis, the representation of the place where the bad guys go, like Voldemort, Draco (who is the typical character that irrationally antagonizes the protagonist, the rich bully), or Snape (the teacher that the protagonist hates because he has it out for him). It’s a concept that works for a children’s book because you don’t expect children’s literature to delve much deeper into the dichotomy between good and evil, as that’s how children’s literature is. This works in the second book as well, which maintains the tone, and even in the third. But starting from the fourth, this becomes quite problematic because Rowling begins to give her work, her world, and her characters a greater depth. Rowling transitions from children’s books to young adult books, and as the plot thickens, that complexity should also extend to the characters and worldbuilding. However, this is an area where Rowling fails miserably because she has laid down very solid foundations regarding the world she has created. Breaking those foundations and making them more complex would require a lot of work, and I simply believe she wanted to move forward, finish the saga more or less as she had conceived it, and that was it.

There are many things that fail, such as the fact that the dichotomy between good and evil is so present, with "gray" characters that are not fully developed, alongside the insistence on portraying characters who are not good or ethical (James, Dumbledore, Sirius) as if they are. This creates a constant cognitive dissonance. For example, I firmly believe that Rowling did not plan for James and Sirius to be so utterly unpleasant, disgusting, and violent at first, but she needed the reader to feel sympathy for Snape somehow or to understand where his hatred came from. So, she turns them into despicable bullies, the same ones she previously presented as examples. At the same time, we have to believe that Lily, who is the epitome of goodness and morality as presented at the beginning of the saga, ended up marrying a bully. These are plot holes; they don’t make sense at all. These are things she could have justified by giving those characters more nuances, more personality, and providing us with more references, but she chooses not to because that would break certain foundations she established in the early novels that she doesn’t want to touch. Thus, we are left without coherent explanations for certain events.

The same thing happens with the houses. I mean, it’s understandable that a child Harry would see Slytherin as the worst hole in the world, but a teenage Harry, a 15 or 16-year-old Harry, should have a broader perspective. Rowling doesn’t do this because she already had in mind who the bad guys would be from the start; including good characters in that house would mean having to change the very rules she established at the beginning of the story or even having to alter the course of some of her characters. While this is perfectly possible, attainable, and can be done, it requires a lot of work and development of the world and the characters, and we are talking about someone who doesn’t stop to complicate those things. She follows her narrative course to the end, even though there are issues that we have to accept despite their multiple inconsistencies.

Gryffindor is supposed to be the good house because they are brave, but the reality is that most characters who truly exemplify Gryffindor qualities are complete jerks. James and Sirius are bullies, Remus is a coward who goes around impregnating twenty-somethings and abandoning them, Peter is a traitor, Dumbledore is a manipulator who doesn’t give a damn about his students unless they serve a purpose in his plans, Hagrid is an irresponsible figure for his students, Ginny ends up being something like the popular girl, and in reality, she’s a resentful brat who martyrs everyone who says something she doesn’t like. I know you love the twins, but their pranks are terrible; I wouldn’t have tolerated people like that in my class, and many of them are dangerous.

In Western culture, there has always been that ideal of the hero, the knight who goes to war and either dies or triumphs, always wielding a sword. This is a bit like Gryffindor. I understand using that at the beginning of the saga because it was for children, but it ages very poorly. And it does because Rowling doesn’t want to step out of her dichotomy of good versus evil. There are Gryffindors who are just as bad or worse than many Slytherins, but their actions are never condemned, nor does the narrative treat them as something completely negative (because they make excuses or justifications) simply because Rowling established from the beginning that those characters were good, and therefore they had to remain good until the end, even though many of their actions are inconsistent with that discourse. On the other hand, Rowling herself was surprised when Draco Malfoy ended up having several fans because she had established that Draco was horrible, was bad, and had no redeeming qualities. But at the same time, she presents a 16-year-old boy terrified because a psychopath is threatening his family and he feels compelled to kill (something he doesn’t want to do) because otherwise, they will kill his parents, and Rowling expects us not to feel empathy? That we think that boy is a horrible monster? That’s what I mean by the cognitive dissonance with her own rules and characters; it simply doesn’t make sense.

The characters from other houses are merely extras or barely matter until almost the end of the saga (Luna doesn’t appear until the fifth book) because clearly, Rowling didn’t give importance to the other houses; they weren’t part of her good versus evil dichotomy; they were just part of the decoration. Then she realizes she has to give them something, so in the fourth book, we have Cedric, and in the fifth, we have Luna and Tonks, because, of course, the story is no longer for children; the story is no longer just about Gryffindor vs. Slytherin (although it still is), but she again fails because she is not able to turn around the established foundations, and her attempt remains just that: an attempt.

[velvet4510]

I love how despite their differences and mutual hatred, ultimately Sirius Black and Severus Snape were two sides of the same coin - they each harbored a deep love for one of Harry’s parents that motivated them for the rest of their lives and drove them to ultimately sacrifice themselves to protect Harry, who was all that Sirius had left of James and all that Snape had left of Lily.

[remus-poopin]

Ok I think the whole “James financially supported Remus during the war” idea is actually fanon. I was reading @hollowed-theory-hall’s post on Sirius, James, and Lily during the first war and they pointed out that Remus is not mentioned as being supported by James financially. This quote from JKR was used:

Q: Harry often wondered about his parents lives before he died. What did Lily, James, Remus, Lupin and Sirius do after Hogwarts?

JKR: To take Remus first, Remus was unemployable. Poor Lupin, prior to Dumbledore taking him in, lead a really impoverished life because no one wanted to employ a werewolf. The other three were full-time members of the Order of the Phoenix. If you remember when Lily, James and co. were at school, the first war was raging. It never reached the heights that the second war reached, because the Ministry was never infiltrated to that extend but it was a very bad time, the same disappearances, the same deaths. So that’s what they did, they left school. James has gold, enough to support Sirius and Lily. So I suppose they lived foff a private income. But they were full-time fighters, that’s what they did, until Lily fell pregnant with Harry. So then they went into hiding.

And they are absolutely correct if we’re going off of this quote, there is no mention of Lupin receiving money from James, in fact he is the only one of the three that is not receiving money from James.

So I was wondering where this fanon idea of Lupin having financial support even came from. I tried to find a quote to confirm this idea but came up with nothing. But then I looked on the Harry Potter wiki and they were also using this fanon as fact in Lupin’s bio:

“Remus failed to find employment following his education because of his affliction as a werewolf. However, James used his wealth to financially support him.”

But interestingly, the source of that statement comes from here:

“Information on the original Order members was also revealed during tonight’s event. Jo related the fact that Remus Lupin, prior to the third book, was unemployable because he was a werewolf and upon his graduation from Hogwarts along with James and Lily, was supported by James using their own money. In addition to this she shed more light on the early days of the Order, saying James, Sirius, Remus and Lily were full time Order members. “Full Time Fighters,” as Jo put it.”

Which is just a summary of the the first quote I mentioned, however in the first quote it never says that James supported Lupin. So I think this is something that has been miscommunicated and now is just a popular belief, but there’s no actual evidence to support this claim.

[apparentlytheproblem]

hey, I’ve noticed you don’t have anything romantically for harry (and I’m a harry defender cause he’s underrated in his own movie, I love harry) SO harry x fem!reader fluffy oneshot (it can be 5th or 6th year you choose) just cuddling in the common room together being all cute yk kisses falling asleep together,etc so basically pure fluff. don’t feel pressured tho, if you don’t want to do this then don’t and I’ll understand. have a good day/night <3

t w i t t e r p a t e d

fandom- harry potter

pairing(s)-harry potter

a/n: so im gonna be honest, i did not love harry in his movies but the book owns my heart. its just that everything that has made him who he is just washed away in the screen time, but im going to try my best to deliver and tysm for requesting, it absolutley made my day. and i just wanna apologize why it took so long, there are hundreds of requests and im swamped but im really trying, i promise requests are open luv, tiya

requested- yes

warnings- tooth rotting fluff, finally proof read, a very soft harry

"darlin quit movin"

he was given a snicker for a response, a one that did'nt sound much like you at all

he opened an eye to see Fred Weasley cuddling up to him while his twin and Lee Jordan enjoying the sight with his girlfriend.

"can i get a kiss first arry?" fred droned leaving you tryin you to muffle your giggles.

harry rolled him of the sofa he was napping with and beckoned you to come back with an outstretched arm as he straightened himself.

"hoi"

"hi yourself"

he pulled you in gently by the hem of your skirt. your torso was lined to his face as his hands embraced the behind of your thighs, shoving his face into your white shirt.

"lets leave lover boy alone for a while, i need someone who reacts to tormentation." remarked George in what he disguised his sympathy for boredom of playing with the lot of you.

"call me tonight baby" winked Fred signaling to harry on his way out to the kitchens

the common room was almost empty when he pulled you on top of him, pushing your shoes off. you were upright on his abdomen as he helped you remove your robe.

you comfortably find yourself entangled to him as he peppered kisses from your shoulder to neck

externally, you've done this rodeo before, but internally you were screaming.

and he had the sweetest smile plastered on his lips,

for when you glanced at him, you fell in love,

and he smiled because he knew.

[curioushabitforarivergod]

Harry Potter and the Case of Scotland, An Essay

Or; Scotland is independant, Hogwarts is a completely fucked up and the witches are dying by the dozen. 2700+ words.

Anyone who knows an inkling of British politics or history understands the tension between Scotland and England, an underlying issue that dates back to at least the Roman Conquest. Scotland is more progressive than England, with a strong focus on transgender issues, much to JKs fury. More than that, every council in Scotland saw "remain" majorities with Brexit, as compared to England and Wales. An independent Scotland is not far from the realms of possibility, although in Harry Potter, it seems Scotland has always been independent.

It's odd to imagine this. From what we've come to understand of the Wizarding World, magical boundaries and borders follow muggle ones. We see references to individual countries, including Bulgaria, France, and of course Albania. Ireland also features prominently, although it's not clear how seperate the country is — the Troubles is certainly a prominent part of Harry Potter, inspiring Voldemort's actions and also characterising Seamus, the only prominent canonical Irish character as a pyromaniac. Yet, conversely the clues about Scotland and the truth are hard to find.

When looking at Fantastic Beasts — the fake, graffitied textbook, not the movie — I found something odd. Scotland seems to be a seperate entity from the rest of the Ministry of Magic, or at least what counts as a 'country' within the sense of the Wizarding World. It's not explicit by any means, rather it's more implicit, but it piqued my interest and inspired this essay.

The International Confederation of Wizards has had to fine certain nations repeatedly for contravening Clause 73. Tibet and Scotland are two of the most persistent offenders. (Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, 2001. pg. xvii.)

I highlight here "nation" and "Scotland".

Note: I'm ignoring Tibet as the book is meta and supposedly written in the 1920s-30s by Newt Scamander. Tibet existed as a country during this time.

Scotland is not a nation. It has not really been a nation since 1603 when James the VI of Scotland became James the I of England, although this wasn't really premeditated. Also, the two crowns, although united in the Stuart family, weren't really the same country. At least not in the way we understand it today. It wasn't until 1707 when Scotland and England were legally unified beyond just sharing a king.

The Statue of Secrecy, however, was signed in 1689, during this odd time where Scotland was joined by crowns but not by law. I wonder then, how possible it would be for Scottish wizards to have expressed the same disdain for the English and refused to join with England.

As I will discuss later, it makes sense with Scotland's population and history. Additionally, we know that schools in the Wizarding World transcend our own borders — Beuaxbaton seems to take French, Swiss, Belgium students, and I imagine (based on the bad world building) would take most of Western Europe. Similarly, Durmstrung takes students from most of Eastern Europe. This does make sense in some ways — WWI and WWII dramatically altered the borders of Europe. Scotland could easily take students from the rest of Britain, even if it itself is not a nation within the UK and is its own seperate entity.

Further, time and time again, we see that the Ministry has little no influence over what actually occurs within Hogwarts, with the exception of Umbridge. There is no set curriculum by teachers — each teacher is very different and teaches what they want, which we see both with Hagrid and the multitude of DADA professors. This makes little sense; within a state school, or a school that has government involvement, you would expect some centralisation of what should be taught in schools. Even private schools have some sort of organisation along this basis, though I will be discussing more of this later.

Additionally, the Ministry have no role in appointing people for jobs or firing people within Hogwarts — Dumbledore is not removed from power until after he has broken a law against the ministry, which makes him appear to be the result of long-armed jurisdiction. Umbridge's power then, comes not just from the ministry, but from being an international agent, likely granted under something similar to an extradition treaty by the Scottish government.

Researching online showed nothing else, but I think from conjecture we can say that Scotland is independent, based too on its real life history (which is something I'll explore momentarily). This being the case, and its close proximity to England plus (largely) shared history, I imagine Scotland has a system similar to the rest of the UK, if more feudal.

It's likely Scotland's government is an oligarchy, run by barons and old families. There is only one name within the Sacred 28 which has Scottish origins, which could suggest the Macmillan's had a monopoly over this, but also could be simply Cantankerous Nott's bias or the Macmillians being the only 'pure' family from Scotland to marry into Sacred 28.

We do know that the Ross's (McGonagall's maternal family) were pureblood and McGonagall's mother eloped with a muggle. I think they would've been a fairly important family in Scotland's oligarchy as Ross is an area of Scotland. Following this logic, there should be other old families which take their name from the land (or vice verse) — Fife, Moray, Kinross, Selkirk, etc. — though none of these are characters last names canonically.

The Buchanan's are also a Pureblood family, and quite Purist. They're mentioned on Pottermore and one of the sons, Angus Buchanan was a squib who, after being kicked out, became a Scottish rugby player, inspired by the real Angus Buchanan and wrote a book about being a squib. Apparently he's the reason every wizard canonically supports the Scottish rugby team.

Finally, I'll suggest the Dale family as Pureblood and potentially part of this oligarchy. They're from Hogwarts Legacy and one of their members cursed the family tomb (located near Hogwarts) around 1300, but their family continues until the late 19th century at least. A family that has the money to build a tomb, the means to curse it and the ability/need to maintain their family name for so long is likely Pureblood.

There are other Scottish families, or ones that could be attributed to Scotland, but these had the strongest bases within known material and fell into at least three of the following categories.

Pureblood

Old families/family names

Monetary means

Obsessed with blood purity

More than a paragraph about them on the Harry Potter Wiki

Of course none of this is definite and delves into the realm of headcanons and OCs, but I'd recommend these as a starting point if someone were to ever write something based on this. I'd also recommend looking at Macbeth for character names.

The Tragedie of Macbeth was written in 1606 for King James I and VI of England and Scotland. It's one of Shakespeare's most famous plays (and my favourite), and is so ingrained within Western culture today — rules about not saying its name in the theatre, a self-fulfilled prophecy, double double toil and trouble, and of course the three witches — and these things all inspire the Wizarding World too, with the last three manifesting throughout the books and movies.

James was obsessed with witches — that's why Shakespeare wrote Macbeth for him (and also as a way to comment about the tyranny James was imposing on England; good stories are cultural critiques as well as being entertaining). In 1597, King James had written Daemonologie, a philosophical dissertation on witches, necromancy, black magic and demons. He advocated strongly for witch trials. Of course, Malleus Maleficarum, written in Germany, 1486, had also advocated for the same things.

Scotland is heavily associated with witchcraft — buidseachd in the original Scots Gaelic — for these things. It was also a place of comparatively high witch trials in comparison to England, with an estimated 4000-6000 people tried and more than 1500 executed (roughly 75% of them were women). These numbers were also 4 times the European average. While the more reported trials occurred during the period between the crowns inheritance and legal unification of Scotland and England, they were established widely before this too. Additionally, there was a entire entity of the Scottish Kirk which set up kirk sessions (elected officials of churches in charge of determining whether a person was guilty) as early as 1560 in some places, with legal introductions in 1597 — England did not have these sorts of things.

With the intense conditions of the period, it is likely wixen in Scotland were driven into hiding before their English counterparts, thus allowing for the distancing between the muggle and the wizarding world perhaps even before the two crowns united in 1603, as discussed in the previous section. This being the case, I would determine that Scotland, as a result of the rising tensions between the witchcraft and the muggle world enforced their own statue of secrecy and divided from the government between 1597 and 1603.

However, I think the majority of these issues stem too from the establishment of Hogwarts and the problems it faces in regards to world building. Canonically Hogwarts does exist with Scotland, which makes perfect sense when it comes to isolation, but the model is historically flawed in more ways than one.

According to Pottermore, Hogwarts was founded "at some point in the tenth century… concealed with numerous charms and spells to make it impossible for Muggles to trespass," the most notable being "any passing Muggle would only see ruins." Historically, this is impossible.

Castles as we understand them were only just beginning to make their appearances in mainland Europe in the late 10th century. Previously, they had been wooden structures, but even these 10th century stone structures are nowhere near the fairytale castles that pop-culture depicts. They were motte-and-bailey designs that were continued in some places until the 13th century, and were more concerned with fortification and intimidation than beauty. They looked a lot like this:

The motte was a huge pile of earth, incredibly steep and offered protection as guardhouses were built on top. The bailey was where people lived, worked and stored food. They were surrounded, often by high wooden posts and earthworks, whose ditches could sometimes act as moats when it flooded, although were just as difficult to invade when dry. They were easy to defend as they only had one entrance and most of the buildings inside would've been wooden, though stone buildings on the motte were not uncommon. There are many surviving examples and ruins around France and England. Herein lies several problems.

Firstly, these motte-and-bailey's originated in France during the early medieval period and were introduced to England following the Norman invasion in 1066. Any construction of these buildings in England would've been limited to the 11th and 12th centuries largely, as prior to the Norman invasion, the Anglo-Saxons followed more German and Norse traditions of large thatched halls.

You may have noted that I fail to mention Scotland in this discussion of early castles. This is because castles were nonexistent in Scotland until King David I brought them back from England and adopted them and feudalism in the 12th century. The earliest known castle in Scotland is Castle Sween built in 1100, about two centuries after Hogwarts was supposedly built. Only the ruins and earthworks remain, and it's believed the towers were later additions.

What might be noticeable is how little it looks like Hogwarts. Early medieval castles — in actuality most medieval castles — were stone walls which housed interior wooden buildings which have since been destroyed by any number of things. They were not the fairytale structures that come to mind in association with the word "castle". Those were a later constructions of the Georgian and Victorian periods from the 18th century onwards. Instead of being fortresses like medieval castles, they were homes of luxury.

Put simply, Hogwarts does not make historical sense in its construction or portrayal. Unless it was adapted and improved upon as time went on (which is unlikely and infeasible) Hogwarts should be nothing more than rotted huts. There's more to say on the poor grasp of history (I could go on about Merlin or the founders), but Hogwarts continues to bother me in the modern world too.

We return again to government and our question of whether Hogwarts is a government school or a private one. Although the wizarding world is deeply capitalist, with the common assumption being that students pay a yearly fee to attend within fics, I doubt this. There is never any mention of this within the books, and logistically it doesn't make sense. How do muggleborns pay? How do wizarding families like the Weasley's pay? If there had been some kind of transaction, we would've seen it in the books given they're told from Harry's experience. Alternatively, acting on the assumption that Scotland is it's own nation within the wizarding world brings up similar issues regarding the standardisation of schooling as I discussed earlier — there is little to none. For these reasons, I don't think Hogwarts is a government school either.

Returning once more to history, I think Hogwarts takes its education system from the charity schools which populated the UK for a large portion of its history until national-run schools opened in the 19th century. Their goal was to provide some education to the small towns where they were established but there was no standardisation of them across the UK. With the historical context in regards to the split from the muggle world in the 16th/17th century and the stagnation of wizarding government since then, it makes perfect sense for Hogwarts to act as a charity school, especially as according to Pottermore it was originally constructed to hide wizards who were "being persecuted by muggles."

This also makes sense if we take into account O.W.Ls and N.E.W.Ts, which act as standardised tests for an unstandardised system. I think these were developed sometime in the 20th century to act as a qualification, particularly as the muggle world was becoming more bureaucratic and the wizarding one was failing to match up. It's likely it was an effort by the ICW rather than an individual nation, although other countries call them different things.

O.W.Ls and N.E.W.Ts in themselves suggest other schools similar to Hogwarts or homeschooling. This isn't completely out of line with what appears in canon either. Although the Gaunts are largely squibs by the mid-20th century, they still do possess some magic. For all his faults Marvolo would have taught both Merope and Morfin. Using this, we can ascertain that school-aged students are not required to go to Hogwarts. We can also deduce this from the fact that the trace is added onto wands after the first year at Hogwarts, as Hermione mentions all the spells have worked for her when trying them at home before Hogwarts. As such, it's a safety measure implemented by Hogwarts, fulfilling its original purpose as a place of protection, acting as a charity school for those who have no other options or for those who simply want to attend.

Hogwarts as a charity school acts simply. It is funded by a board, ideally a board that is not elected but instead based off inheritance and nepotism, with families like the Malfoys having funded it for generations (which would explain Lucius' attendance of school quidditch games). While examiners do enter Hogwarts for O.W.Ls and N.E.W.Ts, this is only done as it's the biggest school in the region. Students at Hogwarts, at other wizarding schools, or through home-schooling and their parents education can also complete self-study (including of subjects not offered at Hogwarts) and complete their O.W.Ls or N.E.W.Ts at any ICW approved governing body, which includes Scotland's ministry, however that might manifest.

I don't think I can offer any conclusion to this, and for now my ideas are exhausted. I think I'm more poking at holes with a stick and making them bigger, but I wanted some way to record everything and work through issues and interesting things. Much of this developed and grew as I was writing — this began as only a discussion of whether Scotland was a nation within HP. If I've forgotten anything or piqued any interests my asks are open.

[hollowed-theory-hall]

I'd love to know your thoughts on the Gaunts in Hogwarts Legacy. I loved Ominis as a character, and the story of his family was interesting, but I'd really love an in-universe explanation for how they get to the state they are at when Tom is born in less than what... 40ish years? At most? How exactly do they go from multiple family members functional enough to attend Hogwarts to barely able to speak English (or seemingly use magic) that quickly?

So, the reason I didn't put Ominis and the Gaunts in my big canon contradictions in the HL post, is becouse I can in fact headcanon my way into Ominis' existence making sense (kinda). We only need one big factor that would allow for a very fast decline and we have one — inbreeding.

I mentioned this already here, but Marvolo speaks like he remembers the influence his family once had. Not only that, but he's different from his kids. He acts more like a person who can be somewhat reasoned with than both his barely more than squib children who don't seem capable of much intellectually.

How this might've happened is, say, one Gaunt got obsessed with blood purity and around the 1780s married his cousin.

His children turn out okay since it's just one generation of cousin marriages, but then his son also marries a cousin in the 1810s.

Their children would still seem reasonably fine and marry cousins again. And they have children in the 1840s.

By this point, most of them would be losing prestige and money and many other purebloods would want nothing to do with the Gaunts. This pushes them to keep marrying just a bit too close and shrink down the family to only the main line and maybe another one.

So, these children born in the 1840s would have their own kids with their cousins around the 1870s.

Now, these kids are Marvolo and Ominis, another brother (since Ominis mentions having older brothers), and at least one sister (for the sake of this theory to work). By this point, inbreeding would start to be a problem after 4 generations of first/second-cousin marriages in a row, which would work with Ominis being born blind, for example (which is a possible result of inbreeding).

Now, while both Ominis in the game and Marvolo in the 1920s talk a big game about their family influence, by the 1890s, it's a lie. I think they started falling from grace earlier throughout the century (as I mentioned), losing money and prestige and holding onto their position in the wizarding world by the skin of their teeth. Ominis' posturing about his father knowing the headmaster in HL always came off to me as just that — posturing. His father may have met Phineas Nigellus Black, but they weren't close by any means. Ominis is just threatening you the way he knows and can — which is some of the connections still left for his family since the money ran dry years ago.

The fact we don't see other kids in Slytherin trying to win Ominis' good graces for the sake of his family's influence (blindness or not) again suggests a lot of said influence is posturing more than the real deal. I mean, he's only friends with Sebastian and Anne, two students who are definitely outsiders within Slytherin (even if there's no way they live in Feldcroft, since there's no way that hamlet doesn't exist in the books).

Also, Ominis mentions his brothers and father tortured muggles. There's a non-zero chance that in 1890 most of his family is in Azkaban and he really is just lying and he has nothing he can do against anyone with his connections. Basically, it's a bluff.

I think seeing them like this adds an interesting reason as to why Noctua (Ominis' aunt) would want to look for Slytherin's Scripturium (though I don't think the Scripturium exists in the books, so let's say she looked for the Chamber of Secrets and was eaten by the basilisk since she wasn't the heir it was meant to obey in the 1880s). Becouse she's trying to bring the family back to its place of influence as descendants of Salazar Slytherin in a different way from her brother.

By the 1890s, Noctua is dead, there are no Gaunt cousins, just the main line with Marvolo, Ominis, unnamed brother, and unnamed sister.

Ominis is likely disowned at some point, and it fits his character to decide not to have kids and not pass on Parseltongue, which he sees as dark. I can see his character making that decision. But for this theory to work, he has to die before Tom is born, so he doesn't live a long life unless he left Britain and is living happily in the US or Australia or something.

The unnamed brother might be in Azkaban for crucio-ing a muggle, getting him out of the picture in an in-character way and making sure he has no kids.

Marvolo is where it gets interesting becouse with the state we see with his kids, and the nosedive off a cliff the family took in his time, my theory is that he had his kids with the aforementioned named sister. It would explain why Morfin and Mereope are like that. It would explain why they were completely shunned from wizarding society. How they lost even the measly amount of influence they had so quickly. It would fit with Marvolo's view of blood purity and the Gaunts' blood in particular, being purer than the rest.

So, this is my answer as to how I can headcanon my way into the Gaunt family's fast decline making sense. That being said, do I think Ominis is canon for the books' universe? Probably not, but I can make up shit to make it work, as I illustrated here.

[teacup-gathering-itself]

Give me muggleborn students trolling eachother via howlers and voice changers but they accidentally use muggle jokes that the pureblood kids don’t understand (think Nigerian Prince scams) so it spirals out of control.

“I didn’t know your family had ties to nobility? Why didn’t you mention it?”

“Pardon?”

“You’re familiar with African nobility? Enough that they send you howlers? And you didn’t care to mention that?”

“Oh… oh yeah that’s… my bad?”

Queue every muggle raised child realizing this opportunity and making eyes that scream “do NOT fuck this up for all of us” at each other before the gossip network does its work.

Anyways I just wanna see Goncharov level of unity because they absolutely would stick to the bit if someone fell for it.

Professor Snape would die over this silently, while all the pureblood teachers are like “???? Are you well, Severus?”

[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.

[thecarnivorousmuffinmeta]

How did the Gaunts dodge sending their kids to Hogwarts? It’s not like the Ministry doesn’t know their address and with the book of admittance they should be enrolled automatically. We even see what happens when the guardians ignore school letters; granted Harry is a Special Boy but were there just no truancy checks done?

Because Hogwarts isn't mandatory for magical households and Harry was a very special boy.

First, it's unclear if any of the Gaunts passed the bar for admissions and got a letter in the first place. We don't know, it's not clarified. While they use wands, could be they just went to purchase them/inherited them. Could be none of them got a letter.

Second, even if they did get said letter, we know that, at least for magical households, students can withdraw. We see many of Harry's classmates choose not to attend Hogwarts when things were getting spicy. The Ministry doesn't seem to care how or why someone says no to school, they'll let you do it...

If you really want to go to Hogwarts it's on you to figure out how to say "yes" and get there.

Unless you're Harry Potter and then they care very much.

[maxdibert]

Beauxbaton's and Hogwarts location are kind of funny to me, because they are situated in places that had peak witch hunts.

Also...Marauder's prequel can be interesting, but more like : All the Young Death Eaters.

Lily can also be interesting to follow, if...Let's say she responds to anti-muggle born sentiment by becoming manipulative, and the reason she ends up with James is because she needs a pureblood protector willing to get her pregnant, and James fit that description.

Perhaps an unpopular opinion, but honestly, I couldn’t care less about the Marauders’ generation. I just don’t care. The only character from that era who truly interests me is Severus; the rest are completely unremarkable to me, and I wouldn’t waste much of my time thinking about their adventures, lol. I know this is a very out-of-sync opinion because even people who aren’t part of that fandom seem to find those years interesting, but I don’t. I couldn’t care less about the First Wizarding War or the people involved in it either.

As for Beauxbatons, what fascinates me the most is that, according to Rowling, wizards from Spain and Italy would supposedly go there—and there’s nothing more incoherent, out of place, or sociologically delusional than actually thinking Spaniards and Italians would go to France to speak French to learn magic. Like, what? Literally, what? Spaniards going to Italy to study? Totally. Italians coming to Spain to study? Absolutely. Going to France? LOL