#it's specifically snape this is said about. not anyone else

[lilithofpenandbook]

That tracks

[hollowed-theory-hall]

Hello!! So, I saw an argument about Harry's uhm looks? I guess. A lot of people basically headcanon him as someone buff. I digress, I'm part of the uhm more realistic? group. Harry's been starved and abused his entire life. I doubt he'll gain the weight and the height everyone else wants him to have. Years later. maybe. But in 6th year? While on the run? 3 years after the war? Doubt. do you think he would be able to get super tall and buff? Also, do you think its possible he used the same methods the dursleys used to punish himself?

I mean, anyone can headcanon whatever they want, but, I'll try to explain via quotes, what Harry's height and muscle situation is likely to be. I believe the reasons some headcanon him as buff and tall are:

Harry had pinned Mundungus against the wall of the pub by the throat. Holding him fast with one hand, he pulled out his wand.

(HBP)

He lifts Mundungus by his throat with one hand easily, and he practices Quidditch like 3 times a week at least. This implies that Harry has some muscle on him.

And he's mentioned to be James' height when he's 17:

James was exactly the same height as Harry.

(DH)

Which was supposedly tall, according to both, Harry:

tall and untidy-haired like Harry, the smoky, shadowy form of James Potter

(GoF)

And Voldemort:

the tall black-haired man in his glasses

(DH)

Now, let's put Harry's height in the context of other character heights. Particularly of interest are characters taller than him, to get an image of how tall is "tall." And some shorter characters to help figure out his exact height.

Sirius, Ron, Voldemort, and Dumbledore are all taller than Harry and exceptionally tall in general. They are each likely to be over 6 feet tall, making Harry likely less than 6' (183 cm). Supporting this is this quote:

Once the painful transformation was complete he was more than six feet tall, and from what he could tell from his well-muscled arms, powerfully built.

(DH)

This means Harry is less than 6' and isn't super buff. But, I want to get to his specific height, because I have a lot to say about character heights.

Like, Dumbledore is probably the tallest character who isn't a half-giant because he's towering over everyone except Hagrid and Maxime. In book 6, he's literally taller than all the inferi in the cave:

Dumbledore was on his feet again, pale as any of the surrounding Inferi, but taller than any too,

(HBP)

And Abeforth (who's as tall as Dumbledore) is taller than Ron, who's one of the other tallest characters in the books:

Ron looked slightly sick. Aberforth stood up, tall as Albus, and suddenly terrible in his anger and the intensity of his pain.

(DH)

Making the Dumbledores really tall. My estimate is around a whooping 6'5 (195 cm).

Sirius is mentioned to be taller than Snape, and the tallest Marauder:

said Sirius, standing up. He was rather taller than Snape

(OotP)

To Sirius’s right stood Pettigrew, more than a head shorter

(DH)

A head, in height, should be around one foot (30.48 cm). As the average height of a man in England in 1998 was around 5'8 (174.4 cm), this would make Sirius around 6'2 (188 cm), therefore taller than average, and Pettigrew around 5'2 (157 cm), shorter than the average, but still both at a reasonable height.

Ron is almost as tall as the twins at 11:

“Shut up,” said Ron again. He was almost as tall as the twins already and his nose was still pink where his mother had rubbed it.

(PS)

And, just, really tall in general:

He stepped forward. Not as tall as Ron, he had to crane his neck to read the yellowish label affixed to the shelf right beneath the dusty glass ball.

(OotP)

So I estimate Ron at around 6'3 (190 cm).

Voldemort who grew up on war rations is still described very consistently as tall, regardless of childhood malnourishment:

He was his handsome father in miniature, tall for eleven years old, dark-haired, and pale

(HBP)

tall, pale, dark-haired, and handsome — the teenage Voldemort.

(HBP)

Taller than Bellatrix (who's taller than Harry). Voldemort is also considerably taller than Pettigrew, as he has to bend to reach Pettigrew's arm when both are standing:

Voldemort bent down and pulled out Wormtail’s left arm; he forced the sleeve of Wormtail’s robes up past his elbow

(GoF)

I usually place Voldemort at around the same height as Ron, so 6'3 (190 cm).

Fred and George, though, are mentioned to be shorter and stockier, more similar to Molly's build:

Charlie was built like the twins, shorter and stockier than Percy and Ron, who were both long and lanky.

(GoF)

but are mentioned to shrink to become Harry in book 7:

Hermione and Mundungus were shooting upward; Ron, Fred, and George were shrinking

(DH)

I actually place the twins around 6' (183 cm) so they could be taller than Harry, but shorter than Ron. The twins are likely taller than Charlie.

Bellatrix, as a woman, should also be shorter on average, but considering how tall Sirius is mentioned to be, it appears the Blacks are just considerably taller than the average, even the women:

a tall dark woman with heavy-lidded eyes, who had stood at her trial and proclaimed her continuing allegiance to Lord Voldemort

(OotP)

She was taller than he was, her long black hair rippling down her back, her heavily lidded eyes disdainful as they rested upon him;

(DH)

So I place her at around 6' (183 cm) as well, as an exceptionally tall lady.

So where does this place Harry?

During the first 4 books, Harry is short and small for his age. When he's 13, he and Hermione are bit shorter than Pettigrew:

He was a very short man, hardly taller than Harry and Hermione.

(PoA)

(Ron, noticeably, is taller than Pettigrew at 13)

So, so Harry at 13 was around 5'1 (155 cm). And so was Hermione.

Then in between books 4 and 5 puberty kicks in and probably causes a slight growth spurt that makes him more attractive to girls around him:

Parvati Patil and Lavender Brown, the last two of whom gave Harry airy, overly friendly greetings that made him quite sure they had stopped talking about him a split second before. He had more important things to worry about, however:

(OotP)

And then he has another, larger growth spurt between books 5 and 6:

“You’re like Ron,” she [Molly] sighed, looking him up and down. “Both of you look as though you’ve had Stretching Jinxes put on you. I swear Ron’s grown four inches since I last bought him school robes.

(HBP)

“And it doesn’t hurt that you’ve grown about a foot over the summer either,” Hermione finished, ignoring Ron. “I’m tall,” said Ron inconsequentially. [Ron is objectively correct]

(HBP)

Post book 6 growth spurt, we know Harry is below 6' (183 cm) but close enough to 6' to be above the average of 5'8 (174.4 cm) and be considered "tall", and grow "about a foot" after said growth spurt.

I personally place his height at 5'11 (180 cm), to make all of the above make sense.

And while he is physically fit, he is likely very thin from years of malnourishment. So, he likely has some muscle on him, but he's very lean with little to no fat during his Hogwarts years (he'd likely gain more weight as an adult living peacefully with regular meals). So, Harry in the books isn't what I'd call buff, but he has some muscle and can definitely throw a punch. As he grows older post-canon, I think he could get buff if he set his mind to it.

(I actually have notes about the height of a bunch of other characters. Hermione is shorter than Harry and Ron, but noticeably taller than Ginny (5'1 or 155 cm - edited Ginny's height since I think she's shorter than the former estimate of 5'2. Bellatrix says “Very well — take the smallest one,” with Hermione and Luna (who's also short) present, so Ginny is really short) and probably around 5'4 (162 cm) by book 7. Draco is said to be slightly taller than Harry "Harry did not dare look directly at Draco, but saw him obliquely; a figure slightly taller than he was" - DH, placing Draco at around 6' (183 cm))

For your other question, no, I don't think Harry self-harms, definitely not in any way related to the Dursleys, but that's a different post because I went off about heights.

[maxdibert]

Hello, I've been following you for some time and I love your posts and analyzes about Severus, I regularly update your blog hoping for more and I always wanted to send you something, but I never had the opportunity.

But recently I saw a video on TikTok, which I didn't pay much attention to, but I saw the comments and one of them talked about how if Harry was a woman and looked like Lily, Severus would be a pedophile and that that gave people the creeps. And I, personally, find this statement very funny, because as far as I remember, Snape never had inappropriate contact with any Hogwarts student, or with anyone, in fact. But people intentionally forget that the only person who had the opening to do this was Peter Pettigrew. Ron himself said that they slept together and, probably, Peter saw the boys, literal children, changing their clothes, but, obviously, it would be Snape who was the child predator.

Sorry if it wasn't very understandable, English isn't my first language and I'm using Google to help.

Hi! Thank you. I'm glad you like my rants and sometimes nonense lol

About your pint... Well, this is a very old story. If I had a penny for every time I’ve read someone spouting this nonsense, I wouldn’t be rich, but I’d have enough for a nice dinner at a fancy restaurant. It’s so absurd that I don’t even think it’s worth refuting, but just to clarify a few things:

Severus resents Harry for two main reasons, and neither of them has to do with being in love with Lily. It’s not something as childish as “uh, my crush married someone else.” No, there are several layers to it.

The first and most obvious is that, unfortunately, Harry is the spitting image of his father, who, unfortunately, was a jerk who spent his school years torturing people—specifically, and with great enthusiasm: Severus Snape. James spent seven years hunting him down and attacking him for sport, backed by his loyal ally Sirius Black and supported by his lackeys, Remus Lupin and Peter Pettigrew. While the latter two might not have physically assaulted Severus, they were there as enablers and complicit bystanders. Four against one, at the end of the day.

Severus never had the chance to heal from that abuse because, at 21, he was forced to return to the very place that had been hell for him. He had to teach students who were likely old enough to have witnessed some of those humiliations during his time as a student. A victim cannot heal in the place where they were consistently harmed.

Then Harry comes along, looking like an exact replica of James, and every time Severus sees him, it triggers him immensely. When he looks at Harry, he doesn’t see Lily’s son, nor does he see a child—he sees his abuser. And we all know Harry isn’t to blame for any of this, but the thing is, we can’t expect someone who isn’t acting rationally to be rational. Especially when we’re talking about someone who desperately needs therapy and probably medication, neither of which he’s ever had access to.

Then there’s another factor—a deeply emotional one—which is that Harry’s very existence is a painful reminder of Severus’s own role in Lily’s death. The fact that this kid is there, an orphan, is a constant reminder that Severus overheard a prophecy, reported it to Voldemort, and that Voldemort then chose to kill the most important person in Severus’s life because of it. It’s a perpetual mix of anger and guilt.

Looking at Harry forces Severus to relive his past as a victim, his most humiliating moments, as well as the terrible decisions he made because of them and their devastating consequences. This doesn’t excuse his behavior, but it does explain it quite well.

What I’m trying to say is that the reasons behind how he treats Harry are deeply tied to trauma. If Harry were a girl and resembled Lily, Severus would still feel deeply triggered every time he saw her. The only difference would be that instead of seeing James in her, he’d see Lily. I think, rather than anger, it would fill him with depression and guilt to such a degree that, instead of antagonizing her, he’d try to avoid her as much as possible. He wouldn’t want to get within ten miles of her because seeing her face would constantly remind him of the person he failed and indirectly condemned.

At no point do I imagine anything even remotely sexual crossing his mind. Especially when you consider that Severus never once confessed his feelings to Lily or behaved inappropriately toward her. I do think he’d act “softer,” but not because of her appearance specifically—more because Severus is always gentler toward women. I mentioned this in another post, but his more cordial relationships are almost always with female characters, and when he’s cruel, it’s typically far worse with men than with women.

People who lack even the most basic comprehension or analytical skills… Honestly, if they’re going to hate on him, the least they could do is come up with more convincing arguments. Sometimes it’s just exhausting to explain why their theories don’t make any sense.

[72crowe89]

Reactions to Reactions to Snape's possible casting

The Hollywood Reporter has reported that Ghanaian-British Actor Paapa Essiedu is being looked at to play the role of Severus Snape for the upcoming Harry Potter show. Here are some of the reactions I've seen of the news from, imho, worst to best, and my reactions to them.

Now, because it needs to be said, every opinion is valid. Even if I respect many opinions and roll my eyes at others, I 100% believe that everyone has the right to feel about this news anyway they want and to express that publicly, as long as they are not harassing either anyone with different opinions or, especially, anyone connected to the production of the TV show because of it.

And now to my reactions:

I don't want a Black Snape because Snape shouldn't be Black: Thank you, next

I don't want a Black Snape because Snape has a specific description in the book that doesn't work with a Black actor: Fair, but Neville was blond in the book, but no one cared that Matthew Lewis wasn't. Daniel Radcliffe famously did not have Harry's iconic black hair and green eyes, but after some grumbling people overall accepted it because Radcliffe embodied Harry's character. Umbridge looked like a frog in the book, but Imelda Staunton's grandmotherly appearance, imho, made Umbridge's actions even more horrific than an actress with a book-accurate appearance. For me, I don't care about changes to a character's appearance as long as they embody that character's personality.

I don't want a Black Snape because a book-accurate Black Snape would be a Black man bullying a White child (because Harry not being White will open up a bigger can of worms) due to lusting after his White mother: Yes. One of the downsides of race lifting characters is that many productions don't consider the nuances in putting a racial minority in a certain role, especially one originally held by a White person, has on the story. This production is going to have to balance book accuracy with the image of a Black man who's main motivation is a White woman who ultimately chose his rich White bully, all the while bullying a White child. Same story, but there are racial politics that weren't there before.

I don't want a Black Snape because any Black actor playing Snape will be harassed to hell and back: I definitely agree with this. I haven't seen Paapa Essiedu in anything else, but I've heard that he's a good actor. It won't matter, however, how talented either he or any other POC actor they consider for Snape is. At best, people just won't get attached to their portrayal because it's too different from the Snape they know. At worst, it will leave them prey to all of the virulent racists who need a new target.

There is no Snape but Alan Rickman: 1000%, which is the real crutch of the matter. The Harry Potter movies are just as iconic as the books, so much so that people sometimes mistake things that were movie exclusive as things that were also true about the book (e.g. Beauxbatons and Durmstrang were both coed in the books rather than one-gendered schools as they are in the movie). Similarly, the cast of those movies were just as iconic. Daniel Radcliffe will always be Harry Potter, Maggie Smith will always be Minerva McGonagall, and Alan Rickman will always be Severus Snape. Rickman's tour-de-force as Snape is so entrenched in the minds of many fans that his portrayal of Snape as a stern but completely over it teacher overshadows the petty and casually cruel Snape from the books. To ask any actor to fill Rickman's shoes in this role is a tall order, taller still for any actor of color, even taller still if the meaner book version of Snape is the one they're aiming for.

[sideprince]

Hello hello, love your blog and all the meta! Do you have any thoughts or saved meta on Snape’s accent? I don’t remember us seeing any indications in book-canon about him having an accent that stands out in any way, but I’d imagine that a poor boy growing up in the midlands (or in the north, as we thought before Spinner’s End was revealed to be in Cokeworth), to have a strong regional accent. Since this is an obvious class marker would he have tried to tone it down or hide it as he got older in Hogwarts? Thoughts?

Hello! Thank you, I'm always surprised anyone reads my posts so that's such a nice thing to hear! I've actually been thinking about Snape's accent lately so I love this ask and also get out of my head.

The books seem to show Snape speaking the Queen's English (ie. the dialect spoken primarily in the South of England and considered by some to be "proper" English, those people being dismissive of regional dialects in ways I personally don't agree with). This can be deduced more from seeing how the dialogue of characters like Dobby and Hagrid are written than anything else. Hagrid is written as speaking with a thick West Country accent, with a lot of "yeh" instead of "you" and "ter" instead of "to" etc. You also see similar clearly denoted regional dialects with characters like Mundungus Fletcher (whose accent is Cockney):

“Blimey,” said Mundungus weakly ___ “Keep your ’airnet on!” said Mundungus

-Order of the Phoenix, Ch. 2

“Well, you’re a bunch of bleedin’ ‘eroes, then, aren’t you, but I never pretended I was up for killing meself -”

-Deathly Hallows, Ch. 11

Because we see these characters with their pronunciations clearly written into their dialogue, we're meant to assume the other characters speak the Queen's English, as no specific dialect is otherwise indicated. McGonagall is Scottish but it's never mentioned that her accent might be as well, and her dialogue doesn't indicate it is either. In fact, if you do a quick search on potter-search.com for the word "Scottish" the only instance that comes up in any of the HP books - which are set in the Scottish Highlands with McGonagall as a prominent Scottish character - is at the end of Deathly Hallows when the dragon the trio break out of Gringotts deposits them in the middle of a Scottish loch. It’s the only time the word Scottish is used in the whole series. I think that says a lot about JK Rowling as the writer and what her own biases are when it comes to writing representatively of the places her story - and its characters - inhabit.

I don't think Rowling put that much thought into Snape's accent and where he's from. The underlying message is that the Queen's English is the "default" accent and peppering her books with regional dialect in the dialogue of folksy characters like Hagrid gives them a bit of color, or that giving someone like Mundungus a Cockney accent denotes his being an untrustworthy criminal (and it's not exactly a revelation that she has unchecked internalized biases that show through her writing). But I also think that she wrote Snape with Alan Rickman in mind and that made her vision of him a bit conflicting, ie. she wrote his backstory as growing up in a Midlands slum and yet he speaks like the RADA trained actor she envisioned him as in her mind.

That won't stop me from coming up with meta about Snape's accent, though! I've been thinking about it lately, actually, because I see a lot of posts that talk about how he must have lost his accent at school to fit in with the other Slytherins, since there are, historically, many pure-bloods and Sacred 28 families in that house and he would have had a hard enough time fitting in as it was. I've always thought these theories made sense but lately I've been wondering if there could be an alternate reading of Snape's accent.

We don't really know much about Snape's mother but I've thought about how she might have come from a reasonably well-off wizarding family, or at the very least from a higher class background than she ended up raising her son in. Although most Brits grow up speaking with the accent of their region, some do grow up speaking how they're taught to at home if it diverges from other locals. The example that comes to mind is how John Lennon always had a scouse accent having grown up middle class in Liverpool, while Paul McCartney - also from Liverpool - spoke the Queen's English because his mother insisted on teaching him to speak it at home, despite their family being working class, in order to give him a leg up through the classist confines of British social classes.

So my own meta has lately been to play with the idea that Snape always spoke with the accent we see his adult self speaking with, because his mother wanted him to have a chance to do better in life than what she was able to give him (again, given how classist British society is, and was especially back in the 60s). It may also explain why he had so few friends as a child: if he was raised to speak the Queen's English in a working class slum, the other children may have ostracized him for it and he may have inadvertently alienated them.

The idea that Snape has always spoken with the accent he has as an adult is partly supported by the conversations we see between Snape and Lily as children, where Snape's accent isn't written in the regional dialects we see other characters having. There are a few minor moments where young Snape seems to have a Northern lilt, but it comes off more as something that slips into his speech than characterizes it, when compared to Mundungus or Hagrid (emphases mine):

‘We’re all right. We haven’t got wands yet. They let you off when you’re a kid and you can’t help it. But once you’re eleven,’ he nodded importantly, ‘and they start training you, then you’ve got to go careful.’ ______ ‘They wouldn’t give you to the Dementors for that! Dementors are for people who do really bad stuff. They guard the wizard prison, Azkaban. You’re not going to end up in Azkaban, you’re too -‘ He turned red again and shredded more leaves. Then a small rustling noise behind Harry made him turn: Petunia, hiding behind a tree, had lost her footing. ‘Tuney!’ said Lily, surprise and welcome in her voice, but Snape had jumped to his feet. ‘Who’s spying now?’ he shouted. ‘What d’you want?’

-Deathly Hallows, Ch. 33

There's a bit of Northern in how he says "you've got to go careful" and shortens "do you" into "d'you" but overall his speech is fairly standard Queen's English. It sounds more like a kid trying to sound cool, the way the Weasley twins and even Ron often do (Ron saying "geroff" to his mum, the twins shouting "oy" to each other or saying "blimey" even though they all grew up in Devon and their speech is generally also written following standard Queen's English).

Young Snape's accent may also have been something that caught Lily's attention or just put her at ease - seeing this skinny, twitchy kid wearing odd looking clothes and looking uncared for and poor but hearing him speak with a more familiar accent and vocabulary would have made it easier for her to connect with him. We see from Petunia's dialogue as an adult that she speaks the Queen's English, so we can assume the two girls grew up speaking it at home. There aren't really any colloquialisms in her speech, and what little (and it's really so, so little) we see of Lily seems to show the same.

Some people claim that Snape’s Northern accent comes out when he's triggered, but I can't find examples of it. At his most triggered in the Shrieking Shack in PoA, he still speaks as he always does:

'SILENCE! I WILL NOT BE SPOKEN TO LIKE THAT!’ Snape shrieked, looking madder than ever. ‘Like father, like son, Potter! I have just saved your neck, you should be thanking me on bended knee! You would have been well served if he’d killed you! You’d have died like your father, too arrogant to believe you might be mistaken in Black - now get out of the way, or I will make you. GET OUT OF THE WAY, POTTER!'

-Prisoner of Azkaban, Ch. 19

Even in HBP when he's fleeing and Harry triggers him, his speech is consistent with hiw it’s written through the rest of the series:

'No, Potter!’ screamed Snape. There was a loud BANG and Harry was soaring backwards, hitting the ground hard again, and this time his wand flew out of his hand. He could hear Hagrid yelling and Fang howling as Snape closed in and looked down on him where he lay, wandless and defenceless as Dumbledore had been. Snape’s pale face, illuminated by the flaming cabin, was suffused with hatred just as it had been before he had cursed Dumbledore. ‘You dare use my own spells against me, Potter? It was I who invented them - I, the Half-Blood Prince! And you’d turn my inventions on me, like your filthy father, would you? I don’t think so … no!’ Harry had dived for his wand; Snape shot a hex at it and it flew feet away into the darkness and out of sight. ‘Kill me, then,’ panted Harry, who felt no fear at all, but only rage and contempt. ‘Kill me like you killed him, you coward -‘ ‘DON’T -‘ screamed Snape, and his face was suddenly demented, inhuman, as though he was in as much pain as the yelping, howling dog stuck in the burning house behind them, ‘- CALL ME COWARD!'

-Half-Blood Prince, Ch. 28

There isn't really much in these moments to suggest a Northern accent coming out. So in a radical departure from the fandom, I've been mulling over the meta that Snape always had the accent we see him with. It's not as unlikely as people think, and certainly not impossible.

[seriousbrat]

What I find comfortable to say is pathetic about James is his righteousness. We see that in SWM when he tries to get Snape to apologise to Lily (I get the sentiment, but you're simply not in the position to do that?), and when he meets Snape on the train and genuinely thinks wanting to be in Slytherin makes you morally inferior.

He was 16 and 11 in these instances, but as much as he grew and learned about the complexities of the world and the human psyche, his slightly childish black-and-white sense of morality was still his downfall.

We hear Lupin say Harry is a lot like James in this aspect, but I think one thing Harry has that James never quite developed to the same level is an enormous amount of empathy. Maybe it's foolish of Harry to not shoot to kill, but Harry managed to empathise with Voldemort, and I think it's safe to assume through Sirius and Remus* that James never managed to do the same with Snape.

*just considering that as adults, Sirius showed absolutely no regret, and Remus, tho he did recognise how bad their attitude towards Snape was, didn't quite recognise just how much it actually impacted Snape. So if Remus is the most enlightened end of the Marauders Moral Spectrum (not a great one altogether), and Sirius is the most clouded, I think James would sit somewhere in the middle, but probably more inclined to agree with Sirius.

Definitely, I agree!! Specifically, I think his hypocrisy about his righteousness is what's pathetic. I said this in the post about James that I linked, but a strong moral code (which James has always had) doesn't actually mean anything without true empathy and understanding towards others. Else it's all too easy to convince yourself that something does align with your moral beliefs. Particularly if those beliefs are very black and white and very rigid. We've seen this plenty of times through history and in the present day, where lack of empathy leads people to believe that X group is evil and that therefore the righteous, moral thing to do is to hurt them.

James believed that Death Eaters = Bad. That much is true enough. But in his mind this became Death Eaters = Slytherins = Bad. And specifically Death Eaters = Slytherins = Snape = Bad. Therefore, Attacking Snape = Good.

This is really just a justification for the fact that James found it validating (and fun, and easy) to pick on Snape. The Gryffindor vs Slytherin/James vs Snape/Good vs Evil dichotomy inherited from his dad was further established in his brain early doors when he met Snape on the train. Lack of empathy is common in teens, who, psychologically, tend to view the world as revolving around themselves. While I think a part of James (very small, very deep down) knew it was wrong, it was easy enough to feel justified in bullying Snape because there's a hint of truth to the worldview that Slytherins are, if not inherently evil, generally not good people. But that doesn't excuse cruelty, obviously, and I think James as a character is a good example of the fact that people who have """""correct""""" moral beliefs are still capable of cruelty.

I also think tumblr/twitter 'SJW' culture are places this is seen very clearly, when people who express opinions even slightly outside of what's considered acceptable, even if it's a simple mistake borne of ignorance, are dogpiled on and cyberbullied in the name of social justice, when in reality it would be much more productive and much kinder in many situations to just calmly engage in honest conversation. Certain spaces (echo chambers) do breed a lack of empathy, and in general people who have strong opinions but haven't the empathy to realise the world inevitably contains a wide variety of opinion, and lack the understanding to back up their own beliefs, tend to react with great hostility to anyone who doesn't share them.

Point is, you aren't automatically a good person because you have the 'right' beliefs. What matters is what you do.

Anyway I got sidetracked. But I also wanted to say that I think Lily is the opposite of James in this. She's empathetic to a fault. She has so much empathy towards Snape that she fails to see (or at least to really address) his problems and the danger he represents to her, at least until it's nearly too late. I'd say Harry is somewhere in between his parents, which is probably a good thing. Also I do think that because they were opposites in this regard, Lily and James were probably quite good for each other haha and balanced each other out, eventually growing towards a similar place somewhere between Lily's blind empathy and James's black and white morality. So he became less rigid and she became more structured (this is the new she was dramatic he was dynamic)

On the Lupin-Black Scale (lmao) I agree that at first James was more towards Sirius's end, but the way I see him, he later began to drift a little bit towards the Remus end. About Remus himself, I think he is an incredibly empathetic character. He's responsible for bringing Peter into the group. Similarly he picks up quickly on the fact that Neville needs a bit of encouragement and provides this quite subtly and quite effectively, and he also notices when Harry is distressed and helps him too. The trouble is that Remus's empathetic nature is at war with his need to be accepted, which is why he tolerates certain behaviours from his friends even knowing it's wrong. In this post about Remus from a while ago, I talked about the fact that Remus is a character full of similar contradictions, and very aware of them himself. His being a werewolf (the stark opposite of his kind, mild, thoughtful nature) is a really good metaphor for that!

[saintsenara]

hi! i’m curious what you think of something i’ve been thinking about for a while!

peter x barty

but specifically, during the second wizarding war while peter is taking care of babymort like in the first chapter in goblet of fire (peter giving voldemort feedings lives rent free in my head, honestly)

thank you very much for the ask, pal!

i back this on a basic level in that - as you say - both of them would definitely need to blow off steam during the year in which peter's stuck in the riddle house having to look at voldemort's horrible baby form and barty's stuck guzzling polyjuice and having to mark dozens of essays a week.

and it's not like they can find anyone else to scratch that itch, is it? seeing as they're both supposed to be dead...

but i also back it in that one of the most interesting things to me about peter is that all of his relationships are driven by envy - he's jealous of james and sirius, and how he's subordinate to them in importance; he's jealous of snape, whom he's forced to serve because he's one of voldemort's favourites; he's jealous of voldemort's superior power and authority; he's jealous of the other death eaters, who outrank him.

and his jealousy clearly leads him towards both resentment and obsession. he loves and hates james at the same time. he loves and hates voldemort.

barty's relationships are also driven by jealousy. but, in his case, jealousy of anyone who monopolises voldemort's interest, which he is obsessed with having solely for himself. as i've said when thinking about other barty-centric death eater pairings - such as putting him with snape or bellatrix - his rage at anyone other than him getting voldemort's attention would be incredibly toxic.

he works best, then, with a partner who is inferior to him in voldemort's affections.

and peter seems, initially, like he'd fit this profile.

until his corrosive jealousy comes into play, and witnessing voldemort's preference for barty would make peter desperate both to have him and destroy him.

[thatthoughtatthebackofyourmind]

In Defence of Albus Dumbledore:

Look. I know this is an unpopular opinion, so I’m going to write this here because putting it anywhere else (like at the bottom of the fics which have inspired this frustration) would seem mean, and it would probably end up coming off as unintentional flaming, which I would never do to anyone ever. Also, as I’m less frustrated with individual works than I am with an entire situation, it wouldn’t really be fair to direct it at one specific person.

Get ready. This is going to be very ranty and long and I can't promise not to get off topic and onto a tangent a few times.

I understand that we all have grown up a lot since first reading Harry Potter. I get that once we realized how grey a few of Dumbledore’s decisions actually and the ways in which they affected the characters we love we all felt rightfully upset.

But can we please stop being so narrowminded about it?

There are plenty of redemption fics out there. A lot of them are works that redeem characters like Severus Snape, Draco Malfoy, Draco’s parents, various Dursleys and loads of other people. I’ve seen fics that have Sirius confronting the realities of his juvenal behaviours and having to atone for past wrongs. I’ve even seen (but admittedly never read) fics that redeem Voldemort himself.

But the least popular person for a redemption story in fanfiction by far seems to be Albus Dumbledore.

I get it.

He was supposed to be an infallible genius who did no wrong and he let us down. But please.

Can we all please just admit that we’re using Dumbledore as a stand in?

The hatred we as a fan community levy at Dumbledore is influenced by so much more than his actions in cannon.

It’s the dissolution we feel at growing up. The need as young people to bite back at overbearing authority. It’s the conviction that leaders should never be allowed to fail if failure means the death of innocent people. Even though we can all recognize on a personal level that our failures are typically unintentional and are definitely what make us human.

Of late, it’s very clear that Dumbledore is a stand in for the betrayal we feel at JK Rowling’s anti-trans standing.

We all loved her so much.

She gave us this world.

She promised it to everyone.

And then she said that it was all a lie, and that it was never meant for some of us anyway.

The parallels are clear.

While we were first reading, we loved who Harry loved. Simply because he loved them, and we loved him.

When we grew up, we started acknowledging the ways in which the characters mirrored people in real life, and we chose the people we found the most familiar to love instead. Personally, I understand the reason I read Severitus so often is because I had a largely absent father who I idolized as a child, and that father was a bit of a rockstar like person. Dark, intelligent, and cruel when he wanted to be. Artistic, genius, condescending, and amazing.

As an adult, I still long for his love and approval. Learning that Severus was capable of so much good at the very end of his story, that he was in fact good all along, even when he looked exactly the opposite, gave me hope that my father was too. Even though I now understand that redemption for my father is just a fairy tale it’s still a story I hold close to my heart. A story I long for. It’s a possible happy ending for both a lonely child and a jaded grouchy adult.

Albus Dumbledore was different.

This was a man that we trusted to have everyone’s best intentions at heart. We were told he was safe. We were told he was the smartest man in any room. And then he failed us. And we looked back at all he had done, and rather than seeing the good he had tried to achieve, all we could see were the mistakes he had made.  

I firmly believe that the reason that so many people hate him so strongly now is because we all loved him so much first. Like Harry, we all believe that he was incapable of mistakes. His mistakes in cannon aren’t any more morally condemning than anyone else on the light side.

Keep in mind that I said, “in cannon.” I feel like I need to distinguish that. In cannon, though Harry asked if he could stay at Hogwarts during the summer, he never told Dumbledore about living in a cupboard under the stairs. His letter was addressed to there, but we have no way of knowing whether it was physically or magically written on the envelope. And besides, that letter was signed by Professor McGonagall, not Dumbledore. Harry also never mentioned to him the Dursleys withholding food. Or locking up his trunk so that he couldn’t do his homework. He made it clear that they disliked him, that they thought him a burden, but think. Really think. Dumbledore is the head of a school full of children. How many children misunderstand and exaggerate even in their own minds how much their families dislike them.

Let me be clear; when I say kids exaggerate I don’t mean in terms of abuse. I only mean typical things such as, “My mom’s always grouchy when she gets home from work and she never notices that I’ve tried really hard by cleaning the bathroom if she told me to clean the kitchen before she got home and I decided to do the bathroom because I wanted to clean it instead of doing the dishes and now she’s yelling at me that she just needs me to help her sometimes, and I don’t feel like that’s fair because really I do. Look, I cleaned the whole bathroom by myself! And I straitened up the living room too! The only thing I ‘forgot’ was the kitchen and now she’s acting like I do nothing. This means she hates me and appreciates nothing I do. I am clearly a burden to her, and I should go live under a rock so that she doesn’t have to deal with me anymore.” Really, your mom probably isn’t saying you’re a burden. Your mom is more than likely overworked, over-tired, and almost certainly depressed in a society that doesn’t cater to mental health awareness, and on top of all that she was raised by a generation that was allergic to admitting and self-regulating their true feelings so she can’t articulate that and she’s instead taking her frustrations out on you.

This is wrong, and she shouldn’t do it. But consider. Why didn’t you want to clean the kitchen? Was it because you had a long hard day at school and you’re overworked, over-tired, and definitely depressed in a world that doesn’t cater to mental health awareness, and all you really wanted was a break from the hardest job and you just wanted to compromise by doing the ones you felt emotionally and physically able to do? Because I promise, that’s probably exactly how your mom feels about the damn dirty dishes that she’s going to have to deal with before she can make dinner after being cussed out and yelled at by customers and or bosses all day in between doing her actual work and that’s the real reason she’s yelling.

Because, though a lot of teens believe otherwise, parents are still just people and the feelings that overwhelm kids still overwhelm adults just as badly. And they’re even less likely to know how to help themselves because they didn’t grow up with the internet where everyone shares their feeling and gets back validation and advice, so they mostly just believed those feelings were personal failings that indicated something broken specifically only in them and that they should learn to live with it and never tell anyone ever because complaining is for babies and liberals. Okay, maybe that last bit is a little too specific to my own mother, but you get the idea.

It’s a cycle that’s been going on for years. Hopefully, we can eventually all learn how to communicate peacefully and compromise on chores sometimes so we can end it someday. Or everyone can just switch to paper plates, and then we’ll worry about how we’re killing the planet later and no one will have to do the dishes ever again.

The point is, while that isn’t the best parenting style, and it can cause issue’s with your familial relationship as you age, it isn’t technically abuse. And it especially wouldn’t be considered abuse in the 90’s while Harry Potter was taking place or the early 00’s when it was being published.

Harry was not bruised when he arrived at Hogwarts. He didn’t show obvious outward signs of abuse. He never told any adults what his life was like at the Dursleys at all. He really didn’t even say much about it to Ron or Hermione either. Mrs. Weasley sent him treats for his birthday, which was a sweet motherly gesture. Hermione and Hagrid did as well but think about it. Do you believe for a second that if Molly have-another-serving, can-I-get-you-some-more-bread, try-the-potatoes Weasley honestly thought the Dursley’s were starving Harry that she would first wait until the end of July to send Harry anything, and then only send him sweets? She would scale the Dursleys’ house and stuff a full six course meal through the bars multiple times a day before she let that boy live off stale birthday cake. When she asked if the Dursley had fed him enough she meant it in the same way she always meant it, in the if ‘I can feed the world I can love the world’ way.

 Hagrid sent him rock cakes, but again, think about it. Hagrid had shown up with a cake for Harry’s birthday the day he first delivered the letter when he couldn’t have yet known of the way Harry was treated. He just wanted to show Harry he was loved and missed.

Of the people who sent him food, only Hermione really knew Harry didn’t get to eat his fill at the Dursley’s and she still only sent cake because all she knew was that he was being forced to diet with Dudley. Which is why she sent him the kind of food one would eat if they weren’t on a diet instead of true sustenance. A fourth of a grapefruit as a meal is not a diet, no matter what Petunia called it. And if he had told Hermione specifics, she likely would have told Harry that, but again, he didn’t tell anyone specifics.

 Everyone knew that Harry was unfavoured by the Dursley’s and that they wouldn’t be celebrating his birthday, and he wouldn’t receive cake or presents, but they really didn’t know much else. Ron and Hermione only understood he was being starved in the way most naive well-fed kids from happy families can understand. It sounded cruel, and they did try to tell people, but because they didn’t understand the full gravity of the situation, they couldn’t properly communicate to trusted adults that Harry was actually experiencing abuse. Plus, Harry tended to downplay it even to them.

When Dumbledore speaks about knowing Harry would come from a less than happy home, you can tell he is picturing a world where Harry is liked second best to his cousin. Where he never feels fully at home. Like an overextended visitor in a relative’s house. He thinks they’ll treat him like the weird cousin who came to stay and never left rather than an immediate family member.

He isn’t picturing Petunia Dursley slinging a frying pan at Harry’s head. Or refusing to let him drink his fill of water on a hot summer’s day spent weeding her ridiculous flower garden. Or an overly restrictive diet enforced on an already undernourished body simply to make Harry’s morbidly obese cousin feel better about his doctor changing his eating habits.

I think we’ll all agree that feeling less than welcome by stuck up relatives sucks, but it’s better than whatever Voldemort’s loyal leftover followers will do to him if they manage to track down the person responsible for their dark lord’s downfall.

I understand why a lot of people feel like Dumbledore should have just put Harry under the Fidelius Charm and hid him rather than sending him to the Dursley’s but consider: If Dumbledore trusted Sirius the way he must have done to not betray James and his family, then it makes sense that he felt Fidelius was no longer an option. He fully believed Sirius was the secret keeper. Sirius, the Potters, and Pettigrew were the only ones to know of the change. It’s likely that after learning that the Death Eaters had convinced Sirius to betray the Potters he was jaded enough to take it as a sign that no one could be a trusted Secret Keeper. No matter how much they loved the person under protection.

He also likely would have insisted on a trial for Sirius had Sirius himself not told everyone that he was the one who killed James and Lily while descending into hysterical laughter. We know what Sirius meant, (he felt responsible for them dying because switching to Peter at the last minute had been his idea) because we read the third Harry Potter book, but Dumbledore didn’t have that same advantage. All he had was the word of an apparently mad man. A man who had just tracked down another dear friend and apparently killed him and 12 innocent bystanders in a fit of insanity.

Why, when last he had heard Sirius was the Secret Keeper, would he doubt a verbal confession from a man who did nothing to try and save himself from Azkaban? The Marauders never told anyone of their animagus abilities. No one but Sirius could have understood what Peter had done. Why do we expect Dumbledore to have known better?

So, instead of Fidelius and hiding Harry away for his entire childhood, he gave him the best protection he could think of under the circumstances he had been given. He sought to give Harry a normal life and to keep him safe from the remaining Death Eaters.

Dumbledore understood that fame was power, and that power could corrupt even the best of people with the strongest of minds, so he kept Harry away from the limelight. He also understood how fickle people where about fame. This was the right decision even if the Dursley were a bad choice in guardians. We saw proof of this numerous times while Harry was at school. His fame only ever seemed to bring him more hardships. In book two they said Harry was a dark wizard because he was a Parselmouth and that that’s how he overpowered Voldemort. In book four even some of Harry’s friends refused to believe he wasn’t just a glory hound and that it hadn’t been him who entered his name in the tournament, but rather someone trying to kill him. In book five, almost everyone refused to believe Harry was telling the truth about Voldemort’s return. Every single time Harry’s name entered the limelight, it was in a way that harmed him. Imagine how much earlier it would have started had he grown up in the wizarding world. They would have been debating his kindergarten finger paintings if they could have.  

Why does the entire fandom also assume that Dumbledore thought of himself as the wisest most all-knowing man in any room? The only people who canonically acted like they believed that about him were the Golden Trio, and they were enlightened otherwise multiple times throughout the books as they grew up. Just as everyone learns new truths about trusted adults they thought of as perfect as they grow.

The fact is, Albus Dumbledore has always been just a man.

He was a great and powerful but flawed man who wanted more than anything to make sure that evil could not prevail. He obviously still holds plenty of shame and guilt over his dealings with Gellert Grindelwald in his misspent youth. We have surmised that when he looked in the Mirror of Erised he likely saw his sister Ariana, or something as equally heart-breaking which he recognized as his own fault. He fully understood that he was just a man. He encouraged everyone to understand that fact about Voldemort as well.

He was not a god, and he didn’t pretend to be.

Not in cannon anyway.

Fanon Dumbledore, on the other hand, tends to be anything from a meddling idiot to a full on manipulative dark lord complete with moustache twirling and nefarious intent. Which, I believe, further influences and enforces the fandom’s collective bad opinion of him. Most of us haven’t reread the real books in years. It gets hard to remember at some points what was something he did in canon vs. what was something he did in fanfiction.

 Every other character seems welcomed to grow in the world of fandom.

Severus was canonically a willing Death Eater in his youth, a bully to children in his care in his adulthood, and a petty grudge-holder who couldn’t let go of the past. We accept that we can’t fully know how much of his behaviour towards the students was an act to fool the Death Eater’s children, but we can assume it definitely wasn’t all of it. Still, he gets plenty of redemption fics. He had literal access to Harry’s traumatic childhood memories but still saw no signs of abuse because he was too busy trying to keep a 15-year-old child from gaining any ammunition about his own past.

Looking back, it seems obvious that as very few of Harry’s childhood memories were shown in the Occlumency scenes, he likely wasn’t as bad at clearing his mind as either he or Snape assumed, but it was also possible that Severus didn’t see those memories because that wasn’t what he was looking for. The memory of Harry getting chased up a tree by Marge’s dog as the rest of his family watched and laughed should have triggered at least a couple of red flags, but Severus was typically determined to only see the bad in Harry, so he overlooked it.

James Potter who is often thought of as the better choice for Lily was also a bully. And he spent years relentlessly pursuing a relationship with someone who had never given him any indication that his advances were welcome and had in fact outright told him the exact opposite of that many times until he finally wore her down and convinced her to give him a shot. That’s gross, unacceptable behaviour but I guess it is technically better than dating a budding racist that sees you as the exception to his views on your people, so James is rebranded as a lovable hero who changed after having a slightly misspent youth rather than a mean spirited bully who likely grew bored with his main target once he no longer saw him as competition (there would have been no reason to bully Snape if Lily wasn’t friends with him anymore after 5th year which was conveniently around the time he began to “grow up”) as well as a pushy loser who wouldn’t take no for an answer even though Lily said it multiple times. (There’s also the point that once Snape knew about Lupin being a werewolf, James likely wouldn’t have bullied him anymore so as not to provoke Snape to reveal the secret and get Lupin thrown out of school and possibly killed.)

Ron told Molly outright that the Dursley’s were starving Harry and had fixed bars on his windows to trap him after weeks of being concerned when he didn’t reply to Ron’s letters, and she still ignored it, assuming instead that Ron was exaggerating and never even tried to check with Harry to learn that he wasn’t.

Remus spent a year teaching Harry individualized lessons to repel Dementors and never once asked him why he was so sad that they affected him in ways that none of the other students experienced. I mean really, he couldn’t have been the only orphan attending that school so Remus couldn’t have thought it was just that. And Neville’s backstory was nearly just as sad (and just as well known to Remus) and even he didn’t faint like Harry. Yet, he didn’t question Harry once.

Sirius (who is also a bully and a petty grudge-holder) never wondered why a child would want to move in with an escaped prisoner who he had never met before that had just mangled his best friend’s leg and tried to commit murder in front of him instead of the relatives he had been with his entire life. Even when until that very night he had believed that prisoner wanted to kill him?

Arthur actually met the Dursley’s and saw Vernon’s rage at magic when he came to collect Harry for the Quidditch World Cup and he still questioned nothing.

Half the Order found Harry locked inside his bedroom with locks affixed to the outside of the door, and all they did was give vague unfulfilled threats to Vernon and send Harry back. You could blame that on Dumbledore, but I think that’s ridiculous. They were not under Imperious. They made their own decisions. Every adult there had a responsibility to that child, and they all failed him individually.

Yet time and time again I see Dumbledore condemned so overwhelmingly in the very fics that redeem and or absolve these other characters of those very actions.

Even McGonagall, who knew from the start that the Dursleys were awful people, never pulled Harry aside as his head of house and asked him anything about his home life. And, as I stated earlier, her name was the one on the letter addressed to the cupboard under the stairs. She also made it very clear that she wasn’t someone for Harry to confide in by constantly dismissing any concerns he presented her. The way she reacted about the Stone was ridiculous. And her non-concern over the amount of detentions Harry received from Umbridge followed by the ‘have a biscuit’ scene rubbed me the wrong way. And yet, of late she seems to be revered in the fandom community as some kind of badass grandmotherly character. All because she protested one time about leaving Harry with the Dursleys and then never brought it up again.

It’s getting a bit ridiculous. I’m exhausted by the way the fan community continues to rewrite cannon to fit their dissatisfaction with our once trusted role-model JK Rowling through Harry Potter’s once trusted mentor Albus Dumbledore.

Just once I would like to read a Harry Potter fic without having to think about the various ways in which JK Rowling let us all down. And with everyone rewriting Dumbledore as the ‘real villain all along’ I can’t help but be taken out of the fic and forced to relate it to reality.

[fruitywritter]

Alone with you

You and Hermione hate each other, or that’s what you and everyone else thinks. But all of the fights and the flirting between you guys might mean something, right?

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I also posted this on my Ao3 account, so if you find it there just know that it’s me.

This is going to be only a few more chapters since it’s a small story.

——————————————————————————

Walking down the corridors along with Draco, Blaise and Pansy, you were heading towards your last class for today, potions. You were in a bad mood all day since your parents decided to destroy your mood by sending you a letter, telling you that you couldn’t stay with them for Christmas holidays because something happened.

You weren’t sad about that, you had already made plans about staying at Hogwarts. All of your friends were going to their families for Christmas, so you would be alone. It was better than going home anyways, your parents weren’t the best and you hated being around them. So staying at Hogwarts wasn’t anything new.

What made you furious was the nerve that your parents had to tell you that you couldn’t be there even though they happily invited your two other siblings. You were the black sheep in the family, you were the one who always got the hate, you never got the attention from your parents. On the other hand, your siblings had all the love growing up.

It made you sad.

However, you didn’t show it. You pretended like you didn’t care at all, you wanted to appear strong in front of the others. And that’s what you did, for many years now. When you first went to Hogwarts, you didn’t have anyone, you knew nobody. Your first year was the worst. Since you were the oldest child of your parents, you didn’t have any of your siblings there. Not that it would help, your friendship with your brother and sister was kind of the same with your mother and father.

In your fourth year now, you had your friends, some of them didn’t really matter but you managed to find some loyal ones. For example, Draco Malfoy. You two had similar interests and family issues. He was the one you were going after a bad day, he understood you. Draco was also coming to you everytime he had a fight with his father and you did your best to calm him down.

You also managed to gain a reputation in school. You and Draco were two of the most famous students there, Harry Potter would be another one. Draco and him didn’t really like each other from the start, as the blonde boy had said to you when you two became closer friends in the second year.

You didn’t have anything against the dark haired boy, but since your best friend didn’t fancy him, you made it your goal to make his life hell with Draco.

You didn’t really have many enemies there, everyone was kind of afraid of you and since you were a Slytherin and best friends with Draco Malfoy, they didn’t try to mess with you. Everyone would do as you said. No one dared to talk back to you.

No one except for a specific brown haired Gryffindor.

Hermione Granger.

The best student in Hogwarts, a muggleborn and ‘the brightest witch of her age’ as many people called her.

You and your friends would often bully her or any other Gryffindors but she was the only one who stood her ground. She didn’t care about your stupid remarks or about the times that you would call her a ‘mudblood’. Others would cry, but she never did.

Gryffindor and Slytherin shared some classes together, so you often had to see each other in class. It was clear that Hermione and you didn’t fancy each other from the start, just like Harry and Draco.

—

Hermione sat alone inside the classroom, it was her last class for the day. She was patiently waiting for Harry and Ron to enter the room but they were running late. She breathed out when she saw you and your friends walking through the door step. She wasn’t in the mood today so she looked away, hoping that you wouldn’t acknowledge her presence.

Her two friends appeared just in time as Professor Snape entered the classroom behind them. They walked towards Hermione, as she opened her books getting ready for the lesson to begin.

“Bloody hell, Hermione. When did you get here so fast?” Ron mumbled quietly.

“Well, while you two were goofing around, I actually walked to class.” She replied, quickly looking around and accidentally catching your eyes. You smirked sending her a smirk before turning your gaze back in front of you as the professor started talking about something.

Hemione simply rolled her eyes as she turned her attention back to writing notes. She wasn’t in the mood today for your stupid remarks. Today was a bad day for her, she had so many assignments to do and she was running out of time. She was planning to head to the library after the class was over, her goal was to finish as much as she could today. In a few days Christmas vacation was starting and since she, Harry and Ron decided to spend the holidays at Hogwarts, Hermione wanted to relax from homework.

Few minutes had passed as the Gryffindor turned her head again towards you, but Pansy already had your attention as she was whispering something to you. You two were giggling quietly as professor Snape handed out the next assignments for the holidays.

“Granger is staring at you.” Pansy commented as you turned your gaze to the Gryffindor girl, meeting your eyes she blushed and immediately looked in front of her, not daring to look at your way again. You chuckled and reached to take a small blank paper from your bag, quickly writing down on it and throwing it towards the brown haired girl. Luckily it went right in front of her hands on the desk and without Snape noticing it.

Hermione’s full attention was now on the small paper on her hands, quickly looking forward to checking if the professor noticed. When she made sure that no one saw it she read the note in her hands.

Like what you see, Granger?

She left a quiet groan and rolled her eyes, throwing the note inside her bag and turning her attention back again to the assignment in her hands. She couldn’t help but think about you, the day wasn’t over yet and you already had pissed her off numerous times.

As the class finished you stood up, throwing your things into your bag when you heard Draco talking from beside you, “We’re going back to the common room, are you gonna come or..?”

“Uh.. Actually I think I’m gonna go to the library for a bit, I need to do some assignments..” You said, throwing your bag over your shoulder and starting walking towards the door with the others.

Draco nodded, giving you a smile. You felt someone bumping into you as you looked at the person, annoyed. Before you could speak, the blonde boy snapped towards the redhead. “Watch where you going, Weasley!”

Hermione was quick to notice what was going on and walked towards them. “Leave him alone, Malfoy” She looked at you before grabbing Ron and leaving before either Draco or you had any time to respond.

“She really gets on my nerves..” Draco sighed from beside you. As you nodded and started walking away from the Slytherin. “Hey! We will talk later, right?”

“Yep. Now I gotta go. So, have fun with whatever.” You dismissed yourself as you turned to another corridor on your left. You really weren't in the mood to socialize with anyone, so hiding yourself inside the library, where nobody could find you was the best idea you had.

Hermione had just left the Gryffindor common room and was heading towards the library, she greeted the librarian and went to sit on a table deep into the room, where no one would find her. Hermione liked quiet places, it helped her concentrate.

You just had entered the library, you looked around as you walked through the bookshelves going towards the place you always found comfort in. Since your first year, that place inside the library was the only one where no one was able to find you. That and the tree you had found in your second year there. You would always go there when you wanted to distance yourself from things. Only Draco knew about it, but he knew better than to visit you there.

You stopped in your tracks as you noticed that another person was sitting at your table, you couldn’t recognise who that might be, due to the lack of light in there since only the light of a small lamp was lighting the small place.

Walking around the table to stand in front of the student you went to speak but quickly noticed who that was. Hermione looked up at you and rolled her eyes as she spoke harshly, “What do you want here? Did you follow me?”

“No, what the fuck do you want here? This is my table, so leave.” You responded, placing your bag and things on the empty place on the table.

“I don’t see your name on it. I was here first.” She said and averted her gaze back on her books.

“Okay, then. If you don’t leave, I’ll also stay here.” You said and sat on the chair across from her. Hermione just mumbled a ‘whatever’ and continued with her homework as you started yours as well.

If someone saw you two together, studying in silence and not trying to kill each other would have thought that a miracle had happened. Hermione and you literally looked like you hated one another. Even though in fact, you didn’t. You just liked challenging each other, you liked the attention that she gave you, even though it was just to fight with you.

But in this moment, where you and Hermione sat in a comfortable silence, was enough for you. Neither of you had the courage to fight today.

“Hey, Granger?” You said as she looked up, looking at you from across the table with a questioning look. “Can you help me with something?” She simply shook her head, turning back to her homework as you let out a sigh. Few seconds passed and you tried to get her attention again, “Pssstt. Granger!” You whispered even though no one was close. Defeated as she continued ignoring you said a bit more louder, “Hermione!”

“What! What do you want?” She said angrily as she closed her book looking at you.

You simply smiled, satisfied that you finally got her attention. “Can you help me with this?” You motioned the homework written on your book.

“No, I have my own. And why would I even help you?” Hermione rolled her eyes, clearly angry with you. She missed her quiet time before you got there.

“Come on, I know we don’t like each other but can you at least tell me how to solve it? You know I suck at potions!” You said but got ignored again. “Hermione!” You said loudly and she finally looked at you.

“Okay! But after this, you’re going to shut the hell up and let me study.” You nodded and made room for her to sit next to you. Hermione sighed and brought a chair to sit next to you as she started explaining it to you.

Five minutes later she stopped talking and looked at you with a questionable expression on her face, “Do you understand it now?”

“Yeah, thanks.” You nodded and continued looking at her, not being able to take your eyes away from Hermione. She seemed to realize so she snapped her fingers in front of your face.

“You’re staring.” She cleared her throat, still her body close to yours. You mumbled a quiet ‘sorry’ and looked down on your books. “What’s up with you? Why’re you being so nice all of sudden?”

‘What? I’m not being nice.”

“That’s a lie. You haven’t said anything mean to me since the moment you sat at this table. You are being nice, so what’s wrong?” She scoffed.

“Nothing’s wrong, okay? I’m just not in the mood for that, and I wanna get over this stupid homework so I can go to sleep.” You said, not daring to look into her eyes.

“Yeah, I don’t believe you.” Hermione said.

“Aren’t you tired of fighting? Because I am.” You breathed out suddenly, crossing your arms and moving back to the chair.

“Of course I’m tired of it!” Hermione exclaimed, rising from her seat clearly frustrated, then quickly sat back down and lowered her voice, “But apparently it seems that we both like doing it..”

“Yeah.. I mean, it’s fun, isn’t it?”

“Maybe, but sometimes you take it too far.” She whispered, looking up at you.

“I’m sorry for that. It’s just that sometimes, I.. I might take my anger out on the wrong people. Things are not great for me lately. And I’m not saying it for you to pity me or anything, I just want you to know how sorry I am..” You said in a quiet tone, not daring to look towards her.

Hermione nodded, a small smile creeping on her face as she watched you being for the first time so vulnerable in front of her. You didn’t show your emotions that much, if Hermione was to be honest she would say that you didn’t show anything at all. Trying to act all badass in front of the whole school was kind of fun for Hermione to watch.

She knew that you have been struggling with much more than you showed, but she didn’t dare to say anything because she knew how you would react.

The corner of your eyes filled with tears so you glanced up to the ceiling so they couldn’t flood down your face. After successfully avoiding the tears you looked back down to the Gryffindor, “It was fun, right?” You said with hope in your voice.

The girl beside you chuckled and nodded her head, not being able to hold it anymore. “Yeah it was. Watching you trying to act like you hate me was the best thing.”

Trying to turn your face serious, you said, “But I do hate you.”

“Right, keep telling yourself that.” Hermione mumbled and moved to grab her book.

“What? No, I do hate you. It’s just a bit fun arguing with you”

“Oh please, if you hated me you wouldn’t cry in front of me.”

“I didn’t cry.”

“You were close, though.”

You rolled your eyes and mumbled, “Fuck you, Hermione.”

“You wish.”

“What?” You turned your head towards her, confused and unsure if you heard well.

“What?” Hermione’s eyes widened, she didn’t mean to say something like that. It just slipped off. Turning her head away from you so you couldn’t see her red face, she grabbed her pen and started writing down some notes.

You shook your head and smiled, “What did you just say?” You really couldn’t believe the words that slipped out from Hermione’s mouth, you have never heard the girl say something like that.

“Nothing, forget I even said that.” She denied, shaking her head.

“No way I can forget what you just said.”

“You can and you will.” The Gryffindor eventually met your gaze, a hint of anger in her face.

“Nope. Not gonna happen.”

“Y/N.” Her expression hardened as Hermione gave you a look telling you to shut it immediately. You threw your arms in the air, showing that you gave up. She looked back down on her papers as you sat there, thinking about everything.

You would never have thought that you and Hermione would have talked for more than 10 words to each other, and without those words being mean things you usually said to piss off each other.

You found comfort in her presence, you actually started to feel safe and that you didn’t have to hide that much from her. You couldn’t remember the last time you actually felt this safe. Being beside Hermione was really comforting and relaxing.

Even though you enjoyed being on your own, being in the presence of the Gryffindor girl was one of the best feelings. It felt like for once in your life you weren’t alone.

Sure, hanging out with Draco also made you feel wanted, he was there when you wanted someone to talk to. To open up, about your feelings when you felt like everyone hated you. He always told you that you matter, that your feelings matter, that you don’t deserve the way your family treats you.

But you couldn’t help but feel always the same; that everyone hated you, everyone wanted you gone. You had fallen into deep depression, no one believed you. No one but Draco. He was the one who helped you get out of those thoughts. No one knew about your suffering, about the pain you had to go through.

“Do you hate me?” You whispered, barely enough for Hermione to hear. It came out without your consent and you regretted it the minute you said it.

“What?” Hermione turned her head towards you, trying to catch your eyes with hers.

“I said, do you hate me?”

“No, I heard you. I..” She sighed and looked anywhere but you. “Hate is a strong word.”

“So, you don’t..?” You said, with a slight hope in your voice.

“I didn’t say that.” She crossed her arms, still not looking in your direction.

You turned your body, facing her while still sitting on the chair, even though Hermione tried her best to avoid your questions.

“So… You do hate me?” You grimaced at the thought of the Gryffindor girl hating you. You couldn’t actually imagine Hermione hating you for real. You always knew that she doesn’t like you, but hate?

“I didn’t say that either.” Came her response as she had found big interest on the bookshelves in front of you.

“You confuse me, Hermione.”

“Good, now go back to homework.” She was really trying to fight back that smile, she liked playing with you. She knew exactly how you would act in some situations, she secretly studied you daily. While you would talk with your friends, Hermione would watch you from afar. In the hallways, from the Gryffindor table in the Great Hall, on quidditch matches.

She loved going on your quidditch matches, whenever you played she would find an excuse to come see you play. Whilst you didn’t know that, -which she was grateful for- she was your biggest fan. In secret.

Hermione tried to avoid her feelings for so long, after she realized that she couldn’t do that anymore. She decided to appreciate you from a distance, since she knew that she didn’t have any chance with you.

The popular Slytherin, the best friend of Draco Malfoy.

Sighing you let your head fall to the table, closing your eyes and trying to relax for a few minutes. It was getting closer to 11pm and while tomorrow was Saturday, you were tired and planning to sleep until late in the morning. But, after you had finished your homework.

Feeling a gentle nudging on your arm you stirred awake and confused taking in your surroundings. Finally setting your gaze on the brown haired girl beside you, giving her a questionable look.

“What?”

“You were sleeping.”

“So?” A quiet laugh left your mouth.

“Aren’t you gonna go back to your room?” Hermione asked, still having her attention on her book giving you the opportunity to take in her appearance. She really looked cute, with her head up in a bun, her tired eyes and the small smirk that played between her soft lips.

“And leave you all alone? Nope, I’ll stay here with you.” You couldn’t help but tease her.

Your eyes widened as you could see a small blush on her cheeks but decided to not acknowledge it. You were afraid that if you did say something about her red face, she would simply curse you.

“No you won’t, your snoring bothers me.” You tilted your head at that.

“I don’t snore.” You scoffed and crossed your arms. Now it was your turn to blush, but you tried to hide it from the Gryffindor. If you really did snore, that would be so embarrassing. You didn’t want to feel that way, especially in front of Hermione.

“Yes you do.” Hermione bit her lip, now looking at you. She loved how you seemed a bit embarrassed. The truth was that you didn’t really snore. The noises your breathing made while you were sleeping were music to Hermione’s ears. But that was something that she’d never admit outloud and especially in front of you.

“I do not.” You murmured and let your head fall back to the table. “Go back to your homework and let me sleep a bit.”

“I’m done with mine. Did you finish yours?” She asked, pulling away from her books but still looking at you.

“Yep.”

“Okay, good. Take your stuff and let’s get going, it’s pretty late and I have to wake up early tomorrow.” Hermione said as she stood up and started walking towards the library’s exit. You grabbed your books quickly and stood up as well, following her.

“But tomorrow is Saturday..?” You said confused as you reached her where she was standing, waiting for you right outside of the door.

“Yeah, and..?”

“You’re so weird. Who would not sleep in on a Saturday morning..”

“Whatever.” Hermione rolled her eyes as you started walking again through the dark and empty hallways of the castle. No one was there, just you two. Two ‘enemies’ as the students called you, walking in the quiet halls and having a teasing conversation.

“Do you even rest?” You asked, turning to look at her.

“Yes, I do rest. Now come on or I’ll leave you here all by yourself.” She said with an annoyed tone as she fastened her pace. Leaving you walking slowly behind her.

“You wouldn’t.” Your eyes widened slightly at the thought. Nobody knew you were kind of afraid of the dark. You never told anyone. That was from a traumatic experience you had when you were younger. You avoided thinking of it and you also avoided being alone in the dark. You needed to feel someone beside you to feel safe and not freak out.

“Watch me.” She simply said as she continued walking faster and away from you.

“Okay! Okay, wait. I’m coming.” You whisper-yelled, fastening your pace until you reached her side. You made sure to be a bit more closer to her than usual. Even though you could make out her face in the darkness, you still had the need to feel her close to you. “So bloody mean..” You muttered, looking forward.

“What did you say?” You could feel Hermione glaring at you and you tried to keep your cool. Annoyed Hermione was something that you would survive, but an angry Hermione? You would be 6 feet under in no time.

“Nothing..” You said, trying to not sound scared.

“That’s what I thought.”

“That’s what I thought.” You couldn’t help but mock her silently, but apparently Hermione heard that.

“Did you say something?” Through the moonlight that shined through the windows you could clearly see Hermione’s jaw clenching. And that really made you almost shit your pants. So you tried to save it by denying it. “Nope!”

“So..Where are we going? Gryffindor tower is that way.” You said as you looked around, confused about your destination.

“I know that. We have to go to the Astronomy tower because I forgot some stuff there last night, and since you said that you’ll walk me to the common room, you’re going there with me.”

“I didn’t say that.” You muttered.

“Then why are you following me? The Slytherin common room is the opposite way.”The Gryffindor girl asked, turning her head to look at you.

“I- Uhm..” You stuttered, you wouldn’t admit to her why you had followed her. Your fear of the dark was not really the reason. You could just simply light up your wand, since you had it with you. The real reason why you followed the shorter girl was because you didn’t want her to walk alone in the dark halls.

Even if you didn’t admit it to yourself, you cared deeply for the girl beside you. And letting something happen to her was your biggest fear. Of Course she would be safe inside the castle. Hogwarts was the safest place, but still you couldn’t leave her alone. So yes, walking with her was calming you. Also you liked spending more time with her, even though she didn’t know it.

“That’s cute.” Her voice stopped your thoughts as you turned your face in her direction.

“What’s cute?”

“You.” Hermione said casually. You on the other side, you were trying so hard to not let your small smile be seen. She had called you cute, even though she had probably said it to annoy you, it really made you happy.

“Fuck off, I’m not cute.” You tried to act like you didn’t like it, and turned to look forward.

“Whatever you say. But if you wanna know.. Your face is really red right now..” As she said that you cleared your throat and started walking slightly faster than her.

“Can you stop that?” You asked annoyed, trying to not meet her gaze.

A simple “Sure.” came from her as you had finally reached the top of the Astronomy’s tower.

“Wow..” You said as you took in the view up there.

“What? You’ve never come up here at night?”

“No..” You said quietly, walking slowly towards the edge looking up at the stars. “It’s beautiful.”

“Yeah it is.” Hermione’s voice came from beside you as she looked up at the dark sky. “I come up here almost every night.. It’s so peaceful, especially when I want to be left alone.”

You two just sat in silence. Appreciating your moments.

“Now I understand why you do that..”You decided to speak.

“Yeah.. Sometimes life becomes too tough to deal with things, so being here at night looking at the stars. It’s so quiet. Nobody ever comes here so it’s great.” Hermione mumbled as she sighed and turned to look at you. “Whenever we fought, I came up here. Just staring at the distance and thinking about the reasons we were fighting. Which are now the most stupid reasons.”

You chuckled, still looking in front of you. “The truth is that we’re really dumb for fighting for stupid matters. And I’m sorry, I know it’s all my fault. I simply found it kind of fun, making fun of you, annoying you.. I just- To be honest, I liked having your attention. Because I knew that you wouldn’t notice me for any other reason. Making fun of you was something that made me happy, it was the only time of the day that I got your attention..”

“Oh..”

“I’m sorry.. I shouldn’t have said all of these. I know my stupid feelings don't really matter right now.” You sighed, looking down at your hands. “I shouldn’t even come up here, this is your personal space. I- I’m just gonna go. Have a good night, Hermione.” You said and turned around leaving before giving the chance to Hermione to talk.

As you disappeared down the stairs the Gryffindor stood there, thinking about all that you had said. Now she was confused.

That night she stayed a few more hours in the tower. Alone. Thinking of stuff.

You, on the other side, after you left you walked straight to the Slytherin common room and into your dorm. Slipping under the blankets you tried to close your eyes, but the thoughts of what happened minutes ago in the Astronomy’s tower couldn’t leave your mind.

Did you really have to say those things? Thankfully you didn’t admit any more of your feelings.That would destroy everything.

Eventually sleep took over you, but the dreams were still there.

[mrhaitch]

Mr. Haitch, i’m interested in your opinion of Harry Potter. Specifically, characters that have complex or deeper stories like Dumbledore.

There’s a lot to be said for wizarding society, but much to analyze about the perceived “good” characters in the series. A big theme is good vs evil but like many things it’s never cut and dry.

Dumbledore: Personally, apart from Voldemort’s need to eradicate muggles, the worst person in that series is Dumbledore. Every time I say that others are like “but he’s a good guy” and I’m like, Is he? Because he’s all about the greater good allegedly but children are in the crossfire. I feel like a good man with that much power would step in much more directly when his 6th year student is adopted into a cult, instead of sending a double agent that’s still in love with someone he knew in school to keep an eye on him and help out.

Harry had to, in Snape’s words, be raised like a pig for slaughter, but there’s so many ways he could have been guided and helped throughout and it really grinds my gears. I feel like a hands off approach isn’t the way to go when one of your students is a walking horcrux. 

Dumbledore is a selfish man who even continued his interest in the deathly hallows past James Potter’s death (invisibility cloak) despite an argument over them causing the death of his sister. He has done good things, great things, even. But he is not good in my opinion.

I have a lot of things to expound on about that, the story itself and about the author unfortunately, but I’ll leave it here before you get a novel from me.

- 🌻

P.S. you and your wife are very lovely people to converse with and ask philosophical questions, and I thoroughly enjoy the further conversations that come from that. Breaking down literature with you both is so fun. Thank you for joining us on tumblr dot com to share more with us. 💗

Dumbledore's a complicated one, certainly, and his worldview - as glimpsed through his actions - is ruthless, much like you said. I wouldn't necessarily call him selfish as the majority of his decisions are what you'd expect from someone who takes the 'long view'. Everything he does is calculated to achieve an ultimate end he refuses to share with anyone else. If he's guilty of any sin, I'd be tempted to say pride or arrogance, more specifically. His failure to include even the people in his innermost circle in his thinking speaks to that - not necessarily because he doesn't trust them, but because he judges them incapable of doing what is necessary. You could argue he did all of this with his eyes open, and suffered a great deal of personal crises - just privately - but we've only got the text to work from and the rest supposition.

Harry as a 'pig for slaughter' sparked something, actually, because what we're dealing with here is a variation on Ursula Le Guin's Those Who Walk Away from Omelas. Summarised briefly:

Omelas is a utopia, for each and every person that lives there. No hunger, no poverty, no discrimination, no injustice. Every day is a feast and a festival, the city filled with boundless joy and music and frivolity and love. However - when each citizen comes of age they learn the truth of the city. The city can only thrive as it does because one child is subjected to the highest level of suffering. They were born, raised, and live alone, in filth and squalor, never knowing human kindness, touch, safety, or security. A child living totally alone and never knowing love.

Each citizen must then make a choice: to return to their lives and accept the child as a necessary sacrifice, or to leave for parts unknown, never to return. [My own summary, from memory]

Harry is that one child in Omelas, subjected to intentional deprivation to mould him into the kind of person he needs to be to save the world. This is done intentionally, by someone who has thought things through. They know what they're doing, the harm involved, and do it anyway. It's a sacrifice of one to save many.

Philosophically speaking, we're talking about the ethical calculus of Utilitarianism (greatest good for the greatest number), where almost any action can be justified if it results in a net good for the world.

What we're left with at the end are our values and how the balancing of the scales affects our gut and our hearts. Either the suffering of the minority to benefit the majority is a terrible but necessary thing, or that suffering leaves the outcome tainted and points to a sickness at the heart of those who knowingly benefit from it, or engineered the situation itself.

“Omelas already exists: no need to build it or choose it. We already live here – in the narrow, foul, dark prison we let our ignorance, fear, and hatred build for us and keep us in, here in the splendid, beautiful city of life. . . .” - Ursula Le Guin

Speaking candidly: I'm in the latter category. Dumbledore is a terrible, awful person, who used the most brutal and cruel methods possible to achieve his ends. He's dishonest, duplicitous, and his actions are borne of a calculating arrogance. But, within the logic of the story itself, he's also necessary. We can never know if there was an alternative because we're never showed one. Frankly - I doubt Dumbledore gives a shit what anyone thinks, and would've done it again, the same way, a thousand times if he thought it necessary.

[I'm working on a slightly longer thing about Harry Potter - because someone made the mistake of asking for my thoughts a few days back. It'll largely focus on words of power, how language shapes social reality, and M Nourbese Philip whose work I heavily recommend. I'll finish it, some day]

[arenabreadandbiscuits]

Alright guys I wanna make this post because I'm not mad or anything just feel like it's better being said now versus waiting until the last minute.

This post mentions my commission methods but also what I am and am not okay with writing. Please read and vote at the bottom.

Some kinks I will not write for unless it's a very specific situation. Here's kinks that I will write for no matter what you commission. I'm desperate for funds so I'll take up to ten active commissions at a time as long as they follow my rules and such.

TOPICS MENTIONED BELOW ARE PURELY FOR ADULTS AND SOME ARE DARK IN NATURE. I ONLY TAKE COMMISSIONS FROM ADULTS SO EVERYONE KEEP THAT IN MIND AND READ ON. IF YOU ARE UNCOMFORTABLE WITH ANYTHING MENTIONED PLEASE MOVE ON FROM MY ACCOUNT BUT ALSO PLEASE KEEP IT TO YOURSELF.

More info on commissions HERE!

Kinks Available: (not outta pocket)

Daddy/Mommy kink

Breeding/oviposition/eggs

Dom/sub

Spanking/choking/electrocution (depends on context)/ biting/ marking/ claiming

Cock worship or body worship in general

Wings/tail kink

Tentacles

Face riding/thigh riding/riding in general

Cum worship

Pet/Master

Somnophilia aka sleepy sex or sex while sleeping but I only want requests where consistent is known as someone who was sa repeatedly when I was younger.

Yandere/blood kink

Noncon/con noncon

Spurting

Etc, these are just some to name a few that I will write for. There's more I'm sure but when commissioning me mention exactly what you're looking for and we can really discuss it. :3

Big Nono Kinks/Not Available:

I have a history and present of self harm so nothing like that unless certain cases call for aftercare. Ex: person 1 is a sh-er and their partner catches them to stop it or even if they don't catch them in time they are strict for them to not do it again and shows them love and care for the rest of the fic.

Amputation.. ngl someone dmed me earlier asking for this and I was willing to hear it out at first but grew into not wanting anything to do with it especially Cause I think it was going to be purely self indulgent. The ONLY cases I'll let slide by is something like an OC x Valdemar from the Arcana for example. It seems like something they'd be into doing and I really like that character so honestly any commission for Valdemar I'll most likely do. (Not just Valdemar but Vlastomil, Vulgora, Valerius, etc) It's interesting because I'll either be down to do it or I won't, it purely depends on what's being asked so always dm me with everything you think I should know.

Anything to do with feces

Weird 'sibling' or 'family' dynamics. Please don't request incest, my personal sa revolved around that and I'd literally be sick to see anyone ask for it. The only way i'd be okay with it is if they aren't actual family by any means, just people who grew up together. An example of what I would feel okay writing would be something like Toji (jujutsu kaisan) x OC/reader who he found who grew into having feelings for him years after they became an adult. Another example could be Severus Snape x reader who grew similarly. In these cases I'd put more emotions and such into the story to explain the inner workings of their heads when they are around each other. Most stories would probably have angst too because of the morals aspect. It's something else that has to be discussed and talked about nonetheless.

Throw up no matter what.

Anything to do with animals.. please don't. Only things that can slide by are werewolves, sirens, feline hybrids but these beings are conscious which is why I'd write for them just no beastiality. An example that would be okay would be: something like an OC x werewolf Elliot from Stardew Valley where he probably keeps it a big secret and gets worried about anyone finding out and then he can't stop himself from shape shifting on a night of a full moon that he wasn't prepared for and his partner has to be patient with both calming him down and his instincts to mate.

Trying to think of some more because there's definitely more things I wouldn't write for but maybe I'll stop here for now. Like I said DMS are open and if you have questions on what I will and won't write it's always best to ask me there. Our chats will be private unless you wish them not to be just don't be weird please and thank you.

Imma leave this little list here and if I have to add on to it later I most definitely will but those ideas I mentioned earlier in this post are fine to request if anyone wants them I'm just trying to lay ground rules. My stories can be really cute and fluffy to things more dark in nature but always ask to see what's fine and what's not.

Here's a poll for engagement but also don't vote if you have no intention of actually commissioning. Also HERE is my original commissions post that you can check out for more info.

I'm putting this poll up for a week but know you can dm me prior to it being done and after, like I mentioned this poll is for engagement and just some ideas on what I can and will write for others if it's commissioned. Please be over 18 to commission anything sexual from me. I profess in writing smut but as mentioned I do fluff and angst as well.

[enbysiriusblack]

autistic marauders battle

submitted propaganda

severus snape:

“struggles with relationships with other people. is really really good at one thing that he really loves (potions) and not anything else. he desperately clings to lily because he doesn't know how to befriend others. his first meeting with lily and petunia was extremely awkward, he said things that were received as offensive even though they weren't supposed to be. he was a victim of bullying and let's be honest, that's pretty common amongst neurodivergent people.”

albus dumbledore:

“- stims with pacing and humming (it's canon that he paces around in his office (J.K. Rowling said she chose the name Dumbledore, which is derived from "bumblebee" because she imagined him walking around humming to himself a lot.)

- special interest: the deathly hallows. this man's obsession with a fairy tale runs DEEP. i would argue it would be his special interest if he were to be autistic

- has "unusual" emotional responses. for example, when the ministry threatens to remove all his orders awards, his biggest worry is that they remove his chocolate frog card... silly sweets lover

- OBSESSED with sweets. man had specific sweets name as his password for years + we see him eating sweets a lot in the books + man LOVESSS his sherbet lemon. i think he feels very safe with his sweets so they might be considered a form of safe food

- bro infodumps a lot to harry lmao

- insanely gifted magically but struggles to find people who understand him. ("DUMBLEDORE is looking at the pictures. These memories are agony. He is full of remorse but, almost worse: nostalgia for the only time in his life he felt fully understood.") He only ever felt truly understood by Grindelwald, who was equal to him in intelligence and power. As an autistic person who is considered "gifted", I relate to this struggle sooooo much.

- (‘Is he – a bit mad?’ he asked Percy uncertainly. ‘Mad?’ said Percy airily. ‘He’s a genius! Best wizard in the world! But he is a bit mad, yes. Potatoes, Harry?’) others view him as eccentric and "different" frequently in the books

- Dumbledore can sometimes seem detached or quirky in social situations. His interactions with others are often unconventional—sometimes lacking typical social cues or emotional responses, which could suggest difficulty with typical social interaction, a trait associated with autism.

- doesnt conform to social norms (how he dresses & his mannerisms). he seems to not place much value on society's expectations and thinking

- gets repeatedly mistreated by the ministry of magic. i think the way torquill travers for example treated him reminded me very much myself lmao

- very black and white thinking about himself. he views himself as an awful person who cannot be trusted with power and cannot be convinced that there is nuance

- Strategic & analytical thinking: Dumbledore is portrayed as highly strategic and analytical, sometimes to the point where he seems detached or overly focused on the "big picture" rather than the emotional needs of those around him.

- how he handles his past trauma. he hyperfixates on specific events of his past and seems to have an intense need for personal order and logic in his decisions

- has an unique communication style. his manner of speaking is often indirect, filled wigh metaphor, and sometimes difficult for others to understand. Many autistic people communicate in ways that might seem unusual to neurotypical people, whether through complex speech patterns, an affinity for precise language, or challenges with verbal communication

- constantly misunderstood by literally anyone

PERSONAL REASONS: -i relate so much to him and his way of existing. i think he fits the 2E very well - (2E= gifted through high IQ & disabled) he is insanely intelligent but also suffers from feelings of not belonging / never being truly understood except by grindelwald and all"

[futurequibblerjournalist]

Lol they really skipped the dating and went right to exes LOL

I'm so glad you like the long asks!!!!! :3 I don't wanna fixate on Igor and Snape for too long bc Ik that can get sort of boring and maybe irritating and totally don't want to do that to you but ummmm

1st of idk if you see it the same way but I wouldn't be like,,,, jaw on the floor if Snape was a flustered little loser LOL so I idkidk I just think Igor would take advantage of that. Idk I think you were spoton with "ooh you wanna kiss me so bad you little man" heehee but Ik you do fanfic requests... So ... Idk you totally 100% don't have to do it if you don't want to but Idk I'd love to see a fic of it!! Ur writing is scrumptious :33

Umm and 2nd 2nd why do you think Igor's so scared of Snape?? :0 I know (or at least think LOL) that is bc he's like all mysterious and mean as a teacher and that's why people are so spooked out but Igor's like,,, seen him naked LOL so idk I'm just curious :3

Sorry for so much spamm!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

- 🍃

Ahhhh I love the spam so much!! It’s been a tonne of fun but also oh damn the fact that anyone wants to listen to my silly little rambles is wild to me still lol

They definitely went from like,, annoyances who share a dorm room to something vaguely friendly to fucking to vaguely friendly (depending on who else they’re getting shipped with or if they ever stop fucking around at all) to betrayal to bickering exes. They are so awful lmaooo

Chatting about them has been very fun but please feel free to ask me about any other characters!! Even ones I haven’t before/haven’t mentioned!!

I think it takes a certain kind of approach to turn Severus Snape into a flustered little loser, firstly because you have to make it clear to the little dingus that you’re actually being serious first. There is a sense of “we’re both aware you’re ugly but at least I can use your body for something” element to these two ngl but!!! That’s just how they are you know??? It sounds shitty but no one claimed these two were healthy. I’ll definitely write one Igor Karkarov trying to seduce Severus Snape in the most horrible way into my little book of things to write at some point!!

I’m not sure if scared is the best word (if I’m the one who originally said it then this is me officially correcting myself lmao) a better word would probably be intimidated. Specifically after the whole ratting him out thing, before that I don’t think he was particularly intimidated of him which probably threw Severus off because he’s used to that being his main defence and all that. I think especially after they start hooking up but before the whole him ratting him out thing there is very few things Severus can do to intimidate Igor because he can do his whole rant around Igor being a vile cockroach meathead who only thinks with the wrong head but Igor is just going to lean far too close into his personal space and say some dumb shit like “I don’t remember you complaining this much about the head of my cock when it was buried deep inside you last night” and then he does his stupid little laugh lmaoooo

[xoxothesubwayfugitive]

Be Careful of the Curse Chapter 43: Harry

“Poor Regulus. He was the baby of all of us, and he did so admire Lucius, I think. He was far too young when he started. It upset me.”

“I told Andromeda about it, but I guess she wasn’t around when it happened either. Of course she cares now, but it wasn’t a big deal to her. Sirius always seemed like he just accepted it, too.”

“It is strange,” she finally said after considering it longer. “He had the wrong people mourning him all this time. He should have been blasted off the tapestry for that.”

“I was surprised she never put Sirius back. I thought everyone thought he was in Voldemort’s pocket all along.”

"She believed that, for a time. But no one who really knew…Voldemort…thought it made sense. I think the idea of it helped her save face with her friends a bit, but he had already been disloyal to her for so long, and she surely noticed that no one else – no one who ever was in his pocket, I mean –" she said with bitter smile, “ever bought into the idea. I never saw him again after my wedding.”

“I’m surprised he even went to that.”

“Under duress, I believe. We hadn’t been particularly close for some time. There were some…differences of opinion at school.”

“About Professor Snape.”

“Mostly that, yes, although we had both chosen our sides anyway.”

“He was awful to Snape. And he didn’t really stop when they were grown up.”

“Severus was a difficult person too.”

“But not to you.”

“Well, no.” This was the door she had told herself not to hope he would open, and she felt her shoulders relax slightly at the prospect of someone wanting to listen. “Maybe this is an old-fashioned thing to say, but I think he needed a woman in his life. He let me mother him, and then he would escort me to parties and things if Lucius couldn’t go. And I believe he liked it when I asked him for help. Maybe you know this, but I asked him to make an Unbreakable Vow to protect Draco, to do what Voldemort asked of him if he couldn’t, and I think it pleased him to be asked. I know now that there was more to it than anyone knew, but he did try to help Draco. He was always watching him, and I think he was doing it for me, specifically, because he saw how I worried.”

Harry considered this. “It bothers me that the “good guys”, my dad and his friends, couldn’t see that he was so…sad. I mean, he was kind of like me. If everyone wasn’t so interested in me already, I could have gotten to Hogwarts exactly like him, dressed wrong and skinny and awkward. And maybe my only friends would have been Death Eaters, and they’d blame me for it when I was just trying to fit in.”

He was still lonely, Narcissa thought. Thankfully he had a home full of people who loved him now, and he would never be friendless or indeed anything less than a hero in his life, but nothing had ever been stable before now. Draco’s life, however awful it had come to be, had at least always spun on the axis of someone eagerly waiting at the train station to take him back to the same house where he had grown up as a prince. Harry would always feel, intrinsically, a sore kinship with the unwanted boys.

“I’m sure your parents, and Sirius, and everyone, regretted it in later life. It was schoolboy teasing. It was ugly, but that doesn’t change the paths we all took later. It doesn’t make – it doesn’t mean we were better. Severus was one person, compared to everything that…” She had to trail off at that. No point in relitigating the terrible crimes.

[sideprince]

Snape asks #16-18, if you're still doing them? Super excited to see your answer to #16, especially after your Eileen deep-dive.

Relieved to see I'm not the only one who has already forgotten I've reblogged this set of Snape asks before 😂.

16 and 18 are answered here (from the the first time you asked lolllll). My answers haven't changed or expanded much, but someone asked me once what I thought about Snape's family life and upbringing. It seems that subject might be a special interest now I think of it. . . but there's so little to go on!

And I do still feel strongly about what I said in the answer to 18, that a lot of the Snapedom seems to have taken the issue of his triggered, feral side not being adequately portrayed in the films to a bit of an extreme by saying he's a feral little man, when I think there's much more to him than that. As your own breakdown of his speech patterns showed, he's an excessively controlled man who has specific moments when he loses that control and becomes feral. I get why people identify with that and want to emphasize that aspect of him, but I am, unfortunately, a hopeless pedant and obsessed with character development and Snape's character is extremely well developed and rounded. Painting him as one dimensional doesn't do him justice. And hey, everyone should be able to enjoy characters however they choose because that's what fandom is about! I'm by no means unquestionably correct in my views, but I sure do love to argue them lol. The thing that I feel strongly about is when I feel like people make definitive statements about a subjective thing like a character, and do so in ways that leave less room for exploring that character and meta around them, instead of creating more.

17. What rubs you the wrong way about how he’s portrayed in fanon/fan fiction?

I don't really read fan fiction so I can't speak about that much, only about what I see on Tumblr. I don't think a lot of things rub me the wrong way, really, not even what I said above: he's a complex, rounded character and sure, it irks me when people focus on only particular aspects of him. But I also don't feel all that strongly about it. I'll talk about it in an ask like this, but I won't go out of my way to comment on anyone's post about how wrong they are or anything (though I might challenge their post for the fun of debating and delving into meta), because there is no right or wrong. The whole point of fandom is that everyone makes it what they want it to be. If someone sees Snape as a feral little man and that makes them happy or gives them catharsis etc. then for them he's a feral little man! If someone else sees him as a controlled genius and that's what gets them up in the morning, then for them he's a controlled genius! Good times all around.

Here's what it's about for me: I think it's interesting debating why he might be a feral little man or not, or a controlled genius, or whatever else, and poring over the text to find reasoning for why. But I don't have any real stake in this game aside from a love of literary analysis and character study. So it's not even that there are any portrayals of Snape that rub me the wrong way; there are portrayals that I might feel make no sense because my reading of the text is different. But I usually shrug and keep scrolling when I come across them on my dash. The same way that someone enjoys delving into why Snape is a feral little man, I enjoy delving into meta in general.

Fandom is about infinite readings of characters and stories and exploring their possibilities! That's the whole fun of it! I don't think there's room for hate in it, even though some people sure try hard to carve some out. Some people project onto characters, others just find joy or love in them, and it's all great! I don't have anything deeper to say. Snape is a fictional character - he's not real, go nuts! Who am I to be rubbed the wrong way by what someone else's vision of him is?

[shostakobitchh]

Chapter 45: thunderhead

Ariel was quiet before she looked back at him. “You call him by his name — Voldemort.” 

He just looked at her, his face unreadable. The kindness in his eyes was clouded with something else… something Ariel had never seen before, not even in Snape — grim defiance. 

“Yes, I do,” Professor Lupin said finally. “I believe it’s important to name the things we fear.” 

Ariel nodded slowly, letting her fingers trace over silver letters printed on the black cover — The Rise of the Death Eaters: A Comprehensive Timeline of Events. It was another long title, Ariel thought to herself. Maybe Professor Lupin had a thing about that. She thumbed through the pages absentmindedly. It looked like it was an encyclopedia of all the atrocities that had been committed by Voldemort and his followers. 

Her gut twisted sharply. 

“So… what was the draw?” Ariel muttered, making a face at an illustration of someone’s hand melting off the bone. 

He stared at her, uncomprehendingly. 

“To join him,” Ariel gestured to a photograph of Voldemort that looked like Riddle, only much older and more… demented. He still held that charm and poise, but when she looked at his eyes, she both found herself wanting to look away and hold his gaze forever. They reminded her vaguely of a snake.

Professor Lupin hesitated before he answered. “Power, mostly. Control. Voldemort wanted to shape the world in his own image, to rid it of the impure and the unworthy, eliminate anyone who might stand in his way, to silence anyone who might disagree with him. Unfortunately, some of the more unsavory characters in wizarding society agreed with that.” 

Ariel didn’t say anything. She didn’t need to. The anticipation was crushing her, suffocating her. She closed her eyes, trying to steady her breathing. 

“I don’t understand why they would follow him,” she said. “To do such horrible things… what was the catch?” 

Professor Lupin didn’t answer for a long time. He just stood there, looking out the window at the rain that was falling in sheets outside. It went on for so long that after a while, Ariel wondered if he was ever going to answer her. 

“He gave them purpose, I suppose,” he said finally, his voice barely above a whisper. “He told them that they were special, that they were better than everyone else. He offered them a sense of belonging, of camaraderie. He promised them that they were fighting for something greater than themselves. Some bought into it — some realized too late that they’d sold their souls to a lie. There was no way out for them. No one deflected from the Death Eaters and lived to tell it.” 

Ariel got the feeling he was talking about someone specific. She bit her tongue, feeling something akin to understanding bloom inside her. 

“Did you… fight in the War?” 

He was quiet for a long time, again. Ariel was afraid she’d overstepped when he nodded slowly. “I did.”