Sal || 32 || Ravenclaw, Thunderbird || mom & poet over at: @salovie || send me the name of a HP character for a haiku inspired by them! || my attempts at creativity || icon credit
Salovie
Believer, Wife, Mom, Poet, Yooper at heart,
HP lover since 1999
Wand: Pear wood with a Phoenix feather core, 10 3/4", solid flexibility
Patronus: Brown hare
Open-minded, creative, and compassionate Ravenclaw. Soul-searching Thunderbird, lover of trees and sky.
‘ - sorry it was - y’know - in front of everyone - ’
‘Be fair, not quite everyone. Just all our mates, my ex, my brother - the girl who drugged my brother - ’
‘I know - sorry- it’s just - you were right there - ’
‘Don’t be sorry. I’m not sorry. Are you sorry?’
‘No. Not at all.’
‘So - do you - shit, I’m still in my kit, I probably smell - ’
‘You don’t. Smell, I mean. I mean, you just smell like you.’
‘- I beg your pardon?’
‘You know. Sort of - flowery.’
‘I smell flowery?’
‘Yeah. I mean. I don’t know. You smell - nice, you always smell nice.’
‘I always smell nice - ?’
‘ - there’s an echo in here - ’
‘Er, youdo not get to take the piss, Potter, not when you apparently know what I smell like - ’
‘That’s weird, isn’t it. Sorry. Sorry, I’m bad at this - I’ll get better - ’
‘I’m pulling your leg, you muppet. Will you stop saying sorry? You don’t need to be sorry, it’s me.’
Two dumb big grins behind a tapestry in a deserted corridor, faces on fire, hearts going the same way. She’s taking his hand, she’s here, it’s real, this is real. Yeah, he thinks, it’s you.
I know it’s often debated how powerful Harry is meant to be (aVeRaGe vs ExTraOP) - but I just finished reading Goblet of Fire, where both Barty Crouch Jnr (implied to have struggled with this for years) and Barty Crouch Snr struggle with their Imperius curses (for months, and he is still struggling with it when Harry meets him in the forest).
And yet, Harry throws it off the first time someone tries it on him. And if the spell’s strength lies in the power of the caster, Harry throws it off when Voldemort casts it on him. It’s not something the book draws attention to as much, but this little feral boy is a force.
definitely something to be said for magic here, but I also have to wonder on the character/psychology front how much of this has to do with the Dursleys. Harry’s upbringing involved a fair bit of neglect, as did Riddle’s, but there was also a lot of coercion involved for Harry as the Dursleys tried to minimize and manage his identity—his parentage, his moral character, his social status, his familial role, his desires, his heritage, etc.
So I’m not surprised that he’s good in particular at resisting the Imperius curse because he’s been fighting to define his own life since childhood.
I agree that the psychology most definitely plays a part - but for the Patronus, I feel like in his particular set of circumstances, it is more difficult to produce one. He struggles through Prisoner of Azkaban because he hears the death of his parents - it both incapitates him (fainting, falling off the broom) and fills him with a self destructive desire to listen to his parents’ voices. So in this circumstance that is not shared by his peers, producing a powerful Patronus that throws off a hundred Dementors is an indication of power.
I think it’s more accurate to say - Harry is very good at the kind of magic that requires channeling a powerful emotion, or strength of will. He struggles with magic that requires him to dissociate and compartmentalise emotions - like Occlumency. (he uses his grief to block Voldemort in Deathly Hallows, but that’s him once again, channeling the power of emotion).
[charlie weasley x hermione granger] ▪️ summary: charlie has always had a thing for her, but this was a new low, even for him… but what if he had a chance to help her out? Would he take it, even if he knew it would be torture? ▪️ warnings: charlie has a panic attack. ▪️ words: 3.6k+
He paced back and forth in front of his parents’ fireplace, loosened his cravat, and groaned. The ceremony was due to begin any minute, not to mention that he was supposed to stand up beside his brothers! But how could he? How could he stand up there and pretend to be perfectly calm when she was there?
I appreciate greatly that you sent this immediately after I talked about maybe doing some discourse hours. that’s commitment, and I admire you, anon.
I mean, the Sorting happens at eleven years old, so I think it’s reasonable to say that at that point, Peter may have been a brave kid. He might have had the capacity for incredible bravery, even. Maybe, in his world, he had already been brave—maybe he stood up to a bully in his home town or was frightened to go to Hogwarts but still boarded the train, fears and all. Honestly, it’s pretty brave to make friends on your first day, so that’s one point in his favor.
Bravery, like so many aspects of the human condition, is about choice; you choose to face things or to run away, you choose to stand up for things you believe in. You choose to act despite fear. There was a point—or many points, or a gradual transition—at which Peter stopped choosing to be brave, and at that point, he stopped embodying Gryffindor, I suppose.
IDK. this is a super simple answer, I guess, but I just think that to say that bravery is the antithesis of who Peter was discounts the idea that it is the antithesis of who he became before 1981. He’s a tough, unknowable character for me, and I often still find myself trying to figure him out.
