remus is a living link between the first and second wars (which is hard to find considering how many people died in the first war), and yet his role in the first war is rarely spoken of even though that could illuminate important backstory. he is a werewolf and therefore represents an aspect of wizarding society that is rarely shown in the series, and yet he is presented as being somehow unique among werewolves (the rest of which are generally all depicted as monsters). he is financially destitute and spends a great deal of time living on the streets and/or in muggle society, which means that he could provide an alternative insight into wizard and muggle relations and into social inequality in the wizarding world, and yet the topics never come up when remus is around.
remus knew lily and james well and still grieves for them as much as sirius does, and yet his relationship with them is never mentioned, and harry—even after finding out that remus knew his father and mother—never once asks remus about them despite the fact that he is otherwise desperate for information about his parents. remus manages to come out of the first war and more than a decade of grief and isolation not only alive and functional but also as a figure of great strength, calm, and deeply held moral beliefs, and yet his guidance is never offered or asked for, he is never seen taking care of sirius even though that role should logically fall to him (no one takes care of sirius, actually, except harry, who is the one who should be the least responsible for sirius), and remus’ only role in the order is to liase with other dark creatures, because that’s the only value that dumbledore—and jkr—sees in him.
so i think it’s quite easy for me to say that jkr dropped the fuckin ball with remus lupin and that i’m never going to be over it
#ROARS INTO THE NIGHT #YOU FOUND MY ONE (1) HARRY POTTER FEELING #CONGRATULATIONS
Tag: hp meta
contexts in which jkr introduces her readers to remus:
- book 3: in his first scene he conjures a patronus and passes around chocolate
- book 3: in his second scene he teaches them all a spell focused in overcoming fears with laughter
- book 5: in his first scene he rescues harry from an abusive household, and smiles widely at harry while he does it
- book 6: in his first scene he is handed a large slice of cake
- book 6: in his second scene everyone is sitting around a fire at christmas drinking eggnog
- book 7: when he rolls up to The Squad in grimmauld place he passes around butterbeers and hermione lights a fire in the fireplace
rowling does this thing where even if remus is having The Literal Worst Time he is almost always introduced in the context of warmth and light and comfort, which he more often than not is directly providing to others
Draco Malfoy in the books
If you didn’t read the books you wouldn’t know…
- Draco Malfoy personally made the Potter stinks buttons and nobody could fix them to say Harry was cool and shit, if they tried it would only make the insults worse
- You wouldn’t know Draco Malfoy was always right behind Hermione in grades
- You wouldn’t know Draco was seriously the most animated person at school and acted out everything.
- You wouldn’t know Draco got deeply offended when people didn’t laugh at his jokes
- You wouldn’t know Draco created the Weasley is our King song, tune and all. (Probably in the shower or something because he’s such a weenie)
- You wouldn’t know Draco and Ron got into a fist fight in their first year
- You wouldn’t know about the huge knock down drag out between Draco, Harry and the rest of the Slytherin and Gryffindor quidditch team in their fifth year. (Harry and Draco just fucking tackle each other and start whooping each others asses and it’s amazing.)
- You would miss out on basically everything Draco says and does. He’s a walking gold mine and It’s upsetting the movies didn’t devote a few seconds for any of his shit (Azkaban did an okay job)
- You wouldn’t know about the Weasley is our king buttons he made in fifth year either
- You wouldn’t know Draco didn’t actually try and fight a Hippogriff
he was just petting him and offhandedly said that he was ugly. He didn’t sprint over to him, he actually did all the bowing and what not.
If you didn’t read the books you wouldn’t know that Draco is the most annoyingly smart and artistic little shit you’ve ever heard of.
Who was the Potter cat?
So we all know the Potters had a cat, right?
All we have per descriptions of this cat is that 1. It was enough of a Potter to make the list when they went into hiding and 2. Harry scared it with his new broom he got from Sirius.
There is further no mention of said cat.
On the other hand, don’t we know another, really old, beaten down, ugly, sad, sad cat?
A cat that befriended Sirius Black and seemed to KNOW Peter Pettigrew’s smell, hold a grudge against him, even?
Part-kneazle, so it has a remarkable ability for finding things that are shiny and that it has a connection to, like, say, a family member.
A cat that knows it’s way around Hogwarts, around the Whomping Willow, almost like it had been there before with another owner.
A cat that absolutely REFUSED to let Hermione leave that shop without him after seeing a certain rat, was CRAZED, almost.
We have no mention of this cat/kneazle’s age, except that it had been in the shop for a while and no one had wanted it. Magical creatures live a long time. Cats live a long time. It’s within reason that this cat could be 30, even 40 years old.
It makes too much sense.
The Potter cat is Crookshanks.
This is by far one of my favorite HP headcanon and no one can convince me that this isn’t real.
cinnamonrolltoogayforthisworld:
tbh people mock harry for going back to rescue fleurs sister in the second triwizard task but harry knows dumbledore better than anyone else. he probably looked at the situation and thought “would dumbledore let an eight year old drown just because fleur couldnt do this bit? yes. yes he would.”
it’s also possible he was acting off of the lessons he learned in the abusive dursley household. that’s why he does a lot of his so-called “hero complex” shit. he takes a lot of personal responsibility for other people bc he learned growing up that “no one’s here for you, no one will help you, you will not catch any breaks”. he helps bc if he didn’t, who would? certainly not the dursleys, and that’s what he grew up with.
he does things by himself and the two people he actually trusts, bc he’s learned that authority figures are no help and will only make things worse. he takes situations at face value bc he’s never seen other options in his life, he’s never HAD other options in his life. speaking very personally, that was a serious marker of abuse that i saw in myself – i never thought abt escape, or what i could do to improve my situation, bc i didn’t even see that as an option. the options were survive or don’t, deal w it or don’t, acclimate or implode.
maybe he wasn’t thinking abt what DUMBLEDORE would do, what anyone at hogwarts would do. maybe he was acting off what he knew the dursleys (his main authority figures) would do. the dursleys would let the girl drown. and harry was there, and harry could do something, and so harry did. he took personal responsibility for fleur’s sister’s safety bc all his life he’s learned that authority figures cannot be trusted to do so.
people characterize these aspects of harry as a “hero complex” or a “stupid nobility” or a “lack of common sense”, but i don’t agree with that. i can’t put my finger on exactly what it is. it’s not completely unhealthy; it’s even very useful and responsible on occasion.
it’s called “complex ptsd” and if you get out of the abusive situation before you’re old enough to understand how fucked up it was, like Harry did, you don’t end up with the classic flashbacks so much, just atypical behavior patterns and a high risk of other shit. That’s why Harry is so fucked up by everything that Umbridge does, it’s because he’s being retraumatized in his safe space.
People seem to forget that she studied languages and the classics at uni.
WORLDBUILDING
hhHHHHHHHHfffs
eirenical17 