-instantly became ride or die with harry after the troll incedent
-set snape on fire
-brewed an illegal potion for two months in the girls’ bathroom
-turned into a furry
-immediate thought upon encountering a giant murdersnake was ‘better make sure the others find this page on my helpless petrified body bc god knows they won’t figure it out themselves’
-wanted to take finals after like a month in a magical coma
-traveled through time to get evenmore homework
-figured out lupin was a werewolf and didn’t tell anyone because he was a relatively competent teacher compared to magic ryan seacrest and literal voldemort
-essentially snatched trelawney’s weave gotdamn
-slugged draco malfoy, terrified him and his hulking buddies into running, went back in time to watch it again
-confronted a werewolf and his alleged mass murderer friend because, again, ride or die
-broke time travel laws in order to jailbreak azkaban escapee and his pet hippogriff
-dated an international sports star
-put up with all the vile shit rita skeeter wrote about her
-joined secret order dedicated to fighting voldemort
-put up with harry’s shit
-imprisoned a woman in a jar for months, blackmailed her into doing what she wanted
-formed and organized secret defense class, peer pressured harry into leading it
-permanently disfigured the girl who ratted them out. snitches get stitches.
-manipulated the shit out of umbridge
-basically left her to rot in the forbidden forest
-went to fight death eaters with like six of her mates despite her misgivings (RIDE. OR. DIE.)
-immediately agreed to destroy the dark lord’s soul with her buddies despite not having any idea how (RIDE! OR! DIE!)
-mind wiped her parents and made them go to australia to keep them safe
-essentially singlehandedly kept harry and ron alive and functional for the majority of the deathly hallows
-wore the locket while still managing not to be a shithead
-got the shit tortured out of her by bellatrix lestrange. didn’t go insane.
-fought in the battle of hogwarts. didn’t die.
-was unfailingly loyal and did everything she could to keep harry safe for seven years, even when he was quite frankly being a jackass
So I know the whole “Albus Severus” controversy has been going on FOREVER now but I just saw an interesting post about it which got me to thinking. I agreed with a lot of the points it made but much like many other posts it implied that Harry somehow neglected people like Molly and Arthur and Remus by naming his kid after Snape and Dumbledore.
But I really disagree with this? The thing about most of the people (apart from Hagrid) who the fandom consider “more worthy” of being the namesakes of Harry’s children is that they all have other people who can name their children after them.
I see people complaining that Harry never called any of his children “Fred”, but wouldn’t Fred II have been born by then anyway? Same goes for Molly. Teddy’s middle name is “Remus” and honestly if I were Harry I would want to leave Remus to Teddy, should Teddy wish to name any potential future children after his father.
But the thing about Albus and Severus is that they have no remaining family. They have no decedents who will remember them. They will both be mentioned in the history books, but they nonetheless remain very lonely figures, and I think Harry identified with that.
I’m not saying that they aren’t both deeply flawed (though I think the tumblr attitude to both of them is very one-sided and I dislike it), but in a way I feel like it made total sense for Harry to name his son after them.
Dumbledore did some deeply sketchy things regarding Harry’s treatment during the war, but the strain put on him was massive. He was the one person everyone looked to for the safety of the wizarding world and Harry knows that pressure. He knows how isolating that can be.
When Harry sees Snape’s childhood he sees himself – lonely and abused, but finding solace in the magic of Hogwarts. There, of course, the similarities between them essentially end, but again that feeling of loneliness is something that Harry knows all too well.
Its not about shunning those who loved him in favour of people who treated him poorly, it’s Harry knowing that most of those people have other family to remember them. Snape and Dumbledore don’t have that, and despite all the other shitty things they did, both of them did help Harry in their own ways.
So Harry wants to ensure they are remembered, because if he doesn’t do it, who will?
That’s…that’s nice 😀
I’ve never understood the kerfuffle about Albus Severus’s name, personally.
I just like the name Severus, and if I were Harry I’d’ve probably been planning to name my firstborn after Professor Snape all through Hogwarts and beyond, partially just to piss him off.
(I kind of want an AU now where Snape’s still alive when Harry’s kids start attending Hogwarts and Snape’s still teaching there and Harry’s all “I must send you to battle the foe I once battled when I was your age.” And Snape’s either like, “aww, damn, more Potters” or else flips a behavioral switch and makes himself their favorite teacher, with great glee at consternating Harry.)
But seriously, I think there’s also a huge sense of remembering what it cost to get Harry his clear shot at Voldemort. All the events lining up in perfect sequence that it took to get the one with the power to defeat Voldemort into a position to defeat Voldemort. The Horcruxes are Dumbledore’s doing; the fact that he was in a position to be saved the first time around is Snape’s.
Harry is the hero of the story, the one who brought down the monster and got the happily ever after. Severus and Albus are both people who didn’t get the happily ever after, and spent their lives working to arrange that other people could. Severus Snape blew up his own chances with the only person he’d ever loved; Albus Dumbledore found himself taking up arms against and defeating the person he loved.
And then they each did the quiet work, playing the long game—Dumbledore studied Voldemort’s life, followed obscure leads, deduced the Horcruxes with little solid evidence beyond his insights into Voldemorts personality, and let the war drag on to better set up that final, fatal blow. He died, unsure if his efforts would succeed.
Snape spent a lifetime as a double agent, betrayed friends and cause and talents in hopes of salvaging something from the shattered pieces of what he’d unwittingly sacrificed; he dealt with suspicion in all directions and sacrificed whatever credibility and good name he’d managed to earn when called upon to do it. He died, unsure if his efforts would succeed and so frighteningly close to failing his final charge. And he may have been plenty awful enough to deserve it, in the meantime, but it absolutely must have been horrible.
Both lived, and died, alone; both lost what family they might have otherwise had; in great part due to their efforts, Harry had the opportunity to survive, to grow up safely, and to know which blows must be struck against Voldemort, and in which order, to destroy him once and for all. Both spent their lives in the ashes of their dreams, in service of enabling someone else to emerge from his as a phoenix reborn.
And Harry, who has the happily ever after, the love and the family and the adulation of the world, can’t give them what they didn’t get. He can’t give Albus his sister restored and healthy, his mother alive, his father freed, a Gellert Grindelwald more interested in Albus than in world domination. He can’t give Severus a world in which he never applied “mudblood” to anyone, much less Lily, in which she married him instead of James, in which he achieved anything he dreamed of achieving in the world.
Harry can’t give them that. But he can give their names to his child, who has a live, loving family and as much possibility as anyone for finding love, and the whole world ahead of him. A statement, by Harry, that this is what he wishes they could have had. Not any kind of repayment, but a thank you.
chamber of secrets au where fred and george steal ginny’s diary bc “haha ginny why are you keeping a diary omg its old and blank” and they just start drawing dicks in it and then the dicks fade off the paper and fred and george just look at each other and go “omg infinite dicks” so they draw dicks on it all year until the diary literally ink vomits itself to death bc tom riddle cant handle the dicks anymore and no one ever opened the chamber of secrets and fred and george destroyed the very first horcrux the end
This is my legacy
#dicksoutfortomriddle
in 124,000 notes no one has added a caption so completely wonderful and succint and beautiful and goddamn perfect ive been laughing for 15 years thank you
diary: stolen
pages: self-erasing
dicks: out
TOM MARVOLO RIDDLE IS FORCIBLY REMOVED FROM THE HORCRUX
“Slytherins didn’t participate in the battle of Hogwarts bc they’d be fighting family” Do you have ANY idea of how much I’d fucking LOVE to fight some ppl in my own goddamn fucking family forget the goddamn wand I’m gonna punch my homophobic racist uncles in the throat à la muggle
So Rowling had no way of knowing the political climate during the 19 Years Later epilogue, but we do now. So consider this: what kind of world does the Golden Trio live in right now?
Their country is in the middle of Brexit talks, with racism and protectionism at their worst and the magic community isn’t far behind.
Young Pure Bloods march the streets with torches and capes, shouting “They will not replace us!” They wear Deatheater masks and temporary tattoos (oh it’s not the real thing, they’ll wash it off and be back at the office on Monday).
In the news, the authorities call for a cease of violence and ask people not to fight the young pure bloods. In the streets, people talk about talking to them calmly to fix things. Ron is livid. “You don’t reason with bloody Deatheaters! You throw curses at them!”
Hermione’s work for equality in the magical world gets harder every day. She starts getting death threats in her mail, many howlers that leave her in tears. She keeps going. When people insist that every werewolf is dangerous to society and they should all be banned from country, she tearfully remembers Lupin giving his life to protect them all, she remembers Dobby with a knife in his heart and Hagrid with his half giant blood and his giant heart. She keeps fighting.
As much as he hates it —and he hates it a lot— Harry becomes a vocal public figure again, constantly condemning blood purists and calling for action against them. His office calls horrified after the first interview, telling him he can’t be calling for violence against this people who are only protesting. “They are Deatheaters and this is how we deal with them,” he snarls back. “Have you forgotten Voldemort?” On the other side of the line, he can feel them flinch.
No one who fought the war has forgotten it, but so many others seem to, it pains Harry. It’s been barely twenty years since he saw children die in the grounds of Hogwarts, killed by grown angry men who believed themselves superior. It’s been barely twenty years since Tom Riddle’s death body laid on the ground and he thought they could finally have peace.
The trio sends their kids on the Hogwarts Express and they can’t help but remember their experiences there in a time much like this. They never thought their own children would have to suffer as they did, they pray they won’t have to.
Harry touches his lighting scar and reminds himself it hasn’t hurt again for years. All is well. A quiet voice inside his head wonders bitterly: “Is it, really?”
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 home or things 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.
I spent my entire shift at work thinking about an AU where Remus keeps his job at the end of PoA, and Umbridge comes in 5th year to do inspections and keeps trying to find a reason to fire him but no one literally has any bad things to say about him.
Not Draco Malfoy “I know I’m usually the first to throw someone under the bus but also O.W.L.s ARE this year and I’m not losing a competent teacher and risking my O.”
Not even Severus Snape, who, when questioned, has to some very fast mental math between who he hates more- Lupin or Umbridge. Not to mention, implying that Lupin could be dangerous due to his lycanthropy would be a self-burn on his own potion making skills, and he assures Umbridge there’s not a person in the country who brews a more effective wolfsbane potion.
And when Umbridge observes his class (classes, actually, she’s determined to find a slip up), she sees nothing but students acting ridiculously well behaved, engaging in non-threatening and non-aggressive defensive magical theory, and Lupin standing demurely at the front of the room smiling at her.
(Lupin didn’t ask them to do this, of course, but there’s an unspoken understanding amongst the students that the kid who loses Lupin for the school is going to have their social life fuckin destroyed by every 7th year who finally feel confident in their ability to pass a DADA NEWT, not to mention the unbridled wrath of one Hermione Granger)
SIRIUS 👏🏻 BLACK 👏🏻 IS SUCH 👏🏻 A FUCKIN 👏🏻 DRAMA QUEEN 👏🏻 like he could have just said “Calm down, I’m not going to kill you, I only want the rat” but no he’s all spooky and doomy and “THERE WILL BE ONLY ONE MURDER HERE TONIGHT” I mean for fuck’s sake Sirius they’re thirteen
In CoS when they try to sneak into Myrtle’s bathroom to ask her about her death, McGonagall catches them and Harry makes up the excuse that they wanted to see Hermione in the hospital wing and Minnie doesn’t give them detention and then comes this and since we all know Harry’s dumbest excuse, here’s the official suggestion to rate all of Harry’s excuses on a scale from
fadeslikewhispers 