“There Is A Plot, Harry Potter. A Plot To Make Most Terrible Things Happen At Hogwarts School Of Witchcraft

Potter Children Headcanons

JAMES

James is Ginny with black hair. Her eyes, her nose , the only out of the three to get her extreme freckles. I imagine him to be mid height but Albus is taller.

Ginny is his best friend. Absolute mammas boy yes James is the rebel child but so is Ginny. They have the same humor have the same interest they are very close. He made her a mum and they will always have that bond.

James is also very protective of Lily and Albus. Yes he had very caring and present parents but they are busy people so James stepped in a lot as he got older to be there for the other two. James and teddy are incredibly close James was Tedds first brother and they spend a lot of time together once James graduates, they even lived together at a point.

ALBUS

Everything about Albus looks like Harry. But, Albus has a warmness in his face that came from his mama. He has Harry’s wider shoulders but Albus got Ron’s height. Something James will forever be jelous of.

Albus was closer to Ginny as a toddler because he was so shy but moving through adolescence he noticed how similar he is to his father. They are both people watchers, don’t like big crowds, crave the quiet. He always goes to Harry when he has questions or concerns. Don’t get me wrong they fight a lot and when they do it’s bad but Harry is his favorite parent and deep down he would never admit it Albus is Harry’s favorite child.

Albus’s family mate is Rose she does all the talking for him and they get along very well. Teddy has always looked out for Albus as well always making sure he had eaten dinner and including him in things with the other cousins.

LILY

Everyone says lily looks like Ginny at first but, Ginny and Harry both agree she looks more like her father. She has her mums fair skin, her brown eyes, and a light dusting of freckles not like James and Ginny have. But if you look closer she has Harry’s eye shape. His check bones, his nose, his jaw. Her eyebrows her lips that’s all from her dad. When she’s standing right next to Harry that really shines through how much she looks like her father. She is also crazy petite like Ginny very small in stature.

She’s the baby so obviously she gets away with everything. If James and Albus want something then they make Lily go ask for it. She’s close with Ginny because they enjoy doing stuff together like getting nails done going shopping talking about boys all the usual mother daughter things. But just like Ginny and Molly holy hell those two could row if they fight the whole neighborhood will know. But that’s where Harry comes in if Lily runs to her room crying after a fight with her mom Harry will be the one to comfort her till she falls asleep.

Lily wasn’t that close to the boys growing up especially not James because she was so much younger but when they all got older they started to bond more. She always admired Aunt Angelina Lily could always tell her things she could never tell her mom.

Arguing that James Potter’s death meant nothing is such a fundamental misunderstanding of the narrative that it makes me wonder if people have even read the books.

This is a man who ran headfirst toward his death in a desperate attempt to give his wife and son a chance to escape. A selfless, brave act of love that stands in contrast with Voldemort's personal war against death and Snape's desperate plea to bargain for the life of Lily while not caring if her husband or child dies.

James isn’t just a character who dies early, off-page, before the main character is introduced—he becomes a specter who haunts the entire story.

James’s absence profoundly shapes Harry’s journey as he struggles to define himself. His sense of masculinity and self-worth is deeply tied to the father he never knew but constantly strives to emulate. Sirius and Remus, broken by their shared loss, are mere shadows of their former selves, their lives forever marked by James’s death. Even Voldemort acknowledges James with a twisted form of respect when he taunts Harry in the graveyard.

To say James’s death means nothing disregards the emotional heart of the series. Harry’s story is fundamentally about grief—his desperate longing to connect with the family stolen from him, and his eventual journey toward acceptance. It’s about learning to live fully in the face of loss, choosing life over despair, and understanding death not as an enemy but as an inevitable companion.

James’s death isn’t meaningless—it’s pivotal. It echoes throughout the series.

James’s death means everything.

Secrets of the Darkest Art: How to Make a Horcrux

So I saw many theories regarding how to make a Horcrux, but none of them really made perfect sense to me, so I decided to give it a crack myself as part of my mission to understand Lord Voldemort/Tom Marvolo Riddle (Which I think I did, big post coming about that at some point, this is but another piece of that puzzle of a man)

So this is my reverse engineering of a ritual to create Horcruxes based on book evidence, my knowledge of real-world alchemy, real-world ancient Greek cults and rituals and linguistic analysis.

How to reverse engineering a dark magical ritual:

The first thing, is to define what we knew fore certain:

The name: "Horcrux"

The creator is an Ancient Greek wizard named Harpo the Foul.

A death is required in the making.

A Horcrux holds a piece of the casters soul that anchors them to life so they won't die.

I'll actually start with the third point.

How to split a soul?

Both Dumbledore and Slughorn mention a death being required to tear your soul to make a Horcrux, and that never really sat right with me. It magically doesn't make sense and even the canon examples we have for Horcrux murders make this statment iffy.

We have seven examples of murders used to create Horcruxs (thanks to one Tom Riddle being dramatic):

The Diary - Myrtle Warren - killed by a basilisk. Sure, Tom freed the Basilisk, but it hardly seemed targeted at Myrtle specifically and you can argue he didn't actually kill her (more a manslaughter by negligence). He didn't cast the spell, so how come this tore his soul?

The Ring - his father (Tom Riddle Sr) - Avada Kadevra.

The Cup - Hepzibah Smith - she was poisoned by her house elf. Sure, the elf was under the imperious, but it wasn't a first-degree murder, and like with the Basilisk I find it hard to consider this the same as casting a killing curse. Magically those are very different things.

The Locket - Muggle Tramp - Avada Kadevra

The Diadem - Albanian Peasant - Avada Kadevra

Harry Potter - himself - backfired Avada Kadevra

Nagini - Bertha Jorkins - Avada Kadevra

Now, I used the term "magically different" or "magically make sense" what do I mean by that?

Well, besides the fact I'm going to make a full post about how I see magical theory in the Harry Potter Wizarding World, I'll say it takes a lot after occult philosophies from Alchemy that are very old, Slughorn mentions as much in book 6 and there are a few other references to it. I'm just gonna cover the basics required for this theory.

In Alchemy, everything (people, animals, plants and rocks) are built of three base components:

The Salt - the body - the physical form.

The Sulfur - the soul - the self that holds the divine flame.

The Murcury - the spirit - the life essence that binds the salt and sulfer together.

Now, in Alchemy, the main study is in purifying and combining these different aspects of material. Let's look at a herb, for an example:

If we want to retrieve its salt, we'll dry the herb completely using fire to leave behind a fine light grey ash that represents only the physical form.

If we wanted its mercury we'd distill all liquids from it until we get a purified, clear liquid which in the case of plants would be alcohol (it's why alcohol is referred to as "spirit").

And if we wanted its soul, we would take the remains from the distillation and drying process which would be a kind of oil.

(it can get more complicated with different materials, but this isn't a post about Alchemy)

Now, back to Horcruxs.

So, if we would want to split a soul, Alchemecly, how do we go about it?

Well, we don't. Not really. See a soul can't really be split, as every part of it, every bit of that oil from our random herb represents the entire soul. It's why something like a Horcrux could theoretically work in giving a full life to the diary the way we see in Chamber of Secrets.

Additionally, to work with any material in Alchemy, you are required to purify it first. It means that to get a piece of soul to bind to a diary, you need a pure soul.

Killing someone else won't sever your own soul from the spirit and the body, it's not how this works. Killing someone severs their spirit and therefore splits their body, spirit, and soul. Besides, an Ancient Greek man, like Herpo was, would hardly consider murder as vile as we do today. It wouldn't even cross his mind that any murder (even an indirect one) could harm one's own soul.

No, the only way to "split" a soul is to first sever it from life, disconnecting the bond between soul and body. Essentially, the only way to promise you immortality is to kill yourself.

I know it sounds a little confusing, but, essentially, once the soul is severed from the spirit and body you can split it. Think of the herbal oil, once you have the oil, separate from the rest of the plant parts, you can combine it with new ingredients. You can only work on a specific aspect once you severed it from the other two and as what binds all three together is spirit — life — the only way to do it for a human soul — is death.

But really, how?

Well, here comes the second thing we know about making Horcruxs — that dear Herpo was Ancient Greek.

In Ancient Greece they had multiple different religious cults, some of which were Chthonic cults. Cults that dedicated themselves to death or ditties and heroes associated with death and more importantly — rebirth.

Many of these cults were dedicated to figures like Orpheous, Dyonysus, Persephone, characters in mythology who are known for going through the underworld — through death — and coming back out. These cults were very secretive and not much is known about their practices, but some is.

What is known is that they had rituals were they reenacted a death and then rebirth (usually drinking wine — a water if life, was the representation of rebirth).

This created a very clear idea in my head — to split a soul, you'll have to ritualisticlly, magically kill yourself, severe a peice of your soul and then revive yourself with a water of life — a potion.

This potion is never mentioned, but I believe it exists due to these Chthonic cult rituals and how they were structured. Not only that, but the Greek underworld did have a river known for being incredibly painful to drink, literally made of fire, but being able to bring the dead back - The Phlegethon River.

Note: Lethe River Water (the river in the Greek Underworld that makes the drinker forget) is a canon ingredient in a Forgetfulness Potion.

So what is the dead body for?

Well, congratulations, you killed yourself to retrieve a sliver of your soul and revived yourself so you won't stay dead. You found an item you can keep secure to tie that sliver of soul, too. Now, how would you bind then? After all, the only thing meant to bind a human soul to a body is a human spirit - a human life... you get where I'm going with this.

This is why Tom didn't have to be the one to do the deed. As long as he had a recently deceased corpse to harvest the life from to use to bind his newly split soul and the item of his choice.

It explains why nothing was missing from the bodies. Myrtle and the Riddles were investigated by the Ministry of Magic. One would assume the aurors would've noticed if any corpse was missing a hand due to the killer eating it (as other Horcrux theories suggest).

Not only was nothing missing from the body, the soul was intact. Myrtle became a ghost after death, a ghost is quite literally, just the soul, no body, no spirit.

So the only thing that was taken from Tom's victims was their life, quite literally at that.

Is that all? Can we make a Horcrux now?

Not really. See, when analyzing spells in Harry Potter is their name.

Avada Kadevra - is a reference to an Aramaic healing spell "Abracadabra" pronounced in Aramaic as: "Avra Kadebra" and meaning "I will create as commanded". Merged with the Latin word "cadaver" meaning "corpse" to create -> "I will create dead bodies as commanded"

Or Wingardium Laviosa - is a cross of the English word "wing", the Latin word "arduus" (meaning "high, tall, lofty, steep, proudly elevated"), or "arduum" (meaning "steep place, the steep" and the Latin word "levo" (meaning to "raise, lift up"). So together the spell means -> "lift high up".

So, it's pretty clear spells, their names and incantations are very self-explanatory. So a Horcrux should be no different.

I've seen some attempts at translating the name Horcrux. Unfortunately, these attempts treated the name as Latin, modern Greek, or Old English. Herpo, was Ancient Greek, though, so I went and translated a few possible meanings from Ancient Greek (Classical Greek and Homeric Greek are what I looked at):

ὅρκος (orkus, pronounced "hor-kus") - an oath, the object by which one swears, bound by oath (still used in modern Greek).

κρόκες (crukes, pronounced "cru-kes") - saffron-colored (blood red in Greek), crocus flower. The crocus flower symbolizes both death (the saffron that is the spice) and rebirth (the golden crocus which brings renewal and joy) because Demeter wears them when Persephone returns from the underworld in myth.

So what we have is a spell called "binding oath of death and rebirth" which all around sounds fitting.

There might also be a "made in blood" tucked at the end due to the association of κρόκες with the color of blood.

But what does it matter?

Well, somewhat. As now with this name, I expect the binding between the spirit from the victim, the split soul, and the item would be done in a sort of oath - an orkus.

The association with blood gives us another hint. Blood is the part of the human body most representative of life. Therefore, in Alchemy, your blood is your spirit. So it'll make sense that your own blood would be used in the binding process or more correctly in the process of turning another person's spirit into your own. Making the thread to bind the body (item) and the soul piece your own. As it also refers to just a red firey color, it can indicate the Phlagatton potion I hypothesize should be part of the ritual due to how Chthonic rituals usually went, as the Phlagaton river is made of fire.

So we have a general idea on how to make a Horcrux. You need an item of your choice to bind your soul to. You need a life (spirit) harvested from a human that you transformed into being your own using your blood. And you need a piece of your own soul, which you get by killing yourself and then reviving yourself. And you finish it off by binding it all together with an oath.

But how could you make one accidentally?

So, everyone knows Voldemort succeeded in somehow making a Horcrux accidentally, something a lot of theories I saw don't account for. Becouse whatever process you need to go to to make a Horcrux, Voldemort went through all of it the night he died the first time and marked Harry.

All the steps for my method of making a Horcrux were met that night.

The item in qustion is baby Harry, nothing interesting there.

The soul sliver was split the way it always is — through death. Voldemort dies, killed by his own killing curse and that is what splits his soul.

The life or spirit that then binds his soul to Harry isn't Lily's spirit or James'; it's his own spirit that acts as a binder between Harry and Voldemort’s split soul. Because the spirit was already his, there was no need to transform it by blood.

Step-by-step guide to making Horcruxes:

I'm not going to actually give the full step-by-step least a budging dark lord is looking for this information. I do have notes about exact incantations and even the full recipe and instructions for the Phlagaton potion I'm going to mention. These instructions won't be here since they are more in the realm of speculation and headcanon. This is just the overview of the ritual based on canon information and the occult philosophy I mentioned above.

Step 1 - Life and Blood

Get access to a recently deceased human and extract their Mercury (Spirit or Life Essence).

Submerge the retrieved life essence with your own blood on a new moon (life and vitality). (7 drops of blood will probably do)

Step 2 - Water of Fire

To complete the cycle of death and rebirth you’ll need the Phlegeton Water potion to return you to life at the end of the cycle.

As you brew the potion, it must be brewed in a dark room, preferably underground to remind as much of the underworld as possible.

While brewing the potion one must be in the mindset of the Phlegeton, must be willing to go through agony to achieve eternal life and imbue these thoughts in their potion. (In alchemy, when working, it is believed you imbue your work with your thoughts during the Alchemical process. As an Alchemical process affects both the material being worked and the Alchemist themselves)

Likley Ingrediants:

Saffron spice

Golden crocus flower juice

Pomegranate juice

Step 3 - The Ritual Preparation

Set up your space so none of the components may escape the ritual space and so the ritual will not be interfered with.

Make sure the spirit you retrieved is within reach.

Make sure the item you desire will hold the Horcrux will be within reach as well.

Coax the spirit into the item and prepare it to tie your soul to the next step.

Step 4 - Death and Rebirth

To create a thread of your soul to tie to the ritual, you must die figuratively. Go through death to return stronger from the underworld.

Once you feel like death has reached you and your soul is separated you should heal your soul and finish the cycle, bringing you out of death and back to life by drinking the Phlegeton potion.

After the pain subsides you will feel healthier than before, stronger than before, and you’ll have an additional thread of sulfur (soul) in your chest to be pulled out and placed into the Horcrux.

The split-off soul should, on its own, try to search for life and a body to be bound to. If it doesn't, coax it out yourself and bind it to the Horcrux with the spirit you made in step 1.

Step 5 - Oath of Life

The connection between the body (the item), soul, and spirit is still unstable, if most likely strong enough to hold.

Swear the oath of life to finalise the bound between you, the Horcrux, and the soul thread together to ward off death.

I'll end with this note I made regarding Horcruxes when I started working on this theory:

I don't know what all goes into the process of making a Horcrux but I don't believe a person who truly likes themselves and doesn't want to inflict pain on themselves could make a Horcrux. Tearing up your soul is an act of arrogance above nature, sure, thinking you deserve to change the laws of the world and be the exception is part of it, but it's also an act of self-hatred. You need to hate yourself enough to be willing to kill yourself, hurt yourself, and tear yourself up in the most unnatural ways — hence why so few can do so, let alone more than once.

And Tom Riddle does seem to have that exact mix of arrogance, spite, and low self-esteem that would allow it.

this ups the ante quite a bit. a change in perspective

What are your biggest pet peeves in fics

My biggest pet peeve is, hands down, fandom’s portrayal of the first war, which is almost never portrayed as violent and terrible as the details we get about it in canon. Most importantly:

The First War started in 1970.

Not 1975 or 1976. Certainly not 1978. 1970. This means the war was raging the entire time the Marauders were at Hogwarts, and that they entered Hogwarts a year into the war. It lasted 11 whole years. The whole point is that the First War was much worse than the Second War.

I’ve seen people say things like “The Marauders era is boring because nothing really happens until their later years until the war starts and/or heats up” and say it like it’s complete fact and not something fans completely made up. The idea that the war only “heats up” after Snape’s Worst Memory is so universally accepted despite all evidence to the contrary.

(I’ve also seen claims that the only murders/war crimes committed during the first war were the few explicitly named in the text, which is, again… truly embarrassing analysis.)

The reason fandom has come up with this narrative is entirely to fit the Snape vs. Marauders “bullying” angle. It usually goes like this: Sirius and James were bullies for 5 years, until - conveniently and magically - the war started to “heat up” and get more serious 6th year or sometimes 7th year and therefore they matured (especially James, though the idea of Sirius maturing after the Prank is also common in fic). It provides a neat little coming of age arc for the Marauders, one that does not actually exist in canon.

Because, believe it or not, Voldemort was not going to adjust the trajectory of his war to fit this narrative.

On the pro-Marauders side who still see them as bullies, the fandom can’t reconcile the idea of the war being serious and the Marauders not being serious about it and instead spending their time bullying others. But the war was already heated up, and the Marauders were already serious about the war by SWM - because the Marauders attacks on Snape and others was them being serious about the war, because it wasn’t bullying, it was vigilante justice.

On the Snape fan side, to portray Snape as a victim of bullying, they have to pretend that he's the only person capable of being victimized in the whole entire wizarding world, and people actually being murdered and tortured conflicts with that narrative.

I can buy that the war took a few years to heat up, I doubt it went to daily murders and tortures immediately, but I think a war would not take 6-7 years to escalate. I would guess it heated up sometime the Marauders 2nd year or 3rd year, at latest.

(I often see so many Order deaths happening in late war, per Moody, used at evidence that the war only escalated then, but the Order is tiny and doesn’t represent the casualties in the rest of the population)

Evidence towards the fact that the war was very heated up already by the time of SWM is that Lily calls Voldemort “You Know Who” in her conversation with Snape outside the Gryffindor common room - which means that by that time Voldemort has spread enough terror that people are afraid to say his name.

Also, remember this is already a very violent society. The fact that some pureblood families murder Muggles for fun (Muggle hunting) is apparently an open secret, they murder house elves, and I’ve said before that I think pureblood society practices honor killings which are at least somewhat legally sanctioned (i.e. Merope’s situation).

So a few occasional murders is not going to shake them and is not what this society is going to consider a war.

More evidence is how much the violence has escalated at Hogwarts. Death Eater students are regularly and openly torturing students with Dark Magic "for a laugh" and not being expelled, which is something that doesn't even happen in canon era - the closest we get is Draco cursing Katie Bell by accident, during a specific secret mission, and unlike with Mulciber and Mary Macdonald, no one knows who the culprit even is, so they don’t have the option to expel him. Similarly we have Snape using Sectumsempra so often at Hogwarts that it became known as his specialty and not being expelled, despite it being a near-fatal torture curse.

This fic captures what the atmosphere at Hogwarts would’ve been like really well:

"Did that kind of thing happen a lot in Hogwarts?" Hermione asked, tone oddly flat. "In the seventies?"

“Yes," Sirius said after a long moment. "It did. There were times when it was pretty much open warfare in the halls and on the grounds, between the students everyone knew were on Voldemort's side and the ones who opposed him, or whose families did... I was talking to Pomfrey about it the other day, she says you lot get yourself hexed as often in a few months as our generation used to in a week. And people attacked pets or destroyed belongings all the time. It was one reason a lot of students hid being muggleborn."

There’s the inability to extrapolate from canon details, fandom often portraying the First War like it’s just 30 Death Eaters on one side and 20 Order members on the other.

For example, if a mere ~30 Death Eaters are already committing daily murders in HBP during the Second War, how much violence do you think an army of ~500+ DEs (Sirius says the DEs that came back in GoF is literally nothing to how large Voldemort’s armies were in the First War; Remus says the Order was outnumbered 20 to 1) was committing? Similarly, based on the statistics given in HBP (by February Ron says he’s literally lost count of how many students have lost relatives), by SWM a substantial amount of the student body would’ve had families murdered by Death Eaters (and therefore the students cheering James and Sirius on in SWM is obviously because they hate Snape for being a proto-Death Eater and not for being poor 🙄). There may have even been students themselves that were killed over breaks.

This lines up with Sirius's description of the war:

“You’re scared for yourself, and your family, and your friends. Every week, news comes of more deaths, more disappearances, more torturing... the Ministry of Magic’s in disarray, they don’t know what to do, they’re trying to keep everything hidden from the Muggles, but meanwhile, Muggles are dying too. Terror everywhere... panic... confusion... that’s how it used to be."

There are lots of similar passages about the war, I’m not going to quote all of them, but I suggest people actually pay attention to those details, as well as stuff during the Second War that would apply to the first.

The same thing applies as fandom portraying teenage Death Eaters as only joining once they graduate, when canon indicates they would be Marked at 16, but that’s for another meta.

#fantastic horcrux meta

One thing I find really compelling about ronmort is that the horcrux which targets ron is the one most "maternal"-- tom's mother's locket, which you so cleverly pointed out was also the one which he erected a complicated defense for in a place that was meaningful to his childhood. Everything the locket says to Ron just feels so charged? Wym you've seen his heart and it's yours? Wym you've seen his dreams and his desires? The fact that Ron can hear the locket's heartbeat before anyone else... I don't know how to explain it except that the locket's antagonism of Ron feels almost intimate in a way. The shenanigans would be sexy. Not least because Ron can apparently do a passing imitation of parseltongue (hot).

that each of the trio destroys the horcrux which most connects to something fundamental about themselves is a detail which obsesses me.

the diary

harry - an orphan, desperate to meet someone else who can understand the strangeness and isolation of his experience; searching for the truth about himself, and what in his life is inherited, but unable to ever fully uncover it - destroys the diary, not only the sole horcrux which is an explicit link to lord voldemort's upbringing as an orphan in the muggle world, but also a metaphor for the state of orphanhood itself.

the diary is a quasi-palimpsest - an object which has to be written in; an object in which a layer of text is written and then overwritten by another; an object in which these layers of text can be stripped back until only the original layer remains only with extraordinary difficulty - just like the orphan's search for meaning, trying to decipher the layers of themselves which were inherited from their parents, but only ever being able to see these partially, with the text missing or corrupted.

voldemort's creation of the diary-horcrux is explicitly connected in canon to him coming to learn about himself, his parents, and his heritage - and, connected to this, to him refusing to sit with the grief of orphanhood, refusing to understand his parents as whole, complex people, and refusing to embrace his "real" identity [which, as the text understands it, is that of a half-blood named tom marvolo riddle] by creating a fake one [that of lord voldemort].

harry destroys it after rejecting voldemort's self-constructed view of his own exceptionality - "the greatest wizard in the world is albus dumbledore" - his refusal to acknowledge the complexities of lineage and orphanhood, and his refusal to embrace his muggle heritage - "my mother died to save me. my common, muggleborn mother". he does this using a tool directly connected to voldemort's rejection of all but his slytherin heritage - the basilisk's fang - in a location similarly connected to voldemort's rejection of his muggle blood - the chamber of secrets.

the cup

hermione - an outsider, whose place in the wizarding world is unstable - destroys the cup, one of the horcruxes to which voldemort has the least personal connection, but which he selected to hide his soul because of its historical significance, anchoring him to a millennium of wizarding history and culture he was otherwise brought up disconnected from.

voldemort's creation of the cup-horcrux comes at the end of a period of his life in which he is disadvantaged in wizarding society purely on the basis of his name and background. he rejects the ministry jobs which would have made him dependent for the rest of his life on slughorn's patronage - and, therefore, pressured him to do what slughorn wanted - and ends up, as he himself puts it, as "a poor shop assistant". hepzibah smith is a pureblood, who is also descended from one of hogwarts' founders - yet she doesn't make use of this superiority ["all sorts of powers it's supposed to possess too... i just keep it nice and safe in here..."], and she doesn't realise [and he can't prove to her and hope to keep his job] that voldemort is someone she should think of as her equal [or even superior]. she - as harry observes - essentially treats voldemort as doll she can play with, posing him with her treasures and pretending his glacial politeness is really repressed affection, she speaks to him like he's an idiot, and she evidently considers him to be her social inferior.

hermione destroys the cup after seven books in which the discrimination she faces on account of being muggleborn is explicit. obviously, she's the victim of violent bigotry - she's petrified, she's called a mudblood, she's the only one of the trio who also has to worry about the muggleborn registration commission - but she's also the victim of seemingly benign, genial bigotry too - the muggle world is treated as a quaint side-show, even by characters like the weasleys; she's praised for her intelligence by slughorn, but this intelligence is still considered in some way unusual for someone with muggle heritage. she gets spoken to by many wizards in ways which aren't far removed from the way hepzibah speaks to voldemort.

as a result, she - like voldemort - spends a lot of time trying to acquire enough knowledge of the wizarding world that she appears to be native to it [this is why she's so obsessed with hogwarts: a history]. but - unlike voldemort - she then embraces her heritage and refuses to hide it - "mudblood and proud of it!".

and - shortly after this - she destroys the cup, in a place - the chamber - and using a tool - the basilisk's fang - which are both directly connected to the bigotry she experienced, since they're part of slytherin's belief that people like her should be driven out of hogwarts and out of the magical world more broadly, and therefore send a big "fuck you" to voldemort's blood-supremacy.

the locket

and ron... whose greatest desire is to be recognised for his individual achievements, who has a complex and uneasy relationship with his place in his family [simultaneously longing to be something other than "one of the weasleys" and fiercely loyal to his parents and siblings], who is the only pureblood of the trio, whose childhood we hear the most about in canon, and whose childhood appears to have been happy...

destroys the locket, which is voldemort's only link to his mother, and the only horcrux for which he constructs an elaborate defence in a place meaningful to him from childhood.

we don't actually know who voldemort kills to create the locket-horcrux [jkr has said in interviews that it was a muggle tramp, although this contradicts dumbledore's statement in half-blood prince that voldemort created his horcruxes from murders which were significant to him], which is a neat metaphor for how little he knows about merope - since he doesn't know morfin's name, for example, we can assume he doesn't know hers; everything he ever tells harry about her is something he's invented [especially his belief that his parents' marriage was consensual, and that tom riddle sr. abandoned her because she was a witch].

the horcrux attempts to torture ron with his insecurities about being a mammy's boy who's always been afraid that he's a bit of a flop at the task - especially when compared to siblings like ginny, bill, and percy. and ron is so susceptible to it because voldemort is also an inherent mammy's boy [ronmort nation, rise up] who never got a chance to have a mam, and who responded to the grief this caused him by suppressing it, pretending it never existed, and convincing himself that the only viable thing to be is unique.

ron destroys it after he returns to the trio - having attempted to strike out on his own [the thing he's wanted since philosopher's stone, when he sees himself standing alone in the mirror of erised] - and accepts his place as part of a group. he does so using the sword of gryffindor, which again represents him embracing not being exceptional - his entire family have been in gryffindor, something he's shown to feel simultaneously proud of and uneasy with right from his first appearance.

I think Remus was a tiny bit inlove with Lily.

It was safer for him to have cruches on unavailable ppl. That's why he was so surprised when Tonks fell in love with him and was able to reciprocate his feelings. In his mind, she was too young, free and vivacious to notice him.

(I'm not a wolfstar believer in Canon)

Ooh I think it is totally in character for him to pick safe crushes he never thought would like him back

What a shame Tonks actually reciprocated lol

Pleaseee do Hinny art soon. I would love to see them in your style.

i’ve drawn hinny before hehe enjoy this doodle i did while listening to the audiobook of hbp:

i find them so cute sometimes

The image of ariana accusing albus of dragging another child to martyrdom is delightfully haunting. The apparitions from the stone are stranger and somehow more ghastly than ghosts; ghosts make a choice, often a shortsighted one, by which they are forever tormented. Btu they mind their own business. The stone was touched by death's own hand -- the stone's apparitions are meant to be a phantom of the dead person's actual soul, but here we have a child accusing her brother who's lived past a hundred. Is it just albus' guilt he is projecting onto the apparition or has ariana actually absorbed some of it for herself, being tethered to this world as an unwilling part of albus' plotting once again?

Something just occured to me!

So we see Dumbledore wearing the Gaunt ring all throughout HBP, right. And we know he put it on and got his hand all burnt because he was desperate to use the stone to see his sister and mother again.

So like, all throughout HBP, was Dumbledore just casually seeing his dead sister and mother all the time. He had the stone. He wore the ring, even after it wasn't a Horcrux anymore. Which if anything was a more dangerous move than just putting it away somewhere as Voldemort could've seen it in the memories of anyone's mind he read who had come into contact with Dumbledore and seen him wear the ring. So there's literally no reason to wear it unless he's still using the stone to see his mum and sister.

But also! The whole thing about the stone is that it calls you to your own death, right? And Dumbledore knows he's dying and that he doesn't have long left. So I just imagine every single interaction he has with Harry, Ariana is just standing at Harry's shoulder, staring at Dumbledore with big eyes, because here's another child that's going to be sacrificed by his actions.

And maybe when he drinks the drink of despair, that's who he's apologising to. Not the visions of the past, but the wraiths in the present, standing grey and ghostly by him as he pleads with them to understand that he's doing what needs to be done, even as Harry is nearly killed by the teeming dead in the cave.

really enjoying all the videos Muslims have been posting of their cats looking like this

when the humans are up at 4 am for suhoor

221115 RM’s Instagram Stories

Image 1 Translation:

Things I know Kang Ik-joong

The sky is light green just before a storm When I am lost coming out of the subway, I should go the opposite way of where I think I should go The best smell is the smell of a pencil board you just bought at a stationary store in front of the school The compliments you hear at a young age stay with you for a long time The ratio of garlic chives to pork when making dumplings is two to one No matter how much of a rush you’re in, you should not run in front of someone who is physically unwell Stars in the night sky are not Christmas decorations Stage fright occurs when I try to show a greater side of myself You do not hear farts on an airplane Rich people are good at straightening out their cash Good ideas come out of morning showers People who are impatient always get the bill first  Anything under the sky is psychology Opportunities come around again There aren’t a lot of things that you really need

Trans cr; Annie & Aditi @ bts-trans © TAKE OUT WITH FULL CREDITS

Image 2 Translation: It will come true  Kang Ik-joong

It comes true when you draw it in your heart It will come true when you draw it on a paper It comes true when you are full  It will come true when you share it first  It comes true when you are diligent  It will come true when you are relaxed from time to time  It comes true when the water in your heart is calm  It will come true when the you see yourself in that water  Above all, it will come true when you love  Even if it’s a nameless wild flower Even if it’s a wind that passes by Also It will come true when you look at the moon

Trans cr; Annie @ bts-trans © TAKE OUT WITH FULL CREDITS