how did jk manage to write ootp and not come to the conclusion that the only career w any true meaning for harry james potter was as a goddamn professor at hogwarts like how do u write the da scenes and say “nah he’d want to be a wizard cop”
#but it would be so perfect??? #bc it would help normalize his life so much #like there would just be this generation of kids who are like #‘ugh who cares that he killed the dark lord he gAVE US HOMEWORK OVER BREAK’ #like the beginning of every year there would be the new first years who would freak out a little #but then it would calm down #and most of the students would literally forget #until like clockwork the fifth years would have their history of magic class on the second war #and they’d all show up to DADA looking a little awestruck and everyone would be extra quiet #and harry would give this kind of annoyed sigh—except it’s fake bc he TOTALLY knew this was coming #bc binns is a bro and he totally gives him a heads up every year #and harry wouldn’t have any lesson plans for the day and instead he would just sit at the front of the room and answer everyone’s questions #but otherwise everyone would just be like ‘professor potter!! i can’t get my patronus to work! help me!’ #and like they’d go home at the end of the year or for break and their parents—who ARE still starstruck by harry james potter #would pester their kids with questions#and the kids would just be like ‘merlin i don’t know?? potter’s such a huge dork you should hear him talk about proper wand movements’ #but they would all love him #and he would feel safe and normal and utterly accepted #AND I NEED THIS IN MY LIFE (via @cinematicnomad)
Not to mention it would be an ultimate Fuck You to Voldemort, who put a curse on the teaching position in the first place.
Like, Jo, I don’t want to tell you how to do your job, but COME ON
I already queued this but also, you do this, but still have Ginny become a famous Quidditch player. Imagine the first time Harry gets called “Ginny’s husband” before “the boy who lived” or “the chosen one.” Imagine how fucking pleased he’d be.
Imagine the first time a student comes up to him looking starry-eyed and Harry’s thinking “Oh no” because he doesn’t want to talk about Voldemort or the war but instead this little eleven year old is like “ARE YOU REALLY MARRIED TO WEASLEY FROM THE HOLLYHEAD HARPIES???!?? WHAT’S SHE LIKE?” and he’s like “oh thank god” because he could talk about Ginny all day.
“Okay, okay, I’m going to tell you what Hermione sees in Ron. A trio is a balancing act, right? They’re equalizers of each other. Harry’s like the action, Hermione’s the brains, Ron’s the heart. Hermione has been assassinated in these movies, and I mean that genuinely—by giving her every single positive character trait that Ron has, they have assassinated her character in the movies. She’s been harmed by being made to be less human, because everything good Ron has, she’s been given. So, for instance: “If you want to kill Harry, you’re going to have to kill me too”—RON, leg is broken, he’s in pain, gets up and stands in front of Harry and says this. Who gets that line in the movie? Hermione. “Fear of a name increases the fear of the thing itself.” Hermione doesn’t say Voldemort’s name until well into the books—that’s Dumbledore’s line. When does Hermione say it in the movies? Beginning of Movie 2. When the Devil’s Snare is curling itself around everybody, Hermione panics, and Ron is the one who keeps his head and says “Are you a witch or not?” In the movie, everybody else panics and Hermione keeps her head and does the biggest, brightest flare of sunlight spell there ever was. So, Hermione—all her flaws were shaved away in the films. And that sounds like you’re making a kick-ass, amazing character, and what you’re doing is dehumanizing her. And it pisses me off. It really does. In the books, they balance each other out, because where Hermione gets frazzled and maybe her rationality overtakes some of her instinct, Ron has that to back it up; Ron has a kind of emotional grounding that can keep Hermione’s hyper-rationalness in check. Sometimes Hermione’s super-logical nature grates Harry and bothers him, and isn’t the thing he needs even if it’s the right thing, like when she says “You have a saving people thing.” That is the thing that Harry needed to hear, she’s a hundred percent right, but the way she does it is wrong. That’s the classic “she’s super logical, she’s super brilliant, but she doesn’t know how to handle people emotionally,” at least Harry. So in the books they are this balanced group, and in the movies, in the movies—hell, not even Harry is good enough for Hermione in the movies. No one’s good enough for Hermione in the movies—God isn’t good enough for Hermione in the movies! Hermione is everybody’s everything in the movies. Harry’s idea to jump on the dragon in the books, who gets it in the movies? Hermione, who hates to fly. Hermione, who overcomes her withering fear of flying to take over Harry’s big idea to get out of the—like, why does Hermione get all these moments? [John: Because we need to market the movie to girls.] I think girls like the books, period. And like the Hermione in the books, and like the Hermione in the books just fine before Hollywood made her idealized and perfect. And if they would have trusted that, they would have been just fine. Would the movies have been bad if she was as awesome as she was in the books, and as human as she was in the books? Would the movies get worse? She IS a strong girl character. This is the thing that pisses me off. They are equating “strong” with superhuman. To me, the Hermione in the book is twelve times stronger than the completely unreachable ideal of Hermione in the movies. Give me the Hermione in the book who’s human and has flaws any single day of the week. Here’s a classic example: When Snape in the first book yells at Hermione for being an insufferable know-it-all, do you want to know what Ron says in the book? “Well, you’re asking the questions, and she has to answer. Why ask if you don’t want to be told?” What does he say in the movie? “He’s got a point, you know.” Ron? Would never do that. Would NEVER do that, even before he liked Hermione. Ron would never do that.”
—
Melissa Anelli THROWS IT DOWN about the way Ron and Hermione have been adapted in the movies on the latest episode of PotterCast. Listen here. This glorious rant starts at about 49:00. (via karakamos)
I’m quoting this ‘cause Melissa calls it out so hard that Kloves and Yates are hurting from the thumping – and I have absolutely NOTHING to add to it.
this is perfection, but can we possibly throw in the character shift for Ginny as well? perhaps it’s not as drastic as Hermione’s, but I think that’s only because Ginny (alongside Neville and Luna) takes a backseat to a lot of the goings-on, in both the movies and the books.
but I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard people say they HATE movie!Ginny — mainly because she was mostly used for sex appeal (coughDH1cough) and we never got to see her personality and understand what attracted Harry to her in the films.
yes we see her helping Harry with Quidditch tryouts in HBP and probably the best Ginny moments are the DA practices in OotP, but aside from that we don’t hear things like “she learned to fly so well because she’s been stealing each of her brother’s brooms from the broom shed and practicing since the age of six” or “size is no guarantee of power”. I adore book!Ginny with all my heart because she is perfect for Harry — I mean, I could never seriously see Harry and Hermione working out because of her complete lack of interest in his favorite subject: Quidditch. Whereas he and Ginny could talk for hours about it and not get bored.
I firmly believe that Fleur Delacour and Viktor Krum remained friends after the triwizard tournament and that one night while they were celebrating Fleur and Bills engagement a very drunk Fleur bet a not as drunk Viktor that she could catch a snitch before him and so they competed and he won and Fluer lost her end of the bet saying that she would name her first born after him
and that is why their kid is named Victorie and the only reason it isn’t spelled with a k is to annoy Viktor
The door swung open at once. A tall, black-haired witch in emerald-green robes stood there. She had a very stern face and Harry’s first thought was that this was not someone to cross. – Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.
Star Wars is really really important to Hufflepuff Zuko. As the twin son of the evil right hand woman to a Dark Lord, growing up, the original trilogy felt like it had been written just for him. The idea that these two kids who were the children of this really evil man could choose to stand for what was right is just really really important to him.
And even though he knows his mother is dead, and why this is a Good Thing, and that Bellatrix would never have chosen redemption, and certainly not for Zuko, he always cries at the end of Return of the Jedi.
As his sister begins her own rise as a Dark Lord, Star Wars becomes even more important to him, not that he would ever say so, as he tries to convince his twin to come home and she tries to convince him to join her.
And he would be right there on opening day for The Force Awakens with Mai, you better believe it.
And Finn is his new fave?
Canon Zuko I think would have a much bigger love for Finn than Hufflepuff Zuko, since Hufflepuff Zuko was raised by the loving, supportive Iroh, and not as his father’s tool. No, Zuko’s heart goes out to Leia, and Kylo Ren being her son just kills him, because deep inside, he’s always going to be terrified that evil is in his blood and that one of his children will inherit it, and this kind of hits way too close to those fears.
Okay, this is post-story-timeline entirely, because some things are just too spoilery.
1. Slughorn is a very old man, and this is the second Dark Lord’s rise he’s lived through, (and the second Dark Lord he unwittingly mentored) and he is retiring, Minerva, really that’s it, no more. I don’t care if you don’t have a replacement lined up. Mai, who for various reasons that are spoilery, at this point can’t live with her parents, takes the job as a temporary measure until they can find someone better suited. Somehow they never do. Then McGonagal retires and Flitwick refuses the job, and poor Neville gets stuck with the thing, and he makes Mai’s appointment permanent three years into her being hired, and drops the Slytherin Head of House job in her lap too. Mai gets burned hard by Sughorn’s favoritism as a student and deeply resents him for it at the time, so she’s scrupulously fair as a teacher. She is also about half the school’s favorite teacher, because some days she walks in and looks at her students and says “Today we are blowing things up.”
2. Ty Lee and Suki both become professional athletes, in Quidditch and Football respectively. The year Ty Lee retires, she plays Seeker for Ireland and they win the World Cup. Both sisters are heavily involved in sports and children’s charities on their respective sides of the Wizarding Muggle divide. For a long long time, if their partners aren’t around, they share a room, because both of them have horrible nightmares from the war, and they feel better if they know their twin is there.
3. Aang wanted to be a professional Quidditch player, but he gets sidetracked by his wife’s efforts to reform Wizarding government, and ends up running for the Wizengamot and winning. He’s a war hero, so it’s not surprising. His pet causes are undoing the purebood hierarchy, squib rights, greater governmental accountability, and actually working to eliminate the global magical antiquities theft problem.
4. Katara becomes a healer and advocate for indigenous magical communities. She travels between the UK, where her husband is in office, and Canada where her family is from. She regularly skirts the edge of the International Statute of secrecy as she fights to get medical care and clean water to First Nations communities in Canada.
5. At the same time Mai is hired as Potions Professor at Hogwarts, Toph and Zuko are trainee Aurors. After the war with his sister, Zuko and Toph are eminently qualified dark wizard catchers, but Zuko is burned out on it. He uses his status as Auror, to with his boss’s approval, set up Wizarding children’s services. This is something near and dear to Harry’s heart too, for obvious reasons. In the end, Zuko runs for the Wizengamot on a pro-getting-wizarding-social-services-for-fuck’s-sake-also-I’m-a-war-hero platform and wins. He and Aang are parliamentarian contrarian buddies. He and Mai turn the Nott ancestral home into an emergency foster care center, and pretty much always have magical kids underfoot. Because she’s a teacher at Hogwarts, Mai is teaching or will teach nearly all of them. A few of them are there because she reported their parents.
Yes, Hufflepuff Zuko is still ongoing. I’m just very busy with school right now, and only noodling away at pretty much any fannish project I’ve got going. But you know what, Hufflepuff Zuko could use a Five Headcanons post.
1. Andromeda and Narcissa don’t know about Zuko and Azula. Bellatrix of course told neither of them, and the Ministry didn’t inform either of them either. The day Andromeda finds out about her niece and nephew is not going to be pretty.
2. This experience is going to be part of Zuko’s impetus for his quest to do something about the shambles Wizarding social services are in, seriously.
3. Andromeda finds out through Teddy, who is only a few years younger than Zuko and Azula, and has run into them a few times. He becomes good friends with Yue in his last couple of years of school, and it kind of hits him one day, oh yeah, her brother and guardian is uh, my cousin… Maybe I should let my grandmother know?
4. Narcissa never reaches out to Zuko. After a certain point, he figures she pretty much has to know about him, since he’s something of a public figure, and his marriage to Mai was a scandal in pureblood circles, but she never reaches out to her half-blood nephew with his severely tainted linage. After he goes into politics, Draco does however try to arrange a lunch. He stops trying to ingratiate himself after Zuko’s political leanings become clear.
5. There are still living Lestranges out there, but their position on the twins have always been that they are illegitimate, not related to the Lestranges, and have no right to the name. This isn’t exactly untrue, and they don’t seem like very nice people anyway, so Zuko never pursues it.
The adventures of Unassuming Hufflepuff continue. In an Unassuming fasion.
Summer at the manor was quiet except when Granddad insisted
on morning target practice in the range set up in the back garden. Doctors
argued with him about it, but Granddad insisted that shooting revolvers kept
the arthritis at bay.
Doctors, Uh has noticed, really do not like it when a cure
that should never work actually does work.
“ALEX!”
“MY NAME IS UH, GRANDDAD!” Uh shouts back, closing
their book with a sigh.
“WHATEVER!” Graddad replies from the garden. “YOU HAVEN’T
BEEN ON THE RANGE YET THIS WEEK!”
Uh puts their book aside, vacates the bench on the balcony,
and then climbs down the support column to land in the back garden with a
thump. “Granddad, I have a wand. I don’t need to shoot anyone when I can
hex them. Besides, guns don’t work at Hogwarts.”
“No, modern
guns don’t work at Hogwarts,” Granddad corrects Uh cheerfully, clearing
the barrels of both revolvers before handing them over. “But if you go old
school…”
“Fine.” Uh gives up, loads the revolvers,
obliterates the two remaining targets the manor staff have yet to replace, and
then hands the emptied weapons back to Granddad. “There you are. Can I
please read my book now?”
Granddad is staring at the targets, a distant look in his
eyes. Uh would almost call it sadness.
No, not feelings, not again! This is still not Uh’s job!
“Sometimes it amazes me how much you take after
me,” Granddad says, tilting his head at the targets. “Then it’s your
Gran, and the way you both bury your heads in books. Then it’s Lin with the
magic and the swords…and then there’s your dad.”
“I don’t take after Dad at all,” Uh reminds
Granddad.
Granddad reaches over and ruffles Uh’s long hair. “Alex
always wanted to fix things, too, sweetheart.”
Fine. Uh will at least admit to that. But at least they
don’t go wandering off and get lost for three years and counting.
Granddad knows what they’re thinking. “Sweetheart, I
still blame your Uncle Jonathan for that.”
Uh nods. That is also likely. Uncle Jonathan is…like that.
Gran always says he took after their great-grandfather, who was a bit mad, and
then Jonathan’s service in World War I made everything worse.
Uh is halfway back to the manor before they realize.
“Wait. Granddad! Old school? That was a terrible pun!”
Cheloneuniverse 