This bit is exactly what Sirius was talking about when he said "Nah, she didn't" in response to Harry lamenting that Lily hated James lol.
Because you can't convince me that our girl wasn't staring at James Potter that afternoon by the lake just as hard as he was staring at her. She brings up him playing with the Snitch as if it's something he does all the time â when literally just minutes earlier, Remus asked James where he'd gotten it. Her eyes were glued to that boy.
"Messing up your hair because you think it looks cool to look like you've just got off your broomstick" ⌠girl, just say YOU think he looks cool when he gets off his broomstick.
i talk a lot about how my favorite missing moment in the hp series is the one referenced when harry mentions umbridge and sirius says âyou should hear remus talk about herâ but like, here is the reason for that.
remus spends the whole series speaking so cautiously, hesitating before he talks, choosing his words so carefully; something i think about a lot is the rarity with which he uses contractions in his speech, i.e. its always âhe willâ instead of heâll,â etc. what that says to me is that he speaks slowly, he thinks before he talks, he is measured and careful in his speech. everything he says out loud he has already gone through in his head.
and thereâs a reason for that, yeah? he does this on purpose, he does it because he has to maintain this exacted control or else people are going to be afraid. if he loses it, it is going to scare people. anger from remus â a raised voice, an aggressive movement, anything â is going to be perceived as corroboration of every stereotype and prejudice that he encourages people to resist with his constructed performance as a Good Werewolf. he canât afford to trust that he can drop that emotional wall, because the reality of it is, maybe he canât. maybe he drops it and people say âhere it is, here is the proof that he is a monster, and now we must do what has to be done to monsters.â and so through the entire series, remus is characterized largely by his restraint: what he does not say, what he does not show, what he does not let himself feel.
twice harry (and the reader) sees remus lose control: when dumbledore dies (triggered by grief) and during their fight in grimmauld during deathly hallows (triggered by shame, fear, anger, self-loathing â a lot of things). extreme situations and emotions are the only things that shake him, right, thats when he breaks, thatâs when he drops that shield: when he himself is so broken that he does not have the strength to keep it up any longer.
but here is the point in the long-winded rant where i wrap myself back around to the point:
whensirius says âyou should hear remus talk about her,â there is (to me, anyway) a clear implication that when remus talks about umbridge, heâs pissed. heâs angry. he gives himself permission to be angry around sirius and that is important to me because it means that he trusts sirius. he trusts that sirius knows who he is, and he trusts that around sirius he does not have to maintain this constant charade of being a Good Werewolf. he can be angry, and sirius will think no less of him. Â
there is trust there, and thatâs important to me, to know that remus does trust sirius again. itâs not a shipping thing or whatever, itâs just, the fact of the matter is that remus does not perform this self-protective act around sirius. that means there is one person who remus trusts himself with, and he needs that, and he deserves that. and iâm glad that it was sirius, for a very short period of time. iâm glad that they had one another back again, that they both had somebody who understood them fully again.
and thatâs my piece about it, yâknow, i donât expect everyone to care that much about this one-off line, but for me itâs important. take it or leave it ya feel me?
Again, the other time we see Remus even remotely angry is the Shack, and for a man ready to commit murder heâs still pretty damn put together. Just saying.
all of this!! that âyou should hear remus talk about herâ moment is, to me, definitive proof that remus and sirius are pretty damn comfortable with each other behind the scenes in ootp.
this is why i canât get behind âremus and sirius arenât close actuallyâ - thatâs an assumption you can make about them as teenagers from what we see in swm, sure, but their adult interactions do paint a different picture.
hard agree around remusâs usual considered speech patterns and restraint being about feeling pressure to perform the Good Werewolf - iâm always struck by this in the dh confrontation in grimmauld place:
Lupin sprang to his feet: His chair toppled over backward, and he glared at them so fiercely that Harry saw, for the first time ever, the shadow of the wolf upon his human face.
like⌠when remusâs unrestrained anger comes out (at the [correct] suggestion heâs being a coward), this is what harry thinks!! harry doesnât even have the ingrained werewolf prejudice of wider wizarding society, but thatâs still the association he makes upon witnessing remusâs anger. remus really canât express his emotions fully without running the risk of enforcing societal prejudice, and that informs so much of how he interacts with the world.
the fact that heâs willing to express anger about umbridge around sirius speaks volumes about the level of trust that exists in that relationship.
Still wondering what Sirius wouldâve done after stabbing a rat in front of several children. Maybe he just passes the mangled rat to Harry when heâs done and says, âYouâre welcome.â And then leaves.
It was that strange haze where you weren't entirely sure whether you were awake or still dreaming. Neville desperately wanted to stay buried beneath his warm blankets, but the insistent pressure of a full bladder made that impossible. With the tragic resignation known only to thirteen-year-old boys forced out of bed at three in the morning, he shuffled toward the shared bathroom.
He wasn't entirely sure how long he'd been in there.
He might have fallen asleep on the loo. It wouldn't have been the first time.
There had definitely been a loud crash.
Someone had shouted.
Or perhaps that had been him after stubbing his toe on the sink pedestal for what felt like the hundredth time that year. It was difficult to tell when you couldn't quite summon the energy to open both eyes.
Still rubbing the sleep from his face, Neville pushed open the bathroom door and wandered back into the dormitory.
His eyes snapped open.
Every trace of exhaustion vanished in an instant.
Ron was sprawled across the floor, clutching his leg, which bent at an angle legs absolutely should not bend.
Harry stood frozen beside him, white as the sheets, gripping what looked disturbingly like a blood-soaked clump of rat fur.
Towering over them, knife still in hand, stood the gaunt, hollow-faced wizard Neville knew from every Wanted poster plastered across magical Britain.
Sirius Black.
Neville's blood turned to ice.
He should run.
He should scream.
He should get Professor McGonagall.
He should get Dumbledore.
He shouldâ
He couldn't leave Ron on the floor with a broken leg or Harry with the man who wanted to kill him.
Nevilleâs hand fumbled for his wand as sweat trickled down his back.
He swallowed.
Apparently louder than intended.
Ron's head whipped around.
"Neville!" he yelled. "Run!"
Neville shook his head, though every instinct he possessed was begging him to do exactly that. His wand trembled so violently, he doubted the Stunning Spell would travel in a straight line.
Black looked over.
"Oh, Neville," he said with an oddly wistful smile. "You look so much like your mother. I'd hate to hurt you."
He casually raised what Neville realized, with mounting horror, was Ron's wand.
"Stop!" Harry shouted from his bed, still clutching the remains of Scabbers. "Just murder me and leave everyone else alone!"
Black frowned.
"Murder you?"
He sounded genuinely confused.
"No. I only planned one murder tonight."
He gestured toward the mangled bundle Harry was holding.
"And that has already been accomplished."
Ron blinked. "You escaped Azkaban..." he said slowly, "...to kill my pet?"
Black looked offended. "No, I came to kill the man I was imprisoned for murdering."
Before Neville's horrified eyes, the bloody, limp rat began to change. Tiny paws stretched into fingers as grey fur receded into mottled skin. The little pointed snout lengthened into the face of a balding, middle-aged wizard.
A dead, balding, middle-aged wizard.
Neville screamed.
Harry swore.
Ron swore louder.
From the next bed, Dean rolled over, muttered something about Quidditch practice, and continued snoring.
đcurrently writing desperados, a first wizarding war au.
"Your pain and your hunger / They're driving you home /
And freedom, oh, freedom / Well that's just some people talking /
Your prison is walking through this world all alone."
â "Desperado" by The Eagles
It's all part of the casualties of war: Regulus Black's betrayal of his breeding, Mary Macdonald's fall from grace. That they're too young to keep fighting has escaped everyone's mind.
I imagine that before wands were popularized, different magical cultures likely used innate, environmental, ancestral or ritualistic forms of magic. Wands arrive as a âsuperior,â âefficient,â âcivilizedâ tool, completely mirroring how colonizers frame their tech and culture, and once wand use becomes standardized (under European dominance), it becomes the metric for what âproperâ magic is. Itâs like a classic colonizer move: redefine the standard so the colonized never quite measure up.
I can see wands existing as instruments of surveillance, to track and record wand bearers. If we look at canon we see that The Ministry can trace spells, that wand registration exists, that underage magic is tracked via wands and that muggleborns need documentation about their wand status (and are suspected without one). This echoes real-world issues where colonizers impose paperwork, IDs, âpermits,â licenses⌠Wands give the Ministry the power to know who you are, what you can do, what magic youâre capable of, when you break laws⌠So if you come from a magical tradition without wands, youâre suddenly invisible, illegible and therefore illegal.
Because of that, wandless magic would be considered âprimitiveâ, âwildâ and âdangerousâ. This is exactly how colonizers treat any practice outside their norm. Elves can perform wandless magic with terrifying skill, so their use of wands is banned. Goblins have their own magical lore, so the wandmakers keep that knowledge proprietary and exclude them. Even wizard-on-wizard discrimination exists (Western wandmaking superiority mythos). The entire hierarchy is created around wand access, not magical ability. Itâs not that non-wand cultures have âlesserâ magic, itâs that the system is built to invalidate them.
I also see a relation between wands and industrialization and commercialization of the innate. Magic used to be craft, ritual, birthright, relationship with land, energy. Then wands turn it into products, brands, patents, trade secrets, regulated commodities. It literally mirrors the industrial revolution, with something natural becoming standardized, mass-produced and commercialized. Wand cores are harvested, trees are cut for wand wood, ecosystems are commodified. Magic becomes a consumer good.
Wands can also be seen as a cultural erasure weapon. For many communities, magic done with hands, through song, nature and ancestral rites would carry spiritual meaning. But wizards, especially European ones, invalidate that, create a monoculture of wand magic and enforce it through Ministry law. Thatâs not just colonization, itâs cultural genocide.
We can imagine social implications as the divide between âcivilizedâ wand users and âprimitiveâ wandless ones, wizard supremacy ideology brewed not just from blood purity but method purity, power defined by conformity, not ability, education systems that erase non-wand magic (Hogwarts teaches nothing else), a Ministry that claims to âprotectâ lesser magical cultures but actually suppresses them.
And the ultimate irony is that the most powerful magic we see in the Wizarding World are Lilyâs sacrifice, ancient enchantments, goblin lore, house-elf magic, wandless magic in extremis, parseltongue, rituals and blood magic⌠None of it is wand-based. So the entire structure of âyou must have a wand to be civilizedâ is built on a fragile, discriminatory lie.
Most people have a problem with the 'Severus' part, and I feel that Harry naming his son after Severus Snape, his bully and arguably the most grey-est character in the series, summarises Harry's character so well.
My boy is the most forgiving person in the entire series. During the last duel he even asked Voldemort, who was the literal enemy, to feel remorse so he would not die (i don't have the books on me currently to quote it verbatim)
Harry Potter is a coming of age story. There's a great reddit thread i once read which pointed out that Dumbledore and Snape have so many parallels. Both were haunted by their guilt because in their youth they took the dark part because of a girl and then later in their life worked selflessly to repent.
Since the starting of the series, Harry sees Dumbledore as the "right" figure, and Snape as an "evil" figure.
Later in the story, during DH, Harry finds stuff about Dumbledore which tarnishes his holy figure and Harry puts him off the pedestal. Similarly, Harry finds stuff about Snape which lightens his dark image.
There's a reason the epilogue was Albus' first day of school. Not James. Not Lily. But Albus.
Albus Severus shows the growth Harry had made. It shows Harry understands the world is not divided between "good" and "bad". Between professors wearing white robes and has twinkling eyes and professors wearing dark robes and has haunting eyes.
So those who say "Harry would never name his son after Severus Snape." Do not understand Harry's character at all.
Albus Severus Potter IS the epilogue. He IS the growth Harry had made.
i talk a lot about how my favorite missing moment in the hp series is the one referenced when harry mentions umbridge and sirius says âyou should hear remus talk about herâ but like, here is the reason for that.
remus spends the whole series speaking so cautiously, hesitating before he talks, choosing his words so carefully; something i think about a lot is the rarity with which he uses contractions in his speech, i.e. its always âhe willâ instead of heâll,â etc. what that says to me is that he speaks slowly, he thinks before he talks, he is measured and careful in his speech. everything he says out loud he has already gone through in his head.
and thereâs a reason for that, yeah? he does this on purpose, he does it because he has to maintain this exacted control or else people are going to be afraid. if he loses it, it is going to scare people. anger from remus â a raised voice, an aggressive movement, anything â is going to be perceived as corroboration of every stereotype and prejudice that he encourages people to resist with his constructed performance as a Good Werewolf. he canât afford to trust that he can drop that emotional wall, because the reality of it is, maybe he canât. maybe he drops it and people say âhere it is, here is the proof that he is a monster, and now we must do what has to be done to monsters.â and so through the entire series, remus is characterized largely by his restraint: what he does not say, what he does not show, what he does not let himself feel.
twice harry (and the reader) sees remus lose control: when dumbledore dies (triggered by grief) and during their fight in grimmauld during deathly hallows (triggered by shame, fear, anger, self-loathing â a lot of things). extreme situations and emotions are the only things that shake him, right, thats when he breaks, thatâs when he drops that shield: when he himself is so broken that he does not have the strength to keep it up any longer.
but here is the point in the long-winded rant where i wrap myself back around to the point:
whensirius says âyou should hear remus talk about her,â there is (to me, anyway) a clear implication that when remus talks about umbridge, heâs pissed. heâs angry. he gives himself permission to be angry around sirius and that is important to me because it means that he trusts sirius. he trusts that sirius knows who he is, and he trusts that around sirius he does not have to maintain this constant charade of being a Good Werewolf. he can be angry, and sirius will think no less of him. Â
there is trust there, and thatâs important to me, to know that remus does trust sirius again. itâs not a shipping thing or whatever, itâs just, the fact of the matter is that remus does not perform this self-protective act around sirius. that means there is one person who remus trusts himself with, and he needs that, and he deserves that. and iâm glad that it was sirius, for a very short period of time. iâm glad that they had one another back again, that they both had somebody who understood them fully again.
and thatâs my piece about it, yâknow, i donât expect everyone to care that much about this one-off line, but for me itâs important. take it or leave it ya feel me?
Again, the other time we see Remus even remotely angry is the Shack, and for a man ready to commit murder heâs still pretty damn put together. Just saying.
How can people say the Marauders are classist when Remus Lupin is literally standing right there?
Heâs poor, marginalised, and a werewolf (someone the wizarding world openly discriminates against) and heâs one of James Potterâs best friends?!
James doesnât end up marrying a pure-blood aristocrat either!!! He marries Lily Evans, a Muggle-born girl from the Midlands. If James (and by extension their best man, Sirius Black) genuinely looked down on people because of their class or background, that makes very little sense.
People seem to conflate James and Sirius being wealthy and privileged as being classist, but those arenât automatically the same thing!!!!
Regulus is a far more interesting character when heâs complicit in his own tragedy. The fact he genuinely bought into blood supremacy, joined the Death Eaters, and then had to face the consequences of that choice is what makes his story compelling.
We can speculate endlessly about why and to what extent he changed his mind. To me, itâs way more interesting seeing him do the messy and hard work of unlearning the ideology he was raised with, rather than narratives that make him blameless or make him realise fascism is bad because he fancies someone.
Seven stories from the long, tense week between Harryâs departure from Little Whinging and Bill and Fleurâs fateful wedding night.
Or: The Weasleys prepare to go to war.
2 August 1997
Ginny has spent the last six hours tossing and turning in her tangle of sheets, twisting them tighter and tighter around her legs so that they now feel more like restraints than bedding. Sleep has come only in brief, treacherous snatches. One moment sheâs blinking heavily into darkness; the next she's jerking awake with her heartbeat lurching in her throat, convinced sheâs heard another crack of apparition in the yard or a bellowed curse from downstairs.
The night has slipped by without her permission. She never saw darkness give way to dawn, though she knows it must have happened; the pale, gray light of early morning is spilling through the gaps in her curtains. But every time exhaustion begins to pull her under, her mind hurls her back into the night before, fixating on the strangest, most vivid details.
The ache in her knees from kneeling on the solid gold dance floor, waiting, watching, while Yaxley and Macnair questioned each member of the family in turn.
The eerie calm her mother wore as she led two Law Enforcement Patrol officers into the house to show them the ghoul.
Madame Delacour swearing at Macnair in sharp, furious French.
The tear tracks cutting through the dirty streaks on Gabrielleâs cheeks.
The identical storm-dark expressions on Tonksâs and Fleurâs faces asâafter what had already been nearly two hours of painful, taunting interrogation about Harryâs whereaboutsânone other than Fenrir Greyback suddenly emerged from the dark orchard, hulking into the tent, prowling toward the half-circle of kneeling Weasleys, Delacours, and Lupins.
âWilliam Weasley,â drawled Greyback, and Ginnyâs stomach turned over as she watched her oldest brother close his eyes, his lips thinning, his chest rising and falling in a slow, deep breath. âWell, well, well, Iâm a bit miffed I wasnât invited to this little do. I mean, youâve a lot to thank me for, havenât you? Look at that gorgeous face of yours.â
Read the full chapter on AO3.
Read from the beginning on AO3.
Seven stories from the long, tense week between Harryâs departure from Little Whinging and Bill and Fleurâs fateful wedding night.
Or: The Weasleys prepare to go to war.
1 August 1997
Itâs been precisely one day since Charlieâs Portkey landed in England and, selfish though he feels about it, heâs already itching to leave. Every time he returns to the Burrow, it feels a little different than he remembersâhe feels like a puzzle piece that doesnât quite fit, the curves and angles slightly off. And this time, with the house shrouded in a fog of constant fear and anxiety, everything feels even more off-kilter than usual. His mother is wound up tighter than the ropes that cordon off the boundaries of the dragon reserve, his father is tired and unsettled and thin, andâmost unnervinglyâhis siblings all take it in stride. Even today, the day of his brotherâs weddingâamid the lush, sunlit orchard that sparkles with music, laughter, and a gleaming gold dance floorâeverything feels precarious, suspended at the edge of something awful.
He does feel guilty, sometimes, that he didnât come home to join the war effort on the ground like Bill. But as the second-bornâthough heâd certainly done his fair share of babysitting and reading practice and maths tutoringâhe isnât driven by that fierce, unquestioning pull of family duty that seems to steer all of Billâs decisions. Nor is he like the twins, gifted and confident enough to charge into battle without a second thought. He thinks itâs for the best, really, that he hasnât come homeâheâs never been like Tonks either, a Chaser, thriving in the heat of the fray. Heâs always worked better from the sidelinesâitâs why he was a bloody good Seeker. And after all, at least he can take a grim sort of satisfaction in knowing that, unlike Percyâwhoâs chosen his own interests over the familyâs entirelyâhe continues to do anything he can for the Order from abroad. Especially now that heâs heard the whispers on the reserve that You-Know-Whoâs making his way east, that heâs been sighted in GermanyâŚ
If heâs honest, the pace of life on the reserve has always just worked for him, in a way that England never did. He doesnât stay away on purposeâitâs just that the days blur together, the weeks bleed into months, and all of a sudden, heâs opening a letter from Mum lamenting that itâs been years since she last saw him, and heâll be shocked to discover that sheâs right. And then heâll return to the Burrow to find that Ronâs grown another foot, Ginnyâs funnier than he remembers, and everyoneâs lives have moved on without him.
Read the full chapter on AO3.
Read from the beginning on AO3.
âHuh?â Harry said in a way that made it obvious to Ginny he had not heard what she had asked him.
âWhat are you holding that has you concentrating so hard? An obsessive note from a Rita Skeeter admirer?â she teased, settling onto the sofa.
Harry still stood in the middle of the sitting room, one hand tangled in his hair, the other holding a slightly crumpled envelope, unmistakably Muggle with the stamps on the front. The sort that had never once found its way to their home before.
âItâs a birthday card,â he said, a little distantly.
âThat makes sense,â Ginny replied lightly. âGo on, pin it up with the rest.â
Harry didnât move. His gaze remained fixed on the card, as though it might vanish if he looked away.
âItâs from my cousin,â he said.
Ginny stilled. âYour cousin? Dudley?â
âI only have the one.â
âHarry?â
He looked up at last, drawn out of that faraway stare as Ginny reached over and touched his arm. âYeah?â
âThatâs⌠nice,â she said gently. âThat he sent a card.â
Harry let out a quiet breath, almost a laugh, though there was no humor in it. âI didnât even know he knew I had a birthday.â
Ginny tilted her head. âWhat did he write?â
Harry glanced back down at the card. âHappy Birthday.â
.âWell,â Ginny said, a smile tugging at her lips, âthatâs certainly concise.â
Harry huffed softly, then added, almost as an afterthought, âHe wants me to visit.â
Ginnyâs expression shifted. âDoes he? He wants you to go to Privet Drive?â
Harry shook his head faintly. âNo. Heâs got his own place now. Moved out.â
Ginnyâs eyebrows lifted. âWellâgood for him. I bet his mum still drops off cooked meals and clean laundry, though.â
But Harry didnât answer.
Her voice faded somewhere behind him, drowned out by the sudden, sharp pull of memory. Piles of presents stacked high for Dudleyâbright paper, ribbons, more every year than the last. The noise, the fuss, the way the whole house seemed to revolve around him.
Harry also remembered the quiet. Long days that passed like any other, no different, no marked moment to set them apart. No cards. No cake. No one saying the words.
He remembered primary school, a chart pinned to the wall with every studentâs birthday written in careful, looping handwriting. Heâd stood there longer than he meant to, scanning the list until he found his own name next to the date, July 31st.
That had been the first time heâd known his birthday. But summer meant empty classrooms, meant no one there to notice, no desk with a card waiting, no offhand âhappy birthdayâ from a classmate or teacher. Just another day slipping by, unremarked.
yousharknotpass
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