Xuebing Du
Peter Solarz
let's talk about Bridgerton tea, my ask is open
@theartofmadeline
KIROKAZE
🪼
blake kathryn
almost home
styofa doing anything
pixel skylines
Kiana Khansmith
Claire Keane
Love Begins
hello vonnie
Misplaced Lens Cap
we're not kids anymore.
shark vs the universe
No title available
Monterey Bay Aquarium
trying on a metaphor
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from Canada
seen from Poland
seen from Malaysia
seen from United States
seen from France
seen from T1
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from Malaysia
seen from United States
seen from Malaysia
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from Malaysia
@firstwizardingwar
i love when random tumblr users find my blog and go through it liking and reblogging everything in a frenzy, it feels like i’ve been cultivating a nice backyard with a lovely birdbath and feeder and i’ve glanced out the window to see a bird going absolutely wild with it
Quiet morning in Godric's Hollow
Soft moment between a mom and her baby
I wanted it with pastel colors and soft light to show the tenderness of the moment.
Say cheese! 🐾
When James and Lily go on their first date, Lily doesn't quite understand why James is absolutely livid that a stray dog is following them around Hogsmeade.
old jily fanart from 2021
get to know me meme: [8/15] relationships → James and Lily Potter
The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.
“This is how it is - this is why you’re not in the Order - you don’t understand - there are things worth dying for!”
you ran away from home?
I love Remus Lupin.
I also love Sirius Black, James Potter, Harry Potter, Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley
Happy birthday James Potter ✨✨
Brit picking tip (I think) #7 for those trying to write Hogwarts authentically (links to other tips here) - this is about ways the British system differs from the American one (as I understand it).
First up - you don't graduate from high school in Britain. You just leave. Percy and Oliver are the only named characters we see actually finish their seventh year at Hogwarts. They take their NEWTS, exams finish, and a while later they get on the train and go home. This is true in real life as well -students go on something called "study leave" when their exams start (exam season is May-June), which means they only have to be in school when they are actually sitting an exam and the rest of the time they can be at home studying. After their final exam, they don't return to school . Exams finish in June and schools break up for the summer in July, so fifth and seventh years just get extra long summer holidays.
Students don't even find out how they have done in their exams until a couple of months later. "Results day" is in August.
There are no big graduation ceremonies (not least because we don't know who has actually passed and who hasn't), no gowns, no guest speakers and no valedictorians.
Hogwarts reflects real life closely, in this respect - with the external exams being fifth and seventh year, with them just going home as normal afterwards and with Harry not getting his OWL results until he is at the Weasley's in HBP, and so fanfics that want to portray Hogwarts as accurately as possible should do the same. A big graduation ceremony is as obvious and misplaced an Americanism as waffles for breakfast.
Secondly, circling back to the no valedictorian thing, students are not measured against each other and there is no GPA. The grades a student is getting in one subject has no bearing on their grade in another class and they are not combined.
Because our qualification system is based on two sets of external exams (GCSE and A Level in England Wales and NI, the OWL and NEWT muggle equivalent) the work done during lessons, and tests taken throughout the year don't count towards a final grade. It all rests on the exam in the summer.
Therefore, although the grades you receive throughout school gives you an indication of how well you can expect to do in your exams, they don't actually count towards anything. Therefore there isn't a system of having "top of the class" and ranking everyone against each other. In a test someone can get the highest mark, but that isn't meaningful and is subject to change with the very next test.
And, as I said, each subject is kept totally separate from the other. Failing in history doesn't prevent you from getting the highest score possible in maths, and it won't pull your maths grade down. It is possible (perhaps even normal) to pass some subjects and fail others - just like Harry got an O in DADA but flunked Divination and History of Magic.
Harry sat 9 OWLs and passed 7 of them. That means he has 7 OWLs. The score in one does not impact on his score in another in any way.
And, because we don't have a GPA system, we also don't have a system where you have to maintain certain grades in order to be able to play on school teams or participate in other extra curricular aspects of school life.
Which leads me to my third difference: sports in schools. I know there are Americans who are shocked by the way Quidditch is so casually cancelled in second and fourth year, because High School sports are a big deal in the US and a lot of the athletes are relying on sports scholarships to go to college. Cancelling football or basketball for the year would impact their entire future.
This is not the case in the UK. High school sports are not a big deal (in fact they are a far bigger deal in HP than they are in reality) and athletes don't get sports scholarships to college. Being on a school team is a pretty minor extra curricular activity, no one but the team would notice fixtures getting cancelled (and even the team wouldn't be that bothered) and cancellation would not prevent anyone from getting scouted and going to university.
Therefore, contrary to what Oliver Wood claims, you can in fact cancel Quidditch pretty easily and with no repercussions.
Cancelling the exams at the end of CoS, though... that would have ruined the prospects of all fifth and seventh years in that academic year. So don't do a Dumbledore and cancel exams on a whim unless you specify you just mean the internal ones.
Hope this helps ❤ 🇬🇧
True friendship between Lily and Remus
She had a thing for healing and potion so she helped him more than once!
OK - so as part of my ongoing series of tips to help Harry Potter authors who aren't British write Hogwarts authentically, I posted about food and mealtimes yesterday.
(here)
And I said I would do a post dedicated just to Christmas Dinner and its traditions (an important part of any Hogwarts fic!), so that's what I'm going to talk about today.
First up, I'm sure most people do know thanks to the ubiquity of Anglosphere Christmas movies (not least A Christmas Carol) but - unlike some other European countries where the main gift giving and celebration happen at different times over the 12 days - the UK celebrates on the 25th itself. Therefore whenever Harry is opening his presents or eating Christmas Dinner (or attending the Yule Ball), this is always the 25th December.
So, back to the actual topic -
Despite being called Christmas Dinner this is the meal that Harry eats in the middle of the day, so it is in fact his Christmas lunch. I assume it is called "Dinner" because it is the cooked, main meal of the day (I will talk about Christmas tea later).
Main course
First up - the traditional meat eaten at Christmas in the UK is turkey (if you go way back, it would be goose, but turkey has been in the ascendancy for a good few centuries now). Not everyone has turkey, but turkeys and Christmas are intrinsically linked in the UK to the extent that there is a phrase "it's like turkeys voting for Christmas" when talking about someone choosing to do something that is so clearly against their best interests. Hogwarts always serves turkeys at Christmas, in the books.
Turkey is roasted, and served with "all the trimmings" - which means gravy (made from the turkey stock), stuffing, roast potatoes, mashed potatoes, vegetables and pigs in blankets.
The vegetable most commonly associated with Christmas is brussel sprouts, but parsnips are also popular. There aren't really hard and fast rules on veg, people will serve the ones they like the best, but sprouts are non -negotiable.
It is sort of a joke in Britain that this is the most important meal of the year, it's the one that takes the longest to cook and no one really likes it. (But that's because they are overcooking their turkeys and are wrong about sprouts - it is my absolute favourite meal in the world).
Roast beef is considered the national dish of England, and roast beef and all the trimmings is commonly made and eaten every Sunday (or you go to a pub and have it). If you hear Brits talking about "Sunday lunch" this is what they are referring to (roast beef comes with yorkshire puddings, and often cauliflower cheese, and doesn't include sprouts or pigs in blankets). As this is such a commonly eaten dish, the turkey at Christmas is something different - and made special because it is eaten so rarely. Turkey is only eaten at Christmas by many people and it is hard (if not impossible) to get hold of them in supermarkets at other times of the year.
Pudding
As I said in my post yesterday, "pudding" is a catch all term for dessert, but does also have its own specific meaning of something that has been cooked by steaming or boiling inside a cloth. "Christmas Pudding" fits the definition of both:
Christmas Pudding is a very dense dried fruit sponge cake, that has been steamed rather than baked (and so is nothing like a cake to eat). Traditionally it is doused in brandy and set on fire before serving:
I think it's one of those things that you have to have grown up eating to appreciate.
As it is very dry by itself, most people serve it with either brandy butter or pouring cream.
It's also traditional to add little trinkets to the pudding mix before cooking. These end up in individual servings and have meanings. So a silver coin means wealth for the person who finds it, a wishbone means good luck and a thimble means thrift.
In The Philosopher's Stone "Flaming Christmas puddings followed the turkey. Percy nearly broke his teeth on a silver Sickle embedded in his slice." And this tradition is why.
(NB this is British Tradition and Hogwarts is big on that. My family gets our Christmas puddings ready made from the supermarket and microwaves them. The little plastic bowls they come in recently proved very useful for catching the water leaking from my boiler - Tradition and every day life can look very different).
Entertainment
Along with the hilarity of watching people break their teeth on coins and choke on thimbles, the Christmas Cracker is also a staple of Christmas Dinner.
These are Christmas Crackers. Two people take hold of each end and pull, until the cracker is ripped apart (there is a strip of card inside, dipped in silver fulminate, which explodes with the friction and this causes the bang which gives crackers their name).
Inside a cracker there are an assortment of little prizes, and the person who ends up with the bigger half gets to keep them.
The Philosopher's Stone says this about crackers:
"These fantastic party favours were nothing like the feeble Muggle ones the Dursleys usually bought, with their little plastic toys and their flimsy paper hats inside. Harry pulled a wizard cracker with Fred and it didn’t just bang, it went off with a blast like a cannon and engulfed them all in a cloud of blue smoke, while from the inside exploded a rear admiral’s hat and several live, white mice. Up at the High Table, Dumbledore had swapped his pointed wizard’s hat for a flowered bonnet, and was chuckling merrily at a joke Professor Flitwick had just read him."
Real (muggle) crackers always come with a silly joke to read out (which is intentionally bad), a small, plastic gift - a little yoyo, those fortune telling fish, a key ring, a wind up toy etc - and a paper crown
Christmas Dinner (and much of the afternoon) is spent wearing these crowns.
However, magical crackers are much more impressive and - as the quote shows - come with actual (novelty) hats and better gifts. The explosion is more impressive as well.
Christmas Tea
As I said in my post yesterday, "tea" can refer to the evening meal and have nothing to do with the hot drink everyone associates with the British. And this is the case with Christmas tea.
As the main meal was earlier in the day, and so heavy, Christmas tea tends to be served quite late and is less formal, and much lighter. Sometimes it can be a spread of finger foods (dips, cheeses, tempura prawns etc) but Harry Potter keeps things simple and just goes with turkey sandwiches (which are self explanatory).
As its Christmas, there is still a ridiculous amount of pudding to eat (this time in the catch all dessert sense) and this includes Christmas cake - which (like Christmas pudding) is a fruit cake - only this time it has been baked, rather than steamed.
Christmas Cakes are actually baked around October time, and regularly fed with brandy (has holes poked into it and the brandy poured inside) until the day itself.
Christmas cakes are usually covered in marzipan and then covered in Royal Icing (Royal Icing won't stick to the cake itself, so the marzipan acts as a glue). The end result is something like this:
Mince Pies are also a classic Christmas treat. These are usually individual pies, which can be eaten in a couple of bites, and are sweet mincemeat wrapped in pastry. THERE IS NO ACTUAL MEAT IN SWEET MINCEMEAT!! Mince Pies are 100% all dessert.
Sweet mincemeet is a spiced preserve made up of dried fruit and candied fruit.
(If you're thinking there's a lot of dried fruit involved in a British Christmas - yes there is, because winter is a tough time to grow things and the only fruit around (traditionally) was anything that had been dried out and preserved back in the summer.)
Mince pies can either be eaten as they are or served warm with brandy butter or pouring cream.
Finally there is trifle - which is sponge, jelly (jello for Americans), custard, fruit (not dried this time), cream and sherry:
After all this has been eaten, it is time to fall into a food induced coma and swear to never eat again... Until the next day. December 26th is called "Boxing Day" and is a national holiday in the UK - and the party, and the eating, continues.
I hope this helps anyone trying to write a Hogwarts Christmas chapter and fills in some blanks for various passages in the books which must be frankly baffling without context.
As ever, if you have any specific questions please ask in the comments!
Fleamont and Euphemia Potter: The Newlyweds
i like to imagine these were included in the album that hagrid gave harry!!
or @constancezin is a goddess among us mere mortals (as we all knew) and created these incredible depictions of my sweet flea and mia potter!!!!!!! please ooh and aah accordingly at her brilliance.
read about these unconventional lovebirds here and here!
Your fics are so so good! You brought them into life so vividly!
Fleamia power!
james potter really saw a lanky, socially awkward werewolf, a traumatized aristocrat who doesn't know love, and a shy, always over-looked kid and thought to himself “ah yes, mine now”
