Harry Potter Appearances 1 // By The Book
By The Book // Harry Potter Appearances 1
I’m in a book club and we started talking about the problems of the Harry Potter movies and one of the main issues we all had was some of the appearances of the characters. Which gave me the idea to do this little thing called “By The Book” where I talk about how I envisioned characters based off of their book appearances. Marauders included.
Gryffindors
Harry Potter:
“ Harry had always been small and skinny for his age. … Harry had a thin face, knobbly knees, black hair, and bright green eyes. He wore round glasses held together with a lot of Scotch tape... The only thing Harry liked about his own appearance was a very thin scar on his forehead that was shaped like a bolt of lightning. “
I imagined Harry (in the first book) to be extremely small, almost as if he was a first grader and being very petite. His hair in my head would be like, three times the size of his head, and would be curly, jet black, and messy. His eyes were described as almost once so I thought of them like that and of course, bright green.
Further in the book, however, I imagined him a bit different. He kept his messy, wild, jet black curly hair but his wieght and height had changed. I think this is because characters is further books described him as “tall” so I imagined him as taller and more strong looking. Probably around 5′6 during his fifth year.
Ronald Weasley:
“ tall, thin and gangling, with freckles, big hands and feet, and a long nose. firey red hair “
A lot of people say that Ron isn’t attractive, which with how people draw him I can see why. However, I always imagined him to be much more handsome than Harry. I imagined him very tall and lanky, small, and very boyish looking. His hands and feet were very large and freckles covered everything on his body. My favorite part of him was always his hair, because I took “firey red hair” literally and thus led me to think his hair was fire engine red.
His appearance never really changed much for me, he just got taller and his hands and feet just got bigger over the years.
Hermione Granger:
“ She had a bossy sort of voice, lots of bushy brown hair, and rather large front teeth. “
I think Hermione appearance was a major let down for me, as it was constantly said that she had bushy hair and large front teeth. If anybody is wonder why she didn’t have large front teeth it is because Emma could not talk well with them in, I imagine that was like having dracula vangs in.
Though back to the point, I imagined Hermione to have large, frizzy, bushy brown hair that was, like Harry, three times the size of her head. Her teeth I imagined weren’t very big actually, I don’t know why but I considered them normal, which now thinking about it was probably because my two front teeth are bucked. We don’t get much about her body size unlike the boys (tall, small, skinny, lanky, etc.) but I always seen her as more tall but on the heavier size.
When she was older in book four, I imagined her to not had grown much and her to be skinner than before.
Fred & George Weasley:
“ shorter and stockier than Percy and Ron, who were both long and lanky fiery red hair, freckles “
I kind of ignored the book with their appearance and imagined them more like how they were casted. Taller and lanky like Ron, and they had the trademark freckles along with the feiry red hair I loved.
Something noticable that I changed and outcasted them from the Weasley family was their eyes, I imagined everyone in the Weasley family to have blue eyes except Fred and George.
Ginny Weasley:
“ a long mane of red hair and when her jaw sets her resemblance to Fred and George is striking “
I somewhat ignored the description we’re given. I imagined her to look much more girly, a very soft jaw with large light blue eyes. Less freckles than Fred, George, or Ron that just set over her nose. I still saw her with long, firey, silky red hair, however.
When she got older I imagined her to be very petite, I had an image set in my mind of her Quidditch gear being too big on her and falling off at times.
Lavender Brown:
We never really got a description.
Lavender had more personality than physiology. Over the time I read about her I did get an imagine in my mind as I obsess over details. I imagined her with a heart shaped face that had a very stuck out chin, long wavy ginger hair, big and round blue eyes, a small button nose, big lips, and tan skin. I don’t know where I got it but here were some of my reasons as a child (which is when I first read the books)
Lavender talked a lot so a big mouth went with the phrase “Lavender Brown has a big mouth.”
She often begged or got upset so puppy like eyes made sense.
I liked long hair, and I liked gingers.
Seamus Finnigan:
I could not find his description, if he had one it was most likely small.
I kind envisioned him to look like the dumb blond type and I for some odd reason always seen him as ugly. I might of thought that because I didn’t like his character though.
Neville Longbottom:
“ round faced short and plump and blond “
Neville wasn’t a character that stuck out to me until I reread the books as an adult. When I was a child I imagined him as like Dudley but more handsome. He had short blond hair, was short but taller than Harry, and plump. I saw him with freckles but when I reread the books I never imagined him like that.
When he was older I imagined him very tall, almost like Ron, his blond hair was longer and the freckles were gone.
Adult Gryffindors/ Marauders:
James Potter:
He was my first crush of the book series. I imagined him like Harry but always saw him as cuter. He was very tall and muscular looking, much like Harry was when he grew up. I saw him with a strong jaw and ocean blue eyes and of course, jet black messy curly hair.
I think a good way to describe his hair would be like young Tom Riddle (another crush of young me).
I would like to mention his Animagi form, I imagined him as a very large deer with horns the size of trash cans (sort of like Hagrids’ hands).
Sirius Black:
His appearance obvious changes a lot from his young self to Prisoner Of Azkaban self. So let us start with young Sirius, I imagined him to have long hair for what a guy would typically be considered. Probably to his shoulder and very black but not jet black like James. His eyes were almond shaped and light grey with playfulness in them. I imagined him to be one inch shorter than James, standing at 5′9 while James is 6ft.
Also, I had this strange fascination with him dressing in romantic goth styled clothing, I don’t know why but he gave me that vibe when he was young.
“ He had a gaunt, sunken face, waxy skin, yellow teeth, and long, matted hair. “
When we first see him I imagined him to be as he was described, very skinny with sunken face that brought out his high cheekbones (find the positives, Bella) his skin being waxy and looking tired. His teeth yellow and crooked from them being ground against and his once long, silky hair being to his waist and matted. I had this vision of him having scratch marks and scars all over his body, almost as if he was self harming.
Remus Lupin:
My favorite Marauder! I related to him the most out of the Marauders due to his mature and nerdy nature but onward to the appearance. Young Remus, I imagined him to be tall and lanky like Ron, I think he was the tallest. He has a thin face and a soft jar making him appear less manly than James and Sirius but more boyish like Peter. His hair would be a chestnut brown, soft and shaggy, with curls in it ending a little below his jaw. I always made his eyes chestnut brown with a hazel like ring around them. Also, his scars would be on his cheek, across his eye and through his eyebrow, and then another one starting at his chin and ending at his neck.
“ The stranger was wearing an extremely shabby set of wizard's robes that had been darned in several places. He looked ill and exhausted. Though quite young, his light brown hair was flecked with grey. “
I imagined him a lot like how he was described. Wearing shaggy robes that were a leather like brown and had patches sewn into it, all of them being different colors and patterns. He loss that boyish look and looked much older than he was, probably due to me visioning him to have wrinkled or aged skin and bags under his eyes. His chestnut hair did have grey hairs scattered throughout and he had grew scruff that also had grew in it.
Peter Pettigrew:
People tend to make Peter ugly, which as his character is described (physically and personality-wise) but I always thought of the Marauders all being handsome or even a little pretty. While I envisioned him being the least attractive I never saw him as ugly. I pictured him, when he was young, being the shortest maybe even shorter than Harry. His eyes would be smaller than average but a pretty light green. His nose was pointed but long and his lips were small and thin. His teeth were much like Hermiones’ being bucked.
Lily Evans:
I always thought Lily to be the second prettiest girl in the Harry Potter franchise (my first being a certain looney Ravenclaw). I imagined her to be very petite but taller than Peter and shorter than Sirius. Her hair was medium and thick, it was auburn but had streaks of firey ginger highlights. Her eyes were almond shaped and bright green like Harrys, her skin was milky and clear.
When she got older I imagined her to be taller but the three boys still taller than her. Her auburn hair would be longer and often kept in a ponytail due to baby hair pulling on it, her green eyes still seeming perfect and full of life despite the bad circumstances. She would grow out of her petite form and have a curvier more woman like body.
Molly Wobbles Weasley:
“ short, plump, and kindly-looking woman sabor-tooth tiger when mad “
Molly was one of my favourite characters because of her nature, she reminded me a lot of my mother. I always pictured her as a short, plump, woman who had curly short firey red hair. Her eyes being a light, kind looking shade of blue with periwinkle specs. I always liked to picture her smile because I felt like she would have plump lips and nice white teeth and a kind smile.
“ June and August of 1995 she lost a good deal of weight and appeared paler, though she seemed to get a healthier look back by the next year “
After her wieght loss I still pictured her as plump looking woman but I did change some of her features that stayed the same. I pictured her with her hair much shorter almost to the end of her jaw and still curling up, I gave her straight bangs that were side swept onto both sides and gave her an age spot from the sun.
Authur Weasley:
“ Arthur had bright red hair, though he was balding by the early 1990s. He wore glasses and had blue eyes, and also possessed the tall, thin build inherited by his sons “
For some reason I made every son of his taller than him, I wanted him to be the same height of Molly. I made his eyes around light blue shade, his hair the same fiery red but thin and balding. I imagined his glasses to be thick and round.
In the later books I gave him a hunch back but kept his other features the same.
Did you not see a character you wanted to? Please know that this is just the first ‘By The Book’ I am sorting by houses as it is easier, I’ll eventually get to Professors, and more secondary characters. I will likely be doing Slytherin or Ravenclaw next so keep an eye out for that.
