When You Discover That These Two:

Michael Corner was dumped by Ginny Weasley for being a sore loser and in many instances was straight up rude, and he got tortured by the Carrows for releasing a first year student they had chained up.

Ernie Macmillan was pompous and at times even a little obnoxious, and he stood up and asked if students would be able to stay and fight Voldemort.

Seamus Finnigan sided with the ministry and called one of his closest friends a liar, and he owned up to his mistakes and apologized, and was one of the leaders in the fight against the carrows.

Parvati Patil and Lavender Brown were seen as gossipy, giggly, over emotional school girls, and they fought in the battle of hogwarts.

Cho Chang was often emotional, and was jealous of Harry’s friendship with Hermione, and she fought in the battle of hogwarts.

Fred, George, and Lee Jordan were troublemakers at school, and were often seen as immature, and they risked their lives to get information to people during the war and fought in the final battle.

Harry, Hermione, Ron, Neville, Ginny, and Luna also often exhibit immature and sometimes even rude behavior during their school years, and are inarguably six of the bravest most heroic people in the series.

These characters were children. They were teenagers. They were immature, they were petty, at times they were rude. They were over emotional and easily jealous and obnoxious and they all had moments where they were straight up bad people. But that doesn’t change the fact that they were heroes. Teenagers are stupid. These kids were normal teenagers, and they had the same flaws that normal teenagers have, and that shouldn’t overshadow the heroes that they grew into.

NOTE: this post is NOT endorsing or excusing the awful irredeemable behavior of a certain adult character who shall remain nameless. This post is about children who are judged on a few childish actions instead of their bravery and heroism.

Harry and Ron after a few pints

Challenge accepted

can you believe that we have fanfiction. that we have websites dedicated to fanfiction. that there is a place that you can go and read tens, hundreds, thousands and thousands of pieces of writing that strangers have made. people who are not "writers". people who come home at the end of the day and have feelings and say, i am going to put that into words. i am going to share those words. short, long, sweet, sad, horny, funny, wonderful words. we are all just human and we all love to make and remake and share that with others. can you believe that.

I hope we do better there. I hope Jasper was wrong, and we aren’t the problem. I hope your lives there will be as happy as mine has been. Be the good guys. May we meet again.

Magnus birthday snippet!

Happy birthday, High Warlock! I’m currently in Southeast Asia so my sense of global time is a bit skewed, but I believe it to be Magnus’ birthday and will be snippeting accordingly! Hope you enjoy this scene from Lost Book of the White in which Magnus has a lot to contend with.

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Magnus found his robe, blinked the sleep from his eyes, and went into the kitchen, where Jace Herondale was pouring coffee into Magnus’s “I’m Kind of a Big Deal” mug.

“Don’t you have your own coffeepot?” Magnus said blearily.

Jace, blond hair in its usual, preternaturally excellent state,flashed him a winning smile that Magnus was not prepared to deal with before he too had some coffee. “I hear you got stabbed by a weird Norwegian thorn,” Jace said. “Also, do you have any soy milk?Clary’s doing a whole soy milk thing now.”

“What are you doing in my apartment?” said Magnus.

“Well,” said Jace, now rummaging in the fridge, “I’d like to think I’d be welcome anytime, what with my close relationship with all three of you. But in this case, Alec called us. Said something about Shanghai.” ​“Who is us?” Magnus said suspiciously.

Jace waved his coffee cup around. “Us! You know. All of us.”

“All of you?” Magnus repeated. He held up a hand. “Wait. Stop. I am going to go put on something more substantial than a kimono. You are going to use your angelic powers to pour me as large a mug of black coffee as you can find, and I will be right back, and then we can talk about terrible concepts like who ‘all of you’ are, or what Alec told you about last night.”

When he returned to the living room, now suitably dressed, he found Alec, arms folded, looking long-suffering. In the far corner of the room, next to the ceiling, Max floated, tumbling in the air. He didn’t seem to be in peril—indeed, he was yelling “Wheeeeeeeeeee” and appeared to be having an excellent time. Under him, Clary Fairchild and Isabelle Lightwood attempted to nudge him back to the ground with a broom handle. With her free hand, Clary was waving a red braid, trying to get Max interested as though he were Chairman Meow. Max was upside-down and obviously feeling good about it. Everyone else was in t-shirts and jeans, but Isabelle, of course, had shown up in a fitted black sweater over a tiered velvet maxi skirt. She was one of the few people who could occasionally make Magnus feel underdressed.

tell me the story of neville longbottom, the other boy who lived.

tell me the story of a boy who was born unimpressive, who could have been a chosen one had snape listened longer at the door. who had parents that loved and cherished him for far too short a time. who lost his mother and father to the cruelty of death eaters, who had to grow up with a family that always saw him as less than who he was, who he could be, because his magic remained hidden inside him, coiled like a snake.

tell me the story of a boy who could never quite handle school, who could never muster the courage to raise his hand in class, who always messed up his potions somehow. who sat in the gryffindor common room as hermione patiently went over her history of magic notes for him and wondered for the millionth time why he didn’t end up a hufflepuff. who never saw himself as anything special, not really, because there were other kids in his year whose stars burned brighter, while he struggled just to keep up with the bottom of the class.

tell me the story of a boy who stepped up, who foresaw hogwarts descending into darkness and refused to let it happen without a fight. who became the next leader of their secret fight against the dark lord, rebelling against snape and the carrows from within the castle. who led the surge to take the sword of gryffindor from snape’s office; who took blow after blow from torturing death eaters to try and protect the first-years who didn’t deserve any of this. who ended up hiding in the castle, creating a supply line to hogsmeade and continuing to fight under threat of expulsion (and worse) because someone had to do it.

tell me the story of the unchosen one, who went from a nervous little boy to the slayer of nagini in seven years. tell me about that neville longbottom.

Because I know this has been sold out for a while and it’s not fair to those who couldn’t get a copy: The Waterstones special edition Chain of Thorns extra —

Matthew to James letter

Anyone who wants to help transcribe it would be very welcome!

I love this man so much it hurts

BELLAMY BLAKE APPRECIATION

Happy b-day bellsarmy!

Harry James Potter, head of the DA and protégé of Albus Dumbledore himself, did not become a career Auror. -Sure, he worked with them after the war-everyone did. -Harry and Ron led the charge in rounding up old Death Eaters and Hermione researched and wrote crazily, making sure no stone was left unturned in their hunt and no memories were lost of the new history they’d made (her writings were eventually compiled into what is largely considered the most comprehensive history of Voldemort and his attacks ever written. Madame Prince has three copies in the school library). -Even Neville and Luna lent their respective plant and animal (however strange) based abilities towards getting past old defenses and remaking allies. -These children were born and raised in the midst of war, and it took a while for most of them to learn the ways of peace. But once they figured it out (sort of) they settled into their new roles. -Hermione rose rapidly amongst Ministry ranks, Ron returned to family, the only truth he’d ever been sure of, and Harry went back to his first (real, remembered) home. -The Defense Against the Dark Arts position had been rid of its curse for two years by the time Harry applied for the job, and the teacher who held it for those years was only temporary anyways. McGonagall had been hoping Harry would return to Hogwarts, and return he did. -Harry Potter’s Defense lessons were notorious for their seemingly random schedule, where one day the class would be practicing spells normally, the next running obstacle courses in the Forbidden Forest, and the day after that having a class wide discussion on the power of emotions and their use in spells -His first lesson of every year was on the power of chocolate and conversation to comfort, just as he had learned from Remus Lupin years ago. Like his old professor, Harry rewarded students with chocolate for good deeds and correct answers. -Seventh Years got to choose personal research projects, ranging from meticulous dioramas of various battles to the best way to make a pile of dung explode -Sixth Years learned more complicated traditional spells, including the Patronus and healing charms (Harry’s stag never failed to draw gasps the first time he showed it to a group) -Fifth Years combined lessons from all their other classes to find ways to fight without traditional spell work, including stories from Harry about using Wingardium Leviosa to fight a troll his first year and Neville using his plants during the Battle of Hogwarts. (Often, Harry would bring in Hermione, Ron, and Neville to assist in the telling of these tales and the teaching of their techniques.) -Fourth Years got lessons in love and death and ancient theories and stories, along with turns for everyone to go under the Invisibility Cloak on the day devoted to the Deathly Hallows -Third Years learned defense against other species with a final like an obstacle course similar to the one given to Harry by Professor Lupin -Second Year was for most traditional dueling spells, started with Expelliarmus. (Any students that complained about the “boring” spell would have him reply calmly, “this is what saved my life against Lord Voldemort” and shut right up) -First Years started with basic theories, and continued to shielding and camouflaging charms (because Harry never really signed up to fight, and would rather his students never have to) -every year ended with huge tournaments between the years, which he used to help houses bond with each other and to assess skills. They changed between magical paintball or laser tag, scavenger hunts, or temporary prank wars (the other professors’ least favorite), and the winners got to camp on the grounds for a night for s'mores, swimming, and a midnight Quidditch game -His first students were mostly old enough to have been his classmates, just like those of the DA had been, and so his first years of teaching were to war-torn children like himself, who had gaps in their normal seating arrangements that their friends, now dead, had sat in, and the occasional blank stare that Harry was never offended by, as he was accustomed to seeing them on his friends and himself when they were revisiting horrors they’d witnessed -as he continued teaching though, his students came in excited to learn from the famed Harry Potter, and he had to persuade them early on that to them, he was just a teacher who’d show them a trick on the Quidditch field or the location of a secret passageway, nothing more and nothing less -eventually, students would get more excited when Harry announced that Hermione, the Minister of Magic, was coming to visit and chat with them about research, or Ginny, his Quidditch star wife, was arriving soon to show off her Bat Bogey hex than when he mentioned his own history -and as time went on, Madame Pince’s copies of Hermione’s history book stayed on the shelves because students realized Harry was more likely to engage in a snowball fight than a duel and was happiest tucked into a Weasley sweater with a cup of tea, chatting with friends about anything other than defeating Dark Lords; and he was recognized in Diagon Alley less by adults wishing to shake his hand and more by children wanting to say hello to their favorite professor -and students came to love him, not for his fame as the Boy Who Lived, but as a professor who cared, and sought to teach in a way that everyone could learn from, and Harry wouldn’t have it any other way