“That’s us!“
when she was sorted into gryffindor, she was excited and nervous, because she was a muggleborn and wasn’t quite sure what that meant. but everyone was smiling and clapping, and she grinned at the sea of smiling faces dressed in red.
she was given a place in the boys dorm, and that seemed right to her at the time. but in her fourth year, she began to wonder if the out-of-place feeling she had wasn’t just her anxiety and awkwardness, but something else. when she realised she was a girl, it felt like she had blossomed into the world, to face it as a finished person. she told people that summer - texts to her muggle friends, owls to the wizards, and everyone was happy for her. for days she couldn’t do anything without the beep of her phone, or the peck of an owl at the window.
when she came back to hogwarts, and went to her dorm, she turned the other way. towards the girls dorm, where she had a place ready for her, picked out by her friends. she felt that same tight nervousness she felt when she was sorted, the pounding in her chest, the shaky hands. but she told herself to be calm. she was going to do this.
she put her foot on the bottom step. and then the next. and then the next.
the voice inside her head that had been telling her that hogwarts wouldn’t realise who she was shut up. she whispered a thank you to the steps, a small word that only the castle heard. then she ran up the rest of the stairs, a grin emblazoned on her face, new robes swirling behind her, ready to start the next year at school.
-
he was fifteen when it happened. he had been questioning for a while, but he wasn’t sure. he didn’t want to call himself a boy, not yet. a part of him was urging himself to just go for it, because he knew who he was, if he really thought about it. but he was hesitant, and didn’t define himself.
then it happened. one night, when he was alone, he was going back upstairs, when he slipped. his hand steadied himself on the rough stone wall, and he looked down to see what had happened. one of the steps was slanted, just enough to make him trip. it wiggled a bit, then made itself into a step, as if nothing had happened. he frowned at it at the time, and went up to bed, but the memory of the incident lingered days after. and weeks.
he remembered it later, when he sat up all night thinking of how he didn’t belong here, in the girls dorms. he didn’t want to label himself, but he’d been more and more out of place, and he knew who he was, really. when he stopped telling himself that he wasn’t.
it wasn’t too long before he told everyone. he felt like shouting it from the rooftops, flying over the castle with his new name on a banner. he didn’t, though. he just settled for casual chats with the people he knew and an awkward owl to his professors.
and one night, after he’d settled in to the boys dorms, he put a foot on the bottom step of the girls staircase. instantly, the bricks flattened themselves into a slide. he grinned, and carried on up to his new room in the boys dorms.
-
they always knew they didn’t quite fit into any of the genders they knew. they weren’t quite a boy, weren’t quite a girl, but they didn’t have the words to express what they felt. it was only after a few years at hogwarts (and a lengthy google search one night at home) that they learned the word ‘nonbinary’, and realised that there was a word for it, after all.
they decided to be casual about it at school. the people that they trusted knew, and some of the teachers. but it wasn’t as though they had a separate dorm just for them, so
except…
one day, when they were heading up to sleep, they saw a door. it was on the stairs to the dorms - girls went one way, boys went the other, with a blank wall in the middle. except it wasn’t blank, not then. there was a door. they asked their friends about it, but just got strange looks in return. but every time they climbed those stairs, the third door was there.
the next year brought a new wave of first-years, and they joined a group helping the kids out with navigating hogwarts. they were showing a group the way to the dungeons when one asked them what the third door was for. you know, the one between the girls and boys dorms. they froze, and looked down at a nervous first-year who was, even then, getting odd looks from their classmates.
they opened it together, the first-year and them. turned out it was another dorm. the beds were made, light shone through the windows, and the whole room seemed to beckon, invitingly. the first-year was ecstatic, and they found themself smiling too. the pair of them moved in the next day, and began to set up their own little space.
after they moved in, everyone could see the door. and slowly, the dorm began to fill up. kids from all years claimed beds there, older kids who had been too nervous to try the door, younger kids who were thrilled that it existed. they were the first, so they were looked up to, and they were happy they had.
-
help will always be given by hogwarts, you see. even for those who don’t know they need it.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY THOMAS STANLEY HOLLAND. Even though spider-man is my favorite super hero, you are the first and truly the best hero I could ever ask for. Have a good one💗💗💗
Ron Weasley (via incorrect-harry-potter-quotes)
“Now you have to let him make the first move. It’s only polite. So step up. Give him a nice bow. Then you wait and see if he bows back. If he does, you can go and touch him. If not… Well, we’ll get to that later.”
Dean Thomas Appreciation Post
Dean Thomas doesn’t get enough love, so I’m here to fix that
- you know who was good at drawing? Dean Thomas.
- you know who was always loyal to harry? Dean Thomas.
- you know who thought remus was the best teacher ever? Dean “cool sir!” Thomas.
- you know who gets harry and seamus to be friends again? Dean Thomas.
- you know who made a “potter for president” poster? Dean Thomas.
- you know who argued with umbridge? Dean Thomas.
- you know who put a hat on dobby at his funeral? Dean Thomas.
- you know who was “good with a quill”? Dean Thomas.
- you know who fought in the battle of hogwarts without a wand? Dean Thomas.
- you know who offered to forge a signature on harry’s hogsmeade permission slip? Dean Thomas.
- you know who was in love with seamus finnigan? Dean Thomas.
- did i mention dean thomas is good at drawing?
Dean Thomas my friends.
There’s no need to call me “sir”, Professor.
Like how have you NOT read Harry Potter?!!!?
Looking for a guy who:
-is adorable -loves to read -is loyal -has brown eyes -has brown hair -has scars -is a wizard -turns into a werewolf on the full moon -nicknamed moony -remus lupin -im looking for remus lupin
- Draco scrubs the skin on his arm viciously every time he showers. The skin is always red and marked by scratches. He tries so hard to get the mark off of him. He wants to feel clean again. - George can’t look in the mirror anymore. Not without remembering Fred. He smashes all mirrors in their home. He cuts his hair, he dyes it. - Neville sees Nagini in his dreams. But in his dreams it reaches Ron and Hermione before he does. - Harry has multiple wands all around his house hidden in places that only he knows. Beneath his pillow, beneath his bed, under the couch. Just in case. - Hermione’s boggart is no longer failure. - Draco and Blaise are afraid of fire. - Someone accidentally calls George “Fred” once. No one knows who starts crying first. - Headmistress Miverna Mcgonagall is fierce, powerful and kind. All first years are intimidated and amazed, she seems untouchable. However some nights she roams the school hallways and remembers every student she lost, every life that got taken away too soon, every soul that left them too early. - Harry suddenly can’t stay in very small rooms. He feels trapped, his throat starts convulsing and his eyes sting. - Hagrid still feels the weight of what he thought was Harry’s corpse in his hands. It haunts him. - Hermione, Ron and Harry had gotten so used to spending months having one small meal per day that sometimes they forget they’re supposed to eat. - Harry rolls in his sleep once and hits his forehead against the night stand on accident, when he wakes up with pain on his forehead his heart sinks and his whole body freezes. It isn’t until he sees the bruise that he’s able to calm down. Because Voldemort isn’t back. - Ron dreams that he’s back in their tent, traveling and hiding, he’s changing the radio stations and he hears Ginny’s names as one of the victims. - Molly always has “where’s Fred?” on the tip of her tongue, at all times. - Harry spends the year post-war discovering who he is, what he loves, other than the Boy-who-lived and the Savior-of-the-Wizarding-World. Because there are things he never had time to think about, never had time to experiment, never had time to experience. Sometimes he wonders if coming back had been the right choice, because it hurt so bad on some days that he couldn’t take it. - When Teddy is sad or scared and he’s crying, Harry tells him stories and shows him pictures of his parents, it’s then and only then that he calms down and his hair goes back to normal. - Harry pulls back to himself when the date of his death nears every year, his friends do everything in their power to bring him out of it. - Draco and Harry have talks about the war some nights, both saw what Voldemort was capable of, Harry in his dreams, Draco in his home. Both understand. - Luna is quirkier and weirder than ever before. She always does everything in her power to lighten up the mood in the room when the silence is bitter and mournful. It’s like she can’t stop shifting and smiling and nervously twitching and saying random facts about things no one has heard of before. Everyone knows it’s her way of coping, of staying positive. So no one minds. It’s comforting. - Harry gets the sudden desire to travel all over the world. Sometimes Ron and Hermione come with him, others he goes alone, once Neville joins him. Draco does too. - Draco starts writing, he writes thousands of words on some nights and none on others. He’s good at it, too. - Harry always, without fail, looks for Sirius’ constellation. He visits his grave too, tells him how things are going in his life, how he’s coping, how he isn’t. - Hermione getting a tattoo of blooming pastel flowers on top of her “mudblood” scar, because she’s alive, many her friends are alive and she wants to remember that.
And maybe not all is well, maybe they have scars time cannot erase, but they’re together, their hearts are still beating, so it’ll be okay. They’re going to be okay.
harry james potter ;