Can you imagine how differently their lives would’ve gone if Ron, in trying to transfigure Scabbers, had actually transfigured him back into a human? Just take a moment to imagine McGonagall’s reaction if Peter Pettigrew had abruptly appeared in her classroom from Ronald Weasley’s rat. Take a moment.
Or if Ron had fucked it up a little worse and couldn’t get ‘Scabbers’ back and McGonagall had take him to disenchant him and next thing we know there’s a naked Peter Pettigrew sitting on McGonagall’s desk and the kids in that class learn six new swear words, a hex they will never dare to use, and a fear of Minerva McGonagall’s wrath that will be with them until the day they die.
Ten and twenty years later first years are being pulled aside and warned never mess around in Transfiguration seriously the last time a kid mucked something up in that class Professor McGonagall used two semi-legal hexes, took down a Death Eater and sabotaged the rise of the Dark Lord before Potter had time to get his wand out.
What most of Hogwarts learned first on that otherwise-unexceptionable day was that Professor McGonagall could sure scream loud.
Professor Flitwick’s Charms 5th-year Charms class was close enough to catch the full effect, and the door had been left open besides; en masse the students recoiled with shock and a miscast Hiccuping Charm broke one of the windows (out which the entire flock of ravens they were practicing on escaped to the Forbidden Forest where they only had to worry about centaurs, rather than annoying young humans with wands).
Up in the Divination Tower, Sibyl Trelawny preened over her foresight to have warned her students of an unprecedented catastrophe likely to occur before the hour was out.
Out in Greenhouse Five, a NEWT-level Herbology class looked up in puzzlement, and most of them were subsequently bitten by the Venomous Tentaculae they were attempting to propagate. It does not do to ignore a Venomous Tentacula when you’re prodding at its intimate parts with a cotton ball held in tweezers, so the class was cancelled while two-thirds of the students headed for the infirmary and the rest of them headed into the castle because if they stayed with the Venomous Tentaculae they’d be outnumbered, and nobody wants that.
And down in the dungeons, Professor Snape turned away from comparing Lee Jordan’s Pepper-Up Potion to spoiled cream at what sounded like a woman screaming from the entrance hall. At the second scream, he ordered the class to remain where they were and behave, sweeping out of the room just in time to miss Theodore Nott suddenly jumping up and yelping as if someone had put a crocodile heart down the back of his robes.
Fred Weasley stepped back from the unfortunate Slytherin, shared a smirk with his twin, and stuck his head out the door to make sure Snape had rounded the corner before leading the way out of the classroom.
–
Back in the Transfiguration classroom, about four minutes ago, it had started innocently enough. Ron Weasley, possessed of a broken wand and a lurking suspicion that most of the family’s magical talent had been soaked up by his siblings before he was around to get any, had attempted to turn his pet rat, Scabbers, into a teacup.
Scabbers had not become a teacup.
Scabbers, blast his useless furry little backside, had become a furry, vaguely teacup-shaped monstrosity out of which absolutely no one would have been tempted to drink, and to make matters worse, he still had a tail.
It was moving.
Harry was hiding a smile behind his hand. Dean and Seamus weren’t even trying to hide, elbowing each other and laughing. Parvati and Lavender were looking with disgust and horror at either Scabbers or him, and Hermione was opening her mouth, no doubt ready to tell him exactly what he’d done wrong.
Which only made it worse that he really thought he’d done everything right this time.
He snatched Scabbers off the desk (eww, the base of the cup had the same texture as rat feet) and turned away from Hermione. He made the wand movement again, picturing in his mind the way McGonagall had demonstrated it. “Erreverto.”
“Erreverto. Erreverto. Erreverto.”
It didn’t work. It didn’t work when Professor McGonagall stopped by and gave Hermione two points for Gryffindor for getting the spell perfect in both directions. It didn’t work when Harry made his successful transfiguration (Ron looked; the pattern was a little bit furry but it was definitely a teacup). Ron’s lips formed the shape of a word that would’ve made his mother box his ears had she heard it and attempted the reverse transfiguration, which didn’t work either.
Finally, faced not only with the indignity of failure but the threat of Scabbers being stuck like that, he’d gone up to Professor McGonagall’s desk.
“Um, Professor?”
Professor McGonagall looked up from the paper she was grading and looked from him to the squirming teacup. “Problems, Mr. Weasley?”
“Um, yeah, Professor. I can’t get it to work in either direction and it’s not fair to Scabbers to make him stay as a teacup just because I can’t do a spell right and can you maybe … ?”
“I suppose so, Mr. Weasley,” she said, and waved her wand in the exact manner Ron had been doing all along.
Nothing happened.
Professor McGonagall looked very, very puzzled.
“Now that’s odd,” she said softly.
As one, the other students rose from their seats and quietly moved closer.
She did not attempt the transfiguration in the other direction. Instead, she made a complex motion with her wand and murmured an incantation that possibly only Hermione recognized. The teacup squeaked. Professor McGonagall looked more puzzled than ever, and made a sweeping wand movement that ended with a sharp jab and uttered, “Arcanum finite!”
And there was a loud bang, and there was a pale, pudgy, and very naked man sprawled out on her desk, and she jumped back hard enough to knock her chair into the wall and screamed.
–
Having taught a particularly rigorous course of magical study to children and teens for quite some time now, Minerva McGonagall had become accustomed to certain things. Students who didn’t listen. Students who did rude things to the mice when they thought she wasn’t looking. Students who accidentally turned a frog or a raven into a flock of starlings or a school of strange slimy South American fish (and tried to solve the immediate problem by filling the classroom with two feet of water, neglecting to consider the gap under the door). Students who tried to transfigure their noses into a more appealing shape and wound up in the hospital wing regrowing their nostrils.
Naked men on her desk was something Minerva McGonagall had never had an occasion to get used to. What made it worse was that she recognized this one, and he’d been dead for more than a decade.
Inferius! was her first thought, followed shortly thereafter by Animagus, which collided with Peter Pettigrew! and produced the utterly horrifying thought of what if all four of them were Animagi? which didn’t bear thinking about at all, so her brain jumped to if he wasn’t killed by a Dark Wizard then why didn’t he say so? and realized there was only one possible explanation why, and about that time her eyes registered that parts of Peter Pettigrew she really doesn’t want to know about were flopping about in front of her face, and she was screaming as she jumped back.
The flow of invective which followed somehow failed to surprise her one bit. Some part of her registered, peripherally, the shocked faces of her students, but most of her attention was directed at Peter Pettigrew, who at very least faked his own death and at worst framed Sirius Black and if Black didn’t betray the Potters then who … did. And the words poured out of her, filthy English and filthier Latin while Pettigrew squirmed on the table, his face rage and guilt and fear and something shifty and contemptible, and he turned to look at the stunned students and lunged for Ron Weasley’s wand.
–
Severus Snape had reached the Entrance Hall by the time the scream died away and the invective replaced it. He almost smirked, amid the alarm; of all the things he’d never expected to hear from Minerva McGonagall … he took the stairs two at a time, still not noticing the students who followed.
He did notice the Herbology class, which had stopped on the way to the Infirmary and were staring transfixed in the direction of the Transfiguration classroom, but pushed his way through them, getting Venomous Tentacula pollen all over his robes in the process.
From the other end of the corridor came Professor Flitwick’s Charms class, with Professor Flitwick bringing up the rear and pushing his way between students.
–
Ron looked stunned as the man who’d been his pet rat snatched the wand from his hand; Professor McGonagal’s expression shifted to one beyond fury and when the entire class recoiled, it wasn’t from the naked man with the wand.
“Laedo!“ Minerva McGonagall roared.
–
Ron Weasley’s wand cast a Splintering Curse many years beyond its rightful owner’s abilities, and it did Peter Pettigrew the poor favor of eliminating the door, which might have slowed him down a bit.
–
Severus Snape flailed and skidded to a halt as the Transfiguration classroom’s door shattered. He stepped back just in time, and stared, jaw dropped in shock, as a naked man he recognized from his school days flew past him and bellyflopped against the wall, bounced, and collapsed to the ground just in time to avoid the “Exitium!” which followed and vaporized an impresive chunk of the castle’s stone wall.
Fred and George and Lee Jordan, determined to stay at the front of the crowd, had been pushed almost against Professor Snape by their fellow Potions classmates and some pollen-coated Hufflepuffs. Fred squirmed aside hastily as Professor McGonagall appeared in the doorway, the look on her face so utterly livid that Professors Snape and Flitwick both reflexively stepped back.
Snape tripped over George’s foot and fell against a knot of Hufflepuffs, releasing another cloud of pollen and knocking them backwards. Pettigrew saw his opportunity and took it, scrambling to his feet, stumbling sideways, and launching himself towards the gap.
And Minerva McGonagall made a thrust with her wand and said, “Perdo.”
In the very loud silence which followed, Filius Flitwick squeaked, “The Splinching Charm, Minerva?”
She might’ve looked embarrassed for a moment, and then she smiled as she looked down at Pettigrew, who lay on his belly, his arms and legs lying akimbo some distance away.
“Unorthodox,” she said, “but useful in a pinch. If someone would inform the Headmaster, and send an owl to the Ministry—-not Fudge, not Crouch, someone competent—-Shacklebolt, perhaps. Students, return to your classrooms, please. Mr. Weasley, I’m very sorry, but I do believe it’s impossible to return you your rat. However, the zero I was going to have to give you for the day’s work is entirely undeserved, as you were not transfiguring a normal rat. You may make the lesson up any time this week.”
–
The story was, of course, much embellished by the time it reached all the students. Versions of it had the intruder peppering Snape with a Glitter Hex or transfiguring Ron’s rat into a pair of boxers, and people had to be disabused of the notion that it had been Voldemort who’d been hiding as a rat all this time.
Snape gave both Weasley twins detention for tripping him, and took forty-seven points total from Gryffindor over the next few weeks for various pretend-subtle pollen references.
Kingsley Shacklebolt showed up with a team of Aurors in time to meet Professor Dumbledore; the Wizengamot launched an investigation into the events surrounding the Potters’ murder; the results turned into a scandal which saw the release of Sirius Black and the forced resignation of both Director Bartemious Crouch and Minister Cornelius Fudge. Director of Magical Law Enforcement Amelia Bones was confirmed as Minister of Magic shortly thereafte, and the Daily Prophet reported that Sirius Black (“Godfather to the Boy-Who-Lived!” “Framed, Abandoned, Condemned to Living Hell!” “Heart-Wrenching: His Release In Pictures, Page 17!”) was considering applying for a teaching position at Hogwarts, “but just for a year, I’ve been cursed enough for one lifetime.” (“The Prophet reminds its readers that the so-called “curse” on a certain Hogwarts teaching position is almost certainly a mere string of coincidences.”)
And, Minerva thought with relish some months later, it was almost three weeks before anyone attempted messing around in her class.
A personal record.
I’ve probably reblogged this before but I’m going to do it again right now
HOW CAN THIS BE A QUICK ANIMATION IT IS SO SMOOTH AND THE MOUTH MOVEMENTS FIT TO THE WORDS AND DUMBLEDORE’S MUSTACHE MOVES AND HE HAS A BUTT AND THIS IS SO COOL AND YOU ARE SO COOL AND THANK YOU AND LET ME GIVE YOU CHOCOLATE OR MY LIVER JUST TAKE THINGS YOU CAN HAVE EVERYTHING ヽ/❀o ل͜ oﾉ
ISN’T IT AMAZING THAT 3 TOTAL STRANGERS THAT WILL NEVER MEET FROM 3 DIFFERENT COUNTRIES CAME TOGETHER TO TELL A JOKE ABOUT AN OLD WIZARD WHO WANTS TO WEAR SEXY SOCKS LIFE IS AMAZING (」゜ロ゜)」
The other
day I read a series of posts on the Hogwarts uniform and how book!uniform
differs from movie!uniform, which is more canonical and whether there’s
been/there should be some retconning to unify the books, films and
illustrations from different sources. Since wizarding fashion is one of my
favourite subjects (particularly since the word “corsets” was mentioned in
HBP), I thought I had to write a post about it. So here it goes.
On tradition
and unmuggleness
As much as
I like the movie uniforms, the way I see it, they’re irreconcilable with those
described in the books, which, both because they’re from the book and because
that’s how I see them in my head, I consider canonical. Most people point out
as proof of this that in a couple of occasions we are told more or less directly
that the basic (I’ll talk more about this later) uniform does not bear any
house indicator (see the Penelope Clearwater and Crabbe-and-Goyle’d
Ron-and-Harry Cases, both in CoS). This is true. However, what I see as a
bigger issue is the fact that the movie!uniform is basically a muggle school
uniform with robes instead of a blazer, which, considering how often we see
wizards struggling with muggle clothing, doesn’t really add up. And given that
school uniforms tend to be on the conservative side of fashion, it would make
much more sense to have the Hogwarts uniform resemble traditional wizarding
attire.
On openings
and trouserslessness
The movie
robes are completely open at the front save for one (PoA-onwards) or two
(PS-CoS) little clasps, which would take next to no time to do up and undo, so
the movie robes would be put on and off like a bathrobe or a coat. However,
most (if not all) of the times we see Harry changing into his school robes he’s
described as pulling them over his head. To me that implies that the front is
not open all the way down, that maybe there’s just a small opening with a few
buttons, like a polo shirt. Either that or the robes are open all the way down
but fastening and unfastening them is so tedious that students simply never do
them up or undo them all the way. In a pre-zipper world, a front opening like
that would most probably mean a metric tonne of little buttons, at least (look
up some old-timey portraits, particularly of women’s fashion. They took their
buttons seriously). No one has time to fiddle with that many buttons, so it
would be easier to undo a few of the top ones and pull the robes over your
head.
Personally,
I think the left-hand version fits the description of “plain black work
robes” better. And yes, there’s no indication anywhere in the books that the sleeves
are flared or gathered at the top, but they look more wizardy this way, so.
For an even
more undeniable piece of evidence that supports the idea of having a closed
front, look no further than Snape’s worst memory in OotP. When he gets
levicorpused by James, we see his underwear. He’s not wearing trousers. Wh. Why
is he not wearing trousers??? Because there’s no risk of accidental exposure of
one’s undergarments when there isn’t a massive opening on the front of one’s
robes, that’s why. Also, if for some sinister reason he had not been wearing trousers under open-fronted
robes, everybody would’ve been able to see his pants already and it wouldn’t
have been “funny” when James revealed them.
Moreover, it
seems that trousers, even though they are
worn in the wizarding world, are neither required nor part of traditional
wizarding attire. See the old man in the Quidditch World Cup. Trousers have
been adopted to some extent, but they are not considered wizarding
clothing per se, but rather a garment borrowed from muggles. So if we go back to the idea that uniforms tend to be conservative,
the Hogwarts uniform would have probably been designed to be worn with no
clothes underneath other than underwear.
On hats gone
with the wind and cloaks
Hats. “One
plain pointed hat (black) for day wear.” Day
wear. In the films (PS, basically), hats seem to only be worn on special
occasions. And I can understand that; On set they’re probably a huge
inconvenience as they like to fall off and have to be touched up constantly and
may cover something/someone important. Still, canonically, a pointed black hat
for day wear is part of the Hogwarts uniform.
Now, do not
quote me on this, but I am positive that in one of the books there is a
description of a windy day where students grab the brims of their hats so that
they don’t get blown off. That’s the one and only time in the whole series
(that I can remember) where the uniform hats are said to be brimmed. It makes
sense, though, as traditional witch hats do have a brim. Modest brims seem
adequate for uniforms. (I do think it is strange to make students wear hats
indoors, but oh well.)
Then there’s
the winter cloaks. Again, plain and black, this time with silver clasps. No
crest, no house colours. And there’s also the protective dragonskin gloves,
which seem to be used both as protective gloves for Potions/Care of Magical
Creatures/Herbology and as regular winter gloves.
On house
pride (or the lack thereof)
So far we
have established that the uniform consists basically of plain black garments: a
set of black robes (closed front), a black cloak, a black hat. Hence, by
default, there is no way to tell what house a student belongs to just by their
attire. Or is there? Here’s where the “basic uniform” I mentioned before comes
into play.
It is true
that the robes, hats and cloaks are plain black when bought. And yet, there are
many points in the story when Harry seems to simply know what house some students belong to, even when he
clearly doesn’t know them. We get constant references to “a gorup of first year
Ravenclaws” or “a Hufflepuff girl”, and since the story is told from Harry’s
point of view rather than an omniscient narrator’s, there must be a way for Harry
to tell apart people from different houses without knowing them personally. So
how can we reconcile the ideas that some people’s house is recognisable at
first sight while other people’s isn’t? It’s quite simple: CUSTOMISATION.
Bagdes,
scarves, appliques, ribbons, hat ornaments, buttons, socks, belts, and a long
etc, to show your house pride. Just as we can get jumpers and hoodies and caps
and whatnot with the name and colours of our uni or specific college, kids in
the wizarding world are probably able to buy (and make) house merchandise. These
items would be available at Diagon Alley and Hogsmeade, and parents would send
them to their children once they’ve been sorted or the kids themselves would be able
to get them via owl order.
Some students
may only wear a small badge on their chest. Others a scarf+turtleneck undershirt+bandana+animal-shaped
hat bauble combo. I love to imagine some kids wearing ridiculously tacky
things, like red-and-gold neck ruffles or bee-striped boots. And those kids who
are not as inclined to show off their house? They can just wear their basic
black uniform.
Ok but someone tell me why Harry didn’t grow up to be the best Defense Against Dark Arts professor Hogwarts has ever known
RIGHT??? what is up with this he becomes an auror crap?? Harry would have loved being a teacher and watching his students improve throughout the years. Revamping the curriculum because if he could teach kids as a child himself how to cast a patronus, perhaps everything they think of as only NEWTs levels and beyond really just weren’t taught well before.
Making him become an auror just makes him continue the fight he was forced into as a child and didn’t enjoy, Harry enjoyed teaching the DA. Why wouldn’t he chase after doing something he loves with his life????? And then he’d be able to train the next generation to make sure that they can protect the world, too.
thisthisthisthisthis
YES. I can just picture Professors Potter and Longbottom joking about students and the other teachers during meals, playing mini pranks on Headmistress McGonagall, who’d purse her lips and remind them that they were adults, then look away before they could catch the twinkle in her eye. All the students would either have a massive crush on them or admire them or both. Harry is the only teacher capable of taming Teddy (who became known as the prank king, comparable to the Weasley’s twins) and eventually James, Al, and Lily. He develops connections with each of his students and teaches them according to the way he’s noticed they learn best and his classroom becomes a usual hangout for students, as he’s always got food and a “lame dad joke” that everyone secretly loves.
I could go on, but I have to stop myself before I get too into this.
Okay, this now officially drives me nuts because this would have made SO MUCH SENSE. And not only because of Harry’s temperament. Yes, he would have LOVED teaching DADA, but do you know who else wanted to teach DADA?
Tom Riddle.
Voldemort cursed the position so no one could stay for over a year, and Rowling said that the curse broke upon his death. It would have brought the Prophecy’s plot line to full circle, because it shouldn’t have been anyone other than Harry who became the first un-cursed DADA professor.
It would have been just another part Harry vanquished.
And how important would it be to the students as well, and to him being able to progress with a comfortable, normal life? Because every witch/ wizard in the UK goes through Hogwarts. The first year after the war, he starts, and the students all come home at Christmas or in the summer and their parents are all ‘WOW you’ve been taught by HARRY POTTER what was he like?” And all these students who are totally over it already like “I don’t know, just… he’s just Professor Potter. He’s just Harry. He makes shit jokes and hands out chocolate in lessons. He’s just a really great guy.” And over the years it stops being people yelling ‘The Chosen One’ or ‘The Boy Who Lived’ in the streets. He goes in to Diagon Alley with his family and everyone’s like ‘Oh my god, Sir! Hi! Look, it’s Professor Potter!’ And no-one wants to know how it felt to die or what vanquishing Voldemort was like- they want to tell him how their doing, and chat with him about how they want to go into the Aurors or Dragon taming, or what they’re doing now. They want one of their favourite teachers to meet their kids, reminisce about old lessons.
But of course, everyone still knows it’s Harry Potter. And it becomes like a thing among the students, whenever anyone feels low on confidence or like they’ll never achieve things in life, and someone’ll cut in like ‘Of course you can. Harry defeated the greatest Dark Wizard in memory, and he’s a massive dork who’s a little bit frightened of his wife and kids, still trips over the trick step, didn’t get the date he wanted to the Yule Ball and spills pumpkin juice all over his robes regularly. He’s human just like you, and if he could do that, you can sure as hell make the DMLE if that’s what you want.”
Like Harry and Neville being constant reminders to all their students that heroes are just people- just real, normal, faulty people.
(And then can we also have Ginny Weasley, taking some time off from playing professional Quidditch so she comes to do a few years as the flying coach. And her first year Harry goes down to the pitch with a few of the 7th years he has under his wing, and Ginny being, as always, vaguely terrifying but in an incredibly attractive way. And all these 7th years just gaping at her like ‘Woah. You are married to her?!” And Harry just massively smug like ‘Yeah, I know right?’)
I think it’s because Harry needed to move on some Hogwarts, in the last book he acknowledges that something he and Voldemort have in common is that Hogwarts was their first true home and Harry wanted to distance himself from that and grow from there. He still has a very close connection with the school and often comes in give talks on defence, but for him it was healthy to move on and start a different home with Ginny and his family.
iampinbitch 