I will forever be impressed that Fred and George not only figured out both the ten word, twelve syllable password to activate the Marauder’s Map, but also, out of all the things they could have nicked from Filch’s office, they chose a somewhat grubby bit of parchment whose sole purpose seemed to be to insult the user.
When Harry gets his first place after Hogwarts that actually has more than one floor, he comes home after getting a load of boxes to find Hermione using a sledgehammer on the drywall beneath the stairs. And Ron’s like, “Look, mate, I borrowed this stuff from my dad, I’ve got a DRILL and a – what’s it called again, Hermione?” “A stud finder.” “Right, one of those, and we’re going to fix your stairs.” Harry’s like, “But there’s nothing wrong with them.” “Yes, Harry, there is.” Harry’s just sort of standing there in total bewilderment while Hermione totally demolishes the wall. “We couldn’t have done that with magic?” “No, Harry, this is personal. You two take this mess out to the skip.” And then Harry stands around a while longer and Hermione puts in support beams in the appropriate places so the stairs don’t fall in, and Ron’s very excited about using the stud finder even though Hermione won’t let him use the drill. When they’re finished, Harry has this set of shelves. So he says, still completely confused, “I thought we picked this place because it had loads of storage.” And Hermione says, “Go get some of my books. I know it’s just shelves, but it’s not a bloody cupboard.”
And every time Harry moves for the rest of his life, Ron and Hermione are there on moving day and they knock out anything under the stairs, even if it’s just a wall. Hermione reads a lot of books. Ron learns to use a miter saw and a carpenter’s square and practices the nail hammering spell until he can do it perfectly on the first try. And sometimes it isn’t very practical but it looks nice…
And sometimes, when they all get older and have children, it’s cozy and has a purpose…
And eventually Hermione gets the trick of there being nothing under the stairs at all…
Which is the story of how Harry Potter never lived in a house with a cupboard under the stairs again for the entire rest of his life.
‘just letting everyone know that gryffindor captain james is very single and very ready to mingle if your name is lily evans’
‘jones is no doubt slightly distracted by the fact his girlfriend cheated on him, sorry ‘bout that mate’
‘no eliza i will not ask remus out for you’
‘if flemming was as good at flirting as he is at blocking goals then maybe he wouldn’t have been rejected by dorcas meadowes last week’
‘benjy stop laughing and start playing you’re not as funny as you think you are’
‘to the person who asked if emmeline vance had a boyfriend i’m just gonna tell you now you’re not good enough for her’
‘excellent beating from lockley there, managing to nearly knock out turner whilst maintaining that perfect hair, how does he do it?’
‘yes professor this is all highly important informatio… no it’s not nonsense…. look now you’ve made me miss a goal’
‘lily evans says she’ll go on a date with james potter if he scores thirteen times – don’t smirk you bastard you’ll never do it’
‘gryffindor’s daley has seen the snitch! oh wait he’s lost it. now daley was it you i saw trip down the stairs yesterday?’
‘and turner passes to west who passes to samson who – drops it. its important to note none of the ravenclaw chasers are speaking to each other, i don’t know why, only that it involves a bottle of firewhiskey, a game of truth or dare, and west’s pet cat’
‘dorcas meadowes would like it to be known she rejected flemming because she has no obligation to date someone just because they think she’s hot’
‘update on the james and lily situation; james has scored eight goals and lily has now got JP painted on her cheek’
‘if tom denvers can afford the new nimbus then he can bloody afford to pay me the four galleons he owes me’
‘gryffindor now lead 140 – 70, peter pettigrew really needs gryffindor to win or he has to pay lois knight ten sickles and then he won’t be able to buy me a birthday present’
‘if ravenclaw would hurry up and lose so we can start the party that would be great’
‘party? i don’t know who gave you the impression there would a party tonight professor’
‘of course i’m sure, professor, i would know if there was a party happening tonight. i can assure you there isn’t a party in the gryffindor common room at seven-thirty pm. if there was though i would tell gideon prewett to bring his own bloody firewhiskey this time because i’m not paying for his ridiculous drinking habits’
‘oh james scored again, him and evans are both smiling far too much if you ask me’
‘yes marlene i did say seven-thirty pm. what do you mean you’re busy?’
Do you think Ravenclaws ever argue with the door to their tower? I bet they do. Like, the eagle says their answer to the riddle is wrong, but they argue the point and the eagle eventually comes around to their side and lets them in.
Heck, I bet there’s a special, secret lounge accessible only to students who convincingly give the door an answer it hadn’t had in mind.
You’re a good egg.
Okay, but I actually think about this all the time. Ravenclaws and their problems with their dormitory door.
Like, imagine Su Li and Lisa Turpin coming back from dinner having some conversation or another about how they have some Herbology essay due tomorrow and neither of them did it because they were too distracted with a tangent they got on while doing their Potions homework. And Lisa’s going, “Alright, Su, Tony’s already got the books, so we just have to buckle down and do this. We got this. It’s fine. We’ll just go in and work our asses off.” They get to the door and knock, still talking, entirely on muscle memory. They’re barely listening when the eagle asks them, “Where do Vanished objects go?” Lisa’s brain is a little too fried with worry to think at the moment, but she’s not too concerned about getting in because Su looks calm and thoughtful about this one. And then Su turns to her and goes, “Where DO Vanished objects go?” Damn it all to hell, Lisa knows that look. “Su. Su, no. It’s a riddle, Su. It’s just a riddle.” “Yeah, I know it’s a riddle, but it’s also a legitimate question. I mean, Vanished objects have to go SOMEWHERE, right? For you to Conjure them again afterwards? Or are you just creating an identical object out of nothing? Or maybe not nothing… what are Conjured objects made of, do you think?” “Su, we really have to write this Herbology essay.” “I know. But it’s an interesting question. I bet somebody’s done a study on this. I heard Padma say that Conjured objects are different to real ones. Do you think that there’d be a way to tell if your Conjured object was the same one you’d Vanished? Like, if you bespelled it with a charm and it came back with the spells?” “Well… I once heard an upper-year say that Vanishing bespelled objects is tricky. They were looking into it for their Curse-Breaking apprenticeship. But it might be possible. I definitely don’t think it’s possible to Conjure bespelled objects from nothing.” “It might be. I read this book where somebody talked about conjuring a Sneak-o-scope and those are definitely enchanted objects.” “Was it a Gilderoy Lockhart book? Because that sounds like bullshit to me.” “No, I can show you. It was in a Auror’s Memoirs. I just returned them to the library this morning, so I bet nobody’s taken them out yet. And-” “That sounds like an unreliable source.” “AND I was reading this Charms book the other day that referenced a book on the specifics of Vanishing objects that had an author who was an expert in their field and a retiree from the Department of Mysteries with the same last name as the book by the Auror.” “I’m not believing this until I see a source.” “Fine, come on!” The eagle knocker has long since settled back into its resting state by then, Su and Lisa immediately run off to the library, arguing the whole way, and the next day, Professor Sprout gives the extremely apologetic students an extension on the essay while sighing, “Ravenclaws.”
Or imagine there’s some Muggleborn student who has an astrophysicist for one parent and a biologist for the other, and they think magic is amazing, but they’re also really into Muggle science as well. “Which came first,” the eagle knocker asks them at one point, “the phoenix or the fire?” And they’re immediately like, “the fire.” While their friend is like, “Benny, no, that’s not how this works. My brother told me about things like this, it’s one of those paradox questions.” “What? No way. Fire came first.” “Benny…” “Fire is a chemical reaction and, as far as I can tell, phoenixes are a fiery bird that probably evolved just like everything else did on this planet. We’re a really small speck on the cosmic calendar, Raleigh, and I’m saying that unless phoenixes are actually aliens – which would be AWESOME, you-” “Benny…” “-have to admit – fire came first. There are trillions of stars that haved burned and died billions of years before our sun was even born. This is just like that chicken and the egg question, in that it sounds like a paradox but it’s actually not, because the egg existed long before the bird we know as the chicken ever evolved-” “Benny!” “What?” “You… the door opened.” “What? Oh cool. Finally, someone who recognizes science in this nutty place.” About a week later, Benny completely disrupts and derails their Astronomy class by arguing with Professor Sinestra about the school curriculum (that hasn’t been updated in more than fifty years or more) being “WAY TOO OUT OF DATE, PROFESSOR! THIS TEXTBOOK WAS WRITTEN IN 1910! THESE TELESCOPES ARE RIDICULOUS! WHEN’S THE LAST TIME A WIZARD WENT TO AN ACTUAL PLANETARIUM?! OH MY GOD, DO WIZARDS EVEN KNOW THAT THE AMERICANS HAVE GONE TO THE MOON?” And the wizardborn kids are like, “The Americans have WHAT?” While poor Raleigh has his face in his hands and isn’t even surprised.
Or imagine other things. Like that time the first years has to stand around for two hours after the Welcoming Feast because their Prefects gave them a short speech, a small tour, and then got into an “academic disagreement” (as the house of Ravenclaw has come to call them) over the riddle. So there’s this group of eleven-year-olds playing party games in the hall while their fifteen-year-old “mentors” yell at each other over the riddle. And they only got inside in the end because someone actually managed to notice that the first years never came in and “Hey, that’s sort of weird”, and sent some second year to go look for them.
Or when NEWTs season came around, and there was a seventh year SO STRESSED that they came back from the library at three in the morning and when the eagle knocker asked them a riddle, they just burst into tears and sobbed against the door for ten minutes before the eagle awkwardly declared, “Nicely answered!” and let them in anyway.
fred and george weasley on the top floor in hogwarts trying to get slinkies all the way down by predicting the pattern the stairs are gonna shift in
they actually figure it out, they calculate the exact pattern, and start distributing it
suddenly, students are barely ever late to classes any more and there are significantly fewer incidents of getting lost around the castle
everything goes wonderfully for a week, all the professors are baffled but pleased
until the end of the week when the true purpose for the pattern’s distribution becomes clear. schoolwide slinky race. a thousand conjured slinkies all let loose at the same time. the rustling of the swarm of springs echoes through the halls of hogwarts. the house elves refer to the dreaded Slinky Sunday for centuries
sorcerer’s/philosopher’s stone: cries for james and lily, also absolutely cannot believe that dumbledore is leaving a baby on a porch in england in november. 8/10
chamber of secrets: condescends lockhart into going into the chamber alone, then turns around and is like “great so that got rid of him” 10/10
prisoner of azkaban: “you look to be in perfect health to me, potter, so i’m sure you won’t mind me setting you homework. i assure you that if you die, you need not hand it in.” bamf. says “not today” to the god of death.” 11/10
goblet of fire: there’s that one time she puts a hand on harry’s shoulder while her voice shakes. lov it lov her. 9/10
order of the phoenix: unfortunately is part of the union of “adults denying traumatized harry any information.” this, however, is offset by “have a biscuit, potter.” 7/10
half-blood prince: in her temporary stint as headmistress, she gets more done than dumbledore did in fifty years. amazing. 100/10
deathly hallows: OH BOY. TALK SHIT GET HIT. MCGEE IN THE HOUSE HERE TO FUCK SHIT UP. 10000/10
My favorite thing ever is how Ron just sent Charlie a random letter like “hey yo there’s an illegal dragon at hogwarts, could you come and smuggle it out of here, please?” and Charlie was just like “yeah sure, I’ll trespass into the castle and steal a dangerous magical creature, of course, lemme just hit up my friends”
It’s better if you imagine Charlie and co as a group of Grad Students trying to avoid their other responsibilities.
Charlie is drunkenly revising the third draft of his thesis on proper care and feeding of greenhorns when his family owl slams into the window.
Three of his friends jump and look around. Glinda doesn’t raise her head from her folded arms; only groans, “Is that Baines coming to do me in?”
Charlie totters to the window and fetches Errol from the window pane. “No such luck,” he says. “You’re still going to have to take the exam.” After some consideration, Charlie lays him on a clear patch of floor to recover. “Do owls take firewhiskey?” he asks the room at large.
“It’s not fair,” Glinda wails into the tabletop. “I swear he didn’t say anything about Bridgewort’s handling practices when we did the review in class.”
“Oh, Merlin,” says Ali, freezing over their notes like a Medusa wyvern had bitten them. “Oh, Merlin’s sweet saggy socks. Is he covering Bridgewort?”
“That’s what he said when I went to his office hours.” Glinda sits up. “You know his lapdragon singed my new sweater?!”
Charlie decides not to give Errol a nip of whiskey. Flying under the influence is really not done. He unties the letter from Errol’s leg. Ron’s childish spiky handwriting spells out Charlie’s name on the front. Inside is a hastily scrawled message.
“Yes, we know it ruined your sweater,” snaps Ysabelle. “You told us twenty times. Why didn’t you tell us Baines told you we’re going to be tested on Bridgewort?”
“I meant to,” says Glinda. “Sorry.” She flicks her pile of notes. “I was lost in the miasma of gloom and desperation.”
Ali puts their head back and groans. “I’m gonna die. I’m gonna say ‘fuck it’ and just fucking walk into a dragon’s mouth so I don’t have to do this.”
“Hey,” says Charlie. They don’t hear him.
“How much is this worth again?” Glinda asks her bottle of butterbeer.
“Twenty-five percent,” Ali and Ysabelle chorus. Ysabelle adds, “and the thesis is fifty percent of our total grade.”
“Hey!” Charlie repeats. They look at him. He waves Ron’s letter. “My littlest brother at Hogwarts has an illegal dragon he needs to get off campus. Anybody up for a midnight flight?”
Ali slams their hands down on the table and stands up. “Fuck yes,” they say decisively. “Maybe I’ll fly into the Whomping Willow and die a quick death.”
philosopher’s stone: what a dick calls on harry just to humiliate and demoralize him tool bag number one 10/10
chamber of secrets: same ol’ same ol’ but points for making fun of gilderoy lockhart 6/10
prizoner of azkaban: wow fuck you snape tried to get remus fired 500/10
goblet of fire: i think harry was too busy fearing for his life to care too much about snape 5/10
order of the phoenix: bitch called lily mudbloog hell nope also the legilimency and the bullying dude you’re an adult get over it 510/10
half-blood prince: yikes 400/10
deathly hallows: i’ll give him a you tried star 8/10
what i do is not up to you 