the kids who are wearing robes were taking their OWLs/NEWTs. Notice Luna’s not wearing a robe either. Because they’re underclassmen and had free periods while the upperclassmen were taking their exams.
This post is amazing because a) Slytherin and intrahouse love, but also because b) someone just explained how free-dress works during exams at Hogwarts.
we take our harry potter very seriously here at tumblr dot com
When Minerva received the news of Euphemia Potter passing, she had dropped the goblet she was holding in her hand, her eyes fixed on the messy haired boy who was so in love with his mother. Her eyes then moved to the boy right across him, with his hair as dark as his last name, he was laughing with a glint to his pale grey eyes. Euphemia Potter, one of the most amazing witches Minerva had the honour to meet had died because of something as miserable as dragon pox and Minerva had to break the news to her sons. She would have chosen to be buried alive rather than see the desperate look in the eyes of the tall boy and the fear in the eyes of the so-called blood traitor. The way James Potter had seemed so small suddenly, the way he had to hold onto Sirius to stay standing and the way Sirius’ eyes went completely empty was all too much for Minerva but she was strong, she had to be strong for her boys. They were a handful but they were her boys.
She wondered why bad things happened to good people.
It hadn’t been even two months, when she received the passing away of Fleamont Potter. He had lost the will to live after losing Euphemia and he was holding on for the sake of his sons but dragonpox didn’t care for two boys. Now, they were alone. James Potter took one look towards Minerva, who was standing her face as pale as the wall behind her, for James to understand what was going on and Sirius took one look at James and disappeared into the dark corridors. It never got easier and Minerva called James with a small move of her hand to her room, she knew her boy, she knew he wasn’t going to show how he felt in front of everyone. So, she let him scream and cry and break everything he could reach inside her office and then she held him through his tears, she held him until he stopped shaking with the injustice of it all. Minerva never had a child but she didn’t think James Potter was anything less.
Kids shouldn’t be fighting a war.
It had taken seven death eaters to take down the Prewett twins, that was what Moody had said to Minerva to explain how they fought so bravely and took down all with gushes on their cheeks and stuns to their hearts. Maybe he thought it would make it easier for Minerva to accept the death of the ginger haired boys, one right after the other in this never ending war they they shouldn’t have been fighting in the first place. She knew she would never forget the look on Molly’s face when she had seen Albus and her at the door with Bill in her arms. Minerva didn’t know but she would meet the twins again soon.
Being strong had never been so hard for Minerva.
Marlene McKinnon wasn’t a Gryffindor but Minerva knew the blonde haired girl like the back of her hand. She reminded Minerva of herself every time she would speak. She had a elegance to her but her fury was something to behold. She was too young to be fighting a war let alone die. She didn’t need to receive a letter to know what had happened, it was all over the Daily Prophet. The Dark Mark above her house, her whole family and the ruthless girl that fought for everyone were gone. Minerva stood tall and strong for her students, they were more than her students though; they were the children Minerva never had and Minerva didn’t know if she could take another funeral like this.
The war didn’t wait to show her that she had to.
Dorcas Meadowes knew how to fight as well as she knew how to fly. Minerva had seen her in Quidditch matches giving the Gryffindor Beaters a round for their money, she had a bright future ahead of her. Minerva enjoyed her presence and their conversations about the ministry and the school. It wasn’t long after Marlene had been taken by the darkness that surrounded the whole world, her future wasn’t bright anymore since it didn’t exist. There was a burn mark close to her heart and Minerva felt like she wasn’t so strong anymore but she held her head high as another one of her children went six feet under.
“These kids,” she wanted to scream “they have to live”.
Her boy, marked for death betrayed by his brother. Minerva struggled to stay standing when she saw the war was won because for her, this wasn’t a victory. James and Lily were twenty-one years old. Twenty-one was too young to have a fate like this. Twenty-one was the age to laugh and fall in love not to die wandless on the floor or with red hair like flames with tears dried on your face. James Potter should have become and international Quidditch star with the way he flew at the age of twenty one and Lily Evans should have trained to become a Potions master with her talents. Twenty-one wasn’t the age for them to die but death didn’t listen.
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. As the scream continued, rising in pitch, 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 though 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 forty-five 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 scraggly 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 theirs, 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 looked up; a few of them 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! ws 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 astonish 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, calculating, and then 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 snapped.
–
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.”
CRACK!
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 and sundry 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 seven weeks before anyone attempted messing around in her class.
Euphemia Potter stood in the doorway of Number 12 Grimmauld Place. Her crimson and gold sari making her look like a radiant poppy against the drab facade of the house. James Potter stood next to his mother, hair a mess as always, but wearing darker colors… more suited to enter The Ancient and Most Noble House of Black.
Walburga Black stood in the dark doorway, dressed in a beaded black gown, wearing a face of thinly veiled rage. Her nostrils were flared, her jaw was set, and her pupils had dilated in her light grey eyes. James Potter knew that face, because her oldest son had inherited that look, and that temper… not that James would ever say that out loud.
(( OOC: I couldn’t stop thinking about “Uncle Kingsley” after this ask I got and so… here you go. ))
Teddy Lupin didn’t know Kingsley Shacklebolt as anything other than the Minister of Magic until he was eleven years old.
On a school visit to the Ministry, as was the tradition for all first year Hogwarts students, Teddy was caught by a ministry official as he attempted to sneak past one of the guards for a dare, wearing the face of another employee. The resemblance was uncanny, however, a pint-sized eleven year old in Hogwarts robes sporting a handlebar moustache was likely to draw suspicion.
So when the Minister of Magic himself swept past with an entourage of at least six other wizards, calling in their direction: “It’s alright Babbage, young Mr Lupin is with me” and thus causing the jaws of twenty first years to drop, Teddy himself couldn’t have told you what possessed him to shout out across the foyer, “Cheers, Kingsley!”
And when the Minister’s eyes crinkled in silent laughter and his hand gestured for Teddy to follow him, Teddy did so, leaving behind his stunned teacher spluttering in astonishment.
some james potter + quidditch headcanons because idk *spins wheel* its a sunday
his quidditch prowess is down to 3 parts talent, 3 parts hard work and 1 part sheer dumb luck
pulls off risky, flashy moves that shouldn’t be possible almost without fail
…almost
there was the time he made a particularly spectacular dive for the quaffle and ended up in the hospital wing with a shattered collar bone, a fractured wrist and an assortment of minor sprains
but gryffindor still won and evans came to visit him on his sick bed and she was probably like, Really Impressed
so, really, he considers it a success anyway
he treats his broom like a child
he sleeps with it in his bed
he only lets two people in the entire world touch it: madam hooch (who he has mad respect for) and his former captain
sirius is like, weirdly jealous about this
though he wouldn’t admit it
sirius: why would I even WANT to touch your broom you fanatical weirdo
james: *waggling eyebrows* i can think of a few reasons
honest-to-god sobbed the first time his team won under his captaincy
sirius offers to hex his opponents for him, like, at least once a week, but james thinks thats just bad form
(and anyway, knowing that he’s beat them good and proper is a way better ego boost)
((though that doesn’t mean he’s opposed to a not-entirely-honourable tackle if the other team are playing dirty))
after he becomes captain he’s in practice so often that he wears his quidditch robes more often that his normal robes
this drives his professors up the wall but they stop trying to enforce uniform rules on him about a month in because they realise if they kick him out every time he turns up in quidditch robes he will literally miss half of his classes
((lily evans thinks that whoever invented quidditch robes was trying to ruin specifically her life like how is she supposed to concentrate on advanced vanishment theorems when james potter is strutting about with his hair and his arms and his quidditch robes))
anyway
his team have a love-hate relationship with him
when its 4:30am and freezing cold and raining and james is disconcertingly chipper, already running drills that make them crave the sweet embrace of death, it errs more on the hate side
as it does when he’s trying to enforce his ungodly 24-hour-spinach-smoothie-lockdown
‘come on, captain, if i don’t eat something solid in the next 30 seconds i think i might actually cry’
‘power through, meadowes, think of the antioxidants’
but after they’ve absolutely smashed a match and james has just come back from a hogsmeade raid and he’s plying them all with butterbeer and chocolate frogs whilst yelling at anyone who will listen how proud he is, they s’pose he’s not so bad
rumour has it he practiced snogging with a quaffle once
(hey tumblr please don’t delete the previous people’s comments like you did the last time i added someone’s tags to a post mmkay)
No but that’s actually so clever okay like the people who live in the castle would get a general idea of the patterns and how to move around efficiently but like for anyone planning on attacking it would be impossible to infiltrate like how the hell do I attack the headmaster when I can’t even find the bathroom why the fuck am I in a chemistry supply closet okay these stairs went to the main hall but now I’m on my way to the broom closets holy fucking shit fuck leonard SAID the dorm was on the left of the three headed hippogriff but I’m here and it’s just a painting of a man with a donkey face is this a fucikgin joke leonard do you think this is funny because it’snot. its not okay siri how the hell do i get to the nearest anything “here is: the nearest painting” like fuck you siri
actually considering all this, the changing floorplan probably worked exactly as designed when it came to the battle of hogwarts in the late 90′s. the invasion was towards the end of the term, so the students, especially the renegade students in hiding, had the full term to master getting around the school quickly, quietly, and efficiently. the invading deatheaters were generally their parents’s ages, and hadn’t been back to hogwarts in several decades, if they’d even attended at all. so, while the adult invaders easily outmatched the adolescent defenders in strength and skill, hogwarts was a lethal maze to the deatheaters, while it was home to the kids.
write write write 