teenage boy saves the entire world, defeats the most evil wizard of the decade,
is able to resist an imperius curse cast by said wizard, constantly has to solve mysteries and battle wizards way more qualified than him, has a perceptive mind and uses that to overcome challenges he faces, manages to get good grades under such stress, excels in practical magic, thrives in potions given unbiased instructions, gets complimented by teachers and the sorting hat for his mind, teaches other students at the age of fifteen, yetstillgets called stupid and mediocre. what a world.
The thing about Harry Potter as a character is that he is insanely observant when he actually cares enough to pay attention. Meaning 90% of the stuff he deems unimportant flies over his head, but he makes these huge leaps of logic and intuition when he bothers to focus. Like in the books when it comes to anything relating to Voldemort or Death Eaters or People Not To Be Trusted (Draco, Umbridge). Growing up, he had to be able to see when a situation was going south long before the frying pan or Dudley’s fists came his way. But he also had to be able to ignore and tune out the constant flow of shit and neglect he was treated to.
If you think about it, for all the better aspects of Hogwarts, it still followed this same basic pattern. He had to pay close attention to the things trying to kill him (even classes took a back seat to this), but find a way to ignore and not acknowledge all the rumors and staring and people thinking he’s a prat or the heir of slytherin or a liar. I think this is why the arguments that Harry is a mushroom and notices nothing, and the arguments that he is deductively brilliant can exist side by side. He’s both. It’s also why, in my opinion, he tends to be ridiculously observant of Ginny once he starts to notice her as something important. She barely exists in the early narrative other than Someone to Be Saved. It’s also why Ginny can sometimes feel like she ‘comes from nowhere’ in the narrative. As far as Harry is concerned, she did come from nowhere. The switch in Harry’s brain went from Doesn’t Matter–Ignore to Very Important–Pay Close Attention, and BAM, there she was. Everywhere.
i will never be over vernon dursley telling people at his wedding that james potter was some kind of amateur magician, implying that he wasn’t even that good
100% believe that if petunia hadn’t cut lily out of her life, james would have just rolled with it and learned muggle magic tricks and performed them at various family functions, like
try to wear the full magician costume to dudleys christening
“you can’t wear that james” “it’s the only way i’m going, lil” “fine but give me your wand” “my real one, or the fake one that shoots out flowers?” “both, and you’d better tidy the handkerchiefs are trailing out of your trouser leg before we leave”
“I’m not a magician, marge, i’m an illusionist.”
petunia walks in on james pretending to saw toddler dudley in half for toddle harry’s amusement
actually incorporating magic into the tricks and freaking the hell out of vernon’s extended family
standing up at christmas and saying that he’d like to perform a magic trick. and vernon and petunia are HORRIFIED and lily just pours more wine but marge says ‘let him do it’ so she can mock him?? and he tries/fails to ‘vanish’ the napkins 3-4 times and it doesn’t work, until the fourth time when it DOES and it freaks the hell out of vernon’s extended family
and that is probably when petunia cuts lily out of her life for Real
guys this is a very important post and i’ve been thinking about it all morning
i can’t decide between quoting lucky i’m in love with my best friend and lucky we’re in love in every way from this song that resonates with this picture, and my feelings, perfectly
SliceOSunshine 