Room 315 [evening]

Sun, 21 Oct 2007 01:53:27 GMT

No, Harry wasn't at the mixer. Harry was in his room, brooding. As you do, when your thoughts are focused on all the people who could have come to Parents' Weekend, but couldn't, due to being dead. His parents. Sirius. And then there were the live ones, who'd probably forgotten him.

So he was just staring out his window, waiting for Hedwig to come back from her hunt. Unless she decided not to come back. Seemed to be a trend.

[for someone in particular, unless you REALLY want to bother the boy when he's like this]

OOC: yet another info post for your collection

Tue, 04 Sep 2007 04:44:49 GMT

So, the first four are easy: Rory is an alumnus and fairly boring, so let's skip her. Pam is also boring and the only thing you need to know is that if she's with fat_halpert, one of us may be pinging you for permission to put things in Jello or something. Everything you need to know about Hannelore is here, and all you need to know about Aravis is here.

The big one is my new boy:

Everything you need to know about The Boy Who Lived
So once upon a time, there was an eleven year-old boy named Harry Potter, who lived with his negligent aunt and uncle in a cupboard under their stairs. He was beaten up at school, ridiculed by his cousin Dudley, and at best, utterly ignored by his aunt and uncle. In short, poor little Harry's life blew.

That is, until the letters started coming. Harry's home was flooded with mysterious letters delivered by owl, and when he finally was able to open them (there were a number of obstacles, the majority of which being labeled "Uncle Vernon"), he found that he'd been invited to attend Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

Yep. The scrawny kid's a wizard, and magic is real. Whaddya know.

Harry subsequently learned the story of how he came to live with his aunt and uncle as opposed to out in the wizarding world with the rest of his ilk: ten years prior, when he was one year old, the magic world had been at war as the darkest wizard that modern history had ever seen -- Lord Voldemort -- rose to power. Harry's parents, not killed in a car accident like he'd been told, were actually well-known opponents of Voldemort's, and died by his nasty, creepy white hand. Harry, on the other hand, in spite of being one year old, somehow managed to defeat Voldemort: after the Dark Lord tried to kill Harry, the curse supposedly backfired, and he was defeated (and, the world thought, dead). Harry was left with just a scar in the shape of a lightning bolt on his forehead.

So Harry was introduced to the world of magic. He went to school at Hogwarts, where classes include things like Charms and Transfiguration, and quills and wands are used rather than pens and pencils. Most forms of technology aren't used, as magic is much easier for just about everything, and things like electricity are mostly just Muggle (non-magic) conventions to compensate for the lack of magic. (There will be more on Potterverse magic in the powers section.)

So as his first year at Hogwarts progressed, Harry made friends and enemies, went to classes, and adjusted to his new world. Without spoiling the book too much, by the end of the year, it turns out that good old Lord Vizzle didn't really die, and is trying to get back to his old power.

As the next few books progress (each one represents a year in Harry's life), Voldemort continues to get stronger, culminating in his outright return to a corporeal form, surrounded by his followers, in the fourth book.

In the next book, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, the small group of anti-Voldemort resistance fighters (the aforementioned order) began to re-form. At the same time, Harry organized a similar group for the underage kids while he was at Hogwarts and under the oppression of Dolores Umbridge, an official from the Ministry of Magic (yes, the magic world has its own government, of course) who did not believe that Voldemort was back. At the end of OotP, Harry and several members of this group (named Dumbledore's Army for Hogwarts' headmaster, supposedly the only wizard that Voldemort was ever afraid of) traveled to the Ministry to keep a group of Voldemort's followers (also known as Death Eaters) from retrieving a weapon from the Department of Mysteries. A battle ensued, Harry's godfather Sirius was killed, and the weapon (a prophecy) was destroyed.

Fortunately for the progression of plot, Dumbledore had a copy of the prophecy, which he let Harry listen to in his office after a lovely capslocky tantrum. Turns out that Harry's the only one who can defeat Voldemort, and 'neither can live while the other survives.' So it's basically 'Hey, fifteen year-old boy, you're our only hope, and you have to do this or die trying.'

There are two more books after OotP, but I'm bringing Harry in before them. He's just found out about the prophecy, and turned 16 on July 31. Incidentally, he's from 1996.

Harry, as a character, is brash, brave, kind of stupid and lacking in good judgment skills, and wildly impulsive. Boy's such a type-A about his heroism, it's not even funny. He's got a temper and tends towards sarcastic when he isn't CAPSLOCKING all over the place, and that will flare at times, but mostly he's a good kid.

He's so not that interested in academics -- Harry tends towards the "Does this have a practical application? No? Hermione, do my homework for me plz" approach to school -- but he's shown great aptitude towards hands-on work. He has excellent leadership skills, and a bit of a stage presence, though he honestly doesn't have that big an ego on him.

Appearance-wise, Harry's very skinny, as though somewhat underfed and having recently gone through a growth spurt. He has black hair that absolutely refuses to lie flat. (Seriously, this is the hair that grew back because his aunt hacked it off. Harry's hair could probably take John Sheppard's in a fight.) Additionally, he has bright green eyes (I'm ignoring DanRad's blue eyes, srsly wtf), wears round glasses with black frames, and has that lightning bolt-shaped scar on his forehead.

Magic yay! Potterverse magic, by and large, is wand magic. (There are a few exceptions, which will be noted below.) Each wizard or witch carries a wand with them, and for the most part cannot do complicated magic without it. Most spells also need to be said aloud for the incantation to work, as well. Harry's wand is made of holly wood and has a phoenix's feather at its core. (Additionally, Harry and Voldemort have feathers from the same phoenix at their wands' cores, and incidentally, that phoenix is Dumbledore's pet. Sometimes my fandom is a little "OMG HOW CONVENIENT IS *THAT*?")

As far as the magic goes -- the skill of the wizard, the stronger the spell. Harry, at sixteen, is pretty darn good with spellwork. He's faced Voldemort in various forms several times by this point, and spent last year teaching kids how to use defensive spells. He can perform some pretty complicated spells, such as the Patronus charm, which protects the caster and is too difficult for a lot of grown wizards.

He's not perfect, by any means. His skills tend to lie with defensive spells, charms and jinxes, whereas he's always had some difficulty with Transfiguration (the ability to change one thing into another) and a lot of trouble with Potions (what it sounds like -- the chemistry of the magic world.)

There is wandless magic in Potterverse, but it's much more difficult and Harry had JUST been learning it in his fifth year. He can manage simple spells, like 'Expelliarmus' (disarms the target) but not much more.

In this vein, Harry has learned that he has a mental tie to Voldemort because of the nature of the attack when he was a year old. As a result, he sometimes has visions/prophetic dreams and can hear Voldemort's thoughts. After this was discovered by Dumbledore, he had Harry begin to learn Occlumency, the magic of blocking your mind against someone attempting to read it. It's very difficult magic, and Harry's not that good at it, so he will at times be having those visions and the connection to Voldemort will be present.

And finally, my boy has his invisibility cloak with him. It's...as one might imagine, a cloak that allows him to be invisible. It'll be used sparingly -- if nothing else, Harry often lacks the foresight to bring it with him. It's big enough that Harry alone can travel under it without being seen, but that by this point in canon, he has trouble fitting any reasonably-sized person under it with him. That said he will happily use it for any adventures that need him to be not visible, and give me a ping if you want to use it in a plot.

Harry also has a snowy owl, Hedwig. As far as owls go, she's fairly normal, but she's able to find just about anyone anywhere. This is the nature of Potterverse owls, since they have to deliver mail. He'll probably still use her a bit, just because he's way more used to her than to phones, and plus everyone back home is owl-friendly.

FINALLY FINALLY FINALLY, Harry is a Parselmouth. He speaks Parseltongue, though he can't hear anything different coming out of his mouth. It just means he can talk to snakes. SLJ might find a use for him, but I'm not sure how useful it will be in Fandom.

Questions? Comments? Quiche?