The Wizarding World of Harry Potter (a thread for Potterheads)

In my corner, eating so many pumpkin pasties and chocolate frogs :D

 

Hufflepuff sweettooth here, probably borrowing a kitchen nook every saturday or something trying out some recipe or other.

ive got a meta question, which also kind of plays into the how-do-boarding-schools-even-work, but mostly also in the context of hogwarts:
how do you get your medication if youre on something, like ritalin (like me. yeah, ok, offbrand ritalin, but still)? is there a potion for that? does madam pomfrey keep contact with muggle apothecaries and doctors who are in on the masquerade and can supply stuff? is there a black market of sorts run by people who are decent at potions and pass the knowledge of, ehm, unsanctioned stuff down to younger generations?

also im still upset i didnt get my letter when i turned 11 even tho im german and wouldnt have been eligible for hogwarts anyways

 

I'm probably That Person who got banned from cooking after a few too many experiments went pear shaped.
I'd assume that like, the medicines get kept in cabinets with some labels and are shipped in.

 

My relationship with Harry Potter is one of loving it and its world greatly but fiercely fucking hating the last three books with a deep, burning passion. While also being vaguely annoyed with the first four too. My rereads are ones of joy and also hatred. Only Luna can keep me going.

Also I am a fucking snake and I will fucking cut people who are like the snakes are all bad how could you have pride in being Slytherin. BECAUSE PEOPLE LIKE YOU NEED TO GET KICKED IN THE DICK IS WHY. Also we have the prettiest color scheme so really everyone else was born to lose.

 

so idk how they do this at hogwarts, but I've been on SSRIs at boarding school, and they made us bring our pill bottles to the health center every Wednesday afternoon to get a week's worth of our prescription. They did this for all the psychotropic stuff, and maybe some more physical stuff? I'm not sure.

 

I have no idea how Hogwarts handles children with Muggle medical care needs. Some stuff I imagine would be done with potions and so on, and other things might be entirely curable in the wizarding world - which can explain, in-universe, why we don't really see mundane chronic illness/disability representation so much. I think magical medicine is pretty much on top of everything except for magical ailments. And psychiatry.

(IMO the wizarding world is teeeeerrible with psych stuff. This is both a headcanon thing and an interpretation-of-canon thing. They just don't really consider it to be A Thing. On the other hand, I imagine that the existence of reliable, side effect free mood-altering options, such as Cheering Charms and Essence of Euphoria, would provide certain types of help/relief for a lot of people in very specific ways; but no broader concept of complex MH problems exists to properly, comprehensively treat mental illness.)

 

Idk though, yeah, Rowling used the dementors as a metaphor for depression, but what about actual depression?
The metaphor does well as a metaphor, for the story, but what about actual representation?
And yeah, depression isn't the only disability out there, so where does that leave the rest?
Then again, Harry's view is extremely limited.

 

I remember reading a post on tumblr about how Sirius was extremely likely to have severe PTSD, and that it went entirely untreated with unreasonable expectations with no support system or care from Dumbledore after shutting him in Grimmauld's place, or something like that.
... I wouldn't be surprised if some attitudes to mental illnesses were very... medieval.

 

Medieval attitudes to mental illness is absolutely my headcanon for the wizarding world. And I headcanon Sirius as bipolar, but PTSD (or another traumagenic disorder) is also pretty much a given.

 

I mean, I don't think it would be quite as bad as medieval times, they blamed a lot of shit on demons and possession and drilled holes in people's heads and whatnot. But I do think there would be a lot of making do, and not a lot of education about the subject.
I mean, there are a lot of oddball wizards, so I think society would have adapted at least a little to people being brainweird, but maybe not in the same way as Muggles have? Like, maybe there's not as much stigma involved?

 

I think wizards appreciate eccentric. This can include many types of brainweird and reduce stigma there, and yes, not as bad as medieval times, but probably the wizarding world would have a lot more straight out willful ignorance and shaming of those who suffer if there are no psychologists considering how traumatized everyone in the books are and end up and there are no indications of support outside of family and friends. A psychologist for Cho after losing her boyfriend, etc.
Actually, thinking a bit about it, the Blacks probably had some inherited brainweird :/ Mrs. Black was certainly a piece of work who lashes out like woah, and Regulus and Sirius always seemed to have been the victims of abusive parents to me. Bellatrix is arguably somewhat off her rocker, considering some of the erratic parts of her behaviour in the books.

 

That's a good point - iirc unusual beliefs/behaviours and idiosyncracies is pretty much accepted in wizarding society as odd but OK. So I guess brainweird characterised by that would probably be OK too.

Depression, though? I can't see depression coming off too well. The whole just-not-doing-things bit wouldn't fly. Bipolar depression would lose out too, because the depressive phases would be seen as 'what, why' and the (hypo)manic phases wouldn't be recognised as pathological in nature, so the person would be judged for their behaviour during ups under the assumption that they were of sound mind when making decisions. And during the downs, yeah. The wizarding world doesn't really have a place for that.

(including trauma, bereavement, etc)

Interesting fact: the Black family have unusually short lifespans, even by Muggle standards. Some wizards seem to have this 'super long life' gene, while others have normal lifespans, but the Blacks seem to be virtually cursed.

My headcanon is that mental illness runs severely in the family (in addition to the family being traditionally abusive in various ways), and the consequently high rates of addiction, risk-taking behaviours, violence (towards themselves and others), dark magic experimentation, and suicide risk are to blame.

 

Inbreeding might have a bit to do with the shorter lifespan stuff and possibly the similar brainweird that seems to be present in a lot of the Black family :oo

 

Good point! I hadn't thought of that. The Blacks did seem to be more inbred and brainweird than other pureblood families, iirc.

Growing up in the Black household must have been such a fucking nightmare.

 

Considering how the Gaunts ended up after ridiculous inbreeding... Merope's father was outright unstable.

 

Also does anybody else find the whole "Tom Riddle was the way he was because he couldn't feel or understand love because he was born through a Love Potion" disappointing?

 

yeah, I did.

 

I've never heard that one!! Is it confirmed by JKR?

 

Yep, it's confirmed.

 

Well looks like it was a misinterpretation of what she said. Apparently it was more of a symbolic importance rather than the cause: