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

I didn't see a Harry Potter thread in Fan Town, so here one is.
TALK ABOUT HARRY POTTER AND HOGWARTS AND ALL THE WIZARD THINGS HERE

Basically one of my favourite things is reading Harry Potter meta and theories and headcanons. I think, even though there is a lot of worldbuilding in the Harry Potter series, there are a lot of unanswered questions as well, especially because it is mostly from Harry's perspective, and, as we all know, Harry is somewhat oblivious.

 

I love Harry Potter :D Huge part of my childhood, I absolutely love it. I went to the Studios in 2012 and it was AWESOME!

I don't really do headcanons, but there's stuff that I've always wondered about in Harry Potter, which is never touched upon because they're childrens' books, but: how the hell does magical contraception work? Please tell me I am not the only one who has thought about these things...
Also, is there magical primary school?

 

hi my name is rats and i will always be a huge harry potter trashlord holy hell, i am so glad this thread exists now, [aggressively watches it]
important question: whats your house affiliation? (im either a really mild slytherin or a really ambitious ravenclaw but i like the ravenclaw aesthetic and ideals better so im probably more of a ravenclaw fwiw)

 

Slytherin leaning slytherclaw over here. Official Pottermore sorted into Slytherin.

My house gets a bad rep but we're also badasses so whatevs.

I think the thing with Slytherins is, yeah, we're cunning and always looking out for ourselves, but since when is that a bad thing? You're supposed to take care of yourself first. And that doesn't mean we're not loyal to other people, but they damn well better earn that loyalty.

 

You're not the only one. I have a sort of ideal-world (i.e. probably too optimistic) headcanon that one of the many massively complicated protective spells on Hogwarts is a sexual protection spell. So, within Hogwarts, sperm cannot fertilise eggs and STIs cannot be transmitted.

As to how it would work, I wrote a long-ass thing about this which I'll put in a new post so it doesn't get buried.

 

i'm a Pottermore Official Slytherin - which might be weird, considering how my anxiety seems to be getting in the way of me actually achieving anything ambitious lately, but yeah... slytherin.

and i honestly can't see myself being gryffindor or hufflepuff at all. those two just don't feel like me.

so, if i was anything other than slytherin, i'd be ravenclaw. knowledge and learning and thinking is pretty cool.

also, if anyone's wondering about the "what hogwarts house would you be in?" anon @seebs got a long while ago, it was me, haha. sorting systems are really interesting like that ("i'm always a slut for horoscopes!", for example).

 

Yeah Slytherclaws seem to be fairly common.
I also love how popular Slytherin/Hufflepuff relationships are. Like give me a Slytherin and a Hufflepuff friendship and I will be overcome with joy. I first discovered the phenomenon on Pottermore, but when assigning my characters to houses or watching others do the same, it happens a bit more than one would expect and it is ADORABLE.

 

I'd probably describe Hufflepuffs as badasses you wouldn't expect to be badasses. Like lookit the cute fluffy badg-OH GOD IT'S GOING TO EAT ME.
Definite underdogs, but they will never fail to surprise you. And of course they are fiercely loyal, which is one of the reasons why I love Slytherpuff relationships.
Because Hufflepuffs can be a mixed pot, and don't get a lot of explicit description of characteristic in the books, I think a lot of people don't know what to expect from Hufflepuffs, but I think, if not great things, you can always expect really really good things.

One of the good things I've noticed about Hufflepuffs is that they aren't too proud. They learn from their mistakes. They are accepting and open minded.

 

Pottermore-sorted Ravenclaw! COME JOIN ME WIKIDIVING, FRIENDS

I love all the houses though tbh, and my favorite characters are probably Neville and Also Neville (though Luna and Hermione are pretty primo a++ peeps yo).

 

Ravenclaw here, but before I get started on Houses here's the rest of my thoughts about magical contraception.


I think magical contraception could be pretty simple, going by the way magic works in the Potterverse. There could easily be a spell or potion that temporarily prevented sperm production; this could be something you use every time you have possibly-pregnancy-causing sex, or it could be a longer-term thing.

I imagine that the one-off charm would be relatively simple and easy for young/less magically talented people to learn and use. It could be performed on yourself or on your partner. There could also be a charm that prevented anything from entering the cervix (possibly by closing/putting a magical barrier over the os?), therefore making fertilisation impossible. The barrier could be one-way, too, in case you happen to menstruate while the spell is in effect.

For people who can't do that, a potion could be sold that would have either or both effect. Perhaps a medical procedure would also exist, where you see a healthcare provider who can perform more complicated, specialised magic.

In the books, magical people seem to be less concerned with prophylactics. Rather than preventing illness or injury (i.e. not having a game where enchanted cannonballs try to kill your children), they rely on their technologically advanced culture to provide solutions to accidents that have already happened. With this in mind, I think that a magical barrier that prevents sperm from getting near eggs is probably more likely than one that prevents sperm production to begin with. In fact, it would be pretty in-character for the wizarding community to rely on spells or potions that they use after the pregnancy risk occurs.

I meant for this to be a medium-length speculative post, but instead I went into a massive tangent about magical abortions. Skip if squeamish or otherwise uncomfortable with the topic.

Spoiler: here is the massive tangent about magical abortions

With regard to abortion, the canonically confirmed existence of souls means that they probably have discovered the exact point of ensoulment, which makes it a lot simpler. (This is something that IRL religions often bring up when discussing abortion. The idea is that the foetus doesn't have a soul from the moment of conception, so terminating a pregnancy before the point of ensoulment is not ending a human life, because it has no soul yet. Your religious perspective may still object to any attempt at birth control if it prohibits non-procreative sex, but the sin would be preventing a life rather than ending one.)

So I'm guessing the wizarding attitude to the sanctity of life is based around the soul, since they apparently think nothing of conjuring animals out of nowhere or erasing them from existence. (Anyone else find that creepy? Vanishing spells on animals? Is it just me?) Maybe they have a test that can be performed, like an ultrasound looking for a heartbeat, which can tell you whether or not your pregnancy is ensouled yet; perhaps it's illegal to terminate after that, or maybe it's legal but frowned upon. Maybe they only know the general point during gestation, like 'at 12 weeks' or 'during the third trimester' or something.

Regardless of the legality or ethics, how would it actually work? There might be a parallel to the real world: in the first few weeks, a drug is taken orally to induce miscarriage, but after that it requires manual evacuation of the uterus. I imagine there would be a potion counterpart to the medical abortion (i.e. pills you take), and after that, it would be a spell of some kind. Two possible methods come to mind: a spell to induce miscarriage, or Vanishing the foetus.

A spell to terminate the foetus's development would probably be easier to perform. Maybe people can even do it without medical training. Maybe it's simple, but unpleasant, because of the physical and emotional experience of miscarrying a more developed pregnancy. Maybe, when performed by a Healer or other trained medical person, they render the patient unconscious, or use charms or potions to put them into an artificial state of mind - happy? Unaware? Delirious? Unconscious? Maybe the properly-performed spell also causes the uterus to contract, so the uterine lining and foetal tissue are expelled faster, reducing physical and mental distress for the patient. Maybe an assistant stands by to Vanish what comes out while the Healer focuses on inducing the contractions.

Maybe it's insanely risky to try on your own - the Potterverse equivalent of the coathanger. Maybe abortion is taboo, or illegal, in the wizarding community, so it becomes something that mothers pass down to daughters in secret, variations in potion recipes or incantations resulting in unpredictable and potentially dangerous results. Maybe the symptoms of a termination gone wrong are as obviously telling as Splinching, and sometimes women are admitted to St Mungo's and sent straight on to face Magical Law Enforcement. Maybe the Trace is used to catch out people who try to terminate without knowing how far along they are, who don't know - or don't want to know - whether ensoulment has occurred, whisking them away to face the wizarding world's disturbingly terrible justice system. (Seriously, even before the Voldemort regime, that shit was fucked up.)

Leaving that disturbing ILU-486 line of thought behind, let's think about the Vanishing option. I think this would require major expertise and caution, since Vanishing living tissue is canonically described as more complicated than inanimate objects. We also don't know whether it's possible to Vanish something when there's a barrier in between: the episode of Torchwood where Gwen gets 'pregnant' with the parasitic alien comes to mind, where they have a tool that could theoretically destroy something that is enclosed in something else without affecting the thing enclosing it, but they might not aim correctly and accidentally take a chunk out of Gwen's bowels. Or brain. Or basically anything else in the room.

I digress (yet again). Vanishing: is it possible to Vanish the contents of someone's uterus, without needing to get inside it first? If not, then I guess you'd have to get to it the Muggle way - though I would hope there would be a more comfortable magical version of the speculum. Opening the cervix would be much safer too, since infection could either be prevented with some kind of magical antiseptic field or nipped in the bud immediately after the procedure by a potion. And, of course, magic could stretch various tissues beyond their usual mundane limits, which would make access a lot easier. (I'm also remembering the Moste Potente Potions illustration of 'a man who seemed to have been turned inside out;. Perhaps a controlled dab of that on the abdomen would help somehow... ew. I'm going to try to stop picturing that now.)

But let's say it is possible to Vanish from the outside. I imagine that protective magic would need to be worked to shield the walls of the uterus, and everything outside them, from the Vanishing, in case it's aimed incorrectly or something. Maybe this procedure is the fastest and most painless, followed by potions to return your hormones to normal, so it's like nothing ever happened - but it requires multiple highly-trained people, a complicated piece of magic, hard-to-prepare potions, and what I'm really trying to get at here is that it'd be expensive. So the likes of Pansy Parkinson might miss a period, take a test (I assume there are spells for that too), write a discreet note home to her mother, take the Floo during a Hogsmeade weekend and be back before curfew, with no one any the wiser. But if Ginny Weasley had the same problem...

...aaaand now I have to write a fic about this. Goddammit.

 

Do you think that it only works on humans because I think about that tumblr post about how many cats there are at hogwarts and i think it is hilarious thinking about that number multiplying, as cats do.

 

Yeah, the wizarding world definitely seems to be a pound of cure over an ounce of prevention. Quidditch could be modified to include helmets... a net... an anti-gravity trampoline spell on the grounds... But no let's just let our small children get injured and patch them up later.

 

I think I actually reblogged that, mentioning my contraception headcanon... the fact that Hogwarts hasn't been taken over by a veritable flood of felines yet suggests that it works for them, too.

That, or magical spaying is a thing.

(Hey, what if spaying/neutering cats was actually really easy? Like, so that a reasonably-magically-proficient adult could just point and flick? That would be a really grossly ironic addition to the fic I now have to write about restriction of reproductive rights in Wizarding Britain)

...actually, come to think of it, magical pet shops probably do it themselves. How hard can it be for a charm to clamp/tie a small animal's Fallopian tubes/vasa deferentia? Probably not that hard. Simple spells can tie people's shoelaces together, so I bet a simple spell could sterilise a cat. And reversing it probably wouldn't be hard either, so if you really wanted to breed your cats, then you just undo it.

Now I'm imagining some fifteen-year-old deciding it would be real cute to learn the reversal spell and get some kittens out of it. I bet it would be a Ravenclaw. We're definitely prone to doing experimental shit without thinking about the consequences.

On that note, regarding Houses: I'm a Ravenclaw through and through. It occurs to me that I've probably never been so certain about any label for my identity than I am when it comes to Ravenclaw. I just am. I wasn't nervous taking the Pottermore test, because I figured that if it put me somewhere other than Ravenclaw, then it was just plain wrong. (It put me in Ravenclaw.)

But actually, I think Hufflepuff is the best house. I would be honoured to be a Hufflepuff.

 

I imagine a few cats still slip through the neutering processes, just like they do here, but yeah, it seems like having a simple spell is most likely.

 

this whole discussion is excellent (this does not add anything at all but i felt the need to say it because wow, a+, why can i only like posts once)

 

Yeeeeeeeee this is my new home

Slytherin here, which I used to think was weird since I have no ambition and then I realized that I have no ambition for boring stuff other people want me to do.

I also started writing, a while back, some wizard cops stuff, and then got distracted by designing wand holsters. My favorite design was definitely "harness on shoulders, wand upside down on back, tab keeping it in holster"

Also, since Beater is my favorite quidditch position (which sounds vaguely like it could be the punchline to a dirty joke), I like trying to design protective uniforms. Because all of my HP world characters really like not having to regrow their bones.

 

Sits here because while I don't especially go to this fandom I love the headcanons and meta like burning. Because dang HP fandom you show your age in your quality of meta.

 

i actually had the exact opposite of this problem, if i recall correctly. i wasn't allowed harry potter growing up, and wasn't really interested until a friend was like "you'd totally be a hufflepuff" and i got really interested upon discovering all the meta and overall world building this fandom has. i binged all the movies in one night and when i started learning about the houses i was like "yeah i could totally see me as a hufflepuff" and then pottermore and really every other house quiz i've taken has given me ravenclaw hahaha.

 

I'm a Ravenclaw over here. And so is most of my friend group. (Because of that and the dynamics of my group, I'm of the opinion that Ravenclaw is the cloudcookoolander nerd house.)

 

I am a hufflepuff on Pottermore, and I am not sure I really agree with it. Though I must admit I haven't really done any research into it. From reading the books though, I always sort of wished I was a Gryffindor, because that's where Harry and such were :P