my application
1. Name: Emily
2. Age: 23
3. Where do you see yourself in 5 years?
I used to think I knew the answer to this, but now I'm not sure. I'm at a point in my life where I don't really have any idea what I want to do next. It's kinda exciting and scary at the same time. I am currently living in Atlanta and going into my final year of college. I am studying English and Philosophy. I do think that I would probably like to go to grad school eventually, probably within the next 5 years or so. So, as it stands now, I think I would like to be back in school yet again in 5 years time. I know I'd like to move as well, but I'm not sure where yet. I have been enjoying exploring the possibilities, though. I am reading up on various schools and locations that I could possibly be moving on to after this step in my life is over. I enjoy big cities, so in 5 years when I've moved on to wherever, it will most definitely be a big city. I am in love with the idea of Boston or London at the moment. But those are probably the most expensive cities that I could dream of living in, so I will just have to wait and see if those cities are only a dream of mine. I'm rambling a bit, aren't I? In a nutshell, I don't know where I want to be in five year. But I do know that I will probably be exploring a new and exciting city and going to grad school of some sort.
4. Which of the characters do you most relate to?
I have always related to Hermione, but lately I have started realizing that I'm a lot like Luna as well. Like Hermione, I tend to be the girl who spends all her free time studying for school. I love school and reading and writing. I sit in the front of the class and try to answer all the questions. I will admit that I can also be a little bossy like Hermione as well. Also, like Hermione, I have a few friends that I am very very close to and I am extremely loyal to them. I would do anything for them. As for Luna, I used to sort of just write her off as a loopy sidekick-type character, but after rereading the books, reading the 7th book for the first time, and seeing her character in the movie, I am seeing a lot of myself in her. I tend to be kinda weird and say weird things just like Luna. I can be somewhat of a space cadet, too. I like to think that I am open-minded like Luna. I entertain odd ideas that other people might not believe to be possible. For instance, I really think there was a ghost living in my bathroom last year and that my cat was protecting me from it. Odd, though, that the ghost is gone now. It seemed to leave shortly after my cat died. So now I am beginning to believe that my cat wasn't protecting me from the ghost at all. Instead, maybe, my cat was friends with the ghost. Anyway, I think I'm a healthy cross between the two characters.
5. Who is your least favorite character?
Tough to say. Every time I am asked this question, I try to come up with a different answer. So this time I will say Bellatrix Lestrange because she killed my favorite character (Sirius Black). That is enough of a reason to hate her, right? I think her role in this final book really sealed my hatred for her, too. She seemed to follow Voldemort without question moreso than any of the other death eaters which was annoying. If you can follow someone like that without ever questioning anything they ask of you or any of their beliefs, then I really question your intelligence. She just didn't seem that bright to me. More mean than anything else. Not the greatest character by any means. I was also not too fond of Helena Bonham Carter's portrayal of Bellatrix in the movie. But that's another story altogether not related to the overall character of the . . . character.
6. What would you see when you look into the Mirror of Erised?
A version of myself that is well-rested. I am constantly on the go, constantly doing stuff. I love sleeping and I love feeling rested, but I just don't have time for that right now because I have so many things I'd like to accomplish. So I just keep going and drink lots of coffee instead. Seriously, on an average morning, I get up and out of bed by 5:30am. So it would make me happy to see a healthy well-rested version of myself in the mirror for a change. And I'd love it if my cat Luna was there. Luna was my best best friend and he died last year. He was hit by a car. I was completely devastated. I didn't leave my house for a week. I really miss him.
7. What would your boggart be?
I work in a kinda sketchy area of town and lately there have been a lot of robberies/shootings. I go to work every morning before the sun comes up and I have been so scared lately that someone is going to come and hurt me. This is a new new fear of mine. Before, my fears have always been less concrete. But lately, I've had all of these dreams about people coming and attacking me. So my boggart would probably be some scary thug with a gun coming to rape/kill me. And it my nightmares, the bad guys always have really big teeth, so he'd probably have really big teeth as well.
8. Dark Magic: Tell us your thoughts. Is there such a thing? Or is magic only dark because of the motivation behind its use?
Oh, no. There is completely such a thing as dark magic. How can horcruxes and unforgivable curses and such things be used for good? Not possible. There are quite obviously certain spells that are just dark and evil, spells that a person would not do unless they have evil intentions.
9. What is your favorite non-Harry Potter book? Quote something from it and tell us why you chose that line.
I love classic literature and I am a hopeless romantic. Which is why Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte is my absolute favorite book. It's been a while since I read the book, so I had to go and dig up the paper I wrote on Wuthering Heights to find some of my most favorite lines. But here is an example of how much Heathcliff is insanely in love with Catherine. After Catherine's death, Heathcliff begs for Catherine's ghost to haunt him:
"I know that ghosts have wandered on earth. Be with me always - take any form - drive me mad! only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you! Oh, God! It is unutterable! I cannot live without my life! I cannot live without my soul!"
There are lots of bits like this. There is even a scene with Heathcliff unearths Catherine's corpse so that he may lie with her again. It is a really intense, really dark book. I absolutely cherished every moment of reading it. It was an amazing experience.
10. You are sitting in your house common room when you notice that another student has left a book lying on the table. You pick it up and realize it is their personal diary. What do you do?
I would not read it. I would probably keep it for her and return it to her the next time I saw her to keep her from the embarrassment of having other people read it. Cause you know the longer it's lying there, the more people that are going to run across it and most likely read it. That's how people are. It's terrible really. But I would like to think I'm better than that. Well . . . maybe if it was someone I didn't care for, I would leave it there, though.
11. Would you use an Unforgivable Curse under any circumstances, and if so, what would those be?
No. I wouldn't.
12. Do you think Harry was right or wrong to use his cloak to get to Hogsmeade in the 3rd book?
Well, it was risky for him to do it. But, you know, I bent the rules all the time when I was in high school, so I wouldn't fault him for it either. When I was in high school, I used to skip out for lunch with my boyfriend all the time and I definitely didn't have permission to do that. Sometimes rules are just silly. Rules are made for the majority in the majority of situations and do not apply to individuals and their specific circumstances. Sometimes you have to access your personal circumstance and bend the rules accordingly. Therefore, it was neither right nor wrong for Harry to use the cloak.
13. What's one thing you would do if you knew you would suffer no consequences from it?
Hmm . . . this is probably going to sound bad, but I'll just say it. I used to steal when I was younger. Not from people, but from bigger chain stores, stores that wouldn't really notice if things were missing. Of course, now, I know better and I would feel completely foolish doing something like that. But I suppose if I knew it wasn't going to hurt anybody and I knew I wouldn't get caught, then I'd probably still be stealing magazines and make-up from Target and Wal-Mart just like I did when I was thirteen. I know, I am completely awful.
14. Someone has graffitied a hateful remark about your House on one of the walls in the Great Hall. Luckily for you, you overhear a conversation between House elves who witnessed the perpetrator, and you alone know who did it. What do you do? What if the remark had been done by another house, and was about a house that wasn't your own?
I can be a bit of a tattle tale sometimes. I would probably tell the higher-ups that I knew who wrote the graffiti whether it was my house or someone else's.
15. What do you really think of Snape? Is he fair in the things he does?
Oh, I really like Snape. I think he was one of the most interesting, most well-thought-out characters of the whole series. He was really complex and had a lot of different factors motivating him to do different things. You can really tell Rowling truly cared about Snape, making sure to explain why Snape did everything he did. He might not have always been completely fair in the things that he does, especially his dealings with Harry. However, based on his past beliefs and experiences, he is justified in the things he does, which, I think is more important.
16. Do you like the idea of a school being split into four separate houses? What about school unity?
Well, it is quite fun to read about, but I think it does create a sense of elitism which can cause a lot of harm. Also, by always being around people with similar personalities to your own, you miss out on all the things you can learn from people who are a lot different from you, people who see the world in a different way. I think it is important to mix with people who are different than you because it gives you perspective and a better sense of who you are. Also, I just kind of hate competitions and teams and all that. If I were at Hogwarts, I probably wouldn't buy into all of that competition stuff. I'd definitely be skipping out on the quidditch games.
17. Which are more important: Friends or Family?
Well, good friends are like members of your family. So I guess I'd say family since I consider my friends part of my family. And their family members are like part of my family, too. We all had a big Thanksgiving feast together a few years ago. All of our families together. It was great.
18. Some people think the Weasley twins are funny, while others find them mean spirited. How do you feel, and why?
Oh, they're quite funny. Some people (people with no sense of humor) just don't get sarcasm. Sarcasm can come off as mean to people who don't get it. The Weasley twins just tend to have a lot of sarcasm in their particular form of humor. Nothing wrong with that.
19. Do you consider a first impression to be the only impression a person can give? Why or why not?
No, but it is the most important impression. People judge you and decide whether or not they want to get a second and third impression based on the first one. If you give off a bad first impression, then you might as well forget it. You're most likely lost to that person. That can be a lot of pressure, which is probably why I get so so nervous when I'm meeting new people.
20. You've been asked to invent a new spell to be taught at Hogwarts. What is the name of the spell, what does it do, and what is the incantation?
I think I'd like to be able to be invisible without the help of an invisibility cloak. Invisibility would be helpful for a countless number of reasons, some of which we have seen explored in the Harry Potter books. I know Dumbledore doesn't need the invisibility cloak to become invisible, so I suppose the spell is already called something. Forgive me if they said something about the name of the spell in the book and I'm just forgetting. Anyway, since the spell already kind of exists, I'm not sure if I can name it. I'll just have to go up to Dumbledore's portrait in the headmaster's office and ask him to teach me the spell. I don't know if I'd want to share the spell with everyone, though. It wouldn't be that great if everyone knew how to do it. So maybe students would only learn of the spell if they had proven through their behavior at Hogwarts that they were worthy of learning such a spell. Perhaps worthiness would be assessed by good grades in your classes and/or class participation and/or participation in extracurricular activities. Or something along those lines. People who did not meet the standards would not even be allowed to know that the spell existed. And if you told your friends about it, then your invisibility privileges would be taken away.
21. Think about a negative past experience and tell us how it affected you. What did you learn from it? If you could go back and change it now, would you?
When I was in high school, my best friend committed suicide. She was only fourteen years old. It affected me greatly and it still hurts me to this day (nearly 10 years later) that she is no longer with me. But rather than think about how the negative event affected me and how her death changed me, I like to focus on how her life changed me. Even though she was on this earth for a very short time, I really believe that she made a difference in a lot of people's lives. She had many friends, and she really cared deeply about all of them. I have always been the type of person to not trust others and that prefers to believe that people are bad until they prove themselves to be good. My friend Katie made me see, to some extent, that it's not always like that. She opened me up to the idea that there are genuinely good people out there. She was also very affectionate with her friends and let them know that they were appreciated. I believe that to some extent I am so open with my friends now because of what Katie taught me. Also, losing her taught me that I should always appreciate people while they are here with me because they could be gone at any time. It is unfortunate, but true. Of course if I could go back and change it, I would love to. I regret her death so much and I beat myself up about it so much wondering if there was anything I could've done to change it. I would do anything to have Katie here. But then I also know that she wouldn't be the same person now and we might not be friends anymore. We might not even like each other. Thinking of that saddens me immensely. This is a very tough, complicated subject for me to talk about. I'm still not even sure how I feel about the whole experience.
22. If you happened across the Room of Requirement, what would you find?
It would be a quiet comfortable place where I could hide and no one else would be allowed in. It would be a calming environment where I could read or study or take a nap or just hang out with my cat. A place away from all the madness of what I assume living with that many other people would be like. I'm seeing a lot of lamps and pillows in this room for some reason.
'
23. What would you be willing to die for?
I would be willing to die for the people I love, if I had to. I wouldn't be very happy about it, but of course if I could save my friends by dying for them, I would have to do it.
24. If you died, would you want to come back as a ghost? Why or why not?
No, because I'd see all my friends and family hanging out and having fun without me. I'd be so frustrated that I wouldn't be able to participate in the fun with them. When I'd die, I'd love it if it just felt like sleeping forever.
25. Hermione has asked you to support S.P.E.W. (read: flagged you down and cornered you with a box of buttons that she shakes in your face to "entice" you to join). What is your response?
Of course I would join. I think the way most wizards treat house elves is completely terrible. I would be totally about joining and supporting her cause. It angers me that so many people didn't take S.P.E.W. seriously. Poor house elves. I'd even help her recruit more members. Even if I had to resort to threatening them into joining.
26. What field of study would you most want to enter into, and why, once you graduated from Hogwarts?
Well, I am thinking about becoming a professor in real life, so I don't see why I wouldn't want to be a professor in wizard life. What would I teach, though? Potions seems really cool, but I doubt I would be as interested in actually doing it as I am in just reading about it. You see, I always really hated science and Potions just seems a little too much like Chemistry for me to want to get into it enough to teach it. DADA, I think, would be an extremely interesting subject to teach. I would love to teach that. That is, if the position is no longer cursed.
27. True or False: Rules are meant to be broken. Explain.
Well, as I stated in an earlier question, rules are meant to be followed until they no longer apply to you. Then, by all means, you should break them. (see my answer to question 12)
28. You have one day to live. How do you spend your last day alive?
To be honest, I'd probably try to fit in lots of sex with my boyfriend. I'd at least make time to call some other important people and let them know just how important they were to me. The calls would be made in between the sex, of course, and not during it. I'd probably end the day by going out dancing with a bunch of my friends. Then I could die dancing or doing something equally fun.
29. Do you think Dumbledore was correct in shielding certain truths from Harry? Why or why not?
I think he was. Normally, I think it's wrong to keep important information from people, but Harry is a different and special case. Harry likes to act without thinking about what he's doing. If Dumbledore gave Harry all of the information, he'd probably go out and act crazy without giving thought to anything he was doing. And then Harry probably would've messed everything up and died in Book 3 or something. Dumbledore was smart in the amount of information he gave Harry. Dumbledore gave Harry the exact amount of information he needed to give in order to get Harry to do exactly what he wanted him to do. Pretty smart of Dumbledore, I'd say. Dumbledore was manipulative just like his brother said he was, wasn't he?
30. Finally, what house do you think you belong in?
Well, I belong to two other sorting communities and I've been sorted into the same place in both of them. So I know where I think I belong based on other communities. But I'd rather not say. I'm curious to see where you'd sort me without having that information. Plus it'd be fun/interesting to belong to a different house than what I'm used to, just to see how things work on one of the other sides. If you believe I belong in a different house, that is.
31. Oh, and one more thing. Just to make it easier on us for pointing, who told you about us?
Nobody. I found you all on my own.