Sorting Hat Application Preview

[inkaddict]

Name: Chiara
Age: 23
Sex: Female

1. If you could have a Time Turner or a Felix Felicis potion, which would you pick? Why? For what would you use the item? Would you use it for something specific in the past, or present, or even something in the future? Would it be strictly personal gain? Explain.
Well, the Time Turner can be used every time you need it without limits or risks of addiction, but it makes much more difficult to actually achieve your goal than it is with the Felix Felicis, you can’t simply go back and fix the past -you need to consider the consequences any change would bring onto the future, and be extremely careful and discreet.
This will inevitably slow you down, and limit the ways in which you could realistically modify the events and still keep some sort of control on the final outcome.
However, knowing me and my extremely addictive personality I’d still take the Time Turner.

I think knowing that I have only a limited supply of the FF potion would make me unsure on when to use it, I would always be asking myself “what if some years from now something happens and I’ve already used it all?”, and let some good occasions slip between my fingers because of this fear.
On the contrary I hope that knowing that there’s a chance to go back in the past and put everything to rights would push me to act more freely that I usually do, be a little more impulsive.

Right now I wouldn’t use it for anything specific, especially since with a Time Turner you can’t really go back in time more than a few hours -days at best- but I’d probably use it for personal gain. The first thing that comes to mind would be making sure I make some interesting investments, or maybe be present where something is happening that will give me explosive material for the scoop of my life, something that would get me the Pulitzer. Of course if anything bad was to happen to the people I care about I’d try to save them, but in the end that would be just as self serving, right?

2. What types of memories would you put in the Pensieve? And why would you choose those?
On first impulse I’d say some of my bad memories; nothing major like the death of a close friend or relative: humiliation, rejection, failure.
Little episodes that I keep thinking of, replaying them over and over in my mind at the least opportune moments, giving them more importance than they deserve. Maybe having my head free could help me concentrate on the present and be more effective, less insecure.

What troubles me are the effects on personality of the memory loss: we see Snape using a pensieve in a very specific occasion, just for the duration of each Occlumency lesson and immediately retrieving his memories afterwards -even though he’d probably be happier letting them there to rot. Presumably Dumbledore too uses it only when he needs to examine a memory or to show it to someone else, but what could the effects of a more prolonged use be? Could you end up like Lockhart (post memory charm)? Better keep the bad memories and just use it to relive the old good times when memory starts to fail.

3. How do you feel about the Dark Arts in general? Explain in detail!
Personally I think the result of forbidding the teaching and practicing of the DA would be to keep from normal people an incredible source of knowledge and power while not really preventing Tom Riddles everywhere from learning them: well armed criminals and defenceless victims.

There’s also to consider the lack of information on how exactly they work in HP’s world.
Are they somewhat addictive? Can you be corrupted just for using them, for example, in self defence? Obviously to teach D.A.D.A. you need a certain amount of first hand knowledge, and the same seems to go for Aurors since in GOF everyone was perfectly ok with Fake Moody knowing how to cast the Unforgivables. In the end I believe that it all comes down to a personal choice on how to use them: the Dark Arts in themselves are a simple, if powerful, tool.

On the other hand I don’t think teaching them to 11/17 years old like they do in Durmstrang is a good idea: they’re not mature enough to understand the dangers, and I believe you need a strong, well defined personality not to let the DA overwhelm you -something not many teenagers have- but if you are going to specialize in certain fields you should be able to learn them in an adequate environment and under the guide of people who’ve managed to master them without loosing themselves.

4. Which person from the Harry Potter world do you feel you relate the most to and why?
It took me a long time to settle on an answer

Probably Remus Lupin. I can identify with that strange mixture of light and dark, of wolf and man, instincts and reason. A quiet kid in the corner, never lifting his voice, hiding himself behind books and hardly trusting anyone with who he is.

I’m extremely selective in giving away my trust, private and with a side I don’t much like to look at that makes it hard for me to really let myself care about something or someone, to let myself go, to trust and love -while unfailingly polite and ready to help classmates and colleagues my friends are very, very few.
That’s my own curse, something I have to fight with every day of my life.

Like him I tend to be the rational one, the voice of reason, to take responsibility even when I shouldn’t and I strive to achieve his quiet courage and dignity, the resilience he shows in his constant battle with the wolf, the ability to do what must be done and still remain a decent human being that characterize Remus.

I’m not as forgiving as he is, nor would I want t be: if one of my friends ever behaved like Sirius did in their fourth year, completely betraying my trust and ignoring my feelings I’d strangled him in an heartbeat. The way I see it Remus was so grateful for his friends’ acceptance he would have let anything go, while I tend to be blunt with my friends, much more demanding that I am with mere acquaintances: they have my complete loyalty and support, they’re pack, but I need to get the same in return.

5. Which character from Harry Potter is your favourite and why?
As cliché as it may sound it’s Severus Snape.
In my defence I can say that I like canon!Snape, not the prettied up version that is so common in fandom: there’s plenty of fictions and essays in which he’s described as cool, very controlled and unflappable -and I always wonder what books have these guys been reading.
Snape is cool and sarcastic just as long as he has firm control of the situation, the moment things stop going his way he completely blows up. He tries too hard. He is a bully. He has the same social skills of a porcupine, going out in the world with his shields always up to full power. He’s been screwed over by people all through his childhood and adolescence, and somewhere along the way he figured out that no matter what he did he wasn’t Lucius or Sirius: he isn’t charming, nor is he attractive. What he has is a foul temper and lots of brains, and this is what he uses.
People don’t like me? Good, I’ll make them fear me. Nobody would want to be me? Perhaps, but they are going to respect me, willingly or not.
I’m not saying that he isn’t bothered by this -his bitterness makes it obvious that he is- but he works with what he has and never backs down.
So much damage was inflicted upon him by family, teachers, schoolmates and even friends (he was, after all a half-blood in Slytherin, and then a half-blood Death Eater. I doubt he was welcomed with open arms) that at some point he just gave up on being anything different than what others saw in him. I think he spent his whole life on the outside looking in, craving acceptance, respect and power. He had to do without the first, partially because of his own pride, and he focused on what he could get, in one form or another.

I hate seeing people happily discard the basic traits of his personality for the sake of “coolness” because these very traits are the ones that make him dear to me: despite everything he keeps trying, more determinate than ever.

He is one of the rare three-dimensional characters, one of the few shades of grey we’re allowed to see in a word that for years has been described mostly as either black or white- although this is probably due to the books being written from Harry’s point of view and him being…well, both an adolescent and a Gryffindor.
(This is in no way meant as house bashing, is simply one of the traits I’ve noticed in most of the Lions in canon, and I think it’s a consequence of their courage and loyalty: both qualities require strong belief in your ideals and convictions, but the same belief can easily bring you to loose sight of others’ motivations, and make it difficult to accept that the world can’t be divided precisely between good and evil, especially if you’re very young.)

He’s passionate, intense and effective at what he does, be it teaching or spying, and his ambiguity is fascinating: he killed Dumbledore and a good part of fandom is busy thinking up theories to justify him -I’d bow to anyone who could pull off something like this.
I love how much we don’t know about him and adore his sarcasm, while his insecurities, lack of social skills, childishness and pettiness make him feel very real.
Of course I must admit I am biased, as I share with him some personality traits -the side I don’t much like to look at of which I talked before: a paranoid fear of being ridiculed and hurt, or appearing weak, an endless ability to keep grudges, a tendency to lash out first just because I hate being vulnerable, to use sarcasm as a defensive weapon, a deep-rooted desire to prove myself and an appreciation for petty revenge.
I guess this makes me more willing to make excuses for him and look behind his awful attitude than most.

6. Which character from Harry Potter is your LEAST favourite and why?
Sirius Black.
I prefer people to ideals, and I’m always appalled at the easy way he dismisses is family.
I’m not talking about history, traditions or blood; I’m talking about people, living and breathing, about a brother who’s dead because he couldn’t go on being a Death Eater and practically gets called a coward for his troubles. He reminds me of a crusader, so wrapped up in his own ideals and beliefs he forgets about empathy and understanding: he’s right, the others are wrong and that’s all he needs to know.
When he makes a mistake, betraying his best friend’s trust and endangering the life of a fourteen years old we are supposed to forgive him because he’s a Good Guy at heart, spent years in jail, blah, blah, blah…
Aside from having problems in believing that a family could be so neatly divided between good and rotten, crazy members (the Malfoys, dysfunctional bastards that they are, are far more understandable in their love for each other and divided loyalties) I can’t see a change for the better in Sirius as an adult, probably because the time he spent in Azkaban wasn’t exactly conductive to healthy character growth.

Another thing that irks me is that his character was obviously written to be loved: the poor wronged hero with the bad boy charm and the understandable flaw of hating anything related to the dark arts a bit more than should be wise, and yet he embodies another side of the close-mindedness that the books should teach us to reject.
At least Sirius was written this way for a purpose: he was meant to be the catalyst that made Harry question himself and what everyone had told him about his parents. Still it was while thinking of him that I managed to see clearly for the first time what is, in fact, my major peeve with JKR’s writing: she tends to tell us some things about her characters -both with her words and with the reactions everyone has to them- while actually showing us completely different things though their actions.
For example: Dumbledore is supposedly one of the most powerful and wise wizards since Merlin, and he *still* manages to let a Death Eater slip right under his nose almost every bloody year? Now, either he’s really wise and powerful but also a closeted sadist who enjoys putting his students in mortal peril or he’s getting senile. Or he was momentarily insane due to a plot device taking over his body.

The same could be said for Ginny, the Twins, or Lucius: one is all kind of awesome but behaves like a rude prom queen, the Twins are two glorified bullies and while we’re told the third is a feared and seasoned politician under pressure he throws tantrums like a bigger, blonder version of his son.

I never liked being told what to think, and while when she uses this trick with villains I generally play devil’s advocate and try like crazy to defend them being told to like or respect a character without being show anything about them that could justify it makes me dislike them on principle.
I guess in my mind poor Sirius ended up representing all this even if in his case the author had good reasons to write him the way she did.

Finally he reminds me of something I hate in both the fantasy and the real world: if you’re popular, if you’re likeable, you can do pretty much anything and people will love you.
If Dudley or Draco did half the damage the Twins or Sirius do they’d be public enemies number one, but Sirius and the Twins are charming and funny -popular- so the other characters (and by reflection most of the readers) react to what they actually *do* by cheering them on instead of screaming murder, and it drives me completely crazy.
Don’t get me wrong, it can be very useful: I’ve been the good studious girl all through my school years, and if sometimes I wasn’t exactly nice, or prepared…well, it happens to anyone! Let’s give her another chance; after all she must have had god reasons to behave like that.
Truth is, I didn’t. I’m used to things coming easily to me, never liked hard work and never bothered to study unless I found the subject interesting -people just keep seeing what they want to see, and I’m more than willingly to milk it for all it’s worth.
To clarify, it isn’t the unfairness that bothers me, Lucius explained it plainly enough to his son at the beginning of “The Chamber of Secrets”, if Draco can’t be bothered to figure it out it’s his own fault.
What rubs me wrong is that nobody seems to see trough this, not Dumbledore, not the teachers or the students. Everybody says they should have done something about the Marauders’ attitude, but not only they didn’t then, they’re not doing anything now about the Twins, for example.

7. What wizarding job would you like to have? Why would you choose this? How would you foresee yourself accomplishing your goals to get to your career?
I’m going to go with journalist and consider it a wizarding job even if it doesn’t involve magic, since the media and our dear Rita play a big part in the HP world. I’ve thought about choosing to be an Unspeakable, but it isn’t really something I’d want to do, despite the glamour that comes with the name -all that work and no recognition? Me thinks no.
Being a journalist is what I want in real life, not only because I’ve always been good with words and enjoy playing with them, or because of the prestige and the authority that comes from being a respected and well known author. Considering that “knowledge is power” it’s logical that information will always be manipulated one way or the other. Given that, I’d rather be one step closer to the facts, it appeals to me the idea of being one of those who know what is kept from the public, the real going ons of politics and economy.
Also I love the idea of people hearing my opinions, the chance to speak my mind (even if only to a point) about the world we live in and to know that others are reading it and maybe taking it in consideration is electrifying.
I’d love to take over the Daily Prophet and turn it into a cutting edge paper, maybe be the one to publish the magical equivalent of the Watergate, or have my column from which I’d be free to snark or poke fun at the world and everything in it that rubs me the wrong way.

I have no qualms in using the “father confessor” face nature gifted me with to get the informations I want, and even if I’m not the most aggressive person on the planet I’d do everything in my power to be the best in my field. I’ve found that the distance I tend to keep from people helps in this, as it doesn’t particularly bother me to ask the uneasy questions or ignore grief and privacy to do my job. Of course there comes a point where one has to draw the line. Heavy backstabbing and publishing outright lies are some of the ones I can think of: I’d like to be as much of a reliable and objective source as I can for the readers, and still be able to look at myself in the mirror at the end of the day.

8. As a student at Hogwarts, how would you spend your free time? Explain!!
Reading my way through the library, finding a quiet corner where I can play my sax without being hexed by housemates (sadly I still sound like a fog-horn), chatting with a small but close knitted group of friends, speculating about the staff's love lives, or lack thereof, and gossiping with random students to get into the school network. Drawing a bit, although I haven't done that in a while and flying at every chance I can get as this has always been a dream of mine: I like the idea of looking at the world from a certain distance, untouchable and able to see the whole picture like you never can with you feet on the ground, of seeing the world in a different way.

9. Please pick a color from this Color Symbolism Chart that you feel fits you the best. Copy and paste it here. Why do you feel this suits you?
Black
Black is the color of the night, and of "evil." Black can also be a color of elegance or class. Black can also represent ideas such as power, sexuality, sophistication, formality, wealth, mystery, fear, evil, unhappiness, depth, style, sadness, remorse, anger, and mourning. Black can also represent a lack of color, the primordial void, emptiness.

In our culture black has come to represent evil and mourning through the simple association with dark, or more accurately with absence of light and color but in other countries, like Japan, it is white that’s associated with death and in some ways I think this is a choice that suits me better: to associate the sum of all colors to a moment that is the culmination of everything we did in our life, a light, hopeful color for what should be considered “the next great adventure” and not a terrifying moment of judgement and punishment.
I don’t see any depressing or evil connotation in black, I simply see a relaxing color, something that goes well with pretty much anything else, that’s tasteful and simple but with more character than white.
It’s funny that my two favourite colors are, in fact, not colors at all…

10. Name a person, alive, dead or even a character from a movie or book, that you most admire. Why do you admire this person?
Oscar Wilde. He was an outsider and a socialite, an awful husband but a father capable of writing unforgettable fairytales for his children, a not-so-good novelist, an incredibly talented playwright and a sharp-tongued journalist. His essays show a clairvoyance he rarely gets credit for coupled with a unique ability to portray and criticize the society he lived in with irony and a light touch that cuts deep.
Self-centred, a fool for love, vain, sarcastic, generous, in love with life and beauty, always trying to be something, never completely being himself. I’d love to get to know someone so human, so deeply faulted and talented, and I’d give an arm to be able to write like him.

Rereading this application I noticed a pattern here: I seem attracted to people (or characters) that are defined as much by their faults as by their virtues. What I really admire is their ability to succeed despite these faults, because it’s something in which I can identify, or at least something I hope I’ll be able to do myself.

One quote of his in particular always stays with me and has changed the way I look at the world:
“Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live”.
We’re always worried about what others do to us and for us, we waste our time judging the way they live their lives and what they should or shouldn’t do, while we should focus on what we can do to make ourselves happy and live our life the way we want.

11. If you could own any magical creature, what would it be? Why?
I'd like to own a Kneazle: they are highly intelligent, can help you decide who to trust, and they are cat-like. In real life I'm the proud owner of a neurotic Tabby, and cats are without a doubt my favourite animals: they are elegant and discreet, with a wild heart. Their self-sufficiency is a plus, because I wouldn't have the time or patience to cater to the needs of a dog.

12. In your opinion, what are one or two of your strongest personality traits?
As strange as it sounds one of them is probably my insecurity. Despite all the problems it causes it’s also the major incentive I have in pushing myself to always get better.
My need to “show them all” what I’m worth is what motivates me, and it doesn’t really matter if “them” are my parents or my old classmates, because in the end I’m my worst critic, the one who needs to see how far I can get.

I’m also pretty good at adapting to different people and situations: I’d like to say it’s because I try not to be closed minded or judgemental, but to be honest most of it is probably due to the fact that I can’t be bothered to get into fights -or even discussions- with people I don’t really care about just because I think they’re being idiots. I’d rather just smile, nod and save my time for something useful.
Being insecure I never liked confrontations, and while I learned to get over my hangs up for my own good I still find it unpleasant, and won’t do it lightly or without having a direct interest in the mess.
I’m also good at putting into words what people are feeling, and I apparently I have a face that screams “I’m quiet and reliable, come bother me with you problems even though we barely know each other!”. It helps me getting accepted easily, and I get to know all the juicy gossip.

13. What is one of your own biggest character flaws? Is it a flaw you only see in yourself or have others pointed it out?
Err, have I told you already that I’m insecure?
When I say I’m insecure people usually assume that I don’t believe in myself, but that isn’t exactly true. I do believe I have, in potential, the ability to do something good with my life, maybe even better than good and as a consequence I set ridiculously high standards for myself -standards that I’m terrified I’ll fail to meet. I don’t take failure lightly, and I have a tendency to act like Aesop’s fox, pretending I don’t want the things I fail to achieve, or worst of all stalling and refusing to act at all in fear of failing.
Pretty much everything else steams from here: a certain laziness, a fickleness, this sick conviction that if I don’t put everything I have in what I do than even if I fail it isn’t because I’m not good enough, that if I keep everyone else at arms length and never, ever ask for help they won’t have the chance to reject me, the need for confirmations.
I’ve been trying all my life to get stronger, better, more…something but there’s always this tiny voice in a corner of my mind that says nothing will ever be enough, not to be really be happy with myself.

I’m quite good at masking it but the people who know me well see it clearly.

14. What qualities do you value in a friend? Why do you feel these traits are important to you?
What I value most of all is respect for others opinions, limits, needs and quirks. As long as there’s mutual respect we’re free to be ourselves and it’s nice to know there are people in the world in whose company we can relax and pull of our masks: people who will accept my need to be alone at times and my difficulties in talking about my feelings or showing that I care through words and touch and not just in actions, who will be there for me when I need them and respect my boundaries at the same time.
Honesty comes close second. I don’t demand the truth at all costs, always, just on principle: white lies make the world go ‘round and I’m not always honest myself, but when it really matters I want to be sure I can count on my friends to tell me what I need to know.
Intelligence of course, meant as the ability to form personal and critical thoughts, sense of humour and some common interests, because all these wonderful qualities are all good and well, but if you don’t have anything to talk about other than yourselves you end up being bored to death.

15. If you were faced with a boggart what shape would it be? Why do you fear this?
As much as I hate anything with more than four legs, especially if furry, I don’t believe my boggart would be a giant spider. It would make me see myself as the failure I’m always afraid I’ll end up being. The idea of people looking at me and shaking their heads at the wasted potential or laughing behind my back is terribly humiliating which for me is much worse than any phobia I might have.

16. If you looked into the Mirror of Erised, what would you see? Go into as much detail as possible.
As soon as I read this question a very clear image formed in my mind: me, a few years older, curled up on the couch in my flat typing happily on a laptop some snarky article that will grace the front page of the New York Times on the following day and cuddling with my better half. There’s a cat purring somewhere and a giant window with a wonderful view of the city below. What really strikes me is the feeling of quiet contentment, complicity and relaxed happiness that pervades the whole picture. I’ve managed to get where I wanted to be, there’s nothing more to prove to myself or anyone else, I’ve found a place where I belong and there’s someone I can share my life with.

17. Which of the Harry Potter books was your favourite and why?
After reading the first chapter of HPB I was convinced that it was going to become my new favourite, and indeed some parts of it fulfilled the promise: I loved what we saw of Draco and his family, the character growth, the changes in the relationship between Dumbledore and Harry and the whole Snape plot. Unfortunately there were entire chapters that I practically had to force myself to read: the H/G drama, the Sueification of Ginny and the horrible, horrible way JKR treated Tonks and her crush on Remus…I loved Tonks, she looked strong, full of life and enthusiasm it was positively painful to see her get so grey and depressed over a crush.
So the first book is still the best one as far as I’m concerned: I like the sense of wonder and fascination I always feel re-discovering the magical world and his incredible inhabitants, it’s like being six again and reading your favourite fairytale. Everything was simple back then, being happy was easy and fear and uncertainty could be vanquished by a few choice words from my parents. It’s amazing how a simple child book can bring me back to a long forgotten state of mind.

18. What is the worst quality you believe that a person can possess? Why?
This was an incredibly hard question. I think it’s selfishness, or better yet self-centeredness, brought to the point when everything you can think about, talk about and respect is yourself.
It makes a person not only incredibly annoying and boring but dangerous: they’re so caught up in their needs they have absolutely no empathy, and while your average S.O.B. can deliberately decide to hurt someone for personal gain he isn’t going to do this constantly and indiscriminately. People like this, on the contrary, never stop, never behave any differently even towards the ones they claim to love simply because they aren’t able (or refuse) to see what they’re doing.

19. If you become an animagus, what animal would you transfigure into? Explain.
I‘d love to be an owl. A small, nondescript fluffy brownish one, with sharp talons to defend myself, keen eyes to see what happens around me and good hearing to discover some useful secrets.
I work best at night and have always had troubles waking in the morning, so life as an owl would be perfect for me. Besides it would be a very practical transfiguration: it’s a common animal, probably the most used as a familiar so no one would notice me, and flying would not only be useful to make a quick escape in times of need but also to reach places I wouldn’t normally have access to.

20. If you could change ONE thing in the series, what would it be and why? Since many people choose similar things please explain your personal feelings on the subject.
As I said there are things I dislike in the books, but I wouldn’t change anything major. A book in which everything goes my way would be much more boring, and I certainly wouldn’t spend hours on the net obsessing and arguing over it.
I’d love to know more about Minerva. She’s one of the few female characters I really admire in the series, well, one that I admire and has more than a few lines in most of the books…she fascinates me: she can be fairly strict and uptight but has enough of a mischievous side to keep her interesting and entertaining to read. I’ve always wondered what is her story, how did she end up at Hogwarts, if she was ever married, what part she played in the first war, if she was always a teacher, what kind of a student she was…I hope we’ll get to see more of her now that Dumbledore’s dead.

21. Which class do you think you would do well in? Why?
I tend to find theory a bit sterile in itself and if I can’t think of ways to use what I’m learning in everyday life I get bored and loose interest, so I’d do well in classes in which a good portion of the time is dedicated to practice, like Transfigurations and Potions.
I don’t know enough about the way Charms is thought, and I’m not clear on what is really necessary for a charm to work: pronunciation, wand movement, intent…it’s all a bit vague and I work well with detailed instruction and complex tasks that require my complete focus. When I concentrate on my work I forget everything else (including eating and sleeping, but unfortunately not chain smoking) to a point that my mind goes blank and the world is reduced to what I need to do. I also like to see and touch the results of my work, to feel like I created something.
Care of Magical Creatures would be interesting too, as long as Hagrid wasn’t teaching. I’m rather used to my appendages and I’d like to keep them all, thank you very much.

22. Which class do you think you wouldn't do well in and why?
I’ve always had problems with numbers, so I would avoid Arithmancy completely, and I wouldn’t be that good at Herbology since between me and my cat , who likes to chew on everything green she can find, we’ve managed to kill every single plant that ever entered the house. Plus I have an almost paralysing fear of insects, and I’m not too fond of hard, dirty work.

23. If you were on the Quidditch team what position would you like to play?
Keeper. This way I wouldn’t be under the under the terrible pressure a seeker is but I’d still be in one of the key positions. I’d be able to take a step back from the match from time to time and gather my thoughts, keep an eye on the way everyone is playing and maybe come up with a new strategy. To be honest I think the seeker’s role is quite boring: you spend most of the game circling around trying to spot the snitch and put everything in the final rush, and then you either catch the snitch or you loose and you do it quite spectacularly, no buts or ways to cover up a mistake. On the contrary a keeper is judged by how he plays the whole game, and a few mistakes won’t necessarily ruin everything.

24. Go to this site: Birth months. Get your birth month, copy all the qualities under that month, BOLD 5-10 that fit you the most, STRIKE the ones that do not apply to you.
NOVEMBER:
Has a lot of ideas. Difficult to fathom. Thinks forward. Unique and brilliant. Extraordinary ideas. Sharp thinking. Fine and strong clairvoyance. Can become good doctors. Dynamic in personality. Secretive. Inquisitive. Knows how to dig secrets. Always thinking. Less talkative but amiable. Brave and generous. Patient. Stubborn and hard-hearted (I can be, depending on circumstances). If there is a will, there is a way. Determined. Never give up.(I choose my battles) Hardly becomes angry unless provoked. Loves to be alone. Thinks differently from others. Sharp-minded. Motivates oneself. Does not appreciate praises. High-spirited. Well-built and tough. Deep love and emotions. Romantic. Uncertain in relationships. Homely. Hardworking. High abilities. Trustworthy. Honest and keeps secrets(again, it depends). Not able to control emotions. Unpredictable.

25. Which house do you feel you belong in? What house do you think you wouldn't belong in? Why?
My friends think I could do well in Slytherin, and I believe I’d like life in the House of the Badgers.

From what little we see of them in canon Hufflepuffs are not only hardworking (which admittedly I’m not) and loyal (which I can be to a fault if my friends need me) but also very accepting of different attitudes and of the way everyone chooses to live their life. I like to think of the ‘Puffs as a very laid back house, where you can be yourself, there’s little gratuitous drama and where you can find healthy, balanced friendships.
A lot of people see the Puffs as the house for those who don’t fit in the other three, or the house of the sweet and cuddly, but there’s not much truth in these assumptions.
To me they’re very practical people, they do what they think is right even if it means going against the tide but they’re not afraid to listen to others and give them a fair chance, or admitting they’re wrong when it happens.
I see in them my own desire for…not fairness exactly, but objectivity, for the ability to listen to both sides and to look at every element, even when it’s unpleasant. Of knowledge if you want, not for the sake of knowledge but to make informed decisions, fair in the sense that they take everything into account.
This is not a weakness, nor does it makes them carebears, it makes them dangerous opponents, willing to do whatever is necessary for what they feel is right while open minded and dynamic enough to keep everyone on their toes.

I’ve already talked abut my ambitions and my need to succeed; being in Slytherin would probably help me because living with so many like-minded people would make me feel accepted and would remind me that there’s nothing wrong with knowing what you want and what you have to do to get it, no matter what the world likes to tell you. The highly competitive environment would keep me sharp and focused, and would probably help me even more to channel my insecurities into motivations. The Snakes would undoubtedly be a challenge, but I also think this house would offer me a great opportunity for personal growth.

The only house I can’t feel much of a connection to is Gryffindor: I admire people who can be so self assured and brave but I don’t think I could relate well with them as generally this kind of attitude intimidates me, and I tend not to react well to things that make me feel threatened, getting defensive and annoyed with myself.

It’s ironic that I can see myself doing well in Slytherin and not in Gryffindor, as in the end the two houses aren’t that different: Snakes and Lions are very focused on themselves and quite ruthless when they want to get something done. The main difference is that I can understand Slytherin’s motivations perfectly while I have problems understanding the Gryffs as house and, as strange as it sounds, I find the Gryffindors more intimidating and unbending, while I think Slytherin is, as a whole, better at dealing with different situations and adjusting their attitude accordingly.

26. Why do you want to be part of this community? Will you remain active in the sub-communities and voting after you've been stamped in a house?
I’ve been toying with the idea of applying to a community like this for a while, because my involvement in the HP fandom has always been limited to reading essays and fanfictions without ever being active and this seems like a good chance to start. I always feel a bit uneasy talking about Harry Potter in my journal because not many of my lj friends are interested, and this community looks like a good place to discuss the books in an intelligent and drama free context. I’m working on my thesis now, so I don’t have as much free time as I’d like, but when I need to relax I get online and take refuge in fandom, so I’ll probably still be here more than it’s healthy.

27. How did you hear about us? If it was from someone, please state the journal name, if you saw an ad somewhere, please say where and if you remember also say who placed the ad.
I found hat_sorting a while back with an interest search.

April 21, 2005 -Eeylops Owl Emporium.

Just wanted to be sure the coding was working properly. Read at your own risk, it’s *long*. Their own fault, they said feel free to ramble…