What HP character do you identify with most? Or if you don’t feel you identify with any of them, what in general attracted you to the characters? I feel I have often wished to identify most with Sirius Black because he is passionate, dedicated, loyal, but also shares my own attributes of having a terrible temper, sometimes being immature (also sometimes a virtue!), thinking he knows better than other people (though lbh sometimes he also does), and for being totally unwilling to take Dumbledore's bunk (he doesn't see appeal to authority of cult of personality as good enough justification for some of the things Dumbledore asks of others, including himself). I don't know whether anyone who knows me IRL would think I am anything like him, though. I do have a tendency to go along with authority until they ask me to do something truly unjust. I'm kind of an introvert. I can't see myself ever being an unregistered animagus because I'd be worried I'd get in trouble. Maybe in a way that makes me more like Neville, but the difference is that when authority does ask something unjust of me, I will fight-- tooth and nail and without fear or reason-- for years. I have done this in my real life multiple times. Once my blood starts to boil it just will not let me rest.
What moment in the books was the most meaningful to you OR what do the books in general mean to you? I came to HP kind of late in life, in my 20's, and I liked the way it showed how government can be both benign and corrupt, how it can change from one to the other through the gentle actions and inactions of ordinary people. I also like the trope of the boy everyone discarded being a really important person, actually, and not even he knew it. The moment most meaningful to me was at the end of Goblet of Fire when Sirius disagrees Dumbledore, because I was thinking all of the same things that Sirius said, and it felt so good to just finally have someone say it. Because Dumbledore was looking out for the greater good, but finally, someone was looking out for Harry-- Sirius. I really needed Harry to have that experience of knowing he had someone he could count on, and that it wasn't Dumbledore.
What would you see if you looked into the Mirror of Erised? Socks? I mean, it's really really cold in my room and my feet are frozen so that is possible. The real answer is that I don't know. What do I desire? Rest. Sleep. A moment to do nothing but exist, with no to-do list or schedule, and just the time to have a desire. Then I might know the answer.
What would be your Patronus and what would be the happiest memory you would use to conjure it? It probably changes a lot just because I am always making new happy memories, and I have a lot to choose from. My family brings me the most new happy memories, mostly in nature and expressing love for me or each other.
You have to venture deep into the Forbidden Forest one night. Pick one Harry Potter character other than Hagrid and one object (muggle or magical), besides your wand, that you'd want with you. Sirius Black because he'd probably confront anything frightening and he is a good wizard and his casual confidence would give me confidence. A headlamp would be my choice because then I could see and keep my hands free.
What was your ideal job as a child? What is your ideal job now? Do you think it would be the same in the Wizarding World? Answering this would probably reveal my identity, but suffice it to say that I wanted to do something that only a very elite selection of people ever get to do. And I really never stood a chance, but I was slow to give up on that dream. I landed adjacent to that dream and tried to make adjacency work well enough for me, but the money wasn't there to make it worthwhile or to allow me to fulfill other dreams such as traveling with my family. Recently I've moved to a new job that allows me a lot more financial freedom and it's still fun and I get to learn new things every day. Is it the best possible job in the world for me? My One True Job? I don't know that I believe in that any more.
What kinds of decisions are the most difficult for you to make? Ones that affect other people, especially that might affect others negatively in order to affect myself or my life or my family positively. I don't think life has to be a zero sum game, but as an example, setting boundaries with destructive family members can feel really bad from their point of view, and so it's hard for me to do because suffering a little to ease their suffering seems like an okay compromise.
Something I think everyone should experience in their lifetime (even if you yourself have not done it yet) is ______ because _______ It's hard for me to speak to something everyone should do, because people come from very different walks of life. I think if everyone took at least some time in their life to see nature, whether that is to watch a bird or the stars or a sunrise or the ocean, they will have a better appreciation for how everything fits together. That is truly something everyone should do relatively regularly, and I'm sure most people have, too. I don't like to dictate many "should"'s to other people-- but that is one I feel safe dictating, like everyone should drink some water and get enough sleep.
What is one thing you would never want said about you? That I was inauthentic. That's just not true. I can take a lot of stuff said about me that is true, or that might be true from a specific point of view, but if someone were to say I was two-faced or didn't bring my real whole self into everything I do, that would be a complete and total lie, and one I would have no way of disproving because anything I said at that point could be considered suspected of manipulation or lie.
The hardest thing I've ever done is ______ because ______ The hardest thing I have done was the transition from being a young adult who worked part time and played video games until 4am and ate Chinese takeout every night, to being a mother. No one really explained to me that all of my needs-- from the most basic such as needing water or to use the bathroom to the most profound like needing time to think and enjoy the world around me-- all of my needs were permanently getting put on the farthest back burner I could find. It's still not easy. To be a mother in our world (and I do use the gendered word mother here because our society does no have equivalent expectations of fathers)... to be a mother in our world means to kill yourself, bury yourself so deeply that even you don't know what you want any more, and then when your kids get older you begin the thankless and tiring job of trying to unbury yourself, to see which parts have rotted away and which remain, to see who you can be now. Realizing that I need to learn to value myself not at all was a very hard lesson for this only child with a spoiled upbringing. Now I just expect to be eating half-spit-out crumbs and peeing with an audience or not at all. But it was a freaking hard transition.
Do you believe that moral actions should be judged by the intentions behind them, or by the consequences they create? Intentions. I know that people can lie about their intentions, but in the case that you can know or even guess at someone's intentions, that is the key to whether they will go out and do the bad thing again. If you can teach them that what they intended was good but has a bad outcome, and how to have a better outcome next time, that person is still an asset in the world for good. If they intended to have a bad outcome, that person will never be a positive force in the world.
What do you look for in a friend? What trait most annoys you about other people? I look for someone who is genuine, including able to share insecurities and fears, and who doesn't feel the need to project any one sort of face. I look for someone who doesn't judge acts by consequences but by intentions, because I've made plenty of mistakes and I will probably make more.
Explain what the following traits mean to you in your own words: ambition, courage, intelligence, justice, kindness, loyalty, power, wisdom. Ambition: Being future-focused, or with a great understanding of cause and effect including in social situations where you can only really guess at effect, and knowing what effects you are wanting, and then seeking to cause the things that will generate those. Courage: Doing the things you think are morally correct whether that is to your benefit or detriment. In some cases, that means ignoring the effect because you know you should or must if you want to sleep at night. Intelligence: The ability to quickly make connections between facts and to discern patterns with less information than others need to discern a pattern. I consider intelligence to always be comparative. For instance, one person alone can be courageous or ambitious, but an intelligent person is only intelligent when compared to the bell curve distribution of everyone. Justice: I have not thought about this one, but it feels like "everyone gets what they deserve", in a sense the opposite of mercy. I can see this is about Hufflepuff but what's interesting is the way "just" is often used in different connotations than "justice". Kindness: I don't think this is any kind of universal definition, but to me it means not being a source of discord. That could be totally authentic, but I also associate kindness with "nice"-ness, by which I mean just getting along and keeping your opinions to yourself. Loyalty: I think loyalty is about siding with someone in an argument, even if you disagree with them, and if you do disagree with them taking that up in private. I am saying that loyalty is public support under all circumstances. Power: Looking back at my definition of ambition, I would define social power as the ability to make certain effects come to fruition. Sort of like the % of the total unlikely effects that you were able to cause through manipulating causes. Wisdom: Wisdom is when your values and your intentions align with your thoughts & actions in both large and small situations. For instance, you act out of a measured decision about your values. Or your thoughts are controlled to match your intentions.
What do you think are your top five abilities or qualities? Communication - I'm not great at ad hoc verbal communication, but in planned verbal or any written communication I can express myself with precision and clarity. Innovative - I am often asked to solve complex problems, and I usually do so by seeing solutions that were not obvious to other people. I'm not afraid to try unexpected or new things to solve these problems. Decisive - I have a habit of doing a kind of mental coin flip when I am faced with binary decisions where nothing is immediately correct. If it doesn't matter, then my choice also doesn't matter. If my choice does matter then a short time down the wrong path, what will be clear and we can try the other plan or choice. Few decisions are irreversible. Critical Thinker - I am able to hold multiple incongruous ideas in my head at once, and therefor wait for more evidence before determining which one is the truth. Curious - I watch documentaries and read non-fiction. I always raise my hand when someone is offering to teach something new. I go to classes on vacation.
What do you think are your top five weaknesses or worst qualities? Dramatic - Sometimes so many things feel like Big Things to me, when in the end they are small things. And no matter how often this happens, the next time they come around I once again think they are Big Things. Easily bored - This matches with my curiosity, but I want to learn new things, not the same old things. And my innovation, I want to try a new way, not the same old way. Stoic-faced - I can come across blank-faced and unemotional. I have to practice emoting outwardly. That's not to say that I don't feel a LOT of things inside, but I don't think they come often. Nervous laughter - This one is random, but I smile when I'm nervous. It's not something I'd wish on anyone. I once had to deliver the news of a death and I could not stop smiling. I lost a friend through that, but I was heartbroken and nervous, not happy! Self-critical - I am very hard on myself. Did I not clean today, am I not being as good of a friend as I should be, did I slack off at work today? There's no room for faults or low standards.