Yes, yes, I must quote it DIRECTLY (because I'm that excited!)
What are the properties of Draco’s wand? Can we assume that its wood is hawthorn, as per the chart on your site?
Interestingly (to me) I decided that Draco had a hawthorn wand independently of the chart. So yes, it is hawthorn, and by a bizarre coincidence I assigned him that wood, as I assigned Harry holly, without realising it was the ‘right’ one. Spooky... but for various reasons hawthorn seems to suit Draco as holly suits Harry.
...do you need any more proof that Draco's actually maybe an important character? Wait, no, if you needed more proof after HBP, you're beyond hope.
But YAY! sistermagpie has put up a whole bunch of info about Hawthorn wood up in her LJ. Notable points are that it's so associate with both very strong masculinity and very strong femininity, and that it's also a favorite of fey creatures (I remember someone once commented on how so many people wrote Draco in such a fey sort of way, so maybe they're not so off). It's also associated with the festival of Beltane, and according to Our Friend Wiki:
Great bonfires would mark a time of purification and transition, heralding in the season in the hope of a good harvest later in the year, and were accompanied with ritual acts to protect the people from any harm by Otherworldly spirits, such as the Sídhe. Like the festival of Samhain, opposite Beltane on October 31st, Beltane was a time when the Otherworld was seen as particularly close at hand.
AND (on it's actual page on Wiki)
In Gaelic folklore, hawthorn (in Scottish Gaelic, Sgitheach) 'marks the entrance to the otherworld'
Which is particularly interesting to me considering the title of book 7 and its possible meanings. ALSO (yeah, yeah, I'm a little excited could you not tell?), from magpie:
he Roman goddess Cardea, mistress of Janus who was keeper of the doors, had as her principal protective emblem a bough of Hawthorn. "Her power is to open what is shut; to shut what is open."
Which I LOVE because I've always thought of Harry and Draco as the two faces of Janus; Harry looks towards the past because so much of what he's got to do has been shaped by and is wrapped up in past events, and his mission is basically to control this menace that should have been killed back in the day. Not to mention, so much of his power comes from relationships he had with people who are dead (according to Dumbledore). And Draco looks towards the future (this goes with his optimism and also the fact that so much of his character is based in his potential rather than who he was at the start of the book) because he's the last of two huge parts of a dying race, one which couldn't adapt. He's sort of the future of that branch of the WW. I think
Anyway. Yes. Oh, oh, and it's also associated with water, which...yeah, duh, Slytherin.
And Tonks is a Hufflepuff. Which makes me eternally glad I didn't post my 'Tonks is Totally a Slytherin and This is Why' essay. XD It makes sense, though. I did talk about her over eagerness in the essay (literally, she trips over herself to help people, even when it's clearly to do something she doesn't want to do [like help Molly Weasley in the kitchen when she's demonstrated to Harry that she doesn't like/is shit at household charms]), although I associated that with ambition where maybe I shouldn't have.
I mean, it's interesting; I guess she's like Sirius in that she's a Hufflepuff, but she still has a lot of the Black traits, like a propensity towards wallowing in sadness when bad shit happens (although, unlike the rest of them, she did manage to do her job most of the time) and an ability to pinpoint people's weak spots immediately and exploit them (her plot with the Dursleys). Sirius could do the later even though he was a Gryffindor (the thing where he almost killed Snape). It all really runs together because then you have Bellatrix who exhibits a lot of Gryffindor traits despite being a Slytherin. Maybe I'll have more on this later, who knows. I'm just SO EXCITED about HP for the first time in like FOREVER! It's nuts.
Oh, oh, and the fact that she's not a Gryffindor. SO EXCELLENT! I'm sorry, but the Order needs some variety, man, and if it's not gonna be Slytherin, well...
Interestingly (to me) I decided that Draco had a hawthorn wand independently of the chart. So yes, it is hawthorn, and by a bizarre coincidence I assigned him that wood, as I assigned Harry holly, without realising it was the ‘right’ one. Spooky... but for various reasons hawthorn seems to suit Draco as holly suits Harry.
...do you need any more proof that Draco's actually maybe an important character? Wait, no, if you needed more proof after HBP, you're beyond hope.
But YAY! sistermagpie has put up a whole bunch of info about Hawthorn wood up in her LJ. Notable points are that it's so associate with both very strong masculinity and very strong femininity, and that it's also a favorite of fey creatures (I remember someone once commented on how so many people wrote Draco in such a fey sort of way, so maybe they're not so off). It's also associated with the festival of Beltane, and according to Our Friend Wiki:
Great bonfires would mark a time of purification and transition, heralding in the season in the hope of a good harvest later in the year, and were accompanied with ritual acts to protect the people from any harm by Otherworldly spirits, such as the Sídhe. Like the festival of Samhain, opposite Beltane on October 31st, Beltane was a time when the Otherworld was seen as particularly close at hand.
AND (on it's actual page on Wiki)
In Gaelic folklore, hawthorn (in Scottish Gaelic, Sgitheach) 'marks the entrance to the otherworld'
Which is particularly interesting to me considering the title of book 7 and its possible meanings. ALSO (yeah, yeah, I'm a little excited could you not tell?), from magpie:
he Roman goddess Cardea, mistress of Janus who was keeper of the doors, had as her principal protective emblem a bough of Hawthorn. "Her power is to open what is shut; to shut what is open."
Which I LOVE because I've always thought of Harry and Draco as the two faces of Janus; Harry looks towards the past because so much of what he's got to do has been shaped by and is wrapped up in past events, and his mission is basically to control this menace that should have been killed back in the day. Not to mention, so much of his power comes from relationships he had with people who are dead (according to Dumbledore). And Draco looks towards the future (this goes with his optimism and also the fact that so much of his character is based in his potential rather than who he was at the start of the book) because he's the last of two huge parts of a dying race, one which couldn't adapt. He's sort of the future of that branch of the WW. I think
Anyway. Yes. Oh, oh, and it's also associated with water, which...yeah, duh, Slytherin.
And Tonks is a Hufflepuff. Which makes me eternally glad I didn't post my 'Tonks is Totally a Slytherin and This is Why' essay. XD It makes sense, though. I did talk about her over eagerness in the essay (literally, she trips over herself to help people, even when it's clearly to do something she doesn't want to do [like help Molly Weasley in the kitchen when she's demonstrated to Harry that she doesn't like/is shit at household charms]), although I associated that with ambition where maybe I shouldn't have.
I mean, it's interesting; I guess she's like Sirius in that she's a Hufflepuff, but she still has a lot of the Black traits, like a propensity towards wallowing in sadness when bad shit happens (although, unlike the rest of them, she did manage to do her job most of the time) and an ability to pinpoint people's weak spots immediately and exploit them (her plot with the Dursleys). Sirius could do the later even though he was a Gryffindor (the thing where he almost killed Snape). It all really runs together because then you have Bellatrix who exhibits a lot of Gryffindor traits despite being a Slytherin. Maybe I'll have more on this later, who knows. I'm just SO EXCITED about HP for the first time in like FOREVER! It's nuts.
Oh, oh, and the fact that she's not a Gryffindor. SO EXCELLENT! I'm sorry, but the Order needs some variety, man, and if it's not gonna be Slytherin, well...