Harry Potter 30 Day Challenge: Day 6- Favorite Professor

For favorite professor, I am going to have to go with Horace Slughorn. For these challenges I’ve been trying to strictly stay with the books and not let the movies influence my opinions, but I have to break that rule with this one. I adored Slughorn in the books and while he wasn’t as…..”plump” as I would have liked, the movie version of Slughorn is one of my favorite portrayals of any character. I mean, he is such an outrageous man, clearly collecting and showing off favorite students, and an awesome potions teacher (from love potion to Draught of Living Death on the first day of class! wowza!). Can you see Snape teaching the students to make a love potion? Me neither. Living Death? Yiz. Let’s not forget the funeral for Aragog and the kind words he spoke….before taking his venom and most likely selling it in Knockturn Alley.

Despite accidentally teaching Tom Riddle about horcruxes, Horace steps up to the plate and helps in the final battle of Hogwarts. Fav-o-rite.

Harry Potter 30 Day Challenge: Day 5- Favorite Book Cover

Alrighty this will be a short one. Favorite book cover!

USA Version:

I remember first getting this book— I loved the green and the swirls and the mysterious glow coming from that column thing.

UK Version:

I’m not really attached to any of the UK covers, so choosing a favorite cover was…interesting. They sort of all just made me laugh a little. So I chose Half Blood Prince for the UK version as well. I think the scene portrayed on the front of the book is such a pivotal scene, and look at all that fire! Dumblydore you be hawt.

Harry Potter 30 Day Challenge: Day 4- Favorite Villain

[This is part of an ongoing series. To see previous posts, click here.]

If anyone really knows me at all, you won’t have to guess at what my answer to favorite villain will be. (And I have a lot to say, so be prepared.)

Draco Malfoy (surprise, surprise).

Okay so you have this kid, this tiny little eleven year-old whose father is a death eater, mother is a nasty witch, and aunt who not only is a death eater, but completely and utterly in love with he-who-must-not-be-named. No wonder he turns out the way he does. But here is why he is my favorite. Draco is from a wealthy, not to mention powerful, family. They get what they want, and they are— at least in the beginning of the novels— accepted by the dark lord. Yes, Draco is a spoiled little brat (as seen in the shop when being fitted for his robes) but if you really look at it, Draco was never really horrible to Harry until Harry declined his friendship. In the robe shop Draco was civil, and on the first day of school Draco, who is used to being the center of attention has to battle egos with the famous Harry Potter. So what does he do? Extends a hand of friendship. He wants to team up with the boy who lived. Who wouldn’t?

Sure, he goes about it the mean way, insulting the Weasley family, but it is ultimately Harry who rejects the offer of friendship thus creating a rivalry between the two. And Draco, who is forced to follow in his family’s footsteps to please h-w-m-n-b-n, and gets assigned the task of killing Dumbledore. But he can’t. JKR narrates that he begins to lower his wand before Snape comes in a finishes the task; Draco himself says he has to do it, he has no other choice. The entire sixth book he is struggling with pleasing his family and doing what is right. And then of course we come to the seventh book in which Draco is forced to perform acts for Voldy. And we musn’t forget the scene at Malfoy Manor when he is supposed to identify Harry. Anyone who went to Hogwarts during that time would know that when there is a Ron and Hermione, there has to be a Harry Potter nearby. But he doesn’t identify him in front of Bellatrix. He simply states “It might be.”

All in all, I think Draco is a seriously misunderstood villain and while he does boarder on villain-turned-good, I do think there is too much hate and malice in him to be anything other than mildly civil to the golden trio. Aaaaand that is why he is my favorite.

Harry Potter 30 Day Challenge: Day 3- Favorite Character

[This is part of an ongoing series. To see previous posts, click here.]

Okay this one was extremely difficult. I have always avoided this answer, or either shouting the first character that came to mind, because I simply couldn’t choose. (I’m also this way about most things. Ask me to pick a favorite anything and my answer will change about every twenty minutes or so.) However the time has come for me to actually choose a favorite character. I thought about the strengths and weaknesses of all the characters like the good little nerd I am and have finally made my decision…

Snape. Snape. Severus Snape. Once I began thinking about everything each character had been through I just could not think of a better character than Snape. You have a boy who fell in love with a girl (and fellow witch) and remained close friends with her until those other idiot Gryffindors provoked him into calling Lily a mudblood, therefore ruining their friendship and creating the angst/drama with James, Lupin, and Sirius. Then he turned death eater, only to realize when Lily and James were attacked/killed that he actually wanted to be good. Then he switched sides becoming a double agent; ultimately sacrificing himself for Dumbledore’s wishes: protecting Draco’s soul. When Dumbledore whispers “Severus, please” and then he kills him– I die. Maybe I am getting too mixed up in a fictional world, but for Snape to put aside his own feelings, his own friendship to kill a man (granted, one who is already dying) to protect Draco and save face with the death eaters is simply amazing. By the time we reach the seventh book I didn’t even know if I could trust him or not (just another show in how brilliant JKR’s writing is) and by the time you get to the prince’s tale…I don’t know. I think it is just one of the most beautiful and heartbreaking scenes in the entire seven volume story.

So to make an extremely long answer short, I would say Snape sacrificed and overcame so many trials, all for the love of the mother of the boy who lived.

Harry Potter 30 Day Challenge: Day 2- Least Favorite Book

Continuing the Harry Potter 30 Day challenge. (Yesterday‘s topic was favorite book.)

I must say, it is really difficult to pick a least favorite book. I chose OotP because it is the hardest to get through for me; about halfway through I feel that for every one page I read, four or five get added on to the end. I never think I am going to finish it in a decent amount of time. That being said, it really is a wonderful book. I think each book offers so much valuable information (that sadly we didn’t get in all of the movies) to the overall story. Umbridge is a complete and utter terror and she is a fantastic villain. Half of the time I just want to throw the book across the room because I hate her so very much! So…yes, choosing this one for length over content.

Harry Potter 30 Day Challenge: Day 1- Favorite Book

In honor of Deathly Hallows coming out in just one week, and the London premiere today, I thought I would participate in the Harry Potter 30 Day challenge! Here we go!

My favorite book in the series has got to be Deathly Hallows. I love all the books for various reasons but this one is, to me, the best; the most climactic of the series. For an author to write two, three, even four books is amazing, but to write a story that only continues to grow and become more engaging and more fascinating— for seven freaking books— is utterly bewildering. The end of this book deserves an award, and any book that can keep me crying for the majority of it, not to mention completely sobbing at the end, has to be my favorite. [And I just have to mention two words that really sum up what I’m talking about: Snape. Lily.]