Being a wizard is hard. Being a young one with a lackluster family, thousands of people that have known your name since birth, and a prejudiced psychotic man after you, is even harder. *sigh* This is Harry Potters life.
Brilliant, isn’t it?
Despite all the ups and downs our hero faces in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, by our overlord J.K. Rowling, he comes out on top and we’re left with a few valuable life lessons under our belts. (Or robes.)
1. White men (boys) CAN jump.
Twelve feet tall with gray dull skin, a small bald head like a coconut, and short legs as thick as tree trunks. And somehow Harry conquered this beast? He latched onto that trolls neck like a spider monkey and didn’t let go!
Harry is a great example that if you believe in yourself, and are the hero of the story, you can achieve the extraordinary. Like leaping 12 feet and latching onto a troll’s neck. 5 points to Gryffindor!
2. The Dursley’s are abusive jerks.
From the very moment the Dursleys were introduced, you could tell there was something off about Harry’s foster family. They were proud, plain, and liked to spy on their neighbors with their long necks. They were also abusive jerks.
Petunia swung at Harry with a frying pan, Vernon gripped up Harry before shoving him under the stairs aka his room, and Dudley beat him up. It makes me happy every single day of my mortal life that he met Ron and Hermione. He made his own family. Blood be damned.
3. Adversity can result in the kindest people.
Harry was an orphan who was mistreated by those jerks the Dursleys, became a part of a world he never knew, and had a madman trying to kill him every school year. All of that, could’ve driven anyone to their breaking point. But not Harry.
He found a new family in Hermione, Ron, the Weasleys, and his classmates. He found a new home in Hogwarts and the wizarding world. And he found that he had the inner strength to carry on and make the world a better place for himself, his friends, his family, and any future generations of wizards.
He became a hero.
4. Markings give you away, Professor McGonagall.
Animagus have to be registered according to the Ministry of Magic. So why is it that Professor McGonagall wondered how Headmaster Dumbledore knew it was her outside of 4 Privet Drive?
Your markings are on record professor! And you’re practically BFF’s with Dumbledore. Goes to show you that even the smartest of people can have moments where you want to side eye them for their absent mindless.
P.S. I know she doesn’t have her glasses in this gif but she does in the books.
5. It’s not what it seems (Aka the stuttering teacher is the bad guy.)
The best way to fool your pray, Harry Potter, is to act like the most innocent, sniveling, and meek man possible. That’s why no one saw Quirrel coming. He even used his stutter to throw people off his trail. Poor, st-st-uttering Professor Quirrell just couldn’t be the bad guy because we’ve been conditioned to think that they’re suave, dark, and menacing.
After Quirrell, we know that the worst evils use the guise of innocence to get around unnoticed. Those are the ones you should be most frightened of because you won’t see it coming till it’s too late.
P.S. Fred and George charmed snowballs to smack the back of Quirrell’s turban…where Voldemort resided. If only they knew.
