October: History of Magic

Dear Diary, 

Today in class we walked in and immediately the professor told us we would have to write an essay about Harry Potter. I wasn’t sure if I should believe her because she really didn’t seem like the type to do that sort of thing to us. I was relieved when she told us about the game that we were going to play. When we heard that it involved candy, I was even more excited! 

I got my five candies and decided to have one of each colour, just to have a broader understanding about everything there was to know. Being a Pure-blood, obviously I have heard all about Harry and the things that he did, but it was good to remind myself at the start of a new school year. Everything we did would kind of be in relation to that, I figured. 

The red candy I gathered was to talk about a possession owned by Harry. The first thing that came to my mind was the Invisibility Cloak. I always thought this would be a pretty cool item to have! For um…. brave and protective reasons of course. 

Green was next. A member of Harry’s family that always intrigued me was his father, James Potter. He was alive from 1960 to 1981 and was sorted into Gryffindor House. He was friends with Remus Lupin and Sirius Black and Peter Pettigrew. He and Severus Snape were practical enemies. In his last year at Hogwarts, he dated Lily Evans and was also a Head Boy. When Harry was born after Hogwarts, James made Sirius the boy’s godfather. He and Lily both were members in the Order of the Phoenix, and they helped the fighting during the First Wizarding War. They also denied Lord Voldemort three different times. When the prophecy was made about Harry and Voldemort, they went into hiding. They were betrayed to him by Pettigrew. James was murdered by the Dark Lord on Halloween night in the year 1981, with Lily while they were trying to keep their son Harry safe. 

The purple candy I got meant I had to talk about an important event that he was the Triwizard Tournament. In spite not really wanting to be a part of it, his name was called and he had to participate in three different tasks against two other students from two different wizarding schools. They were very dangerous tasks and he was seriously hurt a couple of times, but he prevailed. During the last task he came face to face with Lord Voldemort, proving that he was coming back to terrorize the wizarding world again. He also witnessed the death of his friend, Cedric. 

The blue candy meant I had to talk about one of his friends. The most fascinating friend to me has always been Neville Longbottom. He was sorted into Gryffindor with Harry and his parents were both Aurors and also members in the first Order of the Phoenix. Neville was taken care of by his grandmother until he went to Gryffindor. He was a good friend with Harry, Ron and Hermione, though he was always seen as the shy kid who always had accidents. When he got older though he was very key as a person in the Dumbledore’s Army, and he also fought during the Battle of the Department of Mysteries and a couple other important battles. He killed Voldemort’s snake, Nagini, who was the last Horcrux. After he graduated he was an Auror and then he became a professor of the Herbology class. He married a student from Hufflepuff and became Harry’s son’s godfather. 

The last candy was yellow, which required me to write a fun fact about Harry. I always was impressed with his ability to play Quidditch, being one of the youngest players to join the Gryffindor team, on one of the best brooms that was out there. He had incredible speed and was able to spot the Snitch from miles away! 

it was a really cool lesson, and I thought it was a neat way for us to learn about a person. Plus the candies were delicious after class!