#muggles

Well, I don’t know whether it’s really like this or simply my own impression, but I’ve always seen Severus as a person full of dualities. His life is marked by never fully belonging anywhere: he’s a Slytherin, yet his best friend is a Gryffindor; he wants to join the Death Eaters, but the person he has the strongest bond with is a muggle-born girl; he works as a double spy for the Order, where nobody appreciates him, while harming the Death Eaters, where he is valued, even if only on a utilitarian level; his life unfolds in the magical world and his entire universe is there, and yet he continues to live in the muggle house of his childhood. It’s as if he never completely belongs anywhere, as if he’s always out of place, always caught between two worlds.

And this is directly linked to his own nature as a half-blood. There’s one thing I really dislike, and that is equating a half-blood like Harry whose two parents were wizards and whose two parents belonged to the magical world (we know that muggle-borns gradually sever ties with their origins over the years)— with someone like Severus, who is literally half muggle. Not only in terms of blood, but in terms of cognitive and social development. Severus was born in the muggle world, had a muggle father, grew up among muggles, lived in a muggle environment. His entire upbringing was muggle, with magical education from his mother, yes, but everything else was still muggle. There is a duality in him that never disappears —the duality of being half and half— and that later reflects itself in every other aspect of his life.

For example, the duality between having adopted manners, education, and ways of presenting himself as someone impenetrable, someone with perfect control over his thoughts and emotions, and then losing his temper, exploding, behaving like a child, and spitting words because he’s furious. Severus is half wizard, half muggle; he’s a man with an education but also a working-class kid; he’s someone with a great deal of self-control but very easy to anger. He is many things at once, and specifically many things that are diametrically opposed. And I think people tend to latch onto some of these traits and not others, and often don’t go deeper into the nuances of both sides.

Why does he continue to live in the family house when that house carries so much trauma? Why, being someone whose life is rooted in the magical world, does he keep returning to the muggle world so consistently? I think that is the foundation of everything else; it’s what lies beneath the surface. And I think it’s incredibly interesting to explore when you’re portraying the character in a fic —something that isn’t done very often, or at least not that I’ve seen— this constant balancing act between all his halves.

I think he carries a lot of internal rejection (which is understandable, not only because of his past, but also because magical society has absolutely no respect for muggles) toward everything that has to do with the non-magical world. But at the same time, it’s part of who he is, because he grew up there. And I think a very interesting perspective is seeing how he might reconcile himself with that part of him, which actually becomes very present when he lets his guard down. Because when he explodes and stops repressing himself, that side of him as a rough, lower-class kid is what truly comes out, and it’s fascinating.

right, cause we have one (1) train, and it stops in one (1) place. You're boarding the Hogwarts express in London, which is great if you live in/near London or you live with an adult who has magical teleportation powers, but what tf are the muggleborns supposed to do about that???

Oh god and the isolation of it all?

can't phone, no normal post. I'm so sorry but my landlord would boot me out if I brought a fish into my apartment. I KNOW those muggleborn families in flats couldn't have owls coming in and out at all hours

hell, most apartments don't have fireplaces, so that's floo right out

do you just not speak to your parents for 4 months at a time? You're 11! You've just been taken away from everything you've ever known! That's awful!

and there don't seem to be any services for incoming muggleborns. Like, we've got muggle studies for upper year wizards, but why is there no wizard studies for new muggleborns? Like, even just a once a week first semester class going over shit like, 'this is how you tie a tie' and 'this is how owl post works' and 'this is how you open an account at Gringotts'

Harry Potter version 🪄

In the end, it wasn’t like that, so I’ve always wondered , what kind of prejudice do Muggle-borns actually face? They’re certainly not marginalized

That’s the whole problem, my friends! There’s no actual systemic prejudice. There’s no material reality in which a society has been constructed with something like apartheid against Muggle-borns. There’s no real equivalent to what we’ve lived through with racist or xenophobic systems, where a social structure systematically marginalizes certain groups and builds an entire worldview that excludes them.

Rowling spends her whole damn series TELLING us that this is the case, but she never actually SHOWS it. Because every Muggle-born character has THE SAME RIGHTS as the rest of the magical population.

Welcome to my #TedTalk.

When reading fanfiction, I always see James Potter not knowing anything about muggles, or what he has learned about muggles comes from Sirus. While I love reading these things, I have always thought James would know more about muggles.

I thought this long before Pottermore/wizardingworld but never had anything to say one way or the other why I thought this.

And you might be thinking "LLLTR the Weasleys were fine with muggles - Arthur loved them! Ron did not have vast muggle knowledge."

I am not saying James was a muggle expert. However, the Burrow is situated away from people. Godric's Hollow is a town. A town with a pub, a church, and a post office. People know each other in a town. Even if it is from taking a walk outside, they know who their neighbors are, and their kids.

Now, you might be saying "LLLTR the Potters's house was probably hidden from people- like Grimold's place!"

To that, I say that Black family would want nothing to do with their neighbors - especially muggles. But a family who has a long history of sharing magical cures with muggles would be interacting with them. Linfred would give potions to muggles and his son Hardwin married Iolanthe Peverell - who brought the Potter family to Godric's Hollow.

When I first read the Potter Family part on Pottermore I was like yes, James was exposed to muggles throughout his life!

Now what makes me say this, besides the part about Linfred? These lines about Henry Potter, James' Grandfather:

Henry caused a minor stir when he publicly condemned then Minister for Magic, Archer Evermonde, who had forbidden the magical community to help Muggles waging the First World War. His outspokenness on behalf of the Muggle community was also a strong contributing factor in the family’s exclusion from the ‘Sacred Twenty-Eight’.

Henry Potter was outspoken on behalf of the muggle community. Why would he do this? Was Henry Potter a wizard who thought that WWI was bad and that it needed to end - or did Henry Potter know people personally who were dying in the war. Was it his neighbor's kids who had known his son Fleamont? Was he consoling his neighbor at the local Godric's Hollow Pub the night they held a bodyless funeral for his neighbor's son? Was it seeing his community, that was magical and muggle-struck by loss.

Advocacy comes from a place of empathy.

And how could Henry let his community of Godric's Hollow, where his family had been for generations, suffer without support?

Furthermore, James was not a shy child. If James was secluded away from kids his own age, he would not be the person we saw in Snape's memory on the train. James Potter had interacted with kids his own age and his parents were older. He was not hanging out with his parent's friends' kids. He was hanging out with the local muggles kids. Yes, James Potter learned about magic at home from his parents. But James Potter was a kid who knew how to interact with others his own age.

James Potter interacted with muggles in his hometown. He was not ignorant of the muggle ways, and this is something that connected him and Lily.