Chereads / Harry Potter: The Blogger of Hogwarts / Chapter 29 - Movies, Memes, and Mayhem

Chapter 29 - Movies, Memes, and Mayhem

Harry Potter has distinguished himself over the last few months as being simultaneously one of the oddest and most normal students at Hogwarts. He continuously defies expectations placed upon him as the Boy Who Lived, as the prophesized savior of the magical world. He doesn't pay attention in his classes, he has a meme ready at the drop of a hat for any given social occasion, and very heavy hints just fly right past him.

For example, I've been hinting for months about the Philosopher's Stone being hidden in Hogwarts. He has, somehow without a trace of irony, decided that a philosopher got stoned and died in the third floor corridor area, which has been, in his estimation, turned into a memorial area for that philosopher dying a very painful death. I would ordinarily suspect him of lying, but Harry doesn't seem to have a dishonest bone in his body and considers lying to be "cringe."

Despite this, Harry's eccentricity seems to be par the course for Generation Alpha and he seems to be quite the exemplar of what his Muggle peers are. Most Muggleborns drop many of their mannerisms and subsume themselves, to a greater or lesser extent, into magical culture, but Harry seems a bit too oblivious to realize a magical culture exists.

Harry's overriding ambition at present appears to be redeeming Slytherin's reputation, despite the fact his parents' murderer was a Slytherin. When I asked him why, he responded, and I quote, "Because snakes are based, Hagrid. Based." It would have been very helpful if someone could have given me a comprehensive list of modern day slang, because sometimes speaking to Harry makes me think he's speaking in a foreign language, and I don't mean Parseltongue.

Harry's blog continues to be an issue of concern and bewilderment among his peers, but more of an asset for us than we'd even heretofore suspected. Electronics have long been known to malfunction around areas of high magical output (though it takes a concentrated group of mages to generate the effect), but Harry's mobile works perfectly fine without any apparent alternations.

Attempts to duplicate this effect have met with abysmal failure (see the attached requisition form for another mobile from Q-division). Furthermore, Harry seems to refuse to believe said electronic issues exist. It is my hypothesis that Harry's belief that his mobile should work is making it work through use of unconscious magic. This is a clear sign of Harry's power and one that, if cultivated, could have potentially enormous consequences.

Harry is considered to be one of the most popular students in school. Unsurprisingly, but somewhat disturbingly, some older students have been trying to get him interested in them romantically. This, as you may well suspect, is going straight over Harry's head. He is of an age where this is typical, but I believe this obliviousness will probably persist well into his teenage years, unless of course Hermione Granger gets her act together and acts on her clear crush. Excuse me for that little tangent there. You can't work at a school without being obsessed with gossip to a greater or lesser extent.

With the help of an older student, Harry has been able to magically project images from his mobile and has engineered an unofficial weekly movie night which is popular across all houses. By so enthusiastically embracing Muggle culture, Harry has been making significant progress in his goal of shedding Slytherin's foul reputation as blood supremacists.

However, not all of the effects have been positive. After showing the movie Alien, xenomorph boggarts have been occasionally spotted slithering around the castle. This thoroughly bewildered the teachers and even got them to send in a representative from the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical creatures, who promptly diagnosed the xenomorphs as boggarts and chastised the staff for wasting his valuable time.

Harry also seems to be convinced Colm O'Neill is evil or at least not who he says he is. While his evidence for the former is, in my professional opinion, flimsy, there may be some merit to the latter argument, because all of O'Neill's references do not appear to exist and there are no records of a pureblooded magical Irish family by the name of O'Neill.

It is possible that O'Neill may be interested in stealing the Philosopher's Stone, because he has been spotted on the third floor supposedly testing the defenses. Dumbledore says he authorized such a test, but Dumbledore's mental state has deteriorated to the point where I simply cannot trust him to know the truth of this matter. For now, I am making sure to watch O'Neill closely.

Harry's rivalry with Draco Malfoy has appeared to have abated since Draco's decisive defeat in a duel with Harry. Harry is not the type to concern himself with people he doesn't like unless they're causing harm to other people. He's very much the out of sight, out of mind type. As for Draco, he seems to be rather engrossed in his studies, perhaps to the detriment of his health. He spends a significant taking notes inside a book and often looks pale and sickly these days whenever he's reading it. Either way, a quiet Draco is a more predictable Harry, and with that boy, I'll take whatever predictability I can get by any means necessary.

All in all, Harry could be a useful asset in the future, but only if managed with extreme delicacy. He values his freedom and forcing him into a role could backfire spectacularly. At this point, I don't see any advantage to actively recruiting him, but great care must be taken to avoid alienating him anyway, as his resourcefulness and sheer stubbornness could make him a very dangerous enemy.

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