To help with this, (and hopefully to keep you reading) I'm going to finally show off my personal library. Especially since it fits what I want to talk about.
At the last pj party, some good-natured ribbing was happening in the little circle of friends around me. I was being harassed for being a "basic bitch Gryffindor." The people around me were Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs, and hell, probably a Slytherin, too. I was the single Lion amongst them.
I was trying to not take it personally. Afterall, these were people who I know and love.
But it did get to me a bit more than I realized.
I started feeling embarrassed... ashamed... like I had to apologize and justify why I identify with the House that I do.
"I'm not just a mindless person who only likes popular things!"
I wanted to yell it.
"I have good reasons for why I'm a Gryffindor! I swear!"
It's popular to shit all over Gryffindors because that was the main House featured in the Harry Potter books. So if you identify as a member, you're considered to be just following the crowd.
"You're only a Gryffindor because Harry was a Gryffindor!"
It's easy to look at me and put me in any other House but Gryffindor.
I have the creativity of a Ravenclaw.
The friendliness of a Hufflepuff.
The cleverness of a Slytherin.
But it's Gryffindor that calls to my heart and makes me strive to be better.
To really understand why, first we must examine my history with the series.
I first discovered Harry Potter on a weekend that I was stuck with my dad and his wife. We were at Target, my sister and I forced to just sit around, waiting for her to decide on her next piece of boring beige housewares. My sister and I ended up in the books/electronics section with my dad.
I remember seeing the book on the bottom shelf.
I was entranced by the cover, with the strange bird-horse looking creature, a boy and girl on its back, the shadow of a person in a tower.
I picked it up, opened to the first chapter, and started reading.
"Owl Post" was the name of the chapter.
I sat on the floor and started reading.
"Harry Potter was a highly unusual boy in many ways..."
I don't know how long I sat there until being pulled away.
But even that brief moment was enough.
I was hooked.
I wanted more. I wanted to devour everything this world that I had gotten the tiniest glimpse of had to offer.
Dad and Her, of course, wouldn't even consider buying the book for me. She hated how much I read. (Did I ever tell you about the time I had a hardback book thrown at my face while being screamed at for reading so much?)
So, I asked grandma to get them for me.
And being the supporting, amazing person she is, she did.
In fact, she read them, too.
I've read the first 2 books over 40 times each, the 3rd closer to 50. The rest of the series is somewhere in the 20's.
I went to the midnight release for Goblet of Fire.
My room was painted to look like the Quidditch field.
I spent many, many hours of my life pretending to run about the castle with Harry, Hermione, and Ron, having adventures, learning magic. Grabbing sticks out of the yard to use as a magic wand, beating back the dementors.
I, like so many kids my age, desperately hoped that my letter to Hogwarts would arrive at my door. So I could go and be sorted into Gryffindor by the Sorting Hat and be the best student I could.
Anything to escape the hell I was dealing with at the time.
I was, sadly, disappointed in that regard.
I read those books over and over again, to lose myself in the story as often as I could.
I identified with Harry so much.
How could I not? A sad, lonely little kid who couldn't understand why the people who were supposed to love him despised him so much. That sense of hopelessness as the people who did care about him had to watch as he unwillingly went back to his abusers again and again.
Harry could have easily given into the dark nature that those circumstances can bring. To be the cruel, evil person like the people who abused you.
Heaven knows I've been there myself.
Harry had his own doubts and fears that he would become like that. Worries that he was as evil as Voldemort. That he was heir to a cruel lineage.
There were times that he lashed out and gave into those dark impulses. And the consequences for doing so were always painful.
But I also watched as he made the same choice over and over again. To stand up and fight for himself, his friends, the people he loved.
Even when he would lose everything to do so.
He CHOSE to be brave. He CHOSE to throw himself in the way to protect his friends.
He stood defiantly in face of the dark and came out the other side.
Not whole, not pure. But alive.
And it wasn't just Harry making these choices. Almost every single Gryffindor was an example of bravery, courage, and determination. They stood up for their friends and their principles. And to call out those same friends when needed.
I'm not saying that they're all saintly human beings with no flaws. In fact, all of them were deeply flawed in some way. It made these fictional characters more human. More easy to identify with.
If they could choose time and time again to be brave in the face of adversity, why couldn't I?
Afterall, Dumbledore told us that our choices define us more than anything.
'"Exactly," said Dumbledore, beaming once more. "Which makes you very different from Tom Riddle. It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities."'
When I was at my darkest moments, imagining myself curled up in the Gryffindor common room, surrounded by my fictional friends, listening to the advice they likely would give me, kept me going.
They would tell me to be brave. To keep fighting. To keep surviving.
And I did.
I stood defiantly in face of the dark and came out the other side.
Not whole, not pure. But alive.
It takes a tremendous amount of bravery to keep going when everything in your head is screaming at you to give up. To just lay down and let the dark take you.
But when you say no, when you scream at that darkness, fighting tooth and nail to defy the odds, to live and breathe and be happy, you are truly the embodiment of what it means to be a Gryffindor.
Sure, the heroes in the stories fight monsters and slay dragons. But us? We fought ourselves. And we're still here.
I choose every single day to keep going.
To defy the cruelty I was taught and choose to be kind, generous, and loving.
To live and do my best to be happy.
And, like Harry himself, I choose to be a forevermore a Gryffindor.
"You might belong in Gryffindor,
Where dwell the brave at heart,
Their daring, nerve and chivalry
Set Gryffindors apart."
Thanks for letting me ramble on about something that's been in my head for a long time. Hope you enjoyed the library pictures along the way.
We'll get back to the knitting again soon, I promise. Afterall, I have a new shawl to show off.
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