Harry Potter Month: My HP Bucket List

Harry Potter Month is hosted by Faith at Geeky Zoo Girl and Micheline at Lunar Rainbows Reviews. This awesome event runs all through July, and you can find more information about it here.

While trying to come up with some Harry Potter Month post ideas because, as usual, I waited until HP Month actually started to begin thinking about HP Month, LOL, I realized that I actually have a few Harry Potter-related life goals. Some of these are pretty simple, while some need a bit more effort to achieve, but a Potterhead can dream, can't she?

1. Visit the Wizarding World of Harry Potter: OK, so in theory this one is pretty easy because I live about 45 minutes away from Universal Studios in Orlando. The main obstacle has been the cost; even with a Florida resident discount, tickets are not in my budget at the moment. Hopefully one day I'll save up enough to go.
2. Own a Harry Potter mug: I like collecting coffee/tea mugs, and somehow, I do not have an HP one in my small yet steadily growing collection.
3. Take the Warner Brothers Studio Tour in London: Visiting England is on my non-HP bucket list, and if I ever get to go, I'd love to bask in all of the Harry Potter awesomeness that this tour offers.
4. Attend a Harry Potter convention: I went to a local-ish comic con a few years ago, and it was a lot of fun. I can only imagine how amazing an all-HP con would be!
5. Marathon watch the films: I'm talking one after another after another, (almost) straight through to Deathly Hallows, Part 2, with bathroom/food breaks as needed. And maybe a nap or two. XD
6. Binge reread the books: Every year I tell myself that this is going to be the year that I read all seven books in a row, but sadly, it still hasn't happened. I can't even remember when I last read the series. It's been far too long, and out of all of the goals I've listed here, this is the one that I'm absolutely determined to reach!

Do you have any HP-related goals?

My Wand Experience at Universal’s Wizarding World of Harry Potter

Harry Potter Month is hosted by Faith at Geeky Zoo Girl and Micheline at Lunar Rainbows Reviews. This awesome event runs all through July, and you can find more information about it here.

Even though I’ve lived in Florida for nearly half my life, I am ashamed to say that I had not been to The Wizarding World of Harry Potter (let alone Universal) until last year. Boy, was it worth the wait! I can hardly put my amazement into cohesive phrases about what it feels like to actually step into the books. It was breathtaking to see that the abstract world I had grown up loving had become a physical place that was actually accessible to me. For any book lover, it was a dream come true. In those regards, the whole day is pretty much a happy blur to me that I really wished I remembered in greater detail. That being said, I will attempt to retell my wand experience.

If you’re not familiar with the park or its attractions, they have pretty much everything important that is mentioned in the books. You can actually go to Ollivander’s and they have this really cool interactive show where someone from the audience gets picked and they go through their wand ceremony. And by golly, I actually got picked! Now, before you all go: that lucky bastard, I have to admit that I am pretty much the unluckiest person ever when it comes to raffles, winning by chance, or any sort of fate induced contest. I was fully expecting some nice kid in the audience to get picked, but no, the lady picked me. And yes, I had the cliché awkward moment where I checked to see if she was pointing at the person behind me. So, that’s how I got suckered into buying a ridiculously expensive piece of plastic that I display quite proudly in my room.

Harry Potter Month: 20 Years of Harry Potter

Harry Potter Month is hosted by Faith at Geeky Zoo Girl and Micheline at Lunar Rainbows Reviews. This awesome event runs all through July, and you can find more information about it here.

Wait—what?! It's already been twenty years since the release of the first Harry Potter book?! I guess that means I really am 40 because I was 20 back in 1997. XD

Ah, the summer of 1997. I was about to start my junior year of college at New York University and read textbooks on lovely subjects such as algorithms and the Assembly computer programming language. (In all seriousness, I did enjoy studying computer science—except for algorithms. I was completely lost in that class.) Being buried in schoolwork at the time, a boy wizard named Harry Potter was nowhere on my radar.

It would take another four years for me to finally take serious notice of this Harry Potter character, when a friend persuaded me to go see the film adaptation of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone with her. After being completely, totally, and utterly mesmerized by the film, at last I understood why Harry Potter had become so beloved and such a worldwide phenomenon.

Although I've officially been a Potterhead for about sixteen years, it's still hard to believe that much time has flown by. One of the most eye-opening realizations for me is that my cousins were in elementary school back when they started reading the books, and now one is a newly minted college graduate, one is a college senior, and one is a college freshman. Now I feel really old, LOL.

HP has given me some very happy memories over the past sixteen years; no worries—I'm not about to bore you more than one of Professor Binns's lectures by listing all of them. Here are just a few of the highlights:

• Reading the books for the first time
• Attending a midnight showing of Half-Blood Prince
• Playing the Lego HP games
• Connecting with other fans through Harry Potter Moment of the Week and Harry Potter Month. ♥
• Attempting to binge watch the movies with my cousins but never making it more than halfway through Prisoner of Azkaban. At least we ate lots of yummy snacks (and sometimes even full meals, hahaha!) during our attempts and had some awesome family time together.

What are some of your favorite HP-related memories?

Harry Potter Month: Melissa & Lee's Intro

Harry Potter Month is hosted by Faith at Geeky Zoo Girl and Micheline at Lunar Rainbows Reviews. This awesome event runs all through July, and you can find more information about it here.

Hello, witches, wizards, and Muggles alike! Another Harry Potter Month is upon us! We thought we’d do a quick intro-ish post to start things off.

This is Melissa’s return to Harry Potter Month after finally being rid of college, while Lee is back for a third year. Lee has kindly offered to let Melissa claim the points for this joint post to motivate her into writing more posts. Melissa is definitely not opposed to bribery. XD

We both took the Sorting Hat quiz back when Pottermore first started and decided to get sorted again on the updated site before writing this post. So here are our results:

Melissa:
Hogwarts House: Ravenclaw. (Thank goodness. There might’ve been an identity crisis if I got anything different.)
Ilvermony House: Horned Serpent. (Cool beans!)
Patronus: Salmon. (What?! A salmon! Out of all the animals out there, I get a salmon. Lee gets a majestic-looking bird and I get a generic looking fish. Typical.)
Wand: 10”, cypress, phoenix feather core, quite bendy. (I am quite pleased with my wand.)

Lee:
Hogwarts House: Ravenclaw
Ilvermony House: Thunderbird
Patronus: Goshawk
Wand: 11”, black walnut wood, unicorn hair core, unyielding flexibility

Yay, Ravenclaw! I just feel…at home in Ravenclaw House. I also love the bird theme I’ve got going on, LOL, including my Patronus. Unyielding wand flexibility doesn’t surprise me because I’m quite bad at adapting to change. XD

Please feel free to share your houses, patronuses, wands, and anything else HP in the comments! We’re looking forward to chatting about all things Potter with everyone all through July!

Harry Potter Month: EXPECTO PATRONUM! The Prisoner of Azkaban Film

Harry Potter Month is hosted by Faith at Geeky Zoo Girl and Micheline at Lunar Rainbows Reviews. This awesome event runs all through July, and you can find more information about it here.

Harry Potter Film Rewatch 2016 has been wonderful so far (and will require a part 2 to be continued next year, I think, due to lack of time to watch the remaining movies). We've arrived at my favorite out of all eight films: Prisoner of Azkaban. Even if PoA weren't already my favorite book, too, I'd still rank this movie #1. To me, it just absolutely nails the tone of the book and reflects the evolving maturity of our beloved trio. Oh, and let's not forget the brilliant introductions of two of my all-time favorite characters from the books: Remus Lupin and Sirius Black.

I love how gloriously unruly Harry's hair is in this one. What can I say? It's the little things with me, LOL. The Knight's Bus sequence is pretty cool, too; I wish I could navigate my car through such tight spaces like that!

It's a good thing that PoA has some humorous moments in it because AAAHHHH—the dementors! Man, those creatures are scary! Even though I knew Harry and Sirius were going to be OK, I still felt on edge watching the dementors close in on them. Harry yelling, "EXPECTO PATRONUM" with such fierce determination is one of my favorite scenes across all of the films.

Other highlights of the PoA movie for me are the appearance of the Marauder's Map—and Harry's snarky response to Snape when the latter catches Harry roaming the halls at night with it—and, of course, two of the Marauders themselves. Lupin is very much the inspiring teacher and kind soul I pictured in the books. As for Sirius, damn if my heart doesn't splinter every single time when he reminds everyone inside the Shrieking Shack how long he spent in Azkaban. Something else that I think the film captured perfectly is Sirius's rather quick transformation from extremely dangerous criminal to wrongly imprisoned man. All of the acting performances in the Shrieking Shack scene are so top-notch; I would've given anything to be a prop cobweb just to be in the presence of such fine acting.

I love rewatching all of the films, but this is the one that I could put on permanent replay. Does anyone else feel the same? :D

Harry Potter Month: EWW, Spiders! The Chamber of Secrets Film

Harry Potter Month is hosted by Faith at Geeky Zoo Girl and Micheline at Lunar Rainbows Reviews. This awesome event runs all through July, and you can find more information about it here.

I am the worst TV/movie binge watcher, so I'm really proud of myself for now having rewatched two of the HP movies, LOL. And I even stayed awake for all of this one (again, this is in no way any fault of the film's; it is entirely due to my old age)!

After being totally, utterly, and completely captivated by the Sorcerer's Stone film, I immediately got caught up on all of the books that were available at the time (4) and so was all set for the Chamber of Secrets movie adaptation. I remember checking the Internet—a lot—for any tidbit of news about the film. I also stalked HBO's schedule because I knew they aired short features on upcoming theatrical releases. My stalking skills were rewarded when they spotlighted CoS!

As with Sorcerer's Stone, it'd been some time since I last watched CoS, and also as with SS, it was a delight to experience it all over again. Well, maybe not so much the hideous spiders, which I'll get to in a few.

I still giggle when the pudding goes splat on Mrs. Mason's head at the beginning of the movie, thanks to a little fellow named Dobby. I just love the expression on Harry's face when he meets Dobby for the first time.

Speaking of love, I adored the scenes at the Burrow and all of the details, like the pots magically cleaning themselves (if only that happened in real life) and the clock with all of the Weasley family members on it. The home looked so cozy, and like Harry said, it was brilliant!

Something that I thought all of the films did extremely well was introducing new characters, whether they were created through the magic of special effects, like Dobby, or played by actors. In CoS we've got Kenneth Branagh's preening Gilderoy Lockhart and Jason Isaacs's sneering Lucius Malfoy. We also meet Professor Sprout and Madam Pomfrey, as well as Moaning Myrtle. I have to say, Moaning Myrtle's bathroom looks really creepy; I would not want to touch anything in there, let alone brew Polyjuice Potion that I would actually have to drink later, LOL.

And now we come to some super terrifying stuff: THE. SPIDERS! I really, really hate bugs, so ginormous spiders? NO. THANK. YOU. Seriously—I'd rather hang out with the basilisk than with Aragog and his family. It's one thing to visualize that scene in the Forbidden Forest in your head when you're reading the book, where you can set the horror level yourself. It's a complete other thing, however, where you can see these monsters on a big screen, charging at poor Harry, Ron, and Fang. To this day, I sort of avert my gaze during this scene.

Watching CoS is always a bittersweet experience, as it marks Richard Harris's final appearance as Dumbledore. I love his Dumbledore with all my heart, and his chat with Harry in his office following the events in the Chamber is especially poignant.

I still find the ending of this movie a bit awkward, when a Hagrid lovefest spontaneously breaks out in the Great Hall. I mean, I love Hagrid, too, but it was Harry who defeated the basilisk and diary Riddle and Fawkes who healed Harry and flew everyone out of the Chamber, LOL.

What are your favorite moments from the Chamber of Secrets movie?

Harry Potter Month: Back to School at Lego Hogwarts!

Harry Potter Month is hosted by Faith at Geeky Zoo Girl and Micheline at Lunar Rainbows Reviews. This awesome event runs all through July, and you can find more information about it here.

When I found out that playing the Lego Harry Potter video games would count towards House Cup points, my reaction was, "YASSSS!!!" Not that I need any motivation to play them because I LOVE THEM SO MUCH!

I've been playing the Lego games since Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga and have played a number of other Lego titles, including three Batman games, Pirates of the Caribbean, and two Marvel games. They're all an incredible amount of fun, which is why I keep playing them despite being way, way past the target age group, LOL. Lego HP, however, reigns supreme as my favorite. It is a completely immersive experience as you reenact key moments from the books/films—all in Lego form, of course!

It's been quite some time since I last visited Lego Hogwarts, which has only made my current playthrough of the first game, which covers Sorcerer's Stone to Goblet of Fire, all the more awesome. I'd forgotten how wonderfully detailed the game is and how much there is to discover. I'm not a hardcore gamer by any means, but as an HP fan, I'm still completely blown away by everything about this game. I'd love to talk about every single thing I love about it, but you could do a complete reread of all the books before I was even close to finished with the gushing, LOL. So here are a few of the highlights:

You're a Lego Wizard/Witch!

You get to experience Harry, Ron, and Hermione's adventures from the beginning! Not only do you play through major events from each book/film, but you also get to explore Hogwarts and attend lessons! Some places are even inaccessible until you learn the necessary spell or skill. For example, in year one you learn Wingardium Leviosa with Professor Flitwick, and in year two, Professor Sprout teaches you how to handle mandrakes properly. There are wardrobes all over the castle so your character can grab a pair of earmuffs for auditory protection. The fate of the wizarding world is literally in your hands as you mash those controller buttons!

Details, Details, Details!

I'll never stop being in awe over the level of detail in the game, from the eagle door knocker on the entrance to Ravenclaw Tower to Colin Creevey following you around and snapping your photo in year two to Beauxbatons and Durmstrang students walking the halls of Hogwarts in year four. You'll also recognize quite a bit of the music from the movies. In between the gameplay, there are cut scenes that are just as fun to watch. The characters in both Lego HP games don't actually talk, which has changed in the more recent Lego titles, but I've always liked how the characters convey everything with their facial expressions and the occasional laugh, sigh, or grunt.

Pick a Character. Any of the Over 150 Characters!

Although you have to play through each level once in Story mode with set characters, you can replay every level in Free Play mode with any character of your choosing. Helloooo, Sirius Black! No, really, he's my favorite character to play as. ♥ I can't think of an HP character who doesn't appear in the games, and there are also some generic ones like "Ravenclaw Prefect" and "Gryffindor Girl." My favorite non-specific character, though, has to be "Shifty Wizard," LOL.

You Get to Break Stuff—with Magic!

Sometimes you come home from a tough day at work/school and need to de-stress for a while. What better way than to bash virtual Lego bricks—no clean up! Breaking everything is essential in these games and how you rack up coins, plus . . . smashy, smashy! I feel an extra sense of gratification when I go ballistic on the giant spiders in the Chamber of Secrets level. Those things are scary, even as Legos!

Extremely High Replay Value

There are some video games, like books, that you never pick up again once you're done. Not the Lego HP games, though. I'm always ready to return to Lego Hogwarts and relive the magic all over again! I'm not sure if I'll have time to start years 5-7 before Harry Potter Month 2016 concludes, but if not, I know what I'll be doing during next year's HP Month! XD

Have you ever played the Lego HP games?

Harry Potter Month: The Sorcerer's Stone Film: Still Magical After All This Time

Harry Potter Month is hosted by Faith at Geeky Zoo Girl and Micheline at Lunar Rainbows Reviews. This awesome event runs all through July, and you can find more information about it here.

It's been quite a while since I last watched Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone; I always seem to catch the later films when they're on TV, lol. I've mentioned this quite a few times before, but the Sorcerer's Stone movie was my introduction to Harry Potter back in 2001. Prior to that, I had Jon Snow-level knowledge of the world of HP, i.e. I knew nothing. Seriously—absolutely zero. You know how sometimes you pick up the gist of a fandom because of its sheer popularity? Well, I didn't even manage that. So when I went to see Sorcerer's Stone, EVERYTHING was new to me.

From the moment Dumbledore, McGonagall, and Hagrid left baby Harry on the Dursleys' doorstep, I was utterly engrossed in the story. I remember being appalled by the Dursleys' treatment of older Harry; I mean, his "room" was a cupboard under the stairs! I was thrilled when Hagrid turned up to take Harry away from those awful people, plus Hagrid remembered Harry's birthday! ♥ And then, the magic began in earnest.

My eyes devoured the Diagon Alley scenes. I was in just as much awe as Harry when he and Hagrid stepped outside the Leaky Cauldron. I loved the scene in Ollivander's and the fascinating connection between Harry's new wand and that of a certain Dark wizard.

As much as a visual feast as Diagon Alley was, I was in no way prepared for my first glimpse of Hogwarts. When the first years entered the Great Hall for the Sorting Ceremony, all I could think was, why couldn't I have gone to a school like that?! Magic. Everywhere! Something that really blew my mind was Hogwarts' moving pictures; I just thought they were the coolest thing ever! I also loved the album of moving photographs Hagrid gave Harry at the end of the movie and the photo of James and Lily holding baby Harry. ♥

I left the movie theater that day focused on a single task: to acquire all of the HP books ASAP. And I did. And here I am almost 15 years later, still talking about Harry Potter.

Rewatching the first film, it was hard to believe that nearly 15 years have gone by. I've probably seen Sorcerer's Stone that many times; it practically lived in my DVD player when it first became available in the format. Even after this many viewings, it just doesn't get old to me. I still love watching our beloved trio meet for the first time; my favorite bit in that scene is Hermione informing Ron that he has dirt on his nose, LOL. I still wish that I could have some of those yummy-looking treats at the Halloween feast. I still crack up at Hermione's notion that getting expelled is a fate worse than getting killed and Ron's comment that she needs to sort our her priorities. I still get teary during the Harry/Dumbledore scene in front of the Mirror of Erised. Speaking of Dumbledore, Richard Harris was truly perfect in that role, right down to the twinkle in his eyes. He just got the character.

I'm really glad that I decided to at least start a movie rewatch. Sorcerer's Stone will always be special as where the magic all began for me, and I associate a lot of happy memories with it. In the surest confirmation that 15 years have indeed passed since I first saw this movie, I fell asleep on the couch—sitting up—right before the trio headed down the trap door after Quirrell, lol. I had to finish watching the following evening. What can I say? I am 15 years older and didn't have a Time-Turner so I could go back to a few minutes before I dozed off and chug a cup of coffee. XD

Harry Potter Month: If Filch Used a Planner

Harry Potter Month is hosted by Faith at Geeky Zoo Girl and Micheline at Lunar Rainbows Reviews. This awesome event runs all through July, and you can find more information about it here.

Hello, everyone! I hope you're all having a wonderful Harry Potter Month so far! As much as I enjoy writing discussion-type posts about HP, I really wanted to do something creative and a little bit different for this year's event. I'm a planner geek and absolutely live by my planner, so I thought it might be fun to imagine what an HP character's typical day might look like. I also wanted to choose a character who would seem unlikely to use a planner, lol, and Filch popped into my head. So here's a day in the life of Argus Filch, Hogwarts' harried caretaker:

• 5 AM: Wake up, get ready for another day of students sassing me and leaving messes everywhere for me to clean up. No time to comb hair.
• 5:15 AM: Eat breakfast, feed Mrs. Norris.
• 5:30 AM: Go over to-do list for the day and prioritize. Make sure to allow extra 30-60 minutes on schedule to tend to whatever mischief the Weasley twins and/or Peeves have made overnight.
• 5:45 AM: Start morning sweep of corridors w/Mrs. Norris. Make sure everything looks in order; take care of any necessary cleanups after first examining scene for clues and identifying potential culprits (i.e. Peeves, Fred and George Weasley or their known associates, like Harry Potter).
• 8:45 AM: Log morning's findings.
• 9:00 AM: Attempt to meet with the Headmaster re: known troublemakers @ Hogwarts and how they should be punished/expelled. Dumbledore somehow always has another "urgent matter" that needs his attention at this time every day. Starting to think he's brushing me off . . . .
• 9:30 AM Routine castle maintenance. Mrs. Norris will continue to patrol for misbehaving students.
• 12:30 PM: Lunch.
• 1:00 PM: 15-minute power nap. Mrs. Norris will wake me if needed.
• 1:15 PM: Wake up so Mrs. Norris can catnap. Tidy up havoc wreaked by students during morning classes. If only this school taught a mandatory class on cleanliness! Note to self: suggest this to Dumbledore @ next meeting (whenever that happens).
• 3:15 PM: Tea break w/Mrs. Norris
• 3:30 PM: Resume patrolling.
• 5:30 PM: Catch some sleep while students are getting ready for/are @ dinner. Mrs. Norris on duty.
• 7:30 PM: Dinner.
• 8:00 PM: Update Weasley twins' file.
• 9:00 PM: Read Mrs. Norris a bedtime story, then start solo night patrol of corridors. Students out of bed? Not on my watch!
• 2:00 AM: Sleep. Mrs. Norris on patrol until morning.

Harry Potter Month: The Hilarity of Fred & George Weasley

Harry Potter Month is hosted by Faith at Geeky Zoo Girl and Micheline at Lunar Rainbows Reviews. This awesome event runs all through July, and you can find more information about it here.

I am so excited to write this post, and really, I don't know why I didn't think to write it during last year's event. Let's see if I can get through composing this post without taking multiple laugh breaks; I'm not very optimistic about those odds!

I love so many characters in the Potterverse, but none crack me up like Fred and George do. Their humor will always be one of the highlights of the series for me, and today I'm reminiscing about a few of my very favorite instances of Fred and George hilarity from both the books and the films:

• I immediately knew I was going to love the twins the second I met them in Sorcerer's Stone, when Fred tricked Mrs. Weasley into thinking that he was George for a moment. "Honestly, woman, you call yourself our mother?" still makes me chuckle.
• Near the end of Sorcerer's Stone, when Dumbledore tells Harry that Fred and George tried to send Harry a toilet seat while he was in the hospital wing. It just seems like a very Fred and George thing to do. XD
• In Prisoner of Azkaban, when the twins imitate (and mock) Percy's overly formal greeting to Harry in the Leaky Cauldron.
• Getting Dudley to eat Ton-Tongue Toffee in Goblet of Fire! He totally deserved the consequences!
• Fred and George's effort to get around Dumbledore's Age Line surrounding the Goblet of Fire, and their spectacular failure, LOL. The skirmish that breaks out between the twins in the GoF film makes this scene even funnier!
• Everything to do with Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes! U-No-Poo—BAHAHAHA!! Yes, I am easily amused by toilet humor. I also love how Ron tries to score a discount on merchandise for being their brother, and the twins refuse him! The first Deathly Hallows movie takes the humor even further, with Fred and George actually raising the price on poor Ron, LOL.
• I've saved my absolute favorite Fred and George moment for last—their unforgettable exit from Hogwarts. Harry needed a diversion so he could break into Umbridge's office and use her fireplace to talk to Sirius, and did Fred and George ever deliver on the diversion. The Portable Swamp is my favorite invention of theirs, and just the mental image of Filch and Umbridge failing to dispose of it brings me such immense joy. I was a bit bummed that the Portable Swamp didn't make it into the Order of the Phoenix film, but Fred and George's big screen departure made its own lasting impression.

What Fred and George moments made you laugh the most?

Harry Potter Month: I Love Being a Ravenclaw!

Harry Potter Month is hosted by Faith at Geeky Zoo Girl and Micheline at Lunar Rainbows Reviews. This awesome event runs all through July, and you can find more information about it here.

I second guess things A LOT, lol, but something that I've never questioned is which Hogwarts house I belong in. When Pottermore first launched and the sorting quiz put me in Ravenclaw, I wasn't surprised at all. The house with the motto, "Wit beyond measure is man's greatest treasure" is definitely the house for me.

Oh, I would absolutely feel right at home among my fellow studious Ravenclaws. I don't think I'd ever have to worry about finding a study buddy or two. Every trip up to Ravenclaw Tower would be an adventure, trying to correctly answer the door knocker's riddle. Plus, all those steps would probably mean I'd reach my daily step goal with no problem!

I couldn't imagine a world where wit didn't exist, so I love that Ravenclaw House holds it in such high esteem. I also love the idea of running into the one and only Luna Lovegood in the Common Room. What fantastic conversations we would have about Nargles, the Crumple-Horned Snorkack, and so much more.

I totally geek out when fandoms collide, and a while back Maggie Stiefvater sorted her Raven Cycle characters into Hogwarts houses. Regular blog visitors know that The Raven Cycle = Life to me. So there was much squealing on my part when I saw that TRC's sassy heroine Blue Sargent was a Ravenclaw, too. To our dear brave and loyal Gryffindor friends: please send Richard Campbell Gansey III to visit us every once in a while, okay? XD

Harry Potter Month: My HP Profile

Harry Potter Month is hosted by Faith at Geeky Zoo Girl and Micheline at Lunar Rainbows Reviews. This awesome event runs all through July, and you can find more information about it here.

Hello, fellow Potterheads! I'm THRILLED to be participating in Harry Potter Month again! Last year was so much fun, and I'm looking forward to another fantastic event this year!

To start off last year's HP Month here on the blog, I wrote a post about how I first became acquainted with this wondrous world of Harry Potter. I still wanted to write some kind of intro post as the inaugural one for this year's event but with a bit of a twist on it. So I thought I'd put together a little personalized HP profile, a snapshot of sorts of HP and me:

• Name: Lee
• Hogwarts House: Ravenclaw
• Ilvermorny House: Thunderbird
• Year I Discovered HP: 2001, the year the first movie adaptation released. It was seeing Sorcerer's Stone that finally got me to start reading the books.
• Last Time I Read the Books: 2007, I think. It's definitely been too long. :(
• Favorite Book: Prisoner of Azkaban
• Favorite Film: Prisoner of Azkaban (There might just be a theme going on here, lol.)
• Favorite Character: Sirius Black (Definitely a theme going on here. XD)
• Character I Most Identify With: Hermione Granger. She's a kindred spirit, for sure. Books are life for us! And I think I would be more horrified by the prospect of getting expelled from school than getting devoured by a three-headed dog, especially if the school in question was Hogwarts!
• Character I Wish I Were More Like: Luna Lovegood. Luna is such a free-spirit and lives in the moment. I'm always running around at a million miles an hour stressing over something, lol.
• Spell I'd Use Right This Moment: Accio, and I'd use it to summon the donut that's sitting on my kitchen counter right now. XD
• Kiss, Kill, Marry (Marauders Edition): I think it's safe to assume we'd all kill Wormtail, right? XD So the choices are between Sirius, Remus, and James. I'd marry Sirius, kiss Remus, and, sadly, I'd have to kill poor James. Not proud of that last one, but I'm definitely marrying Sirius!

If anyone would like to do a similar post, please feel free to—I'd love to check yours out! :D Also feel free to change up the list items!

Harry Potter Month: Slytherin Stereotype

Harry Potter Month is hosted by Faith at Geeky Zoo Girl and Micheline at Lunar Rainbows Reviews. This awesome event runs all through July, and you can find more information about it here.

Okay, I have a confession to make—I haven’t always been proud to be a Slytherin. Like most children first introduced to the Harry Potter series and movies, I admired Harry and the bravery that came with being a Gryffindor. I always associated myself with Gryffindor and looked down on the other houses. Ravenclaw was all right, but Hufflepuff and Slytherin were bad houses. And when Pottermore came out with the real Sorting Hat quiz, I just knew that I was going to be in Gryffindor! Imagine my surprise and distress when I took the official Sorting Hat quiz and ended up in . . . Slytherin. I must have taken the quiz three different times but I always ended up with the same result.

Eventually, after reading the little blurb about Slytherin in Pottermore and learning that Merlin was a Slytherin, I embraced my house. Obviously, now that I’ve matured a little and learned more about the different houses, I’ve come to appreciate Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin as much as I appreciated Gryffindor. But now my favorite house is, hands-down, Slytherin! I’m extremely proud of my house and I like the “Slytherin” qualities that I have, such as being ambitious and cunning.

The Slytherin stereotype that is unintentionally displayed in the series now annoys me. Just because you’re in Slytherin doesn’t mean you are evil. Harry Potter was almost placed in Slytherin and some of our notable alumni include Regulus, who turned out to be a hero, Snape, who was an awesome asset to Dumbledore’s Army, and like I mentioned before, Merlin! I wouldn’t want to be in any other house now, even though they are all awesome. I’m a Slytherin through and through.

Harry Potter Month: Harry Potter and Kids' College

Harry Potter Month is hosted by Faith at Geeky Zoo Girl and Micheline at Lunar Rainbows Reviews. This awesome event runs all through July, and you can find more information about it here.

During the summer between my sophomore and junior year in high school, I volunteered with an organization called Kids' College. Kids' College is basically an educational yet fun summer program for young children. There are tons of different “classes’ that the children can choose to sign up for, such as dance class, sewing class, and Harry Potter class. I obviously jumped at the opportunity to volunteer for the general Harry Potter class and the Harry Potter trivia class.

The general Harry Potter class was designed to be like Hogwarts. There were four houses and the teacher of the class was the headmaster. There were eight high school volunteers for the class, and the Headmaster allowed us to be the “prefects” for the four houses. I was a Slytherin prefect and I absolutely loved it. It was so funny because the kids who were designated to each house kind of fit the qualities of their respective houses. My Slytherin kids were a snarky, competitive bunch, and I adored them. I know that we had to compete for a House Cup but I honestly can’t remember who won. That’s probably because Slytherin lost and I blocked it from my memory lol!

There were different challenges that the kids and prefects had to go through to gain points for their houses. For example, we played a Quidditch tournament which was so awesome and intense. It got to the point where the teacher of the class had to make all the kids sit out because the volunteers for the class were getting so aggressive. I was a Seeker superstar and I caught the Snitch multiple times!

The Harry Potter trivia class was much more laid back. The kids were broken down into teams but they weren’t sorted into any specific houses. The other volunteers and I were equally distributed to the teams, to give the kids some additional help. We just played different types of Harry Potter themed games, such as HP Jeopardy, and whichever team gained the most points by the end of the week was the winner. Again, I believe my team lost, haha. This class was kind of embarrassing because a lot of the little kids were hardcore fans and knew every little detail from the books and movies. It was actually pretty hard competing with the kids and they would get so mad at the volunteers on their team if the volunteers got any question wrong. So, yeah, I had a lot of little kid enemies in that class, lol.

Overall, my experience at Kids' College was a lot of fun. It was so awesome to see how much these little kids loved Harry Potter, and I enjoyed being a part of those classes. I definitely wish I would’ve had a summer program like that when I was little.

Harry Potter Month: Fandom in the Family

Harry Potter Month is hosted by Faith at Geeky Zoo Girl and Micheline at Lunar Rainbows Reviews. This awesome event runs all through July, and you can find more information about it here.

For those of you who may not know already, Ally and Melissa, my fellow contributors here at the blog, are my cousins. We're currently also sort of rivals for the Harry Potter Month House Cup—Ally is in Slytherin, while Melissa and I are in Ravenclaw. So a little family competition has broken out, with all three of us upping our blogging game a notch because we are a family of very, very dedicated Harry Potter fans.

A family memory that I'll always treasure is being able to watch Ally and Melissa grow up into the awesome young adults they are today. As avid readers and all-around nerds, we have quite a few shared HP-related moments together. The other day, Ally wrote about how she and her younger brother got in trouble with their parents for yelling, "Bloody hell, Harry!" in public when they were little. I vividly remember that incident because I was there. In fact, Ally and Denis were having a contest to see who could imitate Ron saying, "Bloody hell, Harry" the best, and I was designated the judge until the aforementioned parents shut the contest down.

My cousins and I have also spent immeasurable hours playing the Lego Harry Potter video games. While we had a ton of fun just because the games are so amazingly designed, we got so, so many laughs from our pitiful teamwork. No matter how we paired off, there was always some kind of infighting, whether it was over who was going to get to play as Sirius and Lupin (probably the biggest point of contention) or who was going to get to drive the Flying Car. There was constant usage of wands against each other, too, which often brought progress in whatever level we were playing to a screeching halt. But this was all in the spirit of good fun, and, somehow, we managed to complete both games to 100%, lol!

The HP family fandom moment that's closest to my heart took place on the day that Ally, Melissa, and the rest of their family left New York to drive down to their new home in Florida. I wanted to give them a going away present, and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows had just released. I hurried to the new neighborhood bookstore that had recently opened and was very fortunate to snag their one remaining copy of DH. We all reunited when I moved to FL the following year, and we've continued fangirling over HP together ever since.

Harry Potter Month: Harry Potter and the Adventures in Band Class

Harry Potter Month is hosted by Faith at Geeky Zoo Girl and Micheline at Lunar Rainbows Reviews. This awesome event runs all through July, and you can find more information about it here.

Back in the day, when I was a freshman in high school, I abandoned the flute for a short while to play clarinet for a season. It was one of my biggest mistakes as a newbie in high school (because I sucked at clarinet and desperately missed my flute) but it was also one of the most fun times in my life.

I had switched to clarinet with one of my best friends and we were the biggest slackers when it came to learning how to play, or more accurately fake play. When we weren’t skipping band class under the guise of learning the new instrument, we were doodling all over the music. And of course, being the nerdy teenagers that we were, we doodled Harry Potter characters and inside jokes from the series all over the music.

I remember us taking turns drawing something and then laughing hysterically over it. We would try our best to stifle our laughter because we were in class and our band director was trying to teach, but we were incredibly loud. I look back now and cringe, thinking about how obnoxious we must have been. If I was a senior in that band class, I would’ve most definitely hated us lol.

My friend and I used to be threatened all the time to be separated because we were so “disruptive” but did that stop us? No! Towards the end of the year, I believe it was actually during the senior graduation, the music librarians were walking around collecting music and my friend and I were freaking out because our music was completely WRECKED with Harry Potter doodles. The librarian took one look at our music and stormed off with a disgusted look on her face. My friend has kept the music to this day.

Harry Potter made my freshman year in band amazing, and it also introduced me to one of my best friends. Thanks, JKR!

Harry Potter Month: Harry Potter Childhood Games

Harry Potter Month is hosted by Faith at Geeky Zoo Girl and Micheline at Lunar Rainbows Reviews. This awesome event runs all through July, and you can find more information about it here.

The incredible world of Harry Potter had a great impact on my imagination as a child. Some of my fondest memories with my siblings are when we played Harry Potter related games together. I remember spending a great deal of time in our small backyard in Brooklyn gathering dirt from the floor. After we had gathered enough, we would deem the dirt to be Floo powder. We would then enthusiastically throw the Floo powder to the ground and scream, “Diagon Alley!” Although we never managed to Floo ourselves to the wizarding world, we would tirelessly gather and throw Floo powder over and over again.

Another game we used to play together merely consisted of us pretending to be Harry, Hermione, and Ron. I would always call dibs on Harry, Melissa would be Ron, and Denis, being the youngest and last to pick, would be Hermione. We would use the crawl space underneath our parents’ bed as the “Chamber of Secrets” and pretend to see Voldemort’s face in the windows. Needless to say, Harry Potter made my childhood a lot of fun.

Harry Potter Month: Embarrassing Harry Potter Related Moments

Harry Potter Month is hosted by Faith at Geeky Zoo Girl and Micheline at Lunar Rainbows Reviews. This awesome event runs all through July, and you can find more information about it here.

My life is just a string of one embarrassing moment after another. Usually I can forget and move past these moments, but two Harry Potter influenced ones are regrettably well-remembered.

One of the first moments took place shortly after viewing the first Harry Potter movie; I was in the first grade. My dad had rented a copy from Blockbuster (RIP), and I loved it but was so confused by the British accents. I went to school telling everyone about the “foreign film” I had seen and I was shocked to learn that Harry Potter was actually quite popular. I felt like such a fool for thinking that I had been so special to come across such a great “foreign film.”

The other moment occurred not too long after the foreign film incident. My brother and I had made a hobby out of mimicking Ron’s British accent, specifically the phrase “Bloody hell, Harry.” We would prance around our house saying that phrase over and over again, clueless to the fact that it was actually a curse word. It was only after screaming “Bloody hell, Harry” in a public setting that our parents cued us in on the true meaning. Even at the young age that I was, I knew to be embarrassed by our unintentional sailor mouths.

Harry Potter Month: HP Stuff Around the House

Harry Potter Month is hosted by Faith at Geeky Zoo Girl and Micheline at Lunar Rainbows Reviews. This awesome event runs all through July, and you can find more information about it here.

If I bought every HP item that I ever saw and wanted, I would be BROKE. Somehow, I've managed to show some restraint over the years, and I thought I'd share some of my HP stuff that I haven't posted about before (at least according to my sometimes shaky memory) with you today.

I love collecting bookmarks in general, so owning Harry Potter bookmarks was an absolute MUST. And actually, I'm a little surprised that I didn't buy up more when I saw them. Note to self: buy more Harry Potter bookmarks!

If you're a Potterhead and a knitter, then Charmed Knits is the book for you! The projects are really cute and range from simple scarves to more challenging patterns. I originally bought the book to knit a hat in the Gryffindor colors for a Christmas gift. The cool thing is, several of the patterns, like the hats, scarves, and socks, can be customized in the colors of your favorite House!

Everyone knows how much I love Sirius Black, and I was overjoyed to receive a Sirius action figure a few Christmases ago from my family. They kept teasing me with hints that I was going to especially loooooove one of my gifts. And they were right!!!

I bought the HP lunchbox over 10 years ago, and of course I've never actually used it to hold my lunch, lol. It's too awesome for that! XD

Some of you know how obsessed I am with the HP Lego video games, so naturally I HAD to have an HP minifigure. Or two. These two currently stand guard on my desk.

I got this CoS movie poster from AOL of all places, around the time of the movie's release, and it came in a set with a poster of Dobby. Oddly, it's the only HP poster I own, which is really surprising because I love showing support for my favorite fandoms by putting posters on the walls, lol.

Do you have any favorite HP-related items?

Harry Potter Month: A Class on Harry Potter

Harry Potter Month is hosted by Faith at Geeky Zoo Girl and Micheline at Lunar Rainbows Reviews. This awesome event runs all through July, and you can find more information about it here.

This past semester, I thought it would be a great idea to take a class centered around the Harry Potter series. I was extremely surprised that such an awesome class was being offered, and I knew I had to take it. I read the syllabus a few weeks before class began and I saw that the class was going to be divided into different Hogwarts Houses and that we would be competing for the House Cup. I was never so excited for Winter Break to be over! XD I knew I was gonna been placed in Ravenclaw and I knew that Cup would be mine! Mwahahaha! Or so I thought . . . .

The first day of class finally arrived, and I could not wait to see what the Sorting ceremony would be like and who my fellow Ravenclaws would be. Our professor had assumed the identity of Professor Snape and pulled out his own Sorting Hat. To my dismay, he pulled our names out of the Hat already pre-assigned to Houses. To my extreme outrage, I was assigned to Hufflepuff. Before I continue ranting, I would like to say that I have nothing against Hufflepuff, but I am most certainly a Ravenclaw girl. How the heck could this guy sort us into Houses before even seeing which face goes to which name?! I was pissed. And to top it off, my best friend, who is also a Ravenclaw at heart, got into the right House! WTF?! I never really got over that.

Next came the creative project, which I totally beasted. I knocked that shit out of the park. I created a potions kit in addition to a portable potions ingredients book. I spent a whole lot of time and money on it, but it was worth it! I was that one kid who goes totally overboard with the project and makes everyone else's look terrible. I even did a mini demonstration with colored vinegar and baking soda. This project is one of my greatest achievements; I will let the pictures speak for themselves.

Next came the group presentation. A total fucking nightmare. Of course, my fellow housemates were the slackers of the class. I was forced to take lead of the project (which is way out of my comfort zone). Despite my constant nagging, the project was not completed until a few minutes before we presented. My part of the presentation was on point . . . . There was only so much I could fix on theirs. It was passable, but not where I wanted it to be. -.- I loathe group projects.

Needless to say, we did not win the House Cup. That class had its ups and downs, but I really feel like I've gained a whole new kind of appreciation for the Harry Potter series. Overall, I feel like it was a pretty good experience.