Heck, I bet there’s a special, secret lounge accessible only to students who convincingly give the door an answer it hadn’t had in mind.
Do you think Ravenclaws ever argue with the door to their tower? I bet they do. Like, the eagle says their answer to the riddle is wrong, but they argue the point and the eagle eventually comes around to their side and lets them in.
Okay, but I actually think about this all the time. Ravenclaws and their problems with their dormitory door.
Like, imagine Su Li and Lisa Turpin coming back from dinner having some conversation or another about how they have some Herbology essay due tomorrow and neither of them did it because they were too distracted with a tangent they got on while doing their Potions homework. And Lisa’s going, “Alright, Su, Tony’s already got the books, so we just have to buckle down and do this. We got this. It’s fine. We’ll just go in and work our asses off.” They get to the door and knock, still talking, entirely on muscle memory. They’re barely listening when the eagle asks them, “Where do Vanished objects go?” Lisa’s brain is a little too fried with worry to think at the moment, but she’s not too concerned about getting in because Su looks calm and thoughtful about this one. And then Su turns to her and goes, “Where DO Vanished objects go?” Damn it all to hell, Lisa knows that look. “Su. Su, no. It’s a riddle, Su. It’s just a riddle.” “Yeah, I know it’s a riddle, but it’s also a legitimate question. I mean, Vanished objects have to go SOMEWHERE, right? For you to Conjure them again afterwards? Or are you just creating an identical object out of nothing? Or maybe not nothing… what are Conjured objects made of, do you think?” “Su, we really have to write this Herbology essay.” “I know. But it’s an interesting question. I bet somebody’s done a study on this. I heard Padma say that Conjured objects are different to real ones. Do you think that there’d be a way to tell if your Conjured object was the same one you’d Vanished? Like, if you bespelled it with a charm and it came back with the spells?” “Well… I once heard an upper-year say that Vanishing bespelled objects is tricky. They were looking into it for their Curse-Breaking apprenticeship. But it might be possible. I definitely don’t think it’s possible to Conjure bespelled objects from nothing.” “It might be. I read this book where somebody talked about conjuring a Sneak-o-scope and those are definitely enchanted objects.” “Was it a Gilderoy Lockhart book? Because that sounds like bullshit to me.” “No, I can show you. It was in a Auror’s Memoirs. I just returned them to the library this morning, so I bet nobody’s taken them out yet. And-” “That sounds like an unreliable source.” “AND I was reading this Charms book the other day that referenced a book on the specifics of Vanishing objects that had an author who was an expert in their field and a retiree from the Department of Mysteries with the same last name as the book by the Auror.” “I’m not believing this until I see a source.” “Fine, come on!” The eagle knocker has long since settled back into its resting state by then, Su and Lisa immediately run off to the library, arguing the whole way, and the next day, Professor Sprout gives the extremely apologetic students an extension on the essay while sighing, “Ravenclaws.”
Or imagine there’s some Muggleborn student who has an astrophysicist for one parent and a biologist for the other, and they think magic is amazing, but they’re also really into Muggle science as well. “Which came first,” the eagle knocker asks them at one point, “the phoenix or the fire?” And they’re immediately like, “the fire.” While their friend is like, “Benny, no, that’s not how this works. My brother told me about things like this, it’s one of those paradox questions.” “What? No way. Fire came first.” “Benny…” “Fire is a chemical reaction and, as far as I can tell, phoenixes are a fiery bird that probably evolved just like everything else did on this planet. We’re a really small speck on the cosmic calendar, Raleigh, and I’m saying that unless phoenixes are actually aliens – which would be AWESOME, you-” “Benny…” “-have to admit – fire came first. There are trillions of stars that haved burned and died billions of years before our sun was even born. This is just like that chicken and the egg question, in that it sounds like a paradox but it’s actually not, because the egg existed long before the bird we know as the chicken ever evolved-” “Benny!” “What?” “You… the door opened.” “What? Oh cool. Finally, someone who recognizes science in this nutty place.” About a week later, Benny completely disrupts and derails their Astronomy class by arguing with Professor Sinestra about the school curriculum (that hasn’t been updated in more than fifty years or more) being “WAY TOO OUT OF DATE, PROFESSOR! THIS TEXTBOOK WAS WRITTEN IN 1910! THESE TELESCOPES ARE RIDICULOUS! WHEN’S THE LAST TIME A WIZARD WENT TO AN ACTUAL PLANETARIUM?! OH MY GOD, DO WIZARDS EVEN KNOW THAT THE AMERICANS HAVE GONE TO THE MOON?” And the wizardborn kids are like, “The Americans have WHAT?” While poor Raleigh has his face in his hands and isn’t even surprised.
Or imagine other things. Like that time the first years has to stand around for two hours after the Welcoming Feast because their Prefects gave them a short speech, a small tour, and then got into an “academic disagreement” (as the house of Ravenclaw has come to call them) over the riddle. So there’s this group of eleven-year-olds playing party games in the hall while their fifteen-year-old “mentors” yell at each other over the riddle. And they only got inside in the end because someone actually managed to notice that the first years never came in and “Hey, that’s sort of weird”, and sent some second year to go look for them.
Or when NEWTs season came around, and there was a seventh year SO STRESSED that they came back from the library at three in the morning and when the eagle knocker asked them a riddle, they just burst into tears and sobbed against the door for ten minutes before the eagle awkwardly declared, “Nicely answered!” and let them in anyway.
I sincerely believe that by 7th year Ravenclaws would just tell the door to their common room to fuck off and it would open for them
Q “Why is a raven like a writing desk?” A “You shouldn’t shove either up your arse.” “…Technically, yes.”
Imagine it, a poor First Year is waiting outside the common room, they can’t answer the riddle in a way to appease the eagle and must wait until someone else to answer it for them. It’s getting late, they’re starting to resign themselves to having to spend the night here.
Suddenly, their saviour comes! It’s a seventh year! Back from a night finishing off their Araithmancy essay in the Library. They look angry, but our poor little first year squares their shoulders, waiting to see what will happen, and hope that they’ll keep the door open for them.
The Seventh Year bangs the handle against the wall, and a slightly disgruntled voice asks the question again: “What is the truth?”
The Student Replies, “The Truth is that I am so fucking sick of all these mother fucking questions about stupid fucking topics like this you bloody fuck-witted bastard. Who in the name of Merlin’s saggy left testicle gives a fucking damn about all this shit anyway? I’ve been working my arse off in the library for the last seven hours now let me the fuck in or, truthfully, I’ll blast my way in and take you with me.”
The eagle knocker tutts, but allows the student entry anyway, and our little first year enters, eyes wide and in shock. They watch the seventh year go up to their bedroom, awe all over their face at their new hero. They did, indeed, learn something that day by waiting for someone to arrive, they learnt that swearing has a magic all of it’s fucking own, and that sometimes it is big and clever to use it.
The only head canon I will ever accept. Its both perfectly witty and fantastically assholish
witty and fantastically assholish… pretty much quintessential ravenclaw traits right there
“What is the truth?”
“THIS IS A STUPID FUCKING WAY TO REGULATE WHO GETS INTO THE TOWER.”
I’m ALSO very tired of seeing Hufflepuffs written off as airy-fairy
SO
Give me Hufflepuffs that read every single page of the biggest Transfiguration book in the library, and learn the ins and outs of it because “ok, think about it…a dragon pig. We can transfigure a pig into a pig with dragon like features”.
Give me Hufflepuffs that are the best at cheering up nervous first years, because it’s a natural extension of their inherent welcoming and inclusive natures.
Give me Hufflepuffs who leave their Common Room unlocked, and it’s just an unspoken thing where if you’re not at all bothered to answer your own Common Room’s “bloody insufferable mumbo-jumbo” riddle at this “ungodly hour” you can just head on over to Hufflepuff and chill there until morning.
Give me Hufflepuffs that are tough as nails but still incredibly kind and welcoming.
Give me Hufflepuffs who lowkey run a blackmarket in Hogwarts where they just sell random things that are in demand (pens. Muggle pens are ALWAYS in demand) and LITERALLY NEVER GET CAUGHT BECAUSE NO ONE SUSPECTS IT.
Give me Hufflepuffs who will kick your ass, your cow’s ass and Suzanne’s ass, all before breakfast, but still have the warmest smile on their face when they visit you in the hospital wing with a little pig dragon.
Hufflepuffs are not airy-fairy pushovers. In the right circumstances, they WILL punch you in the face.
Gryffindor online description: brave, noble, chivalrous, a little arrogant and reckless at times, but an all around hero
Gryffindor actual description: “TURN DOWN FOR WHAT?” *sees spider and screams*
Ravenclaw online description: witty, intelligent, tends to be eccentric, very smart and pretty nerdy,
Ravenclaw actual description: hasn’t left the house in six days, is down to one square of toilet paper but doesn’t notice because they’re so deep into the Internet
Slytherin online description: cunning, clever, resourceful, can be ruthless and tends to be a villain on the worst days, but loyal to those they love
Slytherin actual description: gets hit in the head with a dodgeball in p.e. because they were busy thinking of ways to overthrow the government
Hufflepuff online description: kind, sweet, tends to be soft spoken, can be a pushover, loyal, hardworking, overly nice sometimes
Hufflepuff actual description: smiles a lot thinks about food 24/7 until someone disses their friend, then all hell breaks loose
a company where a slytherin in payroll is making the decision to pay disabled workers subminimum wage and squib workers minimum wage, while Real Witches and Wizards who work there get a living wage, because it’s cost effective and business is business. and a ravenclaw in HR who makes the decision to segregate them For Their Own Good. and the gryffindor spokesperson is like ISN’T THIS A WONDERFUL THING WE ARE DOING, GIVING THEM WORK. and the hufflepuff lawmaker who says yes, the Value is in the Work, this is an equitable thing.
and how it’s a cognitively disabled hufflepuff worker who says no fucking way this isn’t fair. and a gryffindor who says lets fucking do something about it. and a ravenclaw who says ok cool, but we need a strategy. and a slytherin who says well, this is what they value, this is their weakness.
how it’s a hufflepuff squib who sits through the meetings and says, this is wrong, over and over, patient and polite and unmoving. how it’s a gryffindor labelled with an intellectual disability, who’s slytherin I/DD friends got them out, who grits their teeth and tells their story over and over and over again. how it’s a physically disabled ravenclaw lawyer who sits in the courtroom and argues the legal minutia while their slytherin co-counsel hits all the emotionally salient points with devastating precision. how it’s a gryffindor leading the protest and a hufflepuff doing the logistics. how it’s a ravenclaw writing to the prophet making the arguments for inclusion being good economic practice.
and how there are people from every house on every side with every d&d alignment doing every kind of work
Kimchi and Justice 