2 of Slytherin: Equilibrium

2 of Slytherin: Equilibrium

Meaning of the card facing you: indecision, choices, truce, stalemate, blocked emotions
Meaning of the card facing away from you: indecision, confusion, information overload

Draco Malfoy is a very very interesting character that has a lot of depth, if you bother to look closely. A lot of people look over Draco and just see him as the boy who became a Death Eater and was evil, but there is so much more to him.

Draco was raised by Lucius and Narcissa, both very capable rich Purebloods with more power and gold than you can imagine. He was brought up to think a certain way, talk a certain way, walk a certain way, act a certain way, etc. He was told from the start that Muggles and Muggleborns were horrible and below him. He was spoon-fed classism, muggle-ism, etc. from before he could think for himself. He always looked up to his father and tried to be like him, bullying people and becoming a Death Eater for him. It's important to remember that he never knew any other way of life.

In Draco's sixth year, he was given a task- a very dangerous, horrible, murderous task that I will go more into with another card- because his father was in Azkaban. This was the book where we kind of begin to see that Draco is an actual person- Harry especially. It is a year for him that it fraught with indecision, choices and blocked emotions. Draco pulls away from his friends and the people he cares about because of the task that he must do. He stops confiding and asking for help from Snape. He stops talking to his friends, starts going off on his own to places, and looks more and more pale and withdrawn as the year goes on. Someone he actually begins to confide in is Moaning Myrtle, he talks and cries to her, until Harry misunderstands things and messes it up.

Draco Malfoy can represent choices. He can be indecision because it took him a very long time to realize that he was on the wrong side and even longer to get out of it. But also, making choices. In the seventh book, he had a very big choice to make that decided Harry's fate. Harry, Ron, and Hermione get captured and taken to the Malfoy Manor. Hermione charmed Harry's face so it was disfigured, but could be recognizable. It was up to Draco to declare whether he was Harry or not because he knew what he looked like the best since he went to school with him. It was pretty obvious that it was Harry, Ron, and Hermione but Draco chose not say that it was. Without Draco's choice to not turn them in, they could have met a very gruesome ending with the Malfoy's summoning Voldemort and the war most likely ending with the Dark side winning.

Draco is confusion because up until the time he was eleven, he was taught one way of life, but from the moment he met Harry, he found that people were a lot different then what he expected. I think a lot of the time that he and Harry got into arguments, he was just struggling to hold onto what he knew, to please his father- or at least do what he thinks what his father would want, he's used to getting his way and lashes out when he doesn't. It's hard for him in school because most people don't like Slytherin and he has to be the example for the house as a rich, upstanding, Pureblood, but he is constantly made fun of by and in some ways loses to Harry/Gryffindor. It's a constant stream of anger, disappointment, and humiliation which leads to him resenting Harry and many people and choisng to be a Death Eater instead of asking for help, only to find how horrible it is (a lot like Snape). Personally, I think that if someone had reached out to him or if Harry had made their rivalry a bit more friendly, Draco would not have become a Death Eater and gotten himself into the mess he was in.

Truce and stalemate can be represented by Draco mostly during the seventh book and mostly just when he makes the decision not to turn Harry in. Also, even though I really hated the Epilogue, there was a moment when Harry and Draco nod to each other at King's Cross. This is really significant because it  shows that Harry has forgiven him for all the horrible things that happened to them during school. Another big thing is during the final battle, Draco goes looking for Harry in the Room of Requirement. He keeps telling Crabbe and Goyle to keep Harry alive. Harry goes back into the room even the the Fiendfire is tearing it up and saves Draco.  Later he saves him from a Death Eater who  was yelling at him. This shows that Harry realized what was going on with Draco and made an unspoken agreement with him.

Major Arcana: X Fortune, Wheel of

 
Major Arcana: X Fortune, Wheel of

Meaning of the card facing you: good luck, karma, life cycles, destiny, turning point
Meaning of the card facing away from you: bad luck, negative external forces, out of control

So when I did this, I had to cut out the drawing that I made so that I could make sure that I got it exactly the way I wanted it (as I have done for about 1/2 of my cards so far). The cut out made a beautiful negative space shape thing in the white paper. I don't have a picture of it right now, but I'll post it as soon as I get it because wow it's really awesome.

The Sorting Hat is a had the sorts the incoming first years into their Hogwarts Houses, Ravenclaw, Hufflypuff, Gryffindor, and Slytherin. It kind of reads the minds of the children that it sorts and places them based on who they are (and possibly bloodline). It has been around since Hogwarts was founded and has never failed to sort students.

I'm not sure how much the Sorting Hat represents good luck or bad luck, though it does sing about the bad things that it thinks is going to happen and gives good advice, though interHouse unity is not really something that Hogwarts students practice (which honestly makes me very sad. If someone what just been there for all those poor Slytherins, the wizarding world would probably not be in such a mess). It can be karma because it can look inside your head and places you based on what you've done/ have inside you so there might be some karma going around over there.

In Harry's case, the Sorting Hat has a lot to do with his destiny. Harry finds a home in Gryffindor House and becomes who he is because of it. Also, the Hat shows Harry that he had two possibilities: Gryffindor or Slytherin and he sealed whatever destiny he had when he chose Gryffindor. My personal opinion is that he would have thrived in Slytherin and managed not to become a dark lord, he might have picked up some really good qualities along the way as well. In general, for most people, the Sorting isn't that big a deal aside from the fact that you get placed with a bunch of people for the next seven years of your life. But for Harry, it was a very significant part of his life and impacted his outlook on life and the way he dealt with things.

During times of "negative external forces" and things are "out of control", the Sorting Hat can be very useful to a Gryffindor student, Harry and Neville being the examples for this. For Harry, the Sorting Hat came to help him defeat the Basilisk in the second book. Harry got the Hat from Fawkes and managed to pull the Sword of Gryffindor out of it which he used to slay the Basilisk. The snake, the memory of Tom Riddle, the diary, the Chamber of Secrets, and every thing in that place made it negative and out of control and without the Hat, it would have gotten worse. Actually Neville's story is very similar though the snake he was killing was Nagini in order to defeat Voldemort- this time in a more solid form.

Like most things in these books, the important things kind of creep up on you. They've kind of always been there, we just didn't know it until it was made clear for us. The Sorting Hat is a lot like that. It became a constant familiar thing that was kind of cool but not really because Harry needed it once and all that, but then Neville used it and we saw how much it was worth, how important it was.

6 of Slytherin: Knowledge

6 of Slytherin: Knowledge

Meaning of the card facing you: regretful but necessary transition, rite of passage

Meaning of the card facing away from you: cannot move on, carrying baggage

original sketch

So I finally messed up on a card. And by finally I mean, it was bound to happen at some time and I'm glad it happened on a card that I thoroughly enjoyed drawing. I actually had a lot of trouble with the first one. If you look at it, you can see at the small mess ups on Myrtle that I made, mostly with the cloak because I was really unsure of how to do it at first and started out with blue/grey instead of silver which did not turn out well at all as you can see. Also, I drew her upside down based on the back of the card so even if I had drawn her right the first time, I would have either had to restick the back or do it again anyway.

Now onto the meanings of this card (which is actually one of my favorites so far)

Myrtle is like the definition of not moving on. She is a ghost who spends her life? death? whatever haunting a girls' bathroom that no one uses. She died there because Tom Riddle (Mr. Lord Voldemort himself) set Salazar Slytherin's basilisk on her. She can move around the castle because we saw her at Nick's Death Day party in the second book, but she chooses to stay in her cold tiled fortress.

She can also represent regretful but necessary transition and rite of passage and I can prove it with two different books. In the second book, we meet Myrtle for the first time and we get to know her when the Golden Trio spend their extra time creating an unpleasant potion in her bathroom. They did not have to make this potion (polyjuice potion) but they felt it necessary in order to find out if Malfoy was the heir of Slytherin. In the end, he was not and the mission was all for naught, the month of potion mixing gone to waste and it all happened while Moaning Myrtle was there. Not only this but Hermione's transformation was necessary and regretful when she turned into a cat instead of Millicent Bulstrode. Myrtle laughed at Hermione's predicament.

(I guess I should make it clear that when I say Myrtle represents these things, I mean her presence or something she is attached to was present in what was happening. That's probably a bit like cheating since it's all just circumstances and consequences that have nothing to do with her but they happen around her and affect her.)

In the sixth book Moaning Myrtle can represent rite of passage. During the sixth book, Harry struggles with his obsession with Draco Malfoy and the oncoming Dark War. I think that Harry's rejection of Draco's friendship and Myrtle's offering to share her toilet seat lead the two sorry souls to each other and Draco was able to find a friend while carrying out a task that is isolating and dangerous. He found that he could talk to Myrtle about things (or at least that was what was implied). Anyway, Harry finds Draco crying in Myrtle's bathroom and pulls out his wand. In the past we had seen Harry able to perform very difficult magic, but during this incident he performs powerful dark magic that he does not know or understand until the spell hits Draco. I think this is a rite of passage for Harry. It is when he finally his recognizes the power that he and magic in general has- how scary it can be. I don't think J. K. Rowling really goes into it in the book but, after this happens, we do see a difference in Harry.

During the seventh book, Ron and Hermione go to Moaning Myrtle's bathroom to get into the Chamber of Secrets. This can also be seen as a rite of passage because it really shows that Ron and Hermione are capable of extraordinary things without Harry's help- not that that hasn't been proven before, but it's important to mention especially when we're talking about Myrtle.

ugh I feel like I'm missing important things about her but I guess I'm just not sure how to put it.

Myrtle helps Harry figure out what he needs to do for the Second Task in the Triwizard Tournament in  the fourth book. Without her, he probably would have had a very very difficult time and would have probably lost.