9 of Ravenclaw: Gain

9 of Ravenclaw: Gain
When the card is facing you: gratitude, luxury, self-sufficiency, culmination
When the card is facing away from you: over investment in work, financial setbacks

I chose Fluffly for this card mostly for the meanings behind the card when it's facing away from you, but I think there are a lot of reasons why the other side's meanings work as well and they are kind of intertwined. We don't know very much about Fluffy. He is only present in the first book and not very often. He belongs to Hagrid but he is placed in a room on the Third Floor to guard the entrance to the hiding place of the Philosopher's Stone. We meet him first when Harry is tricked by Draco Malfoy into being in a place he wasn't supposed to be that he could easily be caught in. Harry and his friends hide in the room that Fluffy is stationed in to guard to escape Filch and punishment if he finds them. It's an overestimation on the kids' side because they assumed that they could just hide in any room in Hogwarts. They were wrong because instead of an empty room, they were met with a growl-y, slobbery Fluffy who isn't really as safe as Hagrid says he is.

Secrecy at Hogwarts is overestimated when it comes to Fluffy. It was not as hard as it should have been for Hagrid to let slip the way to get past Fluffy to a stranger (Quirrel/Voldemort) in a bar. This therefore leads to the overestimation of Fluffy's actual ability to guard. The fact that Voldemort is able to get through Fluffy so easily and be one step closer to the Philosopher's Stone is pretty scary. Not to mention that Harry, Ron, and Hermione end up also being able to get past Fluffy. Obviously it was a bit silly of someone to think that a three headed dog who gets sleepy when listening to music was a good first obstacle for someone in pursuit of the Philosopher's Stone.

Luxury is a pretty weird thing to connect Fluffy to, but I think it works. The way you get past Fluffy is by playing music for him that makes him fall asleep. Music can be considered a luxury. Self sufficiency is a little easier to connect and also has both a good side and a bad side. In order to get past Fluffy, you need to be self-sufficient, meaning you need to have the ability to play music. This applies to everyone, from Voldemort to Harry. Also Voldemort had to be self sufficient to get the information on how to get past Fluffy. He figured out a way to be unrecognizable and get Hagrid drunk enough to reveal the secret. For gratitude, I want to connect Fluffy to this by saying that Hagid loved him and cared for him. I think that also Hagrid might have been grateful to Dumbledore for letting him guard something special with one of his magical creatures.

The road so far...

So over the past about year and a bit, I have completed 29 and a half Harry Potter tarot cards. I have written posts for most of them, some I haven't posted yet. The list of the ones I've completed are on the blog, but I thought it would be cool to get a group photo.

Because there are so many, it's hard to get all of them together. So I also took this photo:

and one of each one of them in their groups:

The Major Arcana:

Gryffindor:

Hufflepuff:

 Slytherin:

Ravenclaw:

Just thought it was pretty cool. I've done a lot, but I still have 48 and a half more cards left to do. :)

Major Arcana: XV Devil

Major Arcana: XV Devil

meaning of the card facing you: bondage, addiction, sexuality, materialism
meaning of the card facing away from you: detachment, breaking free, power reclaimed

It probably seems pretty obvious why I chose Voldemort to represent the Devil card, but I'm going to explain it anyway. I just want to clarify that I don't hink that Voldemort is the Devil or is supposed to represent him (and in this case I mean the Devil as is Lucifer, Satan, etc.). This card, is about the meanings that are above and what i will explain below, and nothing else. There is no religious meaning behind this that I know of.

Voldemort can represent addiction in the way he interacted with and used Horcruxes. It is said that most wizards, should they chose to split their soul in order to be immortal, usually stick with one or two Horcruxes, more then that would be excessive. Voldemort, however, decides to create seven apart from himself. Voldemort is not addicted to Horcruxes, but to power and the idea of unkillable.

Bondage is represented not in Voldemort but in his actions. He basically binds his followers to himself. The loyal ones are marked with a Dark Mark that he can use to summon them. They can never be free of this mark, even if they decide they do not want to follow him anymore. Along with that, Voldemort binds himself to Quirrell in order to grow stronger and get the Sorcerer's (Philosopher's) Stone that would help him be immortal. (Not completely sure if this counts as binding, but) Voldemort also using blood from Harry and his own father's remains to regain his body. This might have deepened the mind connection that Harry and he share.

I don't think, and don't want to think actually, about Voldemort's sexuality. In his school days at Hogwarts, though, he was said to be very charming, charming enough to get the Grey Lady to share her secret with him. Also, from the time he was in school to when he got older and more snakelike, Bellatrix Lestrange basically falls in love with him. It is more an obsession and power-hungry kind of love, but it is there.

Voldemort's power is reclaimed by Harry and the rest of the Light side. His most trusted servant, Severus Snape managed to find his own way to break free from Voldemort's clutches along with Draco Malfoy. They both ended up working (sometimes without meaning to) in a way that helped Harry out.

3 of Ravenclaw: Work

3 of Ravenclaw: Work

When the card is facing you: teamwork, collaboration, initial fulfillment, learning
When the card is facing away from you: lack  of teamwork, disregard for skills

For this card, I drew my own symbol to represent Quidditch. I looked at the Quidditch World Cup posters, logos from house teams, and drew my own version of it. It's not that original but I think it's pretty.

I chose Quidditch for this card because it is a game that relies on teamwork. Without the teams, there wouldn't be the game at all. Also, in the game, the team members need to learn how to work together in order to win the game. Sure, each member can do their own job without taking the time to sync up with the others, but in order for them all to stay coordinated and winning, they have to learn how to work together, guard each other from the opposing team, and work to get goals against the other team. Everything in teamwork is about the collaboration. The beaters have to be able to work together to guard the Chasers as they try to score against the other team's Keeper, all of them working to keep the other team from trying to mess with the Seeker. If the team does not learn how to collaborate, then they are disjointed and most likely easily defeated. As they practice together and work on being a team, they learn these skills and become better athletes. None of this comes without the work that the team members put in.

Just want to say that i love the way Quidditch is introduced in the books. There are a lot of games where important things happen: Harry almost getting thrown off by Quirrell, Dobby and Lockhart's obvious lack of magical knowledge when it came to certain things, the Dementors and Sirius, the Quidditch World Cup and the Death Eaters, Umbridge being a horrible person, etc. etc. etc. There are so many things that happened around Quidditch in the books (not so much in the later books but still, its a theme that continues to come up). Also it's interesting how it connects Harry to his father in ways that I don't think anything can, other than maybe the invisibility cloak.

6 of Hufflepuff: Happiness

6 of Hufflepuff: Happiness (or Nostalgia)

Meaning of the card facing you: looking back, nostalgia, connected to children, childhood
Meaning of the card facing away from you: not being able to let go, getting stuck in the past, naivety

To be honest, I messed up a tiny bit on this one. I named this card Happiness, when I should have named it something else. Happiness/Joy is the 9th card, if I am remembering correctly, but I got the meaning behind the card and who I chose right, just used the wrong title. it probably doesn't matter that much in the long run. But if it bugs me a lot, I might redo the card.

Hagrid, I feel represents these interpretations of the cards very well. He is a big part of the change in Harry's view on the world. Hagrid is the one who introduces Harry to the wizarding world when he is eleven and remained a friend for the rest of his life. He gave Harry his family back with an album that held pictures from Harry's family's childhood and life, in a way giving Harry a way to connect to this parents and their friends in a way that he hadn't before. He was able to find connections to Sirius and his parents through the album. He was Harry's first friend which is a pretty important person to be for an eleven-year-old in my opinion.

Hagrid's connection to innocence/naivety is there as well. He is kind of naive when it comes to teaching his students and dealing with people like Draco Malfoy and Professor Umbridge. He doesn't realize how scary/dangerous the creatures are (like the blast-ended skrewts, buckbeak, but also Aragog) and doesn't really know how to teach about them. He ends up messing up a lot when Umbridge comes to inspect his class. He is also innocent for what he is accused of int he third book as well as the first time he was accused of it as well. (and by this roundabout way of saying it I am talking about how he was accused of setting the creature from the chamber of secrets on the students and Hogwarts. He was innocent when accused of this both times, but no one believes him until Harry proves it.

I want to say that I have evidence or some way to show that Hagrid is stuck in the past, but I can't really think of something, it's just a feeling I have. Most of the adult wizards and witches in the wizarding world are stuck in the past a bit. Everyone praises Harry for something he does not remember, they all flinch at the sound of Voldemort's name. Of course, they are at war in a way o it makes sense to refer back to the previous war against Voldemort though I think there are limits that people cross, even without realizing it. Especially with Slytherins who are never given a chance to prove that they are not all dark wizards who want to eradicate muggles. Most wizards are stuck in ideas of the past which is good in some ways, but damaging in others. I associate this with Hagrid in some ways (and I cannot explain exactly why)

10 of Ravenclaw: Destruction

10 of Ravenclaw: Destruction

meaning of card facing you: backstabbed, defeat, crisis, betrayal, endings, loss
meaning of card facing away from you: recovery, rejuvenation, inevitable end

The dementors are very interesting creatures. They stand guard for the wizarding prison, Azkaban. They feed on every happy emotion and, if given the chance, the human soul, sucked out through what is called the "Dementor's Kiss". Dementors have betrayed Harry in many ways. They kept his uncle captive for thirteen years even though he was innocent. The dememntors don't really care about innocence or guilty, but they were guarding him in the prison that he was placed in under false pretenses. In the fifth book, two dememntors ambush Harry and his cousin, Dudley in their neighborhood. As creatures who are supposed to stop bad people form getting out of jail, attacking innocent teenagers is very far from what they are supposed to be doing. Finally, during the war, they deceive the entirety of the wizarding world by siding with Voldemort. They torment the wizarding world and the rest of Britain. They obviously did not just betray Harry, but the wizarding world as well. They felt betrayed when they allowed Sirius to escape and when they flipped their loyalties to the other side.

Though dementors do not kill people, they take everything away from them. When a person receives a dementor's kiss, they lose their soul. They become just a body, wandering aimlessly through the world without care or purpose. They lose everything and their life comes to an end, even if they are not dead. This can be a good thing in some cases- it makes sure that a bad person will stop doing harm. But it is also bad especially because it is the way dementos get food, so they don't really care whose soul they take. They almost ended Harry and Sirius' lives in the third book.

The only way dementors can represent recovery and rejuvenation is through the spell that pushes them away- the Patronus. The patronus is a spell that creates a guard of whoever is casting it. It takes form of an animal that is personal to the person casting it. Harry's is a stag (the animagus of his father). Hermione's is an otter and Ron's is a Jack Russell Terrier (an animal known for chasing otters). Snape's was a doe which was the same as Lily's. These guardians are basically made up of light I think, which is something repels dementors (creatures who prefer the night). The spell is a beautiful one, to say and to look at.

Major Arcana: IX Hermit

Major Arcana: IX Hermit

Meaning of the card facing you: soul-searching, being alone, introspection, inner guidance
Meaning of the card facing away from you: isolation, withdrawal, loneliness

Professor Severus Snape is the Hermit of this Tarot deck. There were a lot of cards that I matched Snape with. He fits with many different descriptions and meanings of cards, but after going through everything, I decided that Hermit fit Snape the best.

Most people don't see Snape past the idea that he is evil and a Death Eater. If you read the seventh book, it becomes clear that he was more like a double agent, leaning on the side of the Light. He passed them information while being Voldemort's right hand man. I personally find a lot more good than bad about him, but not everyone will agree with me.

Snape spent his life alone. He grew up as an only child with parents who were not the most loving or the most interested in him. He made a friend, Lilly Evans, who was a muggle but had a magical spark that he found out about and tried to explain to her. They were friends but excluded Lily's older sister and left her very very very resentful of the magical word and its people. At school, Lily was her only friend aside from the Slytherins that he felt he had to be close with in order to protect himself. But their friendship was strained. After a few years and a very  public humiliation, they stopped being friends and Snape was left feeling more hatred towards the Marauders than ever before. In a state of complete hatred and almost (in my opinion) desperation for something to belong to, Snape joined the Death Eaters and immediately regretted his decision when he learned that he would be the reason that Lily, the love of his life, would be hurt. When Voldemort ignored his plees of leaving the girl alone, Snape knew he had to do something to fix things. This is introspection  He saw the darkness that was inside himself and realized why he needed to change his ways. He had to find a way to 'save' Lily Evans ne Potter now that he had failed her. He went to Dumbledore for guidance and found an open and forgiving mind.

Ove the years he gained Dumbledore's trust and he began to trust Dumbledore as well. But there were things that went wrong. Dumbledore asked Snape to keep an eye out for Harry but Snape resented Harry for his father rather than caring about him for his mother. In Harry's fifth year when Harry needed Dumbledore and was given Snape as the only option, things did not go well. Dumbledore also did not trust Snape with all the information that he needed. Snape realized that all the time that he had spent trying his hardest through the hatred to watch out for Harry, the hours of torture he endured and was forced to put on others because of Voldemort, the masks he had to wear, the people he had to ally himself with and those he had to hurt were for nothing, because Harry had to die.

Snape died alone. Though Harry physically was in the room with him as he died, Snape had no one. At that point in time, Harry had not watched the pensieve and did not understand all the things that Snape had done for him. He couldn't tell Snape that he forgave him or that he was brave or thank him. Snape died without knowing that Harry knew the truth and that is the most alone I think a person can be. He gave up everything and did not know that it amounted to anything.

Major Arcana: 0 The Fool

Major Arcana: 0 The Fool
What it means facing you: beginnings, innocence, spontaneity, free spirit
What it means facing away from you: naivety, foolishness, recklessness, risk-taking

So this card is the first card in the first deck. It's also a card that is numbered zero and it's been unclear to me exactly what that means. But I did it and it's Colin Creevey and he's awesome.

Colin is like the leader of innocence. He comes from a muggle household into the wizarding world with wide eyes and an open mind. He reminds me a bit of Hermione because he seemed to know all about Harry. He marks Harry down as a hero though and follows him around like a lost puppy which also contributes to the innocence factor of this card. Colin is spontaneous in the wizarding world because he carried a camera around with him every where. While it might be a little weird for him to be fangirling over Harry Potter, it's nothing new for the wizarding world because they all kind of do that. He's spontaneous because he brings something to the magical world thats different. His obsession with taking pictures of everything is foreign to the students because many of them have grown up with moving pictures and ghosts floating around, but he hasn't. Everything in the wizarding world is new to him and beautiful. He takes pictures to capture what fascinated him. I think that if I was a Hogwarts student, I would be a lot like him.

He is a free spirit for all of those things that I just said. His fascination in things and his open-ness to magic are an example of that. While Colin was small and skinny and had a tendency to trip over himself in excitement, he also was strong and brave. He fought in the Battle of Hogwarts eve though it cost him his life. He wanted to protect the things that he cared about and it didn't matter to him that he was too young to be fighting. This also leads into recklessness and risk-taking. Colin did not have to go to battle, he was actually told not to because he was too young. But he went anyway. He took a huge risk that ended with him dead. Even if it was for a noble cause, it was still reckless. Colin's naivety and foolishness is apparent in his first year at Hogwarts (Harry's second). When he saw the Basilisk, instead of turning and running as far away as possible, he took out his camera. Because he looked at it though a camera lens, he did not die, but he still was petrified.

Colin was a good, enthusiastic, lovable kid, but he took life-threatening risks that cost him.

Major Arcana: III Empress

                                               

Major Arcana: III Empress

Meaning when the card is facing you: fertility, femininity, beauty, nature, abundance
Meaning when the card is facing away from you: creative block, dependence on others

Molly Weasley is a very interesting person. She can represent fertility because she is a mother of seven beautiful children: Bill, Charlie, Percy, Fred and George, Ron, and Ginny. She also "adopts" Harry into the family. She is main mother figure we see in the series, for Harry and for others.

She doens't have a lot of money, but she has an abundance of love. The Weasley family is pretty poor mostly because Molly is a stay at home mom, Arthur works at a low paying job at the Ministry and they have seven kids. They don't have a lot, but what they have, they share. Also, Molly makes huge amounts of wonderful food for everyone to make sure they are healthy, happy, and satisfied. Molly can represent beauty in the way she treats people, the way she loves them and cares for them.

Mrs. Weasley can be a creativity block, however. No matter how much she loves her children, she still doesn't always understand them and therefore kind of blocks them from being creative. She constantly bugs Bill about his long hair and talks about cutting it when he obviously is uncomfortable with that. She throws out creations that Fred and George made for their joke shop. They spent hours creating them and perfecting them, but she just throws them out likes it's nothing. She also is a bit smothering when she should know better. When Harry, Ron, and Hermione are preparing to go hunting for horcruxes, she tried to stop them from planning and also trying to figure out what they were planning to do even when they tell her it's a task they aren't allowed to talk about and they can't not complete it. These things that Molly does is not to be malicious or mean, they're out of misplaced love in her heart but there are a lot of creativity blocks that should not be over looked.

I think Molly fits this card really well. :)

Also I'm sorry for the delay, my queue isn't really working very well

2 of Hufflepuff: Love

2 of Hufflepuff: Love

Meaning when the card is facing you: united love, partnership, affection, relationships
Meaning when the card is facing away from you: break-up, imbalance, lack of harmony

First things first, it must seem weird that Love is a Slytherin card, but it isn't. Slytherin is about loyalty, family, and ambition among other things and those are things that are part of what love is.

I'll focus on the bad first. Ron and Hermione had a very interesting relationship from the start. They didn't like each other at all until the Troll incident. Even after that, they still fought and got on each other's nerves. This can represent lack of harmony- at least while they were growing up. I think as they got older, they learned how to be with each other from friends to in a committed relationship. It isn't easy and it takes a lot of of both of them. They trust each other in different ways, they want different things, but in the end they figure it out because they love each other so much. Imbalance could be represented in the way that they have different kinds of strengths. Hermione is the smartest witch of their year- she knows like everything ever, a GryffindorRavenclaw-ish personality while Ron is very open and reckless which is kind of just Gryffindor. Ron, though she says he has the emotional range of a teaspoon, (I feel) shows a lot more emotion than she does. Hermione is practical and looks at things logically, Ron tends to view things more from his heart and from his gut feelings more than thinking things through.

I'm not really sure how to connect them to break-up unless we count when Ron left Harry and Hermione during their quest to find the horcruxes, which I think we should. Obviously, Ron and Hermione aren't together at that point, but they were still really really really important to each other and the fact that he left was heartbreaking. Hermione was able to count on him when she was debating things with Harry. Ron was also emotional support kind of- he made a lot of jokes and kept them all a bit more lively. Without Ron, Harry and Hermione struggled- Hermione didn't talk very much and tey both seemed kind of listless in general. It was a break-up, even if it wasn't a traditional break-up.

Ron and Hermione, though they argue, they still care deeply for each other. It's clear that they have affection for each other. Hermione cast a Confundus Charm on a fellow student to ensure that Ron would be Keeper for the Team. Ron gets jealous of Krum when he takes Hermione to the Yule Ball. I think one of the reasons Ron started dating Lavendar was because he did flirt with Hermione and had affection for her but she didn't want him. When Ron was poisoned by the love potion, he mutters Hermione's name (even though he was dating Lavendar at the time) which proved his real feelings.

I don't know. It's hard to describe why they are such a good couple, they just are. They balance each other out. They are in love with each other. I think that they are ~soul mates~ kind of like how Arthur and Molly are just meant for each other and there isn't a way to explain why, they just are perfect. I don't think I've ever shipped a ship harder than Romione. They are love.

(I originally had Snape down for this card because of his thing with Lily and Harry, but I decided he was meant for other cards that could capture more of who he was)

Major Arcana: VIII Justice

Major Arcana: VIII Justice

Meaning when the card is facing you: justice, fairness, truth, cause and effect, law
Meaning when the card is facing away from you: unfairness, lack of accountability, dishonesty

Neville is basically the embodiment of all these things: from karma and justice to unfairness. From a young age, his family didn't believe in his magical abilities. They hung him outside a window and did other things to try and scare the magic out of him, without anything really working. He is given his father's wand which was not suited for him and therefore his magical abilities in school were not up to par so he was often viewed as a liability and not good at magic. He is made fun of and laughed at by Malfoy and his Slytherins, most teachers besides Professor Sprout and Mad-Eye Moody (who turns out not to be Mad-Eye Moody) don't see his potential, and his Grandma is never proud of him. But he turns that all around in little ways over the years. He shows his bravery in first year but Dumbledore is really the only one who acknowledges it. In fifth year, he proved his worth to not only his peers, but also his Grandma by fighting alongside Harry at the Ministry. In the seventh year Neville doesn't even need to try anymore to prove himself to everyone, it's already clear that he's brave and strong.

Neville Longbottom's parents were tortured to the point of insanity by Bellatrix Lestrange and they are in a ward in St. Mugo's Hospital for the rest of their lives. Neville is incredibly wonderful when he goes to visit them.An example we see of this is him accepting a candy wrapper from his mother as if it was the most wonderful thing in the world (which it kind of is because it's not like his mother can really give him anything else). He is kind and understanding towards them; he doesn't let his grandmother's negativity get him or his parents down, choosing to focus on the good rather than the bad.

Neville could have also been the "Chose One". He and Harry share the same things that the Prophecy about Voldemort and ?: parents defied Voldemort three time and that they were both born at the end of July. This is significant because obviously, Voldemort chose Harry over Neville (probably because the biggest difference between Harry and Neville was that Harry was a halfblood like Voldemort while Neville was a pureblood). Though he wasn't the "Chosen One", Neville still plays a very big role. IN the seventh book, when Neville kills Nagini, he destroys the last horcrux that Voldemort has besides the man himself. Without Neville doing this, Harry would not have been able to kill Voldemort.

THIS WAS A SHORT ANALYSIS. I USUALLY ELABORATE MORE. HERE IS AN EXPLANATION:
I love Neville Longbottom too much and I don't know what else to write about him without just repeating how amazing he is over and over and annoying everyone. Also, it's summer and I'm tired and studying for finals. I might add more later, but for now this is all I have for this week.

edited June 20, 2013 2:23am

5 of Ravencla: Torment

5 of Ravenclaw: Torment

Meaning of the card facing you: isolation, insecurity, worry, financial loss, poverty
Meaning of the card facing away from you: recovery from financial loss, spiritual poverty

Note: I usually do not post more than one card in a week, but as I did not do one last week, I figured I would do two this week.

Just a little background about the card itself: usually, I have the background of the card reflecting the house it belongs to in some way. this card is the opposite. Hufflepuff is supposed to be the happy, loyal, loving, sunshine and butterflies kind of house. This card is the opposite of that and to reflect that, the background is purple and red (the opposite of yellow and blue kind of) (I know it's hard to see. I'll probably upload a new picture soon) to show how opposite it is from the House's values.

Everything that we know about Nagini is through Voldemort. We hear her history and what she went through when we learn more about him and what he did in his life and what he did to her. From what I understand, Voldemort found Nagini after his first fall at the hands of Harry. When he was weak, she was there for him. In his time of isolation, loss, and poverty, Voldemort found a 'friend' in Nagini.

He worried about her a lot. She became a Horcrux when Voldemort killed Bertha Jorkins in the fourth book. He, then was still very weak. Though splitting your soul does not seem like it would make you stronger, it did. He became even more immortal. She was a source of power for him. When Voldemort realized that Harry was hunting down his Horcruxes, he immediately made sure that Nagini was secured and very close to him. He did not want to have to worry about losing another piece of his soul, but also he didn't want to lose her. Again, they had a bond and Nagini might have been the only thing that Voldemort really cared about other than himself and his power. She was an extension of him literally and figuratively and so he worried and cared for her.

Nagini was with Voldemort while he was weak, she was also stayed with him when he was strong. She was there when he gained power and started killing people and worked to made his prejudices become a reality. He was able to talk to him in parseltongue, share information that she heard, kill people for him. She stuck with him until her head was cut off with the Sword of Gryffindor by Neville that destroyed the piece of Voldemort's soul. That was actually another very important thing about her. She was the last Horcrux he made and she was the last one to be destroyed. Harry could not  have killed Voldemort without her being killed which shows again how close they were (Voldemort and Nagini).

2 of Gryffindor: Domination

  
(I wanted the picture to be a little better so it was easier to see the work I put into it. I might upload a new one in the future)

2 of Gryffindor: Domination

Meaning of card facing you: future plans, progress, decisions
Meaning of card facing away from you: fear of unknown, lack of plans

The Ministry of Magic can represent future plans in many ways. Many people, like Hermione, spend their years at Hogwarts preparing for the future by making sure they know enough magic to get into the field they want to work in. In fourth year, Hermione creates SPEW which is an organization that is supposed to be about the protection of Elfish welfare. She doesn't make very much from it but it marks the beginning of her wanting to get involved in magical creature rights. Later, after the war, she ends up in the law department of the Ministry of Magic.

Voldemort had plans for the Ministry of Magic. He wanted to take over the Wizarding world and a very effective way of doing that is infiltrating the Ministry. After taking over by using Imperio-ed wizards and witches, he begins an anti-muggle/muggleborn/halfblood campaign. Obviously these plans don't work out once Harry defeats Voldemort, but it shows that the Ministry was a stepping stone for Voldemort's plans.

You are probably wondering how the Ministry of Magic could fall to one wizard, but the answer is fairly easy. The fear of the unknown made the Ministry a very unstable thing to hold onto. Fudge did not want to believe Harry or Dumbledore that Voldemort was back because he feared that this was the truth. The Minister stuck his head in the dirt and allowed horrible things to happen around him because he didn't want to face the facts. This lead to the Azkaban breakout, Death Eater recruitment, and more. There was a lack of information being given to the public because the Ministry was stopping it from being spread. If the Ministry had, instead of being scared, worked with the Order of the Phoenix, Harry, and Dumbledore, Voldemort might have had a very hard time getting back into power and a lot of damage could have been prevented.

The Ministry of Magic, though it has many problems, is a place of progress and decisions. It's a place where people make laws, and enforce them, as well as creating things for the sake of learning and discovering more about magic. In the fifth book and onwards, we learn more about how the Ministry works. Harry gets taken in for a hearing regarding his use of magic outside of school. There is also the Department of Mysteries where Unspeakables make experiments with magic and do many things they do not speak about. The Ministry is decision making and progress with these things and more, its many departments moving it along and taking care of business.

It's important to remember how much influence the Ministry has. Though it can be incompetent and unwilling to face reality, it controls many things like the newspaper, regulations, school things and more and when it actually uses its power (like Voldemort did) it shows how dominant and strong it can be.

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.

3 of Gryffindor: Exploration

3 of Gryffindor: Exploration

 <-- sketches


Meaning of the card when it's facing you: preparation, foresight, expansion, enterprise
Meaning of the card when it's facing away from you: delays, lack of foresight

The Pensieve is a something that gives the user access to his or her memories  by watching them happen in real time. It can represent expansion because it gives you more room in your head. It allows you to take a memory out of your brain and store it away from later. That way, you don't lose any of your thoughts and you make room for new ones. It can also help you expand your knowledge because sometimes even if you remember something, you might not remember it exactly and miss details that are important. with the Pensieve, that isn't a problem. It can be an enterprise because it is a successful in the things that it is supposed to do (which in this case would be storing peoples' memories and allowing them to view them when desired).

I'm not sure how foresight-y it is. You could probably make predictions and assumptions about the future from looking over your memories enough to find patterns or something. You could record moments of foresight, like Dumbledore did with Trelawney's prophecy. You could also have the foresight to save the memories in the Pensieve to view at a time when they are important.

Because the Pensieve lets you look at your memories, it can help you prepare for the reason that you can see what has happened and figure out might be happening. Harry was able to view memories that Dumbledore collected about horcruxes. Without this arsenal of information, Harry would not have been able to hunt down the horcruxes, or even have any idea what they might be. And without that, he would not have been able to defeat Voldemort.

Ghost of Gryffindor

Ghost of Gryffindor

  <-- sketches


Meaning of card when it's facing you: enthusiasm, exploration, discovery, free spirit
Meaning of card when it's facing away from you: setbacks to new ideas, pessimism, lack of direction

Nearly Headless Nick is the beloved Gryffindor ghost. He's proud and kind. He talks to the students at meals and in the hallways, waving, talking, story-telling enthusiastically about the school and people and things that he has heard and seen over the years. He is eager to share his knowledge with Harry, Ron, and Hermione, and anyone else to asks. I think in general, he is one of the most liked ghosts in the school- or by the Gryffindors anyway. They great him in the hallways and sit with him at dinner.

Going along with that, Nick can represent discovery and exploration because he helps the Golden Trio come to understand things and know things that they might not have. He tells them about the Sorting Hat, and the House Elves which makes Hermione upset and leads her to starting SPEW in support of Elvish rights. He invites them to his death-day party and they get a full experience of how ghosts party and taste things and their goals in death- Nick's being joining the Headless Hunt. They also learn more about Peeves and Myrtle which turns out to be helpful later on. Nick tells Harry about the after life in the fifth book and explains how some people become ghosts though others don't and that Sirius won't be coming back. He helps Harry again in the seventh book by pointing out the Grey Lady to him. Without that, Harry might not have known important things about the diadem and might not have been able to find it.

He could be a set back of new ideas because Harry thought that Sirius could become a ghost and Nick told him that he couldn't. Lack of direction because his only goal really is to be part of the Headless Hunt which is futile because he isn't even headless and they have already rejected him a few times. He has a few setbacks and people might not respect him as much as he deserves, mostly because he's a ghost, but he helps Harry out a lot from getting out of a run in with Filch to giving him information that he needed during the war.

Head of Gryffindor

Head of Gryffindor

 <-- sketches


Meaning of the card when it's facing you: natural born leader, vision, entrepreneur, honor
Meaning of the card when it's facing away from you: impulsiveness, haste, ruthlessness, high expectations

Minerva McGonagall is my favorite teacher in the books, Remus being the second, and Crouch-Moody being the third tied with Trelawney.

She is the head of Gryffindor, Deputy Headmistress, and Transfiguration teacher at Hogwarts. She is strict and smart, but kind, caring, and understanding. She is a natural born leader because even if we don't know her from before the years that Harry was in school, it is still clear that she has natural leadership. Her students listen to her and respect her. They worry about the homework that they have to do for her and performing spells right in her class, but they know, especially the Gryffindors, that she is understanding and insightful and cares about them. Dumbledore values her opinion and thinks of her almost as an equal. She challenges him sometimes, which shows how healthy their (platonic) relationship was.

Some students of hers would say she is ruthless and has high expectations. Her classes are hard and full of fancy spell-work that are difficult to perform. Even Hermione struggles in her class. Transfiguration in general is very difficult magic and it takes someone who is a strong wizard of witch to teach it.

McGongall is kind of the opposite of impulsiveness and haste. In the first book, Harry, Ron, and Hermione burst into her room and ask for help. Because there doidn't seem to be any actual evidence or danger, instead of rushing off like the three of them would like her to do, she tells them to calm down. She actually helps calm Harry down a lot over the years. She advises him not be be impulsive around Umbridge so that he didn't get into trouble. He didn't listen to her and suffered the consequences. She is a thin barrier between Umbridge's haste-y negative decisions towards Harry and Harry's impulsive urge to speak the truth when it comes to Umbridge.

There is a lot about McGonagall that we don't really know mostly because she is a teacher and therefore Harry wouldn't know much about her anyway. She is a strong caring leader who can take care of herself in a fight and isn't afraid to assign scary amounts of homework. 

7 of Slytherin: Illusion

Meaning when the card is facing you: fantasy, wishful thinking, choices, imagination
Meaning when the card is facing away from you: temptation, illusion, diversionary tactics

(Apologies for the lopsided pic of the card. the lighting was weird on the other pictures and this was the best even if it's kind of sideways)

(Also this color scheme reminds me of a bakery in Paris that I went to once with my dad...)

The Mirror of Erised is a very interesting and mysterious object in Harry Potter. We only saw it during Harry's first year, but it played a very big part. It is mentioned a few times later, mostly in the seventh book in reference to Dumbledore but I think its very important and I kind of wish it had a bigger part in the story.

The Mirror of Erised can represent fantasy, wishful thinking, temptation, and imagination. It shows whoever looks into it what their deepest desire is. When Harry looks into it when he stumbles upon it for the first time and all the times after that, he sees his family surrounding him. Ron sees himself proving himself to everyone as Quidditch captain, head boy, etc.- everything his brothers have achieved, who he is/will be compared to. Dumbledore says to Harry when asked that he saw himself holding up a pair of socks because he always gets books for Christmas. It's rather obvious that Dumbledore was not telling the truth but Harry never really thinks about what Dumbledore was really seeing until the seventh book. He thinks that Dumbledore saw his family, just like Harry did, especially his sister, Arianna, based on the information he finds out with the help of Ron's great Aunt and Rita Skeeter.

So this mirror shows what your deepest desires are, but it can be a trap. It's cause for wishful thinking, temptation, and longing. People have sat and watched the Mirror- themselves with the things they desire- until they waste away. Harry himself becomes obsessed with the mirror until it gets moved to a different location and Dumbledore tells him not to go searching for it. It's kind of like the Narcissus story in Greek/Roman (I forget which one) mythology. Narcissus was a beautiful man who saw his reflection in water and fell so in love with himself that he died watching his reflection because he didn't eat, drink, or sleep. That's kind of what would happen to people who get too tempted by what the Mirror was showing them.

It can also represent choices because of the choice that Harry subconsciously makes at the end of the first book. The Mirror was moved to where the Philosopher's Stone was being hidden. It was the last obstacle a person had to get through to get the stone. If he/she looked into the mirror with good intentions, not wanting the stone for their own personal selfish gain, then the stone would come to them. Voldemort makes Harry look into the mirror to try to get him to figure out how to get the stone. Harry's "choice" of not wanting the stone for himself, wanting instead to get it as far away from Voldemort as possible, was what the Mirror saw when he looked into it and he was able to get the stone. Because of this choice, Harry was able to keep the stone from Voldemort, saved the day, and escaped Voldemort for the second time in his life.