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.

Hi!

Greetings fellow beings.
I'm finally back from the summer. I hope your summers have been good as well. It sucks to be back in school but it's just this year and them I'm done, so I don't mind too much. I hope every one has heard about the new Harry Potter universe movies that have been announce and if you haven't, this is a link you can click to find out. I am so ridiculously excited its ridiculous. Also the new 2013 Scholastic Harry Potter book covers. They are so so so beautiful.

I've already started on my next card but I won't upload it for a few days.
Thank you for staying with me and have a wonderful day!

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)

IMPORTANT THINGS TO KNOW

I am going to camp for the next 7 and a half weeks. I have two cards with their meanings scheduled to post this week (today) and next week (the 27th), but after that, I'm not sure if I will be able to post or not because I'm not sure about my internet connection or how much free time I will have to work on them.

I have twenty cards completed in total and you guys have seen the majority of them, but there are a bunch I have not written things for and therefore will not posted.

I'm going to add the all names of the cards that I have completed to the Cards page even if I haven't posted them yet.

Thank you for your patience and for continuing to follow my blog. I'll be back soon. Have a wonderful summer! :)

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.

Major Arcana: XIV Temperance

Major Arcana: XIV Temperance

My sketch on a science lab table

Meaning of the card facing you: balance, moderation, patience, purpose, meaning
Meaning of the card facing away from you: imbalance, excess, lack of long term vision

So I've been trying to figure out how to write why I think Dumbledore fits this Tarot card, and he does and I will explain it soon, but I just want to mention that I do not like Dumbledore. I wanted him to go with other cards, but honestly, other people fit them better and this was probably the best for him if I was going to have him in the deck at all. I haven't always not liked Dumbledore, in fact, he was one of my favorites, but after the fifth book I just couldn't. I started to see the way he treated Harry like a child and didn't let him know things that were important. The seventh book kind of solidified my dislike for him because we find out about how he treated Snape and led him and Harry on, how he never told whole truths and kept details that were essential to himself. I don't really want to go into detail about it because this card is not about lies and manipulation, but I just needed to say it. Now on with the show!

Dumbledore represents balance and moderation because he is level headed, makes good decisions, and understands what needs to be done, even if it's unpleasant. In the fifth book, he allows himself to be kicked out of Hogwarts because he knows Harry needs to stay there and not get in trouble with the ministry. He takes some pressure off of Harry's back, balancing out the anger that the minister has for him and takes it onto himself. Of course, Umbridge is still unbalanced and unfair towards Harry but Dumbledore takes the whole Dumbledore Army's thing away from Harry so that he doesn't get punished. Dumbledore also tries very hard to balance out the hate between Snape and Harry. When Harry comes and blames things on Snape, Dumbledore always gives him reasons why it is not. He tries to make him see that Snape is not as bad as Harry thinks he is. He is unsuccessful, but it is the thought that counts. Dumbledore has been a balance for Snape as well. He gave Snape a safe place to be- both at Hogwarts and with Voldemort. He helped Snape see all the things he could be doing for the order and still remain a spy- gaining Voldemort's respect along with the Order's.

Dumbledore can represent patience as well. Harry shouts at him for a long long time after the ordeal at the ministry in the fifth book and he just sits there and lets him. He already feels horrible and sad and guilty for everything that has happened, but he allows Harry to get everything he is feeling out in the open. In the fourth book he is the calm, patient one when Harry's name is pulled out of the goblet (though in the movie, he is IN A RAGE but in this case the movies don't count). He is patient and is able to calm the other school leaders down. In general Dumbledore is a pretty patient guy. He is very old (J.K.R. said he was 150 in an interview, though the dates she gives us in the books point to him being about 120 when he died) and has seen a lot-from Grindlewald and the Deathly Hallows to Harry pulling a sword out of the Sorting Hat. Not to mention a few crazy kids running around the school (the Marauders, the Weasley twins), incompetent ministers of magic, and Tom Riddle/Voldemort infecting the world with his hate.

Dumbledore gives meaning and purpose to a great many things. I think he helps give purpose and meaning to magic for Harry, Hagrid, Dobby and many other students and people who have found themselves in tough situations. He is trusting and kind and people respect him. He also give purpose and meaning to the books themselves. Even if I don't particularly like him, Dumbledore still holds a lot of meaning to me and I'm sure thousands of other people.

He could represent excess because his experience with the Deathly Hallows showed how he allowed the idea of the Greater Good to get to his head because he was able bodied and very smart- it was in excess as he was bored  until he found the DHs. He also experienced and excess amount of traumatizing experiences like watching his sister die possibly at his own magic, Voldemort, Grindelwald, and things we don't know about but can imagine.

Instead of representing a lack of long term vision, he is the opposite. He had a plan, possibly from the moment James and Lily died or when he heard the prophecy. He planned ahead for the horcruxes- destroying them and preparing Harry to destroy them as well- and the DHs and his own death. It is unclear exactly how much he knew would happen or that he planned out, but he seemed to know what he was doing and often found ways to make things better went they went a way he didn't exactly want them to (like Sirius' death). He had a lot of resources- spys, memories, knowledge, etc. and he made good use of all of them, even if it meant sacrificing a few people along the way.

Major Arcana: I Magician

Major Arcana: I Magician

Sketch I made before
sharpie-ing it to the
card

I traced this onto the card

When the card is facing you: power, skill, concentration, action, resourcefulness

When the card is facing away from you: manipulation, poor planning, latent talent

I chose Harry as the Magician because he has all of these traits, both the good and the bad. Harry is a powerful and skilled wizard. He defeated Voldemort when he was a baby and continued to do so until he finally killed him. In the end, he becomes the master of the Elder Wand, a very powerful wand that people kill for (literally). While defeating Voldemort sounds like regular hero over throwing the bad guy kind of stuff, there is more to it. Harry lived through Voldemort penetrating his mind and planting horrible things there, killing many people that he cares about, being crucio-ed, being cut, possessed, screamed at, cursed, and manipulated. He actually has to kill Voldemort seven times, and has to die himself in order to get rid of him. Harry was able to produce a Patronus at age 13 and take on 100 Dementors. He lived through the Chamber of Secrets (and got help from the Sorting Hat- which only happens to the most brave, most worthy of people), the attack at the ministry, and a few full on battles. I honestly don't think I can list everything that Harry has done because there is so much. To summarize, Harry is a very strong and powerful wizard.

He is also resourceful. When he and his class mates needed a place to study Defense in his fifth year, he used resources (Dobby) to help find a safe place for them. he was able to teach his peers things that a teacher should have been able to without the help of any adults or anyone but his friends and the Room of Requirement itself (the place Dobby helped Harry find). In stressful situations, Harry has managed to use the things he has to get himself out and alive. He was resourceful when he used Feliz Felicis to get the memory he needed from Slughorn, and also when he got Griphook to help him infiltrate Gringotts.

I don't think I need to explain that he can also be action-full. Everything above kind of proves that he is. :)

Harry is like the definition of poor planning and manipulation. Everything that he does, with the exception of a few things in the seventh book are rash and without premeditation. He's headstrong and stubborn and is more of a act first, think later than a planner, but it comes with the being a Gryffindor thing. He is manipulative because even if he doesn't like it, he is, to quote A Very Potter Musical, Harry freaking Potter, and everyone (or almost everyone) wants to please him. He is famous. He easily gets out of trouble and usually gets his way. If he wants to, he can get students and adults to listen to him. He also has many people who have his back, love him, and believe in him to back him up and get things done.

Harry Potter is a wizard (the wizard) and therefore is the Magician. (Dumbledore and Snape were also considered for this role in the cards, but they have other characteristics and stories that make them who they are and I have different cards for them to represent)

Major Arcana: XIII Death

Major Arcana XIII Death

This is the first card of the Major Arcana that I drew. It is the 8th out of 22. When I was working to figure out which Harry Potter person or thing that I wanted to represent Death, I came up with four different things that I wanted to use. As I am just beginning this deck and I wanted to get used to drawing in such tiny areas with ultra thin sharpies and not much room for making mistakes (though I do have a few hundred blank cards, so if I do mess up badly, I can easy replace it), I went with the simplest of the four: The Deathly Hallows. (the others are: The Veil, Kings Cross, and Death [from the Deathly Hallows story])

When the card is facing towards you it means: endings, beginnings, change, transformation, transition
When the card is facing away from you it means: resistance to change, inability to move

The Deathly Hallows are made up of three parts: the wand, the resurrection stone, and the invisibility cloak. They can each represent both sides of Death.

The Elder Wand is a wand that was transferred from hand to hand by ending the life that controlled it. It brought many strength and power that lead more often than not to a very bloody end. It is endings because it ended people's lives; it is beginnings because it allowed its new masters the power to do things that they had never done before; it is transformation and transition because the new masters often became arrogant and boastful as well as powerful, they became different versions of themselves; it is the resistance to change or inability to move because for years and years this wand caused bloodshed, wars, hunts, fights, etc. and no one bothered to stop because the idea of a wand that made you the most powerful wizard in the world was too strong.

The Resurrection Stone is a stone that can bring the dead back to life. It created new life for those who had passed. It also brought endings however. When the second brother- the one who asked for this stone from Death- turned it three times in his hands and got his dead wife back, she was hallow and sad and cold and he committed suicide so that he could join her in death rather than see her suffer with the living. It is inability to move and resistance to change because when the second brother uses the stone, it is because he is unable to move on from the death of the woman he loved. Harry uses the stone when he thinks that he has no room to move because he needs to die to save the people he is fighting for. He calls his parents, Remus Lupin, and Sirius Black to accompany on his way to meet his death. They are all people whose death he can't move on from and that haunt him.

The Invisibility Cloak is a cloak that turned the wearer invisible. It was of better quality than any invisibility cloak in the world because it was made by Death himself. It belonged to Harry's dad before he was murdered by Voldemort but it could have had the potential to save him had it not been in Dumbledore's possession at the time. This is how it can represent endings. It can represent beginnings because Harry receives it from Dumbledore in his first year and it gives him the ability to travel around the school at night, when and where he shouldn't but ultimately giving him the power to find a way to defeat Voldemort. It is the beginning of much adventure and discovery for Harry and his friends. It is transformation or transition because well it changes you from being able to be seen to being unable to be seen. It has also been passed down through from generation to generation which is how it ends up being Harry's. It can resist change because even though it is very very very very very old and has been through a lot, it never stopped being useful. Once, in fourth year Harry was using the cloak to get back to the Gryffindor tower and he got stuck in one of the trip stairs. If it hadn't been for the Invisibility Cloak, he would have been in a lot of trouble.

6 of Gryffindor: Victory

The 6 of Gryffindor [Victory*]

This is the first card I made. I had been sketching out different ideas for symbols and characters and it was the one I was the most confident about.

Sketches that I've made

When the card is pointing at you, it represents public recognition, victory, progress, self confidence. When it is facing away from you, it represents egotism, lack or confidence, fall from grace.

I chose the Golden Snitch (or Quidditch in general)  to represent these things. In the Harry Potter world, Quidditch is a sport that everyone knows (in fact, it is really the only sport we hear about, except maybe chess). Every wizard child loves or knows about Quidditch enough to get excited about it. It's a game of skill, speed, and strategy that comes with recognition when you win.

The first time Quiddtich becomes important is in the first book. Draco Malfoy took a Remembrall that Neville had dropped and threw, goading Harry into flying even though he was told not to. When Professor McGonagall sees how easy Harry catches the ball out of the air, she takes him to see Oliver Wood, the Gryffindor Quidditch captain and Harry is made Seeker of the team. At this time, Quidditch is made important not only by the fact that Harry is the youngest to join a house team in a 100 years or that everyone gets excited by that fact that Harry did but also because it is a victory for Harry over Draco. It shows Draco that making fun of people is not a good thing to do and that there are consequences to being nasty.

The Snitch is also one of the sure ways for a Quidditch team to win a game. When they catch it, they receive 150 points. We find out in the fourth book that there are circumstances where the Snitch does not win the game, but as a general rule for the Hogwarts games, the team that catches it, wins the game.

Quidditch also can represent victory from Ron's perspective. At first he was doubtful of his abilities as a Keeper and often fumbled, causing his team to lose. The Slytherins made fun of him for it, which brings down his confidence even more. (This is an example of the cards meaning when it is facing away from you) In the sixth book, Harry pretends to slip Ron a potion to make him luck (Felix Felicis) and this causes Ron to think that he will get lucky when in the game. Because Ron did not actually take the potion, he was running on self confidence and was able to save all the goals that the opposing side was trying to make against him. Without confidence, Ron failed, but with it, he was unstoppable and victorious. 

*One of the inspirations that I took (a rather strong word here, but I can't really think of another in it's place) from Ellygator. All of her card 2-10 of each suit have a name that is associated with it. Based on the descriptions that I found of each card, I agree with her titles. The other places I looked did not have titles like this for their cards, so I'm not sure if other decks have them, but I really liked them so that is why "took" them. 

Designing the Back of the Card

After figuring out Harry Potter related characters and events for each tarot card, I ordered a box of blank (front and back) cards from amazon.com. Even though the cards I got aren't the size that most tarot cards are, I like them. They're kind of perfect for me because they're small and I have small hands. These cards will be easy to shuffle and not too much oh a hassle for me to carry around.

Next I designed a back for the card. I wanted it to be intricate  and pretty but representative of Harry Potter as well. I can't post a picture of the original drawing that I made because my dad and I chopped it up in order to scan it into the computer correctly. 

I drew it during an art lesson that I have with one of my friends, who has been really helpful with this whole thing so far (helping me figure out color schemes to make the cards look nice). 

These are all the sharpies/permanent markers that I have that I will be/ have been using to complete this project. I have acquired them over the years and the picture next to this caption is of the sharpies I bought for this project to go along with the rest of them because the ultra thin ones that I already had were either used up or not the colors I wanted.

I wanted the same back for each of the cards, but I didn't want to draw it over and over again for each card, so I printed the picture onto sticker paper and cut it out to stick onto the back of each card.

1/2 of the first page we printed

My dad and I made a template so that the size of the sticker would match the card exactly and so that I could make the most of each sheet of sticker paper. Each card will now have this design on the back of them.

The first card that I fitted a sticker to (it was very scary because I didn't want to mess up, but as you can see, it worked out ok in the end)