Fan Focus: Amy – May 8, 2011

18-year-old Amy from the United Kingdom

First off, how did you become a Harry Potter fan?

Now that was a really long time ago. I was about eight or nine when the first film came out, I went to see it (as everybody did) and I don’t know why but it hadn’t caught me off my guard as the book soon would. A few months later my mom and I were shopping for the many books that were going to be coming on holiday with me and after some exasperation that it was taking far too long for me to choose the final few; I picked up Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone and said that I might as well see what the fuss was about. It was the last book I read from the stack I took on that holiday. My mom went and found Chamber of Secrets and Prisoner of Azkaban in a Greek shop just to shut me up. I think I will always treasure those two copies; they’re shorter and fatter than the proper English copies even though the covers and content are exactly the same. I like the fact that they are a little different to what everyone else bought, they make me think that my Potter journey was unique and special even though it is just like the thousands of other ones across the world: just a kid loving a book that helped them through the good times and the bad.

It’s your fifth year at Hogwarts, and man is it going to be tough! OWLs are at the end of the year, and you’re nervous, especially for…

Probably Potions. I’ve always seen Potions as the equivalent of Science in the muggle world. Apparently, I was good at Science, I got an A in it anyway, but I never enjoyed it and I most certainly never really properly understood Chemistry or Physics. I would not like the idea of having to do a practical examination with Snape breathing down my neck. I’m what I like to call “environmentally challenged”. I am extremely clumsy and would probably turn a potion to cure a cold into the Draught of Living Death and then break the cauldron as I gave it to the person.

OMG! You have your first crush! Would you use a Love Potion, Impressive Magic (IE: Francis the Fish), or a singing cherub to win them over?

Amortentia is never going to last, is it? Look at Merope. I really don’t want to cause those kinds of problems. We don’t need any more Voldemorts. Singing cherubs aren’t really my style either (sorry Ginny!) so I’d have to try my best with impressive magic. I’m sure a charm or two here or there wouldn’t win them over, but maybe it would be enough to get them to notice you. I think the fires that Hermione puts in jars would do nicely on a cold winter’s day.

You’ve met with your Head of House and started to talk about your future after Hogwarts. What careers are you considering and why?

I’ve never really thought about what magical job I would like to do. I think Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher would be a pretty challenging career choice. Think of all the mistakes and incompetent teaching I’d have to put right. I think as long as that curse on the job is broken I would take it. I think working at Hogwarts and being around so much magic would be any muggle-born’s dream. So either that or I would try out being the next J.K. Rowling, you know, that squib who wrote the wizard’s book and the 2008 edition of The Tales of Beedle the Bard?

Professor Umbridge isn’t teaching you a single thing in DADA, and you’re sick of it! You’ve heard about a secret organization called Dumbledore’s Army and consider joining. Do you?

Umbridge makes my skin crawl, I would join anything to get away from her. If I were given the opportunity to actually go to Hogwarts I would actually want to learn magic rather than get it out of the book. That’s bad enough in a muggle lesson, let alone one at Hogwarts. Besides, I hear Harry Potter’s leading it and there’s a rumour he killed a basilisk in his second year.

There are so many rooms in the Department of Mysteries: the Time Room, the Brain Room, the Dias Room, etc. Which room would interest you the most and why?

I think visiting the room that is locked, the one that holds the power of love, would be interesting but I wouldn’t want to because I don’t think that what is inside can ever be understood or should ever be used as a weapon by the Ministry of Magic. The room I would most like to visit is the Time Room, how time travel would work and the ideas that surround it might just help my thoughts unravel and make sense as I try to work out the plots in the book I’m writing.

The Hall of Prophecy has tons of Prophecies on record. If there was one about you, what would it say?

That’s a rather scary question to ask. I wouldn’t like my life to be at the whim of the fates. But if I got to choose what it would say I would like to think that it would be something like: “Once the one book falls in her hands, all of her stories she understands.”

Do you have anything else you’d like to add? Maybe a theory you still believe to be true, a shout-out, praise for yours truly?

Is it driving anyone else mad that they’re missing out “while the other survives” after “only one can live” in the Deathly Hallows movies? 😀