{"id":361,"date":"2021-04-14T02:32:11","date_gmt":"2021-04-14T02:32:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/english.illinoisstate.edu\/euphemism\/16-2\/?page_id=361"},"modified":"2021-05-02T11:44:04","modified_gmt":"2021-05-02T11:44:04","slug":"why-are-you-a-gryffindor-like-isnt-that-cliche","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/16-2\/why-are-you-a-gryffindor-like-isnt-that-cliche\/","title":{"rendered":"Why are you a Gryffindor? Like isn’t that clich\u00e9?"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n
Kevin Wilson<\/span><\/strong><\/h5>\r\n

 <\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Harry Potter is a large part of who I am,<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

ask anyone who knows me, they will tell you I will quote the movies and the books<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

at the most random times.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Some of them might also tell you that I,<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

I am a Hufflepuff.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Don\u2019t listen to them, they are wrong.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

See I know what they mean,<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

I am compassionate, and extremely loyal, quirky and awkward at times.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

But I am like Nevil Longbottom.<\/p>\r\n

 <\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

As a child, bravery was something I found hard to come by;<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

I remember the first time I went to a haunted house.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

I was 11, we were just reaching the end and I still don\u2019t know how I didn\u2019t shit myself.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

I thought it was over,<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

we were walking out toward a field with a fire the size of a small two-story building<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

and a chain saw revs behind me.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

All I remember from there is running straight toward the inferno.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

I must have stopped before it because, well I\u2019m still here.<\/p>\r\n

 <\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Now I look back and I laugh,<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

but then I also remember what it was like to be scared of everything.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

I was scared of bees and sharks, even though the closest ocean was nine-hundred miles away.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

I remember being scared of my dad<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Of his voice that he would wield like a sledgehammer to beat the words from my lungs before I could even manage to think them.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\u201cDon\u2019t you dare cry\u201d he\u2019d add as he could see my eyes begin to water<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

and so I learned to hide myself in the darkness of my room<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

I crawled under the pillows and blankets and used them to muffle the splashes of my tears.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Sometimes I would drag the blankets with me into the bedroom closet.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

It was another door to keep me safe because I was less scared of the monsters than the man who was supposed to protect me from them.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

I felt powerless, I cowered in my corner hoping he\u2019d overlook me as if he were legally blind and forgot his glasses but, he never needed glasses.<\/p>\r\n

 <\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Still, I cowered, I learned to stay still, stay silent,<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Avoid eye contact, never question, always nod and agree.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Fear became like a game of freeze tag and I was always the first one out,<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

So I had to pretend I was a statue until it was all over.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

I vividly remember the first time my father\u2019s fists became the sledgehammer,<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

The night he beat my mom to the sidewalk,<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

broke her nose as my sisters screamed for him to stop<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

I just stood there \u2014 in shock. Years of self-defense training and I didn\u2019t protect my mom.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

As my mom drove away with my sisters, holding a hand over her bleeding face,<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

I walked inside with him, too scared what he might do if I said no.<\/p>\r\n

 <\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

For several years after, I stayed frozen,<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

I watched and learned how he used his anger as a deadly weapon<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

meant to silence anyone around him.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

He got used to seeing statues sitting around him, because<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

we didn\u2019t dare stand and risk being taller than his ego.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

We didn\u2019t dare risk being the next demolition his sledgehammer sought.<\/p>\r\n

 <\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

But I watched, I absorbed his anger and made it my own<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

until one day, one day I stood.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Playing statue for so long I now knew what it meant to be firm<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

and he struck me, tried to pummel me to the ground.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

But I didn\u2019t bend, I didn\u2019t break,<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

I took the hits as if his sledgehammer was a toy made from plastic and rubber,<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

and I was a statue carved from the strongest stone<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

I struck him back,<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

This time I was the concrete and he would be the one thrown against it.<\/p>\r\n

 <\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

We would later attend court ordered family counseling.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

There I continued to speak against him<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

while he maintained confidence that I was brainwashed and could not think for myself.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

It was to no avail,<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

we went three times before the counselor was too scared of him to allow us back.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

I haven\u2019t seen him consistently since counseling ended.<\/p>\r\n

 <\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

You see, I wish I was a Hufflepuff.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

But the sorting hat doesn\u2019t always take your opinion into consideration,<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

ask Nevil, he too asked to be in Hufflepuff.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

But the hat looked at him, looked at me and said no.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

The hat told us, \u201cthis \u2014 this is gonna hurt, and you\u2019ll need to be brave.\u201d<\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kevin Wilson   Harry Potter is a large part of who I am, ask anyone who knows me, they will tell you I will quote the movies and the books at the most random times. Some of them might also tell you that I, I am a Hufflepuff. Don\u2019t listen to them, they are wrong.… Continue Reading Why are you a Gryffindor? Like isn’t that clich\u00e9?<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-361","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/16-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/361","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/16-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/16-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/16-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/16-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=361"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/16-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/361\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1001,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/16-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/361\/revisions\/1001"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/16-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=361"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}