Go on, take a look.
I’ve been re-reading Harry Potter (and by re-reading I mean skipping around to all of my favorite parts because by this point I have the first four books more or less memorized and the last three are well on their way there and that can sometimes make a straight reading a bit tedious) and was sad to discover that while I used to have all of my own images in my head of what the characters looked like, those images are starting to be replaced by the actors from the movies. So I’ve been trying to draw the characters in my head before I forget them.
Sometimes the easiest characters to draw are the ones who are only briefly alluded to because you know less about them and are forced to fill in the blanks with your own ideas. Long story short this ended up with me deciding to draw the Marauders at age 15 in the style of 19th century portrait painters. As one does.
Except, not Peter. Lily would have made a better Marauder than him, so I drew her instead. Stupid Peter. The alternate universe story I use to cheer myself up with after reading the last book is that Peter comes clean at the last second and James’ generation goes on the horcrux hunt and defeats Voldemort and Harry grows up happy with three other siblings.
Seriously, that last book, just— I can’t even read it most of the time, too depressing.
Anyway, since I always like to see other peoples’ interpretations of the characters, here are mine! I always figured Sirius to be kind of “pretty” looking, cuz of the hair. James would look red-faced and healthy from being outdoors a bunch. Lily I wanted to look friendly and kind of mischievous. And Remus would just look very put upon, having to deal with James and Sirius, haha. I just realized he’s the only one I didn’t draw smiling, poor guy.
Remus is usually my favorite character in the series (the list jumbles around a bit depending on which book I’ve just finished). I have a great appreciation for people who stay reasonable even when they have to deal with a lot of crap. It’s another reason I don’t really like reading the last book. As much as I love Tonks, their whole subplot rubbed me the wrong way— I guess I would have preferred if he’d been portrayed as a little more enthusiastic about the whole thing, it’s like every time Harry talks to him he’s nervous or miserable, and Tonks just turns into the hidden pregnant lady. And then with Harry railing at him for abandoning her— yeah it was stupid, but the guy’s been dealing with this awful disease/curse thing his entire life, it’s a bit much to moralize at him for panicking. It was all just… ehhhh.
Not that it will stop me from re-reading all the books again next year, or from spending countless hours drawing fan art…
