I’m so glad that we’re talking about Harry Potter - it’s held a special place in my heart since I first read it. Many of my close friends had been on my case to read it and I kept turning it down, saying it was “a kid’s book”. How wrong I was!
One reason I think my friends were so insistent is because they had all gone to the Louisiana School for Math, Science and the Arts (aka LSMSA, aka The Institute). Our experience with that school was very similar with what many of the characters in Harry Potter experienced.
Louisiana School is similar to a magnet high school but at a statewide level. Like Hogwarts, it’s a school that most people here have never heard of. Once they determine that you are capable of taking the advanced classes, you receive a letter of invitation (delivered not by owl but by the USPS, but still). The school is based in the north central part of the state, so for the students who lived in the southern portion we would take a bus up to the school and back for holidays (just like the train ride to Hogwarts and back).
Once we got there, we were sorted into different wings of our dormitory (much like different houses). Assignments were much more random than the sorting hat and girls and guys lived in two separate dorms, but there were still some personalities that could be associated with each wing. Living in dorms were a huge adjustment for many of us, especially since there were so many people who were from different ethnicities, social backgrounds, political leanings and focus of studies.
We didn’t have any distinctions between people who were the first members of their family and those who had several brothers and sisters who had attended previously, but we did have names for ourselves (“gifties”) and for what would be considered muggles (“normies”). Normies were considered dim and to be avoided by some and mostly harmless by others.
We didn’t learn magic, but something a lot of us got exposure to were computers. At my high school back home, the closest we got to computer science was typing. Here we had access to a VAX system (I may be dating myself a little bit here) where you could issue commands and things would happen. You could even use it to send messages to each other (again, I’m dating myself - this was before instant messaging) - we used it to talk to the girls after lights out in the dorms.
I’m sorry I’ve rambled so much, but for me this series of books represented an important time in my life - a time of newness and discovery, a time when we were so full of potential.
And I have long strongly identified myself as a Hufflepuff. I’m loyal, hard working (most of the time) and even though we are not always the center of attention, we know we can always count on our friends to support us. Sorry for the rant, but I just had to stand up for my house!