If your Freshers’ Week friends were characters from Harry Potter

If you think about it, the world of Harry Potter isn’t that different from the world of Higher Education. Both have a plethora of strange characters and mysterious goings on and neither make sense to anyone outside the bubble. But what if the cast of Harry Potter were at your Freshers’? Slamming Snakebite instead of Butterbeer and hitting house parties not Hogsmeade?

Harry – The BNOC

Free entry to literally every club in town? Yep. Captain of the football team and star of varsity as a fresher? Sure. Superficial mates with everyone but real friends with maybe three people? Definitely. But despite his campus fame and adoring fans, you can’t quite work out what’s so great about him. He isn’t particularly smart or funny or even interesting in any way but always seems to be at the right place at the right time and ends up with a mental story.

Hermione – The clean freak

Hermione is the passive aggressive girl in your flat that moves all her pink tupperware into the most convenient cupboard half an hour before any of the other flatmates are due to arrive. Your mum has a sit down and a cup of tea in your new shared kitchen before you start unpacking, because you’ve just driven all the way down from Northumberland. Hermione steps in, and in one fell swoop, places a coaster underneath your mum’s mug, “start as we mean to go on, guys! I’m Hermione by the way.”

It’s three weeks later, 10am, you’ve just had your first 9am lecture of term and you’ve arrived back to your communal flat. The singular knife you left on the side after cutting a piece of toast prior to the lecture has a piece of paper over it. Who’s left this note, you wonder, you’re the only flatmate awake? In your confusion, you turn the piece of paper over. “PLEASE can we keep this area TIDY. IT IS COMMUNAL. I don’t want to have to look at your mess! THANKS. -H”. Hermione doesn’t even have any 9ams on her course, what the fuck? How did she do this?? IS SHE WATCHING YOU???

Ron – The guy whose entire family went to the same uni but he’s not really sure why he’s there

His older brother studied medicine, his two other brothers both studied Chemistry and his sister is doing Psychology. Ron just about got in to do Sociology and he’s not really sure it was worth the effort. In the next three years, he won’t do a single sport, join a single club or do anything more than what’s required. He’ll end up with a solid 2:1, a girlfriend for life and an unshakeable sense he’s just not as good as his mates.

Sirius Black – Someone’s fit friend from home

He was friends with one of your housemates, they spend a whole term talking about how great he was, and how they used to be in such a tight little group back home. No-one’s seen him for a while but then he comes to visit one weekend and it’s a more intense love than any you’ve ever felt before. His rugged charm, scruffy appearance and dishevelled edgy vibes give you a night of passion you’ll never forget. But as soon as you’ve grown to love him, he disappears as mysteriously as he came and you’re left wanting just a little bit more.

Nymphadora Tonks – The posh girl from North London who becomes edgy

She arrived called Nymphadora, with a pink leavers hoodie and a stack of photographs from boarding school, signed by girls called Millie and Immy. Her room is a Cath Kidston dream world right down to the lavender MacBook case protectively covering daddy’s freshers present. She toys with netball trials and watches Gossip Girl late at night with Claire who she knows from her English course. By November she’s asking to be known as “Tonks” and her Cath Kidston has been covered by a massive shambala poster. Tonks has a nose piercing, wild hair and some multicoloured trousers that look like they’re made of hemp. Deep down Tonks is ultimately a boring small town posh girl, but she’ll keep embellishing her new persona – pink hair, festivals, MD, a month travelling in Tibet – so you’ll never realise. “No honestly,” Tonks is saying in a husky voice, passing you a badly rolled joint. “You have not lived until you’ve lain under the moonlight on a beach in Phuket.” Oh, fuck off Nymphadora.

Seamus Finnigan – The Irish one

The one Irish guy in your halls who really doesn’t find it funny that you keep asking if he knows Bono and eventually leaves you all to make friends with the blokes who play GAA.

Dementors – SU Officers

They come up to you in the union asking you to sign up for an NUS card and asking whether you think it’s appropriate to wear sombreros at halloween because actually that’s cultural appropriation you bastard.

Cedric Diggory – The typical Home Counties wanker

Smug lacrosse fuck in a Huffle-Puffa gilet. Gets into scraps he’ll come off worse in.

The Sorting Hat – UCAS

Please not Lincoln.

Neville Longbottom – The fit shy guy you try to get with

He was clumsy and got picked on by the football team. But oh how the summer has been kind to him. He’s gone to Napa – sure – grew to be about 6’2 but he still remains delightfully awkward. You’ll get drunk and try to kiss him at the end of Freshers’ Week and he won’t look you in the eye again all year.

Polyjuice Potion – Jägerbombs

A magic liquid that changes people in front of your eyes.

Ernie Macmillan – The careerist

He’s on the KPMG scheme, and doing his “year in industry”. He wants to be an analyst, just like his dad. He used to make jokes at school, even if people thought he was a bit pompous. Now he lives his life by the light of his MacBook, humming along to the sweet soundtrack of being shrieked at by middle management. Ernie goes to sleep and all he hears is white noise. “Hufflepuffs are loyal”, he whispers to himself. “Hufflepuffs are loyal.”

Moaning Myrtle – That girl in your flat who just will not stop complaining

First it was “oh my God I’m so hungover”, then in her low monotonous voice it’s: “this freshers’ flu will just not go” and you start to wonder if she’ll ever smile again.

Hedwig – You, the first time you take MD

Jesus mate how big are your eyes?

Nagini – The girl from halls who sleeps with the guy you told her you liked

MASSIVE FUCKING SNAKE.

Filch – The halls tutor

Always there when you least suspect them, the old lonely halls tutors are on a massive power trip, just like Filch. They’ll lurk the corridors by candlelight in the evening to make sure to stop any fun. Also they are old and lonely.

Draco Malfoy – The posh greasy one

Just intensely, purely, honestly fit but also really evil. Draco has a signet ring and absolutely no plans for what to do after graduation. He knows daddy will take care of it. He’s joined a sport – probably cricket or lax, with no intention of actually putting in any real effort. He’s the only one in Freshers’ Week who doesn’t throw up, wear a t-shirt with penises drawn on it, or latch on to a group of friends who are woefully uncool. Instead, people flock to him. He wears pinstripe Jack Wills shirts and his Facebook photos are idyllic and his political views are abhorrent. You lust after him fervently and hate yourself for it. He’d probably choke you during sex tbh.

Hagrid – Mature students

He lives in your flat but you don’t know why. On the first day, he moved in with a singular backpack. You don’t really know him, but he keeps turning up with cakes and shit. He seems nice enough, but from the state of his beard, you just know his bedroom smells really bad.

Dobby – The creepy guy you get with in first term

He’s small, he has bulging eyes and he wants to make a t-shirt out of your pillowcase – but that didn’t stop you shagging him, did it? He hangs around your flat for most of the next day rubbing his hands gleefully, and when he does go he takes one of your well-worn socks as a trophy.

Percy Weasley – Halls wardens

You are only a little bit older than us so WHY ARE YOU SO MISERABLE. WHERE IS THE JOY IN YOUR LIFE. WHY CAN’T YOU JUST GET LAID.

The centaur from the Enchanted Forest – That guy from the club

He was so true and noble and glorious and he had pecs like freshly-carved granite, but that didn’t stop him galloping off into the night and refusing your Facebook friend requests.

The ugly person you pull in Freshers’ Week – TROOOOOOOOOOOOLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL

TROLL IN THE DUNGEON!

Fleur Delacour – The unreal exchange student

It’s 8pm on a Sunday night and you hear a timid knock on your door. You groggily open it and find an angel staring back at you. She speaks no English, has no idea where the train station is and hasn’t got any of the things she needs for the flat. As she introduces herself and you bungle through an awkward European double kiss, you realise that not only is she too fit and too intelligent for you, she will never understand a word you say.

Colin Creevey – The girl who won’t stop taking photos of everyone at flat parties. 

“Oh my god Harry I’ll tag you!” And she will. She’ll tag you in “FRESHERS 16”, an album with 300 photos by the start of October. Everyone needs a Colin Creevey because otherwise how would you show off how much fun you’re having? On the other hand, without her Olympus she’s basically just really annoying.

Severus Snape – All computer scientists

The weird bloke you like and are nice to until halfway through the year he loses it and accuses you of friendzoning him.

Luna Lovegood – the one that gets really intense when they’re fucked

“Luna? Luna babe open your eyes we’re going to go out now.”  Luna will not open her eyes. She is lying on the living room floor talking about thestrals. In the background, Hermione is shrilly accosting a smirking Draco Malfoy because “no, but you know she gets like this, and you still sell her MD and it’s so dangerous and seriously stop laughing!”

Luna will not be going to the club tonight.

Ginny Weasley – Your mate’s really boring girlfriend

No but honestly why is he getting with her? What does she have to offer? She is so boring. I hate her. No, I hate her so much.

Gilderoy Lockhart – You writing an essay

Because it only takes a little bit of plagiarism here and a hefty portion of embellishment there before you’re in the Department Head’s office staring down the barrel of a third, being questioned on whether you really ever were captured by trolls in the wilds of Stockton-on-Tees.

Cho Chang – Most second years

This is the girl who’s in second year. She got with your mate and you should like her but for some reason you just don’t. She’s pretty, obviously into your friend and perfectly sweet – there’s something not quite there. In the end your mate breaks up with her anyway.

Romilda Vane – The rugby groupie

She is obsessed, obsessed with the fly-half on the rugby team. She comes round your room and night and matches their horoscopes together. You catch her drawing hearts – literal hearts – around their names in a tutorial. On Valentine’s Day she delivers chocolates to his room (unconfirmed if they are poisoned). Everyone else in this entire block knows he does not love you Romilda, and you’re getting a bit psycho in your pursuit of – no wait what are you doing? No do not send Ginny those hateful Twitter messages you absolute nutjob.

Viktor Krum – The rugby guy you fancy

Yeah, sure, he has lats of burnished steel and he’d probably bang you into your headboard harder than a misbehaving bludger, but that doesn’t make him any more clever. It’ll only take a few monosyllabic conversations before you’re longing for Ron Weasley and his nuanced opinions on Barthes’ Death of the author.

Lavender Brown – The one that pushes their new intense uni relationship on social media

Christ, I mean it’s been about a week since she walked into her dorm for the first time and she’s already attached herself to some poor lad who’s never quite encountered girls before and is thus initially all too eager to accept her advances. Meanwhile you and your flatmates have watched his initially cheerful disposition gradually crumble into a resentful frown as she remains relentlessly oblivious and optimistic about spending the rest of her life with her [pet name depending on which day of the week it is]. Not to mention the ubiquity of it all, kissing in the middle of campus, two couple Instagrams a day and the Facebook status about how “blessed” she is because “babe” made her a whole bloody cup of tea.

Madame Pomfrey – The fed up doctor at the uni clinic

It’s a month into Freshers’, you’ve got a disgusting flu and you’ve realised that Lemsip will not just appear in your cupboards, contrary to the last 18 years of your existence. All you need is your mum to give you a hug and maybe make you some soup. But instead you have to trudge across campus in the rain and join a queue of what feels like every other fresher at your uni before a tired, overworked doctor gives you some antibiotics in less time than it takes to regrow an arm bone.

Tom Marvolo Riddle – your social secretary

At 7pm, he’s stood authoritatively in his well-ironed ones, smiling and greeting you, wanting you to feel welcome in the club. Fast-forward 45 minutes, he holds your nose as his lackeys pour butter beer down your gullet and rubs his nutsack on the back of your neck. You see him in your nightmares sometimes. He is a new breed of evil.

Contributions by Amelia Rushmore-Perrin, Abby Lever, Bobby Palmer, Bella Eckert, Caroline Phinney, Daisy Bernard, Jasper Hart, Róisín Lanigan and Matt McDonald