The Hot Seat

I joined around May of 2017. I was sitting at home, bored out of my mind one night, when I saw an ad on Facebook that said something like, “Did you ever wish you received your owl when you turned 11 and it never came? Now’s your chance!” I clicked on the link and found the website, and here we are nine years later!

I’ve always felt there are two ways to design characters: inside out and outside in. Outside in is knowing their name, gender, FC, house, etc first and then developing a character around that. Inside out is knowing the backstory, quirks, personality, etc first and then building the other aspects. I designed Pirro as a person (e.g. what kind of person he was, his quirks, his personality, and more) and then decided on a name and more. Some things came later after he was aged up, but most of who he is was the first thing decided for him.

Oh, where to begin. I think the most important part I have to mention is that I met my current real life wife on World of Potter. Long and short of it: Pirro and her character, Rhea, met as adults on the site, began dating in-game, which led to Skype calls and more in real life, which led to me moving to where she lived, and now we’re married with two kids. Outside of that personal story, I still talk to many people I met on the site, having met a few of them in-person over the years for meals and otherwise. I built some close friendships on the site, some of which I still converse with often.

For World of Potter, just the one. I’ve been Pirro since day one, and I continue to only write for Pirro. I think I might have made other one-off characters here or there that didn’t last more than a single login, but Pirro was always my full motivation and inspiration.

I started as a librarian when Pirro was a little ol’ first year. But then the CE spot opened up for what used to be the DP (keeping acronym in case of copyright stuff), and I applied and was given the role. At the time in 2017, I was in school for journalism and communication, so it seemed like a natural fit. I stayed in that role for 3-4 months before a major purging event happened on the website. A good chunk of the management team was relieved of their positions, including the Minister and HM. My good friend Casimir became Minister after that and I was asked to take on the role of HM. I happily served as HM for around a year. At that time, I had a wife and kid, was working full time, and was trying to finish out my Master’s degree, so I resigned my position as HM and stepped away from the site. I came back about a year later to serve as the Charms teacher (as that was always my passion with Pirro and on the site). I did that for quite some time before real life responsibilities once again got in the way. I resigned again and never really returned to my former glory on the site. Now it’s a happy memory more than anything else. I didn’t really have a favorite job, if I’m being honest. They all had their pros and cons, but I think I look back on the CE job with more reverence than the others, if only because it’s the first time I really made an impact on the site, it’s what I was doing when Pirro met Rhea, and that is when I started forming so many memorable relationships.

With no surprise to anybody: Charms with History of Magic being a close second. Pirro failed Potions, Flying, Transfiguration, and pretty much every other class except those two. But he was quite proficient in Charms and enjoyed the subject very much. I remember writing a homework when I was still a librarian where Pirro was trying to make a potion in Potions class, and he failed miserably, setting fire to the professor’s desk. I don’t know why that homework stands out in my memory, but I remember getting the owl from the professor playfully chastising me for setting her desk on fire. It still gets a laugh out of me when I think of the owl.

Oof. That’s a very hard question to answer. There are far too many. From legendary drunken duels in The World Outside to Pirro and Rhea’s first date in a topic, to interacting with so many people and becoming their friend, to the late night Skype calls with other members of management and teachers back when those groups were still common…there are so many that I can’t name just one, unfortunately.

I have two, actually! The first was a duelling tournament where Pirro had to duel Edgar (your DADA professor) in the first round. Edgar was still DADA then and Pirro was HM. Edgar’s writer and myself have always gotten along and enjoyed writing with each other, and the duel was so much fun. As expected and narratively appropriate, Pirro lost to Edgar in the duel, but it was a blast to write. The second is when Pirro was still CE and we had an event where all of the management team (and maybe teachers, I can’t remember) turned into children/babies due to a spell gone wrong. Pirro turned into a literal baby with a beard, and I spent DAYS talking like a baby in chat and crawling away from students that were chasing him. It was hilarious and a strong memory for me.

The people and the meaning behind why all of these people are here. Harry Potter is one of the most important parts of my life. I read the books as a young child (the first one came out in 1997 and I was 9, and it was one of the first books I read). This website gave me the opportunity to work on my writing abilities while living out the fantasy of having a character (which I poured a lot of my own personality and quirks into) in the wizarding world of Harry Potter. The people I’ve met, the life my character had lived, and the memories I formed are priceless…and that’s my favorite thing about WoP.

Most of Pirro’s quirks are well-known (hatred of flying and glitter, a former alcoholic, had a stutter as a child, has TONS of charms on his beard, and more) but one secret most people don’t know is that he often masks his insecurities behind what he thinks is eccentric actions and jokes. If people don’t like Pirro, he feels dejected, and the charms on his beard will falter when his personality does. He needs to be quirky or his magical ability suffers because of it. I don’t know if that’s a canon thing that can happen in the wizarding world, but Pirro would always struggle with magic in homework and topics when he felt dejected or unliked, and I thought it was an interesting aspect of magic.

Kindness goes a long way. Any number of years from now, your name might come up, and somebody that remembers your kindness will go, “Oh yeah, I remember that person!” They will say it with optimism, or heartfelt memory, or admiration, or any combination of those and/or more! Kindness and being helpful is the best thing we can do for anybody else that joins the site. Remember, we’re all here for the same reason: to write and to further enjoy our love of Harry Potter (at least, I’m assuming that’s why we’re all here!)

Thank you so much for these questions! This has been the best walk down memory lane for WoP, and it’s been years since I’ve thought about Pirro’s past. I was smiling the entire time as I got to answer these questions and remember what it was like to spend so much time seeing the world through Pirro’s eyes. Much love to everybody!