2:30am December 19, 2013

Introverted Hufflepuffs

Lots of people, even Hufflepuffs, get the idea that all Hufflepuffs are extroverted. However, this is not the case. Every Hufflepuff has a different way of dealing with social situations, and all introverted Hufflepuffs are not alike. Here are many different ways we can be.

Some of us don’t like to go out into the common room at all, if we have to. We stay in our rooms, alone or with our roommates.

Some of us like to go out into the common room, but we don’t directly interact with our fellow Puffs. Being there with them is all the company we need.

Some of us like to go out into the common room and choose to interact with small numbers of people at one time, different ones each time.

Some of us like to go out into the common room and choose to interact only with those known well to us.

Some of us go out into the common room, interact in the same general way that extroverted Puffs do, and become completely exhausted by it.

Pretty much all of us prefer to retire to our rooms after social interaction. It’s not that we don’t like people. It’s that even the best social interaction is exhausting to us.

Many people won’t readily see us as Hufflepuffs, because we do not always have the friendly personality that is the stereotype of our House. However, we do have certain attributes that absolutely connect us to Hufflepuff House.

We strongly value doing what is fair, just, and right.

We are very loyal to the friends we have, and to our House, sometimes to a fault.

We not only value hard work, we also enjoy it!

We care strongly about people. We don’t always show this by a bubbly, friendly attitude, or by socializing with twenty people at a time, but then extroverted Puffs don’t always do all those things either.

We value being inclusive to people who are frequently left out of the cool crowd. We don’t do this out of pity, but because we honestly like people.

The only exception we might make to our inclusiveness is when the person is hurting everyone else despite our best efforts to stop them, and even then we are reluctant and sad about the matter. Our attempts to make that last situation work may get us, and others around us, in trouble if we are not careful. We sometimes have to learn that the hard way.

We value people above all other things. Not power, not glory, not something we happen to be interested in. When it comes down to it, we love people and that love is the thing that matters most to us in the world.

We are honest, unless it will do more harm than good to tell the truth.

All of those things are things we have in common with other Hufflepuffs. We just don’t always show them the same way.

But since we don’t always show it by socializing, you may notice that we find inventive ways to show our caring for others:

If you find little presents left around in unexpected locations for people to find, you can bet it was an introverted Hufflepuff that left them.

We may put in long hours doing hard work that even most other Puffs don’t feel like doing, so that they don’t have to do it.

We may yarn bomb the common room and other assorted places around Hogwarts.

We may leave enchanted clue hunts for other people to follow all over the campus.

We love doing little things like that when others aren’t around to see us, and delight in watching other people’s responses to our efforts.

In other words, we can still find ways to do all the things Hufflepuffs value, without taxing ourselves by socializing more than we want to. And we are still Hufflepuffs, even if we aren’t always as social, or as conventionally socially-skilled, as the House’s reputation.