Lumos Black Girl Magic: My Letter to Hermione Granger

Hermione, There is nothing more important to me, as a book worm, than finding yourself between the pages of a good book. It’s one thing to read along and learn of someone else’s plight, but to see yourself in them while reading is like falling asleep while your mommy sings “Twinkle twinkle little star” and waking up in the cosmos with Neil DeGrasse Tyson as your guide. You no longer have a need to know what you are, because all of you is right there to behold and grasp and breathe in. All of you is to be accepted by you. I’ve known you for years Hermione, since 1999 actually. Yet, it took until now to fully see you — rather, to see us. It took almost two decades for me to fully see myself in you and the you in me. Now, let me say this… I’m a Hufflepuff. I am loyal to a fault, sometimes too patient (which my mid-thirties is slowly taking away from me). I try my very best to be fair and honest. If I am nothing, I am true. I have never been popular, but I am known for working my ass off. You don’t know me, but you know my kind. I have 6 plants in my bay window, including a calamondin tree affectionately known as Callie. She produces the ripest little melons that I enjoy in a good tea or cocktail. All of my other plants have names too. I love them all. My girlfriend and I rescued our ferns from the discount-dried up-left to die section of a Lowe’s and have nursed them back to life. I am Hufflepuff, accepting of all. You may be a Gryffindor, brave and courageous, but we’re the …