Neville Longbottom's Advice to Hogwarts Graduates

Learn to stand up to people.

If I could offer you only one tip for the future, standing up to people would be it – and this often goes for your friends as well as your enemies. Nearly everyone agrees on the value of standing up to people, whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own blundering experience. I will dispense this advice now.

Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth. I realize that, for some of you, that advice will have to wait until you grow out of your awkward phase.

Don't worry about the future. Or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to find a missing toad by eating chocolate frogs. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind, the kind that blindside you at 2 p.m. on some idle Monday afternoon when your potion explodes over half the room.

Do one thing every day that scares you. Many of you will find that scheduled into your classes at least three days a week.

Sing. If you can’t, maybe your toad can.

Don't be reckless with other people's hearts. I’m still not sure how that would work, anyway.

Floss. Sooner or later, you’ll need to grit your teeth in pain and it’s just as well if they’re strong.

Don't waste your time on jealousy. Sometimes you're ahead; sometimes you're behind. Sometimes you’re flat on your bum, sometimes your stuck outside the portrait hole trying to remember the password, sometimes you’re hanging from the chandelier by the back of your robe. Race? What race? Just get me down from here!

Remember compliments you receive. Forgive the insults. Sometimes "You’re not in your father’s league." just means "I don’t want you to be worth anyone’s trouble to destroy." Of course, "You’re a prat, Longbottom," is a bit harder to rationalize.

Keep your old gum wrappers. Throw away your old Remembrall.

Stretch. It makes it easier to climb through the portrait holes.

Don't feel guilty if you don't know what you want to do with your life. When the time is right, your true vocation will make itself known – often by wrapping a vine around your neck when you’re not looking.

Get plenty of calcium. Be kind to your knees. Don’t let your classmates set them on fire.

Maybe you'll marry, maybe you won't. Maybe you'll have children, maybe you won't. Maybe you’ll go mad at 25, maybe you'll dance the funky chicken on your 75th wedding anniversary… and then everyone will say you’re mad, but you won’t care.

Enjoy your body. Use it every way you can. Don't be afraid of it or of what other people think of it. Nobody ever died from a pratfall yet.

Dance, even if you have nowhere to do it but on your partner’s toes. If you’re lucky and she’s the forgiving sort, you might not get in till dawn!

Read the directions. Carefully. Then read them again.

Do not read beauty magazines. You want beauty, try checking out some of the girls in your class.

Get to know your parents. This isn’t always easy. Learn to see the deeper meaning in the little things. Sometimes "I love you" can come in as simple a form as a gum wrapper.

Understand that friends come and go, but with a precious few you should hold on. Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and lifestyle, because the older you get, the more you need the people who said "They’re friends of mine," when someone said, "You don’t have to sit with them."

Visit St. Mungo’s, but leave before it makes you cry. Visit Honeydukes, but leave before the sugar makes you giddy. Explore.

Accept certain inalienable truths: Sooner or later it happens in every family, including yours. Spells uttered through a broken nose will go awry. You, too, will get old. And when you do, you'll fantasize that when you were young, it only happened in other people’s families, what mattered was not the words but the feeling behind them, and children respected their elders.

Respect your elders. Unless their name happens to be Bellatrix Lestrange, in which case, forget about respect and just blast the bitch!

Don't expect anyone else to support you. If they can hang you out of a third-story window and then let you fall because of a damn meringue, you can’t depend on them for anything! Er, sorry. Got a little carried away, there.

Don't mess too much with your hair. It’s bad enough that the books and the movies can’t agree on what color it is!

Be careful whose advice you buy, but be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of gardening. Dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the compost heap, pulling out the weeds, and letting it take root so it can bloom more beautifully next year.

But trust me on standing up to people.