Filius Flitwick

Too often in the books and movies, however, he’s portrayed in ableist tropes and made to be a figure of vague fun. I’m thinking of all the times JKR described him simply as “tiny” or wrote that he “squeaked” something. In the film of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, I cringed at the Yule Ball scene that had the students passing Flitwick overhead—an image I found all too reminiscent of “dwarf-tossing,” which many little people oppose, although actor Warwick Davis apparently proposed the scene to the director as a fun “crowd-surfing” moment for Flitwick. In the Epithalamium Series, I wanted to explore Flitwick further and concocted a detailed backstory for him. Ultimately, I wasn’t able to use much of what I conceived in the stories, but I was pleased to include him as one of Albus’s best friends. Here, then, is the full backstory for “my” version of Filius Flitwick.