About two years ago I realized that I wanted to get a Harry Potter tattoo, even though I don’t have any others and never thought I’d want a tattoo of any kind. My kids, actually, are the ones who talked me into it. They decided for me that I needed to get an “Always” tattoo.
That was the easy part of the process. The hard part, it turned out, was deciding on how it would look.
Hermione loves to turn to the library when she is confronted with a need for knowledge, so I did something similar and searched the Internet. There is no shortage of Harry Potter tattoo pictures, but none of them grabbed me.
In January of 2017 inspiration struck. I attended the Celebration of Harry Potter, and while there I met with MinaLima, the graphic arts team who worked on all eight Harry Potter films. MinaLima was created by two people – Miraphora Mina and Eduardo Lima, both of whom were at the Celebration.
I told them what I wanted to do, to get a tattoo of “Always”, and asked if one of them would write this word on the poster that I gave them to have signed. (It was a poster they had created specifically for the Celebration.) It was clear to me by their reactions that no one had ever asked for this before, but Mira kindly added “Always…” to the bottom of the poster, which you can see here.
It took me until later in 2017 to actually get the tattoo. I took that much time so that I was absolutely sure that I wanted to get it. Around October I realized that I did, so off I went to a tattoo parlor!
It was an interesting process. First, I showed a picture of Miraphora’s writing to the artist. He took it and created a temporary tattoo from it and put it on my wrist to make sure I liked the placement and size.
I did, so next came the inking. That’s the part that permanently adds the image to the skin. Someone asked if it hurt and it does, but it’s not that bad. Granted, mine is pretty small, so I’m sure that helped minimize the pain. It was like a razor blade carefully slice off the top layer of skin. That’s probably fairly accurate to what actually happens.
The entire inking didn’t take very long and the pain went away quickly. The artist gave me instructions on how to care for the tattoo while the skin healed, and off I went to show off my design to my family. Needless to say, they love it as much as I do (except for my mom!).
This is what the tattoo looks like now that it has healed. It makes me smile each time I look at it.
I returned to the Celebration of Harry Potter in January of 2018. Believe it or not, I was so excited to see MinaLima again that I completely forgot about the tattoo! It was Miraphora who remembered, and she asked me about it. She was delighted to see it and remarked on how it looked just like her handwriting, because it was! Here she is, pointing to it during a picture. (Forgive my red face – the dress I wore was incredibly hot and I overheated.)
Every now and then I am asked what my tattoo means. The question makes it clear that the person asking is not a Harry Potter fan because Potterheads know the story behind the word always.
That’s okay, because there’s actually another meaning behind my tattoo. Remember how I said that my kids wanted me to get this? That’s because they’ve been asking me for years now if I love them. They know I do, but they also know the Harry Potter connection when I tell them, “Always.”
So, when I’m asked about this, I simply tell them that this is what I tell my kids when they ask if I love them. It’s much easier than explaining the other meaning of the word, and both aspects of this word have equal meaning for me.
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