The Arms of Henry Whalley

After I made the coat of arms for another one of my roleplay characters, Winston Archambault-Brewer, I got into a Harry Potter RP and decided to make arms for Henry Whalley, the father of the character I’m playing. Henry is a Cartomancer and Games Merchant with a shop on Diagon Alley called Giddy Goblin Games, which has been run by the Whalley family for generations.

Henry’s son, Theodore, is not very distinguished and does not have a coat of arms of his own, and since Henry is very much alive, he has yet to inherit the arms you see here. He would however, be entitled to use these arms if differenced by a label of three points, which would indicate that he is the first son of the bearer of the original arms.

Blazon

Special thanks to u/The_Failord on Reddit for suggesting a blazon when I posted the design on the Heraldry Subreddit.

Arms

Argent, on a bend Sable between two wands of the same bendwise tips to chief and to base two horse heads conjoined of the field.

Crest

On a wizard’s hat Gules, a raven proper contourny.

Motto

MANUS TUA NUMQUAM MONSTRANDA. This Latin phrase means “Never show your hand”.

Symbolism

Two horse heads

The two horse heads represent chess knights, in reference to the business of selling games. They are mirrored so as to resemble the face cards in a playing card deck.

Two wands

Representing cartomancy and the merchant’s profession, the two wands represent the Tarot card, the Two of Wands, which depicts a merchant with the world in his hands.

Bend Sable

The diagonal bend represents Diagon Alley.

Crest

I had this idea that among Wizards in Britain that the pointed hat would be standard helm, instead of a knight’s helm, and that the bearer would change the color of the hat based on the house they were sorted into. Red (Gules) for Gryffindor, Blue (Azure) for Ravenclaw, Or (Gold) for Hufflepuff, and Vert (Green) for Slytherin.

That being the case, I’m not sure what the Raven is for, because I originally put that in to represent Ravenclaw. I thought maybe the crest would be determined by the house of the person the arms were originally granted to, but that would all British wizards use one of only four crests and that’s not exactly interesting.