Ravenclaw: Are You Two Fighting Ot Flirting?

Ravenclaw: Are you two fighting ot flirting?

Slytherin and Gryffindor: Yes

Is the size of the Parlor in the Changeling (at least in Ginny's fifth year) about what it would be at any given period, or would it's size change based on the number of potential sisters? And as someone not super familiar with harry potter beyond the movies, how big is the population of Slytherin and Hogwarts in general supposed to be (or at least how big do you imagine it in the Changeling/Armistice)?

Well, I would say that The Parlor is not something with a quota to fill or anything. There aren’t a set number of spots to be filled, or a limit as to how many. One of my favorite things to think about in the magical world is that nothing is inert. Even the castle itself is a living being of sorts, something that adapts and changes to the needs of the students living there. Like, imagine all the magic and emotions and experiments all concentrated in that one space for millennia. The castle lives and breathes and adapts, and The Parlor space is no exception. If there were more girls who needed it, it would get bigger. If there was a smaller group of girls for a few years, it would become intimate and perfect for their needs. And since in the fic we saw both the Room of Requirement and The Parlor adapt to Ginny’s needs when she was in hiding her sixth year, allowing her direct access, I think it wouldn’t be completely beyond imagining that if there was a girl in another house that desperately needed it, that maybe other passages would open. Though, in my head, I probably think of the Sorting differently than most. I wonder sometimes if the Sorting is about predicting what the students might need, the possible paths forward for them, rather than an announcement of who they already are fully formed. It’s about who they could be. It’s about what the Sorting might make of them. (But also who they want to be, even if it’s bad for them. Freewill after all.)

As for the overall population of students, I think we are meant to believe that there are ten students in each house, so forty students in each grade, so 280 students. Though, honestly, the idea that there will be twenty boys and twenty girls exactly each year either means there is a larger population of wizarding children and only a specific quota of students get in (which, honestly, when Hagrid says in the first book that Harry’s name has been down for Hogwarts since he was born is a weird statement. If it’s open access, wouldn’t all kids’ names be down for Hogwarts who are magical?). Alternatively, there were five Gryffindor boys and five Gryffindor girls Harry’s year and we all just extrapolated that it must hold true for all other years/houses. Maybe it’s more variable than it appeared.

As for the Changeling verse, I went with the second interpretation (although the first makes more sense to me now, that there is limited admission at Hogwarts, and it allows us to imagine a larger world). Mostly because if Ginny went into Slytherin, are there only four Gryffindor girls her year? Or did she swap with someone? Also, I only gave Ginny three roommates (Bridget, Helena, and Smita). Laziness at that time, probably, but also me side-eyeing the Exactly Forty Magical Children Are Born Each Year In England (And Exactly Half and Half Boys and Girls)!!!

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been thinkin about pre-reveal marichat....

I hope we get to see Luka goin thru it

I'm re-reading The Changeling (for the umpteenth time, no less) and I'm once again struck by your particular take on Occlumency and Legilimency. Is this something you can talk more about? I'm interested to hear how you came about it since it's more or less unique when compared to other fics I've read. Also, will we see Ginny using her skills again in the Armistice series?

I honestly hadn’t seen much about Occlumency or Legilimency other than what little we see in the books, so I had a lot of room to come up with my own ideas. (Even Fantastic Beasts hadn’t come out yet, Queenie’s Legilimency clearly very different from how I portrayed it.) It seemed to me that there were only three people in canon that we saw or suspected had these skills–Dumbledore, Snape, and Voldemort. That’s quite a group. So I thought about those people and I thought about how they had to be skills with a high cost or difficulty or why wouldn’t everyone want to be able to read minds? Also, we saw how much Harry struggled with Occlumency, and I think that wasn’t all just because Snape was a horrid teacher. Harry is a pretty open, impulsive person over all, and I don’t really see him ever mastering shielding his thoughts and emotions. His emotions are what drive him, for better or worse.

While Voldemort is just straight up evil and wouldn’t care about invading people’s trust or privacy, Snape was rather more protective in his use of the skills, basically, he was most concerned with saving his own ass. I find Dumbledore’s rather casual use of it throughout the books more interesting. If every time Harry thinks it feels like Dumbledore can see into him is actually Dumbledore using Legilimency, that’s quite a lot. I think it fits with Dumbledore’s characterization though. He’s someone who honestly believes in the greater good, just as much as an adult as he did as a young man with Grindelwald. And his willingness to put the greater good first is his greatest Achilles Heel, in my opinion. He has a good heart and blind spots a mile wide. And I think that just like a level of detachment from the individual pieces is required to be a good mastermind (for him to be willing to raise Harry knowing that more than likely he’ll have to die to serve the greater good), Legilimency requires that sort of detachment too. Can you imagine seeing inside people and being empathetic? It would drive you crazy. I think Dumbledore’s use of Legilimency fits in with his tendency to forget the human in the individual. He saw them as pieces with potential and often just seemed to hope for the best.

As for Ginny, she was already inclined toward Occlumency from her experience with Tom. She knows what it’s like to be a stranger in your own head. And she has the drive to never leave herself that vulnerable again. But I also wanted room to explore that our world often defaults to one way of viewing an approaching things, usually based on men’s views and histories. So I wanted there to be room for her to be different than Snape, but also realize that the one answer you are given in school is usually an incomplete one. Part of growing up is realizing how much of a constructed narrative you’ve been living in. So while building defensible barriers seemed a stereotypically masculine approach, I thought about how women are often forced to hide in plain sight, aren’t often given the right to openly fight and resist, and how blunt defense is not the only way to undermine. So the idea that Ginny might use her experience of compartmentalization to create an image of herself to please the intruder…that it might not even occur to the outsider to look for anything deeper, having had their assumptions so well fulfilled, well, isn’t that what women are trained to do all the time? To please and become a sight and an experience for others, while our true selves are hidden out of sight? There’s a cost though. Women often function as strangers to themselves. And they are never truly alone. Always performing. Even when completely alone.

As for Legilimency, again, I thought it had to have a high cost or people would just do it left and right, wouldn’t they? And I thought about what that cost would be. I like the idea that you can take, but you have to keep it. So, maybe you steal that bit of information from someone, but you also have to carry around their fears and wants and you will never be free of it. Dumbledore dealt with that by detaching himself, floating far above. Snape dealt with that by dehumanizing the people he used it on. If they were things, their feelings don’t matter. Ginny, again, subverting gender stereotypes, does neither. Which is fortunate, because I think she is in far too much danger of becoming the thing she fears (Tom) if she did that. Her tendency to shut down her emotions is when things fall apart the most for her. So Ginny’s refusal to dehumanize the people she takes from gives her a greater burden, but it keeps her human too. In fact, humanizing people is how she deals with it. But it’s also why she never uses it unless she absolutely has to.

As for her use of these things in the Armistice Series, I will say that she is rarely if ever not using Occlumency on some level (which is as much of a problem as it sounds like). She will consciously use Occlumency again. But we will only see her use Legilimency as a last resort. I don’t see that happening right away. But I doubt Harry will ever stay out of trouble long enough for her not to find it useful at some point. :)