Occlumency - Tumblr Posts

UM, EXCUSE ME, BUT WHAT THE HECK? THIS IS BRILLIANT AND RAD AND OMFG!! 🥺😭💛

Stoppered

“The body cannot live without the mind.” - Morpheus, The Matrix Happy belated birthday, Professor.

on narcissa malfoy

i always joke with my friends that the malfoy family is matriarchal, partly because i, personally, would let narcissa boss me around in a heartbeat, but also because i actually think there’s a solid canon backing that she’s like. the Head Bitch of the family. especially later on in the series. (it’s also why i think reading lucius as abusive is a misreading of their relationship, but whatever.)

just in general, i will never understand the reading that she’s meek or timid. we see so little of her character but with what we do see, she defies voldemort twice (lying about harry and going to severus for help), doesn’t shy away from standing up for herself/her family, seemingly holds the family together when lucius has his fall from grace, is not the least bit scared of her sister, and is more than willing to throw hands with her son’s rivals in public. to me, she’s very much lucius’ equal, even if she isn’t a sadist like her husband or sister (and i suppose there’s not a whole lot of canon material on that either way, so you can’t say for sure what she is). her capacity for compassion does not automatically make her kind, nor weak, especially since her compassion does not seem to extend past her family. 

personally, narcissa gives me a lot of lady macbeth vibes. particularly the whole ‘look like the innocent flower, but be the serpent under it.’ (‘s also why i think she’s aptly named—daffodils are pretty and poisonous.) but back to my point: 

the example of narcissa’s authority pre-everything going to shit is obviously this:

which is easily passable as an insignificant win in a family discussion, but then 

you’ve got

stuff like

this

i haven’t read the books in a couple of years, so these examples are just the ones i can pluck from the top of my head, but i think it’s very interesting that narcissa is generally the one who defends the family, who lucius and draco turn to for guidance, and who is also just. the only malfoy the other death eaters seem to really respect (dh era).

there’s also the matter of movie canon, which i’m pretty eh with, but i do prefer the malfoy family ending in the films to the one in the books. and the fact that it’s narcissa who instigates it—who gets draco to come to them after he’s ignored lucius’ call, who walks away and calls for lucius to follow (and then he does)—is a nice representation of the authority she has in the books, i think. and then there’s also this:

which i could wax poetic on for hours, but it’d mostly just be shippy ramblings. 

anyway. tl;dr: the timid, meek narcissa you sometimes see in fanon is ridiculous.

Woah, Ginny used magic to split herself? Is there something that I missed that suggested that? Can you expand on that?

“What troubles you, Mistress?”

Ginny looks up at Nymue, shaking her head. “It’s nothing, I just…” She glances helplessly around at the stacks and stacks of books. “Are there any texts on Occlumency in here?”

“No,” she says. “You won’t find any conventional magics in these books.”

“Conventional?” Ginny echoes.

“Wand magic,” Nymue clarifies.

Ginny frowns. “What other kind of magic is there?”

Nymue gives her a slow smile. “My dear, there are limitless other kinds.”

Ginny’s cheeks flush, Nadira’s scathing voice echoing in her mind. It’s never even occurred to you that it could be your world that is limited, not mine.

Nymue flicks a finger and a text slides out of one of the shelves. “If you have interest in the keeping of secrets, of mind protections, perhaps this book could be of use.”

The book floats over and lands on the pedestal.

Ginny crosses over to look down at the rich blood red leather cover of the text, the title embossed in gold in a language she is unfamiliar with. She reaches for it.

“Fair warning that the magics contained in these texts have been banned by many of the modern governments.”

Ginny pulls her hand back. “Why? Are they dangerous?”

“Dangerous to whom?” Nymue counters with. “To the casters? Or to the wand masters?”

“Wand masters,” Ginny repeats, brow furrowed. It’s a strange phrase.

Nymue gives her a smile that is a little hard, a little predatory. “Is anything truly without risk?”

Ginny picks up the book.

and a bit later after she reads the book:

She feels like that a lot these days, like two people existing inside the same body.

She stills as it occurs to her that being two people could be useful. One of her would never think of the dangerous things at all.

Snape watches her calmly, as if waiting to see which side will win.

But maybe neither side has to win, Ginny thinks.

“I believe I understand, sir,” she says.

Ginny uses the book from Nymue, and the forbidden magics within, to make herself into a perfect, compartmentalized Occlumens. Even as she worries what that makes of her, and knows she won’t really probably be ‘whole’ again.

She lets herself be an open book, or at least one of her selves. The least dangerous but no less authentic one, the Slytherin with Muggle-loving parents and ruthlessness in her heart. The one who understands the importance of lowering her head and going along with whatever will keep her life preserved. Who misses Quidditch and hates History of Magic and is scared of what happens down in the dungeons. The girl who misses her best friends and is swamped by loneliness sometimes.

This Ginny has no doubts except about herself, no reservations about the lies she is being fed, no training in Occlumency. She’s never kissed Harry or mourned Burbage.

There are no edges to be found, no trap doors or defenses. Just endless depths for him to probe and dig through and feel he knows her, all of her.

She is an ocean—fathomless and swelling.

It’s what Snape suspects later, but has no way to know for certain.

Snape remains sitting. “Your progress as an Occlumens has…exceeded my expectations. You show a rare gift.”

She knows this is meant to be a compliment, but instead it seems to settle deep in her stomach like a stone. We aren’t monsters.

“Some of that is talent,” he says, “and some work ethic. But also, I suspect, something more.”

Her chin lifts. She reminds herself that there is no way for him to know.

“Perhaps something a bit more unorthodox?” he presses, like she might be pushed into bragging.

She has learned far too well not to let her surprise show, simply mirroring back his own calm expression.

His lips twitch. “I could ask you about that, but I realize far too well I am doubtful to get an answer, even if I tried to take it.”

He definitely suspects she’s been dabbling in something beyond curriculum, but then he’s never been bothered by stepping outside the rules when required. He’s also the only one to suspect that she does this again with Crabbe and Goyle in later chapters.

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. :)

I just think… It looks like the Occlumency walls are the only thing that keeps Draco together after the war. Because after seeing the murders and torture of those whom you knew (and whom you did not know, but whom you did not consider an enemy in the depths of your soul), you simply cannot be the same. Seeing death is always hard, but it's on a completely different level in this case. Add to this the fact that he lived under the same roof with the madman himself. There was no "safe place" for Draco, neither at home nor at school. Nowhere.

And I think, unable to do anything and feeling guilty, every time he was present at such an event, he did not look away and did not close his eyes. He will be a witness, he will remember. "Their pain and death was not unnoticed, they were not alone, I was there, I saw, I remember. Everyone."

I'm not sure why people fault Snape for refusing to teach Harry Occlumency (and I've noticed that some do). I mean, all right, he might've done better, but the fact remains that:

1- Harry invaded his privacy. And no, that wasn't justified in the slightest (Don't get me wrong. Harry's one of my favorite characters. But he's also done some not-so-cool things, which shouldn't be overlooked).

2- Harry wasn't learning his lessons properly, despite Dumbledore's injunction that he should.

The memory Harry had witnessed was very personal and painful for Snape. I've even found people arguing that he'd wanted Harry to notice it because he'd left the Pensieve out in the open.

Did Snape have to insult Harry during the lessons? No.

But is he a bad person for not having continued to teach someone who clearly wasn't interested and disrespected his instructor's boundaries? No.

This!

I'm not sure why people fault Snape for refusing to teach Harry Occlumency (and I've noticed that some do). I mean, all right, he might've done better, but the fact remains that:

1- Harry invaded his privacy. And no, that wasn't justified in the slightest (Don't get me wrong. Harry's one of my favorite characters. But he's also done some not-so-cool things, which shouldn't be overlooked).

2- Harry wasn't learning his lessons properly, despite Dumbledore's injunction that he should.

The memory Harry had witnessed was very personal and painful for Snape. I've even found people arguing that he'd wanted Harry to notice it because he'd left the Pensieve out in the open.

Did Snape have to insult Harry during the lessons? No.

But is he a bad person for not having continued to teach someone who clearly wasn't interested and disrespected his instructor's boundaries? No.