The Parlor - Tumblr Posts

do you think andromeda was a parlor girl?

I’ve always had it in my mind that Narcissa was a parlor girl. Then I got this ask and really started thinking about it. And I realized, yes, of course Andromeda was a parlor girl. And clearly Bellatrix wasn’t. Bellatrix never needed anyone but herself. She didn’t always know what she wanted, but she knew how to get it. From her parents, from the school, from the people around her and under her. She didn’t need sisters. She already had two,and while they had their uses, more would only get in the way. She had no interest in being beholden to anyone. (At least until the day she met a manwith powers she wanted, wanted, wanted and feared in equal measure.)

Andromeda yearned. Always had from a young age. And even when she wasn’t quite sure what it was she needed, she knew want. For a while she even let herself think that maybe Ted was what she wanted—the source and solution. But he was only a symptom, a point along the path that she truly wanted-escape. Without the sisterhood, she wasn’t sure she ever would have had the courage to take that step, to bind her life to Ted and leave everything else behind. (Only Ted ever felt like home, Ted and a cozy parlor tucked deep into the lowest spaces of Hogwarts. She loses both, in the end.) 

But like a proper Slytherin, she always knew what theultimate cost would be—for love, for her own choice, for freedom.

Of course in the end, she lost more than parents andsisters. She paid dearly for that taste of freedom and self-definition. She paid it and lived it and wouldn’t change it. There was no point in hoping for that anyway.

Narcissa was the one who was weak enough to hope. Ambition ran in her veins just as well as her sisters—the Black sisters were raised on ambition. She wasn’t as focused as Bella or as independent as Andromeda, but she still knew she had to mold the world to her vision. There was a moment when that view was broad and boundless, when Andromeda held her hand out and offered an invitation, a membership that could have shaped her world in fathomless ways.

Narcissa accepted, of course, because one never knew where membership could take one and open doors were often more useful than closed ones.

Only Narcissa shut down the possibilities offered by the sisterhood after watching her sister lose everything, get herself ostracized over a boy, a foolish choice. And so she closed her heart against her sister with strange and dangerous ideas, and a sisterhood that frightened her, that did not always know its place, and set her eyes on a path in the middle of her two tumultuous and churning sisters.

Andromeda might have married to escape, but Narcissa married to be exactly where she was. It was her right. To be admired and well cared for and perfectly in balance on top of a world of order and tradition. If the sisterhood taught her anything, it is her right to self-definition.

What her full potential as a sister could have been, no one will ever know. But there was the tiniest glimpse if you paid close enough attention, the moment she looked the Dark Lord in the eye and lied. Lied andremade the entire world in an instant. She made it hers.

How did the parlor come to exist? Who would Ginny be by the end of the changeling if it didn’t??

I imagine The Parlor was born out of information, practices, and people being slowly marginalized, maligned, and outlawed. In ancient cultures women’s knowledge might have been valued, but it was also probably also always secret or protected or at least ‘kept to the women’s quarters’ so to speak. But as male knowledge, power, and systems evolved and grew more powerful, women’s knowledge had to go underground--back to the earth from which it came, one might say. Both to protect itself, but also to ensure that it was never lost.

The Parlor is an extension of this vast network, this vestige of beliefs, practices, and knowledges patriarchy says is all better forgotten. And it far predates Hogwarts.

It’s hard to say who Ginny would be by the end of The Changeling without it. She would still be Ginny, she would still be tested, still find strength. I keep thinking of what Antonia said to her in in my head we do everything right when Ginny say she didn’t know who she would be without Antonia and she answers, “You’d be you. Only less interesting.” But something else Ginny might have been, was far more like Snape. Though what kept Ginny from that fate was a combination of The Parlor and the DA. So it’s hard to know. It’s all so thoroughly entwined.

Actual question now. I saw on some answer post, you seemed to be implying that The Parlor was the Room of Requirement the entire time? Am I wrong on this? I think my impression, I guess, in both canon and in the fic, is that the Room of Requirement is solidly located in a specific area of the school, on the seventh floor in Rowling-canon iirc. And I kept imagining The Parlor as being part of the dungeons. Have I missed or misinterpreted something?

Nope. These are two completely different spaces and entities. The seventh floor sounds about right. And The Parlor is pretty much deep down almost under the Black Lake. Are you maybe thinking about the fact that when needed, the two of them created a passageway between them, despite how distant they are from each other? (Also, The Parlor still exists in perfect working order, where I headcanon that the fiendfyre attack in Deathly Hallows pretty much did in the Room of Requirement. And yes, I think of these spaces as somewhat sentient, like Hogwarts itself, and The Parlor absolutely would have cut and run on the Room of Requirement to save itself.)

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.

Maybe this is dumb, sorry, but I just wasn't sure. Ginny became member of the Parlor the second she was invited, right? And she could go back any time she wanted? So when Antonia 'asked her again' when she was going do a reading, it wasn't actually Ginny's second chance?

Yes. Though Antonia is the queen of second chances, this was more about Ginny thinking she deserved a second chance. Also a way to highlight that for Ginny, she is in foreign territory with rules and rituals and practices that she does not understand (and for a while doesn’t want to understand). All of which contributes to her feeling of not belonging. But it is not that the others don’t think she belongs, or even that she doesn’t, rather that Ginny’s perspective and understanding is the thing that needs to grow. Both of herself and of the space she inhabits.

Why was Antonia selected to join the Parler? Was she chosen by Theodora?

Antonia was chosen to be Mistress by Theodora, but Theodora wasn’t the one to select her for The Parlor. That was the previous Mistress before her. If that makes sense.

As for why Antonia was selected…she dabbles in many things that are, shall we say, not mainstream in wizarding society. She adheres much closer to the old ways–what some might call pagan–and while she has great respect for the past and comes from a very long family tradition of Parlor women, that doesn’t mean she never struggled against it. Even coming from a family of badass women doesn’t keep someone from struggling with finding their own path, with not always feeling understood. The Parlor gave her space to figure out what she wanted and what she was supposed to want. That even the expected path can still be one that is authentically her own.

We will see more of what Antonia is up to. You know, eventually. Though both of them do show up in the latest chapter.…that I just posted now.

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)!!!

Theodora :: Antonia :: Ginny

The world isn’t kind to girls with strange ambitions…