I'm Re-reading The Changeling (for The Umpteenth Time, No Less) And I'm Once Again Struck By Your Particular

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'm really surprised they've never done a body switching episode!!! that's a cartoon staple 🤌

🤭

Hi, I'm sorry I don't know if you've already answered this, but I was wondering why you made Bletchley the Slytherin captain instead of Montague? Also, was Millicent in the Inquisitorial Squad like she was in the books? I don't think so because she's in the Parlor, but I wanted to ask you anyway. I love your writing, but please don't feel pressured and take your time. Have a good day :)

The short answer is that Montague was the Chaser whose spot Ginny took. So he was no longer on the team, meaning Bletchley got the badge instead. (Which also allowed me to sidestep Montague, who JKR clearly made a kind of nasty dude. It was my way of trying to humanize the Slytherin I could while working around the already-established-as-horrid Slytherin.) Of course, in the process of answering this I am realizing a mistake I made in chapter 2 of The Changeling. I specifically mentioned Terrance Higgs as a kind of mean Chaser, which should have been Montague, seeing as how Higgs was the Seeker that Draco replaced. So whoops, my bad.

Millicent in the Inquisitorial Squad is another one of those moments. It was a matter of giving greater depth to Slytherin characters. Where I could, I just tried to explain why Harry’s perception was what it was. I couldn’t work around Crabbe and Goyle and Draco being nasty. And I left Pansy as the sort of coldly nasty character too. But I felt Millicent, of all of them, even though she had very specific, nasty run ins with Hermione, might have been really misunderstood. I also don’t like the way she is specifically pointed out in the text as being unattractive and more than likely fat and a physically mean and nasty bully. (Which boy, the ink I could spill on JKRs depiction of fatness as a negative trait, even Molly is just ‘plump’ like there has to be some distinction to tie to moral lines–like looking down on someone who is frumpy is classist, but being wary of fat people is just good sense. Come on, JKR, you’re better than this.) So I decided that of all the Slytherin that were established in the narrative that I could give an alternate approach to, I wanted it to be her. So I thought about who she could be, not to completely change her. I was happy to leave her aloofness, her prickly approach (which, if the text is any indication, she probably herself was probably the recipient of some nasty treatment due to her looks). She doesn’t owe anyone smiles and pleasantness. She can be exactly who she is and still be three-dimensional and pivotal and important. So was she still an Inquisitorial Squad member? No, I don’t think so. I could maybe buy her working for Umbridge, but definitely not the Carrows. I’m not sure if we read that as a change I made to her character or a change that came about because of Ginny’s leadership in The Parlor. I like to think it’s the latter. As much as The Parlor girls expanded Ginny’s idea of who people can be, she also impacted her sisters’ understanding and approach to class lines and pureblood culture and the war in general.

Thanks for the ask!

Hinny Alt files? Im going through withdrawals until you post the next chapter and will take any Hinny you can give

Ah ha! Oh, this file. Honestly, you know that this one is? This is the indulgent file where I wrote a ton of alternate scenes for The Changeling and Armistice. Like a bunch of, ‘well, what if Harry and Ginny had gotten together at this point in the story? what would that have looked like?’ What if in the middle of their huge row in the cloister, Harry had given into that urge to just lean over and kiss her? Or, what if in that final scene the night before the trio left for Australia, Harry had just leaned in a little closer and Ginny had thrown all fear aside and kissed him? You know, those kind of things. Here, have one in all it’s half-completed glory. I doubt I’ll ever do anything with these anyway.

To be honest, Ginny still isn’t sure herself why Harry agreed to do this. But watching him with Reiko, the way he looks so comfortable talking about something he clearly loves, it reminds her of the DA. She wonders if maybe Harry is missing it too.

He really is a great teacher. He’s patient and never condescending, and even Reiko seems grudgingly willing to admit that she learned a lot in the short half hour they spend together.

“Thanks, Harry,” Reiko says when they’re done, shaking his hand.

“Sure,” Harry says, smiling at her.

Reiko heads up towards the castle, pausing when Ginny doesn’t immediately follow.

“I’ll catch up with you,” Ginny says, waving her on.

“Sure,” Reiko says, looking between the two of them. “See you later.”

Once Reiko is gone, Ginny turns and smiles at Harry. “That was…really great. Thanks so much for doing this.”

Harry’s staring down at his feet, suddenly looking awkward. “No problem,” he says.

She touches his arm. “Seriously. It means a lot.” On impulse, she leans in and gives him a quick kiss on the cheek. She pulls back, giving him an embarrassed smile. “See you later.”

She moves as if to go back up the castle, but his hand on her arm stops her. “Ginny.”

“Yeah?” she asks, turning back to look at him. There’s an expression on his face that inexplicably makes her want to squirm. She forces herself to stand still and wait.

“Hogsmeade,” he blurts.

“What about it?” The first trip is coming up in a few days.

“I thought maybe…”

Ginny leans forward, completely thrown to see Harry quite this flustered. “You thought?”

“You would like to go there. With me.” The words are kind of tumbled together, but she hears them distinctly all the same.

“With you,” she repeats.

He rubs at the back of his head. “Well, uh, yeah.”

“Like…a date?” she asks, just needing to be really clear on exactly what is happening, because her body feels a little funny.

His chin comes up, his shoulders squaring like he’s committing the idea. “Yeah.”

Ginny is so completely thrown by this that she does nothing more than stare at him for a long moment. She can feel her brain stuttering helplessly under the basic thought Harry wants to date me? Harry…likes me?

How has she missed this? How could she possibly have not noticed?

She doesn’t even get to consider her own feelings, because Harry pulls back away from her.

“It’s fine,” he says, giving her a brittle smile. “Forget I asked.”

And then he’s walking away from her.

She considers calling out after him, but honestly has no idea what she would say.

*     *    *

She doesn’t see Harry anywhere the next few days, like he has some secret way of knowing where she is at all times so he can avoid her. It’s disconcerting.

She uses the time to think it all through though, to consider the offer from all angles. To figure out what she would have said if he hadn’t walked off so quickly. It doesn’t take her that long, considering.

And Harry is still nowhere to be found.

Still, strategy has always been one of her strengths, so she settles in to wait.

On Saturday morning, she waits by the gates, stepping out on the path next to Harry as he passes. He nearly stumbles over his feet as he shoots her a comical look of surprise, and she really shouldn’t find that attractive, yet here she is.

“You never let me answer,” she says, as if their conversation has just been picked up after moments rather than days.

“I, uh,” he mumbles, giving Ron and Hermione panicked looks.

Ginny looks at her brother. “Do you think we could have a minute?”

They look at Harry and after a moment, he nods.

They walk off, Ron looking back at the multiple times. Ginny waits until they disappear around the corner.

“Like I said, you never let me answer.”

Harry has recovered himself, looking straight ahead with his hands shoved deep in his pockets. “I think your expression spoke for itself,” he says.

“Did it? What exactly did I look like?”

“Appalled.”

“Probably more like…shocked.”

He glances over at her. “Is that better?”

She shakes her head. “I don’t do well with surprises. It takes me a while to,” she gestures at her head, “work things out.”

He frowns.

“I honestly had no idea you thought about me…that way. I’m just Ron’s annoying little sister.”

“You aren’t annoying,” he says. 

She looks at him, amused by his automatic defense of her. “Really?”

He sighs, starting back down the path. “Well, I’m finding you annoying right now, that’s for sure.”

She jogs to catch up, stepping across him, and he has to stumble to a stop to narrowly avoid running into her.

She smiles at him. “You really are just…” She shakes her head, not really able to put this feeling in her chest into words. She thinks she may want to say adorable, but isn’t sure how he’d take that in his current mood.

He blows out a breath. “I guess it’s too much to hope you’d be kind enough to just forget I ever asked.”

“Don’t be stupid, Harry,” she says. “I’m rarely kind.”

With that, she starts down the path, looking back at him and waiting for him to follow.

They walk the rest of the way to the village in silence.

 …

She basically spends the rest of the day near him, talking with Neville and Luna, submitting herself to confused glances from Ron and something almost a little smug from Hermione.

At the end of the day, he walks her back up to the castle. When they near the gates, she turns to him. “This was fun.”

He still looks like has no idea what the hell just happened.

She thinks Harry is maybe one of those people who only gets it when he’s hit over the head with something. So she decides to kiss him. It’s little more than a brush of her lips against the corner of his mouth because he’s kind of tall and hard to reach.

He lets out a small sound of surprise, but she’s pulling back before he can react. He looks stunned, but also pleased, his hand lifting to touch where she kissed him.

“Yes, by the way,” she says back over her shoulder as she walks away.

“What?” he calls after her.

“My answer. It was yes.”

Smiling to herself, she heads back into the castle.

hey, i just dont understand why people assume that harry is better at quidditch then ginny, even tho ginny is the professional one. in many fics i've seen harry is the one teaching their kids how to fly, while ginny sits back and watches, like what? i was wondering what your thoughts on it are <3

Oh, I’m sure there are many reasons ranging from people just loving to see Harry being the best at things, people liking/being used to the idea that natural talent is what makes someone good rather than the less glamorous hard work, or internalized misogyny that just makes it more attractive in our heads for the guy to be better at a thing than the girl, or more sense for a dad to teach his kids about ‘sports’.

Like, it’s possible to be above the curve at something when you’re 11 and 12 and then everyone else just catches up or surpasses you. But maybe enough people have suffered gifted child syndrome that they prefer the fantasy in their fic, and that’s fine too.

Personally, I think Ginny is the best at Quidditch of all her brothers and better than Harry and I think she got there through hard work, practice, and endless drive to be the best.

(Though I could buy Ginny letting Harry teach the kids to fly a) because she knows it means a lot to him and he missed out on that stuff as a kid, and/or b) she’s like, YES PLEASE, I do this all day, let someone else handle it, and is happy to sit back and just watch her husband be hot and joyful with their kids. Just a thought.)