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saintsenara · 1 month ago

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How do you think memory charms work from a brain science perspective, and what might the implications of such technology be? Given the complexities of memory—how it works, its function (e.g., in identity formation, decision making, psychological well-being, etc.)—the fact that these spells are so routinely used on Muggles who witness magic—especially under traumatic circumstances—is so sinister…

thank you very much for the ask, pal! a very interesting question to think about!

as you say, memory is the central part of human experience. it's integral to who we are, why we understand ourselves to be that way, and how we function daily. without the ability to remember things we've learned or which have happened to us in the past, we don't have the ability to understand the present or plan for the future, or apply context to why we behave in or feel certain ways. memory is so important to our understanding of our own existence that many people would say losing it is the thing they fear most...

and i think there's a very credible case for jkr being one of them.

in its understanding of the body, the harry potter series prioritises cognitive function above all things.

physical illnesses, injuries, or disabilities don't upset or frighten it unduly. this is partially because its genre conventions need to take this approach to physical impairment in order for their plots to advance - harry being able to take a bludger to the head and live to tell the tale is the same as john wick being able to fall from the top of a six-storey building, get up, and keep going: they're action heroes, and the person following their exploits wants that action to continue.

but it's also because the series' central theme is choice - and, specifically, the choice between good and evil. this choice - as the books understand it - is something freely and rationally made, with no cognitive impairment preventing it.

[hence - as i've written about elsewhere - voldemort's horcruxes do not - despite common fanon - make him insane.]

as a result, injuries, disabilities, or experiences which lead to a loss of cognitive capacity - thereby making it impossible for choices to be freely made - are presented by the text as uniquely horrifying.

the revelation that frank and alice longbottom can't recognise neville after they're attacked by the lestranges brings a "bitterness harry had never heard there before" into dumbledore's voice.

lupin is primarily ashamed of the loss of rational thought his transformations bring, and the wolfsbane potion works by preventing this loss of rationality:

"As long as I take it in the week preceding the full moon, I keep my mind when I transform... I am able to curl up in my office, a harmless wolf, and wait for the moon to wane again. "Before the Wolfsbane Potion was discovered, however, I became a fully fledged monster once a month."

harry thinks that "bathilda bagshot" [really nagini in disguise] is starting to forget how to perform magic, and equates this loss of function with the dark, dank, foul-smelling house in which she lives.

ariana dumbledore's trauma-induced cognitive disability gradually ruins her family’s lives.

harry, our hero, is never, ever affected by the imperius curse.

and, of course, the dementor's kiss - which canon understands as the single most frightening thing which could ever befall somebody - brings about a state where bodily functions continue, but cognitive ones are lost:

"You can exist without your soul, you know, as long as your brain and heart are still working. But you'll have no sense of self anymore, no memory, no... anything. There's no chance at all of recovery. You'll just - exist. As an empty shell. And your soul is gone forever... lost."

as a result of this, canon presents memories as things which are straightforward and factual. while they may be interpreted subjectively - harry's horror at snape's worst memory, for example - they are - in and of themselves - objective accounts of events. the memories which harry views in the pensieve, for example, are not "witness statements" - subjective, personal accounts of how an individual experienced an event, which might be contradicted by another person's own subjective recollection - they are fact. what they say happened actually happened. sirius' version of snape's worst memory would be identical to snape's.

and canon understands that memories are - therefore - devoid of things like perception, assumption, imagination, habit, and emotion. indeed, these things are not only irrelevant to the memory... they are detrimental to it.

slughorn's attempt to modify his memory of telling tom riddle about horcruxes is because he wishes to soothe an emotion - shame, at giving riddle the information he needed to commit such evil and then not telling anyone - by presenting an imagined version of events in which he looks better. his attempt to apply these two things to the memory are what curdles it. what dumbledore is asking harry to do, in sending him out to retrieve the unmodified memory from slughorn, is to acquire the objective facts:

"He has tried to rework the memory to show himself in a better light, obliterating those parts which he does not wish me to see. It is, as you will have noticed, very crudely done, and that is all to the good, for it shows that the true memory is still there beneath the alterations."

in saying that slughorn's "true memory" remains accessible, what dumbledore is saying is that slughorn should be judged as having full cognitive capacity. he's compos mentis, he's of sound mind. if the true memory did not remain - if slughorn had managed to corrupt his memory to such an extent that he genuinely believed that his conversation with riddle had never occurred [rather than knowing it did but wishing he'd behaved differently and therefore pretending he had] - then he would, in the eyes of the series, be insane.

now... this - unsurprisingly - is not how human memory actually works. memory is fragile, inconsistent, and subjective. we forget things. we misremember things. we remember things through subjective lenses. we invent false memories.

but we can - nonetheless - use what we know about human memory to uncover a wizarding theory of memory formation which would explain why they think this way.

and why they feel so comfortable tampering with people's memories.

[and why this is horrifying.]

what are memories?

in canon, memories are presented as something tangible - wisps of silvery liquid. and memories actually are physical things - albeit absolutely microscopic ones - which take up physical space in the brain. they're just kept out of the way of our conscious awareness until we need them.

[basically, they're christmas lights in a box in the attic. they physically exist and they're physically present in the house, but they sit - turned off and with no attention being paid to them - until they're needed, when they're brought out of storage and switched on.]

they are made - like almost everything to do with the brain - from neurons, which are a type of cell. neurons work like the wires in a telephone exchange - they transmit chemical and electrical signals across the brain [and, therefore, across the body] in a vast, high-speed, interwoven network:

a digital model of the neural network from a sesame-seed-sized fragment of human brain. there are about 50,000 connections shown. [source]

a neuron receives a signal, which it then interprets. it then sends a response [or action potential] along its stem [axon].

at the end of the axon, there are synapses, which form a bridge to other neurons, linking a chain of communication together.

synapses are generally activated by chemicals called neurotransmitters - such as serotonin, melatonin, adrenaline, dopamine [which are likely to be the ones most people have heard of], and others.

so: neuron x receives a signal, interprets it, and transmits that interpretation as an electrical signal along its axon, causing the release of adrenaline into the synapse linking it to neuron y. this activates the connection between neurons x and y. the signal passes across the synapse into neuron y, which interprets it, and the process continues.

each neuron has thousands of synaptic connections to other neurons. and these connections aren't static - they get stronger or weaker depending on exposure. the more we use the connection, the stronger the connection is.

one way to think of this is to imagine the synaptic connection as a volume dial, which controls how loudly two neurons "talk" to each other. if the connection between neuron x and neuron y is very strong, the synaptic connection allows them to shout at each other, thereby understanding each other clearly. if the connection between neuron x and neuron y is very weak, they're only whispering to each other, are having to strain to hear each other, and will probably only partially hear the communicated information.

the brain will therefore prioritise the information it can "hear" the clearest. this is why, if you learn two pieces of information, and then revise the first piece of information every day for a month and do no revision of the second piece, you will find it much easier to recall the first piece when asked - the brain prioritises the "loudest" voice.

when we learn or experience something we create synaptic connections, linking neurons into circuits in an ever-changing map across the brain.

these circuits are memories.

remembering something is the process of activating a specific neuron cluster, thereby retrieving the information it contains and communicating it as an electrical signal to another part of the brain.

this process of remembering can be unconscious - a smell might prompt us to remember something without us actively intending to; when we write something, we're not consciously thinking about how we learned to write, we just do it - or conscious - we might sniff a particular perfume bottle in order to summon up a specific memory; we might intentionally decide to remember a day we spent writing in a particular place.

what are the different types of memory?

there are two main categories of memory - short-term and long-term.

short-term memory is the brain's capacity to actively hold onto a small amount of information [about four things, on average] for a brief period of time [and by brief we mean around 15 seconds - any memory which can be recalled after that period of time is a long-term one] in order to allow you to do things, like take down a telephone number.

long-term memory, in contrast, is something the brain possesses an infinite capacity for. it can be divided into two subcategories.

the first of these is implicit memory. this refers to recollections which are unconscious, habitual, primed, or conditioned. learned motor skills - things like holding a pen or riding a bike - which you can do without having to think about how [procedural memories] are an example of implicit memories. so are things we are conditioned to do via the association of an action with a stimulus - like pavlov's dogs salivating when they heard the ringing of the bell - and things we are primed to do by general knowledge or contextual experience - like being shown the word "bread" in a word association game and responding "butter" without having to actively think about why that connection exists for us.

the second is explicit memory, which refers to the conscious recollection of a specific thing. explicit memory has two subcategories: episodic memory - the recollection of events or experiences - and semantic memory - the recollection of knowledge or information.

i know that belfast is the capital of northern ireland and paris is the capital of france. these are semantic memories.

i know i went to a restaurant in belfast with my partner last week and that i went to watch the french open in paris with my friend this spring. these are episodic ones.

episodic memory is highly dependent on context and association - you can remember where you parked your car by thinking about the shop you parked next to - some of which is semantic memory in its own right - you can tell that your friend has misremembered a story they're telling about your teenage years because you know you were sixteen when the event took place, your friend is talking about driving, and you possess the semantic knowledge that the legal driving age in the united kingdom is seventeen.

explicit memory is the aspect of memory most clearly affected by conditions like alzheimer's disease, while implicit memories tend to be recalled for much longer.

explicit memory is also the thing most clearly affected in canon by memory charms...

how are explicit memories formed?

at its most basic level, the brain is divided into three parts - the cerebrum, brainstem, and cerebellum. the cerebrum is the thing we’re concerned with today.

its main part - comprising about half of the brain’s weight - is the cortex, which is the wrinkly surface you probably picture when you hear the word “brain”. the cerebral cortex is divided into two hemispheres. each hemisphere has four lobes [so you have eight lobes in total] which relate to specific functions.

[here's a video of a dissection of a real human brain - if you fancy it - which goes into its anatomy in more detail]

nestled in each hemisphere of the cerebrum are several deeper structures.

in the temporal lobe, we find two of these structures - the hippocampus and the amygdala - which are crucial to memory formation. we have one of these in each hemisphere [so two hippocampi and two amygdalae in total] as part of our limbic system - a group of brain structures that regulate things like our sense of smell, emotions, memories, and autonomic behaviours [heart rate, breathing, sweating, etc.].

[here's a dissection of the limbic system, again - fair warning! - using a real human brain]

the hippocampus

when our brain decides it wants to hold onto a piece of information, it's channelled from the prefrontal cortex [in the frontal lobe], which controls short-term memory functions, to the hippocampus, which is then responsible for linking all of the relevant context surrounding the information together - like it's making a patchwork quilt.

let's go back to the example of being asked to take down a phone number. and let's imagine that the person who asks us to take down the phone number is also our fandom-style soulmate. several pieces of information will be created in the brain at once - the memory of being asked to take down the number, the memory of physically doing that, the sensory input of what our soulmate looks, sounds, and smells like, other sensory inputs [what the broader environment looks, sounds, and smells like; the fact we're drinking a coffee; the fact we're wearing a scratchy jumper], the emotion of knowing we've met our soulmate - which are then sewn together by the hippocampus into a coherent, linear account of what occurred.

the hippocampus is selective - it's more likely, even in an episodic memory as emotionally powerful as this one would be, to hold onto information which is comprehensible to it [so, for example, if a song is playing when you meet your soulmate, but its lyrics are in a language you don’t understand, it's less likely to retain that as a key part of its account than if it's a song you understand and, especially, a song you already know and like].

it's also inventive - it will fill in gaps in the recollection of an episode. these inventions are often logical and based on both your semantic knowledge and parts of your implicit memory. for example, in the memory of being a child and going to hospital to meet your new baby brother, he is likely to be wearing a blue hat. it is highly unlikely that you actually remember the colour of the hat he was wearing - especially if you were quite young - but your brain settles on blue to fill that gap in your recollection because it knows you were raised in a culture which associates the colour blue with baby boys.

but they're also subjective. you may, for example, have more than one memory of the same event - with each memory's patchwork quilt having a slightly different pattern. to go back to the memory of meeting your soulmate, you might have one version of the memory which was stored by your brain on the day you first met, in which the thing you primarily remember is how nervous and awkward you were and how you were worried your soulmate didn't actually like you. you might then have a second version of the memory which is altered by contextual information you learned after the first version was created - after your soulmate asks you to marry them, for example, you are less likely to dwell on the parts of the first memory which are about worrying they didn't like you.

while the hippocampus is integral for the formation of long-term explicit and implicit memories, it's not the place where these long-term memories are permanently stored. instead, long-term memories appear to migrate [or awaken] from the hippocampus throughout the cerebral cortex, and to become progressively more independent of it over time. when it comes to explicit memories, the older, stronger, or deeper a memory is the more likely its independence from the hippocampus will be.

we know this because of a man called henry molaison, who had most of his hippocampus surgically removed in the 1950s in an effort to treat his epilepsy. following his operation, molaison was only able to form new episodic memories which lasted for less than a minute before they vanished forever from his consciousness, and essentially lived every single day as brand new, with no context surrounding it. the exception to this rule was that he could recall memories relating to significant experiences in his life which he'd formed years - and often decades - before his surgery. he could also recall certain facts - semantic memories - which he'd already known, but he couldn't form new semantic knowledge.

semantic memory also appears to become progressively independent of the hippocampus over time, much like implicit memories we have acquired through conditioning or priming. for example, the memory of the first time we drank a coffee while tired transforms into the general knowledge that drinking coffee generally helps us with tiredness, bolstered by the semantic knowledge that caffeine is a stimulant.

the amygdala

in the analogy of memory formation as being like creating a patchwork quilt, the amygdala is responsible for one of the most important squares the hippocampus sews together: the emotional significance of the memory.

this is one of the most important bits of context which the hippocampus applies to its account of a memory. the more emotive a memory is, the more likely it is to be remembered.

and this isn’t just the case when it comes to specific episodic memories - such as remembering your wedding day, or the time you were in a car accident. it applies to semantic memory - if i tell you that paris is the capital of france and then punch you in the face, you’ll remember it - and to implicit conditioned and primed memories.

imagine you are three years old, you're in the park, and you meet a dog. the dog is on a lead, calm, quiet, and well trained. you are asked if you'd like to pet it and you say yes. the dog is happy to be petted - it wags its tail and it licks your hand - and you enjoy the experience and start laughing.

the hippocampus takes care of the "bullet points" of this event - the actions and the order in which they occurred, where they took place, and so on. the amygdala assigns an emotional response to the specific episodic memory - that is, when you recall it later, you will feel happy - and to the implicit memory you have accrued from the experience - that is, the next time you see a dog, even if it's not the dog you petted, your brain will be automatically primed to feel calm, safe, and happy.

and now imagine you are three years old, you're in the park, and you meet a dog. the dog is loose, agitated, barking, and much bigger than you. it bounds up to you while you're playing and knocks you to the ground. it growls and you see its teeth. you're afraid and start crying.

the same process occurs, but with a fear response. the hippocampus remembers what happened and in what order, the amygdala remembers how the specific memory made you feel and extrapolates from this to assign that feeling to your implicit memory. the next time you see a dog, even if the dog is on a lead and behaving perfectly calmly, your brain will be automatically primed to feel afraid.

and this reference to fear is important. as i've said, the brain prioritises remembering emotional memories… but it prioritises remembering stressful and/or frightening emotional memories above all other kinds. and it also tends to really cling on to things we have acquired by fear learning - the process by which we unconsciously associate a stimulus with a frightening event.

to return to the scenario above, if you met the nice dog first and then met the frightening dog later, your brain would prioritise the memory of the frightening dog. if you met the frightening dog first and then met the nice dog later, your brain would still prioritise the memory of the frightening dog. and even if you lose the ability to recall the specific episodic memory of meeting the specific frightening dog, your brain would still remember that it was afraid of dogs in general.

the amygdala plays a major role in this fear learning and fear-based recall. and it does this via channels of communication which don't need to involve the hippocampus - it communicates bi-directionally with the cerebral cortex, both with and without the hippocampus also being part of the conversation.

and this has an enormous implication for our wizarding theory of memory.

and so - at last - we come to...

the neuroscience of memory charms

we know from canon that memory charms focus on the removal of explicit memories - and, specifically, the explicit episodic memories which the series understands as objective snapshots of events.

we also know that short-term memory and implicit memory can experience collateral damage when the explicit memory is removed - especially if the charm is performed poorly. we learn in order of the phoenix, for example, that gilderoy lockhart lost the ability to write [an implicit procedural memory] after his charm backfired, and has had to undergo something akin to physical therapy [the way someone who'd received a head injury would] in order to regain this motor skill:

"I'm very well indeed, thank you!" said Lockhart exuberantly, pulling a rather battered peacock-feather quill from his pocket. "Now, how many autographs would you like? I can do joined-up writing now, you know!"

we also know that the recovery of an implicit behaviour - his fondness for signing autographs, a response based in an unconscious assumption he makes whenever he meets anyone [that they're a fan] - is taken by his healers as a sign that his self-perception is stabilising:

"He was rather well known a few years ago; we very much hope that this liking for giving autographs is a sign that his memory might be coming back a little bit... This is our long-term resident ward... For permanent spell damage, you know. Of course, with intensive remedial potions and charms and a bit of luck, we can produce some improvement... Gilderoy does seem to be getting back some sense of himself."

crucially, we see here no expectation that any specific memories - episodic memories, canon's factual accounts which prove someone to be of sound mind - will return. what the healer means by "his memory might be coming back a little bit" is something general. a memory charm - as the text understands it - affects something discrete.

but lockhart also shows us that the specific episodic memory impacted by a charm isn't deleted from the brain. it remains in storage - and, therefore, retains the potential to be reactivated.

and he also shows us that this potential reactivation is very likely to depend on an emotional stimulus, especially a negative one:

The smile faded slowly from Lockhart’s face. For a few moments he gazed intently at Harry, then he said, "Haven't we met?" "Er... yeah, we have," said Harry. "You used to teach us at Hogwarts, remember?" "Teach?" repeated Lockhart, looking faintly unsettled. "Me? Did I?" And then the smile reappeared upon his face so suddenly it was rather alarming. "Taught you everything you know, I expect, did I? Well, how about those autographs, then? Shall we say a round dozen, you can give them to all your little friends then and nobody will be left out!"

lockhart clearly associates a stimulus - something to do with harry - with a fear response [probably from being frogmarched at wandpoint and forced to jump into a hole]. this emotional context calls out to an episodic memory it has been severed from, but can't get there and falls silent again, drowned out by the louder activity of the implicit memory, telling lockhart to talk about autographs because these are fans.

so lockhart hasn't lost this specific episodic memory - he just can't access it. from this, we can conclude that memory charms block communication across synaptic connections, thereby preventing a memory from being retrieved.

and we can also conclude that - since wizards regard episodic memories as objective, factual accounts of events, which are unaffected by things like perception, assumption, imagination, habit, and emotion - they only understand the formation of these memories as they happen in the hippocampus. and, specifically, that they understand memory formation only as the hippocampus ordering events into a coherent, linear account - which they regard as objectively correct. we can further conclude that they do not understand anything other than this ordering of events as forming part of the episodic memory process, and, therefore, that they do not understand memory charms as needing to affect anything other than these "factual" snapshots.

which means that a memory charm will block the retrieval of the "bullet points" of an episodic memory from the hippocampus - and, therefore, someone whose memory has been modified won't remember the specific order of events surrounding the memory.

but it won't block the other bits of information - other patches of the quilt of the memory - from being retrieved. it will just remove them from their context.

and - right on the canon page - we learn that this failure to remove anything other than the bullet points, even in memory charms which are accurately and skilfully performed, makes the experience of having a modified memory profoundly disorienting to the person affected.

we see this - for example - in the case of morfin gaunt:

"So the Ministry called upon Morfin. They did not need to question him, to use Veritaserum or Legilimency. He admitted to the murder on the spot, giving details only the murderer could know. He was proud, he said, to have killed the Muggles, had been awaiting his chance all these years. He handed over his wand, which was proved at once to have been used to kill the Riddles. And he permitted himself to be led off to Azkaban without a fight. All that disturbed him was the fact that his father's ring had disappeared. 'He'll kill me for losing it,' he told his captors over and over again. 'He'll kill me for losing his ring.' And that, apparently, was all he ever said again. He lived out the remainder of his life in Azkaban, lamenting the loss of Marvolo's last heirloom, and is buried beside the prison, alongside the other poor souls who have expired within its walls."

morfin's verbal tic is a manifestation of a emotional response which now lacks any other context - the fear caused by his nephew visiting him, on the day the riddles were murdered, and incapacitating him [in a way which would allow him to steal his wand] just before the crime took place. in repeating it, what he's saying is "i know i didn't do this, even though i confessed, but i can't explain how i know this, and i am afraid".

and we know that dumbledore is able to use this emotional clue as the end of a line of string, which he can then follow back across deactivated synaptic connections to the suppressed [and, in canon's view, objective] episodic memory of tom riddle meeting his uncle:

"But he had this real memory in him all the time!" "Yes, but it took a great deal of skilled Legilimency to coax it out of him," said Dumbledore, "and why should anybody delve further into Morfin's mind when he had already confessed to the crime? However, I was able to secure a visit to Morfin in the last weeks of his life, by which time I was attempting to discover as much as I could about Voldemort's past. I extracted this memory with difficulty. When I saw what it contained, I attempted to use it to secure Morfin's release from Azkaban. Before the Ministry reached their decision, however, Morfin had died."

we see something similar in voldemort's treatment of bertha jorkins:

"But Wormtail - displaying a presence of mind I would never have expected from him - convinced Bertha Jorkins to accompany him on a nighttime stroll. He overpowered her... he brought her to me. And Bertha Jorkins, who might have ruined all, proved instead to be a gift beyond my wildest dreams... for - with a little persuasion - she became a veritable mine of information. "She told me that the Triwizard Tournament would be played at Hogwarts this year. She told me that she knew of a faithful Death Eater who would be only too willing to help me, if I could only contact him. She told me many things... but the means I used to break the Memory Charm upon her were powerful, and when I had extracted all useful information from her, her mind and body were both damaged beyond repair. She had now served her purpose. I could not possess her. I disposed of her."

something we are told about bertha jorkins across goblet of fire - including by both sirius and dumbledore, characters the doylist narrative of this book trusts to be telling the truth - is that she loved gossip. and this - feeling intrigued in, scandalised by, and excited by a piece of information - is an emotional response.

voldemort - like dumbledore - seizes on this emotional component as the end of a line of string. bertha provides him with a piece of semantic information - the triwizard tournament is to be played - which makes her think of piece of general information - she knows barty crouch sr., who is organising it - which causes an emotional response which places the string in his hand - barty crouch sr. = scandal. voldemort then follows that string across deactivated synaptic connections to the suppressed [and, in canon's view, objective] episodic memory of bertha discovering that barty crouch jr. [about whom she possessed various contextual information, such as the fact that he was found guilty of being a death eater] was alive.

ergo, memory charms block the point-by-point recollection of specific episodic memories, unless someone is determined either to do a lot of careful forensic work or to commit murder.

but they do nothing to block the additional context - above all, the emotional context - which is so important to memory formation and recollection. and this is what makes the casual use of them - especially the casual use of them on muggles - so terrifying. because their efficacy is dramatically reduced in circumstances where a memory has an emotional context.

and witnessing someone performing actual magic would undoubtedly inspire quite a strong emotional response...

the circumstances in which they work well will be those like tom riddle sr.'s run-in with morfin. the ministry response to the incident is speedy, which means the memory hasn't been consolidated for long-term storage beyond the hippocampus. the incident seems to be the first time riddle ever interacts with morfin - meaning that he doesn't retain a conditioned implicit response that morfin is frightening or dangerous. riddle talks about the gaunts in a way that suggests he thinks they're funny and ridiculous, laughs at bob ogden as he's chased from the shack, and is happy riding along the lane where he was attacked, which shows that he didn't develop a fear response to the incident [nor, indeed, any significant emotional response at all]. preventing him from recalling this memory is simple, and it has no repercussions.

[in terms of his brain health, that is. obviously, it has a major repercussion in that it removes any pre-warning he might have given himself about merope…]

but outside of this context - in which the ministry essentially gets incredibly lucky that riddle sr.'s brain reacts in the only way which actually makes them viable - memory charms are clearly nowhere near as effective as wizards seem to think.

because, when it comes to people's strongest, deepest memories, the only thing being removed is the ability to run through the summary of events - to go down a checklist of what happened, and to contextualise an emotional response [for instance] by situating it within the account of the event which triggered it. the emotions these memories provoke, and the way in which they're bound up into the knowledge which helps us understand our place in the world, remain. all that happens is that these feelings can't be situated in a point-by-point context which explains how they might have occurred.

and so, to come to the memory charm the series thinks is noble and benign... what hermione does to her parents is remove the bullet points surrounding the most important memories of their lives from their heads, leaving profound, lingering emotional responses, which respond to stimuli even though the grangers can't understand why...

when she says that they don't know they have a daughter, what she means is that they don't remember the list of events which proved that fact to be true. mrs granger doesn't remember that she took a pregnancy test which was positive, mr granger doesn't remember that he witnessed hermione being born, neither of them remember taking her to the cinema to see the little mermaid, or buying her first school shoes, or taking her to see her grandparents on her sixth birthday.

but the evidence of canon is that the emotions attached to these events - and the unconscious knowledge which emerges from them - would remain.

and this is why hermione's modification of her parents' memories is an example of the series' black-and-white, protagonist-centred morality which i absolutely loathe. not because the watsonian text isn't horrified by it [why would harry know how memory charms work] but because the doylist text handwaves it away as something easily reversed [via jkr saying that hermione immediately restored her parents' memories the second the war was over] which left no adverse effects.

because - sure - i'm not quibbling with the need to think of hermione's decision to wipe her parents' memories as necessary, but it needs to be understood as one of those horrific choices which only become necessary because the alternative is worse.

and this necessity doesn't erase the fact that what hermione does to her parents is meaningfully no different from what bellatrix and company do to the longbottoms. we see that alice longbottom retains the emotional context to a memory - she knows that she loves neville and wants to give him a present - even if she no longer remembers who he is and what his relationship is to her. the same thing will have happened to the grangers.

and so "monica wilkins" might have found herself driving down a street in suburban melbourne one december afternoon when a christmas song came on the radio… and for reasons she doesn't understand, she burst into tears… and she went home and started making dinner… and she'd adapted the recipe she was using so it didn't have any coriander in it… but she doesn't know why, because she likes coriander just fine, and so does her husband… and then "wendall" came in, and she told him about her strange experience… and he said that he turned on the tv and meet me in st louis was showing and he had to change the channel because he thought he was going to cry… and this made them both intensely uneasy… because they've got no reason to behave so strangely… so irrationally... they don't have any memories associated with that song or that film… right?

but that's because they don't remember the facts of how their only daughter - who's got the coriander-tastes-like-soap gene - only lasted two days of a family skiing trip in december 1995, even though they hadn't spent any significant time with her since august 1994, before she swanned off back into a magical world which seemed to be robbing them of her piece by piece.

they can only remember how sad it made them feel.

#asks answered #asenora meta #real special interest hours who's up?

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starfieldcanvas · 4 months ago

Note

So if it's not Paladin of Souls, which is the Lois McMaster Bujold book you talked about in your notes? I'm curious 😊

The Sharing Knife! It's a four-book fantasy series in a setting based on the Great Lakes region. I was clueless enough the first time around (and so heavily used to vague-medieval-renaissance-Europe-expy fantasy settings) I didn't realize it the first time I read the series, but it's very obvious once you think about it at all, and sometime in the last two years my library updated the audiobook covers from the original "beautiful high-effort romance novel painting where they're both white" style to the "expressionless racially ambiguous cutouts that make the setting explicit" style:

(These are the same book.)

It's a story about fantasy Native Americans ("Lakewalkers") and fantasy white settlers ("farmers"). The actual cosmology and history of the fantasy world is very different from our own—everyone is native to the same continent, and have been living in roughly the same area for at least a few hundred years—so the politics of settler vs. native don't actually apply in the same way. However, the tension of "people who share the land" vs "people who parcel off the land to sell" is still very present, as is the tension of quasi-nomadic groups with seasonal camp rotations vs. people who stay in place and build large towns with industrial capacity.

And then, of course, there's the magic. The Lakewalkers have limited hereditary magic powers, plus magic monsters they're sworn to fight; the farmers have no magic and no defense against it either. Farmers tend to mistrust Lakewalkers and misunderstand Lakewalker magic; Lakewalkers keep the secrets of their powers under wraps and often look down on farmers as a kind of invasive pest species. As I mentioned in my tags, Lakewalkers' most important magical tools involve someone choosing the time of their death—though typically only when already dying of terminal illness, old age, or a mortal wound.

If you love the movie Ever After like I do, you may remember the part where Danielle says to Leonardo, "A bird may love a fish, Signore, but where would they live?" The Sharing Knife is a series about a bird (Lakewalker) and a fish (farmer) that get engaged halfway through the first book and then spend the next three and a half books figuring out where the hell they're going to live...and slowly realizing they may have to remake society in order to find their place in it.

Even the book where they first get together is not really what you'd call a romance novel, but every book in the series is a lot more focused on a central romantic relationship than most fantasy adventure books, so it's interesting from a genre perspective. "Established relationship" is normally my second-least favorite AO3 (my least favorite being major character death) but the political and magical worldbuilding, and the family dynamics on both sides, kept me very invested even with the amount of meandering domesticity on display throughout the books.

There are some potential triggers to ask about if you have common trauma triggers, and the main romance has a pretty big age gap, which I know is a turn-off for some. But if you ever found yourself asking "why is the Wizarding World's excuse for keeping muggles in the dark so fucking flimsy?" or "how the hell does Wei Wuxian stand living in the Cloud Recesses when most of Lan Wangji's sect hates him?" or "why aren't more fantasy authors as obsessed with craft skills as Tamora Pierce" or "why aren't there more permanently disabled fantasy protagonists who actually have to cope with the limitations created by their disability?" or "why aren't there more fantasy protagonists who genuinely lack magical powers?" then this may be the book series for you.

#i think there are also some short stories set after the main 4 books?#i have not been able to track them down yet #the sharing knife #fandom #dove.txt #asked and answered #the written word #commentary #tropes on parade #lois mcmaster bujold #then once you've read the sharing knife you have all of the vorkosigan saga waiting for you #the week i read that series was the same week my husband got obsessed with persona 5 #neither of us were online all week. my best friend thought i was dead #anyway. bujold is good #try her

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carewyncromwell · 3 months ago

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McGonagall 🤝 Carewyn

in memory of Maggie Smith...rest in peace, sweet queen

The Battle of Hogwarts was hard-fought. With how many casualties there had been and how much the school had been damaged, it was inevitable that it would take a very long time before things would be as they once were. If nothing else, those poor students who had had to start at Hogwarts the year the Death Eaters took over would have to pretty much start all over again from the Defense Against the Dark Arts and Muggle Studies perspective, since everything they'd learned from the Carrows was both completely useless and incorrect. And that wasn't even touching just how hard it would be for the student body to find contentment and peace again after such a traumatic school year.

Hogwarts needed strong leadership, if it hoped to get through such a difficult time. Fortunately the school was in very good hands, with Minerva McGonagall as its Headmistress. There was truly no one better to take charge in Carewyn Cromwell's mind that her old Deputy Headmistress.

"Phoenix ashes," Carewyn stated the password that she'd received in her most recent letter.

At once the gargoyle moved aside, allowing her access to the Headmistress's Office. As she climbed the stairs, the Ministry's star lawyer caught the sound of two familiar voices.

"...word to Kingsley on the matter?" asked a very dreamy, serene male voice.

"I daresay our new Minister will have more than enough on his plate at present," said a much crisper, sterner female voice, before she exhaled. "But yes, I suppose I will have to. It's hardly a wonder last NEWT season was so disheveled: some retesting will be inevitable, under the circumstances..."

As Carewyn reached the landing, she found tall, austere Minerva McGonagall standing at the far back left of the office, speaking to the portrait of her old friend and mentor, Albus Dumbledore. The Headmistress had her graying dark hair tied back in a very tight bun as always, and she was dressed in high-necked black and red tartan robes. She had her back to Carewyn when she entered, which meant that Dumbledore's portrait caught sight of the red-haired Slytherin alumnus first.

"Hello, Carewyn," he said with a bright twinkle in his painted eyes.

Carewyn's red lips came together tightly. It was the first time she'd seen Dumbledore's portrait in the office. The last time she'd seen the man himself was nearly a year prior to his death -- hell, even the last letter she'd received from him had come through a good two years ago now.

"...Hello, Professor," she said stiffly.

She turned to McGonagall and her expression relaxed, seeing the small smile touching the older woman's features.

"Hello, Miss Cromwell."

"It's been a while, Professor."

"Indeed it has," said McGonagall. "I believe this is the first time we’ve spoken since I visited your flat at the start of the War…"

Carewyn nodded. She glanced around the Headmistress's office — it hadn’t changed that dramatically since she’d been there last, but there were a few things that felt off. Obviously the portrait of Dumbledore was new; there were a few magical instruments that had been replaced on the many shelves. The thing that caught Carewyn's eye, however, was the empty roost which years before had hosted Dumbledore’s familiar, Fawkes the phoenix.

McGonagall followed Carewyn's gaze, and her expression grew a bit more solemn.

"Fawkes left Hogwarts the night Albus died," she said, her eyes flitting back to Dumbledore's portrait as he swept out of it and out of sight. "Neither I nor anyone else I know of has seen him since."

Carewyn bowed her head. "I daresay with how loyal he was to Dumbledore, Fawkes will mourn him longer than anyone else."

McGonagall sighed. "Yes..."

Her eyes behind her glasses appeared misty and dark — Carewyn could sense a wave of nostalgia coming off of her, as well as a Dumbledore-shaped shadow sweeping silently around the office they now occupied. Even so, as she crossed the room back over to her desk, the Headmistress walked with purpose and pride in her shoulders.

"I lament you were unable to pay your respects, after what happened," said McGonagall, "but I suppose the role you played for the Order would have been compromised by your attendance?"

Carewyn frowned uncomfortably as she looked away.

"My Legilimency has…made it more difficult for me to be in tight proximity with lots of people. And people in mourning, especially people I knew…it would've been a struggle to act detached from Bill and the others, in the midst of that. With Umbridge and Scrimgeour in attendance as potential witnesses, I couldn't risk that loss of composure, if I wanted them to think I wasn't aligned with the Order."

Her blue eyes darkened.

"…Even coming to Hogwarts, after the Battle…even when separated from everyone by walls, the emotions were so loud and painful that I could barely stand."

McGonagall’s face gained a bit more compassion. "I see…"

The Headmistress indicated the chair on the other side of her desk. Carewyn accepted the mute offer and sat down.

"Would you like some tea?" asked McGonagall.

"That'd be lovely, thank you."

The Headmistress waved her wand. In a moment, a teapot had bounced off of a nearby table with a newly formed pair of legs and up onto the desk, little splashes of tea spilling out the top as it went. Not far behind it came two teacups, also bounding up onto the desk in front of Carewyn and McGonagall, respectively. McGonagall let the teapot pour its own contents into their cups as she flipped open a lid on a box to reveal a batch of Ginger Newts, which she placed down between them so Carewyn could reach them.

"I did visit his tomb on my way in today, though," said Carewyn. She picked up her newly full cup with a quickly murmured "thank you" to the enchanted teapot. "Mum asked me to drop off some flowers, for her."

"Albus would've appreciated that," said McGonagall. "He always spoke fondly of Lane…and of you and Jacob, as well. He does as well," she added, indicating the empty frame of Dumbledore's portrait with a nod of her head.

Carewyn eyed the empty frame too, but more beadily. However fond he may have been of them, Dumbledore had still expelled Jacob in a misguided attempt to protect Hogwarts from R, and that was something that even now Carewyn couldn'’'t forgive.

“How is Jacob?” asked McGonagall more solemnly. "I know he suffered his fair share of loss in the final Battle."

"He's doing as well as he can,” Carewyn said, grateful for the caring. "As we all are, after everyone we've lost in this War…"

The faces of Tonks, Lupin, Amelia Bones, Mad-Eye Moody, Fred, and Dobby ran over her memory as she glanced around the office again, her eyes lingering on the many portraits hung up on the walls.

For a brief moment, Carewyn had wondered if there would’ve been another portrait added of the Headmaster who had taken charge of Hogwarts for most of the last term — but, she reminded herself, someone would likely have to actively choose to put a portrait of him in the office for him to be there. And she had trouble thinking of anyone who'd want to hang a portrait of Severus Snape on Hogwarts grounds, after everything…

McGonagall’s own expression had become rather sad as she folded her hands on her desk.

"I daresay it will be a long time before we fully heal from all the pain we have suffered. Before our whole World heals..."

Her face then grew more serious again.

"...Fortunately, from what I understand, we've started on the proper path towards that. Is it true you've accepted the role of Chief Prosecutor, for the Ministry's upcoming trials?"

Carewyn nodded. "Minister Shacklebolt offered the role to me this last Tuesday. There's still a lot of work to do before we start, but all of the suspects the Ministry seeks to try are already in custody, so at least we don't have to worry about them causing any further damage. All we have to do now is prove the extent of their crimes..." Her eyes hardened. "...And I intend to make sure they all face justice — every last one of them.”

"I have no doubt of that, Miss Cromwell." Something proud seemed to flicker across McGonagall’s features. "If there's one thing Barty Crouch did not have while pursuing justice against Voldemort's supporters, it was a strong moral compass…and that is something you've never lacked."

Carewyn wasn’t able to fight back the flinch at the Dark Lord’s name; even now that he was dead, he remained her greatest fear, and the habit of not using his name was hard to break. Even so, she smiled slightly.

"…I appreciate the support, Professor. It'll take time to give everyone a thorough trial, but there are some who it'll be far easier to try and convict quickly. Those captured after the Battle of Hogwarts, primarily — I would say there is little to no defense anyone could offer for the likes of Alecto and Amycus Carrow."

McGonagall scoffed. "I doubt those savage simpletons would see any reason to excuse their behavior, as opposed to justify it."

Carewyn snorted in agreement. "The Malfoys, on the other hand, might require more deliberation…particularly Narcissa." She took a sip of tea. "...Then there are those suspects who will undoubtedly claim innocence and coercion, whether it's true or not — Dolores Umbridge, for instance."

McGonagall gave a louder scoff than ever.

"Oh yes, I'm quite sure she'll try," she said spitefully. "I do hope your case will be robust enough to contradict that?"

"Don't worry," said Carewyn with a cold smile, "I have a large file of evidence against Umbridge, and it should be more than enough to condemn her. If you want to submit your own testimony as to her sadistic character, though, I'd be happy to include it in my prosecution," she added with a larger smirk.

"You may expect it by tomorrow," McGonagall said very coolly.

"Much obliged," Carewyn said with a grin.

She put down her cup of tea so she could fetch a Ginger Newt from the open tin. She took a bite, chewing slowly as she considered her next words.

"...Professor...may I ask your opinion on something?"

McGonagall raised her eyebrows. "You may certainly ask it. Though I must confess, I'm pleasantly surprised to hear you openly asking for advice."

"I don't intend to make a habit of it," Carewyn said with a light huff. Glancing away, she then admitted a bit more seriously, "...It's just...you've had to look after a lot of children as if they were yours, even if they weren't. And well...I find myself in the position that I might have to, as well."

McGonagall peered at Carewyn over her tea with interest. "Oh?"

Carewyn smiled uncomfortably, her eyes averted as she rested her hand holding the Ginger Newt on the desk.

"...I...want to foster a child," she confessed.

McGonagall blinked in surprise.

"His name is Erik Apollo," Carewyn explained. "He's one of the children I'm representing before the Wizengamot, demanding compensation. He was orphaned, cursed, and rounded up by the Muggle-Born Registration Commission during the War -- he only just barely avoided getting chucked into Azkaban, after Umbridge's trumped-up trial of him. He's twelve years old, set to start at Hogwarts this September as a first year. His home was wrecked and he has no other family. He needs somewhere stable to live in the Wizarding World, while he attends school..."

"And you wish to provide him that?" presumed McGonagall.

Carewyn nodded very firmly. "I do."

"Hm..." McGonagall's face had warmed significantly. "...Well, Miss Cromwell, I think that is a truly noble and generous thing for you to do. I would be happy to give you any counsel you wish."

She then smiled a bit more wryly.

"And I sincerely hope your new ward gets up to less trouble than you or your brother got up to, when he arrives here this September."

Carewyn laughed.

Friendship Drabble Prompt!

#hphm #hogwarts mystery #my writing #friendship drabbles #carewyn cromwell #minerva mcgonagall #maggie smith #in memoriam #rest in peace #erik apollo #jacob cromwell #lane cromwell #albus dumbledore #dolores umbridge

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mvnvgedmischief · 9 months ago

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evergreen

tags: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Marlene McKinnon/Dorcas Meadowes, Marlene McKinnon, Dorcas Meadowes, Sirius Black, Remus Lupin, Lesbian Marlene McKinnon, Butch Marlene McKinnon, femme dorcas meadowes, Butch/Femme, Alternate Universe - Non-Magical, Alternate Universe - no Wizarding War, No War AU, Period-Typical Homophobia, 1980s, Original Character(s), Minor Original Character(s), mechanic marlene mckinnon, Healer Dorcas Meadowes, marlene has a lesbian posse that she hangs out with, one of whom took her in when she ran away dorcas and friends have all felt pretty abandoned by her, there is indeed some gay s*x

summary: Marlene Mckinnon used to be one of the most promising witches at Hogwarts. she used to have friends, she used to have dreams, she used to have a lot of things, but none of those things were authentic. Running away seemed like the only option, so that was what she did. She built a life in muggle London, with friends who cared about her, a job that fulfilled her, and found herself. She found a way to express herself, and her butchness, without fear of whispers and hexes, and without fear of her friends finding out. Now, seven years later, everything has changed. But her world was about to shift once more, when she found a familiar, beautiful, stranger out one night with her friends.

words: 16,411 chapters: 4/16

this is a butch/femme fic predominantly from marlene’s perspective! this is a no war au, in which marlene has become a muggle mechanic. she has a muggle friend group, and has integrated herself into muggle life, after running away seven years ago in the midst of her final year at hogwarts. dorcas is a healer at st mungo’s, living a life without her best friend for seven years. how will things change when marlene’s past confronts her, and the two lives collide?

read it on ao3 here!

On her way home, Marlene felt like she was floating. She had no idea how she had ended up here, but she was so excited to be in this position, rekindling any kind of relationship with Dorcas. The only thing she didn’t know was how to actually navigate it. This was where she tended to defer to Mac. She didn’t always know how to deal with people who weren’t her inner circle. This confusion felt like a more pleasant version of what she had gone through with Shelby three years earlier. Shelby was definitely not on her shortlist of people to discuss this with, for fear of having to face one too many of her previous shortfalls.

Shelby. Shelby was once in the same position Dorcas found herself in the other night, a beautiful stranger who caught Marlne’s eye. She was a baby then, not knowing all of the subtleties of how a femme courts a butch, and vice versa. But then again, ten months into dating, Shelby found out she didn’t know them either, because she realized that her presentation was fitting her like a dress that was too tight. Marlene loved butches, but not the way Shelby did. Shelby was Marlene’s first experience with someone who was butch for butch in her personal life. She had seen it in the Gateway, she knew that was a predilection some lesbians had, but she had never met anyone who felt that way. But as Shelby changed the way she walked through the world, their relationship evolved from partners to best friends. Shelby became Marlene’s first baby butch, they spent nights sharing the secrets of their respective objects of affection. Mac taught Marlene how to be butch, but in many ways, Shelby taught Marlene how to love a femme. Right now, she was thankful for the training.

I missed you. The words rang in Marlene’s ears her entire way home. Sure, she could have apperated home. But the walk in the fresh air would do her well. Plus, if she was honest, she wanted to walk by the river, to just think. It was hard for her to figure out how to make this work if it even could. Reintegrating Dorcas into her life was going to be difficult if it was even something she wanted. It felt unfair to her, the way her heart skipped a beat in her chest when she thought about the way Cas twirled her hair around her fingers or the way the sun caught her eyes. She remembered the way it felt to fall deeply into those deep brown eyes, to focus on the little glints of gold that were the purest form of magic. How would she be able to handle this, to explain the way that Cas pulled her in like a gravitational force? Mac would want to know everything. How would she explain? She was lucky for the way no one asked questions. But Cas was an unknown. There was no story that Marlene could come up with that explained how they knew each other and didn’t expose her.

She arrived at her home, seeing yet another letter from Dorcas, and an owl sitting on her window sill. God, Dorcas was going to need to get a landline if they were going to keep talking. Either that or Dorcas would need to start begging James and Sirius for their two-way mirrors so she could talk to this bloke she fancied. She wondered if Dorcas would do either of those things or find her way of communicating with a bit less intensity than by owl.

When will I see you again? I really would love to see you.

♡ Dorcas

Marlene smiled softly as she read over the letter, grabbing a pen to scrawl out a reply. Her chicken scratch handwriting hadn’t changed much since they last saw each other, and she hoped that it would bring Dorcas the same level of nostalgic joy as the woman’s bubble letters brought Marlene.

Cas,

I’d love to take you on a proper muggle date. I could do tomorrow night? I have work but after?

♡ Mckinnon

Marlene lit a few scented candles in her home and put on No Need to Argue. Perhaps Marlene’s love of the Cranberries was influenced by her memories of dancing with Dorcas and a bottle of fire whiskey in her youth, listening to whatever music the Gryffindor boys brought back to the dorm. She remembered the way that Sirius and Lily would make fun of her for bringing the enemy into their quarters. Dorcas was so carefree in those days, and Marlene had always been so jealous. She wished she felt like she fit in the way that Dorcas always had. Now she knew that Dorcas must have felt out of place, at least sometimes, but that envy of her youth had burned for a long time.

Even now, she felt some of it. Cas had found a way to hide in plain sight. Marlene could never achieve that. Not when it came with so many compromises she had no way of achieving. Skirts were just one part of the pathetic equation. Worse still were the lies, which stacked up around her like bills and broken hearts. She didn’t know how to keep up with lying about everything. Perhaps that was the biggest reason she ran. It was one thing to pretend she had a crush on a bloke. It was completely another to hold back from Cas, and even more heart-wrenching was pretending that her skin didn’t crawl with her uniform, or her reflection didn’t look like someone she recognized. She had the opportunity to look in the Mirror of Erised once in her days at Hogwarts, but she couldn’t, because she already knew what she would see. She would see herself, in men’s dress robes, with a cropped haircut and a lust for life. That would have been all the more heartbreaking.

The owl returned from its trip to wizarding London shortly, as Marlene made herself dinner. She wanted so badly for this to be a normal situation, where she could call Dorcas on her landline, instead of doing something as asinine as sending letters back and forth across the city. She knew that there was a time she would’ve held on to all of these letters, exemplified by a small, unassuming pewter box in her closet full of letters that were sent to her repeatedly in her time integrating herself into muggle London. She wondered how Dorcas had even gotten those letters to her; they didn’t come by owl, so she wasn’t sure how they arrived. Maybe someday she’d ask about the letters she re-read over and over, never responding to Dorcas’s desperate pleas to find her.

Marls,

What’s a proper muggle date even entail? We could just do a night out at the Green Dragon! I’m sure everyone would be excited to see you, plus we always talked about going out there.

I really think you should consider seeing everyone. We can pretend that you know whatever bloke they think i’m trying to see. No one’s gonna ask you anything.

Dorcas

Marlene needed to shower off the day. She was tired of feeling the discomfort of the grime of central London, and the grime of her shop. She knew she should have showered before she went to the Leaky Cauldron if she didn’t want to feel this way, but she also didn’t want to keep Dorcas waiting. So instead, she had rushed out to meet Dorcas, with grease trapped under her fingernails and a less than stellar outfit of a jumper and trousers. Washing the day off of her was exactly what she needed. What she hadn’t needed, or at least hadn’t expected, was to hear the loud CRACK of apparition into her living room. She wasn’t sure who it could be, but she had never wished that her wand was in her hand more than now. Her heart dropped. Had someone seen her today? Had someone followed her home? She couldn’t help the way she nervously clutched her towel, and slowly opened the door.

“Marlene?”

Dorcas’s voice rang through Marlene’s one-bedroom flat, and Marlene felt herself relax just slightly. “Cas,” She called out from the bathroom, before opening the door. There, in the center of her living room, was Dorcas. She watched the look of confusion evolve into a look of embarrassment. “Shit, Marls I–“

“You can’t just apparate into my flat, Cas.”

“I didn’t mean to interrupt, I just–“

“I’m gonna run and get changed first, Cas.” Marlene grins wryly, “Unless you want to come.” She chuckled, correctly anticipating the other woman wouldn’t follow. She pulled out her usual uniform of boxers, men’s denim, too tight jogbra, and a white t-shirt. Marlene had a strong handle on the way she wanted to look. She tried desperately to flatten her chest if only to maintain some level of safety. She wore men’s denim, that sat low on her hips, held up by a brown leather belt, with a cuff at the ankles. Walking through the world, in this gray area between masculine and feminine felt right. It felt safe. She shook out her hair like a dog, before making her way back to the living room. It appeared that Cas’s embarrassment still had yet to subside.

“I didn’t mean to show up while you were in the shower,” Cas offers, bright brown eyes crinkling at the corners in a combination of humor and embarrassment.

“I know Cas,” She chuckles, “You would’ve mentioned that in one of the owls if you had meant to join me in the shower.”

“I just wanted to know what you meant in your letter.” She explained, taking a look around the room, “ This is your flat?”

“Yeah, Cas. This is where I live. You got a problem?”

“No it’s just –“ Marlene watched as whatever Dorcas had wanted to say died in her throat. It was interesting, that there was a time when Marlene knew exactly what Dorcas was going to say before she said it. However, that time had long since passed. She had no idea what Dorcas was thinking right now, she only wondered how she was going to navigate this conversation without embarrassing herself any further than she already had.

“It looks like your dorm,” Cas explained, taking a step closer to the other woman. “It looks like you. There are things here that I don’t understand or recognize, but it looks like you.”

“Don’t tell me you’ve been imagining what my flat looks like for the last seven years!” Marlene interjected, trying to make light of the situation. She was just so uncomfortable with everything. Namely, she was uncomfortable with how desperately she wanted to take a step forward and close the distance between them. She felt uncomfortable with how exposed she felt, and she felt exposed because she didn’t know if Dorcas wanted the same things she did.

Cas, on the other hand, was feeling just as desperate. She desperately wished she could push Marlene down on the couch, climb into her lap, and crush their lips together in a passionate kiss. It didn’t entirely matter what she wanted. Courting a butch was a delicate dance, and she had to make sure she hit all of the steps. Or else, this delicate dynamic could fall apart. Cas was new to conducting herself through these dances. She knew how to court a butch for a night, but she didn’t know how to handle anything deeper than a few sexual encounters. It wasn’t like the wizarding world was crawling with butches, and it wasn’t like Cas could open up to muggles for anything emotional. For once, she was talking to someone she feasibly could have a future with. The fact that the butch in question was her Marlene, was icing on the cake.

“Maybe,” Dorcas responded, sly smile crossing her face, “Or maybe I’ve just been imagining for the last few days, wondering when I’d end up in your bed.”

Oh. That was bold. Marlene was caught off guard by the boldness, but that didn’t mean she didn’t enjoy it. She liked that Dorcas wanted to be bold, she wanted Marlene to know she was wanted. It was a feeling Marlene was not used to. She was used to being the pursuer, and the subtlety and coyness of a femme being pursued She enjoyed that Cas didn’t want to just be pursued, she wanted to drive Marlene wild.

Cas took a step towards Marlene, bridging the gap between them just a bit more. “There are lots of things that I think about you, Marls.” Marlene followed in suit, taking a step closer to the other woman. She could cut the tension between them with a knife if she wanted, a deep desire tying them together. She leaned down, connecting their lips hungrily. The kiss was desperate and dirty and pure and loving all at once, and Marlene couldn’t put her finger on why Cas drove her so crazy. But she felt as though Cas was feeling just as desperate about her feelings.

“You should tell me about those things, sometime,” Marlene responded, pulling away from Cas with a grin.

“Take me out first.”

“I’m trying, you wanker!” She chuckled, “Can I please take you on a proper muggle date?”

“What does that mean?” Cas responded, her eyes bright with her curiosity.

“Let me take you to dinner, I’ll shine up properly, and we can go to the gateway afterward.”

“Sure,” Cas responded, a bright smile crossing her face, “But only if you let me take you out for a proper date in Diagon Alley.”

“Cas,” Marlene sighed, “I don’t want to see everyone. I’m not ready.”

“But–“

“Cas.” She cut her off with a shake of her head, “I get it. But maybe we could go on a few dates before you try to reintroduce me to the fold.”

“ Whatever,” Cas sighed, “but you better get dressed if you want to leave the house at all.”

Marlene couldn’t lie, the electricity crackling between them made it all the more difficult to want to leave. But especially given that Cassie was trying to bring her back into the fold, Marlene was nervous. Her skin felt like it was on fire, but she needed to cool down. She needed it desperately, if she was honest because she didn’t want to freak out.

“What do you mean whatever?” She responded, knowing it was a bad idea. Should she be taking a step closer, when all she had was a towel wrapped around her? No, probably not. Should she be starting a fight? Definitely not.

“I mean it’s fucking moronic that you won’t just come out and see everyone,” Cas responded, looping an arm around Marlene’s neck. “And I mean it shouldn’t be so hot that you’re so stubborn.”

The blonde leaned down placing a fierce kiss on Cas’s lips. It was unfair for her to be so angry and so in her element. This was a dance she knew. Maybe it was because she always liked them feisty and angry. She remembered the last femme she got into like this. All gnashing teeth and crackling fire underneath her skin. Her calloused fingers brushed under Cassie’s chin, pulling her even deeper to the kiss.

Marlene pulled away just as soon as Cassie seemed distracted, ��Drop it, Cas.” Then she was pressing kisses just so along her neck. Theoretically, this would work. She couldn’t guarantee it or anything, but she wasn’t exactly new to this rodeo. Before (or after, really, who was to say) there was Cas, and there was Trish. Trish was the last femme that Marlene had cruised in Gateway.

For a short eight and a half weeks, they argued, fucked, argued again, fucked again, and did the run around several times over. She and Trish didn’t like each other, for some bullshit reason. If Marlene looked at it objectively, it was petty. They argued because she had beaten Trish one too many times at the pool, and Trish had respectively done the same one too many times in darts. Then there was the touchy subject of Lou. Trish and Lou had some kind of past that didn’t end well. Lou, being one of Marlene’s best friends, added fuel to the fire. So they argued, they did one of many dances that butches and femmes do. A reverence and anger at play within their fingertips. That wasn’t personal for Marlene, but this was. She was starting to understand what Trish must have felt like, playing cat and mouse with Marlene. Because here she was, playing it again, but feeling so much more invested in it.

“No–” A breathless giggle, “But seriously, McKinnon,” Cassie grinned, pulling away from the kisses Marlene was lining down her neck.

“It would be so fun to have everyone together again.”

T hat hadn’t worked. Gone was Marlene’s desire to pull Cass’s clothes off, painfully slowly just to watch the other woman squirm. Well, maybe not entirely. Instead, it was replaced with a somewhat indignant frustration that ran right through her. Damn how much the butch wanted her, it didn’t change her irritation.

“Do you want to have this out right now?” Her tone was pointed, but she continued her path from Cass’s collarbone to the hollow space behind her ear.

“What’s that supposed to—“ A short gasp, “mean?”

Bingo! If nothing else, she was distracting from the conversation. She felt the gasps from the femme stir something within her core. Fuck, holding back kept getting harder.

“It means stop riding my dick,” She responded, her tone full of venom. Teeth grazed over the Cas’s earlobe, “unless you want to ride my dick.”

“Who said I didn’t?” That made the wetness in her boxers just that much harder to ignore. “I just think you’re being a knob about it.”

Now was Dorcas’s turn to lead in this dance. One hand slipped under the hem of Marlene’s shirt, the other tangling in the short hair at the nape of Marlene’s neck and pulling her into another kiss. Cass’s teeth pulled lightly on her lower lip, which drove Marlene crazy. It made her dizzy, and overwhelmed her. Cassie’s sharp fingernails ran up her torso, practically inviting Marlene to want her more.

How fragile was this exchange of passion and anger? With a swift shift in perspective, the whole thing would fall apart. Yet here was Cas, stripping her down to basic desire bit by bit, with the slightest move of her hands.

Cas’s fingers dragged back down the expanse of skin beneath her bra hooking onto the waistband of her boxers. Fuck, Marlene wanted her. Her desire fueled her just as much as her aggression, but right now the only thing she could do was think about how much she needed this. Maybe she could blow off some steam and finally relax.

Her calloused hands slid up Cas’s smooth upper thighs, sliding beneath her tiny pleated skirt. When her fingers met the soft lace at her hip, Marlene suppressed a shudder. She was overcome by how much she wantwantwantwanted this. She needed Cas and needed her now.

“We’re never going to make it out of here if you don’t stop.”

“Who said I wanted to, Cassie?” Marlene offered up a wry smile, dragging her fingers painfully slowly down the seam of Cas’s underwear, “what I want is for you to stop talking.”

Marlene pushed Cas back towards the bedroom, her skin on fire with desire. In an instant, Cas was pushed back on the bed, with Marlene leaning over her. Looking down at the other woman, seeing the expanse of cleavage exposed by the small strap of her tank top sliding off of her shoulder, was enough to drive her crazy. She felt another pang of need in her boxers, desperate to move even closer and to satisfy the hunger within her.

Seeing Cassie below her was quickly proving to be too enticing, and she was full of desperation. “Fuck,” Marlene mumbled, sliding her hands under the tank top, and across the femme’s smooth skin. “Off,” she groaned, sliding the garment up and over Cassie’s head. She had half a mind to just rip the femme’s clothes of her body, but they’d never make it out if she did that.

Cas’s perfectly manicured fingernails met the waistband of Marlene's jeans, fumbling with the buttons until she could slide them off. Her bright brown eyes met Marlene’s with wanton need and an ashamed desperation. God, she was so hot with her desperation. In an instant, Marlene was slipping out of them, and reattaching her lips to Cas’s neck. She wanted to hear the breathless, guttural desire the femme had for her.

“Please,” the femme whimpered, eyes fluttering and lower lip working between her lips. “Tease me,” The statement made her boxers even more sticky with her desire. It was like Cas’s voice was echoing in the throbbing of her clit.

The blonde straddled her thigh, and flipped her pleated skirt up, out of her way. Beneath it was a sheer, tiny thong, that made Marlene impossibly hornier. She wanted that thong ruined by the end of this, so Cas had no choice but to wear her boxers or nothing at all beneath her tiny skirt. A calloused finger dragged slowly up the soaked fabric, pressure barely there, to tease the other woman. “Fuck,” Marlene mumbled, watching Cas’s back arch with her desperation.

“What?” The femme responded, her voice tinged with just a bit of shame. It was hot, and Marlene wanted her to know it.

“You’re so wet for me,” Marlene replied, grinning wolfishly at the femme. She ground her hips down against Cas’s hard thighs and let out a bit of a shudder as if to say nothing to be ashamed of.

“I’ve been thinking about this all week,” Cas mumbled, burying her face in Marlene’s neck and pressing delicate kisses there. Marlene could feel the heat of Cas’s flushed face against her skin, and it made her all the more desperate.

“Please touch me,” She whispered, hips bucking up into Marlene’s hand unconsciously. It was like the femme had lost control, and was begging for Marlene to do whatever she wanted to her. This was something she could get used to.

Marlene slipped her hands under the soft lace on Cassie’s hips and pulled down, trying to hold back from just ripping the thong off. Long calloused fingers met the wetness between the femme's thighs, and they were matched with their satisfied sighs.

Cassie had been dreaming about this since she had kissed Marlene in the bar. At the time, she had no idea Marlene was the butch in her dreams, but here, with Marlene playing her like an instrument. She felt overwhelmed by her desire, combined with just how good this felt. Her open-mouthed breaths combined with her eyes rolling back in her head gave away just how badly she needed this release. Her desperation and her desire were on display, and the hunger for Marlene was palpable between them. “Fuck, baby,” She mumbled, “I– it– it feels so good,” she stuttered.

God, that went straight to her boxers. Her fingers slipped into Cassie effortlessly, her thumb pressed up against her clit. She circled the bud easily, pumping her fingers in and out at a stable rhythm, Her fingers curved just so, to make sure she was pressing up against the spot that made Cassie stutted. She knew she could have pulled out the strap, could’ve strapped up like the champion butch she is, but she didn’t have the time to pull it from her nightstand with Cassie’s desperation. She couldn’t make the femme wait when she was practically drooling with desperation. She picked up her rhythm, feeling Cassie clench around her. How had Cassie been able to even focus and function, when clearly this had been everything that she needed? She was distracted by the swell of the other woman’s chest, her free hand sliding up to knead and pull at the femmes tits.

She could barely focus on anything but her need to satisfy the femme beneath her. Her brain buzzed with each of Cassie’s moans, and she wanted desperately to push Cassie to the finish. She didn’t have to wait long before the femme was moaning and crying out hushed pleas and clenching around her. “Fuck, I’m going to– I need to–”

“Finish for me,” the butch whispered, her voice husky and full of gravel in Cassie’s ear. The command was enough for Cas, and she was falling apart, pliant and thoughtless under Marlene. Watching her eyes roll back in her head, hearing her need in her moans was enough for the butch, and she was drinking up Cassie’s attention like it was water.

Cas was thoroughly fucked out, and Marlene could tell. Her eyes were glazed over, and she was moving as though she was submerged in honey. It was an ego boost for Marlene, if she was honest. It was good for her pride to be the sole reason for Cas’s thoroughly satisfied smile. She spent so long just floating through life, falling into bed with the prettiest femme she could find, fixing cars, and pretending she didn’t miss anything she had left behind. She went out for beers with her friends, she worked every day until four, and she toiled on her own fixer-upper bike project. But she didn’t forget about any of it. Cas was proving to be an excellent change of pace.

“Can I–” Cas slurred, looking up at Marlene expectantly. She was trying to ask Marlene if she wanted her to return the favor, to slide her perfectly manicured hands into the butch’s boxers. Unfortunately for Marlene, as horny as she was, she could tell Cassie could barely string together a sentence. On top of that, for as fun as fucking Cas’s brains out had been, she didn’t actually trust Cassie to do the same. She didn’t feel like taking part in such intimacy, when she wasn’t sure that this was actually a sustainable friendship, let alone something more than that. She wasn’t super comfortable being emotionally vulnerable. So instead, she could finish this up under the hot water of her shower when she was alone.

She pulled herself out of bed, offering a quick, “You want something to drink?”

Cas shook her head, taking a look around the room, “But you need to get an owl or something.” She chuckles, before reaching into her purse. She produced a small mirror from her bag, holding it out to Marlene. “Or you could use this.”

A small smile crept across her face, grabbing the mirror from Cas’s hands. She let their fingers brush up against each other, feeling the electricity of their connection grow between them. Courting a femme like Dorcas required the subtlety of these kinds of interventions, they built desire and desperation between them. It was a part of the dance that they did with each other.

“Where did you get a two-way mirror?”

“I picked up a couple on my way home,” Cas smiled, “I figured it’s easier to yell at you face to face.”

“Do you wanna grab dinner together?”

“Is this the proper muggle date?”

“Nah, we can do that tomorrow after work. But I’m figuring that you don’t want to cook and you don’t have a house elf. I’m famished.”

“Yeah, I’d like that.” Cas smiled, looking over at the other woman. “Although I’m sure I could come up with something for you to eat.” She grinned wryly, her eyes sparkling with playfulness. There was something so endearing and fun between them, and Marlene couldn’t help the way that she enjoyed it.

Marlene grabbed her usual items, her wallet, her keys, a pack of smokes, and her lighter. She wondered what Dorcas could possibly keep in a purse such as the one she carries with her. She knew that the wiles of femmes came with secrets, and one of those secrets was what was kept in a purse. Maybe someday, if she had a femme on her arm like Dorcas, she would know what was kept in the mysterious bag.

With a sweet smile, Marlene directed Cas out the door. There wasn’t really anything else to do, but corral her towards Marlene’s favorite curry spot for a takeaway. She was thankful they never asked too many questions, and even more so that she had the brilliant idea of grabbing a takeaway. For as much as her home was a space of isolation, she didn’t want to spend too much time in public without the protection of being in spaces built for them. After all, it wasn't exactly safe to be out on a date when they weren’t careful. Should something happen to them, they couldn’t rely on anyone but themselves to take care of it. Maybe that was why it was so shocking that Marlene didn’t carry her wand anymore. She was just as defenseless as any other muggle. But if she had carried it, used it to protect herself, she opened herself up to questioning by the Wizengamot. They would take one look at her and decide that she, a humble mechanic and a witch by blood, should be thrown in Azkaban for revealing herself. Damn the context, because she was different from them. She didn’t fit in the box, she couldn’t be a part of their restrictive society. That was why she had to run away if she was honest. Because she knew she was never going to fit in.

She remembered begging to wear pants with her uniform in school. She remembered snagging a pair from Sirius, and the number of detentions she received for it. She remembered the look on Minny’s face as she demanded Marlene’s precious contraband pants, and gave them to Filch for safekeeping, remanding her to a skirt that made her feel vulnerable and disgusting. She remembered being told that her hobbies were not becoming of the lady she was training up to be, that she balked too often at the traditional roles of the witches around her. It was uncomfortable for Marlene. The gender roles baked into the world around her made her feel so claustrophobic. Those same authority figures that had influenced her decision to run had either imparted their beliefs upon the members of the Wizengamot or learned from them, and Marlene wasn’t keen to find out which way that happened.

“How do you do it?” Cas asked as they walked down the stairs of her walk-up. That threw Marlene off. It felt like a trick question if she was honest.

“How do I do what? You’re going to have to specify, Cassie.” Marlene responded, studying the femme’s face for some indication of how she was supposed to answer the question. How was she supposed to know what the right thing to say was?

“Pretend this is your world. How do you just fit right in here?” Bright eyes sparkled with curiosity. The look on Dorcas’s face was familiar, like all of those nights she spent picking Marlene’s brain back in school.

“This,” Marlene sighed, opening the door to her building, “is my world. Has been for a long time at this point,”

Cas shrugged in return, failing to keep the dissatisfaction off of her face. Evidently, Marlene had not answered the question correctly.

“Maybe when I take you out tomorrow, you’ll see what I mean,” Marlene shrugged. Moto-boot-clad feet carried her down the streets, stride confident. She had done this walk so many times over, it was like she could do it in her sleep.

It took about an hour for them to get their curry take away, and make their way back to the flat. On the walk back, Dorcas had begged Marlene to just apparate already, and despite her anxiety about it, Marlene had obliged. She was sure Cas just wanted an excuse for Marlene to hold onto her, and who was Marlene to deny her that simple pleasure. However, standing in the living room of her flat, her stomach turning in her body, reminded her of why she had never liked apparitions in the first place.

“I’m sure you have a million questions.”

“I do,”

“Well, we might as well get that shite out of the way so we can have fun on a date.”

“Picking your brain is my idea of a fun date, McKinnon.”

“Well it’s not mine, Meadowes, and I’m planning this one.”

“But it could be a good time!” Cas protested, and Marlene was smiling despite herself. God, why couldn’t she just chill out? Why did it have to feel so intense?

“Cas, I’d rather not waste my time if you don’t like the answers,” She was being short and she knew it. Maybe this was the way Dorcas stripped her of her machismo, and got in to the soft, gentle butch locked behind her wall of gruffness and intensity. But Marlene didn’t know if she could handle this loss well a second time when writing her notes gave Marlene a moment of imagining that perfect life she had so many times over as a baby butch. She had to let go of the imaginary life with Dorcas in order to move on. She had spent seven years becoming comfortable, becoming herself, and part of that was letting go of what she thought was the impossible. But here was Cassie, in her home, making her reconsider what she thought was the most concrete thing in the world. In reality, this didn’t threaten everything that she had built for herself. She had to keep herself grounded in reality.

“What makes you think I won’t like the answer?” Cas looked at her, wide-eyed and concerned. It was like she had never considered that this was a difficult decision. God, why was it so easy for Cas to disarm her?

“Because I was there, Cas.” Marlene shrugged, “Wasn’t exactly a walk in the park.”

“And you think I won’t want to be around you because of that?” Cas looked a bit wounded, and suddenly it was rushing back to Marlene why this was a bad idea. Because Cas had all of the cards. Cas could expose her for everything. Cas could tell everyone where she was, could give all of the people she used to know license to find her, and what they’d find would be enough to enact violence. Her fears were not all that different from the ones she had about the men she worked with or the people who crossed the street when they saw her coming.

“Cassie,” Marlene sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. She knew that this reunion was going to be difficult, but if she wanted something special with the beautiful woman who caught her eye at the bar, or the girl she grew up in love with, she’d have to figure this out. It was frustrating, sure, but it was doable.

“How’d you become a mechanic?” Not where Marlene thought this was going but okay.

“Mac found me, and asked if I was good with my hands...” Marlene trailed off with a light shrug. Keep it light, Marlene. Don’t get too deep, because as much as Cassie wanted to pretend, this wasn’t exactly the safe space either of them wanted it to be. One wrong move and Marlene was in hot water all over again. She looked down at the curry in front of her, trying to steel herself against her own fears. This was her house, she didn’t need to do anything she didn’t want to.

“Had to start paying my share somehow. How was graduation?”

“I thought I was asking the questions,” Cas laughed, “What do you mean found you? You didn’t apply?” Her bright brown eyes sparkled with her confusion. Fuck, Marlene was so screwed. She remembered why she fell in love with the other woman when they were just kids.

“On a bench,” Marlene sighed, “Are you sure you want to talk about this?” She cautioned, glancing up from her curry. She should stop just pushing the food around her plate, considering she spent twenty whole dollars on the takeaway, but unfortunately, she was so nervous she couldn’t decide whether or not she could stomach it. Conversations about her getting out made her nauseous.

“They found you on a bench?” Cas raised an eyebrow, “I want to know everything that happened.”

“I was sleeping on a bench in Kensington, and I was trying to convince one of the squats London Feilds to take me in even though I had no documents, no skills, no education, and no money. Not exactly good tea conversation.”

“Why didn’t you just come back?”

“I couldn’t come back. I burned every bridge I had in Scotland and in Godrick’s Hollow on the astronomy tower, not to mention everything that happened with Nora Treadwell.”

Nora Treadwell. The name lingered in the air between them. In their time at Hogwarts, no one discussed what happened to Nora Treadwell. The witch was from a strong wizarding family who had cut her hair short, been kicked out by her family, and moved out to Brixton. Nobody knew what happened to Nora Treadwell. What everyone knew, less Marlene, was that Nora cut all of her hair off in the prefect’s bathroom in her final year at Hogwarts, and got into some kind of “physical altercation” with a group of Gryffindors. Marlene remembered the way everyone called her a poof and a queer, who deserved it for being such a queer.

Marlene could see the way Cas’s face fell like she barely even remembered why Nora Treadwell would be relevant to Marlene. Maybe she didn’t. Maybe all she remembered was Nora getting in a fight and didn’t know what caused all of it in the first place. Marlene; however, could do nothing but look exasperated. She wanted to shout “Don’t you see, they’d do it to me too!” but she couldn’t. The words died in her throat just like her appetite, and she wondered where this conversation could go next.

“ Nora Treadwell is why you didn’t come back...” Cas repeated softly, trying to parse through her mind to make it make sense. Nora had been largely irrelevant to her, aside from the proof that not all Gryffindors were the morally pious do-gooders that were better than everyone else. Cas already had so much that people had biases about, being a Slytherin is just another mark on her ledger. “You were sleeping on a bench?” Her eyebrows raised in sheer shock, and Marlene wanted to cry.

God, this was a fucking roller coaster. It was one thing to be a homeless teenager, it was completely another to revisit it at twenty-five because she thought a girl was pretty. Shame bloomed in her chest, heating up her cheeks and making her heart drop out of her chest and into her stomach. This wasn’t fair. Why did she have to be sized up by all of these questions? It felt so fucking unfair to have so many questions being beamed at her, but in the back of her mind, she always knew this would happen if she ever reconnected with anyone from her past. One of the most freeing feelings about being friends with other lesbians was that they never asked. Her friends knew that it was too painful. A light-hearted joke here or there about how far she’d come, a read about how she was still just the little dyke on the bench, but no questions. No panicked breathing as her heart hammered away in her ears, no nurturing the roots of shame in her chest, none of it. She was so grateful for the way they let her distance herself from it all. Not Cas, never Cas, she was much to comfortable picking and prodding they had once upon a time.

“So Nora Treadwell is why you thought it was a better idea to sleep on a bench than come home...” She looked like she was teasing out what she thought was such an interesting lead, and Marlene hated it. She felt like a specimen under a microscope, with every question Cas was focusing the lens just a bit more.

“Aye, that’s what I said isn’t it?” Marlene grumbled, shoving her chair out from the table.

“I guess I just can’t imagine that,” Cassie responded, brown eyes wide with her own surprise. If Marlene stared long enough, she could parse out just how disappointed Cas was with her statement. Unfortunately for Cas, there wasn’t much she could do to change the answer, since Nora and Marlene were actually very similar butches who knew each other pretty well. If Cassie thought back far enough, she might remember that Nora’s mom, Elsie, was good friends with Marlene’s mom.

“Cassie, there’s no point where you’re going to feel satisfied with the answers about why I left.”

“I just–”

“You’re never going to understand. You’re not like me.”

“I’m just as much of a shirt lifter as you are, or did you forget the part where we met at Gateway and had sex an hour ago.”

“But people can’t tell when they look at you. You’re a femme. You don’t have to face the violence unless anyone finds out you’re a lesbian. I’m a bulldyke. People can see it as soon as they look at me. I get lucky if people think I’m a man and leave me alone.”

It sucked, but it was true. The butch was only ever safe when people didn’t see her, or saw her as a man. Either way, being a witch people knew of, whose family was notable, and being butch meant that she’d never be able to make herself a home in the wizarding world without regressing into a feminine version of herself. Something that would never happen.

“I guess you’re right...” Cassie finally agreed, “I have to head back. Call me on the mirror?” She was just stepping down because she could tell Marlene was getting upset. She didn’t want to keep pushing something that was clearly hurting her.

“Yeah, Cas. I’ll see you soon.”

With a loud CRACK, Cassie was off, disappearing the same way she came in.

#dorcas meadows #marlene mckinnon #dorlene fic #marlene mckinnon fanfiction #dorcas meadowes fanfiction #marauders era #no war au #lesbian smut #nsft

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ziamhaze · 4 months ago

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hi! i just read your Compartment 451 fic on ao3 & i just wanted to say some words :)

this is a beautiful, beautiful, beautiful story. my feelings towards harry potter are — well, mixed at best, but there will always be a little piece of me that adores it. this was so nostalgic for me, personally, as someone who knew (and still knows) so much trivia about it, so all the little nods to hp canon were downright delightful and having dean feature prominently makes me smile even more.

the boys' friendship is so delightful — being in different houses but still prioritising meals with one another, having their own little room, zayn inventing the cards to help them communicate. louis's what are they going to do, kick me out? attitude made me laugh, and little elijah just straight up stole my heart. also, the matching 451 tattoos for the compartment!! i love it.

but ziam. oh wonderful ziam. the fic being told from zayn's perspective works so well, and zayn coming in as a muggleborn and being so unapologetically comfortable with being muggleborn in a world of magic!! i love it, i love it so much. liam's speech at his presentation mirrored zayn's conversation with elijah about being a muggle vs being a wizard and the things that comprise him.

the backstory told through zayn's dreams is such a nice touch, it was a natural break in the current timeflow and gave us context for zayn's actions in the each section when needed.

this was just a really, really, really well written AU, and it sucked me in and captivated me, i blitzed through the entire fic in one go. i love it, i love it, i love it. one of my favourite fics i've ever read, ever. thank you so much for writing it.

First and foremost, my sincerest apologies for taking well over a year to answer this! I’m currently working on several pieces of work and sadly, no longer check Tumblr as much as I used to.

This message has lifted my spirits in the most sincere of ways. Admittedly, I knew very little about HP before writing this AU; I’d only ever read the 4th book and saw all of the films. So, to hear that I did a relatively good job with my research during the planning stages of this fic is unbelievably fulfilling.

Looking back on this story in particular elicits an immense amount of nostalgia in me. For my writing style, for my eagerness, for the early days of not knowing that I’d one day be dedicating my life to world building. And yet, when I try and go back to read this specific fic, I often times cringe at how horrible the grammar or sentence structure is. That said, to know that others are still finding joy beneath all of that, years after its original publishing date is the most unexpected thing ever.

As much as you’d like to thank me for writing this, I’d like to doubly thank you for taking the time out of your day to reach out and let me know how it’s touched you.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

#compartment 451 #curiousity #anonymous

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govindhtech · 6 months ago

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Harry Potter: Quidditch Champions – Gear Up for the Pitch

Harry Potter: Quidditch Champions gameplay

Playing Harry Potter: Quidditch Champions, you may fully experience the game from the broomstick perspective. This engaging game lets you build your team, improve your talents, and play Quidditch against other players. For wizards, witches, and Muggles, the game should be fun. This detailed guide will cover Harry Potter: Quidditch Champions and help you triumph in the magical realm.

Harry Potter Quidditch Champions Gameplay

Match framework: Describe the fundamental framework of a Quidditch match, including the Chasers scoring goals with Quaffles, the Keepers guarding the hoops, the Beaters fending off Bludgers, and the Seeker collecting the Golden Snitch for a windfall that ends the game.

Squad Building: Describe in detail the steps involved in putting together your Quidditch squad. It is important to discuss aspects such as character selection (based on traits or special powers), synergy within the squad, and the ability to customise positions. Unpack the progression of a match in Quidditch Champions by using the Match Progression feature. In this section, you will learn about acts such as throwing the Quaffle, avoiding Bludgers, carefully manoeuvring your squad, and the key Snitch catch.

Character Development and Customisation: Describe the process by which players can explore character progression and customise the appearance of their squad (including uniforms, broomsticks, and other items). Have a conversation about the ways in which you may improve player qualities, unlock new skills, and improve the overall effectiveness of your squad.

Modes of Play

Story Mode takes players through a narrative campaign that is centred around Quidditch matches, challenges, and rivalries. This mode provides an overview of the narrative campaign. It is important to discuss the possibility of connecting with well-known characters from the Harry Potter universe as well as the possibility of meeting new characters.

Matches for Exhibition: Describe the possibility of taking part in individual exhibition matches for the purpose of engaging in casual play or experimenting with various team configurations and strategies.

Provide specifics regarding the competitive multiplayer mode that is included in the game mode. In this section, Game creators will discuss aspects such as rated matches, leaderboards, and the excitement of competing against other players either locally or online.

Unique Characteristics

Rules of Quidditch and Commentary: Drawing attention to the fact that the game adheres to the rules that have been established for Quidditch will ensure that the experience is genuine. Bring up the fact that there is a commentator present in order to provide play-by-play narration and to make the ambiance more enjoyable.

In this section, game creators will discuss the possibility of including magical components into the gameplay. There is a possibility that this will incorporate specific team bonuses, special goods, or character powers that are based on spells.

Wizarding World Immersion: Describe the ways in which the game manages to capture the spirit of the Harry Potter universe. It is important to mention specifics such as recognisable music scores, a magical atmosphere, and classic Quidditch sites, such as the Quidditch Pitch at Hogwarts.

The Intended Audience

Fans of Harry Potter: Highlight the game’s appeal to fans of Harry Potter who have a strong desire to learn more about the world of Quidditch and to participate in the sport for themselves.

Passionate Players of Sports Gaming: Bring attention to the fact that the game has the potential to attract lovers of sports games who take pleasure in strategic competition and learning the complexities of a sport that is not commonly played.

Mention the game’s accessibility to casual players, who may be drawn to the Harry Potter concept and the fast-paced action of Quidditch matches. Casual players may be interested in the game because of its Harry Potter theme.

Both the visuals and the sounds

The graphical realism of the game should be discussed, with specifics like as character models, environment design, and the reproduction of iconic Quidditch venues being mentioned throughout the discussion.

Please provide a description of the sound design, including the sound effects of Quaffle throws, Bludger impacts, and the noise of the crowd during a match.

Harry Potter Quidditch Champions Release Date

Buckle up for some Quidditch action! Harry Potter: Quidditch Champions already took flight on September 3rd, 2024. That means you can grab your broom and soar into competitive matches or team up with friends for magical adventures on the pitch.

Final Thoughts

Please provide a brief summary of the most important aspects of Harry Potter: Quidditch Champions, putting particular emphasis on the game’s capacity to provide a thrilling and immersive Quidditch experience. Include a brief discussion of any potential downsides or restrictions based on the information that is currently available. You should conclude by expressing your excitement about the upcoming release of the game and mentioning the potential it has to win over the hearts of gamers as well as lovers of the Harry Potter series.

Harry Potter Quidditch Champions price

Harry Potter: Quidditch Champions retails for $29.99 USD (SRP) in the standard version.