Summary: Ginny Weasley comes of age among them: the beasts, the wild things of their world. (or: how the youngest Weasley won the Hanging Out With Hagrid Award).
Canon compliant, multi-chapter, post-war, non-linear narrative, flashbacks. PS/SS through post-DH (1981-1999). Harry/Ginny.
Author's notes (1+2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10+11, 12, 13+14, 15)
Trailer | playlist | moodboards
🌳 Orchards
Summary: The orchard is a wild, thousand-flower, crumpled-gate, fall-down-fence sort of place, where things grow that you’ve never asked for, that you’d never expect. Summer of ’96, the story of something flowery he thought he might have smelled at the Burrow.
Canon-compliant, oneshot, summer between OotP and HBP. Non-linear narrative, flashbacks/flash-forwards to DH. Harry/Ginny.
Meta on Ginny's t-shirts 👕
🪟 the room at the top of the house
Summary: It’s doing something to him, watching her like this, all loose and laughing and bare-legged, ray of light and warmth and wonder sat atop his bedsheets. It’s turning him on, it’s setting him alight.
Canon compliant, post-war, oneshot. Harry/Ginny. NSFW.
💭 think / hope
Summary: Kill your darlings, push them out to sea // Harry and Ginny's first evening apart after the breakup.
Canon compliant, oneshot, missing moment, post-HBP. Harry/Ginny. Written for Hinny Microfic April 2023 days 13 & 14.
🌼 flower(y)
Summary: Are you sorry? // Moments after the kiss.
Canon compliant, microfic, missing moment, HBP. Harry/Ginny. Written for Hinny Microfic May 2023 day 10.
🍳 warm light peaceful (quiet)
Summary: Two big things happen on Monday 31st July 2000: Harry Potter turns twenty, and Robbie Williams releases a little song called Rock DJ.
Canon compliant, microfic, postwar. Harry/Ginny, Ron/Hermione. Written for The Three Broomsticks 'A Very Harry Birthday' Fic Fest 2023.
🏴☠️ dead ends
Summary: Later - much later, when he's leaving - he’ll tell her: ‘I’m a dead end.’ ‘Fuck off,’ she’ll spit back, fuming. ‘We’re all dead ends. You’re not bloody special.’
Canon compliant, microfic, Remadora. Written for @remadoramicrofics.
🏹 the huntress
Summary: The last day of August 1997, she comes downstairs in her dressing gown to find Kingsley in the kitchen with a Muggle newspaper that says that Princess Diana is dead.
Canon compliant, microfic, Harry/Ginny. Written for anon ask prompt.
metas 💫
Harry's thoughts of Ginny in the Forest (and Ginny's goodbye)
Harry and Ginny's shared experience of going to their deaths
Harry and Ginny at Shell Cottage
Ginny and the Veil
Ginny and Dean's relationship
Ginny's feelings for Harry | Harry's feelings
Harry's postwar relationship with Ron and Hermione vs. with Ginny
The Weasleys on Harry and Ginny’s relationship
Parallels between Sirius and Ginny
Remus as seen by other characters
Ginny and the poem
Ginny and Molly's relationship
The Dursleys' treatment of Harry
Democracy in the Wizarding World
headcanons ☁️
Harry and Ginny's careers, home and married life
Harry and Ginny's flat in London
Harry and Ginny getting back together after the war
Harry and Ginny dating other people if one of them died
One of the many things about DH that drives me completely insane is that Harry and Ron's main source of conflict during that book is their complete lack of communication about Ginny, and it's a subplot that's never solved.
What do you think Harry and Ginny's rising signs are? I think Ginny is a Libra Rising and Harry is Scorpio Rising. I think that combined with the Leo Sun for each make a lot of sense for both. But I can also see Ginny as Aries Rising because she is so fiery haha. I am convinced Harry is some combination of Leo Sun and Scorpio something tho because he isn't a super typical Leo the way Ginny obviously is (you know bc he is more introverted than her).
anon i love this for you and i’ll be so real with you right now…. i have not a single clue
and mind you ron is a stereotypical straight white man in all his ignorance, he probably leaves shit stains in his underwear bc wiping between his ass crack would be gay. but ofc hermione would gladly sniff it bc that's her man~~~~~. GIRLBOSS. NOBODY DOING IT LIKE HER. FEMINIST KWEEN.
Is there any specific reason why Ginny is being excluded from Order discussions in Beasts, even though Ron, who is also underage and only a year older than Ginny, is included? Why do they continue to exclude her even when she turns 16, a year older than Ron was? Why was Molly so unfair to Ginny in Chapter 9’s flashback? I hope Ginny reads her parents the riot act after the trial, reminding them that they let Ron listen to Order discussions but not her. They owe her a apology AND an explanation
good question: happy to set out my thinking here!
the fact that ginny is excluded from order business age 16 (so after the trio skedaddle off to grimmauld place in DH) is partly a reflection of where the war is at by summer '97. in OotP the war was shadowy, ran by a little husk of a dark lord with a handful of ragtag dark pals half of whom are still trying to wangle their way out of prison. reflecting the relative weakness of their enemy, resistance through the order was low level, though growing in strength. by early in DH timeline, however, the death eaters have seized control of the state, are setting up an oppressive (and genocidal) authoritarian regime, and the order are now the sole armed resistance in active combat with a much more powerful foe. the stakes are higher, therefore the 'but you let my brother sit in on a meeting that one time' argument doesn't have legs.
on the other side of the coin, ginny's exclusion, as i try to set out in chapter 15, is a reflection of the order's increasing sophistication as an operation but also their increasing paranoia. the newly revived order of OotP are much more fledgling and lax on security versus the order of DH. in 1995 mundungus fletcher is a key part of the throng, sturgis podmore was busy bouncing off doors like it's amateur hour, and the top secret meetings of the anti-voldemort resistance could be very easily infiltrated by a little wiggly piece of string sold in joke shops and wielded by bored teenagers. by early DH, the order has not only had to get serious because the war got real, but they also believe they have twice been recently betrayed: once by mundungus on the eve of harry's rescue, and, more memorably, by snape himself. that means that, for all most of them wouldn't want ginny to feel left out, running a military operation and guarding its secrets matters more than being polite to the sixteen year old knocking about the kitchen, even if she's cute as a button and there's a whiff of hypocrisy about the whole affair.
(and then there is that other part: the lingering question mark over whether ginny can be trusted - less because she seems like a death eater, and more because she's young and has a track record of spilling secrets to dark lords. bit harsh, but you can see that they do have something of a point.)
on why molly was so unfair to ginny in chapter 9's flashback - that flashback just me having a bash at writing an off-stage canon scene, which is this one:
“Fine!” shouted Mrs. Weasley. “Fine! Ginny — BED!”
Ginny did not go quietly. They could hear her raging and storming
at her mother all the way up the stairs, and when she reached the hall Mrs Black’s earsplitting shrieks were added to the din...
that ginny is treated (to some extent) differently to harry and to her brothers i think is canon and visible here: in the flashback i tried to hint at why that might be:
‘I am not a child! I want to be involved, I want to fight, it's my war too - I’m older than Harry was when he went through all that other stuff, and — and I’m the one who — who — ’ But she can’t finish that sentence.
i wanted ginny trying to voice - maybe for the first time - what she sees as her credentials for listening in on order business: her experiences with the diary, her personal reasons for wanting to fight, a desire for revenge for being dragged into this war as a little child with no chance yet for revenge. she stumbles over her words and can't quite get it out, mostly because she's still in the thick of processing it. this is ofc a flashback to 1995, the first time in canon where ginny draws other character's attention back to the events of her first year, and i like the idea of that year as a radicalising period for her, when she seeks to move beyond the role of innocent victim and into that of active combatant, though this is a halting transition that takes time to really bed in.
molly views things differently. in her mind, the events of ginny's first year, her experience of getting so close to the flames of the war, are exactly the reason why ginny can't listen in on order secrets and start playing the part of fighter; she has been hurt too badly before, her childhood and innocence already wrenched from her much too young, and molly would not want that for her again. yes it's different treatment, but it comes from a place of great love and great fear for her daughter. and tbh i get it! i'm not sure i'd let my thirteen year old join a paramilitary organisation either.
ofc, in canon, after dropping a fuming ginny up in her room, molly re-enters the scene back in the kitchen, already livid having rowed with ginny and furious to find sirius giving harry the forbidden tea. i wanted her to tell harry et al the same thing she just told ginny: you are children, please leave this war to the adults, there are things you can't yet understand. and while we are supposed to side with the kids, doesn't she have a point? (see more molly apologism here, here and here).
Senara, as a resident serious adult with a good grasp on the UK political and cultural landscape, AND the Harry Potter fandom, may I ask:
What impact does the fandom actually have on policies that impact transgender people?
I want to be the best ally I can be to trans folk, and I have seen discussions advocating that the Harry Potter franchise falling into oblivion is the only real way to de-platform JK Rowling.
I don’t entirely disagree - but I also suspect that the fandom as we know on Tumblr and Discord could be a much less influential bubble than it thinks itself to be, and not the main target audience for new movies, shows, and merchandising.
Is simply not consuming products from the franchise enough, or is engaging in extremely niche discussions on a cloudless micro-blogging platform still fanning the fire of Harry Potter, and giving ammunition to JKR to continue on her rampage of infantilising those who challenge her and targeting trans rights?
I don’t want to be naive or wilfully ignorant about my participation in this culture. But I want to know if blogging about Snupin smut and reading fanfiction on free independent platforms still trickles down to making JKR’s voice louder.
I also sometimes think that Harry Potter achieved the status of undeniable cultural staple, and oblivion is simply not an option - much like Alice in Wonderland and Peter Pan. I can force myself to forget and never engage with it again, but is it at all realistic in a global scale?
Is there an erroneous assumption that most of us on tumblr and discord are on team “fuck JKR, read fanfcition and pirate the books”? Or are offline elder millennials buying HP merch and reading the books to their kids carrying the franchise on their backs?
Or none of this matters, because HP is already part of the popular imagination, and it’s the tragedy of our times that big corporations will inevitably milk it forever?
Hope this is not too much of an awkward question, I really appreciate your insights
the way that the fandom impacts trans rights is by earning jkr money.
jkr's public transphobia - her comments on twitter etc. - absolutely contributes to recruiting others to the anti-trans cause, and that shouldn't be downplayed. but being loud and wrong on social media isn't the same as having political or legal authority - jkr doesn't have this, and she doesn't deserve people thinking she does.
how she causes material harm to trans people in the uk [which then hurts all trans people, because other places may choose to follow suit] is because she donates colossal sums of money to legal cases which challenge trans people's rights. it's not just yesterday's judgement from the uk supreme court - in which the plaintiff was an anti-trans group she's on the record as having donated £70,000 to - she does it all the time.
she can donate this money because it's loose change for her. she makes millions every year.
and it doesn't come from mid-tier detective fiction, does it?
so, yes, here is the first truth - if she doesn't earn any money from you, you're not contributing to the overarching way her anti-trans crusade has an impact, and that matters.
but there is also a second truth - that you need to go beyond that.
several things need to be borne in mind:
jkr is one of the most visible - if not the single most visible - transphobes in the world. but she's not the only one.
the tendency to make her the figurehead of a transphobic movement, and to assume that disengaging with harry potter without doing anything else is enough, may be comforting. but it's also wrong.
indeed, a lot of the people who have the greatest power to harm trans rights are nowhere near as visible as jkr - politicians, lawyers, journalists, academics, doctors, and so on. the supreme court did not reach its judgement because of jkr. the assault on trans rights which will unfold from the judgement will not happen because of her.
i'm not saying this to deny jkr's influence or to imply that she's not dangerous. i'm saying it because i think it's important to remember that she has a vested interest in you feeling tiny and hopeless in the face of her money - in you thinking that she's the head of a movement and that movement is winning.
instead, the uk terf movement is fragmented and riddled with internecine beef. plenty of its factions don't actually like jkr - and she doesn't like plenty of them. it can be fought, and it can be fought at the grassroots while she's in her mouldy tower being a bigot on twitter.
it's worth being absolutely clear that yesterday's supreme court ruling was not - in and of itself - new legislation. the uk supreme court does not have the power to make new laws. only parliament can do that.
[and i do think it's important to be precise about this - i've seen lots of people, especially those outside of the uk, posting about "new laws" or stating that the law now bans being trans, or that the law states that trans people don't legally exist, or that the law makes it legal to discriminate against trans people. this is not true - no new law was passed, and the supreme court judgement reaffirms that trans people are protected from discrimination under the equality act. this claim can and should be criticised - see here for an example - but it is nonetheless now on the record as the court's intention.]
the judgement was a "clarification" - which is to say that it was an interpretation - of existing legislation. it - by itself - doesn't compel an institution or organisation to change anything. and it is, therefore, an interpretation which can be pushed back against.
this has already started - there's an excellent summary of objections to the judgement, which also provides a rebuttal to the crowing many terfs are doing about how trans rights are being rolled back by pointing out all the ways in which they will not be surrendered:
However much campaign groups might try to claim otherwise, it will still be indirect discrimination to put a policy in place excluding trans
sadly, this is behind a paywall. it's summarised here, in an article from the same writer, a practising barrister who is a specialist in employment and discrimination law:
The supreme court judgment is contradictory and confused. And there seems no prospect of the Labour government sorting this out, says discri
and all of us can do things which enable that pushback to continue, above all, in making clear to our mps that they only have our votes if they - at a bare minimum - continue to defend trans rights.
find their contact details here:
Information on how to contact your local MP
and a template letter here:
if you have an mp who is clear that they support restrictions on trans rights [and you can check their voting record here], then actively oppose them - call for them to be reselected at the next election [sadly a while away...], canvas for an opponent etc.
support institutions which continue to defend trans rights. the supreme court judgement doesn't force places to, for example, ban trans women from entering women's toilets [parliament could pass legislation which does, but that doesn't exist yet, and that's why you need to contact your mp], but plenty will be frightened into doing so. be loud about how you value and will continue to use businesses and services which don't bend to transphobic pressure.
donate to trans charities. lots are circulating, but here are some specifically northern irish options, which tend to otherwise get overlooked:
The Rainbow Project is a LGBTQIA+ Charity based in Northern Ireland, providing health and wellbeing services for our community
Mermaids Northern Ireland delivers services to trans young people and the important people in their lives.
boost stories about the impact of transphobic legislation. it's crucial that you don't underestimate how little the average person knows about this [and about jkr's role in it in particular] - and this is something which helps anti-trans messaging sound more reasonable. but we can reach them first.
what you do with harry potter as a thing beyond this is always going to be subjective. i've set out more on my personal approach before - here - and, of course, you may do what you want.
but - since you've asked - i think two things are true:
on the one hand, harry potter is a juggernaut. the tumblr subsection of the fandom could disappear tonight and the impact would be minimal - harry potter is probably one of the most mainstream cultural products in the world.
and that's how it makes jkr money - branded merchandise, the theme parks, the studio tour, royalties from streaming, and so on.
fandom doesn't require you to engage with any of these. and i do think it's acceptable to understand a commitment not to give jkr money as a viable and sincerely significant harm-reduction strategy.
however.
on the other hand, the vitality of the fandom plays a role in making harry potter marketable. this is undeniable.
and this is the case for all areas of the fandom - i see a lot of cope ["jkr would hate my queer otp!"], but people can get sucked in through anything. having a non-canon take on things, or writing dead dove, or whatever doesn't prevent that.
but it's especially the case for areas of the fandom which are prominent in pop-culture independently of jkr.
i don't just mean the marauders subfandom here - i think we can all stand to grapple with this implication, and i think there's a tendency from people in less prominent fandom subsections to think that they don't have to, which exists at the other end of a spectrum from the tendency from people in the marauders subfandom to assume that their lax approach to canon absolves them from any connection to jkr.
this is a difficult circle to square because it's something which gives jkr visibility indirectly.
[there's no way, for example, that she's in contact with e.g. artists whose songs go viral in marauders tiktoks, whose youtube comments are then flooded with "can't believe i'm thinking about harry potter's dead dad 😭".]
fanfiction and fanart also lives in this indirect space.
jkr doesn't gain any money from it - and that is important. it's also a medium which may engage with the subject matter of the series critically - through taking issue with how she writes about gender, for example - and this is important as well.
but she doesn't gain nothing from it either.
my personal view is that the only way to remain in fandom is two-fold:
as discussed, make sure you're actually doing something in defence of trans people in your real life... and make sure that your indirect contribution to jkr's nonsense never becomes a direct one.
that is to say, don't spend any money.
and - and this is the important thing - actually mean that.
i think that a very important thing to do if you want to stay in the fandom is to work on building yourself a mental defence against the fear of missing out.
by which i mean... in the circles in which i move, people seem - at the moment - to universally agree that they won't be watching the new television adaptation.
but i find it very striking - and very concerning - that lots of people seem to be taking the view that doing this will be easy, because the tv show won't be any good.
i strongly - strongly - advise you to prepare yourselves for the opposite. expect that the show will be absolutely outstanding. deal with your disappointment in missing out in advance. and do not engage with it, no matter what it tries to tempt you with.
we are about to see an unprecedented level of fan service. every single complaint people made about the film series will be addressed. it's going to make sure that ron is written book-accurately. it's going to give romione or hinny or whatever as it "should have been" in the films. it's going to whip out some really big name casting [cillian murphy has had months to shut down the rumour that he's voldemort... and if it comes to pass, his casting will bring a legion of peaky blinders fans on board. do not be one of them.]. i would bet my house that it's going to make wolfstar canon.
and it's going to do this because it knows that's how people who have committed to not watching it will waver - that, when faced with "i've got the chance to see x done properly" or "god, i love y in everything else they're in", people will go "lol, no ethical consumption under capitalism" and consume anyway.
but there is a more ethical strand of harry potter consumption, and that's consumption which does all it can to limit its impact to only benefitting jkr indirectly, and which takes that task seriously.
i come back to this post all the time, especially this bit:
lots of people seem to be taking the view that [boycotting the show] this will be easy, because the tv show won't be any good. i strongly - strongly - advise you to prepare yourselves for the opposite. expect that the show will be absolutely outstanding. deal with your disappointment in missing out in advance. and do not engage with it, no matter what it tries to tempt you with.
Seeing you on my feed again and your post about writing again got me so excited that I went back to reread my favorite chapters of Beasts again. I’m surprised to say that by going back and doing a quick reread, I think my favorite chapter has changed. Maybe it’s the life stage that I’ve just gone into, but I used to think that Chapter 10 (reared) was my favorite. I think I loved (and still really enjoy) the contrast of the surface-level fun of the party and the underlying tension between Ginny and Harry that was brewing. In my opinion, it’s one of the most well crafted pieces of writing that stays true to post-war DA youthfulness, by showing how they are trying to move on in the only way late teens would know how, while also showing there is still processing to be done. But now on this last reread, I think Chapter 12 (scarecrow) is now my all time favorite because the ending just feels like a deep breath. Like there is a glimmer that everything is going to be ok even though there’s a long road ahead. It just felt really cathartic to read it and I’m just buzzing for the next chapter bc this fic is getting me through my dissertation.
mate i hope your dissertation is NOT ruining your days as those wretched things tend to do and that you are - or soon will be - thriving and free.
thank you SO much for this and for spending time with my fic, especially in the thick of gloomy days: that means the world. your message just made me go back and re-read c12 (which i never do) and actually think you've made me realise something about my own fic which is (and we can sound the pretentious klaxon) that c12 is probably something of a thesis statement/potted arc of the whole fic in many ways. everything IS going to be ok i swear i don't have a sad story in me! there are sighs of relief to come, even if i love to twist the knife a lil first.
also for when the diss is off your back there are more c10 boozy legend vibes in the word doc drafts to come so you will have new chapters for a new phase of life: getting on it when the academic shackles are lifted. coming 🔜
When Sirius is asked, why he left, he himself names his parent's pureblood mania. He doesn't say "because they treated me like shit" or "I was forced to marry" or "They wanted me to become a death eater".
It speaks for a strong conviction, that at sixteen Sirius was so done with pureblood supremacy that he chose to leave his whole family behind.
I think it would be really cruel and painful for Harry to lose Molly and Arthur's affection because they mean so much to him. But I do not understand how they would keep that love and affection for him after finding out what happened to Ginny. It is going to completely warp their perception of him isn't it. It stands out to me that he doesn't dare join the family at her graduation. He approaches Ginny separately. Which makes me think...he is no longer welcome. :/
You’ve not posted anything in a while (reblog or story) so I wanted to check in and I hope everything is alright in your world!! Much love and peace
i’m well mate don’t worry about me! busy as i am wont to be, but lurking and writing and larking about, as i do. bashed out 2000 words of beasts today and just handed in my notice so determined to idle away my days writing harry potter fanfiction and committing a light bit of wage theft. what else is a girl to do?
(also determined to wade through the inbox and answer my correspondence because though i am late i do still have my manners… i’m on it istg)
