Inconceivable - More thoughts on Secrecy, wizarding politics, and Severus Snape

[condwiramurs]

I started replying to a comment posted to "I Would Sell Out the Nation," but it developed into a rather long post thinking my way through some things. And talking more about Snape, of course. I’m just thinking out loud here though

Comments

[sunnyskywalker]

This shook loose something else, somewhat tangential, in my head. As you say, the friction comes from wizards trying to live secretly while still physically surrounded by Muggles. They can't help but use the Muggle train station, hide the government building behind a Muggle department store front in a Muggle neighborhood, live near Muggle towns even when in the country, dodge Muggle helicopters when traveling by broom, etc. The European wizarding schools are in isolated locations, as is Hogsmeade, but most wizards still live scattered around the Muggle landscape

[danajsparks]

Very good points.

--But that would mean giving up a lot of heritage, a lot of "but my family has been here since..."

I like this explanation. But why do the Blacks have a townhouse in London? According to a few different theorists, Grimmauld Place is probably located in or near Islington. This general area was actually still pretty rural until the late 18th century, so I was thinking that maybe the townhouses were built on what were once Black ancestral lands.

JKR posted on twitter that "a Black ancestor coveted the beautiful house, so 'persuaded' the Muggle occupant to leave & put the appropriate spells on it." But I'm not sure how seriously to take her twitter comments.

[sunnyskywalker]

That comment sounds like she just thew something out on Twitter and didn't think it through. Kind of like the house to begin with. Being on the spot of Black ancestral lands might work.

Or modify her comment a bit. A younger Black, one who wouldn't inherit Black Manor or whatever the original ancestral seat was, wanted some posh digs of their own and urban places are just easier to get than rural estates with lots of space. Then something happened--a freeway bypass through Black Manor that couldn't be stopped without too much risk, maybe--and suddenly the townhouse became the best replacement available.

[jana_ch]

It was common enough for a wealthy gentry family to have both a country estate and a house in town. Perhaps the Blacks of a previous generation split the property, and by the mid-twentieth century the Cygnus Blacks own Blackworth Park in Sussex while the Orion Blacks have Grimmauld Place in London.

Why ‘Blackworth Park’? Because:
1) ‘Black Manor’ is a dull name too obviously inspired by Malfoy Manor, without the dubious benefit of alliteration.
2) It sound sufficiently Jane Austen-ish.
3) The old Anglo-Saxon place-name element ‘worth’ (which means ‘homestead’) is part of my own last name.

[danajsparks]

---It was common enough for a wealthy gentry family to have both a country estate and a house in town.

Very true, but I'm not sure if the wizarding gentry would have functioned the same way, since travel was so much easier for them.