Gryffindor Tower

Archive
Name:	Gryffindor Tower
Date(s):	08 September 2001 - 03 October 2003
Archivist:	The Queens of H/G, others
Founder:	Firebolt909, Imogen, Chryslin & Ashwinder
Type:	Harry/Ginny fanworks and discussion
Fandom:	Harry Potter
URL:	GryffindorTower.net via the Wayback Machine
Click here for related articles on Fanlore.

Gryffindor Tower was a Harry Potter archive and community for the Harry/Ginny ship.

The Queens of H/G

The "Queens of H/G" (QoHG) was a self-coined term for the group of GT administrators. The original "Queens" were Imogen, Firebolt909 (Paula), Chryslin (Sue), and Ashwinder (Anne), the founders of the archive. An early version of the archive FAQ stated:

The Queens of H/G, also referred to as the QoHG, are four like-minded individuals who happened across each other in the great kingdom of fanfiction. [...] They began to call themselves 'Queens' as a harmless joke and no offense is meant to any actual Queens, Kings, or other monarchs and members of the nobility. We are but simple folk who enjoy frivolous things such as writing, reading, and discussing the Harry Potter series.

Marian, Carissa, Amy and Caitlyn later "became friends with the original queens, passed a rigorous and highly secret initiation, and became queens themselves."

An Ode to the Queens

Ode to the Queens of H/G

Gryffindor Tower, our home on the web,

A place to relax when the fics have been read.

The Queens of H/G feel right here at home,

With fellow addicts we are never alone!

Chatting all night, and chatting all day

Lots of scenarios come into play.

Harry in boxers and Harry in towels

We become incoherent, forget to use vowels.

The Fat Lady’s password the portrait unlocks;

Watch out for Ginny, or she’ll steal your socks!

So pull up an armchair, don’t hesitate,

Join us for butterbeer and stay up too late!

Links

• FAQ
• forms (what remains, one sample)
• Royal Dictionary (in-joke explanations, vocabulary)
• The Orb and Sceptre

Some Fiction

• author index
• Politics of Dancing by Chryslin
• Deconstructing Harry by Chryslin (based on Imogen's Carpe Diem)
• Ghost Story by Ashwinder
• The Carpe Diem Compendium
• Carpe Diem by Imogen
• fiction by Imogen
• Alpha and Omega by Imogen

History

The site grew out of the queensofhandg Yahoo! Group, started by Imogen and Firebolt909 in July 2001. Chryslin and Ashwinder soon joined the group, and the four founded the Gryffindor Tower archive. The archived opened on September 8, 2001.

• hatred of slash fic
• linked to the MsScribe fiasco (PottersGinny)
• smut was locked behind a password
• "Ginny! Harry! Babies! Bring on the babies!"

From Charlotte Lennox and The Ms.Scribe Story:

I believe in September 2001, Gryffindor Tower was launched. Unlike SQ and FA, GT was not mainly staffed by HP4GU veterans (though some admins had been members of that list). GT shipped Harry/Ginny, period. It was different from SQ despite supporting the same ships because where SQ said essentially "these ships are going to be canon, and we like them" GT said "we love H/G, and it'll probably be canon but either way, we love it." Also, unlike both SQ and FA, GT archived smutty stories in a separate section behind a password.

Relations between SQ and GT were fairly good -- there was no overlap or friendship that I know of between the admin groups, but there was much overlap among the members (not surprising, considering the ships). Due to the preferences of the admins, SQ soon added Remus/Sirius to its approved pairings despite its somewhat questionable canon-likelihood and the site attracted many active and vocal R/S-loving members. Therefore, SQ did not attract many slash-haters. GT, on the other hand, attracted a good number of members who were uncomfortable with the slash and smut that was so prevalent in the fandom, including on FictionAlley. Perhaps this was because the GT site had such an emphasis on the H/G ship that slash wasn't discussed as much (even though the archived fics often had R/S in the background) and because all the smut was safely locked away. This was a bit ironic, because I don't believe most of the GT admins had anything against slash -- some of them wrote it -- and I know they were quite fond of smut, but they allowed the site to become a refuge for some whose sensibilities had been shocked by fandom mores (as long as they loved H/G).

Relations between FA and GT were not so good, I think partly because the founders hadn't interacted much on HP4GU and therefore didn't know each other as well as the SQ founders and FA founders knew each other, and partly because some very influential people at FA -- Cassandra Claire, in particular -- HATED the Harry/Ginny ship and said so often and loudly. Which is how the whole thing started.

Closure

On September 20, 2003 a statement on the GT website and associated LiveJournal journal announced that Gryffindor Tower would be closing. The site was officially closed on October 3, 2003.

The official statement released by the site's moderators states:

At 11:30pm on the 19th September 2003, the death knell sounded for Gryffindortower.net. The exact details are messy, convoluted and largely irrelevant in the light of the greater picture but, needless to say, sides were taken, battle lines were drawn, and friendships were destroyed. The battleground was SQL and PHP, the weapons were passwords, tech support and administrative privileges, and the combatants were people who should never have had to go to war with each other. Sadly, the casualty was Gryffindor Tower.

Further details were revealed at the Yahoo! group and by individual moderators, which have been consolidated at Gryffindor Tower's article at the Fandom Wank wiki.

After the closure of GT, Anne and Marian went on to start the multifandom archive Bitchnmoan.net.