A.J. Hall - Lust Over Pendle - DM/NL - Must-read. Vicars! Narcissa and Hermione and Neville and Draco, and and and it has vicars! These novels have everything to recommend them—drama and suspense and hilarity, but I have to highlight Hall's characterizations of Neville and Draco, which are stupendous. I promise you you'll finish the LOPverse (don't miss Geoviki's guided tour) and go out and ravenously read every other D/N story you can find.
"Hm. DeVries. That'll make you one of Charlie Device's grandchildren?
Your father would have been be his youngest, the one who changed his name to
deVries after the dragon hide financial futures trial, then?"
Narcissa flushed.
"He was acquitted
on all charges."
"I like that
in a man," Mrs Longbottom observed dryly.
Aja - The Reader - HP+DM - The premise is perhaps a little unlikely, but the theme and fine language struck a chord.
Every eye was open and alert. Malfoy, staring at his head of house in obvious shock, managed, "No." Then, all at once, his face cleared; understanding entered it, and also, Harry thought, a touch of gladness.
Anj - A Question of Trust - HP/DM - This is the story I was thinking of when I said, in my "101 Fic Kinks" post, "Really well-written and researched unvanilla D/s, consensual and explicated. This is pretty foreign to me and my desires, therefore interesting. One wobble and it gets bumped to the 101 Squicks list and I'm gone. I keep yapping, and it's true, that one of my top three kinks is equality, and that's a revolt against relationships that aren't trying to be D/s at all, they're just misogynist or something. So I find the play between apparent power and actual power in D/s relationships, and the concept of empowered and purposeful balancing acts somehow finding equality at the median, fascinating." Mind the warnings.
What happened to Harry? Well the truth is, if you can't face death, can't dissect it, can't understand the fundamentals of it, then you will never cast Avada Kedavra. It's just like the thestrals. You remember that, don't you? You were the one who told me about them, after all. But this goes beyond even that level of understanding. In order to cast Avada Kedavra, you have to become death, if only for a split second, and you have to tear through your opponent's body and vanquish life completely. That is the fundamental difference between Cruciatus and Avada Kedavra. In the former, your victim becomes the spell's intent; the latter is all you.
Arsenic Jade - Rule of Law - HG/SS - I have a big kink for this particular type of story construction: a couple hundred pages of smart people wrapping their brains around one specific magical puzzle. The McGuffin here is quite nifty, and provides ample opportunity for Close Quarters and Verbal Poignards. The supporting cast is warmly drawn, with just the right amount of gorgeous, incidental detail from their lives. Arsenic's other writing is equally leisurely, restrained and erudite, and unusually sympathetic to a wide range of pairings.
Hermione looked over at the sleeping snake. "I think he's still
waiting to see if I'm telling the truth about the inside being warmer than the
outside."
Harry reached out and put his hand over her heart,
a shockingly intimate gesture even between the two of them. He said, "You're
bigger than him. Just take him in and show him."
Blythely - Corridors of Power - HP/DM - Dis, I believe, iz vhat ve are calling zhe CrackFic. Less nuts, but quite as charming, is "Owlets."
Suggest amendment to speaking procedures, Draco wrote in his notebook, obtaining eternal gratitude of all 65+. He murmured the indexing charm and the sentence began to slink off the page to a section he'd thoughtfully labelled Ingratiation.
Catrinella -Impossible Girl - HP/DM, SS/RL - I mostly, ah, skirt away from this type of tale because I'm so fussy about the power dynamics. I dip in here on a whim, and she manages to skate all my personal edges flawlessly—both boys know what they want and are hugely, but not helplessly, turned on, both have tons of witty lines. The writing is friendly and smart, PWP at its best, with just enough framing and just the right deft, oh-so-pretty details.
"No, you great idiot, I am going to walk out of here and live my life happily knowing I got you murdered for a turf war between rival gangs, when I could have rescued you and spent the evening snogging a cute blonde in a rubber dress." He frowned at Malfoy. "You can be such a wanker. Now quit straddling me. It's not ladylike, and your mother would be mortified."
Cedar - A Wolf By Half - RL/BW - A five-sestina cycle about Remus and Bill. 'Nuff said, I should hope.
Slowly, with his neck bare
Bill leaned back, exposing himself to Remus's teeth and
wishing for pain, distraction against the cold.
As Remus bit him, the sound of sea water
steel blue and clear
calmed the wolf inside.
Corvidae - Switch - Gen, at present - The Weasley twins bamboozle the Sorting Hat. It's a one-shot gone wild, currently up to an alternate book III and still barrelling. Snappy prose, smashing character work, and a welcome implicit comentary on nature vs. nurture.
"I guess you can't be all that bad if you're a half-blood. That's
better than being a Mudblood, at least," muttered Draco sensibly in Harry's
direction. Immediately, he was pegged with a roll to the side of the head. Indignant,
Draco gasped, opening his mouth to protest as he was hit with another squarely
on his forehead. This time it was clear that it had been pitched by the tall,
good-looking boy across the table and down a bit.
The boy pointed in Draco's direction. "No
talk like that in Hufflepuff. Keep your disgusting ignorance to yourself 'till
we can beat it out of you, firstie."
Dorkorific and Ladyjaida - The Shoebox Project - MWPP, RL/SB - accidental gen, benny goodman orchestra, dah-nah-nah dah!, epistles, fanfiction, great honking mixed-media project, hogwarts, james, latvian heathens, mixed media, moony, not ignoring peter, padfoot, peter, potters are stalkers, prongs, remus, remus/sirius, sirius, sirius/mcgonagall, slash, snapshots, supposedly devonshire, the marauders map, theirloveissobeingredefined, whosiface google, wormtail.
Sirius' face, upside-down, manic, and rather too close, pops into
view.
"Help!" James squeaks in terror.
"Good morning, birthday boy,"
Sirius coos, and kisses him soundly and very sloppily on the mouth. "Who's
my all-grown-up little cabbage? Whosee den?"
"I am no one's cabbage before ten
in the morning," James says, trying to decipher through the haze of sleep
which way is up and which way is escape. "Get off my legs! Aghhh you weigh
a ton."
Faire Weather - Men Who Had Mothers - HP/DM - One of those rare kink!fics (in this case cross-dressing) that doesn't play the kink for smutty gratification, but actually queries it seriously: the result is weird and whimsical and compassionate and utterly lovely. Also boasts some deliciously inventive world-building.
Draco wore his mother's wedding dress underneath his robes on Sundays because it was beautiful, and if he didn't wear it, no one else ever would. It was too lovely to be stored at the bottom of a cedar chest forever, he thought, and even if no one ever saw him in it, it was still being worn.
Femmenerd - He Thinks, She Wants - HG/RW - Femme said, "Ahahahahaha. I'm a shippy dork. Who really likes the idea of a desiring female gaze." Jump for joy, HP fandom: her brand of exuberant, sophisticated feminism is just the thing for ya.
It’s so pornographic, in her head, when she thinks about him.
Fourth Rose - The World of the Living - HP/DM, Luna - Unrushed, homey writing, with a really lovely Luna.
"Would you like to write about it in The Quibbler? A weekly
column, Pep Up Your Potions or something like that?"
He shakes his head with a grimace that looks
almost like amusement. "You're really mental, aren't you? Half of the stuff
I know about potions would land us both in Azkaban if you printed it."
"Oh." Luna ponders this for a moment.
"That's really a pity. But what about the other half?"
Holographis - Salience - HP+DM - Striking images.
As the resident hero, Harry’s been staying away from Draco. It’s easier to kill someone whom you don’t know.
Jay Tryfanstone - Fly-fishing for Beginners - HP/SS - Right, I've linked to "Fly-fishing" because it's the most beauteous deployment of the bookshop cliché I've ever seen, full of joyful, self-referential wit. However, the Consanguinuity arch is where she really flaunts her powers. In this story, Harry and Snape get divorced, and go to relationship counseling. Wait, come back! Jay has a very functional sense of humour, but the premise of this piece is dead serious, canon-compliant, and—bloody ingenious. File under "Must-Read."
Harry sat down, rather heavily, on the nearest flat surface, which turned
out to be the packing case. Thirteen stone, rugby playing, treacle pudding eating
bookshop managers and cardboard boxes - even reinforced cardboard boxes with
padded upholstery - are not designed to occupy the same space simultaneously.
The box broke. Polystyrene chips scattered like rice at a wedding. Harry Potter
(thump!) found himself on the floor with three books in one hand and his ex-teacher's
letter in the other.
"You're right," Harry said. "This
is deeply weird."
Julad - Night-Blooming Heartsease - NL/SS - A brilliant prequel for Resonant's "Transfigurations," recced below. Snape/Neville, i' faith! Read it, if you trust me. "Broken Bones", her shorter Harry/Draco effort, is also worth a look.
Neville's Gran had always said what her fanged geraniums liked best was friendly company and the smell of her lemon butter cake with a nice pot of Darjeeling. Neville didn't have any cake, or Darjeeling for that matter, but he tried to be the best company he could. He apologised to the plants for their upsetting series of transplants, and talked to them about Harry and Ron and Hermione and the other Gryffindors, and explained the war in a way he hoped was morale-boosting rather than terrifying. He also tried to do a few diagnostic spells on the droopy ones, but after the second one burst into flames, he had to spend an hour practicing on weeds until he remembered how to do it. When he tried again, the spell said what they needed was a ride on the Bucking Pillows at the Hogsmeade Solstice Fair.
Lady Sisyphus - Harry
Potter and the Half-Blood Poet - Gen - Awful,
awful, awful. What were they dr thinking?
Unreal City, 60
Under the green mark of an Imperius curse,
A crowd flowed into Diagon Alley, so many,
I had not thought Death Eaters had undone so many.
Hexes, short and infrequent, were exhaled,
And each man fixed his eyes upon his wand. 65
Flowed through the gate and into the Leaky Cauldron,
To where Tom the bartender polished the glasses
With a faint nod for the niceties of canon.
There I saw one I knew, and stopped him, crying: "Remus!
"You who were with me at Hogwarts in Book 3! 70
"That Wolfsbane you planted last year in your garden,
"Has it begun to sprout? Will it bloom this year?
"Or has the sudden chaos disturbed its bed?
"O keep the Dog far hence, that's partly men,
"Or with his nails he'll dig it up again! 75
"You! hypocrite lecturer!—mon professeur,—mon loup!'
Lim - Decline and Fall - HP/DM - Post-war. Post-repercussions, not so much. Intriguingly crafted, in a style-matches-very-cool-plot kind of way. Nice adult characterizations, especially Draco, who is himself, yet believeably wiser. And Snape, oh God!
They tumbled, rolled, and he nudged Draco's thighs apart, knelt between them, and ran his tongue down the white-ridged scarlines that criss-crossed Draco's back. Draco went rigid, his head snapping up, but Harry pressed him down, rubbing out the tension, a hand between his shoulderblades, mumbling, "It's okay. It's okay. I'll show you mine," because that's what someone had said to him once, a long time ago, on another beach in another war.
Marginalia - All She Knew - Gen - Helga Hufflepuff, Pomona Sprout and Hannah Abbott. I read it twice. It made me pause, and smile like I'd been handed a secret.
Those who can see clearly gather in shadow, dreaming, plotting, and finally creating. Helga's stomach twists with the discord even among their small group. In the venture she left behind friends who lacked the magic in their blood, and she mourned their loss as if they had died. Rowena takes her hand and she allows it, though she needs no pity. Helga knows herself fully; it is immaterial if others do not.
Marksykins - A Single-Minded, Long-Term Fixation - HP/DM - The perfect edgy set-up for a slashier book seven. Works fine as a standalone, but man, I hope she continues this.
Harry retreats to the tent he's set up in woods on the outskirts
of town, waiting to see if Hedwig has brought any news about his friends' arrival.
She's not there, but a nondescript brown barn owl is waiting for him, hooting
impatiently. It sticks out its leg, and Harry takes the scroll attached.
Help me.
Maya - Quality of Mercy - HP+DM - Must-read. Maya is...Jossian: steel-nibbed, with hilarity on one side and heartbreak on the other. She makes me ache. She writes the best similes on three continents. She writes love, platonic and romantic, in all of its small, wacky gestures and accidental epic-ness. Her character insights, to put it bluntly, put her source material to shame. QoM (of the "post-HBP in which Harry gets saddled with Malfoy Jr. and has to learn to put up with him" genre) is her best effort. Active WIP, as of this writing, but it's worth sinking your teeth into even if she never gets to the end. Note: She's got stuff archived at FictionAlley and various places, but the best place, by far, to find new fic is on her livejournal.
Malfoy was stronger than he looked, the skinny wretch. He put Ginny
down in her chair and then smoothed her napkin in her lap while Ginny smiled
and Mrs Weasley beamed at his beautiful manners.
Harry cut his steak into tiny pieces of rage.
Mirabella - The Shadow of His Wings - HP/DM - Indulgence!fic so sure of itself you don't notice it's indulgence!fic. Adult Harry/Draco in rippling shades of gray. Large cast superbly handled; whoopingly funny and scary as hell. Slight over-reliance on the same set of adverbs and stock descriptives, the Britishisms falter now and then, but the language is otherwise a delight. She wallops my kinks for competence, teamwork, and unholy bitching precisely; Harry and Draco are as deeply sexy as they are flawed. Mirabella's short stories are also good, and tending toward the hysterical.
An elegantly folded origami crane flopped feebly on the desk's surface, trying to fly. Its head had been torn off, and there was a smear of blood down its neck and onto its wing.
Pir8fancier - Snape: The Home Fries Nazi - SS/HP - Snape is a fry cook in Arizona; Harry is depressed. Read and be boggled: hilarity abounds, but this story is neither AU nor parody. Given the title, the writing is a glorious surprise—a perfect blend of absurdity, insight and love. Also, incidentally, the only Snarry I've ever read (and the pairing has some damned talented champions) that made me believe 100%, and root for, Harry's desire for Snape.
"I do not cook. I eat yoghurt, salads, nuts, and fruit. The
last thing I want to do when I've been slaving over a hot grill is to slave
over a hot stove. I suggest that whatever your dietary needs are, they conform
to mine.
Harry nodded again. He snorted silently at the
use of the word conform. As if "conform to mine" wasn't Snape for
"Fuck you, there's yoghurt or nothing."
Pushdragon - Stung - HP/DM - An ingenious reworking of The Taming of the Shrew: passionate, to-the-hilt characterizations, cinematic blocking, magnificent prose.
"Shall I compare thee to a summer's day," Percy Weasley read out in exactly the same tone he had just used on the footnotes to the 1931 Decree for the Conveyance of Magical Estates. "After that it's pretty much a weather report. Rough winds do shake - what in mercy's name are darling buds? Mrs Malfoy, this is discourteous. Allow me to spare you this sort of primitive double entendre."
Rageprufrock - Seven Things That Never Happened At Hogwarts On Valentines Day, Or Maybe They Did - MWPP, RL/SB - Know what I love? I love it when a massive intelligence lurks behind readable, rollicking, smacking-good stories. She's got the Marauders nailed, in their pains and joys alike. Hit her main page, too, for everything from Angel to Bruno & Boots, all superbly spun.
"This is the weirdest Valentine's Day yet," Peter mused.
"But not 'ever,'" Remus said dryly.
Rather Bright Red - Sexing the Pumpkin: a love story - stealth!Snape/SB - So, how many genderswap fics have you read that actually represent trans-identity? Yeah, me neither. This mad gem offers up a Snape who is gendered male but biologically female, who fits into HP canon by "living stealth." The wacky premise wouldn't work if Red were interested in crack!fic; she commits 100% to these characters, and brings all of her empathy, wit and information out to play. Her writing is nerdy, vile, absurd, hilarious, poignant and beautiful.
The thought of someone looking at, let alone touching, those foreign objects on his chest, small and scrawny and uninteresting as they were, made him taste sweet, pot-hazy vomit at the back of his throat, as if his dinner wanted to resurface amidst his growing hunger for the out of character foods marijuana always urged him towards. This time, he was craving a most unlikely incorporation, stranger than chips and chocolate cake combined: Sirius Black, complete with crooked grin, unkempt facial hair, and the intensity of someone left alone and bored all day every day. He had very simple desires, like stroking Snape's lip with his thumb, and letting the hammock gently draw them closer, until they touched from ankle to shoulder. Well, these would have been simple desires were he anyone but who he was—a man who felt not very distant from the spindly deviant he'd been when he first set foot in Hogwarts decades ago. He knew that only someone equally queer could ever really understand him or possibly love him (though in truth he didn't hold out much hope for love). If Black's queerness was in question, his fucked-upness was strong and true. Maybe that would be enough.
Resonant - Transfigurations - HP/DM - Adult Harry/Draco fueled by a marvelously compact and clever McGuffin. The characterizations, I deem, are wildly fanonical, but they're witty and internally consistent, so I care not.
"Oh, little gods," Malfoy whispered. "Tea." He pointed his torch at a sideboard, and the beam picked out a homey ceramic teapot, steam curling delicately from the spout where an Infervesco had kept it piping hot for five years.
Shocolate - Long, Hot and Slow - HP/RW/SF - Rarely does one find threesome smut so beautifully blended with humour and story. This is stuffed with gleeful, ridiculous jokes I wish I'd cracked myself.
My jaw dropped open.
“Seamus Fionnghuala Finnegan!”
I gasped. “Where the hell did that come from?”
“Fionnghuala?” he echoed.
“It’s not my fault you don’t
have a middle name,” I said. “I really needed to middle
name you."
Sinick and Acid - Two Lockets - HP/SS - Simply spectacular world-building: Grimmauld Place comes alive. Oh, and there's a love story, too.
All the light in Grimmauld Place went where Harry went. As soon as he lit the candles and turned away, they hopped down from the mouths of their runespoor-shaped candlesticks, breaking their fall by landing in trampolines of cobwebs, and bouncing from there to the floor. They waddled after Harry in a row like ducklings, short and fluffy and dripping wax all over in their excitement at being alight and having company at last. Harry shrugged and let them trail along after him.
Warholhp - A
Secret History - HP/DM - This rec comes with both
a trigger warning and a general caveat. As a piece of fanfic it's a rarity:
a carefully and painfully realistic story about abuse and recovery, backgrounded
by a romance, yes, but centered on one protagonist—so much so that I'm
tempted to label it "gen" despite the sexual content. The other caveat is that
the author's choice of perpetrator is very purposefully shocking, and will upset
readers who are invested in the books. That said, it's a quietly courageous
piece of writing, full of hope and kindness.
There are many things Harry Potter doesn't remember, but he has learned to stop worrying about it.
He doesn't remember what happened in the moments and hours after he killed Voldemort, and the few weeks
afterward are very fuzzy, though Ron has told him he acted completely normal; Draco has told him that he that acted like a complete
crackpot, but that he supposed it was normal for Harry.
Yahtzee - Masked - HP/DM - As cunning as anything Yahtzee's written.
The heavy door swung shut, hinges creaking. As soon as he heard the thump, Harry glanced over his shoulder. Draco had already turned toward him, hands against the table's edge, as though he were bracing himself. Their eyes met, and for the first time Harry knew what his decision would mean - if he held true to it. If he dared to do what he'd imagined all summer long. The reality was a thousand times more dangerous than he'd dreamed, and they hadn't even touched.
Updated June 26, 2009
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