#call them drarry | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

phoebe-delia · 1 year

Note

Hey phoebe!! I love all of your taylor swift songfics!!

How about some drarry for 'Delicate'? I think that would be fun to write (and read)!!

<3<3

Hey Yuvika!! @purplehotmess. Thank you so much, my lovely fellow Swiftie!!

So here's the deal. I've technically done this song before. BUT 1. It wasn't all that fleshed out. And 2. Because of that, I've actually been meaning to give it another go. I think there are themes to the song I didn't explore as much. Not shading my original; but I love this song and think it fits Drarry SO well and I want to it full justice.

And yes I know I’ve written. Like. So many fics like this. In this setting. In fact I’m pretty sure there’s a scene in YAIL almost exactly like this. But also. It’s one of my favorite things to both read and write. And I’m trying to get into the “two cakes” mindset. So here’s some shameless fluffy floofness. Cw: very brief mention of grieving a loved one.

And with that, all that's left to say is this: 1, 2, 3 LET'S GO BITCH!

Raindrops clung to the grass beneath their limbs. They were propping themselves up on their forearms, legs stretched out in front of them. They knew they were making their robes damp, but it was worth it for the view at their feet of the moonlight spilled on the Black Lake. It was quiet, save for the chirping insects Harry couldn’t identify by sound alone.

“Harry, I—“ Draco hesitated, and suddenly pressed his lips together, glancing away.

Harry turned onto his side to face Draco. “What?”

“I—just wanted to know what you thought of Binns’ lecture today.”

Harry rolled his eyes. “You know you and Hermione are the only ones who don’t nap during his class. What were you going to say?”

Draco closed his eyes a moment, seeming to collect himself before he spoke again. “I think we should talk. About tomorrow.”

Harry frowned. “Graduation? Did you forget what McGonagall said during rehearsal? She’ll call us up, we get our diploma, and sit down. Pretty standard, I think.”

Draco gave him a flat look. “Not the ceremony, you dolt. What happens after.”

“The reception?”

“Are you being dense on purpose?”

Harry huffed. “No! I’m just confused as to why you’re being all intense about this.”

Draco signed, tilting his head back, his Adam’s apple bobbing. Harry’s eyes were drawn to it for a moment before flickering back up to Draco’s face. “I’m asking about what happens after we graduate. With us,” Draco gestured between the two of them.

Harry froze. They hadn’t talked about this. He hadn’t thought about it, if he was honest with himself. He’d been too wrapped up in enjoying Hogwarts without worrying about imminent death, and falling into this—thing—with Draco to think about his future beyond deciding not to decide. He had Grimmauld Place and a regular mind healer—so he’d figured he at least had the bare minimum covered. He just assumed Draco would fit in there, somewhere, in the hazy picture of the rest of his life.

“What do you want?” Harry asked.

Draco looked away again, eyes pointed at the lake in front of them. “I was hoping you’d go first. I’m not good at this type of thing.”

Harry chuckled. “You think I’m much better?”

“Well you’re a Gryffindor, aren’t you? At least Slytherins are known for saving face. Are you telling me you can be brave enough to consistently tell death to fuck off—but not to have a vulnerable conversation?”

Harry smiled, amused. “Pretty much, yeah.”

Draco huffed. “That bodes well for this, then. Glad I brought it up.”

Harry let out a laugh. “Well, since you were brave enough to start this, I guess it’s only fair I continue it.”

Draco nodded. “Yes. Go on.”

“Give me a minute! So impatient.” Harry grinned at Draco’s eye roll.

They say in silence for a few moments while Harry thought, and Draco was clearly trying to appear nonchalant while he waited. Harry was surprised that it didn’t take long to decide what to say, but he gave it just a second longer—seeing Draco try and fail to be subtle was too much fun.

When he spoke, the words came out as easily as if he’d been planning them for months.

“I think we’ve come a long way. Both in the time we’ve known each other, and just in the last year. I know we’ve known each other all that time but I don’t think I ever really knew you until we stopped hating each other.

“I enjoy you, Draco. I like you; I like knowing you. I like being with you. I liked being your friend at first. I really like being more. I like that our close friends know, but that we got to explore this with some privacy. I like what we have, and—“ Harry reached over and took Draco’s hand, which gave his a light squeeze— “I don’t want it to end just because we’re going into the real world. I don’t know what I want to do other than renovate Grimmauld, keep going to therapy, and spend time with the people who are important to me. And that includes you.”

Harry let his words hang in the air a minute; let Draco take it in. Wide gray eyes studied him, and Harry tried not to blush under the scrutiny.

“Er, your turn,” Harry stammered, retracting his hand, suddenly shy.

Draco didn’t respond for a long moment, looking at Harry blankly.

“Well! Say something!” Harry huffed.

Draco swallowed. “Do you want—are you saying—”

“I’m saying I want to be with you. Properly. I want to hold your hand in public. Take you on dates. Go to the cinema—”

“What’s a cinnamona?”

“It’s—it’s fun, trust me. I want to show you so much. I want you to show me things, in return. I want us to be together. As adults.” Harry shrugged. “Just us.”

Draco let out a shaky breath. “I—Harry, I’m not…I’m not good enough for you. You’ve got to know that. Being together in public would bring you immense backlash. It would be—”

“Worth it,” Harry said, making his eyes meet Draco’s. “Absolutely worth it. The angry letters would make great paper to potty train our Crup.”

Draco let out a laugh. “Oh, we’ve got a Crup now?”

Harry nodded, grinning. “Yes we do. His name is Mr. Fluffsworth.”

Draco laughed again, a bit softer. “How are we to have a Crup if we don’t li—” he cut himself off, cheeks flushing.

“If we—oh,” Harry trailed off, letting silence settle between them. But it didn’t take long for the words to come, for honey-sweet certainty to flood his body. “Move in with me.”

Draco looked at him, stunned. “W-what did you just say?”

“Move in with me. We did well enough sharing a dorm; we’ll have a whole house now. And it’s not like we’ve got to pay rent, since it’s already m-mine,” Harry cleared his throat against the surge of grief and pressed on. “Move in with me.”

Draco swallowed. “How can you be so sure?”

“I just am. Draco you make me so happy it scares me,” Harry said. “But in a good way! The best way. I’ve never been so happy to be so terrified, I—”

Draco reached over and cupped Harry’s jaw. “You’re rambling, love. It’s alright. I understand.”

Harry sagged in relief. “See? You see what you do for me? Move in with me. Please. Please say yes.”

Draco stared for a long moment, as if trying to find something in Harry’s face, and then laughed again. “You are the strangest person I’ve ever met.”

Harry quirked a small, hopeful smile. “That’s not a ‘No.’”

Draco laughed, grin growing as he said, “Yes, yes, you absolute maniac, I’ll move in with you!”

Harry grinned and tackled Draco into his back, kissing him breathlessly. They finally pulled apart for air, but stayed close, foreheads pressed together.

“On one condition,” Draco whispered. Harry felt his chest seize with momentary panic before he saw the smile on Draco’s lips and in his eyes.

“Anything.”

“I get to name the Crup.”

#(No I’m not calling Yuvika or anyone else a bitch. Iykyk 😉)#at least I didn’t wax poetic about the stars this time #or say some shit like ‘the stars twinkled hopefully above them’ like I’ve done 32346 times before lol #draco malfoy #drarry #drarry fic #harry potter #drarry fanfic #harry and draco #hpdm #draco and harry #drarry fanfiction #draco x harry #Cw: very brief mention of grieving a loved one.

79 notes · View notes

short666bread · 2 years

Text

Another Gay Beach Moment

#drarry #my hand slipped and they are once again at the beach TT #I said I wouldn’t but then I did #I have basically trapped them here #Look. listen. drawing all the top surgery scars was bumming me out #sometimes you don’t have top surgery yet #but like it’s ok and stuff and you look hot anyways #sometimes u are keeping them #not me but sometimes!#let’s go to the beach (beach)#Nicky minjaj #draco malfoy #harry potter #draco x harry #harry x draco #trans draco malfoy #trans harry potter #cw for what I’m calling slutty beach levels of nudity #🌞🌈🏝

117 notes · View notes

hihimissamericanbi · 3 months

Text

FAVE HP SMUT CREATORS

Ever since I got that lovely anon asking for the best smut I've ever read, it got me thinking about some of my favorite smut creators in general.

So here is a very non-exhaustive list of fan-fucking-tastic smut writers and artists I've come across in the HP fandom that weren't mentioned (shamefully) in my last batch. Feel free to add to the list! We must keep the people fed.

xoxo go take a sip of cold water girl

WRITERS

@spookymoonie

Lord Espooky came into this fandom guns a-blazing with their kink headcanon a day for Wolfstar and it has spiraled from there. They GET IT. He has a super well-organized masterlist pinned to his tumblr ft tons of different kinks, fic lengths, scenes, etc. Go. Now.

@fiveht

The definition of IYKYK. Daddy kink isn't super my thing, but Five makes me enjoy it. If you vibe with age gap daddy Remus and pretty boy Sirius, their Adore series is a must-read. They also have a stellar A/B/O Wolfstar fic plus podfic and write some Marvel too!

@greenvlvetcouch

An absolute legend in this fandom. Wolfstar, Jeggy, Rosekiller. Gritty, chewy, embodied sex.

@emeryhall

Emery writes sex the way some people breathe. Like it's just part of the narrative. It's SO punchy. And also she is the queen of Crack Smut.

@kaaaaaaarf

Patron saint of Wolfstar hatefucks. mic drop.

@cancerravenclaw

We snagged MK over to Wolfstar from the clutches of Dramione. Her series "mk's kink exposé" could also be called "celine's kink exposé." I'll just leave that there.

@wolfpants

Everything they create is magic, but they are especially known for rare pairs and Dronarry.

WRITERS AND ARTISTS

@aspiring-artist-em

The queen of Lesbian Wolfstar. Both art and fic. Also queen of humiliation and pain kink and Walburga psychological trauma. ye be warned.

@upthehillnsfw / @upthehillart

I am afraid no one is ready for this art. Truly. Tons of different ships, positions, acts. I gasp every time. And their Pansmione fic is epic (which I have talked about before).

ARTISTS

@industrations

I highly recommend getting on Indi's Patreon so you can enjoy their NSFW drawings, mostly Wolfstar and Jegulus, occasional Rosekiller. Too many iconic moments to count.

@waxingrunes

The officially-sponsored artist of Five's Adore series. Look, their work is nothing short of indulgent. Shhhh don't worry about the physics just let it happen. And by It I mean Remus' big dick hands.

@basiatlu

By beloved. The one. The only. Bosh's drawings are so ALIVE. They leap off the screen. Her Drarry is nothing less than iconic. She also dabbles in other characters/ships like Wolfstar and Blackcest. Siriusly, you can't go wrong.

DRARRY SMUT

OKAY, Drarry people. There are so so many excellent Drarry smut writers it is impossible to name them all. Here are but a tiny handful I have pulled from my bookmarks. I'm happy to rec specific fics if asked :)

@cavendishbutterfly, @bixgirl1, @l0vegl0wsinthedark, @shiftylinguini, @kbrick, @fluxweeed, @academicdisasterfic

I'm tagging those other creators from older asks because I can't put this list out there without them on it <3

@crushofdoves @we-are-swearwolves @tenthousandyearsx @theresthesnitch @lqtraintracks Quietlemonhush @cuddlebugsirius

#celine spills #celine's library #smut recs #hp smut #wolfstar smut #drarry smut #jegulus smut #HI FRIENDS i love you all #celine's flirting again #fic recs #hp fic recs #fan art #hp fanart #wolfstar art #drarry art #jegulus art

523 notes · View notes

weirdly-specific-but-ok · 4 months

Text

hi it's the good omens mascot here's some shit about me that might be relevant

I appear to have accidentally caused chaos so I figured you might as well know about me since I'm responsible for it. And also so that you know who you broke, thanks ineffable fandom.

I have been called the prophet by some of you all. This is not entirely untrue, but I would like to add as I did in one post, that Apollo also gave me the curses of art, (very emotional) music, (sometimes good mostly dreadful) poetry, (same parentheses apply, except that the dreadful is on purpose) writing and (used to be good now dreadful) medical knowledge, and so yes, you did accidently adopt a messenger of an ancient Greek god.

Yes, this entire entry into your cult happened from start to now happened in 48 hours.

This will seem less bizarre when I give you context about me and fandoms. I changed career paths (after three years of intense study that cost me my sanity) from science to the arts because I was inspired by drarry fanfiction of them leaving their ministry jobs and following their dreams. Yes I tossed three years and my loss of sanity away in one week of decisions. I'm now a designer. Thanks Draco.

I read so much drarry fanfiction that my mum had to take me to the hospital for injured wrists. I wore wrist and elbow supports and was in constant pain for a few months. I was only later introduced to autoscroll. Yes, I am a fool. Yes, I am unaware of how to human.

I'm broke and cheap enough that I feel guilty buying bottled water, but for Christmas I spent the equivalent of around 150 bottles of water getting a Bakewell tart custom made (they don't sell them where I live). Why? Because in one single fanfiction, it is Draco's favourite food. I would never spend that kind of money on a dessert for any real human being.

That is to say, you all are not ready for when I REALLY fall for Crowley. I don't saunter vaguely downwards for people. I bypass earth and crash into hell, leaving a smoking pit in its infernal ground.

I swear I'm not as dumb as I seem, I just have ZERO general knowledge, and am terrible with faces. I can tell you what the graffiti on the walls of Pompeii from before 70 AD said but I don't know who my previous president was, and personally I think that's very classy of me.

Some of you seem concerned about my sleep schedule. Worry not, I sleep in four installments, night, morning nap, afternoon nap, evening nap. I sleep more than you all, that I can promise. I sleep more than my doggy sister.

About the streams and the timezones, I have no idea how to make it so people can watch, because I frequently mix up east and west and last morning I mixed up the Pacific and Atlantic ocean. I don't know at what point the Eastern hemisphere becomes the Western or how any of it works. I also thought Wakanda was a real place.

But hey fun fact, in 2020 diclofenac sales were dropping in Iceland. I know this because I wanted to make sure to use the correct painkiller in one sentence of a story I was writing. It was completely irrelevant. But hey any of you writers here probably feel my pain. I don't write fanfiction, but I am an author and I write original stories. And honestly what is more useful, Icelandic diclofenac sales from three years ago or timezones?

A career test once told me to be a standup comedian.

Yes that's me Asmi, just your regular dumbass lad who is slightly unhinged, serving himbo twink energy, hello hi nice to meet you all. PS: the poll results are out and Doctor Who won, so tremble, DW fandom.

#good omens fandom #good omens mascot #asmi #weirdly-specific-but-ok #this is me y'all #good omens brainrot #thanks for breaking me i figured you should know about me #crowley #just crowley i'm going to shatter soon #drarry #draco malfoy #fandom culture #fandom things #doctor who #dw fandom #more inaccurate summaries coming up #good omens #fanfiction #and how it ruined and saved me

378 notes · View notes

maesterchill · 3 months

Text

Maester's 2023 Fic Recs

(eyyy, another banner art by me, snake of Slytherin, heheh🐍)

Not one to normally do rec lists, me, as they are tricksy, fiddly things, and I'm pants at knowing what to say about a good fic that accurately conveys my love for it beyond keysmash and 'aaargh i loved it'.

Which is why this has taken me 3 weeks to bloody pull together... 😄

So I'm just going to list them out and maybe comment a bit, we'll see.

And can I just say this has been a STELLAR year for fics, so many amazing ones to choose from. And I also apologise in advance to the authors if I haven't left you a comment, I am terribly behind, but comments will come, spurting in contrite ribbons over the stomachs of your fics, forthwith.

fyi: there's a mix of Drarry and other ships but it's 90% Drarry.

1k or less 🍬

💚 A summer afternoon in the parlour by fast_brother (Narcissa & Andromeda, G, 300 words)

'Narcissa's perspective on the day Andromeda is disowned by their family.' Stunning writing and so, so poignant.

💚 You Have Always Been My Bedtime Story by @squintclover (Drarry pre-slash, G, 435 words)

So many Smol Draco feels 🥺🥺🥺

💚 Uneasy Alliance, Enough Magic and After All by @the-starryknight (Drarry, T, 1000 words each)

GORGEOUS series written for FTH. Featuring Harry losing his magic, a set of microfics, and a Choose Your Own Adventure section! Plus there's a 4th part to come! Genius author is genius.

Less than 5k 🍭

💚 The Broken wand by @lqtraintracks (Drarry, T, 1.3k)

Absolutely exquisite pining. 2nd person POV done right.

💚Follow the Butterflies by @rainstormradish (Aragog/Flying Ford Anglia, T, 1.4k)

You might have to trust me on this ship, and you would be right to do so, because this sweet, melancholic and haunting fic made me feel a thing about a giant spider and a car.

💚Rise Forgetful From Your Sleep by @kbrick (Drarry, G 1.5k)

'Draco finds Harry Potter waiting for him at the Manor. But Potter has been dead for ten years.' CHILLING. Dark Harry deliciousness

💚Making Noise by @cavendishbutterfly (Drarry, E 2.4k)

Professors!Drarry. Fun, fun, fun and fab twist.

💚Proven lands by @oknowkiss (Drarry, E 2.8k)

Really loved this story told in microfics. Beautiful, haunting, bittersweet.

💚I Fall On Grass by @tackytigerfic (Drarry, T, 3k)

Single-parent-middle-aged Drarry is ambrosia from the gods, at least the way Tacky writes it. Rec rec rec x1000.

💚Quick Quotes and Quibbles by @rainstormradish (Luna/Rita Skeeter, T, 3k)

Epistolary hilarity and now I ship it

💚Just another Friday night by @cavendishbutterfly (Drarry, E 3k)

Excellent. A potent shotglass full of of bafflement, curiosity, hesitancy and and recklessness and hope and realisations... ah honestly just all the feels.

💚The Roommates by @citrusses (Drarry, Draco/Sirius, E, 3.6k)

Fucked up, hot and wicked.

💚I've Got a Beautiful Feeling (Everything's Going My Way) by toomuchplor (Drarry, E, 3.6k)

Brilliant old-married Drarry PWP plus bonus pass-ag emails by Draco

💚That Lavender Haze by @lettersbyelise (Draco/Pansy, Drarry if you squint, 3.8k)

This 2024 bittersweet gem snuck in because I say so. Dransy platonic (hot) sex and love, plus Drarry fantasy.

💚Under the table by @xanthippe74 (Drarry, T, 4k)

An utter delight! Oblivious Draco POV of a string of dinner parties that's both funny and sharp.

💚Baggage Claim by @greattemptation (Drarry, M, 4k)

'The couples therapy had gone poorly. So poorly, in fact, that obliviators had been called.' Wonderful established Drarry with sharp character insights.

💚The real thing by @skeptiquewrites (Drarry, M, 5k)

Caretaker Harry surrounded by people who love him. Friendship, pining and a gentle love that's exactly my jam.

💚Two of Us by @sorrybutblog (Drarry, E, 5.5k)

CHARMINGEST of charming fics. Funny, sweet, sexy, and I would die for this oblivious Harry.

Less than 15k 🍩

💚Team Building for Dummies by InnerLilith (Drarry, E, 6k)

Bickering then fucking, yes please. Bickering WHILE fucking, even better. Plus Quidditch and angrily catching feelings. Chef's kiss.

💚The Realm of Possibility by @porcelainheart3 (Drarry, M, 6k,)

'You can't outrun your past, but you can fuck around with parallel versions of the present.' Amazing premise, as to be expected from porcelainheart's galaxy brain, and excellently delivered, as per.

💚Muscle Memory by @corvuscrowned (Drarry, E, 7.7k)

Another big-brained author with a cool premise. What if Drarry's hookups were erased from their memory each and every time? An amazing story, that's what.

💚Among the elements by @sweet-s0rr0w (Drarry, M, 8k)

Sweets has delivered the perfect Mpreg fic here. Beautiful, sensitive, hard-hitting. Spellbinding and full of heart. I emotioned a lot.

💚Blackjack by @cassiopeiasshadow (Drarry, Romione, M, 9k)

Unwitting Seer Ron POV that had me howling. Perfect perfection.

💚Always the Last to Know by @nv-md (Drarry, M, 10k)

Ever wanted to hear the story of Draco's birth? Well snap, if only we could get him to recount it 😂 A brilliant take on the 'Everyone knows Harry's in love before Harry does' trope.

💚Mastermind by @schmem14 (Drarry, Dron, Rarry, E, ~11k)

Dark and delicious. Malevolent Draco and amazing Ron. Top-notch horror. TW: MCD, Infidelity

💚A Saviour’s Guide to Manners and Decorum by @wolfpants (Drarry, E, 13k)

Etiquette coach Draco is perfection! UST through the roof and so many touching moments (both meanings of the word, wink wonk).

Less than 25k 🍦

💚the earth from a distance by @andthepeople (Drarry, E, 15k)

Accidental time travel ... to 400 years ago. WELP. Worth it even just for Hogwarts in the 16th century. Highly rec!

💚Still the pine-woods scent the moon by @fluxweeed (Harry/Remus, E, 15.5k)

Written in 2022 but I read it this year, so it gets included. STUNNING fic. The meltingly hot UST. Remus's restraint hanging on by a thread. Indescribably hot.

💚the eighth sin by @honeybeet (Drarry, E, 16k)

Mesmerising and dreamlike - uncanny and unsettling. Beautifully written and thought-provoking. The seven eight sins motif is so subtly done.

💚If i could never give you peace by @poisonivy206 (Drarry, E, 17k)

Aah. Two broken lost men reluctantly working a case together. Hook it up to my veins! Beautiful.

💚The Boys of Summer by @saxamophone (Drarry, E, 19.5k)

Post Eighth Year summer vibes. The bittersweet dread of a summer fling ending. Just lovely!

💚Freely Given and Entirely True by @rockingrobin69 (Drarry collection of one-shots, various ratings, 22k)

If you're in need of heart-warming fluff and adorable antics and happy happy boys, then look no further. These will soothe the soul.

Less than 50k 🍰

💚With Love in Her Luminous Eyes by @starquestingfordrarry (Drarry, T, 30k)

Adored this. Gentle, heart-warming sentient Grimmauld Place fic, with fluffy OCs and a captivating Outsider POV. Just fab.

💚Draco Malfoy & the Journal of Dreadful Things by @lilbeanz (Drarry pre-slash, G, 34k)

I'm not normally into canon rewrites but lilbeanz has a way of writing that brings me unbridled joy, so I lapped up every word. Written in 2022, but part 2 was posted in 2023 and I can't wait to get my teeth into it!

💚Nothing Gold Can Stay by @moonflower-rose (Drarry, E, 40k)

Rosie knocking all our socks off with this belter of a multiverse fic. Massive rec. You will laugh and you will gasp and you will cry.

💚A pulled down shade by fast_brother (Drarry, M, 43k)

Another galaxy brain fic that pulled my heartstrings tight. All my favourite tropes in one place!

💚The Unplottable Time Conundrum by @writcraft (Drarry, E, 45k)

Sucked me in from start to finish. Plus Marauders goodness that will make your heart ache. 😭 But we will forgive. Amazing

💚Find a new place to be from by @oflights (Drarry, E, 47k)

When drunk stalking turns into more. Loved Draco in his scary modern Muggle home. ❤️

Less than 100k 🍗

💚Yellow Is The Colour (Of My True Love's Hair) by @mintawasalreadytaken (Drarry, E, 64k)

When minta posts a Deathly Hallows re-write you know it isn't going to be a cookie-cutter happy-ever-after story. TW: MCD

💚Rookie Moves by peu_a_peu (Drarry, E 75k)

Dumb unhinged Auror partners. A thoroughly enjoyable read.

More than 100k 🥩

💚Always already by @aibidil (Drarry E, 170k)

Aib at the top of her game. Drarry in the 1970s. Funny, twisty, clever and brimming with the smart stuff. And more goddammn Marauders heartbreakyness😭.

💚I do not love you by @writandromance (Drarry, M, 228k)

Another fic that's from pre-2023, but I'd seen so many recs for it and gave it a go this year. The hype was right, a rollercoaster of emotions, both in the past and present settings, deep love and deep angst beautifully and heartstoppingly written. One you'll think about for weeks afterwards.

#much respect to all the reccers out there!#This is not my forte at all 😅#i hope people find something on here they haven't read yet #they are all so good #what a fandom #hp fic recs #faves of 2023 #drarry fic recs #hp rare pairs #maester recs stuff

196 notes · View notes

iamnmbr3 · 2 months

Text

Draco's Motivations in the Book 7 Room of Requirement Confrontation

I just reread the Fiendfyre sequence and based on a close reading Draco's motivations and actions are a lot more complex and sympathetic than I remembered. Not to mention, once again, here there be drarry.

First, the context:

After the incident at Malfoy Manor, we know from Harry's psychic connection to Voldemort and from the Carrows' overheard discussion that Voldemort's wrath was exceptionally terrible. The Malfoy family became virtual prisoners in their own homes for months and were subjected to especially brutal (even by Voldemort's standards) torture that was also likely quite protracted. Lucius has visible marks on him months later - which, given what we know about magic in that world, really speaks to the level of what has been going on. While he probably got the worst of it, it's certain that none of his family members escaped unscathed. After their other failings they have at this point probably permanently fallen out of favor and have nothing but a (likely short) life of misery to look forward to.

Draco bears a lot of responsibility for this state of affairs since it was he who chose not to identify Harry. This likely adds to his sense of conflict as his conscience tells him one thing and everything he has ever been taught tells him something else. He presumably feels responsible for the suffering his family (we know from book 6 that he does genuinely care about them) has to endure.

Not to mention that he himself is suffering along with them. It would be unsurprising therefore if he felt tempted to "rectify" his earlier moment of what he probably perceived as weakness and made a last ditch attempt to save his parents' (and his own) lives and prestige. While Harry has been taught that love and mercy are noble and valuable impulses, Draco has not. In his world love and mercy are called weakness.

Quite possibly as he suffered and faced death alongside his family, part of him must have felt ashamed of the impulses that led to his choices when Harry was a prisoner at the Manor. Everything he has been taught tells him that Voldemort's victory is inevitable and that his moment of shameful weakness has accomplished nothing except to fail his own family and condemn them (and himself) to a likely short life filled with suffering.

At most what we see in the Room of Requirement is a replay of what we saw on the Astronomy Tower - where Draco is deeply conflicted and when confronted with the reality of violence in support of Voldemort cannot go through with it even under tremendous pressure and even though his failure to carry out these acts of violence will inflict danger and suffering on himself and his loved ones.

But, is that even what actually happens? In my opinion, the answer is "no."

The scene in question:

If we actually look at the text it's not even clear that's what's going on at all. Draco's motives are ambiguous at best here. The scene starts when Harry is stretching out his hand to take the diadem. Draco, Crabbe, and Goyle come up behind him and he is completely unaware of them. Draco then announces their presence, alerting Harry that he is being watched. He could've very easy simply stunned Harry or attempted to put the Imperius Curse on him (or killed him) while his back was turned. But he didn't do any of those things. Instead he talks, thereby ruining the element of surprise.

And that's not typical of Draco at all when he actually wants to attack Harry. He's never beaten Harry in a face-to-face confrontation. (In fact, the last time he tried - in 6th year - he almost ended up dead.) The two times he has managed to incapacitate Harry - when he petrified him on the train in 6th year and when he hid and caught Harry for Umbridge with a tripping jinx in 5th year - he did so by using the element of surprise to his advantage.

Given that Draco knows that Harry is a very formidable opponent (AND that Harry's friends are nearby) if he truly simply wanted to capture or kill him, announcing his presence is the last thing he would ever do. Then he says "That's my wand you're holding." He still doesn't cast any spells - not even to try to disarm Harry. He also doesn't say he wants to hand him over to Voldemort. He doesn't even tell Harry to drop his own wand, attempt to take him prisoner, or even threaten him.

It is Crabbe, not Draco who says "We're gonna be rewarded...We decided to bring you to 'im." Draco doesn't say anything about his own intentions other than that he wants his wand back - and we certainly know that even in 6th year he didn't trust Crabbe and Goyle, much less now, and thus is unlikely to speak openly in front of them.

At this point Ron comes to investigate and Crabbe tries to use magic to cause a mountain of debris to fall on Ron and crush him. Harry counters the spell and Draco then grabs Crabbe's arm when he tries to repeat the spell. He gives as his justification the need to avoid the diadem being crushed but since we know he doesn't trust Crabbe it's likely this isn't truthful. Especially since Voldemort has not said anything about wanting the diadem (and even if it wasn't a Horcrux it likely wouldn't be damaged in any case).

Crabbe points out this very thing and Draco argues with him at which point Crabbe says "Who cares what you think? I don't take your orders no more, Draco. You an' your dad are finished." So arguably he was not even including Draco in the "We" he imagined would be rewarded. Crabbe then tries to use Crucio on Harry.

Draco then again intervenes and tries to stop him.

"STOP" Malfoy shouted at Crabbe, his voice echoing through the enormous room. "The Dark Lord wants him alive--"

He doesn't even just say it. He shouts. We rarely see Draco shout. He is someone who generally keeps his deeper emotions hidden - it's why he's so naturally gifted at Occlumency to the point that he is powerful enough at a young age to lie to both Snape and Voldemort.

What he says here doesn't really even make sense because Goyle isn't even trying to kill Harry; he's just trying to hurt him. However Draco is so distressed by this that he actually starts yelling, something we NEVER see him do at ANY other point in the book. "The Dark Lord wants him alive" is also exactly what Snape says to Bellatrix as they flee in book 6, and we know that Snape's real intent was to protect Harry with a believable excuse. It's the only thing Draco could reasonably say in that moment as a justification.

Crabbe (rather sensibly) points out that 1) he didn't even try to kill Harry and 2) Voldemort ultimately wants Harry dead so it probably doesn't matter that much. This makes perfect sense. And yet Draco is inordinately concerned with preventing harm to Harry & Co rather than with taking any action to capture or even disarm any of them.

Clearly he did not expect to lose control of Crabbe and Goyle like this and as a result is now losing control of the situation (and himself). (Unlike Harry, Draco is more of a planner and is not as good at reacting in the moment.) Also the possibility that Harry could be killed seems to drive him nearly to the point of hysteria - rather like how Ron reacted to Hermione being in mortal peril at the Manor. This is not just a general aversion to killing. This is something more. He finds the idea of Harry dying truly unbearable. (I don't need my ships to be canon; this one just happens to be.)

At this point they start fighting and Draco loses Narcissa's wand. Wandless, he STILL tries to intervene. Crabbe and Goyle are both aiming their wands at Harry and Draco once again starts yelling - "Don't kill him! DON'T KILL HIM!" and is obviously in significant distress and is not at all happy with what is going on.

After that the Fiendfyre gets loose and the rest of the scene goes down without much dialogue.

At NO POINT does Draco 1) actually say he wants to hand Harry to Voldemort OR 2) attempt to attack Harry or Ron or Hermione at all OR 3) use his Dark Mark to call Voldemort OR 4) tell anyone he's seen Harry after they get out of the Room of Requirement - even in a later scene when he's been cornered by a Death Eater who is considering killing him he doesn't reveal this information even though that probably would've proven his loyalty or at the very least distracted the Death Eater.

Conclusions about Draco's motivations:

So, where does that leave us? What went down there and what was Draco trying to do?

We really have 3 options.

Option 1: Draco tried to hand Harry over to Voldemort in order to save himself and his family, got cold feet and couldn't really go through with it, and then lost control of the situation due to Crabbe and Goyle's changing loyalties.

Verdict: Possible but unlikely given the remarkably bad job he does of it and how inconsistent his approach is with his usual MO. Even if we assume his heart wasn't in it you'd think he'd at least have got as far as disarming Harry before announcing his presence. Especially since Harry almost killed him last time they fought (and Draco probably doesn't know Harry didn't know what the Sectum Sempra curse would do.)

And if his heart WAS in it then then this makes even less sense since he not only didn't attack Harry while his back was turned but also didn't call Voldemort or even inform anyone that he'd seen Harry.

Option 2: Draco wanted to get himself captured in a way that looked convincing so that he could take the chance Dumbledore offered in 6th year, only it went quite badly wrong.

Verdict: This would be an interesting possibility but I think it's also unlikely as it's simply too risky. He doesn't know Harry was there on the astronomy tower or that Harry would make the same offer. His family would also likely be murdered if Voldemort realized this had happened.

Option 3: Draco wanted to cut a deal in order to improve his family's situation without actually handing Harry over - perhaps he hoped for some kind of exchange where he could get his wand back and bring Voldemort the diadem as some kind of consolation prize - but overestimated his control over his cronies and lost control of the situation.

Verdict: I actually think this works best given his behavior during the scene. He initiates a conversation because he wants information about what and where the diadem is (and what value it would have to Voldemort) and because he wants to make some offer along the lines of 'give me my wand and the diadem and we'll let you go.' This could get him what he wants and help his family without actually harming anyone.

Also it hedges his bets a bit because if Harry wins he will owe Draco. The problem of course is that Crabbe and Goyle aren't happy to just take orders anymore and have their own goals. At that point, instead of caving and going along with what Crabbe and Goyle want to do instead, Draco actually tries to intervene, albeit in a way that doesn't actually expose him as questioning Voldemort.

Draco made his choice at the Manor. If he wanted to hand Harry over he would have. But he couldn't. He cares about him too much. But he also feels tremendous guilt and fear over the price he and his family are still paying for that decision. This is his attempt to try to fix things - to try to find a middle ground between the conflicting imperatives that are tearing him apart. The reality though, as he shortly discovers, is that there is no middle ground. And when he sees that, once again he chooses Harry.

#hp reread #meta #my meta #Harry Potter meta #Draco Malfoy meta #drarry meta #Harry Potter #harry potter and the deathly hallows #hpdm #h/d #harry x draco #draco x harry #harry/draco #draco/harry #harco #drarry in canon #Draco Malfoy #drarry #my post

151 notes · View notes

frm9pm · 11 months

Text

Possessive Harry fics I read recently list!

I just want to say, I respect writers so much and this is in no way a critique or ranking, I love their work and what they do!!! 💚

►The Mirror of Ecidyrue series

Slow burn, time travel. Harry loves Draco from the beginning but Draco is oblivious to that and Harry’s jealousy. (Sorry I feel like a broken record on how I keep talking about this series!!! I love starbrigid’s interpretation of Draco to pieces!)

► Who we are in the shadows

Casefic. Werewolf Harry thinks Malfoy is up to something and teams up to find out what.

►The Changing Lights

Draco gets hexed into a female body and Harry can’t resist helping.

► Intention

Harry sees Malfoy flirting with someone at the bar.

►Utterly Yours

Draco is friendly to his coworker, Harry gets jealous.

--Contains switch elements

►Balance, Imperfect

Harry gets hurt in the line of work and his entire life changes; Draco is called in to help. (The first part is very hard to read because Harry has hit rock bottom, but the recovery/resolution is comforting and so very worth it!)

► No Other Superstar

Harry likes Draco but Draco won’t let him. It starts off with one sided possessiveness and then it becomes mutual. (I adore lettered’s closed off Draco, I am constantly battling wanting to comfort him as much as I want to strangle him)

side note: I am on a mission to read every drarry fic out there. I started in April and I am only on page 9 lol! But I like drarry a lot, in all forms, I’m excited to read every version of them out there. >=)

#drarry

475 notes · View notes

stavromulabetaaa · 3 months

Text

draw sew drarry badly challenge

thank you to my dear friends @crazybutgood and @getawayfox for encouraging me to create these dolls! and thank you @julcheninred for hosting DDBC!

in the spirit of DDBC i refrained from using my actual sewing skills and slapped these together on the fly. i purchased all the fabric from the discount bin at the shop. i haphazardly sewed the shape of a t-shirt and shoved it over Harry's big fat doll head. their wands are sticks i found on the ground and superglued to them. i was too lazy to sew Draco a shirt so i draped some fabric over him and decided to call it "dress robes". and i swear i measured Draco's legs to be longer than Harry's and they somehow got shorter in the process. there are loose and fraying threads everywhere, and the yarn hair is positioned to hide the fact that they are mostly bald.

please enjoy these little monstrosities (click for better quality, i dragged out my professional photography equipment for a doll photoshoot 💀)

#draw drarry badly #DDBC 2024 #draw drarry badly challenge #drarry #HPDM #draco x harry #DDBC

166 notes · View notes

gladiolidiaries · 9 months

Text

Must Read Drarry fics

A compilation of the crème de la crème Drarry, all the fics that I always go back to when I want to immerse myself in the Harry Potter universe. In no particular order.

Azoth by zeitgeistic 88k

Now that Harry is back at Hogwarts with Hermione for eighth year, he realises that something’s missing from his life, and it either has to do with Ron, his boggart, Snape, or Malfoy. Furthermore, what, exactly, does it mean when one’s life is defined by the desire to simultaneously impress and annoy a portrait? Harry has no idea; he’s too busy trying not to be in love with Malfoy to care.

Right Hand Red by lq_traintracks (lumosed_quill) 73k

Harry felt Malfoy's breath on his lips as they came together over the bottle, hands firmly planted on the floor as though they each needed their familiar soil, refusing to cross into enemy territory. Except that Malfoy no longer felt like his enemy. Malfoy felt inevitable.

All Our Secrets Laid Bare by firethesound 149k

Over the six years Draco Malfoy has been an Auror, four of his partners have turned up dead. Harry Potter is assigned as his newest partner to investigate just what is going on.

Stately Homes of Wiltshire by waspabi 57k

Malfoy Manor has mould, dry rot and an infestation of unusually historical poltergeists. Harry Potter is on the case.

Mental by sara_holmes 186k

Harry has had quite enough of sharing his mind with someone else, thankyouverymuch. A miscast Legilimecy spell says otherwise.

Temptation on the Warfront by alizarincrims0n 180k

Draco Malfoy is forced into hiding with the Golden Trio and dragged into their search for horcruxes. What ensues is a journey of redemption, unexpected friendships and an unwanted, turbulent romance with Harry Potter. Warnings for swearing, sexual content, and dark themes.

Diffraction Patterns (I Don't Know How to Forget You) by yourdifferentoctober 93k

When Harry Potter, of all people, offers to help Draco erase his Dark Mark, he has no choice but to accept. He wants it gone. He wants to forget. He wants to reconstitute the past. Never mind that erasures leave real marks on bodies, real traces on the world in its becoming. This is not how he expected his eighth year to go.

Tell Me a Secret by alexmeg 86k

In which the bond is rooted in their emotions, everything goes even more wrong, and Harry is certain that he and Draco could never feel what the curse wants them to feel for each other. Until Harry does.

The Ordeal of Being Known by louisfake 146k

When Auror Potter is anonymously cursed with silence by being forced to hide his own voice inside his mind, there's unfortunately only one person in the country with the qualifications to fix it: Certified and Licensed Healer Legilimens, Draco Malfoy, specialist in Mind Curses and Afflictions. It's obviously a terrible idea, a disaster waiting to happen, but Draco's never been able to back down from a challenge... especially from Potter.

Freedom to be by Quicksilvermaid 169k

Harry Potter is the Boy Who Lived. 12 years after the war, he's become the Boy Who Lived For Everyone Else. He has the perfect wife. The perfect house. The perfect job. The perfect friends. Only nothing feels perfect. Until one day he stumbles across a club called Release and begins a journey of self-discovery that takes him to a very different place.

Grounds for Divorce by Tepre 122k

Malfoy finds a coin. Harry finds a letter. A story about histories, a story about families. A story about a lemon tree somewhere in Upper Egypt.

The Claiming of Grimmauld Place by bixgirl1 74k

When Grimmauld Place begins fighting against Harry’s ownership of it, he decides he needs help to train the historic home — but little does he expect that it’ll be Malfoy who’s most suitable for the challenge. However, as Malfoy and Harry get closer, Harry comes to understand that expectations aren’t always the best path by which to guide his heart — and in the process learns just what is needed to make a house a home.

Lumos by birdsofshore 41k

Harry never expected to spend eighth year listening to Draco Malfoy wanking.

9 ½ Days by magpie_fngrl 69k

After the events at the Manor, Harry and Draco find themselves stranded in the countryside with a broken wand and Death Eaters on their tail. This is the story of an uneasy truce, featuring faerie forests, seaside caves, Romani camps, kind old ladies, and a shared bed in an attic. Or how two boys fell in love in the midst of a bloody coup.

The Sleeping Beauty Curse by who_la_hoop 152k

When Draco Malfoy falls into a cursed sleep and can only be woken – at least, according to the Daily Prophet, that impeccable source of truth – by ‘true love’s kiss’, Harry Potter knows there’s no way on earth he’s the answer to this particular riddle. Is he . . . ?

The Nightmare Club by Elle Gray (Elle_Gray) 85k

Hermione and Ron are going back to Hogwarts to do N.E.W.T.s, Ginny isn't. Harry hasn't decided, until he has, in front of the Wizengamot and now he's responsible for Malfoy as well. A tale of enemies who learn to get along, get it wrong and get it on. Everything is purple, some things are on fire and no-one is sleeping properly. But don't worry, there's tea!

That Old Black Magic by bixgirl1 77k

Centuries ago, marriage contracts were the norm — ready-made alliances between families, expected and complied with, without complaint. But norms have a way of changing, and when a long-dormant contract flares to life, Harry has to navigate an unexpected splintering of the path he'd thought would be easy after the war... with Draco Malfoy.

Tales from the Special Branch by Femme (femmequixotic) 257k

Three months after their brief encounter, Draco has almost forgotten about Potter--or so he tells himself. Then a Dark wizard shows up on the Auror radar and all hell breaks loose. Draco will have to choose between everything he holds dear--everything he's worked so hard for--and a few stolen moments of passion with a certain green-eyed Inspector, once his sworn enemy and now something rather different entirely. He'll make the right choice, won't he? Who is he kidding? He'll ruin everything, as per usual. Bad choices and the name Malfoy go hand in hand.

Men Who Love Dragons Too Much by fencer_x 522k

‘Kill Albus Dumbledore’ is less a challenging task and more a suicide mission, so when Draco Malfoy is presented with the option to either dispatch his Headmaster or suffer an excruciating and most ignominious death of his own, along with his parents, he reaches deep into his black little Slytherin heart and manages to scrape together enough courage to go with option C instead: Spend Sixth Year secretly studying Animagecraft in the hopes he’ll turn into something sufficiently imposing even the Dark Lord himself won’t be able to keep Draco under his thumb. But just his luck, his Animagus form turns out to be a dragon, and a rather randy juvenile at that, intent on finding its mate: one Harry James Potter.

#this post will interest maybe 3 anons but it was fun making it #drarry #harry x draco #hpdm #harry potter

351 notes · View notes

olderthannetfic · 9 days

Note

I always see people who have never been antis, talking about/questioning how some antis even ARE antis when you look at their taste in media - ie the ever famous joke of "Hannigram is #problematique" "but it's a show where he eats people" or whatever.

I thought I'd weigh in as someone who could, hypothetically, be called an ex-anti (which, thankfully, nothing ever really came out of it - it was just very 2014 keyboardwarrior-esque behavior of me being a chronically online young adult who would share posts in a group chat making fun of certain shippers, or reblog posts about how 50shades is The Most Problematic Media Ever to exist -- basically I was an anti with anti-lines of thoughts, but i never, like, a ran a Shipping Discourse Blog or whatever)

For me, personally, it was a few different things. I can now see how it's incredibly hypocritical that teenaged me shipped Light/L, while still thinking that Dramione was Bad And Abusive. It ultimately boiled down to a) being pretentious, and b) just not understanding media or what proshippers REALLY believed, with a side of c) not realizing that nuance exists. like i was pretty late to join tumblr, I think I immigrated here during PEAK "yourfaveisproblematic" era which definitely did have an impact on my opinions and my tastes.

to elaborate, a.) being pretentious. i mean this one just kinda goes without saying. "I engage in media in a way more intellectual way than you do, don't you know that? You're a filthy and disgusting person who writes Snape/Hermione because you're an actually disgusting pedophile IRL who would probably date your own student that you're abusing if you could. Meanwhile, I'm a very smart, good, and pure person. When I read Uncle Vernon/Harry, I'm doing it in a G-d honoring whump way that clearly condemns abuse, incest, and rape. Unlike YOU who only writes harmful stuff as a way to get people off :/"

(as an aside, i think this line of thinking will ALWAYS be present in fandom and popculture in some way, sadly. ie the recent trend of people hating on booktok bc the books are 'trashy' and how these porn addicts should read real classic literature instead.)

as for b.), not understanding media - i cannot emphasize enough that i was GENUINELY stupid and disconnected enough to think that proshippers REALLY WERE pro-All Of The Degenerate Dead Doves That They Wrote.

why did i feel this way? why did i understand that Lolita clearly isnt pro-pedophilia, but for some reason i thought that someone shipping weecest was? well, first of all, i think that fanfiction is (generally) seen as Less Serious than classic literature, and fandom is a fun place, so i guess i somehow thought that every fanfic/fanartist who wrote Problematic Things, especially Problematic Things that they portrayed as Sexy, really DID enjoy the thought of that Actually Happening To Real People.

and i think THIS is the bulk of why antis ARE antis. i'm not calling them all stupid - i do think BEING an anti is stupid, but at the same time, there are people who are truly smart and good-intended people who just have some really off color opinions about, like, homestuck ships or whatever. Lawlight is okay because notebooks that kill people don't exist so it's IMPOSSIBLE for the Harmful Aspects of Light/L to be romanticized! but schoolyard prejudiced bullies DO exist and are a REAL problem so Drarry is BAD (*truly completely unaware of the fact that there's 'realistic' aspects of the Light/L dynamic and 'unrealistic' aspects of Drarry - such as, for example, Hogwarts arguably being even MORE of a fantasy setting than DN is.*) I know that media literacy is the hot buzzword of the year to throw around in 2024, but, like, i really did not have media literacy.

as for c.), not realizing nuance exists - ok "nuance" might not be the best word here, but i dont know how else to describe it. like, each time ive typed the word "problematic" out in this ask, i've done so in a very tongue in cheek/ironic/retroactive way, but, like, those posts about how Everything Is Problematic, Including Your Fave ARE true. and i didn't like the fact that my favorite media or favorite person might've Made A Mistake! i need to Talk About Its Issues Because I'm So Betrayed That My Dear Sweet Comfort Media Would Do This To Me. I Need To Prove I Clearly Condemn It.

like, i legit morally could not justify reblogging a twilight post without adding in the tags '#this is my guilty pleasure it sucks that the books were so racist though' or whatever. Most people were lucky enough to avoid that line of thinking, but there was an actual group of people who felt a genuine need to virtue signal all the time, partly bc, hey, they WERE passionate about talking abt #issues in media, but also bc of a subconscious fear of If You Reblog A Singular Piece Of Hetalia Fanart, You're Literally A Nazi And Will Get A Callout Post Written About You.

and during all of this i was at the tail end of my high school experience (yes i know im younger than most of your audience, ha). i was going through A Lot emotionally, going through a lot of life changes, and lived in a very . . . interesting household/place where i couldn't do ACTUAL good in the world that i was passionate about. so to make up for the fact that i was genuinely in no place to do legit activism, clearly i had to save the gay community by arguing about johnlock queerbaiting or whatever.

^ and honestly i do think that is the position of most antis. theyre isolated and cant seem to do Enough in the Real Scary World so they have to resort to talking about how bad of a person someone is for "shipping abuse", bc theyre not in a situation where they could, for example, ACTUALLY fight the good fight to end abuse or raise awareness for it.

There was way more to it and way more that I could say, if I wanted to, but this post is long enough as it is and probably doesn't make much sense.

I feel bad for antis, honestly, or at least the ones who are antis in the way I used to be.

Oh yes, passionate young fools who think they can at least fix the internet if not their lives make up most of the cannon fodder. Some of the ringleaders are just mini dictators and wannabe cult leaders, but most anti-leaning types are just traumatized or clueless, even a lot of the ones who do serious damage and don't just mock shit in private with their friends.

114 notes · View notes

saintsenara · 5 months

Note

asenora i will listen to anything you have to say about these characters ever. please tell us what the tea is with dron

as i rummage through the backlog of messages in my inbox the thing that i have discovered is that you girlies [gender neutral] are absolutely clamouring for citizenship of dron nation.

[thank you to @spectral-kitty, @thesilverstarling, and two mystery anons!]

to which i say, the borders are open, baby. you just have to read the following manifesto:

why fandom needs to stop sleeping on dron

something i am continually banging on about, as regular readers know, is the harry potter series' fondness for assigning [male] characters to narrative mirror pairings.

exploring these pairings is interesting in and of itself without a romantic dimension being involved - i could talk for hours about the mirrored approach to guilt and grief in snape and sirius' characterisation - but it's also true that several of the most interesting ships which can be drawn [however non-canonically] from the text are between the two halves of each mirror pairing.

tomarrymort is the obvious one, snack [or starprince or snirius or whatever we're calling it] is starting to get the attention it deserves, but people are still sleeping on draco malfoy/ron weasley [and also, may i say, on lucius malfoy/arthur weasley and narcissa malfoy/molly weasley], largely - i fear - due to the sheer popularity of drarry and dramione.

i'll be honest that i really don't like dramione, and i'm generally ambivalent towards drarry, but i do love dron. and the narrative mirror aspect is entirely the reason why.

ron and draco begin the series as mirror archetypes within the genre conventions of a children's boarding school romp. ron is the loyal, humble sidekick of the everyman protagonist, draco is the everyman protagonist's posh, stuck-up rival. both are insiders to the world of the story - whereas harry, the reader surrogate, is not - who introduce harry to the positive and negative aspects of the wizarding world respectively.

as a result, ron and draco are mirrors in terms of personality, and are much more similar to each other than either is to harry or hermione. this doesn't, of course, preclude ronarry [a ship i adore] or romione [which i've defended here] or drarry or dramione [if ya nasty], but it introduces a specific - and very interesting - tension into the pairing which is absent from these other ships.

both ron and draco have shared positive traits - they're both loyal [and their loyalty is very practical and pragmatic - ron is not hagrid, whose faith in e.g. dumbledore is totally unwavering; draco is not bellatrix, whose faith in voldemort is the same], they're both highly observant, they're both quick-witted, they're both capable of doing the right thing - if not always immediately [which is, in fact, more admirable than being preternaturally willing to suffer and sacrifice], and so on.

they also have shared negative traits. they're both attention-seeking [ron fucking loves nearly being knifed by sirius and you just know draco was seething], self-aggrandising, insecure, sulky, and predisposed to jealousy.

and this is a gift for authors, because it means that dron butt heads in a relationship in ways which allow for real character growth... or otherwise.

one issue that i have with drarry is that it often feels like the change either one goes through within a fic is kind of out of character. for example, you have a harry who feels insecure and haunted by his ill-treatment of draco [this is a man whose response to committing attempted murder is to be raging that it reduces the time he has free to hit on ginny], or a harry who is chasing after a cool and sophisticated draco who eventually learns to open up [whereas if there's two things draco isn't, it's someone who keeps his thoughts to himself and someone who isn't a distinctly unsophisticated flop].

dron, however, react to conflict in the same way - which means that the two of them finding themselves in conflict with each other absolutely slaps. they also have similar levels of emotional intelligence, and are likely - if they're inclined to - to be able to communicate with each other and work through issues surprisingly effectively. they can be a mess, or they can be a happy-ever-after, and i like that in a ship.

but, while ron and draco are mirror archetypes, they are specifically children's literature mirror archetypes. ron's role as harry's guide to the world diminishes in the later books, as the series' horizons move beyond hogwarts to think about wizarding society and voldemort's impact upon it more widely [he is replaced by characters such as dumbledore]; while harry becomes considerably less bothered by the pettiness of draco's rivalry with him [concerned as it is with things like being good at quidditch and getting away with misbehaviour at school] as the enemies he's focused on shift to being the resurrected voldemort and his death eaters.

which is to say that dron makes considerably more sense within a hogwarts setting than drarry.

as i've said elsewhere, an issue i have with drarry is that it's frequently written in a way which suggests that harry and draco have a mutual obsession with each other - while the actual evidence of canon is that, while draco is [as his archetype demands] preoccupied with what harry's doing, harry rarely gives the impression of caring what his rival is up to unless directly compelled to by draco's own attention-seeking.

ron, in contrast, spends a lot of time noticing things about draco unprompted - he can, for instance, recall overhearing him boasting offhand about what broom he owns in philosopher's stone - and retaining this information in order to deploy it at the opportune time to get a rise out of him. he delights constantly in his misfortune [him being hyped for days because draco's annoyed harry gets a firebolt is beautiful]. he's ready to throw hands with him at any given opportunity, often giving those of us who thrive on cheap innuendo plenty of material in the process [draco finds himself, for example 'on all fours, banging the ground with his fist' after having ron's wand pointed in his face... same, girl.] and he tends to consider draco much more integral to the various shenanigans which take place in the castle than harry does [ron is the main proponent of the 'draco malfoy is the heir of slytherin' theory in chamber of secrets - and he is shook when draco reveals that he's wrong].

and draco does the same. he comes into the trio's compartment on the train in goblet of fire and immediately starts telling ron how unfashionable his dress robes are. he obsesses over ron's position as gryffindor keeper for months - and, of course, makes up a song about it, which isn't exactly helping him pull off 'i don't think about you at all', is it? - and ron is profoundly affected by the taunts in way that harry, who doesn't really care what draco thinks of him, isn't. and he constantly goes out of his way to provoke ron into trying to punch him [him shoulder-barging ron in half-blood prince just after harry's essentially outed him as a death eater in madam malkins... exquisite pettiness].

all of which is to say, their interactions feel very teenage and petty and silly all the way through to the end of half-blood prince in a way that draco's interactions with harry and hermione don't, and - therefore - i sincerely think that dron can be made to work much more plausibly as a pairing in fics set while the characters are at school.

my final point in favour of dron is that they mirror each other in their approach to their other relationships, and the tension this causes is really interesting to explore.

both ron and draco have mirrored attitudes towards their place within their own families - something neither harry nor hermione can have with draco for obvious reasons. ron is one of many siblings and feels overlooked in the crowd; draco is an only child and feels overburdened by the visibility, especially once his father is sent to azkaban. they both conform to behaviours expected of them by family [they are both in the same hogwarts house as generations of their family, they share their families' political views etc.]. they are of the same social class and their families both have a reasonably similar level of political influence [despite what we're told about his insignificance, arthur weasley is known to everyone in the ministry and he's able to throw his weight around to influence policy even before the promotion he receives in half-blood prince], but their material circumstances are divergent. they both heavily resemble their fathers - to the extent that they are immediately recognisable as each man's son - and spend their schooldays defending family honour by playing out lucius and arthur's own petty feud [lucius and arthur - and, indeed, narcissa and molly - are also narrative mirrors, and we deserve many more enemies-to-lovers fics featuring them]. and the course their lives take during the war is dictated as much by their role within their families as it is by their relationship with harry - the scrambling post-dumbledore order operating out of the burrow is a mirror image of the ascendant voldemort operating out of malfoy manor.

they are also obviously defined by their mirrored relationship with harry - most interestingly by a major similarity in their attitude towards him: that both struggle with how jealous they are of harry.

this leads to lots of excellent tension which just isn't possible in drarry or dramione. how do both sets of parents react to the news their sons are in love? how do ron and draco's relationships with harry change as they find each other? how does draco cope with the hustle and bustle of life at the burrow? how does ron deal with having to have dinner at the manor [particularly interesting because the world in which draco lives is one that's familiar to him - he's not going to be shocked by any of the weird stuff in that house, he knows how it all works, so he can ruin christmas by deciding to have his dad arrest lucius for fun instead]?

it's messy, and fun, and it sustains me.

and some recs for the lads?

collateral damage by @danpuff-ao3, which starts out with both of the lads working out their... issues with harry and ends with declarations of going to lunch with each other's mothers.

dance the night away (aka it's true love, you bastards) by evandar, which has as its premise ron and draco ending up, largely by accident, going to the yule ball together.

this great stage of fools by @nanneramma, which correctly demonstrates how ron is charming enough that him being supremely annoying is actually loveable.

#asks answered #asenora's opinions on ships #dron #draco malfoy #ron weasley #asenora fic recs

74 notes · View notes

mono-chromia · 7 months

Text

Team Sport

A Drarry microfic//oneshot by mono-chromia

Cover illustration by my beloved @basiatlu (alternate versions can be viewed here)

Word count: 1.015

Read under the cut, or on AO3

Draco hadn't understood, but as he comes to find out, Hermione's words had made perfect sense. Harry Potter makes a sport out of sleeping; commiting to a nap the same way he does to a game of Quidditch.

'Mione had once called Harry a "hard sleeper", whatever that may be.

"A heavy sleeper?" Draco had asked, unsure if he was missing some muggle turn of phrase. It comes up when they are trying to figure out the sleeping arrangements in the shared hotel rooms for Luna and Neville's destination wedding.

"Oh, no," she says. "Well, that too, I suppose, so he won't mind if you get back late, but he sleeps hard. I can't quite explain it." Draco doesn't mention the undiscussed assumption that he and Harry are apparently to bunk up together. "You know how he always tries to carry all the plates and cutlery to the table in a single go? Even if there's sixteen people dining?" Draco nods. "It's kind of like that."

Their portkey takes them from 5 A.M. in London to 11 A.M. somewhere in the Mekong Delta region, so when they arrive in their room, Harry immediately crawls into the pristinely made hotel bed, nesting the crisp duvets and the pillows into an iceberg-like structure and sleeps. Hard. Sprawled on his belly with his clothes still on (he's wearing sweat shorts at least, not jeans, thank Merlin) but with his feet sticking out for temperature regulation. He looks like he knows what he's doing. Draco watches him fuss and clumsily toe off his socks (because what lunatic wears socks to bed? Ridiculous) and then doze off immediately, squeezing in a highly efficient, half hour kip before they are expected for their lunch arrangements.

Harry seems more affected by the jetlag than the rest of the company, so Draco finds him, not unlike a cat, sleeping in strange places and at odd moments during the entirety of their stay in Vietnam.

For instance, on a couch in the hotel lobby one early morning, while Ron and Hermione argue with the clerk over the tour reservation that Ron definitely made correctly, with his head in Luna's lap, hoodie pulled low over his eyes, and his arms hugged around his chest.

Or, on the lawn chairs by the pool in the middle of the day. Which, Draco supposes, isn't that strange a place to sleep, but Harry's commitment to the activity is once again proven when Hermione ambles over to rub sunscreen on his back and place a sunhat over his head, all without as much as a twitch.

It's really quite fascinating to watch (though no one else seems to think so) and Draco finds himself somewhat jealous, because even when he diligently works through his own list of requirements for a good sleep (freshly showered, moisturized, teeth brushed, clean sheets, glass of water on the side table, window open for airflow, access to his own pillow) he still doesn't often manage to make eight uninterrupted hours, let alone any misguided attempts at a restful nap. When Draco naps it means the situation is dire, that he is unwell, that he feels like something has crawled up his ass and died there, and it usually only exacerbates his condition instead of having the much desired effect it seems to have on Harry. That effect being that he wakes up content, mellow and sleep-soft (objectively) and exists like that for five minutes or so, before moving onto stage two of his post-nap euphoria, which includes but is not limited to; a general lust for life, toothy grins, silly jokes (objectively), and a propensity for affection towards whoever is nearest to him at any given moment.

Which means that Draco finds himself subjected to the feeling of gently excited hands on his wrists and back as they ooh-and-ahh at the view on their hike, and a chin hooked over his shoulder as Harry feigns mild interest in the book Draco is reading, before asking him to come swim.

Apparently, it also means that, when Draco is keyed up with homesickness on the third of their eight-night stay, Harry invites him into bed.

"You okay?"

Draco looks back from where he has his head stuck out the window, spooked and feeling slightly caught. He stares at Harry in his bed, making up the shape of his body under the sheets from his feet (sticking out from under the cover) to his rumpled head that's more under the pillow than on top of it. Harry's voice is thick with sleep and so, so soft.

"Oh," says Draco. "Yeah. Um. Just— a bout of insomnia."

Harry just hums, low and noncommittal, and for a moment Draco thinks that he might be sleep talking. But then Harry shifts and lifts up the duvet, wordlessly and casually extending an invite towards Draco, and waits for him to get in.

Draco would object, but maybe Harry's bed is just that much more comfortable, maybe that's why he sleeps so well, and well— truly it looks much too inviting to resist. So Draco doesn't object, and quietly pads across their room to slip into bed with Harry. The blanket is bunched up and skewed, there are more than enough pillows, yet none of them in the right spot to actually fulfill their intended purpose, but Harry isn't fussed in the least, and wastes no time snaking an arm across Draco's middle and slotting his head under Draco's chin. Harry seems to fall back asleep pretty much immediately, and Draco is suddenly surrounded by an aura of sleep-warmed sheets, skin-on-skin contact and a bouquet of powdery scented curls, clean skin and sweet spearmint breath. It would have been overwhelming if it wasn't so blissfully sedative.

A robust dose of Dreamless Sleep has nothing on the deep rise and fall of Harry's chest, the dozy twitch of his toes against Draco's leg, the blooming warmth in all the spots where their bodies are touching. Draco dreamily wishes he could bottle it. Who knew that sleeping was a team sport.

#drarry microfic #drarry #oneshot #drarry oneshot #draco malfoy #harry potter #fluff #getting together #napping #cuddling #homesickness #tooth rotting fluff #weddings #holidays #writemonowrite #drarry fanart #drarry art #hermione granger

251 notes · View notes