Now, the trouble with the rec-giving game is that it will soon become painfully obvious to anyone reading this that at least half of everything I read I read because ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
kennahijja tells me it’s good (hence the preponderance of slash in my history list when I really don’t seek it out). So I start by seconding her rec of ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
copperbadge’s Stealing Harry. Yes, it’s Sirius/Remus, but that’s not the point. It’s a ‘what if Sirius never went to Azkaban’ AU, and it’s beautifully done, with an adorable eight-and a half-year-old Harry revelling in the wonders of the wizarding world (including a meeting with eleven-year-old Oliver Wood), a shed-load of little AU-twist details and a Sirius and Remus who aren’t… broken. There’s a warmth shining through this fic that serves to highlight the tragedy of the canon events.
And don’t be put off if you’re not into Sirius/Remus - I scrolled through most of the steamy bits (and I wasn’t scrolling for long), and the author kindly provides ‘kid friendly’ versions so you don’t even have to do that. Don’t miss the ‘April Fool’ version of chapter 23, though – fantastic. :) I’d have loved to see the feedback for that one!
I have but one complaint: No Lucius! Waah! Now, I’m all for good AUs, but, when the AU-ness requires one’s favourite character to be written out of the plot…
The other story that’s been burning out my eyeballs this week is Thrintje’s Draco By Trial, which I found on the Niffler list a few weeks ago. Now, as I said, I’m not exactly instinctively drawn to slash, and much as I enjoy seeing an insightful interaction between Harry and Draco, as soon as it starts to get physical my observer-voice snaps on in the back of my head, incredulous with disbelief that I’m reading a story about two teenage boys snogging. This is the only D/H I’ve read (with the exception of Hijja’s forthcoming release) that didn’t induce that reaction, despite at some points seeming to tour round every D/H cliché in the book. Why did it work? Because the author focuses on the character’s emotions, not their appearance or their actions, creating a picture of need and fear so sharply defined that the outcome reads real. The story also goes into Draco’s relationship with his father in more detail (not all of which I agree with, but that’s neither here nor there) than I’ve seen anywhere outside Nemo Me Impune Lacessit. But that’s not all: the story makes very deft use of flashbacks, which form a revealing contrast to their frame of Draco’s Veritaserum-induced account of ‘what happened’. The story is worth a look just to observe the way the author builds suspense: precisely what happened is not revealed until the end, and it’s well worth waiting for.
kennahijja tells me it’s good (hence the preponderance of slash in my history list when I really don’t seek it out). So I start by seconding her rec of copperbadge’s Stealing Harry. Yes, it’s Sirius/Remus, but that’s not the point. It’s a ‘what if Sirius never went to Azkaban’ AU, and it’s beautifully done, with an adorable eight-and a half-year-old Harry revelling in the wonders of the wizarding world (including a meeting with eleven-year-old Oliver Wood), a shed-load of little AU-twist details and a Sirius and Remus who aren’t… broken. There’s a warmth shining through this fic that serves to highlight the tragedy of the canon events.And don’t be put off if you’re not into Sirius/Remus - I scrolled through most of the steamy bits (and I wasn’t scrolling for long), and the author kindly provides ‘kid friendly’ versions so you don’t even have to do that. Don’t miss the ‘April Fool’ version of chapter 23, though – fantastic. :) I’d have loved to see the feedback for that one!
I have but one complaint: No Lucius! Waah! Now, I’m all for good AUs, but, when the AU-ness requires one’s favourite character to be written out of the plot…
The other story that’s been burning out my eyeballs this week is Thrintje’s Draco By Trial, which I found on the Niffler list a few weeks ago. Now, as I said, I’m not exactly instinctively drawn to slash, and much as I enjoy seeing an insightful interaction between Harry and Draco, as soon as it starts to get physical my observer-voice snaps on in the back of my head, incredulous with disbelief that I’m reading a story about two teenage boys snogging. This is the only D/H I’ve read (with the exception of Hijja’s forthcoming release) that didn’t induce that reaction, despite at some points seeming to tour round every D/H cliché in the book. Why did it work? Because the author focuses on the character’s emotions, not their appearance or their actions, creating a picture of need and fear so sharply defined that the outcome reads real. The story also goes into Draco’s relationship with his father in more detail (not all of which I agree with, but that’s neither here nor there) than I’ve seen anywhere outside Nemo Me Impune Lacessit. But that’s not all: the story makes very deft use of flashbacks, which form a revealing contrast to their frame of Draco’s Veritaserum-induced account of ‘what happened’. The story is worth a look just to observe the way the author builds suspense: precisely what happened is not revealed until the end, and it’s well worth waiting for.
