datavenia-hp

[datavenia-hp]

That’s the amount of drama I expect from him. Yes.

Hope you’re having a good week! See you Sunday! 🐝

[datavenia-hp]

Frappe non grata (Draco/Harry, 1k, G)

When Harry walks into the new coffee shop in Diagon Alley, he's hit with a rude awakening when the clerk he's been checking out turns out to be Draco Malfoy.  #Pre-Slash #Coffee Shop

A/N: Inspired by this tweet. Also posted on AO3. 

Sweat trickles down the back of Harry’s neck as he rushes into the new coffee shop in Diagon Alley. He’s greeted with the heavy smell of coffee beans and pastries, and he eyes the glass case by the counter with anticipation. He’s just finished the last bit of his half marathon training. With three days until the race, he feels a sense of pride at how far he’s come.

After his split with Ginny, Harry can now admit that he fell into a bit of a depression and periods of unproductive wallowing. It was at Hermione’s urging that he sign up for something that would get him out of the house and back into the world.

Harry wasn’t sure if he liked the skin-tight nylon running gear, but he couldn’t deny how comfortable they were. And after six months of training, he’s lost a few stone and can at least acknowledge that he looks pretty good.

He licks his lips and stares at the tarts behind the glass deciding that he can allow himself this one indulgence.

The back of a clerk behind the counter near the till steals his attention. The long, white-blonde hair, tied into a bun, is the first thing Harry notices. Though the man is leaning a hip against the counter, Harry can tell the man is tall, certainly taller than him. He’s dressed quite well for a shop clerk, Harry thinks, eyeing the well-tailored black trousers that accentuate his small waist. The crisp white button-down shirt is tucked in, the sleeves of which are rolled up to his elbows.

He gulps as the man turns to face him. Harry’s eyes trace the curve of the man’s muscular arms folded across his broad chest. His gaze travels up past the collar and he finds himself a bit mesmerised by the expanse of pale, exposed skin.

When his gaze reaches the man’s face, Harry’s stomach drops.

“Malfoy?”

The clerk jumps and straightens up. A pair of familiar grey eyes are on Harry and he’s suddenly filled with a rush of regret, anger, disappointment, and, to his utter horror, lust.

Malfoy’s nostrils flare a few times before he manages to say, “Welcome to Brews and Afters.” He waits for Harry to say something, but when he doesn’t, Malfoy raises an eyebrow. “What would you like?”

Harry stares at him, still unable to process the man in front of him. He can’t remember the last time he’d seen Malfoy, but he’s fairly certain he hadn’t looked like that.

Malfoy raises his hands in front of his chest and begins motioning sign language with his fingers. Harry doesn’t speak any form of sign language, muggle or wizarding, but he quickly suspects Malfoy isn’t signing the words he’d previously just spoken.

“Er—” Harry takes a step toward the counter and looks behind it, spotting two other employees. One is sitting on the counter by the espresso machine and the other is hunched over the prep table leaning on her elbows. Harry stares at them but addresses Malfoy. “Could I have a toffee nut frappe?”

“Does anyone want to make a frappe?” Malfoy asks, eyes still focused on Harry. He’s offering Harry a neutral look, but his eyebrows are slightly raised. After a few moments, Malfoy turns to the other employees who silently shake their heads. “Well,” he says, turning back to Harry, with a smirk. “No one wants to make it.”

Harry clenches his jaw and keeps himself from saying something he’ll regret. Malfoy likes to use simple misunderstandings to rile Harry up, although Harry’s never understood how his frank and obvious quips and flippant digs at him could be mistaken for anything than what they are. Malfoy’s never uttered another prejudiced word since they were in school, but he’s also never missed an opportunity to antagonise Harry.

Harry quickly decides that two can play at that game. If Malfoy wants to make things difficult, Harry will respond in kind.

He glances at the glass case. “I’ll take everything you have in here,” he smiles, pointing to the array of croissants, palmiers, muffins, quiche, and tarts.

Malfoy’s smirk fades. “...All of it?”

“All of it,” Harry confirms.

It takes the three of them almost fifteen minutes to pack everything up and cast the proper stasis charms. They bicker back and forth and Malfoy enlists one of them to stay past their scheduled shift to help restock the pastry case.

Harry absentmindedly listens and ends up taking the time to stretch his legs. He is bent over in a forward fold when he hears a throat clear from behind him.

“Here,” Malfoy finally says. Harry looks up and smiles at him as he holds out a dozen boxes tied with string. “Thank you for your patronage,” he grits, a pained expression taking hold of his features.

Harry rises from the stretch, turns around, and takes hold of the pastries. He glances at the other employees who’ve returned to their former relaxed positions on the countertops. One of them smirks and says sarcastically, “Be seein’ yeh.”

“Count on it,” Harry replies.

He grips the packages, and an onset of doubt takes over as he realises he has no idea what to do with twelve boxes of baked goods. A myriad of ideas flood his mind. He quickly decides to owl a box to some of his friends and colleagues as well as his children. His panic begins to fade; it’s quickly replaced with the beginnings of a plan. “I’ll be back tomorrow!”

He catches Malfoy’s face as he turns to leave; his cheeks are flushed and he’s biting his lower lip between his teeth. Harry’s provoked a level of outrage in the other man, whom he hasn’t seen in years, and it’s giving him a better high than any run he’s ever finished.

Harry thinks a hundred and forty-two galleons was worth it. He just hopes he can stop himself from buying the entire pastry case when he comes back tomorrow.

[datavenia-hp]

Rest In fucking pieces Draco

For @trashcanprince 💕

[datavenia-hp]

The Hawthorn mystery: why did Draco's wand work for Harry?

Hi, Anon! Hope you don’t mind me answering it in a text post! Just better formatting, I suppose. Looks better on my blog, anyways. Thanks! 💜

About the question: well, no one knows for sure, but we can talk about wandlore and maybe we can get some answers. Shall we?

(It’ll probably have a thousand typos, because it’s a shitload of text, so forgive me, my buddies. Love you.)

To be honest, this is a subject JKR failed to explore, even though the Elder Wand was so crucial to the story. We don’t really learn that much about how they work or why they are needed, besides the basic of the basic.

As we know, the wand chooses the wizard. That alone can explain a lot about why certain wands work for people and others don’t. But it’s way more complex than it sounds like.

For example: Harry was chosen by the Holly wand with Fawkes’s feather. And it makes sense, because he’s a horcrux, so he has a part of Voldemort within him. But I wouldn’t say that’s the reason, even though it seems obvious. Because the wand recognises the nature of the wizard, what they intend to do with it, who they are and will be.

No one knows how it does that, not even wand makers, but it’s more than identification, especially at such a young age. That’s why most wands stay with wizards for a long time, unless they are broken or stolen. Because even though they change as people, the core (quite literally) is almost always the same, to the wand. The signs were always there. It’s practically divination, to be honest.

‘The wand chooses the wizard. That much has always been clear to those of us who have studied wandlore… if you are any wizard at all you will be able to channel your magic through almost any instrument. The best results, however, must always come where there is the strongest affinity between wizard and wand. These connections are complex. An initial attraction, and then a mutual quest for experience, the wand learning from the wizard, the wizard from the wand.’ - Mr. Ollivander

Now, if you take a look at each of the properties of the wands, you’ll be able to understand Draco’s wand, why it was so friendly to Harry and why it was able to help him kill Voldemort.

1. The wood

It’s chosen according to your birth tree in the Celtic tree calendar. Yes. This is something most people don’t even know, and it’s so important because it makes wandlore a bit easier to understand.

Why? Well, it obviously relates to Astronomy, Astrology, divination… So it’s easier to understand how it’s shaped to suit people’s personalities, their magic cores as wizards, etc. The wand is not the source of the power, it’s a channel to concentrate the power from within the wizard. So you could say the wood represents the nature of the wizard, what he’s already born with.

To understand how the wood alone can say a lot about a wizard’s nature, let’s take a look at what Ollivander has to say about Hawthorn, Draco’s wandwood:

The wandmaker Gregorovitch wrote that hawthorn ‘makes a strange, contradictory wand, as full of paradoxes as the tree that gave it birth, whose leaves and blossoms heal, and yet whose cut branches smell of death.’ While I disagree with many of Gregorovitch’s conclusions, we concur about hawthorn wands, which are complex and intriguing in their natures, just like the owners who best suit them. Hawthorn wands may be particularly suited to healing magic, but they are also adept at curses, and I have generally observed that the hawthorn wand seems most at home with a conflicted nature, or with a witch or wizard passing through a period of turmoil. Hawthorn is not easy to master, however, and I would only ever consider placing a hawthorn wand in the hands of a witch or wizard of proven talent, or the consequences might be dangerous. Hawthorn wands have a notable peculiarity: their spells can, when badly handled, backfire.

I think Draco’s whole storyline is in there. His conflicted nature (he’s a Gemini, for fuck’s sake!), his turmoils, how actually talented and powerful he is. 

(It’s also a sign Draco should become a Healer. Sorry, that’s my headcanon and I can’t shut up about it!)

Also, the reason Harry’s spell backfires is right there (because Harry was not evil nor wanted to kill Voldemort, he tried to save him until the end). And the fact Hawthorn is not easy to master. Keep that in mind.

2. The length and flexibility

Both aspects of wands are so underrated. 

Ollivander wrote, about the length: “longer wands might suit taller wizards, but they tend to be drawn to bigger personalities, and those of a more spacious and dramatic style of magic”. 

So it’s no surprise Hagrid’s is 16" and Ron is 14", because they are both tall and quite dramatic in their demeanour. Meanwhile, Harry is 11" and Draco, although slightly taller than him, is 10", showing how his magic is more introspective and he is more guarded, closed off. 

(Lol wands are so phallic, impossible not to giggle while you discuss lengths)

He also wrote, about the flexibility: “denotes the degree of adaptability and willingness to change possessed by the wand-and-owner pair”.

It’s no surprise, then, that Bellatrix’s wand is rigid or that Harry’s is flexible. Her wand was always intended for evil and madness, because it’s in her nature; Harry’s, on the other hand, was flexible enough to adapt to his nature, even though he was part-horcrux and could end up being evil. The wand knew better.

Draco’s wand is reasonably flexible. Which could mean it’s consistent, but if forced, adaptable. So again, it’s not in its nature to just accept changing allegiances. It will fight until the end not to be mastered.

So both its wood and its flexibility are huge indicators of how hard it would be for his wand to be mastered and change loyalties. Again, keep that in mind.

3. The core

The core is an even more complex aspect of wands. While the wood represents the wizard’s nature as a person (their body and heart), the core represents the nature of their magic. It’s in the way they use it, the potency, what they’re good at, etc.

Now let’s take a look at Ollivander’s comments on Unicorn hair, Draco’s wand core:

Unicorn hair generally produces the most consistent magic, and is least subject to fluctuations and blockages. Wands with unicorn cores are generally the most difficult to turn to the Dark Arts. They are the most faithful of all wands, and usually remain strongly attached to their first owner, irrespective of whether he or she was an accomplished witch or wizard.

Minor disadvantages of unicorn hair are that they do not make the most powerful wands (although the wand wood may compensate) and that they are prone to melancholy if seriously mishandled, meaning that the hair may ‘die’ and need replacing.

Wow. I mean, this is illuminating, isn’t it? First of all, even though Hawthorn is contradictory, it is balanced by the hair, making it a more consistent wand.

(Oh, and it’s a great property for healers, because the Unicorn is known to be pure and its blood can keep you alive. So, again, Healer! Draco, please.)

It’s also the most difficult to turn to the Dark Arts, and that is a clear sign that Draco was never a dark wizard by nature, he didn’t want to be dark. He wasn’t dark, otherwise this wand wouldn’t have chosen him in the first place.

And last, but definitely not least, they are the most faithful, and tend to remain attached to their first owner. 

Well, there’s that then. All the aspects in Draco’s wand are adamant to it being difficult to master and even harder to change allegiances. It would fight until the end to work only for its master, and the hair could even die from it. 

So why did it change masters that easily, then? That’s the question, innit?

Here’s what JKR has said about the whole Hawthorn wand business:

‘So one would expect a certain amount of loyalty from one’s wand. So even if you were disarmed while carrying it, even if you lost a fight while carrying it, it has developed an affinity with you that it will not give up easily. If, however, a wand is won, properly won in an adult duel, then a wand may switch allegiance, and it will certainly work better even if it hasn’t fully switched allegiance for the person who won it. So that of course is what happens when Harry takes Draco’s wand from him…’

Not trying to correct JKR because she’s the fucking author, but doing it anyway: Draco and Harry didn’t duel, dear Joanne. He only took the wands in a hurry. He never disarmed him. Proof?

As Ron ran to pull Hermione out of the wreckage, Harry took his chance; he leapt over an armchair and wrested the three wands from Draco’s grip…

Well, well, well. No duel. How… interesting.

JKR’s argument here is that, even though they didn’t properly duel, Draco was disarmed the muggle way, with a good old shove. Well, again, not trying to diss her own understanding of her world, but this pathetic wrestle doesn’t count. If that was all it took, then wands would be pretty useless, hm? Their allegiance should survive a shove. They’re expensive, God’s sake!

Let’s read JKR’s own canon a bit more, shall we?

Harry looked down at the hawthorn wand that had once belonged to Draco Malfoy. He had been surprised, but pleased, to discover that it worked for him at least as well as Hermione’s had done.

Pleased. Heheh. So gay. Anyway.

It’s funny that she included this in the book, because it contradicts her own laws of wands. According to them, if you steal/borrow someone else’s wand, it won’t change allegiances, obtaining only “fair results”. The allegiance only changes if it’s won.

Well, JKR, Hermione’s wand works perfectly for Harry even though he never disarmed her. Just like Draco’s, who he also never disarmed. So why do they change loyalties, or at least share loyalties? Harry sees both wands as friendly, and he naturally uses both with no problems.

So here’s my personal theory, from everything I’ve read and all the time I’ve spent overthinking the issue without being paid a single pound: 

Harry had their complete, absolute trust.

(Ok, it sounds stupid, but bear with me.)

People were part of the war for many reasons, right? For their families, their friends, themselves, for justice and all that. They keep their reasons until the end, hopefully. Right? Even those fighting for Harry, they had their own reasons.

Now, what was the main reason Hermione ended up in the middle of this war? It’s not in her nature to fight, she’s not a warrior. But she knew she had to help Harry. It was only Harry. She didn’t have family fighting alongside her. She didn’t have any other allegiance.

Why she never, not even once, mistrusted Harry? Ron did and they were so close. That’s because his primary reason for being there was his family, not Harry (that doesn’t mean he didn’t love or trust Harry, but he would choose his family, if he had to).

This absolute trust Hermione had for Harry has the same origin as everything good in Harry Potter: sacrifice. She gave up her own parents, her own story. She made a huge sacrifice for Harry. She gave up her doubts and any other loyalty she had to follow him.

What about Draco, you ask?

He had his family as his only loyalty throughout his whole life. But that went to shit, to be honest. His whole world stopped making sense. Everything he believe was a lie. He didn’t trust his parents anymore, even though he loved them immensely. He was so confused (“I love a good turmoil”, his wand said, happily).

And I think sacrifice is exactly what happened to Draco at Malfoy Manor. He made it by not identifying Harry, by betraying his own family and Voldemort and risking his own life (and he does that again in the Room of Requirement).

At that moment, his only hope, his only trust in the world was Harry. Because if Voldemort won, he was fucked. Not only because he didn’t want to live in that world he once thought perfect, but because he was a shitty Death Eater, he didn’t want to kill or torture. He didn’t believe in Voldemort anymore. He didn’t have anything else to believe, at that exact moment.

When he “lost” his wand to Harry, his allegiance had already changed in such a visceral way that it was easy for them to share his wand (and the Elder Wand, by proxy). Because he trusted Harry with his heart and soul. 

If that isn’t love, I don’t want to know what is, because it’s not good enough. 

I don’t even care if you believe in Drarry or not, if you think this love I’m talking about is romantic or platonic. Regardless, it was there. You can’t deny it. I won’t let you. Because otherwise, everything we know about wands IS A LIE. And the Wizarding World doesn’t live like that. Magic makes at least a little bit of sense.

(Even though what we’re discussing is fictional. Sorry, I’m that insane.)

And remember how Narcissa’s wand didn’t “understand” Draco? 

Her wand is unknown, but it’s said to resemble Lucius’s, so it was probably Elmwood, a wand considered desirable for purebloods. Imagine that. The nature of her wand was not the same as his at all. She was selfish and didn’t have any allegiances but her own family. Even when she makes that final sacrifice, lying to Voldemort, it’s for Draco. She couldn’t care less about Harry’s life. 

So her wand not adapting to him is a huge indicator that his loyalty wasn’t with his family at all anymore. They were with Harry now (the whole “DON’T KILL HIM! DON’T KILL HIM!” shebang is like a neon sign, innit?).

And loyalty means much more than just wands in Harry Potter. The two Death Eaters who betrayed Voldemort, Snape and Regulus, sacrificed their lives, reputation, love (doesn’t matter which kind). They were something so foreign to Voldemort he never once thought they betrayed him. 

Because loyalty free of ulterior motives is love in its most visceral sense.

And the same fucking thing happened to Draco, right? Voldemort never, not even once, was able to see what happened with his wand. Because pure loyalty was involved and he never understood it.

Love is always the answer in this series. Lily’s, Narcissa’s, Snape’s, Harry’s. And Draco’s, I would say, is just as meaningful. It matters just as much in the final battle. It was the reason Harry won in the first place. 

So again, that’s LOVE LOVE LOVE and not even JKR will change my opinion (sorry, boss).

I will never accept the Hawthorn wand changed allegiances, because we have proof it didn’t have any reason to, and it’s not in its nature to just do it. Furthermore, in Cursed Child Draco even uses this old wand again. 

He never lost the wand’s loyalty completely, he just shared it with Harry.

Game, set and match again. Drarry is real™ as fuck.

[datavenia-hp]

Hello! You already told us what you think about Ron, but what are your thoughts on Ginny Weasley? Pretty controversial figure in drarry fandom, yet you have a fanfic about her

That's one of the fics I'm prouder of! You can read it here.

This got long, so here you go:

When I first started reading HP I loved Ginny and wanted her to hook up with Harry. I really identify with youngest-girl-lots-of-brothers, so I could see the attention she wanted and the way Ron dismissed her was familiar to me. In the second book, I was a bit disappointed that she ended up mostly being a victim, but after I processed it I was happy she would have to face the darkness of being used in such a way. Ginny murdered chickens and wrote on walls in blood and was responsible for kids getting petrified; even if she was being possessed, she can remember her hands doing those things. I assumed at some point Harry would have to face a darkness within himself, and I felt like CoS positioned Ginny to understand and identify with him in a way others--who had not been possessed--could not.

Ginny wasn't a big feature in PoA or GoF, which was disappointing In OotP, I was disappointed at first that Ginny seemed to be growing up without much "screen-time", as it were, and seemed to have her own interest in guys other than Harry. I was a shipper! I'm ashamed! Once I had time to process, again, I realized I far preferred a Ginny who had moved on from Harry and could be her own person. That way, they could be more like equals when they eventually got together.

In HBP, I really rooted for her going her own way--but also began to feel pretty confused. I didn't understand how she could be Harry's love interest with so little attention paid to her. And then the romance did start, and it felt--completely out of the blue for me? Especially when it happened right after a very powerful scene in which Harry almost made someone bleed to death, and especially when it seemed to have more to do with Quidditch and Dean Thomas than Ginny herself. And then Ginny was barely in DH, which made me wonder why the romance even existed in the first place.

I think a big part of the problem for me is the love interests I enjoy in fiction share goals and are an important and equal part of both the characters' lives. Harry going camping to fight Voldemort while Ginny stays at Hogwarts feels a little to me like the fantasy of the wife you come home to, the one who waits. By DH, Ginny shouldn't join in the adventure; she has no place there. Furthermore, we all hope that Harry gets to move on and have a life after Hogwarts; Ginny can become central to him then in a way she wasn't earlier in life. People you end up with don't have to be the people who were the centers of our young lives--and in most cases, they probably shouldn't be!

But it doesn't make for a good story, and frankly, I have difficulty identifying with it. I have trouble understanding couples who seem to live in separate worlds. I don't mean that a person can't have their own friends and interests; having some aspects of your life that don't belong to your partner is good and healthy. But Harry starting a romance with Ginny when Ginny is never involved in anything he does is as weird to me as if I were to have a relationship with someone and never ever share my fandoms with them. That's just the way I am.

I do think this is a classic problem in Hero's Journey stories, in that the most important person to the hero is the villain they're trying to defeat. See Star Wars. Luke's most important relationship is with Vader, which is why it makes sense to discard Leia as his love interest by writing her as his sister. Aang's most important relationship is with Zuko and then Ozai, which is one reason Katara/Aang falls flat. I think a lot of this has to do with the propensity for creators (generally male) to make both the central hero and the central villain male, and an unwillingness to really tackle the homoeroticism inherent in the central relationships. The narratives I can think of with central female protagonists, like Buffy, are give male counterparts who function as both villains and love interests.

I'm making some sweeping statements here; it's not true for all heroes journey stories, but I think it's why you see Hermione and Ron paired off. Harry's central relationship is Voldemort, and if you scale that down, you can make Draco Harry's central relationship, because Draco is a pawn of Voldemort. Now, I have argued quite stridently that Draco is only peripheral to Harry's life, and I stand by that statement most fervently--but that is according to Harry. According to the structure of the narrative, you can replace Voldemort with Draco under and umbrella of "evil/Death Eater/foe." By doing so, you can deal with issues that are very central to Harry's story.

As for Ginny herself, in the end, she suffers from the exact same problem as Ron, and so many other characters in HP. In other words, the set-up is there, but the execution is not. Ginny is the youngest of seven in a loving, magical family. In that way, she is a perfect counterpoint to the loneliness and negligence and Muggleness Harry experiences growing up. Yet, in such a large family, Ginny has to understand what it feels like to be overlooked and ignored--in that way, she's in a perfect position to understand and identify with some of Harry's isolation.

Ginny is the only other person in the book besides Harry to be possessed by Voldemort. (The only classmate to come close to having a similar experience is Draco, and his mind and body are not possessed at all, not like Ginny's or Harry's.) As such, she's also perfectly positioned to identify with a lot of Harry's trauma. She's also perfectly positioned to hate Voldemort with a very personal passion that's different from Ron or Hermione--Voldemort befriended her in the journal, and then violated her; it's very different than hating Voldemort on principle.

But in the end these aspects of Ginny just aren't utilized. We never see what she suffers in CoS really resonate. We never really learn the effect her family has on her, or even really who she is, other than that she is sporty, tough, and pretty. It's difficult to dislike Ginny Weasley, because the way she's written does her such a disservice, and she could have been such a brilliant character. She's just a lot of wasted potential, in my opinion, but those last two books certainly killed my whole Harry/Ginny shipper heart.

[datavenia-hp]

"It's a ridiculous film, Harry! The Scarecrow doesn't need a brain, it just needs to scare away crows! It's clearly been charmed but magic doesn't give an inanimate object the ability to think. It doesn't work like that! And the Wizard is obviously a fraud!"

Harry just laughed and kissed me.

Written for @drarrymicrofic 's prompt 'thought'

[datavenia-hp]

The gang

[datavenia-hp]

A borrowed patronus (bound to change)