#2024 Reads

[thoughtfulfangirling]

"Some twelve thousand muskets were double-loaded, and half of those more than triple. One rifle even had twenty-three balls in the barrel — which is absurd. These soldiers had been thoroughly drilled by their officers. Muskets, they all knew, were designed to discharge one ball at a time. So what were they doing? Only much later did historians figure it out: loading a gun is the perfect excuse not to shoot it. And if it happened to be loaded already, well, you just loaded it again. And again.

— Humankind: A Hopeful History by Rutger Bregman

[smokefalls]

I thought, this is what grief reveals: that love is full of mistakes.

A.D. Lauren-Abunassar, "Soliloquy" from Coriolis

[aethon-recs]

40 Tomarrymort Recs for 2024 — Longfic Edition (Part 3)

Part 3 of 2024 recs! See below for a round-up of some of the most engaging multi-chaptered works/longfics that I came across in this ship in 2024 🤍

As with last year, I found each of these fics, in their depiction of the ship, to be a fresh or surprising take on our familiar beloved characters of Harry and Tom|Voldemort, with an emphasis on underrated fics and/or fics that made me think about the ship in some new way. It's amazing to me that even after 20+ years of writing in this ship, there are still so many new themes and tropes and angles to explore. 

Criteria for this list: multi-chaptered, Tomarrymort-centric, with at least 1 update published in 2024. 

Overall, for 2024, I've split up my year-end recs into 3 parts: (1) Completed Multi-Chapter Fics, (2) One-Shots, (3) WIPs. Here’s the link back to Part 1: Completed Multi-Chapter Fics with 30 fics and Part 2: One-Shots with 30 fics. And with these 40 fics, this wraps up 100 recs for Tomarrymort for 2024!

*

a cool drink of water by @zolpidem105 (E, 10k, WIP)

Harry Potter, an apprentice at Police Scotland, wakes up to find he’s not in his bed.  "Awake? Excellent. We should get going," Tim?—Tom—says from the side, sounding far, far too alert for what Harry feels is catastrophically early in the morning.

A Simple Request by @shyinsunlight (E, 70k, WIP)

Harry can't sleep because of his neighbours' constant fighting, and he ends up falling asleep at work. Tom Riddle, CEO, is not particularly happy.

Accidents happen by @themothatyourdoor (T, 51k, WIP)

Harry must have been London's first accidental sugar daddy.

And the Living Will Envy the Dead by @k-s-morgan (M, 114k, WIP)

When Tom looks at Harry, he feels nothing. Until he does, and then Harry’s world starts drowning in blood.

Anytime, Anywhere, Always by @moontearpensfic (E, 30k, WIP)

Tom expects to feel victorious at his greatest enemy's confession. Instead, he develops a crush on him.

Auror Potter by @albondiguilla007 (E, 21k, WIP)

Harry Potter is done. He's been in the past for months now, working undercover. Enter Tom Riddle. Impulse control has never been a strong suit of Harry’s, and this mission is proving to be the most difficult one yet.

By Any Means by @corpium (E, 101k, WIP)

Harry Potter will do anything to protect his little brother, whether that means facing the Dursleys' wrath, dogging his brother's footsteps, or taking down the Dark Lord himself. Absolutely anything.

Crush by @chiocchi (T, 4 chapters, WIP)

Tom Riddle doesn't know what it's like to have a crush. So when his heart starts beating fast every time he sees Harry Potter, it can only mean one thing: His instincts are telling him that Harry Potter is a threat that must be eliminated.

Do It Over by @marrythemonstersao3 (T, 57k, WIP)

Harry wakes up on the morning of his eleventh birthday, ready to do things differently this time. He has no grand plans, just the instinct to be close to the man whose soul he shares.

draw me after you (let us run) by @toast-ranger-to-a-stranger (E, 287k, WIP)

“Harry Potter,” comes the soft, sibilant hiss of a voice he has heard in his dreams, in his nightmares, in his waking hours for years. “It seems I have finally caught you.” 

Echoes by @dracomort (M, 4k, WIP)

Across a thousand worlds, Harry and Tom find each other.

Embryo by @cannibalinc (NR, 112k, WIP)

This is Tom’s destiny, a King among men. No—a god. He need only rise to that which is his for the taking… if only one strange boy weren’t so determined to get in his way.

Hole in the Wall by @elddrmot (E, 77k, WIP)

Voldemort survives the final battle and is imprisoned in Azkaban. After a series of unfortunate events, Harry Potter ends up in the cell next to him.

Ills of Murder by @shadow-of-the-eclipse (M, 90k, WIP)

Harry Potter is a time-travelling, furious mess, and he is going to kill the Dark Lord. Like most of his plans, things do not work out. Tom should not be so obsessed with his would-be murderer.

Liquida Tenebris (Remastered) by @dymis (E, 595k, WIP)

When Harry Potter cast his first Cruciatus Curse, he was successful. In doing so, he awoke the darkness in his head. It whispers, and it's never wrong. The darkness is hungry, and won’t be denied.

Moon Rite by @isalisewrites (E, 15k, WIP)

Voldemort learned the truth: Harry was his horcrux. With a sudden offer of a ceasefire, the decades long war could be over - lives saved and protected - if Harry swore to one agreement: a magically binding marriage contract with Voldemort himself.

No Glory by @obsidianpen (E, 313k, WIP)

The Dark Lord divines what Harry Potter is in the Forbidden Forest, and revelations lead to incomprehensible consequences. Lord Voldemort has won... and the dystopia is damning.

Of Kings, of Pawns, and of Men by @ambivalens999 (E, 166k, WIP)

When Harry succumbs to dementors in Little Whinging, the last thing he expects is to wake and find Tom Riddle’s face staring back at him in the mirror. It only goes downhill from there.

of various storms and saints by MaidenMotherCrone (E, 36k, WIP)

“I am the last Lector. I am my people’s very last hope,” Harry bites out through the teeth of his fury. He is done throwing curses and spells. He is reduced to this, divine rage.  And then, Voldemort is there, looming and dark and great and terrible. “And I will stamp it out.”

One Year In Every Ten by @saintsenara (E, 207k, WIP)

A decade after the final battle, just when the wizarding world thinks itself safe, a serial killer emerges, leaving a trail of dead women in his wake. Each of the bodies bears a gruesome message for the Aurors. A message which claims the Dark Lord has risen again.

Reckless Cartography by @meles-merrivale (M, 39k, WIP)

Featuring Harry and Tom attending Hogwarts together and slowly ruining each other’s lives.

Revolution of Configured Stars by @tollingreminiscentbells (E, 162k, WIP)

In another world, Harry Potter was spared. Raised in Lord Voldemort's Britain, he enters his seventh year wanting to keep his head down. But after a chance encounter with ‘Marvolo Gaunt’, it looks like it may not be so simple.

Saint Harry by @alenablack @chaos-bear (E, 70k, WIP)

The moment Harry is struck by the killing curse, it’s not death that awaits him, but ascension. A story of faith, obsession, and the burden of divinity.

Seaforth by @kippipies (M, 10k, WIP)

For as long as he can remember, Harry's had a normal life, looking after a precocious child named Tom on an isolated island. But everything in his normal life is shattered when he finds out a terrible truth: that a powerful leader called Voldemort is after him.

Seeing Sand by @valkyrie-chemist (T, 95k, WIP)

Anticipation bubbled in Tom’s stomach as he imagined fear and shock Harry’s green eyes. Eyes that snapped open the instant Tom's hand touched the frame of the hospital bed. Eyes that burned gold.

some like it hot by @duplicitywrites (E, 12k, WIP)

When Tom Riddle applies for an internship at the Ministry of Magic, he is assigned to the Department of Magical Fire Control and Containment, a department that boasts a very impressive headcount of one: Harry Potter.

Strings of Fate by @solelyseeking (E, 58k, WIP)

“When I touch you,” Tom says, bitterness clinging to every syllable, “I feel whole.” Harry might just be the first interesting thing that Tom has ever encountered.

Stygian by @crowcrowcrowthing (E, 71k, WIP)

There's a book in Voldemort's private library that can explain this kind of magic. The cover is black and shiny and looks like it's breathing. Harry really wants to take a look at chapter three, no matter what it takes.

Tender Reigns Our Night by noumena (M, 103k, WIP)

Sent on a Ministry mission to fight for magic's survival, Harry goes back in time with two simple objectives: find and destroy any existing Horcruxes, and stop Tom Riddle ever evolving into Voldemort. Harry thus finds himself working alongside Riddle at Borgin and Burke's.

The Longing by @aglassroseneverfades (M, 41k, WIP)

What is possibly most damning of all is that Harry is not thinking of his parents right now as he trudges alongside his companions up to Voldemort’s eerie castle. He is thinking instead, as he often does, of a name that burns too brightly on his wrist in the pre-dawn light.

The Runemaster by @kazisstillawake (E, 43k, WIP)

Harry trips on a rock and leaps through time. 1940s Hogwarts is very different from the home he is familiar with. To make matters worse, he is dumped into Slytherin – Riddle’s territory. But it’s hard to be invisible when you’re a novelty, a new student that knows too much for your own good.

the stars, my destination by @milkandmoon-ao3 (E, 47k, WIP)

Harry is sent through time to the relative safety of 1963 and adopted into the Potter family. Now he’s entering his sixth year at Hogwarts in 1976, with a war brewing just outside the school walls. The last thing he needs is to catch the attention of the rising Dark Lord.

The Unintentional Consequences of Prison Reform by @badluck (E, 28k, WIP)

Harry Potter, newly licensed Mind Healer, puts personal history aside to take on his hardest job yet. “Talk to me, please. Give me a chance to make you better.” Lord Voldemort looks downright murderous.

The Word of Your Body by @ictyn (E, 7k, WIP)

“Have you heard from him?” Albus asks. He only means one person when he asks Harry this question. He’s asked it five times in twenty years, and the answer is always the same. The only thing he knows about Tom is that he’s not dead. Harry would know if that happened. He’d feel it beating inside his heart, inside of his very soul.

Timeless by @perhaps-sunlight (E, 3k, WIP)

In which Master of Death Harry Potter time travels to the 1940s, only fixing Tom Riddle isn’t quite what he had in mind.

To the Hilt by @izharmilgram (E, 28k, WIP)

Voldemort had trusted him with the task of bringing Prince Gryffindor under his control, thus securing the future of Gryffindor within their hands. Tom would do so easily—the prince was a mere omega, docile and sweet, easily swayed—and then Gryffindor Kingdom would be folded into the Slytherin Dynasty. He would prove himself undoubtedly useful, and Voldemort would finally let him rule at his side.

Venom or Valor by @lightningant (M, 52k, WIP)

20 years old and unemployed, Harry decides to use a time turner to travel to 1946. But what he finds isn’t the proud, charismatic Dark-Lord-To-Be, but a neurotic 19-year-old Tom Riddle living quietly in the tiny flat that his retail job barely pays for, isolated and addled by chronic illness.

we made universes out of bitten lips and broken hands by @boyneptunee (M, 68k, WIP)

Seer Harry who tries to write his own future, fuck prophesies and mastermind darklords and evil teachers. He will live his life, and he will enjoy it, dammit. Oh, and there's also Tom Riddle.

What In Me Is Dark, Illumine by @telelli-writes (M, 80k, WIP)

There was a new transfer student, Tom observed at the Start-of-Term Feast as he idly twisted the Gaunt ring around his finger. Featuring a schoolboy on the precipice of becoming a monster, a powerful and mysterious newcomer to Hogwarts, and an initial spark of interest that becomes an obsession.

With a resolute heart by Act_Naturally (M, 243k, WIP)

Triwizard Tournament, but Hunger Games: Tom Riddle needs to win to fulfill his plans. Cedric Diggory wants to make his family proud. Hermione wants her friends to survive. Harry wants a lot of things, including Tom Riddle. 

you speak of the devil (like he's not your friend) by @amuria (M, 64k, WIP)

When Harry wakes a seventeen-year-old Tom Riddle from the Gaunt's Ring, it is to a world where his future self has achieved none of their goals except one. Harry is proof that he's a great wizard after all.

*

[heavenlyyshecomes]

I do not see how my oppressor could sit in judgment on my response to his oppressive actions against me. He is in no position to render an impartial judgment or to accuse me of air piracy and hijacking when he has hijacked my home and hijacked me and my people out of our land. If the enemy defines morality and legality in his own terms and decides to apply his ethical and legal

doctrines against me because he has the power as well as the means of communications to justify his inhumanity, I am under no moral obligation to listen, let alone obey his dictates. Indeed, I am under a moral obligation to resist and to fight to death the enemy's moral corruption. My deed cannot be evaluated without examining the underlying causes. The revolutionary deed I carried out on August 29, 1969 was an assertion of my spurned humanity, a declaration of the humanity of Palestinians. It was an act of protest against the West for its pro-Zionist (therefore anti-Palestinian) posture. The list of the sins of the West is overwhelming.

—Leila Khaled, My People Shall Live: The Autobiography of a Revolutionary ed. George Hajjar

[bangbangwhoa]

books I’ve read in 2024 📖 no. 054

Funny Story by Emily Henry

“For once, I don’t want to be anywhere but in this moment, not thinking about what it all means or where it might go, and he makes that easy, this sunlit man.”

[sororygilmore]

THE HUNGER GAMES by Suzanne Collins

[the-forest-library]

This is a ridiculous number of books to read in a year. Do not measure your reads against this. I basically listen to audiobooks all day, and that’s not something everyone can or wants to do.

I always assumed that if I read more books I’d encounter more stellar reads. Turns out you just encounter way more mediocre reads (and that’s considering that I DNF a ton), and those tend to overshadow the good reads. I’m hoping to be even more selective in my reads in the coming year as reading so many mediocre books is really affecting my reading enjoyment.

[howlsmovinglibrary]

*Top 5 Books of 2024!*

2024 can get in the bin as far as I'm concerned, but I had a really good reading year! 63 books (compared to a goodreads goal of 30), 18 5* reads, and only 2 dnfs!

Here are my top 5 books of 2024!...

Deeplight by Frances Hardinge

Cosmic horror and eldritch transformation in a post-apocalyptic aquatic fantasy world (...in a YA book).

Long Live Evil by Sarah Rees Brennan

I love villainess isekai and I love Sarah Rees Brennan, this book was written for me <3

Emily Wilde's Map of the Otherlands by Heather Fawcett

Academic rivals-to-lovers with a faerie prince, another book written specifically for me <3

The Scholar and the Last Faerie Door by HG Parry

Fantasy university story that lovingly performs dark academia conventions, about a scholarship student at magic Oxbridge

The Rom-Commers by Katherine Center

I read a lot of romance this year, but this was my favourite! Katherine Center's first book was hit or miss for me, but the pacing and tension and high stakes of this story were perfect!

Honorable mentions (not pictured)

Feast While You Can and The View Was Exhausting by Mikaella Clements and Onjuli Datta, The Witchwood Knot by Olivia Atwater, The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley...

[widebrimmedhatsblog]

My 2024 reads tier list!! There is a slim chance I finish one more book tomorrow, but this is otherwise complete sans-rereads. If you have similar tastes and have recs let me know!

[caffeinatedcatlover]

Books read in 2024 📖

I read a total of 41 books, around 15,500 pages (average book length 376 pages).

⋆ Iron Flame by Rebecca Yarros

⋆ Throne of Glass by Sarah J Maas

⋆ Crown of Midnight by Sarah J Maas

⋆ Heir of Fire by Sarah J Maas

⋆ The Assassin’s Blade by Sarah J Maas

⋆ Queen of Shadows by Sarah J Maas

⋆ The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid

⋆ Empire of Storms by Sarah J Maas

⋆ A Small Place by Jamaica Kincaid

⋆ Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine

⋆ Tower of Dawn by Sarah J Maas

⋆ Kingdom of Ash by Sarah J Maas

⋆ House of Earth and Blood by Sarah J Maas

⋆ House of Sky and Breath by Sarah J Maas

⋆ House of Flame and Shadow by Sarah J Maas

⋆ Foreigners: Three English Lives by Caryl Philips

⋆ Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt

⋆ Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare

⋆ A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare

⋆ The Flatshare by Beth O’Leary

⋆ Bride by Ali Hazelwood

⋆ My Roommate Is a Vampire by Jenna Levine

⋆ Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett

⋆ Emily Wilde’s Map of the Otherlands by Heather Fawcett

⋆ You and Me on Vacation by Emily Henry

⋆ Book Lovers by Emily Henry

⋆ Happy Place by Emily Henry

⋆ Daisy Miller by Henry James

⋆ Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands by Mary Seacole

⋆ The Pumpkin Spice Cafe by Laurie Gilmore

⋆ The September House by Carissa Orlando

⋆ The Dangers of Smoking in Bed by Mariana Enríquez

⋆ Song of Myself by Walt Whitman

⋆ The Waste Land and Other Poems by T.S. Eliot

⋆ A Rose for Emily by William Faulkner

⋆ Dracula by Bram Stoker

⋆ Recitatif by Toni Morrison

⋆ Millennium Approaches by Tony Kushner

⋆ The Rabbit Hutch by Tess Gunty

⋆ The Turn of the Screw by Henry James

⋆ The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson

[thoughtfulfangirling]

When the five day work week was reinstated in March 1974, officials set about calculating the total extent of production losses. They had trouble believing their eyes. The grand total was 6%. What Ford, Kellogg, and Heath had all discovered is that productivity and long work hours do not go hand in hand. In the 1980s, Apple employees sported t-shirts that read, “Working 90 hours a week and loving it.” Later, productivity experts calculated that if they worked half the hours, then the world might have enjoyed the groundbreaking Macintosh computer a year earlier.

—Utopia for Realists: How We can Build the Ideal World by Rutger Bregman

[smokefalls]

I thought of how the world can be anything and how sad it is that it’s this.

Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, Chain-Gang All-Stars

[aethon-recs]

30 Tomarrymort Recs for 2024 — Completed Multi-Chapter Fics (Part 1)

Happy new year, and what a year 2024 was for the Tomarrymort ship! 🤍 We went from close to 13,000 fics in the beginning of 2024 to over 15,000 fics in the ship tag by the end of the year. How incredible is that!?

I've split up my 2024 year-end recs into 3 parts: (1) Completed Multi-Chapter Fics, (2) One-Shots, (3) WIPs. Here is Part 1 of the list: Completed Multi-Chapter Fics.

Please enjoy these 1.5 million words of completed Tomarrymort fic from 2024!

*

A Dangerous Game by @cybrid (E, 322k, complete)

Tom Riddle opens the Chamber of Secrets in Harry’s fifth year at Hogwarts. After a botched attempt to extract the Horcrux in Harry’s scar leaves their souls tied together, Tom is forced to kidnap him when he makes his escape. A story of Horcrux hunting, adventure and unwilling attraction.

Anabiosis by @itsevanffs (E, 39k, complete)

The school is… unprotected. Voldemort gets resurrected early, and learns this very quickly. Harry Potter likes his new teacher: he's a pretty man in his early thirties with a kind smile and dark hair and eyes - and he doesn't seem to hate him, unlike all the other teachers.

aurora polaris by @aglassroseneverfades (E, 217k, complete)

Harry does not give up the Horcrux when he dies. Moved by compassion, he embraces it instead. What follows next, he could not predict. He’s not sure he ever really had a choice in the matter. The world Harry wakes up to is not like the one he remembers. And his captor is neither the same as he was, nor as different as he would like.

Change Me by @valkyrie-chemist (E, 17k, complete)

Harry Potter had grown up listening to tales of the cursed Lord Voldemort. Trapped in his mysterious manor, the man—the monster—was said to be crueler and more hungry than Death itself. So why then, Harry thought, was the groundskeeper still alive? What sway did Tom Riddle have over Lord Voldemort to stay his wicked hand when Harry had so brazenly trespassed on his lands? Whatever it was, it was not enough. For try as he might, not even Tom could persuade the monster to let Harry leave. That is, Tom challenged, if Harry even wanted to.

Creatures of the Dark we are by @hikarimeroperiddle (E, 28k, complete)

Banished to his cupboard at age 4, Harry learns to listen only to the Voice in his head. Its teachings warp all Harry could have become until no more than dark magic and devotion remains. Visions of a wraith with red eyes complicate matters, especially when Harry and the Voice follow it to Hogwarts so Master can get his hands on the Philosopher’s Stone. Harry can do magic. He can’t do people.

death cheater (are you?) by regulus_little_mermaid (E, 14k, complete)

Tom tries to understand: just because a stranger saves your life a few times doesn't mean you can fall in love with him.

Dulce Et Decorum Est Mori by beetaker (E, 135k, complete)

“I'm glad it's both of us,” Harry said, green eyes somehow greener, the natural brightness in him turning incandescent. “I'm glad we're going together.” “We'll always go together,” Tom said, knowing it as fact, unable to imagine anything different. Wherever he went, Harry was sure to follow. It'd been that way forever. It would surely always be that way.

Extenuating Circumstances by Origin_Of_Symmetry (M, 87k, complete)

“You’re really quite a delight, Harry. I can’t believe I went weeks thinking you were useless and boring.” Somehow, unwittingly, Harry finds himself engaged to Tom Riddle. He’s not entirely sure how that happened.

friend of the devil (a friend of mine) by @shyinsunlight (E, 28k, complete)

There’s something very unsettling about Tom Riddle. Cedric can’t put a finger on it. Whether it’s the way he moves, all long limbs and eerie fluidity, the dissecting gaze he follows them with, or the way he speaks, with an accent that doesn’t match his manners. Maybe it’s how he drinks in Harry’s presence like a religious zealot, or how his eyes wander over Harry’s body as if he’s seen the skin and flesh underneath before.

gaming buddies by @reggieblk (M, 19k, complete)

All it takes is a rude comment under a YouTube video for Harry and Tom to meet their best friend and, incidentally, the love of their lives. Through thousands of hours of playing Minecraft together, getting to know each other, and finally meeting in real life, it was inevitable they'd fall in love.

Hearthstone Abbey by @ramabear (E, 116k, complete)

Harry follows Thomas Gaunt into his world much like he stepped onto Diagon Alley that first time, wide-eyed and full of wonder. He has no idea what exactly this world has in store for him, but he knows that with Thomas at his side, he is safe and happy for the first time in his whole life. There is someone who will always be there for him, always look after him, always care for him and everything Thomas does just proves that to be true.

In the Shape of Fear, Erised by @rowena-rain (E, 19k, complete)

Harry sneaks into Lupin’s office late at night, determined to banish his recurring nightmares of a certain devastatingly handsome future Dark Lord once and for all. But things quickly spiral into depravity, and before he knows it, Harry is getting thoroughly railed by a boggart in the form of Diary Tom Riddle... Or is it?

in the silence by @satflesk22 (E, 48k, complete)

There's a new student at Hogwarts. And, for some reason, he's decided he's going to be Tom Riddle's best friend. Tom, immortal aspiring Dark Lord, apparently has no say in the matter.

In Their Absence by @mosiva (E, 35k, complete)

“Weird place to hang out, mate,” Harry said, more to break the oppressive silence. There was nothing but the thick hedges, the faintest whisper of a breeze, the grey sky overhead, and Voldemort. “You believe this to be a dream,” Voldemort rasped. “You always were foolish.”

Kudosed, Bookmarked, Subscribed by @maquira713 (E, 79k, complete)

By day, Harry works as a lowly assistant to his boss: the cruel, controlling Tom Riddle. By night, he lives, breathes, and writes fanfiction. And when he's not writing, he's obsessing over the work of his favorite Ao3 author: Lord_Voldemort_. So, of course, it’s only a matter of time before Harry gets caught reading Voldemort’s latest fanfiction at work… by none other than his boss.

Machine Men by @izharmilgram (E, 5k, complete)

Harry discovers Lord Voldemort is transgender, and he's really fucking hung up about it.

rage, rage (against the dying of the light) by MerleBlanc (M, 17k, complete)

1978. Voldemort is winning, bored, and his immortality secured. When a mysterious man appears out of thin air to oppose his Death Eaters, he is more than intrigued by whom the newspapers now nickname the Good Samaritan. Except someone is also stealing his horcruxes one by one, and he has never felt more threatened in his life. Or: Harry just lost his wife, made a deal with Death, travelled from the future to gain back his mortality, and decided to fuck a timeline.

see you soon by @duplicitywrites (E, 9k, complete)

It’s summer, which explains why Tom has all this free time to visit Harry’s flat and place of work, but it does not explain how Tom knows, with unerring accuracy, where Harry is at any given moment. Harry has checked with his coworkers—Tom only ever shows up at Fortescue’s when Harry is the manager on shift.

Shiver, Lustre, Skin by @monsieurclavier (M, 9k, complete)

Harry goes undercover as a bargirl at one of Tom Riddle’s exclusive clubs. Tom has her figured out in approximately one second. Or: In which Tom is a badass Wizarding mob boss and an incorrigible lesbian flirt, and Harry—sassy newbie Auror and secret virgin—is just Tom’s type.

something precious by @mosiva  (E, 16k, complete)

“Fine,” Harry said, giving in to curiosity as he always did. “What is it?” Tom shook the vial, letting the liquid catch the light and send rays scattering over his hand and face. “It’s a love potion,” he said.

Still Into You by @moontearpensfic (E, 29k, complete)

Harry has a stalker. If only he noticed sooner.

Sugar Soaked by @teaandsweaters9 (E, 46k, complete)

Seducing Hepzibah Smith out of her most precious belongings should have been simple. Spend time with her, charm her, drain her for all she’s worth, and move on. Unfortunately for Tom Riddle, Harry Potter, professional savior and amateur waiter, has other plans.

the only heaven by iwasborntired (M, 11k, complete)

“You,” Ginny swallows, and her voice sounds jagged, waves crashing against an uneven shore. “You called out for him, in your sleep.” He does not need her to finish. He knows. It is sick and festered and rotten, and it is true. In the blanket of night, in his dreams, Harry Potter starves. His mouth forms the supplication, a secret scalds the air, and his soul, then and now and always, calls out for Tom Riddle. It is only fair, after so long spent stitched into the fabric of one other.

the righteous dead by @aspengray (T, 40k, complete)

Harry is resurrected, sewn together with thread and magic. He remembers nothing except that he loves his savior, a man named Voldemort.

Thin Skin by @iseliljathedreamer (E, 15k, complete)

The war ended with a conditional surrender where the most powerful wizard alive signed his freedom away for 100 years to a boy of 17 armed with a basilisk tooth and a putrid, poisoned pool, in exchange for secrecy and eternal life. But that was years ago now. Harry thought he'd never get used to having Voldemort living in his house, but he did. Time is a miracle-worker beyond all human comprehension, and yet, there are wounds it remains to heal. Quite literally.

Tom Riddle's DIY Disaster by @sri-verse (E, 13k, complete)

Harry and Tom were the closest two people could be. They always shared everything, no secrets between them.  So, when Tom told Harry about his last orgasm, why was Harry acting all weird? It was granted that Tom would think of him.

Trenches by @shadow-of-the-eclipse (T, 82k, complete)

"Maybe you should kill them," Harry says. He's sitting perched on the stairs, hands clasped together, green eyes watching Tom and his irritating year mates. His form is hazy around the edges, an almost translucent quality to his image. "I can't just kill people," Tom says. "Not in public.” Role-Reversal where Harry is the Dark Lord and Tom Riddle is the Boy-Who-Survived.

two ways of being: the noun & the verb by cycloalkane (NR, 8k, complete)

Potter is finishing up with his sketch of the craniofacial structure. There is still more of his body to go, and more sessions left, and Tom cannot be sure whether he wants the precise drawings to be more or less—true, at all, if he could even describe them as untruthful. They aren’t beautiful as Tom is in the mirror, but they are still, undeniably, him, with the eye of someone learning to cut people apart and look beneath their skin, still bloodless yet, and—well.

What quickens me is the violence in thee by @i-dream-of-libraries (M, 17k, complete)

Harry is sold at auction to a man who is clearly in some kind of disguise - Lord Riddle isn't as charming as he looks, and the way he looks at Harry...

You By The Shore by @blackseatwenty (E, 19k, complete)

Harry's grown on the island his whole life. He fell in love with a stranger standing alone by the shore. Or is it crazy to believe in love at first sight?

*

[heavenlyyshecomes]

For the interested reader, diaries and notebooks can be placed in two categories: in the first the text is intended to be official, manifest, aimed at a readership. The notebook becomes a training ground for the outward self, and, as in the case of the nineteenth-century artist and diarist Marie Bashkirtseff, an open declaration, an unending monologue, addressed to an invisible but sympathetic ear. Still I’m fascinated by the other sort of diary, the working tool, the sort the writer-as-craftsperson keeps close at hand, of little apparent use to the outsider. Susan Sontag, who practised this art form for decades, said of her diary that it was ‘an instrument, a tool’ – I’m not sure this is entirely apt. Sontag’s notebooks (and the notebooks of other writers) are not just for the storage of ideas, like nuts in squirrels’ cheeks, to be consumed later. Nor are they filled with quick outlines of events, to be recollected when needed. Notebooks are an essential daily activity for a certain type of person, loose-woven mesh on which they hang their clinging faith in reality and its continuing nature. Such texts have only one reader in mind, but this reader is utterly implicated. Break open a notebook at any point and be reminded of your own reality, because a notebook is a series of proofs that life has continuity and history, and (this is most important) that any point in your own past is still within your reach. Sontag’s notebooks are filled with such proofs: lists of films she has seen, books she has read, words that have charmed her, the dried husks of completed endeavours – and these are largely limited to the notebooks; they almost never feed into her books or films or articles, they are neither the starting point, nor the underpinning for her public work. They are not intended as explanations for another reader (perhaps for the self, although they are scribbled down at such a lick that sometimes it’s hard to make out what is meant). Like a fridge, or as it was once called, an ice house, a place where the fast-corrupting memory-product can be stored, a space for witness accounts and affirmations, or the material and outward signs of immaterial and elusive relations, to paraphrase Goncharov.

—Maria Stepanova, In Memory of Memory, tr. Sasha Dugdale (emphasis mine)

[bangbangwhoa]

books I’ve read in 2024 📖 no. 123

Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett

“If anyone were to claim greater happiness in their careers than I do in poking about sunlit wildwoods for faerie footprints, I should not believe it.”

[sororygilmore]

DIVINE RIVALS by Rebecca Ross