#epilogue compliant

[ficreclibraries]

Summary: Harry's lonely in the aftermath of his divorce. Except for the weekends that he has the kids, Harry's cooking gourmet meals for one in his big, empty farmhouse, with only his seven cats for company.Until, that is, Harry finds Al and Lily playing with Scorpius Malfoy in the front yard, and learns that Draco Malfoy is his closest wizarding neighbor. Oh, and also, Harry's favorite cat is stolen (multiple times!) by someone who had the audacity to put a sparkly pink collar on her, with a nametag that reads "Plumeria Seraphin Snugglybug". These things (Malfoy and the cat-snatching) may or may not be related.Featuring: a cat-loving Harry who loves to cook, has playdates with Pansy Parkinson, and tends to rap when he's wasted, and good-dad Draco Malfoy who's still a prat, albeit an irritatingly attractive and charming one.Also featuring: a slew of adorable children, a stolen cat named Stormy, copious amounts of sexual tension, divorce betting pools, amoral yet charismatic Slytherins, peeping-tom Harry, foot massages given while under the influence, Harry's first time with a bloke, and did I mention cats?

[heyclickadee]

“Hey, you okay?”

“I…no.”

“Okay. Talk to me.”

“Phee…what if we made a mistake?”

“What?”

“There is hardly anywhere the Empire is not these days. What if something happens to one of us? To both of us? What if you go out on a mission for Vos and you are killed or”—

“It’s us, brown eyes. And it’s me. I’d like to see the Empire try to keep me down.”

“Then what if one day I wake up and I cannot remember you? Or the girls?”

“Then we’ll help you remember all over again. All of us.”

“But what if”—

“You were having that nightmare about Tantiss, weren’t you?”

“Yes. I…don’t want to…go back to being….”

“Listen, Tech Ninety-Nine Genoa: you are never going back to that ever again. I promise.”

For the day five prompt of ND Tech Week. I’m thinking it takes Tech a little while to get back home, and a little while longer to figure out who he really is. He still has some rough days, and worries in ways he didn’t before. Whatever happened to him, and whatever he did afterwards, was something he couldn’t control—and it kept him away for so much longer than he wanted. Still, every once in while it hits him how much they lost, and how much they got back, and in spite of everything he thinks he must be the luckiest man in the galaxy to have come out the other side. After all, better late than dead. As Phee always says. (Or did that one time.)

[jq37]

I've largely been thrilled with the amount of sister content for Adaine and Aelwyn in Junior Year considering that Aelwyn's main arc was more or less completed last season and she could have easily been benched like so many other NPCs were this season. The only thing I was hoping would come into play but didn't was the Nemesis Ward. Even if it never comes up though, I still love it so much as a point of characterization for her. That action says so much about who she is as a person. That she would take a piece of magic specifically intended for evil and make it good in the same way that her protective magic which should have been good was twisted to be used for evil the first 18 years of her life? Mwah. Chef's kiss.

[pyromaniacbibliophile]

Albus put down the book very slowly. Scorpius looked at him with mild concern. “Albus?” 

He didn’t listen, instead he got up, walked out of the library, and screamed. Then he came back in. Madam Pince looked down her nose at him, so he grinned cheerfully and sat down next to Scorpius. 

“Al, what was that for?” 

Wordlessly, Albus pushed the book over to Scorpius, gesturing at two consecutive chapters. Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore, read the first. The second, Severus Tobias Snape. Scorpius read the entries quickly, the advantages of being a fast reader. He laughed. 

“Shut up!” Albus whispers, poking him in the side. 

“I mean you have to admit, it’s funny.”

“No it really isn’t! Dad’s the bloody Man-Who-Conquered, you’d think he’d know how to name a child!” He whisper-shouted.

“Would you like a quill and parchment?” Scorpius asked innocently. 

Albus glared. “Yes.” 

In the end, the letter read

Dear Mum and Dad, I’m in the library,  having just read a book about previous heads of Hogwarts Written by Uncle Nev and Auntie Luna And I would just like to ask one thing Are you fucking serious? I demand a name-change now please Anything, literally anything else Dobby Kreature Potter, for all I care Sorry for swearing, but just Bloody hell, what were you thinking Love, Norbert Fang Potter, or something

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ron laughed. “You have to admit, mate, naming your son after the bloke who raised you to die and the twit who bullied us for our entire school and told Moldy-wart the Prophecy was a little bit stupid, wasn’t it.” 

“It was symbolic!” Harry protested. 

“Your first son you called James Sirius. Alright, bit of a heavy legacy, but I can see the reasoning. Your daughter, Lily Luna. The same. But why, oh why, did you call Al, Albus Severus? Mate, honestly. It’s not like we have a shortage of slightly nicer dead friends and family to name children as, is it? Or alive, you called Lils Luna, after all! I despair. It’s a miracle that you didn’t name Teddy, or else he might have ended up as Remus Peter Lupin-Potter! Or why not skip the subtleties and call him Peter Bellatrix Scabbers!” 

Harry winced. In retrospect, true. “... Regulus Minerva Potter?”

“Alright, a little bit better, but just a small thought. This is your chance to give one of your children a name that doesn’t have a previous owner. Just a thought, mind.” Ron added.

“Tom?” 

There was silence. Ron seemed dumbstruck at his friend's utter idiocy. “Harry. Mate. Please, please, tell me you see the issue with ‘Tom’. Please.” 

“It wasn’t all his fault, really, Dumbledore was a bit of an idiot…” Harry trailed off at the look on Ron’s face. 

“Harry. Your wife was possessed by him for a whole year. He also, under a very stupid alias, did, oh I don’t know, TRY TO KILL YOU FOR YOUR WHOLE LIFE?” 

“And succeeded once.” Harry added helpfully. 

“No. Just no.” 

Harry laughed. That one had been a little bit of a joke, to tell the truth. “Ok. Er- hmm. Your lot and my parents seem to have the monopoly on names, to be fair… Aha! Fleamont Minerva Potter!” 

Ron sighed. “That’s the best we’re going to get, isn’t it? Check with Gin.” 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Dear Norbert Fang Potter

We do apologise, it was all your Dad’s idea. I would have been entirely happy never thinking about either Dumbledore or Snape again, to be fair. Thanks to your Uncle Ron preventing Regulus and Tom, we have come up with a different idea. 

How do you feel about Monty Minerva Potter? 

Is school going well, how are your friends?

Mum

and Dad (Who says sorry and admits Albus Severus might have been a mite foolish)

inspired by this pin

[jomiddlemarch]

to be two chaoses 

The nightmares began after Rose was born. 

Resumed was the more accurate term, as Hermione had nearly become dependent on Dreamless Sleep within a few weeks of Harry’s victory over Voldemort, when the multiple years’ worth of trauma, especially the torture she’d experienced at Malfoy Manor, had come bearing down on her like the Hogwarts Express on steroids, an expression Harry would pretend not to understand and Justin would shrug at in commiseration. Her parents, sequestered in Mugglish obscurity in Melbourne, would not have been any help if she’d been able to get to them and restore their memories, something she repeated to herself as a mantra, since she couldn’t get to them and it turned out she couldn’t restore their memories, orphaned in a way no one around her grasped. There was a nightmare about that, but it wasn’t in the top tier, such that she almost welcomed its arrival; it was the only way she saw her parents when they knew who she was to any degree. Though it ended in devastation, it always started with her mum smiling at her.

*

If Ron hadn’t been able to help her, they never would have stayed together. She knew that in some deep, indefinite part of herself, just as she knew not to tell him. There had been lust, initially fierce and apparently unslakable, and the affection of their schoolyears together, the shared jokes, the homely memories of jacket potatoes and Madam Longbottom’s horrific flower-pot hats secured with jeweled pins that were nearly as deadly as a wand, the scent of the first snow, and so many recollections in candlelight, but none of it would have been enough if he hadn’t taken her into his arms and held her the first night she woke breathless from a scream she’d swallowed, the arm Bellatrix had cut burning terribly, the scar from Dolohov as heavy as the weights they’d used to press witches with in Salem. He’d said her name completely, not dropping a syllable, Hermione, and then I’ve got you and nothing else, letting his heartbeat and his breath be the only sounds she could hear. He’d grown into his frame that last year on the run when she’d starved in the woods, losing her period and handfuls of her brittle curls, and he’d somehow known how loosely to hold her so that she was able to nestle against him. The fragrance of the herbs his mother used in her laundry spells was faint but present, familiar. There was nothing sexual about his embrace then, but there was an intimacy greater than any fucking in the way he reacted, the inviolable memory of the agonized way he’d cried out when he’d heard her being brutalized that lived between them, as potent as the delight he took in her ecstasy.

She’d wondered that first night if it was a fluke, his ability to comfort her, and had told herself not to expect anything the next time but she’d been glad to be wrong. She put aside the sedative potions in their battered flasks and let herself fall asleep with a book in her hands, her hair still damp from the bath she’d taken, able to rely on his presence in the dark, the slight gleam of bronze in the moonlight that was his hair, the nearly grey blue of his eyes. They didn’t speak of it during the day, other than the infrequent mornings he greeted her with all right then instead of a nuzzled kiss to her temple or collarbone. The nightmares began as an onslaught and they waned slowly, slow enough Ron didn’t even ask when she might consider having children, though Hermione recognized the Weasley impulse to obscure their losses with babies, Fleur glowingly enceinte within a few weeks of Victoire’s birth, Ginny’s hand lingering over the small matinee sweaters her mother knit by the dozen. Percy’s return to the fold was eased by his hand at the small of his bride Penelope’s back, her radiance reflected in Molly’s face when they announced they expected a set of twins by the solstice. Ron gave Hermione what she needed to sleep and he gave her time to let the past become the past, her bloody, broken youth a shore increasingly distant. He couldn’t give her everything, but what he did was enough she’d been willing to let herself conceive the future he wanted so badly. He’d wept when she told him, burying his face in her shoulder, wrapping his arms around her instead of laying one large hand on her belly. It was his hands on either side of her spine that reassured her she’d been right.

*

The pregnancy was ordinary enough. Her only real dilemma was how to satisfy her cravings for Branston Pickle and Hobnobs without offending Ron’s mother or drawing too much attention from his father, whose fascination with the miscellany of Muggle life hadn’t declined with the end of the war. Ron, displaying the thoughtful observation she’d first found impossibly attractive while watching him play Wizard chess, maintained a calm affection towards her in company, a quiet tenderness when they were alone that made her worry sometimes he was trying to be someone he wasn’t just to please her. And then there were the times she found him gazing out a rain-streaked window at the Burrow. She knew he was thinking of Fred, of Tonks and Remus, of the scars on Bill’s face, the brother Ron most resembled, and she knew he’d been forged by grief as much as by victory. Hermione ate, she slept, she complained of heartburn and was told she must be carrying a ginger with curls as wild as her own. She read what passed for child-rearing books in the Wizarding world, nearly decapitated Harry chucking the third book across the sitting room in an only-partially hormonally mediated rage and bought every glossy paperback on the display at Foyles, which gave her some idea of what she might expect if she’d been a Muggle and included the concept of a birth-plan. Plans, as ever, held an irresistible appeal and were nearly as tranquilizing as Professor Binns.

*

When she mentioned that bit about the birth-plan to Ron while they were visiting his parents, George hanging about as usual, Percy working on some document at what passed for a desk over in a corner Hermione couldn’t remember previously existing, her mother-in-law just managed to keep from saying “Nonsense.” Hermione could clearly see that was what Molly had wanted to say and that she decided against it at the last minute after taking in at the book gripped tightly in Hermione’s hand and then Ron’s blue glare. Arthur kept fiddling with an immersion blender the way a Muggle child would handle a Rubik’s cube.

“A birth-plan is a very good idea, dear, but you’ll need to follow a witch’s plan and I do think, with the number of other witches you’ll require, you’ll be more comfortable at home or here at the Burrow,” Molly announced. Hermione glanced around and saw everyone present agreed with her mother-in-law.

“I’ll need to—or else what?” Hermione asked, curiosity outweighing her annoyance at Molly’s declaration.

“It’ll be too dangerous, for you and the baby,” Molly said. “Wild magic’s always an issue during delivery. For a witch as powerful as you and the baby likely to be the same—”

“It might be a boy,” Hermione said.

“Yes, I suppose it might,” Molly replied, her tone now entirely humoring-the-pregnant-daughter-in-law. She was convinced Hermione was carrying a girl, though Hermione and Ron had declined to find out when offered the chance at St. Mungo’s. “I meant the baby is likely to be magically gifted, considering her, that is, their parents. You’ll need at least four witches and seven would be safer. Obviously, Ginny and I will be there but you must decide who else you’d like.”

“I don’t know,” Hermione said. She’d never imagined childbirth to be organized like a tea-party. “I hadn’t thought to have anyone with me except Ron. And a midwife.”

Would she have wanted her mother with her, if she’d had the choice? She didn’t let herself wonder.

“If you don’t mind, dear, I’d suggest Augusta Longbottom,” Molly said briskly, making it clear that the if you don’t mindwas merely pro forma. 

“Neville’s gran?” Hermione said.

“She’s a very powerful witch and she’s quite fond of you,” Molly said. “She’s got better control than Minerva, though I’ll never admit that I’ve said that, and she’s no little experience with a laboring mother.”

“I’ll have Luna,” Hermione said. Ron gave her a quizzical look but knew enough not to say anything else, though she could see the effort if took for him to keep from mouthing nargles? at her. “That’s four, that’s enough.”

“Seven would be less dangerous—"

Who else would she ask? Part of her longed to throw up her hands and tell Molly to stuff it, she’d rely on the NHS to see her through, she still had her card, but then the baby kicked, sharpish, as if to scold her for being an absolute ninny, and Ron was still holding his tongue when she knew it cost him to be quiet. He worried about them both, she could tell he’d be a good father, and Molly was only trying to make sure they both came through it, privy to knowledge Hermione couldn’t easily learn from any book.

“I’ll have Luna, but I’ll ask Andomeda, in case Luna isn’t able to come,” Hermione said. “There’s no trouble with five if they both show up, is there?”

“No. There might be a wobble, but nothing Augusta and I couldn’t manage between us and Andromeda’s a light hand,” Molly said.

“A light hand with pastry?” Ron asked. 

“That too,” Arthur put in. “I believe your mother meant in channeling a magical surfeit, but she does make a very satisfying treacle tart. Not a patch on your mother’s, but close. Quite close.”

*

Molly was right.

Seven would have been safer, but Hermione and Rose bloody well squeaked through, as Ginny put it, earning herself a sharp glance and then an approving nod from Augusta Longbottom. The toucan-adorned hat had come off as Hermione entered transition and Madam Longbottom had had to exert herself to contain the burst of near Fiendfyre Hermione had unleashed. Luna had commented, with clear admiration in her usual dreamy tone, that Hermione was very equitable when it came to her elemental wild magic, as they’d had to contend with not only flames but a gale, a wave that overwhelmed Molly’s hastily conjured hip-waders, and a trembling underfoot that had made Arthur pop his head in and ask whether he ought to firecall St. Mungo’s or the Department of Mysteries. The gnomes had all cleared out and there was an ominous odor of brimstone seeping through the latched windows.

It was terrifying. What she was capable of and how proud they all were of her for it. She nearly burnt down the Burrow and Molly was as red-faced as she’d been battling Bellatrix Lestrange at Hogwarts by the time the baby was crowning, but she had a smile Hermione had never seen directed at herself before, a deep satisfaction that only grew more pronounced when Rose was delivered and discovered to be a little ginger witch, complete with a birthmark shaped like a phoenix’s tail-feather at the nape of her neck. Every peach on the trees Neville had painstakingly espaliered on the south wall withered in an instant and Augusta Longbottom only remarked, “Well done, you.” Luna had almost suffocated before she’d thrown up a Protego and her eyes were bright as she patted Hermione on the shoulder and Ginny had let out a long whistle, as if Hermione had captained the Harpies to a world championship when the Burrow had rung with the sound of the good china shattering.

A new marker appeared on Molly’s clock, the hand for Hermione pointing to “A Mortal Danger” instead of “in.” 

Ron grasped Hermione’s dismay, but he was more concerned with her health and Rose’s. Once reassured, he kissed her softly and then asked to hold his daughter. Something about seeing his big hands cradling the swaddled baby and the tears in his eyes when he looked back at her made Hermione think everything would be all right.

That was probably the hormones and the residual magic kickback.

*

She chalked it up to sleep deprivation, since she was nursing and Rose was a little colicky and Molly said, no, believe it or not, dear, there wasn’t a spell that was safe to use to help settle a colicky little witch. Hermione knew this meant there was some Dark magic that would do the trick, but she’d probably be sacrificing her pinky finger or years of her life or Rose’s, so she gritted her teeth and reminded herself she’d get to sleep again. At some point. Likely before Rose went to Hogwarts.

The first dreams to return were from her earliest days of Hogwarts. The troll, the bathroom, the terror of being alone in her curtained bed and hearing Parvati and Lavender chattering away, but now there was an overlay of Rose’s crying to mix with the tears Hermione had swallowed back or sobbed out silently. In the manner of dreams, the smallest details were vivid—the nap of the velvet bed curtains, the shimmer Moaning Myrtle made in the mirror above the sinks—and yet Hermione woke with only a sense of dread, no memory of the lengthy half-imagined conversations she’d had with Harry or Ron.

Those were the easiest dreams to deal with.

Days turned into months. Rose grew, her silky ginger hair showing a decided curl, her eyes the same warm brown as Ginny’s. She babbled and scooted, crawled and stood and ran, and only Hermione hoped it would be a little while longer before her magic manifested. Hermione’s dreams grew darker, more terrifying. There were a thousand Horcruxes. Harry didn’t survive the final battle. Ron turned away and didn’t come back.

Snape bled to death in her hands.

Fenrir Greyback took her in the flight of the Harrys.

Azkaban. Gringotts. The Room of Requirement.

Bellatrix, laughing, singing, coaxing. Cruciatus until Hermione woke with tears in her hair, afraid it was her brain leaking out. Ron calling out for her under the chandelier, Dobby whisking her away, the knife in Harry’s back.

Everything impossible that had never happened.

Everything possible that had.

They became less gruesome, more disturbing. She thought she might be losing her mind. She worried about having another child and leaving Ron with two children to raise alone, being locked up in the Janus Thickey ward. Not knowing she was locked up, trying to play the out-of-tune piano because she had once wanted to play Liszt’s “La Campanella” at Carnegie Hall. She couldn’t decide which would be worse.

She spent as much time doing Arithmancy as she could and walked away when the conversation turning to curse-breaking or the old days. Hugo was conceived, carried, and delivered with far less fanfare and commotion than Rose and he was a solemn-eyed baby who needed a lot of rocking in the night. She dozed but didn’t sleep deeply enough to dream. It was a respite.

She grew used to it. She perfected her glamour for the shadows beneath her eyes. She learned to manage her hair after a jaunt to a Muggle stylist in London who scolded her for using a brush and sent her off with a bag of oils and conditioners and advice on a silk head-wrap for sleeping in. She worked her way up in the Ministry and Rose levitated herself to their roof along with the seemingly immortal Crookshanks. Hugo made the apple trees bloom at Yule. She lived. She dreamed. She considered the alternatives she’d dreamed and tried to be satisfied with silence.

Rose began to resemble Hermione’s mother.

Hugo hummed off-key under his breath like her father.

Rose turned eleven, got her letter, found Hermione’s old copy of Hogwarts: A History and packed it first along with a set of Extendable Ears from her Uncle George.

They went to the station platform.

Hermione saw Draco Malfoy for the first time in over a decade. His wife fussed with their son, the strap of his satchel. Ron reminded Rose that the Hogwarts pumpkin pasties wouldn’t be as good as Nan’s but she wasn’t to let the house-elves know or that would be all she had to eat for a week.

Draco looked back at her.

He knew.

*

He sent the letter to her office at the Ministry and not their home, the thoughtful tact therein encompassed being the primary reason she responded. 

Yes, she would meet him at the coffee-shop he’d specified. The time was agreeable. No, she did not need directions in Muggle London. 

She didn’t tell Ron about the letter or her answer. There needn’t be anything to tell. She knew how much omission was required for their marriage. She loved him. There was no betrayal.

She wore Muggle trousers and a cashmere jersey that hadn’t come from Molly’s needles beneath robes she Transfigured into a Burberry knock-off trench. It was a kind of armor, like the wand holster strapped to her forearm, the leather charmed to feel like silk and be stronger than dragonhide. She left early, to get there first. She wouldn’t be taken by surprise again.

Draco was sitting at a table off to the side when she arrived. He’d left her the place backed up to the wall, leaving himself the vulnerable party, the nape of his neck bare, his kidneys neatly framed by the slats of the chair. When she got close enough, she saw his eclipse-bright hair had begun to turn grey. The cufflinks at his wrists were malachite, neatly secured.

There was a tea-service set between them. The steam smelled of bergamot and smoke, an Earl Grey made with lapsang souchong. Her favorite but not a secret, something it would not be difficult or intrusive to discover, something that showed attention, discretion, and care. Slytherin, as always. He rose when she approached, waited to sit until she’d settled herself. His old-fashioned manners were exercised without any awkwardness, the politeness he would have shown to any witch. 

“Thank you for agreeing to meet, Madam Granger,” he began, using the title she had decided on after completing her Arithmancy mastery via correspondence under Professor Ergodic. When Bill had pointed out the more traditional address was Domina Nimue Granger, Ron had nodded and stopped making his incipient fuss.

“Do we need to be so formal?” Hermione asked. “We’ve known each other since we were eleven.”

“Whatever you prefer, Hermione,” Draco said, his voice giving a slight upward inflection to her name. She couldn’t recall him ever using it before, only Granger said with a sneer, but the boy who’d smirked seemed long gone from the solemn, careful man sitting before her. “You are the one doing me the favor—”

“Am I? What exactly do you mean?”

“You read my letter. You responded. You showed up,” he said. “You didn’t need to do any of it.”

“I read the letter you sent after the trial,” she replied. 

It had been delivered by a splendid eagle owl she did not recognize, the parchment hand-written in a perfect copperplate hand. The opening section had been rendered in ancient Etruscan, indicating the gravity of the statement, a Pureblood ritual she’d had to ask Ron, Molly and finally Neville’s gran to explain to understand the significance thereof: there was no greater level of ceremony invoked, the abasement of the writer compleat. If it had been a final examination paper for a mastery, it could not have been more exquisitely and thoughtfully written. It was a letter than required no reply and sought none, a detailed acknowledgement of Draco’s transgressions against her. Still, it went across her inarguably upper middle-class background to fail to send some kind of response, so she’d managed to find some monogrammed stationery her Aunt Judith had given her for a birthday gift and had penned a quick note in her crabbed hand to say Draco’s apology was duly noted and accepted. She had balked at wishing him well in his future endeavors, but to be fair, she had been eighteen, effectively orphaned, unable to sleep more than three hours in a night, and had been known to hold a grudge.

“Yes, I know. I didn’t mean that letter however,” Draco said. “I meant the one I sent last week. After the train station.”

“You didn’t say what you wanted to talk about,” Hermione replied.

“I thought you would be more likely to show up if I didn’t,” he said. “Your curiosity remains renowned—”

“Are you insulting me?” Hermione asked, without any of the heat of her girlhood. 

“Not at all, though I should be able to express myself more skillfully than this, if you’re wondering,” he said. There was a wryness in his tone that was new to her. “I wrote because of the dreams—”

“What dreams?” she interrupted.

“I have them too,” he said gently. 

“I don’t know what you mean, why you think we have anything in common, it’s mad—”

“They are a torment,” he said. Like four notes, the Tristan chord creating the opening between them, leaving her struck by the misery in his voice, the utter candor.

“I—they don’t—” She could not finish the sentence, could not think of what to say next. Draco picked up the teapot and poured them each a cup, stirring a lump of sugar into his own, never once hitting the china with the spoon’s lip.

“You’re not going mad,” he said.

“I know that,” she snapped.

“Then you’re ahead of me, as per usual. I’ve wondered, worried, for years. When Scorpius was born, I thought, maybe I’d be locked up in a straitjacket somewhere by the time his magic emerged. If it did, if he wasn’t a Squib,” Draco said.

“You were worried your heir would be a Squib?” Hermione said.

“I was worried the son of two Purebloods with known genetic disorders and curse-damage would be a Squib. I was worried I wouldn’t be there to defend him from the rest of the family,” Draco said. “You wouldn’t have had the same worries. Hybrid vigor, brightest witch, and the Weasley-Prewett line—”

“They thought we might both die in childbirth from my wild magic,” Hermione said. Draco cocked his head to one side and nodded. “We should have had seven witches present.”

“I did hear something about it,” Draco said. “My mother was quite impressed, though she did say they should have let the Burrow and all its tat burn to the ground and start over with the Ministry money.”

“What?”

“There’s money set aside for those situations, a fund. It’s because it only occurs when there is a surfeit of power. It’s in the Ministry’s interests to make sure a family with such a witch remains properly housed,” Draco explained.

“Oh. I thought maybe I’d die when she was born,” Hermione said.

“And then the dreams would be over,” Draco finished.

“Yes,” Hermione said. She took a sip of the tea, the universal panacea, unsurprised when once again it did nothing for her. It was properly steeped, she’d give him that, since he hadn’t been able to use magic in the Muggle café.

“It was Bellatrix,” he said. “You and I, I believe we’re the last sane survivors of her spells. That’s why we have the dreams, why they don’t attenuate.”

“Dark magic then,” Hermione said.

“Not exactly,” Draco said. “There was something wild about her even before she turned to Dark magic and you know the Blacks are given to madness, throw off restraint like a stallion bucking the bridle.”

“Is that all, then? I suppose it’s helpful, to have some idea why, though it’s not much of a relief,” Hermione said. She refrained from pointing out he was also of the Black line.

“Master Mamu at Uagadou has a theory we’ve been corresponding about,” Draco said. “Oneironautika, whether a charmed potion could function as an inducer, what a traveler could reliably affect within the dream structure, it catalysis is the only viable intervention. But Neville—”

“Neville knows? He’s been writing to Mamu?” Hermione exclaimed.

“They prefer to Floo. Such a mess, all that ash, but I suppose it’s nothing to the greenhouses and Bubotuber pus,” Draco said. “Neville’s been quite helpful, even though it’s not his area of interest. But his parents, well. He and his grandmother have years of observation to draw on.”

“Does Neville know about me?”

“Only if you’ve told him. He may have put two and two together, he’s quite brilliant for someone who was such a duffer,” Draco said with such fondness Hermione could not be roused to irritation. “I can’t imagine he’d ever speak of it to anyone, even if he suspects. Though if your glamour starts to fail, exquisite work, that, I shouldn’t be surprised if he sends along his alternative to Dreamless. He uses heather honey in it, it’s a revelation, but it’s not as much dream-lessening as muting.”

“You want my help,” Hermione said, having figured it out. It was what anyone ever wanted from her. “With Master Mamu, Neville, you want me to work the Arithmancy, perhaps to interpolate the runes—”

“No,” Draco said. “Rather, if you wish, you are most welcome, a witch of your caliber could only be a tremendous asset, but that’s not why I wrote you. That’s not what I wanted.”

“What do you want? Pardon me if my directness offends your Slytherin sensibilities,” Hermione said, tired, the tea in her cup cold, the broken night beckoning.

“I want to help you,” Draco said. “To make you feel better.”

“No one can do that,” Hermione said. Ron did what he could, steady now as he hadn’t been in their youth, astute enough not to speak of it.

“I can,” Draco said.

*

“You can,” Hermione repeated. “You can do something no one else can and beyond being able to, you additionally want to. There’s no life-debt between us, Draco, even if I believed you, there’s no reason for you—”

“I didn’t protect you when I could, Hermione,” he said. Had his eyes been lighter when he was a boy or had they always been this stormy shade, grey clouds over a grey sea?

“She would’ve killed us both,” Hermione said. 

For a moment, she was lying on her back looking up at the chandelier, the bare outline of a girl around nothing but pain. She couldn’t not have told anyone her name if she’d been asked. Ron had been screaming but his voice had been distant, as distant as the future and the past, while Draco’s eyes on her had been a tether. They’d been bound in that second, in hopeless, blameless recognition and agony, and there had been some tiny, inviolate spark of herself that loved him then in a way she could never love anyone else. “You do mean when Bellatrix cursed me, don’t you?”

“I didn’t protect you then. Not before. Not after,” Draco said.

“Well, we were enemies,” Hermione said. She waved over a waitress, asked for a fresh pot of tea and a plate of lemon biscuits while Draco stared down at his hands. They were well-made, beautifully shaped, the hands of a sculptor or a pianist. Neither was the career a wizard would undertake, certainly not an aristocrat like the heir to the Houses of Black and Malfoy. 

“No, we were schoolmates. Rivals. We were children and then teenagers,” Draco said. He rubbed a hand across his eyes, bowing his head. “I liked you—”

“You liked me?” Hermione snorted. “Is this revisionist history? Are you going to tell me you wanted to take me to the Yule Ball and buy me sweets at Hogsmeade weekends? Were you terribly fond of Harry and did you think Ron was a good chap whose family was just a bit down on their luck?”

“I liked you, Hermione,” Draco repeated, his voice low. “I wasn’t supposed to, wasn’t allowed to, but I did. I do.”

“You’re married. I’m married,” Hermione said. “Handfasted. Your family isn’t the only one to follow the Old Ways.”

(She would have married Ron at the Ministry, but Molly wouldn’t hear of it. Hermione’s own parents wouldn’t hear of it at all, so she’d acquiesced to the whole thing, the ring in the garden, the saffron yellow veil, the woad, the unsalted cakes she and Ron had had to bake in a solar oven without any magic. The only part she’d liked had been laughing together as they looked at the ugly lumps of dough, the gleam in Ron’s eyes as he’d told her they’d only have to choke down one bite each.) 

“I know. I’m not trying to interfere. Weasley’s a good man and I would never dishonor Astoria,” Draco said. “But he can’t do this for you. You know that. He’s done what he can and you’re still suffering.”

“You’d be my Healer then? Without any certification, Healing mastery, apprenticeship?”

“Your friend. A fellow-traveler,” Draco said. “Whatever you’d allow.”

“My friend,” Hermione said. 

“You are the same person who pledged her friendship for life to Potter and Weasley after being brought together in a bathroom by a troll,” Draco said. “It shouldn’t be that great a stretch for you.”

“Perhaps I’ve changed,” she replied.

“Perhaps,” Draco agreed, then hazarded a very small smile. “I don’t think so though. Not in this regard.”

“Will it help you with your own dreams?” Hermione asked.

“That’s not relevant,” Draco said. “That’s not why—”

“It’s relevant to me,” she said firmly.

“Of course it is,” he said, under his breath, as if he could get away with it sitting across from her, the café much quieter as the late afternoon rush had ended. 

“Well?”

“I don’t know. Possibly,” he said. For the first time, he sounded put out, frustrated. It was the throughline to the boy he’d been and she found herself liking him for it.  “Before you ask, it’s very unlikely to make anything worse for me. This isn’t some grand Gryffindor gesture of sacrifice on my part.”

“I think we’re beyond House identification, Draco,” she said.

“Is that a yes?” he asked.

“It’s a tell me more about how you mean to proceed. What this dream-walking entails precisely,” she said. 

“Will you let me show you something?” Draco said. Hermione considered. They were in a public place and she had faced greater horrors than a prematurely greying Draco Malfoy in his Savile Row suit. She nodded. Draco pushed the teapot and their cups to one side, reached over and took Hermione’s right hand in his own. His palm was warm against hers, his grasp charged with the familiarity one had with their wand, the tenderness of a long-awaited reunion. Hermione looked at their hands and then up, to find Draco watching her.

When she didn’t pull her hand away, he reached out with his left and took her other hand. Something surged between them, electric and yet sustaining, soothing. Something that was not magic but was of it, an ardent affection that sought only to give, to cherish, some fundamental realignment. Later, she would puzzle over it, scribble equations, then manipulate them with her wand, with an incantation of runes. She would find a way to explain it to Ron so that he’d understand. When he did, she might. 

“Yes?” Draco asked. She could tell what he hoped for and that he would wait as long as she wanted. She could tell he would let their hands fall apart if she refused.

“Yes,” she said. He held her more tightly then and the brightness in his eyes was like moonlight, like the first time she had cast Lumos and banished darkness. Between them, it was as if a cup was filled, spilled over. She could not, however, resist poking.

“You must’ve worked some part of it out. I’ll want to review your notes.”

“Certainly,” he said. 

*

Master Mamu authored the definitive text on oneironautika, but Draco wrote the introduction and Hermione the acclaimed chapter on runic expansion.

Draco insisted Hermione be the editor of the journal. He provided the funding for the first five years. After that, as he’d predicted, no financial assistance was required.

Ron wasn’t remotely put out, though he did scold her a bit for worrying he might be. “You the one always telling Rose and Hugo love’s not a pie. Well, that means you can’t get too full or lose your appetite for it.” At the service for Astoria, Ron told her to go over to Draco and played a three-hour game of Wizard chess with Scorpius he worked hard to throw stealthily enough the boy didn’t notice. 

They weren’t one big happy family. But they could be happy and they could be a family.

When Kimah was born, there were seven witches present.

Draco collected a handful of knuts warm from Ron’s pocket when Scorpius announced she had red hair, Transfigured them into a bouquet of apricot tea roses, and gave them back to his son for his daughter-in-law.

Hermione, who had been up all night, slept.

And dreamed.

@artielu you are my main Dramione mutual so I hope you enjoy this atypical offering!

[starlightvld]

I... I think the last chapter of Couch Surfing is... finally... done? I need to do another read-through tomorrow, though, so here's a little snippet from near the end to tide you all over:

"Better learn some self control, Sergeant." Johnny scoffed but laid his head back down anyway. "Willnae be able to say tha' much longer." "Not callin' you L.t." "Ye'll be calling me Lieutenant MacTavish every time, will ye?" "No. Just Johnny." Johnny gave a pleased hum. "Sounds about right."

Also, there is now *art* to go along with this fic (!!!!!), which I am excited to share very soon!

[nettedtangible]

Epilogue, HP Microfic, 2554 words.

We all hate the epilogue, so I re-wrote it. Enjoy.

Harry stood in the kitchen of one of his favourite places in the world, and noted that, for the first time he could remember, the Burrow was silent. He placed his hands on the benchtop and gazed out the window at the small and sombre band of people gathered in the overgrown yard.

It had been four days since the battle of Hogwarts; days which had felt to be some of the longest of Harry’s life, bar perhaps, some of his more arduous stints at Privet Drive. He hung his head, diverting his eyes from the scene in front of him. Behind him he heard a noise, and turning, saw Ginny emerge from the staircase, her eyes red, though her face was set firm. He had seen that fiery resolve in her face many times before and reached out for her hand. She took it and, with a gesture of her head, indicated that it was time for them to join the others.

They walked through the backdoor and into the garden, the sky pearly grey above them to mark the occasion. The Weasleys were gathered around a freshly dug hole in the ground, beside which stood a rough-hewn coffin. Harry stole himself as he looked at it and turned his head, taking in those around him.

Mr and Mrs Weasley stood at the head of the grave, Mrs Weasley sobbing into Mr Weasley’s shoulder, whose face was set into a mask of stony grief. To their right stood Andromeda Tonks, stroking the face of the blue haired baby she carried in her arms. Harry closed his eyes, remembering heavily Lupin and Tonks’ funeral of the previous day. It had been a small affair, and a devastating setting for Harry to meet his godson, feeling as he had held him for the first time, an overwhelming sense of responsibility for the fate of his parents.

Standing near Andromeda were Bill and Fleur, Fleur resting against Bill’s chest, the picture of regal sadness. Charlie stood beside them, one arm slung around Percy's shoulders, eyes downcast. Near the foot of the grave stood George, flanked by Angelina Johnson and Lee Jordan. Harry thought that he had never seen a person look more lost. George was staring into the grave intently, as if filled with longing to join his twin, as he had in all other adventures. Angelina was clutching his arm and sniffing with repressed sobs, while Lee simply looked shocked, as though expecting Fred to leap from behind a bush at any moment.

Next to Harry stood Ron and Hermione, locked in a tight embrace. Tears were dripping off the end of Ron’s long nose as he buried his head in Hermione’s bushy hair, her own face wet from crying. Slightly off to the side sat Hagrid, who clutched a bottle of firewiskey in one hand and an overlarge plaid handkerchief in the other.

Nobody present wore dress robes or had followed in the Muggle tradition of wearing black, their grief was worn on their faces and banished all need for ceremony.

 Harry exchanged a glace with Ron, and found he had no words of comfort to offer. Gripping tighter to Ginny’s hand, he turned to Mr Weasley. A sense of quiet expectation settled over the crowd.

Mr Weasley stepped forward, disengaging gently from a still shaking Molly, and raised his wand. Softly, the coffin was lifted from the ground and slowly lowered into the open grave. Harry heard it land with a soft thud, the finality of which shook him to his core. George turned his face, looking away from the grave for the first time.

‘My son,’ began Mr Weasley, voice clear, though slightly unsteady, ‘was a man unlike any other,’ he gave George a small look and continued, ‘save for his partner in crime and in life.’  A small gasp of mirth seemed to be wrenched from the mourners, as George began to cry in earnest.

‘I will never be able to understand why it was that he was taken from us, as so many were, by this terrible war,’ continued Mr Weasley, ‘but I do know, that he died because he fought. That he was brave, and rash, and would never, for one second, have let the fight go on without him.’ Some more tortured chuckles were released from the crowd.

‘Fred, I will love you until the day I die, as will everyone here. But I know that you walk beside us, possibly tying our shoelaces together when we’re not looking…’ another gasping laugh.

‘Fred died fighting for what was right, and to protect the people he loved, and each of us must honour him by going forth and living our lives with love in our hearts and laughter in our days.’

Harry’s face felt hot and tears prickled his eyes as a smile broke through the pain. Mr Weasley stepped back from the grave and raised his wand, ready to fill the grave with the adjacent pile of dirt when suddenly, a strange thumping noise echoed over the garden.

‘Arthur-,’ said Mrs Weasley, sharply, grasping Mr Weasley’s arm and staring into the grave, ‘listen…’ The thumping sound was growing louder and more pronounced, and every onlooker shuffled forward to peer into the grave, looking at the coffin intently.

With a blast the sound of a canon, the coffin burst open, and explosions suddenly filled the air. For a mad second, Harry thought that Fred had come charging out, but soon realised that hundreds of Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes fireworks were pouring out of the coffin, emitting loud cracks and bangs and expanding out of the grave. Dragons and pinwheels rocketed up into the overcast sky, and letters forming the words “saint like” danced around their heads. Harry whipped his head to look at George, who was grinning widely through a sheen of tears. He looked around at his family, who, like Harry, had turned to him, and shrugged,

‘We had a pact,’ he said simply, looking sheepish and heartbroken all at once. A laugh rang out among the crowd, loud and shrill. Harry looked around to discover that, unexpectedly, it was emanating from Mrs Weasley. She was laughing so hard that her body shook, and she fell to her knees, stroking the grass at the very head of the Grave, peering into the coffin lovingly, her laughs mingled with sobs.

At this, though they had been momentarily frozen in surprise, the rest of the party began to laugh too, haltingly at first, through with increased fervour. Ron was smiling despite himself and running his hands over his disbelieving face. Lee and Angelina were beaming as they watched rockets and hippogriffs soar above them. Teddy was staring at the fireworks completely enrapt, and Bill and Charlie were smirking, exchanging knowing looks at their brothers’ antics.

Harry felt a relaxing of the tightness in his chest as he admired the colours and sparks of the superb firework display and knew that Fred wanted them to celebrate him, not mourn. He laughed as one of the fireworks performed a particularly rude gesture, which, again unexpectedly, made Molly redouble with laughter.

The group laughed and cried and traded stories about Fred as the dusk turned the sky to a faint pink and the fireworks flew all around them and off into gathering night.

Harry followed the others as they trouped inside, the Burrow feeling warmer now than it had all day. Mr Weasley lit a fire with his wand and promptly began distributing firewiskey, while Mrs Weasley busied herself in the kitchen, wiping her eyes on her apron as she went. Hagrid, having brought up the rear and squeezed himself arduously through the door, now sat on the hearth, swigging liberally at his flagon and telling Angelina about a time that he had discovered Fred and George in the Forbidden Forest during one of his visits to Aragog.

‘Never seen a more meddlin’ pair ‘an these two I reckon!” he said, his words slurred slightly. ‘’cept you lot.’ he added, gesturing the flagon accusingly at Harry, Ron and Hermione, who all exchanged sheepish smiles.

Mrs Weasley brought out copious amounts of food and they passed the evening feasting on delicious mince pies and treacle tart as they swapped increasingly rude stories about Fred and George’s famous wrongdoings, some of which took Mr and Mrs Weasley so aback they managed to half-heartedly chide George.

As the night progressed, the conversation turned to the events which had transpired following the downfall of Voldemort. The entire ministry was in disarray according to Mr Weasley.

Harry found himself in the kitchen, leaning against the sink and asking about the state of affairs at Hogwarts when Kingsley Shacklebolt strode through the door.

‘Arthur,’ he said solemnly, shaking Mr Weasley’s hand ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t be here for the funeral, I came as soon as I could, the Ministry’s in absolute chaos.’

‘Of course,’ said Mr Weasley, ‘thank you for coming.’

‘Fred was a good man,’ said Kinglsey gravely, ‘Harry,’ he nodded, shaking Harry’s hand also, ‘how are you?’

‘I’m alright,’ replied Harry, ‘How is everything? Is the Ministry going to be okay?’

‘Oh yes, it’ll be fine,’ said Kingsley, shaking his head, ‘The Death Eaters did a number on it but we’ll have it put right soon enough. In fact,’ he added, ‘we could use your help.’ Harry thought about it, considered everything that the Ministry had put him through and a not dissimilar conversation he had had with Scrimgeour a year prior. Kingsley, sensing his apprehension, shrugged,

‘You don’t have to of course, Merlin knows you’ve done enough, we won’t ask you to die for us again.’ he said with a wry smile. Harry smiled back,

‘Yeah, I’ll help,’ said Harry, ‘It’s not like I can go back to school.’ They had received word the previous day that all seventh years who had fought in the battle of Hogwarts would receive an automatic graduation. Hermione was distinctly forlorn at the news and had already written to Professor McGonagall asking to return in September to complete her N.E.W.T.s. Harry smiled at the thought of Ron’s amused though unsurprised face when she had told them of this.

‘Excellent,’ said Kingsley, ‘we can get your Auror training started right away,’

‘Auror?’ said Harry questioningly, ‘really?’

‘Think you’re under-qualified?’ said Kingsley, smiling, ‘defeated any famous dark wizards lately?’ Harry smiled.

‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘I’d love to be an Auror!’

‘Great!’ said Kingsley, ‘we need a replacement for Dawlish anyway, and in the meantime, there’s plenty of work that needs to be done.’

Kingsley didn’t stay for long after that. He talked briefly with Mrs Weasley, offering his condolences, and shared one drink with the increasingly inebriated party before departing back to the Ministry. On his way out he informed Harry that his Aunt, Uncle and Cousin were safely in the care of the Order and preparing to return to their normal lives, though, he informed him with a jerk of his lips, they could not return to number four, Privet Drive, as the Death Eaters had destroyed it following the battle of the Seven Potters. Harry allowed himself a small smile at the thought of Privet Drive being no more, before bidding Kinglsey farewell and seeing him out into the yard.

After Kinsley had disapparated, Harry lingered in the Garden for some time, looking at the soft mound of dirt marked with a large slab of granite down by the vegetable patch. He leaned on the rough wooden fence and turned his face towards the sky, now clear and smattered with stars. From behind him he heard footsteps but didn’t turn around. He found himself flanked by Ron and Hermione, who joined him in his stargazing.

‘What did Kingsley say?’ asked Ron, resting his elbows on the fence,

‘Wants me to go be an Auror,’ said Harry, considering this avenue further.

‘Cool,’ said Ron admiringly, ‘reckon you’ll be suited to that?’ he shot him a grin.

‘We’ll see I guess,’ said Harry, allowing himself to grin as well. ‘you should join.’ He added, glancing over at Ron.

‘Yeah maybe,’ said Ron thoughtfully looking up at the night sky, ‘I reckon me and Hermione are gonna go to Australia first, find her parents.’ Harry looked over to Hermione, who had a restrainedly hopeful expression.

‘That’s great,’ he said, ‘I hope you find them soon.’

‘Yes,’ said Hermione, ‘well I didn’t put any tracking spells on them in case we were captured and tortured, so it’ll be tricky…’ Ron shrugged,

‘Nothing’s tricky for you Hermione! We’ll probably find them in a week. Plus, we gotta get you back for September first.” He smiled teasingly at her.

‘Yes,’ said Hermione, ‘I don’t want to miss the train! I might have to enchant a car and fly to school,

‘We didn’t enchant the car!’ said Ron indignantly. Hermione laughed.

‘When will you leave?’ asked Harry, glancing between them.

‘Soon.’ Said Hermione plainly, ‘once the dust has settled a bit,’

‘Take food.’ said Harry, grinning at Ron who made a rude gesture in return. Hermione just snorted derisively.

‘Yes, we’d better.’ she said.

They stood at the fence in silence for a while, comfortable soaking up each other’s company as an awareness that they were about to be going their separate ways for the first time in seven years settled over them.

‘I’ll miss you guys.’ said Harry thickly.

‘Yeah mate,’ said Ron encouragingly, ‘we’ll miss you too,’

‘Of course we will,’ said Hermione, placing her hand on Harry’s shoulder, ‘we’ll be back before long.’

‘Yeah,’ added Ron, ‘and we’ll bring you a souvenir, have you heard of these mad things called Kangaroos?’ Harry laughed, Hermione rolled her eyes.

Ron loped his arm over Harry’s shoulders. Harry wasn’t sure how long they stood there like that, but he felt as though he could stay forever.

Eventually, the two receded and wordlessly wandered back inside, linking arms as they did so. Harry saw them pass a figure in the doorway and recognised Ginny walking across the grass to him, baby Teddy in her arms. As she drew level with him, he saw that Teddy’s hair was now a vivid shade of orange, the exact colour of the Weasleys’ hair. Smiling, Harry drew them both into an embrace, and kissed Ginny softly, cradling her in his arms and looking down at her and Teddy.

‘It’s going to be okay,’ she said, kissing his cheek delicately.

‘How do you know?’ he asked looking down into her deep brown eyes.

‘I know.’ she said simply, resting her head on his shoulder.

‘What now?’ he asked, feeling time opening like a maw before him, threatening to swallow him whole. His task had been accomplished; his all-important purpose fulfilled.

‘Now we live.’ She said, tears shining in her eyes, though none fell. ‘There’s work to be done.’ He smiled at the thought. Though Fred and Lupin and Tonks and Sirius and Dumbledore were gone, Ginny was here, and Teddy was here, and Harry, despite all he had been through, was here.

They embraced under the starry sky as a phoenix firework soared past, emitting sparks and tongues of flame and Harry heard its song in his chest and for the first time in seventeen years, contemplated a future that was totally his own.

[sitp-recs]

Dear Liv, first of all thank you for your contributions to his fandom, I’ve found and loved so many wonderful fics thanks to you!

After reading SG’s Turn, I’d love to read more epilogue compliant Drarry fics, preferably mature or explicit, but I don’t know where to start. I was wondering if you had any favorite epilogue compliant fics to rec? Sorry if you’ve already answered a similar ask. Tysm!!

Hi anon! I feel like I haven’t contributed much to fandom lately but thank you, that’s very sweet 😘 I’m a bit picky about epilogue-compliant bc I don’t really care for het ships or kid fics and many of them involve infidelity which is not my usual jam (but I’m willing make an exception for Frayach’s brilliant Breaking All the Rules).

I listed below some recs with divorced Drarry and would suggest checking this epilogue-compliant compilation by @gameofdrarry and maybe take a look at authors like Lomonaaeren and Gracerene, they’ve written a few epilogue-compliant stories. Enjoy!

A Song, Incomplete by RurouniHime (E, 11k)

Draco’s photograph took up the entire top half of the Prophet’s front page. Below the photo: DRACO MALFOY DEFENDS SON OF FORMER LOVER. As if that were breaking news.

The Weight of a Wanting Heart by Femme (E, 12k)

After nearly two decades hidden away in the Wiltshire countryside, Draco Malfoy’s surprised to see a familiar face come into his local.

Lost and Found by rillalicious (M, 16k)

Hermione is an auditor for the Ministry. When she comes across an intriguing case with a familiar name, she turns to her favorite Auror for help.

Written in the Stars by November Snowflake (M, 16k)

Draco watches as his son grows up--and maybe does a little growing up of his own.

Once Upon A Time, Yesterday by Femme (E, 22k)

"You've always been obsessed with Malfoy, Harry. That should probably tell you something."

Dating for Dads in Denial by @aibidil (T, 25k)

In which one wizard designs and another reluctantly patronises a magical matchmaking service, amidst the chaos of children and parenting.

Homecoming by November Snowflake (E, 27k)

Harry thinks spending two weeks as a guest lecturer at Hogwarts will offer the perfect chance to get away from his troubles. Then he meets his assigned faculty guide: Potions Master Draco Malfoy.

Time is a Construct series by @gracerene (E, 29k)

Draco's in a bit of a rut. He's nearing forty, divorced, and he still can't figure out how to make his Time Turner reconstruction work. He's bored, he can admit it, so he's not nearly as concerned as he should be when his pet project malfunctions and sends him twenty years into the past. That is, until he ends up relying on a nineteen-year-old Harry Potter for help and starts developing some very inconvenient—and possibly reciprocated—feelings.

Paper Rings by @lettersbyelise (E, 50k)

When Harry’s in need of a divorce lawyer, he has no choice but to turn to the best in the trade. Draco Malfoy’s reputation for discretion is flawless, and his track record for winning cases is close to perfect. But he’s also ruthless, passionate, and as infuriating as ever, and the brief relationship he and Harry had in Eighth Year still feels painfully fresh despite two decades spent apart.

2020, 2021 by newleaves (M, 64k)

Harry’s going through a divorce. It’s a love story, really.

When Times are Dire by @aibidil (E, 130k)

Magical Britain is screwed, and it's once again up to Harry to save it. This time, by marrying Draco Malfoy.

This Ain't the Garden of Eden by @romaine2424 (E, 131k)

In 2020, Hit Wizard Harry is starting to enjoy his life. He’s divorced, and no longer Head Auror. His biggest project these days is trying to remodel 12 Grimmauld Place for him and the kids. Draco Malfoy is recovering from his wife’s death. But is happy with his Ministry position as Temporary Head of the Department of Intoxicating Substances, and with his son who he adores. This all changes quickly when Minister Shacklebolt decides not to run for another term.

[lizpaige]

snippet sunday 🫣

okay i've got another snippet sunday post because i started writing something ridiculously fluffy based on some fic idea posts i've written and i gotta share a little. idk if i will ever finish and post it but here you go!

In the morning, he woke to the sound of the back door slamming and Matthew’s loudly whispered apology. Rubbing his eyes he saw the curtains billowing in from the window, letting in the cool morning air. His phone read a little before eight, but Adam felt like he had just fallen asleep. He rolled over, threw an arm over Ronan’s waist and grumbled into his chest. 

Ronan’s voice was deep and rough when he whispered, “good morning.”

“Shh,” Adam replied, determined to get another hour, thirty minutes, something. He was nearly drifting off again when Ronan jostled him. He groaned in protest.

“Adam.”

Another groan.

“Adam.”

He whined. 

“Adam.” 

“What? What do you want?” 

“Marry me.”

Adam’s eyes shot open. His brain was sluggish on a good morning, but he had been spoiled with being able to manage more than six hours of sleep the last two years. He wasn’t used to having to think this early, this sleep deprived. But this… this was…

“What?”

[lpmurphy]

And that’s a wrap. 🥲💜

[dewitty1]

Paper Rings

lettersbyelise @lettersbyelise

Chapters: 10/10 Fandom: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling Rating: Explicit Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter, Hermione Granger/Ron Weasley, Ginny Weasley/Blaise Zabini Characters: Harry Potter, Draco Malfoy, Ginny Weasley, Hermione Granger, Ron Weasley, Millicent Bulstrode, Blaise Zabini, James Sirius Potter, Albus Severus Potter, Lily Luna Potter, Scorpius Malfoy, Original Dog Character(s), Original Characters Additional Tags: Divorced Harry Potter & Ginny Weasley, Divorced Astoria Greengrass & Draco Malfoy, Journalist Harry, Lawyer Draco Malfoy, Past Relationship(s), Getting Back Together, Secret Relationship, Hogwarts Eighth Year, Harry Potter Epilogue Compliant, Break Up, no infidelity, Angst, Pining, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Blow Jobs, Hand Jobs, Frottage, Anal Sex, First Time, lots of eye fucking, Hair-pulling, Top Draco Malfoy, Bottom Harry Potter, Implied Switching, Masturbation, cake disasters, Happy Ending, Divorce, Weddings, Mildly Unprofessional Behavior, Skirting the Boundaries of Lawyer-Client Relationship Ethics, H/D Wireless 2022

Summary:

When Harry’s in need of a divorce lawyer, he has no choice but to turn to the best in the trade. Draco Malfoy’s reputation for discretion is flawless, and his track record for winning cases is close to perfect. But he’s also ruthless, passionate, and as infuriating as ever, and the brief relationship he and Harry had in Eighth Year still feels painfully fresh despite two decades spent apart.

What Harry and Draco used to be is all in the past. And surely they can work together in these new, emotionally charged circumstances without falling in love all over again… can’t they?

Excerpt:

“I have no idea what I’m doing,” Potter admitted, gaze falling to Draco’s lips.

“Just keep looking at me like that,” Draco whispered, and leaned down to kiss him.

It was a question, first, a gentle brush of lips, the warmth of Potter’s breath feathering against Draco’s skin. Draco pulled back a fraction. He held Potter’s face, thumbs on his cheekbones. Potter looked at him as Draco had asked. He looked at Draco like he would never look away. The intimacy of it was almost unbearable. 

“I’ve no idea what I’m doing either,” Draco confessed. 

“It’s all right.” Potter nudged Draco’s nose with his. “You’re doing all right.”

Heat surged between them, and they kissed again. It was impossible to tell who had made the move this time. Both. Neither. Potter held him close, opened his mouth for Draco, and Draco sank into the kiss. He threaded his fingers through Potter’s thick hair, marvelling that he was allowed to touch him like this. He pulled, tilted Potter’s head to deepen the kiss, and Potter moaned into his mouth. Draco was hard in seconds, and he handled Potter back against a locker. Potter’s back hit the metal door with a dull, hollow sound, and they both arched into each other, hard and panting, hands entwined. It was different this time. Draco’d been right. The kiss changed everything. Standing here in the middle of the locker rooms, Potter’s hands on his face, Potter’s mouth on his, the soft, wet, electric feel of his tongue stroking Draco’s. He’d been angry when Potter had shoved him into that alcove a few days ago. Potter’s hand on his cock had felt like revenge. But this felt nothing like their mindless rutting. This felt like—like holding Potter like a lover. Like letting him lay Draco open, letting him peruse the contents of his heart. This was hope, fear, confusion, lust, tenderness all wrapped up in one big sweeping tide.

And Draco didn’t think he would recover from it.

They drew apart eventually, breathing hard, forehead against forehead. Potter’s green eyes were fixed on Draco’s. Draco had asked him to look, and Potter had listened. Draco hadn’t expected such obedience from the stubborn git. The intensity of Potter’s stare was hard to hold, but Draco stared back bravely.

He lifted an eyebrow that he hoped looked sardonic. 

“Romance, Potter?”

Potter shrugged, a small smile on his kiss-swollen lips. “Do you have anything better to do?”

[jonathanrook]

at what point do i have to admit my ****** playlist is actually three playlists in a trench coat and i should probably separate them

[neixins]

and if i say i’m also gonna write a postcanon companion/epilogue piece to the novella-length fic i’m still working on.. what then……

[avaguedoodle]

So, I'm staring down actually finishing what has for so long felt like a sisyphean task. So, we're gonna Post about it here!

It's gotten a bit out of hand since the original tags. But if you're looking for a full scale rewrite of the entirety of VLD with a lot of found family-ing, Adashi being a hot mess, and an unnecessary amount of world building boy have I got the fic for you!11

Who You Travel With (300805 words) by avagueidea Chapters: 50/52 Fandom: Voltron: Legendary Defender Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Adam/Shiro (Voltron), Keith/Lance (Voltron) Characters: Keith (Voltron), Lance (Voltron), Pidge | Katie Holt, Hunk (Voltron), Shiro (Voltron), Matt Holt, Adam (Voltron), Allura (Voltron), Canon Allura - Character, Lotor (Voltron), Krolia (Voltron), Spattering of both Earth and Alien OCs

Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Road Trip, Found Family, Kerberos Mission comes home safe AU, Slowburn AF (I'd say I'm sorry but y'all know I'm not), Paladin Shuffle, Keith isn't expelled AU (though he's trying his best to change that), Road Trip AU!, Part 1: Road Trip, Part 2: Space, Part 3: ???, Alternate Universe Canon Compliant, YES I am rewriting the entirety of Voltron (No I didn't think that fact through) Summary: With the Kerberos Mission arriving home soon, Keith realizes this is his last chance to do something reckless. That's how Keith, Pidge, Hunk, and Lance find themselves stuffed into an ancient, tiny sedan, driving thousands of miles to solve an 18 year old mystery before Common sense (or Shiro) can catch up to them. Little do they know, the answers they find will take them much further from home than any of them were expecting.

Despite being Keith's common sense, Shiro shows he has none as he, Matt, and his ex-fiance end up chasing after the runaways before anyone gets arrested, or worse, expelled!

A story about found family and finding out what's really most important via road trips and ancient intergalactic space wars.

[startsbeatboxing]

READ MY FIC GAYBOY

[starlightvld]

Couch Surfing: Ch. 6/6 (Complete)

A leather couch in Price's office, Pt. 2

The 141 is back together, at least for a little while. Ghost and Soap spend their first night together in their new flat.

They didn't speak as they walked. Johnny kept a bit of distance between them — enough to know they were walking together but not imply anything improper. Simon hated it and also loved Johnny for it. For the first time, the mere existence of the mask was suffocating. As soon as the door to their flat closed and locked behind him, he ripped off the mask, grabbed Johnny's hand, and pulled him close. "Simon, wha—?" He cut off the question with a savage kiss, pushing all the evening's pent up frustrations into the punishing pressure of hands on hips and mouths sealed together.

Read Chapter 6 * or * Read from the beginning

Also, don't miss the new art for Chapter 5!