#geets does hprecfest

[hephaestiions]

day 7 of @hprecfest — the best of your OTP

wit's end with this prompt, went through all my oldest bookmarks to pinpoint what about harry potter & draco malfoy sank its fangs into me eleven years ago and— look—

i can't remember the first h/d fic i read, but it would have been from @dictacontrion's daily drarry quotes initiative— a splendid system queueing delicious h/d snippets that ran from 2013 to early 2022. dicta wrote many of my early h/d favourites, the stuff that really got me into this ship, but the DDQ initiative was my first exposure to what prolific reading & fandom engagement looked like. DDQ led me to dicta's curated recs here on tumblr and here on LJ— gorgeous selections that were a crash course in learning my tastes.

hungry for more lists (still didn't quite trust myself with ao3/ffnet's search functions), i found @capiturecs' meticulous & immensely navigable LJ rec archive + rec tag & @gracerene-recs' drarry tag. i still go back to these, especially for older fics i don't see recced all that much anymore.

@drarryspecificrecs' reccing & fic finding catalogues running since 2017 are something else; their work on their main blog, on @drarryspecificrecsdaily & as part of @lostdrarryfics (if i'm not mistaken) is an enduring force in this fandom. their consistent contributions put so many underrated fics on my dash i wouldn't encounter otherwise, and it's always a joy to get the tag notif when i post something on ao3. (also here's a drarry reccers masterlist curated by LDF, i haven't checked out everyone on it, but go forth & enjoy!)

@bridenore has been reading fic on a scale i can only aspire to, their continuously updating rec tag is such a diverse list of reads across tropes & fests. @mxlfoydraco's one-stop-shop masterlist is also glorious.

@thedrarrylibrarian's friends of the library initiative is such a fun take on showing love to fanwork & building community— every rec, interview & adjacent commentary felt like having a warm mug of hot chocolate with a friend. here's the masterlist!

i'm also loving the collaborative brilliance of @drarry-reccage ('get recced!' is phenomenal energy)— seven pals putting time into fresh recs. individual tags: @cailynwrites' tag here; @dontthrowsticksatme's tag here; @garagepaperback's tag here; @kk1smet's tag here; @mallstars' tag here; @pl0tty's tag here; @sweatersinthesummer's tag here.

i also love @sweet-s0rr0w's recs (masterlist & tag); i love how inventive she is with themes (the collaborative sex scene rec initiative is fucking inspired). sweet is also doing recfest, check out the tag!

@ghaniblue's monthly reading lists are always fun & fresh + acari's rec tag includes their recfest entries, featuring some drarry, some other ships (including rarepairs), so go have a look!

in general, i've always loved creative recs, so @onbeinganangel's embroidery recs were some of the most fantastic stuff to ever cross my dash (i was lucky enough to get one for my birthday a few years ago & it changed my life). wistfulrats themed recs + commentary were also brilliant. this author list by @bogglebeans was also wonderfully unique & had great takes.

and! of course! @sitp-recs whose blog & person are both gems, whose participation in this fandom is an absolute beacon of light. liv reads & recs with such infectious enthusiasm & i only realised how much of a love song reccing could be for works & creators i enjoy and admire through following her. here's her masterlist of masterlists & every link is delightful. liv also runs incredibly, incredibly kind initiatives, the hidden gems series stands out, as does running @yours-drarry blog which is a platform to send appreciation to fandom participants, so if you've got some love to show someone this holiday season, hop on over!

this is by no means a comprehensive overview of all the reccing that goes on in this fandom, i'm probably missing much more than i've counted (speaking of, if you rec & i've missed you, let me know and i'll follow your tag). but among the many things i adore about h/d fandom, the robust reccing culture occupies one of the top spots, not only because it shows appreciation for creators but because it's such a distilled display of excitement for participating in fandom— all of us poking each other and being poked to go look at that cool, brilliant, fantastic thing, jittery to wax poetic about it. reccers held my hand in fandom when i didn't know what i was doing, relentlessly cheered (other) creators on, cultivated a participative space for readers & lurkers and set the bar in so many ways.

to everyone who keeps the h/d fandom alive— reccers, but also writers, artists, podficcers, fest moderators, editors, cheerleaders, readers, lurkers, everyone, everyone, past & present: you are the best of this ship.

for all the love, time & effort you've poured into this space, thank you.

[hephaestiions]

day 2 for @hprecfest — a fic rated G

on the turning away by @blamebrampton (blamebrampton) (G, 25.7k, 2014)

It's one thing to be good at not making a besotted fool of yourself over a man when he's busy being the most famous wizard in the world and you're tucked away quietly in Wiltshire. It's quite another when you have to see him every morning.

blamebrampton's oeuvre features some excellent G-rated fic (see also: welcoming voice & marginal notes) but i chose turning away for this prompt because it has the slow-pulled, cosy-stretched wintery vibe perfect for december.

a prank goes wrong, and draco, now a potioneer in salisbury, must report daily to deputy head-auror harry potter for a few weeks to satisfy expectations that he is no longer given to tendencies putting wizarding peace in jeopardy. features harry, who hasn't grown out of his own tendencies to risk personal safety for the greater good, draco, who for lack of better phrasing, did a great deal of growing up, much tea drinking & a big-hearted young auror who is a gloriously enjoyable oc.

i loved this take on draco��� older, quieter but still sharp and distinct. the dynamic between harry and draco builds slowly until the crescendo is upon you, entirely believable with a satisfying thrum of surprise. at 25k, i hesitate to class it a slow-burn— it's more of an even simmer, glow of a hearth, gently rising dough.

h/d fic & fandom sees an immensely corrugated post-war terrain & most writers bring their own spin on the quality of post-canon atmosphere. in brampton's works, turning away especially, these contours are rendered with care and comfort: politically imperfect without being bleak, suffused with fresh blood and a striving towards better living without being utopian. redemption & reckoning are fostered through painstaking, mundane efforts; the shape of hope emerges as the slow build of dawn into day. it makes for work that's strikingly mature yet warm and comforting, slow breeze in the afternoon.

i read this for the first time about when it posted, a decade ago now, and returning to it was a delightful trip. a brilliant feel-good bedtime/holidays read, check it out & show some love!

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day 21 of @hprecfest — a fic rated M | previous recs

author rec! more importantly: tacky rec! evocative, poignant & mature (heh), @tackytigerfic's works are charmed slices of aching life. tacky has a gift for making a meal out of the mundane: their style is imbued with the hush of a glade, something quiet that burrows under your skin and expands there. writing about magic lends itself to the excitement of outlandish predicaments— fuck or die marriage bonds, werewolves, time travel— but i love how tacky takes these improbabilities as opportunities to explore the vulnerable and common humanity that fuels love, friendship, desire, grief. i'd take a chance on tacky's spin on every ship, every trope & every circumstance, purely because i'm convinced they'd take as good care of me as a reader as they do their brilliant, complicated, messy characters.

i chose tacky's M-rated works because i think they best demonstrate how narrative pleasure can, and often does, lie outside the graphic. for an action-oriented, fast-paced reader like me, fics that hold my attention through careful tension & hard-earned payoff are especially enthralling. everything tacky writes, regardless of rating, is glorious & an instant recommendation, but when i think of especially fascinating work with a rating that doesn't usually hold space in my preferences, it's these:

between the power lines (M, 3.2k)

For Harry Potter, all roads eventually lead to Draco Malfoy.

an elaboration & attestation to my personal maxim: to fall in or out of love with someone, take a trip with them. glory be that these two do, glory be that it's the former. this fic stretches and softens with every word, like resin in the sun.

the long fall (M, 3.6k)

It's supposed to be a simple house renovation, and maybe it's just the paint fumes, but Harry is feeling dizzy around Draco Malfoy. And what's the real meaning of family, anyway?

vignettes from a life & love that glow hotter with every change. every word exchanged carries the weight of so much history, care & consideration. the dynamic is sweet & achy, a take on new parenthood that leans entirely into the uncertainty & joy of changing realities.

last offices (M, 6.7k) (mcd)

It didn't seem fair that Malfoy was dead, and Harry was supposed to just keep on living without him.

i reread everything before reccing, but i couldn't bring myself to reread this one because of the sharp, acute devastation of it. pain, regret, grief, dialled up to the extreme and done shatteringly well. the non-linearity of this fic is especially cruel; the heartbreak is never allowed to settle. 100% recommended!

our little life (M, 7.2k)

Sometimes Harry dreams. Only they're not really dreams at all, and Malfoy is always in them. It's time travel, but not as we know it, and Harry just needs a good night's sleep.

entire lives woven into snippets of togetherness, the call of something distant yet inevitable. harry dreams of universes with draco, which is to say, harry dreams of universes where he's loved. also includes the absolutely stellar line: Harry wondered if there was any possible universe in which Malfoy wasn’t an absolute dick about his dad.

take the moon (M, 15k)

Harry Potter has always wanted a family of his own, and when a deadly blood curse forces him into a marriage bond with his best friend Draco Malfoy, it looks like he might just have found one. This isn't the story of the marriage. This is the story of two hurt and damaged men who learned how hard they could work for the sake of love.

two men who don't quite know how to allow what they want fully into their lives, a slow crunch of yearning, the even heat of a dynamic that holds itself away from the brink, brilliantly satisfying when they give into the fall.

in conclusion: a stellar author with a flair for the understated whose works call to be savoured. as always, if you love them (it's tacky, who doesn't?), let me know!

[hephaestiions]

day 5 of @hprecfest — a romantic fic

service bell by @shiftylinguini (shiftylinguini) (E, 8.3k)

Draco is: a werewolf, living in a cabin in the woods, minding his own business, and never going to buy plaid because he's not that much of a fucking cliche (yet). He's also counting down the days until he sees Harry again.

draco (werewolf and world-weary recluse) hasn't seen harry (whose vampirism hasn't changed much re: general saviour complex) in a year. then, harry returns.

—

i've been chewing on what constitutes a romance in my books & arrived mostly at the notion that recognition is romantic. in the conventional senses of familiarity, acknowledgement, anticipation, yes, but also as re-cognition— knowing again, knowing through/despite difference, relearning. a narrative embracing the idea that knowledge— of another person, another body, even the self— is not edified but always dynamic, changing is peak romance.

service bell is an ode to this idea. it features changed bodies & anatomy that demand pleasure be renegotiated and two characters so drunk on desire for each other that they're always willing to map & move with these changes. their dynamic is so well-worn that they spar and match each other volley for volley, yet shifty simultaneously presents us a moment where everything about this— expectations, labels, lives— is about to irrevocably transform. peak romance: even when draco's body can't quite recognise itself, it recognises harry's scent.

this fic has everything i love: sharp, sullen banter, gorgeous sensory focus, an undeniable gravitational pull between harry/draco & aching want that turns into filthy, scorching, delicious sex with the added bonus of a delightful epilogue. i'm picky with creature fics, but shifty always does marvellous things with the trope & service bell is a crunchy, tasty morsel that packs an absolutely breathtaking punch in less than 10k. if you're lucky enough to encounter this for the first time, go, run, i can't recommend it enough; if you've read it before, let me entice you towards a reread!

[sidenote: i'm most inspired to rec stuff i find romantic here, so please also see modern love (E, 61k) by @tackytigerfic (my rec) and halcyon days (T, 1.3k) by @the-starryknight (my rec), two fics that changed my perspective on romantic relationships & the character work one needs to do to write a compelling love story. both fics are love letters to the best of h/d.]

[hephaestiions]

day 10 of @hprecfest — a fest/event fic | previous recs

a cold spot in hell by feelsforbreakfast (E, 8k) for @hd-hurtfest (2020) check tags + author's endnotes!

When there’s nothing left to burn, you have to set yourself on fire.

ffb summarises this fic best: 8k of sexy arson, emotionally difficult arson, general arson, handkerchiefs, dread, and poetry curation.

—

this fic: ash in my mouth, aflame under my skin, a strained burn in the lungs. eye-watering, like staring too long at the sharp glare of something bright and dizzying.

one of the most compelling and devastating post-war portraits i’ve encountered. it’s uncannily familiar, especially in the current moment— thick and heavy and horribly believable. there’s some brilliant work done with rage, both the idea and visceral affect, and the poetic economy sets a glorious bar. cold spot is single-handedly responsible for my fascination with arson & the need to deal with the war in any hp fic i write.

i (understandably) don’t see a lot of experimental storytelling in fandom, but this fic is a masterclass in what it can achieve. the non-linear structure had my jaw dropping, the handkerchief motif was painful, and the ending’s temporal non-closure, how it opens and shuts down possibilities in one fell swoop, is exquisite. an understated classic.

if you’re willing to take a chance on something ambiguous but worth the ache, let this be the one.

[hephaestiions]

day 13 of @hprecfest — a rare pair | previous recs

trine by toyourdetriment / @yiiiiiiiikes25 (teddy/draco/harry, E, 9.1k)

Teddy throws a match.

a great deal of horniness tinged with despair in various combinations. see also:

Harry’s in the fucking room with them, reverently watching Draco’s cock reshape his godson.

— incidentally an excellent & succinct summary of much of what happens. look,

i didn't even go here.

i would, however, follow @yiiiiiiiikes25 anywhere.

(2) has held me in excellent stead thus far; i do, in fact, go here now.

yikes' work consistently squeezes my arteries narrower (chest pain, breathlessness, palpitations et cetera) & trine is an erotic forcefield. their grip of voice is unmatched, brought about through some of the most nuanced characterisations i've seen; it produces my favourite kind of filth— thick, rich, specific. each permutation of this triad drips with its own crisis, its categorical thrust of desire, particularities of madness. draco's unrepentant, clawing want; teddy's sullen, grinding need; harry's moral hangups sublimating into animal urgency— i needed a drink and then several cigarettes about it.

trine is a masterclass in tension & climax, its style emulates stimulation/brink/explosion in a way that made me want to dissect it for craft. go for the porn, stay to salivate about draco calling teddy "edward" and return for the way yikes' writing is a cresting wave, for the blinking, startled exhilaration of reaching the shoreline & wanting to go again, again, again.

if you haven't read it yet, do yourself a favour today; if you have— well, do yourself a favour today! it's a recent work, but a timeless rec.

[hephaestiions]

day 17 of @hprecfest — a fic that made you cry | previous recs

perpetual motion, perpetual sound by dodgerkedavra / @dodgerkedavra (E, 51.6k)

Harry Potter can't sleep.

harry hunts down dark artefacts. draco follows him around. for four years, there's been more to this story.

—

fics don't really make me cry, but perpetual sound was the most forceful, throat-constricting, breath-thinning work i've encountered in a while. i read it a couple months back, but even now, it comes back to me in jagged shards all the time.

it hits every beat that leaves me blinking: the mammoth-magnitude of harry's trauma, love as an act of faith & devotion, the brutality of total exhaustion, a world where reality is inconsistent, unsettled, uncertain. dodger centralises grief & writes it as a rising tide; all experience of this work is awash with its blunt, suffocating ache. the happy ending feels hard-won, fought for— you sob with harry on the comedown, let the aftermath settle thick and heavy.

many moments in this fic had me putting my phone away, staring at the ceiling, breathing hard. but— and i won't spoil it for anyone lucky enough to click into this fic for the first time— the revelation about draco in chapter 8, god, i shuddered into my hands about it for a good, long while. the dialogue, the reactions, the vibration of this work at the most fragile, tender, gentle frequency— what a devastation.

i love dodger's style— the enrapturing fullness of their writing wraps you up, reels you in and refuses to let go. this one may be my specific tearjerker rec, but i highly recommend everything they've written if you're looking for total immersion in bittersweet catharsis. as always, if you love it, let me know!

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day 11 of @hprecfest — an underrated fic | previous recs

but, in dreams series by kedavranox / @kedavranox (E/T, 28k) check tags!

Harry is a Seer, with a particular affinity for speaking to the dead, but this comes at a price he’s slowly killing himself to pay.

harry's a seer who can talk to the dead, but his control of these abilities is tenuous at best. substances make the ordeal easier, or so harry has come to believe. draco is his partner, keeping him grounded on his trips through the astral plane. things eventually come to a head.

—

in my early h/d days, i binged many, many works featuring addiction & substance abuse, and kedavra's but, in dreams & breathe me (E, 73k) were two of the best i read.

the premise of this fic & the specific ways these characters and their circumstances are written are heartbreaking. harry is overwhelmed, bitter and can't seem to catch a break, his need for escapism and relief is viscerally rendered. draco, incredibly uncertain of his footing in harry's life & desires while aching to help, is so obviously and irrevocably in love that it almost hurts to read. this work is suffused with pain, grief, and the fallout of bad decisions, concluding on a note of hope and support that demands catching and holding with both hands.

the follow-up fic is a detox sequence, the process of getting through the first, long night of shaking, clammy, feverish withdrawal. harry astral projects without control, the tether between his body and mind on the cusp of severing. kedavra never shies away from the bodily physicality of the process, but i found the magical section a brilliant metaphor for how dependency compromises the body's coherence, how withdrawal is difficult and dangerous, how extreme addiction can be.

while i'm not sure what classifies an underrated fic (kudos? comments? how often i see something recced?), most fics dealing with potentially triggering themes (infidelity, non-con to name some others) see understandably less engagement. kedavra is a fairly broadly read author in this fandom & this fic has been around since 2013, but i'm guessing the addiction tag can make some folks wary. that said, this is an instant recommendation if you're willing to take a chance on a difficult topic rendered with honesty and empathy. go and show this fic some well-deserved love, and as always, if you love it, let me know!

[sidenote: kedavra is one of my favourite authors, their works are a reliable fix of complex premises paired with fantastic characterisation and emotionally astute writing. i may do an author rec later, but in the meantime, please check out this wonderful list on kedavra from @sitp-recs' hidden gems series!]

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day 4 of @hprecfest — a comfort fic

the arrangement by rurounihime (E, 65.7k)

It's worked for years. Why change it now?

harry & draco were in a relationship; it fell apart. now, they have an arrangement. except— they both want more, so they give it another shot. it goes differently, this time.

i love the established relationship trope, how it makes getting together the premise of the narrative rather than its climax, dissects a dynamic from within its operations, makes a meal out of every domestic and dessert out of waking up in the morning. this fic is the ER bible, the fucking manifesto of writing messy, complicated characters in magnetic orbit pulling and pushing at each other's seams while sharing space, days and nights, and the certainty of love.

more than comfort fics, i have comfort scenes— specific moments i return to for suspension in familiarity. i've returned to this one, entirely told in interconnected vignettes, over and over for that suspension, sometimes reading it through, sometimes jumping chapters (6, 9, 10, 11 are repeat offenders). i know its beats by now like my tongue knows the ridges of my teeth, a well-worn path of emotion and sensation, but after all these years, it remains refuge and challenge, always fulfilling, often new.

arrangement is populated by the evidence of harry and draco being voraciously sexual beings outside of each other— inconvenient STDs, meddling exes, shared past lovers, lust that doesn't magically disappear in the light of monogamous commitment. the dynamic in this fic doesn't work "through" this lust, reading it as a problem, but with it— finding opportunities for desire while never compromising the interiority of the world between the characters. this fic's refusal to discipline want is one of its most comforting & liberating qualities, in my opinion. stellar stuff.

this is a drarry ER classic, i'm fairly sure i first found it on capitu's LJ recs & consistently on various other reclists since. if you've read it before, i'm hoping this tugs on you to reread. if you haven't— firstly, i'm terribly envious, what a revelation to read this in its entirety for the first time, and secondly, go, go, go now, read it in snapshots and starbursts, or in one lung-filled plunge, but take a chance, and if you love it— let me know!