#i also hate this banner more than the epilogue but the creative spoons for graphic design have emptied themselves

[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.

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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!