#lilac hair draco kinda snapped tbh

[wistfulrat]

this week is different shades of muggle draco — a wily little shit, secretly tender, devastatingly hot, lives to piss harry off. then, curse-breaker draco coming toe-to-toe with powerful!harry. all feat. lots of angsty sex and harry consistently being the last one to realize his big gay crush is quite serious. one braincell behavior. we luv him for it.

Clear As Mud by scoradh - 9k, M

Set post-war and post-Harry's-conscience... “You need cool, calculating bastards to save the world” —Thief of Time

post-war draco’s slummin it as a muggle. he lives in a shithole with unsavory roommates. scoradh establishes all these dynamics in the opening cellar-poker gambling scene and the tone/mood is so precise i want to yell. harry obviously Hates draco’s life even tho they’re lowkey fuck buddies. harry is a walking double (triple? quadruple?) standard. harry doesn’t know how to want draco without feeling guilty, resentful, possessive, confused, fragile. Malfoy inspired an incredible amount of self-doubt in Harry by doing nothing more than looking like he had enough confidence for three people and enough scathing put-downs for another five. ahhh!!! the assumption that draco isn’t equally insecure behind that veneer of unbotheredness. and later, the slow realization that harry doesn’t actually have to be ashamed of his wants. he’s allowed to like draco and fuck off into the sunset. as is ur right hrry!!

We Might Be Too Old for a Bildungsroman by @wellhalesbells​​ - 21k, T Harry finds something he’s been looking for since the war’s end. Admittedly, the packaging’s a bit odder than he expected.

auror partners harry and ron trouncing abt london for a case when they happen upon cafe-owner draco. draco who has lilac hair, edgy muggle best friends, and moonlights as a literal computer hacker. it’s a doozy. harry and ron assume the worst. and then they both kind of fall in love with this weird ass trio dynamic and everything that draco’s become since the war--protective, sly, smart as fuck, a little scary, and extremely capable. (calrissian18′s characterization is so elite goD). but it’s not as easy as being charmed by the novelty of it all. bc harry has unresolved beef with draco 2.0′s ability to just Move On and succeed bc ~fuckbois who were privileged shits~ shouldn't be allowed that, right? well, wrong. - “You’ve grown up,” Harry said. That’s what it was. Somehow Harry had never expected it to happen to Malfoy. He felt left behind, as he wasn’t quite sure it had happened to him yet. He’d hidden behind his job almost to be sure it hadn’t. Watching Malfoy though, it didn’t seem as scary as he’d once thought. Malfoy frowned, looking past Harry to the street below. “Unfortunate, isn’t it? It’s a shame, not seeing magic in the air anymore.” Harry didn’t think he meant that literally. “Instead there’s pollution and rubbish bins and manky strays.” Harry shook his head. “I was going to say the opposite. You’re better with your eyes all the way open.” - i'm obsessed with calrissian18′s titling of this fic for many reasons but mostly because it encapsulates harry and draco’s dilemma when they eventually have to confront the tension of their relationship. what’s a bildungsroman anyway? it’s the literary term for coming-of-age novels, for stories that chart the great shift from adolescence into adulthood. and in this fic’s context, it’s harry and draco saying we might be too old for an unexpected and thrilling change. we might be but, fuck, i hope not.��

heavyweight by warmfoothills  ( @forestgreenlesbian ) - 28k, E Draco had moved out of his childhood home five days after his father got sent to Azkaban. He’d packed up his rooms, piling up boxes until the walls were bare and his cupboards were empty and his arms were shaking because he’d done it all by hand instead of using magic. He’d barely used magic at all since his trial. Then he’d left everything there in the middle of his bedroom and apparated away with one case of clothes that his mother shrunk down enough to fit in his pocket.

in harry’s mind, it goes like this: draco gets to run away. harry doesn’t. so harry is incapable of leaving draco alone and he traces him down constantly. draco is pissed off that harry feels entitled to this invasion of his muggle-world attempt at becoming a different person. harry is pissed off that draco gets to somehow live detached from the mess that is post-war reconstruction. draco tells him to fuck off. “When have either of us ever been able to manage that, Malfoy?” --it’s a one-sided chase for a while, half-curiosity half-envy. harry is as eager as he is broody. draco doesn’t want to be desired against someone’s better judgment. warmfoothills is so great at capturing the contradictory nature of their friendship. it happens almost in spite of them, slow and stubborn. They eat salad with plastic forks sitting in Hyde Park and Draco feels something shift between them again. He wonders if they’ll ever stabilise. the entire fic is a catalogue of that shifting, of watching their angsty unarticulated yearning finally become a real, spoken thing. warmfoothills’ rooftop scene made me emo as hell. 

measures of our days and nights by @flimsi - 40k, E Draco returns to London to help the Ministry decipher a spell, but things aren’t quite as simple as they seem.

god i love a high-stakes plot with a chaotic emotional landscape and flimsy delivers! curse-breaking, magical theory, a life-threatening spell with the potential to kill a shit ton of people. hermione has to call on draco who’s been m.i.a for 5 yrs. and even though draco has become an altruistic, spell-unraveling, french-village dwelling swot, british wiz world still thinks draco is sus. enter in auror and lowkey unspeakable-liaison harry -- powerful and morally grey as shit. he and draco immediately get off on the wrong foot. their interactions are volatile and needy. they tentatively warm to each other but harry fucks up. draco is livid. and yet!! it’s in this wildly tense and desperate race against death that draws them together. Draco shook his head and let out a humorless laugh. “I don’t know how you do it.” It was answered by an equally empty laugh. “Neither do I,” Harry said. ah, what are 2 morose as fuck commiserating sad boys meant to do but fall in love!!