#thank you for prompting this incredible long spill of rambling. I'm sorry. I love you. thanks very much. <3

[greenerteacups]

Hello! I love Lionheart (literally started four days ago and have read continuously since and am, in a word, Obsessed).

One thing I've noticed that is a common theme among Dramoine fics is how Draco gets away with his pureblood ideology and essentially has no consequences (besides Hermoine's anger/disgust) until his eventual redemption arc through their romance. However, I've noticed that your fic is unique in the way that Draco is constantly held accountable, especially backlash from Ron (btw, love the way you characterized Ron, my boy deserves some justice) and Harry, but especially through Hermoine, who fights back in any way she knows how. So my question is: what are your thoughts on this common trope within the Dramoine fandom? Do you think that Draco's eventual love for Hermoine negates the harm that he's done in the past?

I absolutely believe that love can be redemptive, but that doesn't mean you redeem yourself by loving. It's not about how you feel, it's about what you do. You can love someone a whole lot, but if you don't treat them well, and make a real effort to be good to them, well — I mean, I'm not saying it doesn't "matter," because everything always matters, but I wouldn't say that love has really changed you. Which is to say, I don't know that it's really love at all.

Draco can't be made better by the fact of loving Hermione, but he can make himself better because of it. Reasoning past, getting over, and making amends for his past wrongdoing should — ideally — be part of that development. Now, this is assuming that you want to do a real, honest-to-God, "I'm going to drag this horrible little wet blorbo kicking and screaming into Heroism" redemption arc. Maybe you don't! Maybe you want to write a story about two fucked-up people who fuck each other up more. Maybe you want to write about a bad man who isn't held accountable, and the kind of person that produces. Draco Malfoy can be many people, depending on where you take him, and many of them are interesting without being particularly nice or good. And you can still do great fiction about that! Romances with and between horrible characters can be totally delicious. I'm a big fan of 'em. But the kind of love I personally prize the most — the kind that makes us, if anything can earn this word, really, truly holy — is a love that's so selfless you are willing to be changed by it, and to change for it, and to constantly reforge yourself in order to do justice to the object of your love. It's veneration. It's finding in each other a reason for goodness. That's what I think real humans should look for, and so I guess I can't help trying to write about it when it comes to fake humans.

So when we talk about love as the catalyst for a redemption arc, I think what we mean is: love can awaken you to the personhood of others and ignite latent capacities for empathy that might not have existed otherwise. It opens you up to new ways of seeing, of being — James Baldwin in The Price of the Ticket has a brilliant quotation that captures it perfectly:

"If your lover lives in Hong Kong and cannot get to Chicago, it will be necessary for you to go to Hong Kong. Perhaps you will spend your life there, and never see Chicago again. And you will, I assure you, as long as space and time divide you from anyone you love, discover a great deal about shipping routes, airlines, earth quake, famine, disease, and war. And you will always know what time it is in Hong Kong, for you love someone who lives there. And love will simply have no choice but to go into battle with space and time and, furthermore, to win."