#the last one i posted i think was a lupin fic from like... last winter? good lord

[hp-fanfic-archive]

Hi this may be niche and non existent but I am looking for wolf star fics where Sirius is hooking up/dating women (maybe Marlene). Remus has to see or hear stuff he doesn’t want to and gets jealous/ pines.

Happy ending w/ endgame wolf star if possible! Also ok if Sirius is hooking up with/dating men but I ask for women cuz it’s harder to find.

Thank you!!

Hi!

I don't have a ton of recs, but I did find a few. Hopefully this is what you're looking for!

Sirius/Marlene:

waited all this time to call you mine by ziahra [T, 121k] (You asked for pining Remus? You got it with this one)

In a world where everyone has a timer on their left wrist that counts down until the day realise they are in love with their soulmate, Remus falls in love with his soulmate 3 years before he reciprocates. Remus knew the timers were set in stone. They were inevitable, and there was nothing he could do to change the timer or speed up the process. And Sirius would return Remus’ feelings, eventually. Oh God. His timer had hit zero. And he had been thinking of Sirius. He was in love with Sirius. “Oh my God! Who was it?” Sirius begins to ask, but Remus can’t hear him. His ears are blocked with water, and his mind is far from the little rink in which they stand. Instead of trying to listen, he looks instead. He looks at Sirius’ wrist, where the numbers stare mockingly back at him. 27, 391 hours.

What I Heard by fishcommuter [E, 28k] (not 100% sure if this is exactly what you're looking for because it's on my to-read list still, but it might be)

Word on the street is Sirius is with Remus, but nobody bothered to tell either of them. Marlene, Sirius's actual girlfriend, thank you very much, is not thrilled. As the fall term settles into their last winter at school, things happen, feelings occur, Sirius and Remus are obviously in love, and the students of Hogwarts prove hard to surprise. Sirius switched on the ringer with his thumb and handed the phone back over. "Leave it on, okay?" "You have a map with my exact whereabouts at your disposal, you know this, yes?" "It can't get you to do things, though." "You can't get me to do things." "I can be very persuasive if you bother to read the messages." "You'd have separation anxiety if I bothered to read the messages." Sirius boffed him on the head. "Already do." He ducked this time.

Mutually Beneficial by clevernotbrilliant [T, 4k] (Does it count if the Sirius/Marlene is fake dating?)

Sirius Black is in love with Remus Lupin. Marlene McKinnon is in love with Emmeline Vance. The obvious solution? Date each other.

jimmy's party by orphan_account [G, 13k] (angst? angst.)

And he’s been expecting this, right? It’s been building for weeks; Remus has known this was coming. Eventually, even Sirius has grown tired of snogging girls in broom cupboards who’s names he takes a few seconds to recall when asked about them. If Marlene’s who he’s chosen, well..good. Marlene’s perfect for him, even Remus can see that. Sirius deserves someone like her. or: Remus isn’t jealous of Sirius and Marlene. On the contrary: he gets it. They look good together. So if they want to dance at the post-quidditch-match party, that’s alright. It’s fine, and Remus’ll demonstrate as such by having some fun of his own. Upcoming full moon be damned.

Reasons Why by silverbook [G, 3k]

Remus likes Marlene McKinnon, he really does. Except he also kinda hates her.

Now I Wanna Be Your Dog by pixelated [E, 20k] (this has Sirius/Marlene and also Remus/OC before the wolfstar endgame. They're both pining.)

Sirius clunks about in his Doc Martens and listens to The Stooges and smokes cigarettes and wears his hair much too long and spends more time serving detention than not. And is way too forward about his sudden feelings for Remus. (A story about teenagers and summer love in the 70s.)

The Boys of Summer by todaslasmadrugadas [T, 73k] (The Sirius/Marlene in this is rather short lived, but Remus is pining and it's a slow burn so... close enough?)

The Summer of 1978 was supposed to be the same as the previous one. And the one before that. Because, in the provincial village of Fenneltown, where 16-year-old Remus Lupin lives, nothing ever changes. Not really. Until this year, everything does.

Hey, Jealousy by BrianJustin4Ever [T, 1k]

Remus contends with his jealousy.

Sirius/OFC:

Jealousy, Jealousy by AshParadox [T, 924]

Remus has trouble focusing on what Lily is saying at the moment. His eyes are fixed on Sirius, who is in the middle of the room, dancing with some Hufflepuff girl. Remus feels a burning sensation in the pit of his stomach. “You should make him jealous.”

Drunken Mistakes (It Was Never A Mistake) by artemis143 [T, 3k]

It was Sirius Black's 16th birthday party and James Potter suggests that they play truth or dare

The Date by rhye [G, 422] (it's short but oh so ouchie)

Sirius has a date with a pureblood his mother wants him to marry. But he's also dating Remus. Remus watches him prepare for his date.

Honorable Mention (because it doesn't have pining Remus. It is, in fact, fake dating blackinnon from Marlene's POV. Wolfstar does get together though :) and the fic is good!) :

passionfruit by poppunkpadfoot [M, 4k]

“How would you feel about a free trip to France this summer?” “That depends. What’s the catch?” “It’s a trip with my family,” Marlene says. She can’t quite bring herself to look Sirius in the eye as she continues, “I’d be introducing you as my boyfriend.”

[fantomette22]

bloodborne asks : 1, 11, 19 (besides Gehrman), 30, 50 !!

Ask game from here.

Favorite boss fight

Hm good question as well XD (I'm bad at choice I love many bosses!) But my favorite is of course Lady Maria. As in the boss fight. I need to redo her for sure but I always very enjoy the most fight. It's like a dance I love it! it's hard but not too hard as well. It's impressive, frightening and beautiful all at once.

11. If stats weren't a thing, what would you wear?

Well except when I need to go in the poison swamp or fight the winter lanterns, fight a very strong boss or try a new outfit just for the drip or references I do stay all the time with the same clothes.

That mean this : +the hat

very gender I know I love it. Wish it was real I would buy it x)

19. Favorite Old Hunter?

Besides Gehrman? Well Lady Maria obliviously duh.

😂 Ok i am joking let's not count her either. And let's not take Ludwig into account too. Well this 3 gone I would say hm Archibald and Izzy perhaps? Gratia as well. (80% of the shit I made about them are basically headcanons but it's not like 98% of the stuff I made up for Paarl jfeznfbf) + I really like Valtr, Henryk & co of course! (a bit everyone lol). But if we count like the nightmare hunters from that era my fav is literally an OC who became the beast possess soul 😭

30. Is there anything you always do in your playthroughs, even if it's not necessary to beat the game?

Hm get at least 3 Umbilical cord at least XD. and do all the bosses + try to have all the set & weapons! (items, runes etc Well the expensive weapons & outfits not all the time for sure.)

50. Tell me about your hunters!

Well I have Lucen Venator of course! (hunter on the pic above!) And I made a 2nd one for a new playthrough, I think I named her Claire bc I didn't want just a feminized version of Lucen's name lol but she's an equivalent of him for sure. One day I would need to make a third hunters for sure.

I made a couple of posts about Lucen & art + my friends did amazing drawings of him 🥺 (from Katy, Chess, Crow & Odds)

(He looks way too much like me smt help. I need to change my icon to the small chibi one day)

SO hm what can I say... ah yeah let's go with the oblivious for me :

In my main headcanon (fic verse) He was born the night MP was summon, but far from Yharnam.

His parents came from Yharnam but flew the city

He's related to Cainhurst a bit. (His mom (Louise) & uncle are from a servant family). The amount of her stress this poor woman had to go through during her pregnancy was quite insane too.

He have an uncle (Lupin) who still live in Yharnam, an old hunter that he don't have news off since some times.

His grandpa on his father side (Blaine/Blair) was an old hunter as well, he's an old friend of Gehrman.

Gehrman literally babysit Lucen's dad (Emil) when he was a baby and save him from being crucified decades later.

Somehow Bloody Crow (Voron) was around when he was born lol. Before he return to Yharnam. Do what you want with all those crazy infos.

Either he became the next crow hunter or baby squid great one.

On my first playthrough I choose "last survivor" but I'm not very settle on what happened exactly besides he got scars on his face for it.

He's a kind individual most of the time except when it's time to kick ass if that make sense.

[stevetonyweekly]

SteveTony Weekly - Best Fic of 2022

It’s the last day of 2022! We made it, friends, and so it’s time for my annual list of my favorite reads from the year. All of these are amazing, and I spent hours on this list because I kept stopping to reread favorite bits. Check ‘em out. And feel free to send me your favorite reads of 2022! 

~*~ 

Think of This as Solving Problems (That Should Never Have Occurred) by Sineala

No one knows Tony is Iron Man. Then Tony gets amnesia, and literally no one knows Tony is Iron Man.

Sine is always a real treat to read, and I had somehow managed to miss reading this in the past, so I got to enjoy it this year and it was just--lovely. No one does identity porn the way Sine does. 

Some Kind of Personal War by sara_holmes 

And Tony realizes that working out who the Winter Soldier used to be and who he is now are two entirely different things.

The rest of this series is also amazing, but the first part is Bucky/Nat--it’s only part two and three that introduces Stevetony. The entire series is well worth reading, though. 

Teenage Dream by Etharei

"That," says Tony, tone unmistakably smug despite his split lip, "is Captain America. Who, by the way, happens to be my godfather."

I am a sucker for age difference, and also for Steve being utterly protective and besotted, and I loved this verse so much I think I read it twice in December alone. 

Magnetic North by msermesth

Tony joins Steve on his post-Secret Empire road-trip-slash-pity-party.

Turns out the road home is paved with a lot of arguments and sex.

I dug into comics this year, but I still haven’t gotten to Secret Empire, but I really enjoyed this--I had enough working knowledge of the story that it enhanced my reading, but I didn’t feel like it was necessary to enjoy the slow progression Steve and Tony had to each other. 

Like a Comet Streaming On by Sineala

Tony escapes Afghanistan with a functioning Iron Man suit and a perfectly normal heart. He even manages to bring Ho Yinsen home safely at his side. But he may as well have lost everything... because his wolfbrother is dead. Six months later, the Avengers find Captain America, frozen in ice, miraculously alive. Everything and everyone Steve has ever known is gone -- except his wolfsister, the recipient of the lupine version of the super-soldier serum, who was frozen in his arms. Tony has everything but his wolf. Steve has only his wolf. This is how their lives fit together.

I love the worldbuilding in this, and the grief that Tony goes through, the slow bonding between Tony and Steve (and Libby) is just--perfection. 

Mr. July by jibrailis

Tony is the only one who can defend Steve's virtue. Tony hates his life.

It’s just fun. That’s all it is. Just pure fun. 

One-Man Army by Captain_Panda

Takes place immediately after the Chitauri attack in Avengers 1.

Steve is running himself into the ground. Tony notices.

Then Steve gets knocked down hard. And Tony intervenes.

This is absurdly long, and had been unfinished for a while--when it was finished earlier this year, I put it on my list to read and it was even better than I expected--despite the length, it’s exquisitely plotted and perfectly written, and held my attention throughout, something that’s rare during a fic that long. It’s well worth the read. 

For the Love of a Dragon by Captain_Panda

When Steve went down with the Valkyrie, he thought his days with dragons were over.

Then he meets Tony Stark, who inherited Howard Stark's dragon.

As the kids say: "It's complicated."

This entire series is perfect--the world building of dragons in a modern, canon compliant world is just--flawless. I adored the dragons, I adored how different they were and how well they interacted with the people they chose made complete sense and just--I adored it. 

Dangerous Kitchen Tools by ladyshadowdrake

Engineering prodigy, billionaire, and heir to the Stark Industries empire, Tony Stark turned the business world on its head by opening a restuarant and burying himself in the kitchen. Years later, he covers an informal evening cooking class for his friend and fellow molecular gastronomist, Bruce Banner, where he meets famously camera-shy comic artist Steve Rogers.

I really love chef AU’s and this was just so lovely, soft and sweet and perfect. I loved it. 

all in by spqr

What matters is that Steve only hates him 99% of the time now, and the other 1% of the time they laugh together and fight side by side and they’re friends.

Tony’s used to having to wring little bits of love out of people.

He can do it.

I really love SPQR (which is why they’re on this list twice) and this is a flawless little CW AU. 

Patriarch by spqr 

Steve ducks into the hall and comes back with a warm, freshly-laundered towel, which feels so good when he wraps it around Tony’s shoulders that he almost lets out a moan. “There we go,” Steve says. “Don’t want you to catch cold.”

“Thanks, daddy,” Tony quips, because he’s an idiot.

Except Steve’s close enough, his hands wrapped around Tony’s biceps through the towel, that Tony can feel his full-body shudder.

Here we have my most read fic of the year. I think I read this once or twice a month since it was published in March. It’s all my favorite things--mafia, age gap, daddy kink, dangerously possessive Steve. It’s amazing and perfect and I’m gonna go read it again. 

angels who sin by meidui

Summer air is thick and sweet, like Tony's voice pouring honey into Steve's throat, telling Steve more than he needs to know. He's here with his parents for the summer, he just finished his first year at college, he doesn't believe in God but his parents make him come to church.

"They said you can help me find faith," Tony says, as mischievous as he is innocent, and Steve is as good as gone.

Priest Steve, Twink Tony and meidui’s gorgeous prose? That’s it, that’s everything. 

seven years in heaven by meidui

Tony gave Steve everything in the divorce. Their beautiful Brooklyn brownstone and everything in it, Tony's beloved Audi, their private garden upstate. Tony even offered him the lakehouse, but Steve had looked up at him with red eyes and begged softly for him to stop.

Tony gave Steve everything, every last piece of himself. He didn't take much with him when he flew out to his mansion in Malibu, but he took every last piece of Steve, too.

This ached and hurt me in the best ways and then it put me back together. 

you great unfinished symphony (you sent for me) by ketchupcrisp

The last thing Steve Rogers ever expected to see on a Wednesday afternoon was his (their) dead submissive tumbling out of a portal and practically into Phil’s lap, very much alive and frantic about Soul Stones and timelines and some other version of the team.

This is technically poly, but the heavy focus is on Stevetony, and the world-building is just…very very well done. Excellently done. 

Forty-Seven Flat by geekymoviemom

Steve Rogers was on the top of the world. He was one of the top students in his class, a world-class athlete, and had a man who loved him. Winning an Olympic Gold Medal seemed like the perfect addition to his picture-perfect life.

But only four years later, Steve’s entire world has come crashing down around him, leaving defending his Olympic title the only thing lying between him and utter ruin.

And then, the unthinkable happens.

I’m a huge fan of superfamily, and sports AU, and this one is so well done--it’s a little unrealistic but fun and made me cry so, winner winner. 

Without Irony by tsukinofaerii

Open file TS_762-b.ims... Sometimes, when a drive is completely broken, the only thing to do is wipe it clean and start over. When he wakes up, Tony has no idea who he is, or what he did to end up where he is. Depending on who he talks to, he was a villain or a hero, a genius or a degenerate. What he is now is still up for debate, but it doesn't look like he's going to have much time to figure it out. With a computer in his head screwing up and a country falling to pieces, options are getting limited. Steve The world needs Iron Man a lot more than it needs Tony Stark.

I’m a huge fan of fic that covers Tony’s mind wipe and this one did such a great job of that. And then it follows up with part two (below). I looove this little series so much. 

Per Expectations by tsukinofaerii

After the events of Without Irony, Tony wakes up with a freshly rebooted memory and nearly all of his memories from before the deletion and none after. Nearly all isn't nearly enough, and what's missing just might be the most important thing he's ever forgotten. Tony's not sure he wants to remember, but if he doesn't it's going to be the death of him.

Tabula Rasa by Sineala 

Sometimes superheroes save the world. And sometimes they're too late.

Captain America's longtime villain Superia had a plan for revenge. She stopped the Avengers from ever finding Steve in the ice, tore the Avengers apart, and turned the world into her own personal authoritarian dystopia. A team made up of Captains America from across the multiverse came to set things right: they united all the remaining superheroes, took down Superia, and made sure the world would find Steve again.

Tony spent Superia's hellish reign as her prisoner, a suicidally-depressed disembodied brain trapped in a jar for years on end, begging the Avengers to kill him and put him out of his misery. The Captain America Corps instead gives him his freedom, a brand-new body, and even the Avengers -- including his very own Captain America. But Tony's not entirely sure he wants to be here. He's walking wounded, and he thinks some wounds are too deep to heal. He thinks there's no chance the Avengers will ever be what they could have been. He thinks there's no way Steve will ever be the friend and partner he could have been on so many other worlds.

Luckily for Tony, Steve happens to disagree with that.

I really loved this. It was sad, and it hurt to read because of how Tony was depicted, but it was just--perfectly done. 

The Last Love Song of Anthony E. Stark by jibrailis

After contracting an Asgardian virus, Tony starts forgetting things. And people. And Steve.

This is a fandom classic, and I finally got around to reading it and I was absurdly pleased with it--like it was so much better than I even hoped it’d be. 

Relativistic Heat Conduction by BlossomsintheMist

Age of Ultron-based, but not entirely canon compliant. Written for the 2013 Cap-Iron Man Reverse Big Bang. Ultron has attacked, obliterating most of the world's superheroes and resistance in a matter of hours. The remaining heroes band together and share what strength they have to get through it, to survive, and defeat Ultron once and for all. Steve Rogers grieves in the wake of the disaster and the heroes' defeat, and no one knows if he will be able to provide the leadership they need--but Tony Stark isn't about to let him slip away that easily.

This is extremely sad. It was a dark sad read that I loved so much. I especially loved the end--it shouldn’t have been possible to pull off a happy ending, but somehow, it worked, and it was sooooo good. 

[spindrifters]

2022 Fic Roundup

In the later half of this year, I came back to two foundational parts of myself. Writing fanfiction, and Harry Potter. I've built a career in creative writing, and somewhere along the line lost sight of the spark of joy that comes from writing transformative works. After a difficult summer, I rediscovered that spark. And for the longest time, in light of *all that*, I hadn't known what to do with Potter and its core place in my development as a conscientious person in the world. In the same dark moment I realized that, like all foundational sacred text, the series was meant to be grappled with. Wrestled. Read resistantly. And what better way to do that than with fic? I've only been back in the game since October, but I'm so happy to have made it back at all. More than anything, I appreciate the incredible community I've found along the way.

Huge shout-out to @soloorganaas for the inspiration!

October

marginalia (105k & counting, WIP, Wolfstar, E) - This story began a long time ago. That part is already written. Nothing can be done about it now. It began with two young men—barely more than boys—who upended the world, magical and mundane alike. Grindelwald and Dumbledore, glorious leaders of the revolution, who brought wizardkind out of hiding and into the light during those last, violent days of 1899. But a winter's night seventy-seven years later is where things really kick off. Because Remus Lupin knows what to expect when you’ve been sold somewhere new. He knows it better than he ever thought he'd have to by this point. He knows how to survive. And Sirius Black is doing his best to just graduate Hogwarts and get himself and his brother away from this goddamn house in one piece. He's got it figured out by now. He has a plan. Neither of them, however, had accounted for the other messing everything up by the sheer fact of just existing. The most AU.

There’s an exceptionally long moment of silence between them, and Sirius would look away if he could. Would put the burning shame simmering at the pit of his gut somewhere else, only Remus’ hand is still clasped tight around his own bleeding nailbeds, holding fast, and isn’t that a wonder? His hands are just as strong, just as calloused and scarred and warm as he remembers. Only this is the first time Remus has ever touched him willingly. With purpose. Not because he thinks he has to, or because Sirius touched him first.

love has teeth (444, microfic, gen, T) - Hope Lupin loves her husband, she really does, but she’s a child of the war and the political passions that came with it and on the whole she really hasn’t got the time nor patience for the astounding ignorance and stupidity of Wizarding Britain. (Or how, somewhere along the way, Hope Lupin became the pack mum.)

Hope teaches James to cook, and gives Peter advice on girls, and becomes single-handedly responsible for Sirius’ obsession with motorbikes after letting him ride on the back of hers. She introduces the lot of them to jazz and skiffle and tells them stories of growing up with Communist parents in post-war London.

civilian (339, microfic, Tedromeda, T) - They figure it out at a café on a rainy Tuesday in April. (Or, the one where Ted and Andromeda elope.)

Theirs is a history of secrets, stolen kisses in old school corridors and excuses made to his family why she can never seem to come for dinner and trying not to flinch whenever words like purity and mudblood come out of her parents' mouths.

November

until our ribs get tough (4.8K, gen, M) - From the lost papers and mixed-up files of the marginalia universe. A day in the life of one Lily Evans, age eleven, takes an unexpected turn involving a twisted ankle, some contraband essence of murtlap, and a rumination on the nature of miracles. Same AU as marginalia.

They used to do this all the time when they were little. Hide amidst the mothballs and piled boxes stored beneath the metal springs, especially when the rain poured down like this. It was easier, then, to ignore the world outside in order to create their own. Imagined kingdoms where they were king and queen, or adventurers on the high seas searching out treasure galleys to attack. They’d known to keep quiet, even then. It’s been a minute since they were here last, but even Remus’ recent growth spurts aren’t enough to take away what’s really a sacred space.

December

the helper (1.3K, gen Wolfstar, T) - Remus is facing his first Hanuká away from home. Sirius would like to help. For Hanukkah Wolfstar Week 2022.

Sirius is, by this point, extremely lost. He understands about half of what his friend just said to him. What he understands perfectly well, however, is how to recognize that nonchalant sort of half-shrug, that casual way Remus then goes on to insist that it’s not actually a big deal and he’s fine, really, and it’s not that important a celebration, anyway. He knows what those things mean. They mean that Remus Lupin’s a bloody liar.

death by honey (1.7K, Wolfstar, T) - Stuck at St. Mungo's during Hanuká, Remus has resigned himself to spending the holidays alone. Sirius has other plans. For Hanukkah Wolfstar Week 2022.

So he’s resigned himself to missing all that. Resigned himself to maybe even missing his muggle relatives altogether if this lunar fever doesn’t clear up in time. Instead, he gets the sterile, broken-tiled lycanthropy ward, and tinny Christmas music filtering down from the floor above, and the pinch-faced, suspicious company of two trainee healers who must have done something truly unfortunate to end up banished down here over the holidays. What he doesn’t expect is to wake up from a nap to find Sirius Black sitting in the chair next to his bed.

forward motion (854, Wolfstar AU, M) - Mary brings over a present. None of the menfolk know what to do with it. Wolfstar raises Harry AU. For Hanukkah Wolfstar Week 2022.

So maybe it feels more personal than it should, but Sirius can’t shake that terror of mucking this all up and letting down not just Harry but James and Lily and Monty and Euphemia, too. And Remus — who still has two living parents who love him dearly — may never have had to depend on the Potters to pick the broken pieces of himself up off their doorway, but he still feels that same terror. That same responsibility. Harry deserves a childhood full of laughter and love and fun.

commercial allure (1K, Wolfstar, T) - On the second-to-last night of Hanuká, Remus decides that enough is enough. Sirius would beg to differ. For Hanukkah Wolfstar Week 2022.

“Pads,” he says at last, because he wasn’t going to say anything. Because this is his best mate of six years but somehow it’s become damn near impossible for Remus to even look at him lately without feeling flushed and awkward and like he’s just sprouted hands for the very first time and hasn’t got the first clue what to do with them. But he’s just found a very nice and very expensive-looking eagle-feather quill on his bedside table, wrapped up in silver paper, and that is altogether impossible to ignore.

a history of violence (1K, Wolfstar, E) - In the wake of the war's end, Remus and Sirius are learning how to trust each other again. Lily and James live AU. For Hanukkah Wolfstar Week 2022.

Sirius kisses the scar that slashes down his brow and lid, a gentle reminder to keep talking. This is what they do now, in the days since the end of October. Since the end of the war. This is what they have to do. Secrets, after all, nearly cost them everything.

pomegranates (2.5K, Wolfstar, M) - Sirius runs away from home over the winter holidays of fifth year. The problem is, James is in India and Moony kind of hates her right now. Genderfuck AU with transfem Sirius and cisfem Remus. For Hanukkah Wolfstar Week 2022.

Lyall Lupin opens the front door of the small Mayhill flat he shares with his wife and daughter to find Sirius Black, cold and dripping in the rainy Swansea night, shivering violently in nothing but a set of outrageously expensive silk dress robes. His first instinct is to slam the door in the girl’s face. His second — that of a father, who’s seen his child in pain too many times — wins out. Sirius is bleeding from somewhere just above her hairline and looks as though she’s been on the receiving end of a Confundus Charm. He lets her inside.

the story goes (1.5K, Wolfstar, M) - Remus knows all about survival. It's in his DNA. A study on lycanthropy, the Jewish diaspora, a blended family, and two boys in love. For Hanukkah Wolfstar Week 2022.

No one can know. Dad reminds him of that all the time, in the summer before he goes to school. He needn’t bother. Remus was raised on stories of refugee ancestors fleeing Valencia massacres for Moroccan shores, grew tall on days celebrating Esther and Yehudit’s necessary deceptions. He knows how to hide what others fear without making a single part of himself small.

yours if you want it (1K, Wolfstar, M) - Facing their first holiday season living together, Sirius and Remus stumble towards creating new traditions. For Hanukkah Wolfstar Week 2022.

“I’m trying to tell you you're allowed to have things, you knob. You get to make it mean what you like. You want a Christmas tree? Let’s get a bloody Christmas tree. I’ve never had one before but sod it, I want one if it makes you happy. We’re allowed to make our own traditions. And if you like any of the poncy Yule shite you grew up with instead, we can do that, too. Because that’s still yours, if you want it. Get me? Not theirs. Yours.”

[benevolenterrancy]

I finally finished a Witcher fanfiction I’ve been poking at for over a year! Woohoo! A mermaid!au that was inspired by a kinkmeme prompt and “A Little Sacrifice” from Sword of Destiny.

Dandelion was going to die.

Trapped in a barrel full of fetid water, miles from the coast, with skin that was burning from the over-hot summer sun, this was the most likely outcome. A tragic, far-flung death fit for any one of the more maudlin ballads, a cruel punishment for Dandelion's fascination with the surface world.

And if his slow, painful death hadn't already been assured, the sudden appearance of a witcher on the road, a slayer of creatures like Dandelion, only guaranteed it.

[plant-flwrs]

a secret santa proposal // george weasley

masterlist!

a/n: i think this and one more with neville are my last christmas fics! just winter themed ones after that! i actaully love this fic so much, i’ve always been so intrigued by the next generation of weasley kids and this is the first fic i’ve gotten to include them in (plus teddy lupin because i couldn’t help myself). as always, thank you so much for reading <33

(implied female reader)

summary: George gets you the perfect secret Santa gift

(2.6k)

--------

George had gone to Diagon Alley nearly every day this week. His feet hurt when he got home from walking all day, and at some point, he even got some windburn on his lips.

You and George were due at the burrow on Friday for a Christmas dinner. A Christmas dinner that would end with secret Santa gift exchanges.

You had picked Ginny, deciding to get her a lovely scarf and matching cardigan almost right after finding out you got her. George, however, was having a little more difficulty.

George wanted this year’s gift to be perfect. He felt even more pressure knowing you’d be opening his gift in front of his entire family, rather than in the privacy of the flat you shared.

“Honey, come back to bed,” you groaned when you felt his weight shift off the bed, patting your hand on his now empty side of the bed.

“I can’t, shops open soon,” he grumbled, shuffling into the bathroom at the ungodly hour it was.

He had been refusing to tell you who he got, insisting that the secret part was the most fun of it all. You rolled your eyes but indulged his secrecy. This, however, was getting too much. You wanted a lay-in with your boyfriend, for god’s sake.

George walked against the wind- scarf pulled over his lips after learning his lesson- as he neared the shop he had been looking for. 

It was a muggle jewelry shop. 

The idea had come to him the second he picked your name, but something in him was making him second guess himself. You had been dating for four years, you were serious adults, and he loved you more than anything in his life. Still, he had doubts.

What if you thought Christmas engagements were cheesy? What if you thought he was going too fast? What if you walked out and left him at his family home on his knee?

George paced in front of the shop, glancing at the door and reaching out to open it every once and a while only to retract his hand. Eventually, he worked up the nerve and opened the door. If he was this nervous to even enter the shop, how would he choose a ring? How the hell would he manage to propose? 

Once inside, he took off his beanie and shook his hair out, glancing around the store. It was warm and quiet, filled with dazzling amounts of jewelry. 

All the hesitation he had felt left him at once, and he knew he had to do this. He knew this was right, and he knew fairly quickly which ring he was going to get you. He left, walking along the street and back to the Three Broomsticks. He entered Diagon Alley, determined to now find a decent fake gift. 

On Friday night, you closed the tin for some cookies you had been baking all day, wrapping the tin in a deep red bow. You tucked it under your arm, lifting the gift bag with yours and George’s secret Santa gifts. George was waiting for you in the living room, dressed in a handsome sweater and brown corduroy pants, smiling widely at you. 

George had been frighteningly happy recently, though you supposed he was just in the Christmas spirit.

You apparated to the Weasley house, just outside the front door. You raised your hand to knock, but George was already slamming it open with the full force of his shoulder. You followed him inside, glancing apologetically at Molly as she rushed over to hug you both. 

“Finally!” she released George and moved onto you, hugging you with a strong grip, “My babies are all home!”

You noticed everyone else had already arrived, gathered around the ground floor of the house. Teddy Lupin and Victoire stood in the kitchen with Fleur and Bill, laughing while Bill hid bits and pieces of food in his wife’s hair. Ron and Hermione sat on the couch with Rose bundled in Hermione’s arms, Ron waving his fingers in her face with a dazed look on his own. Harry bounced James on his knee as he sat at the table next to Ginny, who cradled Albus in her hands as she and Harry listened to Arthur talk about his new muggle discoveries. Percy was standing behind his mother, holding his daughter’s hand as she swayed on her feet, just learning to walk.

Molly held your arms, looking down at what you had brought.

“Did you make these, dear?” she took the tin from your hands, smiling wider when you nodded and brought them to the kitchen. 

George took the gift bag from you and moved it to the tree, making his greetings at everyone he passed.

You went to the kitchen, catching Bill’s eye and smiling back at him.

“Y/n!” he called, spreading his arms out to you and pulled you into him. You hugged Fleur, picking the food from her hair as she scolded Bill jokingly. 

“Hey Teddy,” you said, placing a hand on the top of his head, “you’ve gotten so tall!”

It was true, the young boy had already shot up like a bean-post, the top of his head stopping at your waist. His bright blue hair stood out even more the higher it got. He looked strikingly like his parents, you thought, with a sad smile.

“Hullo,” he said joyously, leaning into your side and giving you a hug.

“Hiya, Aunt Y/n,” Victoire called from beside Teddy, though a good size smaller, and coming to your other side to clutch at your legs as she hugged you.

“What’re you guys making?” you asked them, looking at the food scattered across the counter Victoire could barely see over. You lifted her up, balancing her on your hip and still keeping a hand on Teddy’s head.

“No idea,” Bill joked from beside you, now putting food in Victoire’s strawberry blonde hair, “having too much fun to care.”

You laughed, and Teddy looked up from your side at Victoire’s now food covered hair. Fleur reached over Bill to swat his hands away, cleaning her daughter’s hair.

“I brought those cookies you guys like,” Bill, Teddy, and Victoire’s eyes lit up, all of them looking around to find them.

“After dinner, you lot,” Molly said as she came into the kitchen, swatting the back of Bill’s head.

She came to your side, reaching for Victoire, and you gladly shifted her over. Teddy seemed consumed in whatever he was making, his brows furrowed in concentration. You left the kitchen, going to the kitchen table where Harry, Ginny, and Arthur still were, along with the children.

James’ face lit up once he saw you, and he held his arms out to you with grabbing hands. He nearly wiggled out of Harry’s grip, and Harry seemed all too happy to hand him over to you once you sat down next to Ginny.

“Hey, love,” she said, bending to kiss your cheek in greeting. You kissed hers, smiling widely at Harry and Arthur. You leaned down to kiss James’ cheek too, sending him into a fit of giggles that made Harry swoon from beside you.

“How are you, James?” you cooed at him, only to be answered with baby noises. You knew it wasn’t approved of, but you did have favorites. Teddy and James had a special place in your heart.

Arthur balanced his chin on his palm, gazing at his grandchildren.

“Happy Christmas,” he said, smiling at you and James.

“Happy Christmas,” you said back, now looking over at Albus who was sleeping in Ginny’s arms.

“Oi,” she said, leaning forward to look at her husband, “your turn, Potter.”

Harry chuckled, standing to retrieve Albus gently from his wife. 

“I’m gonna put him upstairs, let him get his rest,” Harry whispered, even though it made no difference compared to the noisy house around them.

Ginny nodded, looking happy to have empty arms for a second. James was still content in your arms, so you decided to stay for a moment, at least until Harry came back. James seemed to have other plans though, eventually making grabbing hands at his grandfather. Arthur seemed to have been waiting for this moment, immediately lighting up and reaching for James. You stood, obliging James’ wishes, and bent to talk to Ginny.

“I’ll be right back, gonna go say ‘hi’ to Ron and Hermione,” Ginny only hummed in response, busy watching her son sit on her father’s lap.

You walked into the living room, where Ron was now holding Rose. Hermione seemed to be sifting through a very full diaper bag, and you wouldn’t be surprised if it had an extending charm. 

“Hey, Y/n,” Ron said when he saw you, his tired face lifting in an energetic smile.

Your eyes moved to the spit-up on his shoulder, and you smiled back at him, amused at his joy.

“Hi, happy Christmas,” you said sitting next to Ron so you could look at Rose. 

“Oh,” Hermione looked up, holding a clean towel in her hands, “hello, dear, didn’t see you.” 

You smiled at her, leaning over Ron to squeeze her hand in somewhat of a greeting. You looked at Rose, fast asleep in Ron’s arms.

“Harry’s just put Albus to sleep upstairs, I’m sure you could put Rose up there, too, if you wanted,” you whispered, careful not to wake the baby.

“Did he?” Hermione said hopefully, then she cast a knowing look at Ron.

“Up I go,” he said with no hesitation, standing carefully from the couch.

Hermione slumped down, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath, “This shit is hard.”

You both laughed, and eventually, Ginny and George joined you in the living room.

Ginny held a glass of what looked like an alcoholic drink, smirking at Hermione’s pained look. “Stopped breastfeeding the other day. Good to be back,” Ginny downed her drink, laughing more when Hermione groaned in what you assumed was jealousy.

George had settled into the couch next to you, wrapping his arm around you as he cradled a beer in his hand. You took it from him, stealing a sip and laughing at his groan that was similar to Hermione’s.

“Y/n!” three pairs of stomping feet sounded into the living room, matched with happy giggles. Teddy stood in front of you, James’ tiny hand clutched in his as he helped him stand and walk. Teddy was more dragging James than letting him walk on his own, but Ginny nor James seemed to mind. Victoire was not far behind, stumbling on her own feet as she crashed into your legs.

George picked her up, settling her on his lap and delving into a discussion about how pretty her dress was.

“I made this for you,” Teddy said, holding out a gingerbread cookie that was dripping in enormous amounts of frosting.

“Wow,” you said, carefully taking the cookie, “Teddy, this looks amazing.”

He smiled proudly, barely noticing James retracting his hand and crawling over to his mother. Teddy simply crawled into your lap, nearly too big to do so, and looked down at the cookie in your hands.

“Will you try it?” he said, smiling widely.

You looked down at the cookie, then at Teddy. It looked like a stomach ache waiting to happen, and you tried to think of an excuse not to eat it without hurting his feelings. Suddenly, however, George was leaning over and taking a large bite from the cookie. He then stole the rest of the cookie with his free hand, holding it up to your face. You playfully scolded him, then smiled sweetly at Teddy. George only made you take a small bite, holding out one of the legs with the littlest amount of frosting. You ate it, moaning in delight and nodding your head at Teddy. He swelled with pride, smiling smugly up at you.

You all sat in the living room like that until Molly called everyone to dinner. The table had been moved outside, per usual, and extended to fit everyone. Molly was a firm believer in not having a kid’s table, so the children who could walk rushed to their desired seats. Arthur and Percy sat at the heads of the table, and everyone scattered from there. You and George sat in the middle, and George had to rush to beat James from stealing his spot next to you. Teddy sat to your left, George to your right, and when you weren’t cutting Teddy’s food, George was jokingly pestering you to cut his. 

The dinner was as lively as always, and the cold air was barred away by a spell Arthur had done around the house. 

Soon, it was time for secret Santa. Molly magically cleared the table, something that made Teddy swoon beside you, and then magically transported all the gifts to the table. She levitated the first one from the bag, and the exchanges started from there. 

Fleur had been your secret Santa, and she got you a compilation of books you had mentioned wanting. You thanked her from across the table, showing Teddy and reading to him what he didn’t understand. You watched everyone else get their presents, going one at a time, and finally, with no presents left, Molly levitated your gift to Ginny from the bag.

Ginny smiled widely and immediately put on both the cardigan and the sweater, standing and coming to hug you from behind. 

Soon, a large box wrapped in white paper was levitated in front of you. You hadn’t been keeping track of who’s gifts were from who, even though you should have been, and unwrapped the box quickly. Inside was a lovely, blooming plant with bright flowers and a lovely ceramic pot. You lifted it carefully, hearing Molly gasp in delight when she saw it. Then, you heard a round of gasps and looked up from the plant, confused as to why everyone was so surprised by some flowers.

You quickly understood, though, that they had not gasped at the flowers.

Beside you, with his chair pushed away and on his knee, George propped open a small box. It held a gorgeous ring, and you felt your eyes water before you could even take a breath. You hadn’t let him get a word in, and you knew he had a whole speech planned, and collapsed out of your chair and into George’s arms.

He stumbled, nearly falling backward, but wrapped his arms around you. You pulled away, only enough to see the ring he cradled in between your chests, and let out a happy sob. George did too, and you looked up to see his cheeks were wet. You pressed your forehead to his, wiping his cheeks and laughing. You kissed him, hard, but barely managed to because you couldn’t stop smiling. 

He pulled away, carefully holding your hand in his shaking hands, and slid the ring onto your finger. You heard clapping around you, and you remembered the rest of your family there. Hermione and Molly had tears running down their faces, and all the children were bouncing in their seats with the energy, not entirely sure of what was happening. Ginny was by your side first, hugging you again, and then George. This broke the flood gates and soon everyone was wrapping either you or George in their arms.

You longed to touch George, but hugged everyone back, just the same, until finally, you could hug your fiancé. 

“Happy Christmas,” George said, his face buried in your neck as he hugged you tightly.

“Happy Christmas,” you replied, holding your arm out and looking at your ring from behind George’s back. “God, George, you have impeccable taste.”

He laughed, pulling apart from you and gazing down at you, “Don’t I know it.”

[rainandhotchocolate]

Masterlist

Wow I’m the biggest idiot of all time and lost my masterlist post for mobile LEL anyways its back now thanks everyone for messaging!!!

ADVENT CALENDAR 2019

- 25 fics in 25 days

General headcanons

Marauders at a gig x reader    

Marauders at a BLM rally

Sirius x reader

SMUT

I’ve got you (Smut - Virgin Reader, cute)

All Alone (Fluff city + smut city)

My Girl (smutty smut) The Morning After (fluff)

Something about you (Smut - Virgin reader)

Golden Couple (Cute, long-term couple smut)

Honeymoon    Part 2  (long fic) - Sirius x Y/N, go away for a weekend before their wedding, with sexual tension on high with their promise to have no sex in the weeks leading up to the wedding

Room of Requirement  The Morning After

- Some Christmas Smut :)))))

FLUFF

Tattoo (Fluff - Getting a tattoo)

Black Dog

- A large black dog has started keeping Y/N company in the middle of the night…

Birthday Girl

- Y/N comes from a very famous muggle family, and Sirius decides to throw her a surprise birthday party, pure fluff

Coffee and Books

- Y/N works in the bookstore next to Sirius’ coffeeshop. Y'all know what happens here

Dinner Party

- Sirius has set up a little Christmas surprise for Y/N… pure romance and gooeyness

Admitting

- Sirius finally admitting his feelings for Y/N (a lil sexy but not really)

Christmas Day

- Sirius and reader spending their first Christmas together

ANGST

Goodbye   Part 2 (Sirius’ dad’s death)

Guilty  (Sirius being an idiot in a relationship with Y/N & screwing it up, realising later that he regrets it big time)

Coming out (Coming out as Bi to Sirius)

Come Home (Returning from Askaban)   Part 2 (Smuttttt)

Rejection

- Sirius accidentally makes like hell for Y/N in Seventh year at Hogwarts. But what happens when they bump into each other a few years later?

The Wrong Kiss (Sirius gets a little bit jealous when James kisses Y/N)

Triwizard Champion

- Reader is a triwizard champion, and needs to find something that means the most to her

About what I said Last Night (Yes this is the same name as a series but is different lel)

- Sirius and reader get into a fight right before she gets requested to go on a serious mission

SERIES

Marbles  Part 2  Part 3   Part 4  Part 5  Part 6   (Finished Series)

- Sirius and Reader were best friends until the incident.

One Life Stand  Part 2   Part 3   Part 4   Part 5    (Finished Series)

- One night stand, but Sirius wants more

Tension  Part 2  Part 3 Part 4  Part 5  Part 6  Part 7  Part 8  Part 9  Part 10 Part 11 (Coming Soon)

- Sirius x Malfoy/Slytherin! Reader - Classic hate to love series

About Last Night  Part 2 Part 3  Part 4  Part 5  Part 6 (Coming soon)

- Sirius x Y/N, College AU, texting trope, Y/N texts the wrong number thinking it was Marlene

Blackout  Part 2  Part 3  Part 4 Part 5  Part 6  Part 7  Part 8  Part 9  Part 10  Part 11(coming soon)

- Sirius rushes Y/N to the hospital after a bad fight with the Order. Things don’t go well

Movie Star  Part 2  Part 3  (Coming Soon)

- Y/N finally got a job in a tv series… only to find out later who her romantic interest is going to be

HEADCANONS

Sirius x touch-starved reader HC

Sexy times

James x reader

SMUT

His Jersey (Smut - Wearing his Quidditch jersey)

In his arms

FLUFF

Stop The War  (Fluff - A moment of peace during the war)

Breathe (Being James’ GF and having him calm your panic attacks)

The girl next door (James has a little (HUGE) crush on the muggle next door)

SERIES

Getting over you  Part 2  Part 3 (James x reader, realising he’s in love with you not Lily)

HEADCANONS

Hugging

Dancing

Remus x reader

SMUT

Can’t get enough (Smut - affirmation kink)

FLUFF

Panic (Fluff - Calming down your panic attacks)

Maladies (Fluff - Taking care of you when sick)

Merry Christmas (Fluff - Reader and Remus being cute af with marauders)

Lily x reader (girl/girl)

SERIES

Tutor’s Pet   Part 2   Part 3  Part 4  Part 5  (finished series)

- Lily is asked to tutor Reader so she can join the year above her in potions, but they are both a little devastated when the sessions have to end…

Lily x James

FLUFF

Away (Fluff, Lily being delayed on a mission)

Lily x Sirius

SMUT

Infidelity

- Lily and Sirius started hooking up before she fell for James… but it’s been hard to stop (SMUTTTTTTTT, also references to cheating)

Lily x Narcissa

SMUT

Winter Ball

- Narcissa and Lily get a little hot and heavy during a particularly boring winter ball (so much smut)

NO ROMANCE

Last Christmas

- Sirius and Remus spend their first Christmas without Lily and James (taking care of Harry)

Letters he’ll never send

- Sirius wrote some letters when Lily and James were no longer there

Duel

- Remus proving himself in class, duel style

Hermione x Reader

FLUFF

Secrets (Fluff, Weasley!Reader)

Harry x Reader

FLUFF/ANGST

Meeting the parents (Y/N finally gets to meet Lily and James, but unfortunately their not the only people she meets)

Teddy Lupin x Reader

SMUT

Ice Blue   The Morning After  (warning - getting drugged, vomit)

- Reader is best friends with Teddy, and would never expect to act on her long harbouring crush… that is until she wakes up in Teddy’s bed after an awful night out.

Kaz Brekker x Reader

Unexpected

- Reader is girly, frivolous, and fun, and Kaz completely underestimates her

[consistentsquash]

Grindeldore recs

Posted on reddit hpslash first. Cleaned up!

I selected mostly intro recs so if you already read a lot of fics about this pairing these won’t be new to you. No Fantastic Beasts recs from me :( This is just the seven HP books/movies.

A lot of the fics are M-rated. Contains some smut. Most of them are canon compliant. They contain some angst because Grindeldore canon is angsty.

Short fics. Less than 5K words

Fortress, An Anatomy

by tehtarik (2014)

Summary: There is a fortress in the mountains and it watches the world. It watches its beloved Master and it watches itself. Nurmengard is the name of that place.

Sentient Nurmengard! I love sentient buildings so much and this one is great! I really like reading about how authors think about sentient Hogwarts, Grimmauld Place, Nurmengard and other places.

Clear as a windowpane Nurmengard remembers the first sight of its master all those years ago when it was rising out of dirt, feet and foundations and torso and ribs and shoulders of granite. And the Master, Gellert Grindelwald they called him, glowing gold in the dirt-coloured skies of winter, untroubled by wind and rock, wand held above his head in glee.

Himnusz

by eldritcher (2011)

Summary: Before there were wars and wands, before Ariana and Nurmengard, there were two boys who loved lemon-drops.

Gellert is deeply patriotic in this fic. The Hungarian national anthem is used beautifully to show the two great loves of Gellert’s life: Albus and his motherland. This fic tells a lot of story without actually telling a lot of story.

“I was born by the riverside, you know,” I told him softly. “My father often told me the tale of Moses, of a babe found by the river who grew up to be a leader. My mother named me after her Magyar grandfather who was slain in a skirmish with the Habsburgs.”

“Gellert - the spear, the weapon of your people,” Albus murmured. “She named you aptly. You will be powerful.”

Hair of the Dog That Bit You

by occamybites (2017)

Summary: “Gellert should have turned and walked away. It had been ten years. Gellert was the fifth most wanted man in Europe and rising, and Albus was a schoolteacher. All promises were already broken. There was no going back.”

Gellert runs into Albus in Vienna. Albus wants to have sex one last time to get Gellert out of his mind. Tragic. I keep saying that a lot in this post but that’s because this pairing is tragic.

He and Albus had discussed Sacrifice. They had always known there would be sacrifices. They had mostly imagined that they would be other people’s sacrifices.

Medium length fics. 5K to 20K words

Thirty-five Owls

by letterblade (2008)

Summary: Being a correspondence between Albus P.W.B. Dumbledore, Grand Sorcerer, Supreme Mugwump, etc., and the prisoner Gellert Grindelwald, of some decades in length.

This is the very first Grindeldore fic I read! It is funny, romantic and tragic. This is a great intro to Grindeldore fic if you are new to the pairing! The Grindeldore fic for a lot of folks, rightfully so!

But I am nothing to you anymore but an ear. Writing ancient lovers tearful letters in your Christmas sherry again, Albus? Back & forth we go, back & forth.

The Prisoner’s Remorse

by Miss M (2011)

Summary: After Sirius Black’s betrayal, Professor Dumbledore finds work for Remus Lupin as a prison guard in Nurmengard, where there are quite a few things to be learned.

I love Remus in this fic! He’s younger than we usually see in fics. More innocent and less jaded. Gellert and Albus are very much obsessed with each other. Neither of them are easy characters here to sympathize with but they are very much human in their relationship. Remus is caught in the middle. It’s also got a Wolfstar theme. The reason why Albus sends Remus to Nurmengard is because he thinks Remus understands what it is like to obsess over somebody like Gellert.

Tragic…but Wolfstar is always tragic. Grindeldore is usually tragic. So the combination is double the feels and double the angst.

“How is that old vanquisher of mine, Albus Dumbledore? I expect he played quite a part in this struggle?”

“Quite.” Remus felt strangely self-conscious, as if there were something almost inappropriate in discussing Dumbledore with this man. “He’s very much admired.”

“Of course,” Grindelwald said. “Of course. But then again, he’s always been most admirable.”

The Sultan and Scheherazade are one

by eldritcher (2021)

Summary: Albus Dumbledore is irresistible. This is merely the first of Gellert Grindelwald’s problems.

This is probably my favorite Albus. He’s a contradiction of being shy and bold. Gellert is head over heels for him. Lots of discussions about anarchy and socialism. Reading poetry to each other. Lots of world events seen through Gellert’s eyes - World wars, Spanish Flu. The second part of the fic is set in Nurmengard. Gellert gets only one visitor. It’s not Albus. There’s tragedy of course, because this is Grindeldore after all! A sweeping and brilliant story told without a lot of words. This one is brand new and got me on a binge read through my Grindeldore favorites.

“Trothed under a yew,” he said solemnly.

“Romantic,” I tried to say in dismissal, but my insouciance fell flat before his earnestness.

We crowned each other, under his whore mother’s roof, with berries from his sister’s favorite yew.

Long fics. 50K+ words

Let Perpetual Light

by tehtarik (2016)

Summary: In the village of Godric’s Hollow, the Dumbledore family is falling apart. Kendra Dumbledore is dead under mysterious circumstances, and Albus is the unwilling guardian to his wayward brother Aberforth, and Ariana, their mad sister in the attic. But everything changes with the arrival of Gellert Grindelwald, violently charming juvenile delinquent with an obsession for the fabled Deathly Hallows.

This is a longfic. Since completed longfics for this pairing are pretty hard to come by, it’s a treat whenever we get one. It’s set around Ariana Dumbledore’s life being the driving force in Albus’s and Gellert’s lives. The characterizations here aren’t the ones I am used to seeing for Albus and Gellert but the author makes it work great. It’s well written and definitely recommended!

Albus remains in the churchyard, beside Ariana’s grave, long after the last guest (Bathilda) leaves. A number of the other attendees had milled around in a rather infuriating fashion, pretending to examine the names and inscriptions on the ranks of headstones. He rather suspected that Aberforth’s public outburst had stirred up some excitement among them, and they lingered, scavenging for gossip. Ariana is in the earth now, still unacknowledged by life.

random thoughts

When I did this post, I realized how the fandom characterizations of Albus and Gellert changed between Thirty-five Owls back in 2008 to later characterizations like Let Perpetual Light in 2016. It’s so amazing to see the pairing evolve and get reinvented by talented authors over the years!

I also noticed how fics by the same authors evolve over time. Let Perpetual Light is more ambitious and darker than Fortress, An Anatomy by tehtarik even if they are both equally great reads and actually part of a series!

Equally interesting is how some authors keep the same headcanons over time. Himnusz and The Sultan and Scheherazade are one by eldritcher are both very similar in characterizations even if they are written in 2011 and 2021 respectively.

Finally I also noticed how much creativity the authors use in filling the years between 1899 and the big showdown. After Gellert’s imprisonment, epistolary fics are so creative when they fill in the gaps!

Another thing I noticed is that unlike Snarry this fandom doesn’t have a lot of portrait fics or Patronus fics.

Literature! Literary references are everywhere in Grindeldore fics compared to other ships! Whether it is Thirty-five Owls and its literary references to Everybody’s Autobiography and Gertrude Stein or The Sultan and Scheherazade’s and its reference to a ton of books about solitary confinement from Napoleon and Marquis de Sade to Princip who assasinated the Archduke which began World War I, literary references are everywhere in these fics!

I also made this Rec List picking 21 slash fics from 21 years (2001 to 2021)!

[hpdrizzle]

Below is the list of all the fic for 2020 drizzle fest! Thanks for all your support - reveals will be posted on 10th October, Saturday. 

FEMSLASH Title: Time After Time Pairing: Ginny/Luna Summary: A few weeks after the Battle of Hogwarts, Luna buys an ice cream truck. Title: sugarcane in the easy morning Pairing: Ginny/Pansy Summary: “I mean, it’s not like there’s anything special about Ross,” Pansy continues. “Why do the most beautiful and powerful women go for the most painfully average men?” Title: Under Adverse Conditions Pairing: Ginny/Pansy Summary: With most of the castle away at Hogsmeade, Ginny and Pansy use the time to fly together. Title: Asbhury Manor Pairing: Millicent/Hermione Summary: Millicent farms the land on her manor. She enjoys the work and the weather, but she is lonely. Enter Hermione Granger.

There are many more awesome fics under the cut! 

GEN / MULTIPLE PAIRINGS Title: You Don’t Know [how you betrayed me] Pairing: Voldemort. Tom Riddle Sr. [GEN] Summary: Tom Marvolo Riddle meets his father on a cold and wintry night. He never meant for things to unfold the way that they do but there had been something inside him that wanted to investigate where he came from. Title: Thunder & Lightning Pairing: Hermione Granger/Fabian Prewett/Gideon Prewett Summary: A thunderstorm and a little bit of magic bring Hermione a pair of unexpected guests. Title: Getting some Vitamin D Characters/Pairings: Hermione/Adrian/Marcus Summary: Hermione takes advantage of the warm, Caribbean sun.

SLASH Title: Storms of Stars and Scars Pairing: Remus/Sirius Summary: Seven storms over seven years of Hogwarts tell the story of how Remus and Sirius fell in love. Title: Come In From The Cold Characters/Pairings: Remus/Sirius Summary: The first Hogsmeade weekend of the Marauders’ sixth year. Alternatively: In which Sirius frets and works to keep Remus warm, James argues it’s not that cold, Remus wishes the cold brought something more, and Peter just wishes everyone would get their heads out of their asses. Title: Hourglass Characters/Pairings: Remus/Sirius Summary: Sirius encounters a boy who got mugged. He offers to give him a ride home. Title: time, curious time Pairing: Remus/Sirius Summary: “Do you still remember how it started?” he asks. “How could I forget?” you ask back. Title: Riverbank Pairing: Remus/Sirius Summary: While looking for an escape from his broken family, Sirius finds the riverbank. And a boy with pink hair. Title: A Summertime Thunderstorm Pairing: Remus/Sirius Summary: Summers in Wales were ideal. Sunny, windy, warm without being sweltering… and the perfect time for Remus and Sirius to explore the feelings they’ve been dancing around for the better part of a year. Title: Freedom They Can Reach Pairing: Remus/Sirius Summary: Under rising thunderclouds in late July 1980, Remus and Sirius take a different road towards home or freedom. Title: That Summer was Good to Us Pairing: Remus/Sirius Summary: Summers in Wales were ideal. Sunny, windy, warm without being sweltering… and the perfect time for Remus and Sirius to explore the feelings they’ve been dancing around for the better part of a year. Title: Eye of the Storm Pairing: Draco/Harry Summary: A storm rages blindly around a cabin with no doors. Without magic, Draco and Harry are trapped inside. Title: The cold never bothers me anyway Pairing: Draco/Harry Summary: It takes Harry one pointless mission to the Arctic, three falls into the snow, a few lines from Let It Go, and thousands of floating ice crystals to realize just how beautiful Draco Malfoy is. Title: Brighter Than The Sun Characters/Pairings: Draco/Harry Summary: Draco was promised a relaxing day at the beach. This was certainly not it! Title: Winter has called you [and me] Characters/Pairings: Draco/Harry Summary: Draco decided to visit his aunt in the countryside to be a little bit away from the city. While going back, he didn’t notice a snow storm was coming, trapping him in the snow a few cities away from his aunt’s house. He didn’t expect a handsome man to save him. He also didn’t expect Harry to be his soulmate. Title: A Fault In The Weather Characters/Pairings: Draco/Harry Summary: Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes have brought out a new item: a Portable Swamp. As one of their most trusted amateur prototype testers, Harry is ecstatic to get this latest object. The only problem is that it…doesn’t seem to work. It’s generating storm clouds that sweep through the Hogwarts corridors, and showering the students with rain, hail, and snow. The storms are getting stronger, but Charms Professor Malfoy and DADA Professor Potter are on the case. Title: Key to my heart Pairing: Draco/Harry Summary: Harry Potter gets locked out in the rain. He goes to his neighbour Draco Malfoy for help. Title: (You’ve Gotta) Taste The Rain Pairing: Draco/Harry Summary: Harry can’t take the rat race anymore and quits Auror training just before graduation. He hopes a move to the country will bring him what he’s looking for. He doesn’t factor in a wandering neighbour who turns out to be very familiar. As the rain continues to pour, things get heated. Title: The Locus of the Fracas Pairing: Draco/Harry Summary: Harry is assigned community payback, and it’s all Malfoy’s fault. Title: Only Happy When It Rains Pairing: Draco/Harry Summary: Weather-Be’s, the up-and coming business of Draco Malfoy, guarantees* perfect weather for your event! If you need warm sunshine, Weather-Be’s will provide it. If you want atmospheric fog, we can make that happen. We have a 100%** success rate at giving you the weather you want. | *guarantee invalid if Harry Potter is in attendance | **success rate drops to 97% when Harry Potter’s attendance at events is counted. Title: Golden Daffodils’ Sea Pairing: Draco/Harry Summary: Harry returned to Grimmauld and curled alone in Sirius’ bed, the night weighted on him and he choked with fear. A crack inside him had the shape and sound of their portkey disappearing. He didn’t sleep that night, Fred’s funeral fresh in his mind too. The guilt at his lack of tears or emotions the previous day overwhelmed him and kept his eyes opened so he could feel how undeserving of the Weasley’s love he was. The months after the Battle of Hogwarts are sunny and beautiful, even though it feels like the sky should be falling around Harry. He tries to get through grief while fixing Hogwarts, capture some Death Eaters, return to his last year of school and befriend one Draco Malfoy. However, he’ll have to realize grief is not the only thing he has to fight now that he came back from death. Title: Let him be kind Pairing: Draco/Harry Summary: A ghost is haunting the halls of Malfoy Manor, wailing at all hours of the day. Unfortunately for Draco, the only person to happily offer their ghost-be-gone services was none other than Harry Potter. Title: Forever In My Mind (Be My Golden Sunshine) Pairing: Draco/Harry Summary: Harry Potter flees London and a broken engagement. He finds solace in the vineyards of Châteaux Malfoy and finds a love that he could never have expected. Title: No Rules in a Breakable Heaven Pairing: Draco/Harry Summary: When a magical rainstorm reveals everyone’s deepest desires, Harry learns far more about his friends and colleagues than he ever wanted to know. Worst of all, he suddenly has to face his own deepest desire. Title: What the body wants is coolness Pairing: Draco/Harry Summary: Draco and Harry have been seeing each other for months, and Harry decides the best way to tell their friends is to bring Draco to a group beach outing. Draco’s given up enumerating all the ways this plan could go wrong. Title: Comfort In The Storm Pairing: Harry & Ron Summary: “Storms are even scarier outside of the cupboard. Title: I will answer thy prayers (if thou wouldst drink of my life) Pairing: Voldemort/Harry Summary: Instead of duelling Harry in the graveyard, Voldemort kisses him instead. Title: The summer of 1899 Pairing: Albus/Gellert Summary: The cicadas are humming on that humid summer day when Albus meets Gellert for the first time. What follows is an intense, passionate affair that lasts for one perfect summer. Title: Kick In Characters/Pairings: Severus/Sirius Summary: Severus loves his husband, he really does. Even if his obsessions with nudity and rain drive him crazy sometimes. Title: Unexpected Companion Characters/Pairings: Harry/Theo Summary: While picking up a birthday cake for Hermione in Knockturn Alley, an unexpected rainstorm causes Harry to take shelter where he finds himself bumping into someone he hasn’t seen in quite a while. Title: A Loss of Control Pairing: Draco Malfoy/Hugo Weasley Summary: Bored at yet another Ministry charity event, Hugo goes for a wander and finds himself with someone he never expected to. Title: heartbreak was never so loud Pairing: Marcus/Oliver Summary: Oliver starts out wanting to help Flint fit into the team. Somewhere along the way, he loses his heart to the large, surly Beater. Title: Searching For Comfort Pairing: Snape/Harry Summary: Severus was mostly there for the air-conditioning. He didn’t know it would change his life! Title: What the rainbow never tells me Pairing: James Sirius/Teddy Lupin Summary: When James is challenged with an impossible task—to find the pot of gold at the end of a rainbow—no one expects him to succeed. But what they don’t know is that James has a pretty good in with England’s premier Weather Wizard, Teddy Lupin. Title: His Reward Pairing: Snape/Draco Summary: All Draco wants for Christmas is protection. And snow. Title: Too Good To Be True Pairing: James/Regulus Summary: He couldn’t help but peruse James’ body as he answered his question. It was slowly distracting Regulus, but he couldn’t think about that now. HET Title: Funny Weather You’re Having Pairing: Zach/Luna Summary: Zach notices a strange weather pattern around Luna’s house, and decides to investigate. Title: Windy and Windy Roads Pairing: Ron/Hermione Summary: After a shopping trip in Flourish and Blotts, the wind decides to kidnap Ron’s hat. If only the wind knew what that hat meant to the Granger-Weasleys. If it did, the wind would likely have left it well enough alone. Title: Sitting in the Rain Pairing: Luna/Rolf Summary: Luna is sitting in her garden out in the rain and Harry decides to go out and join her. Title: Storming Love Characters/Pairings: Harry/Daphne Summary: Harry never expected to wake up to a rainstorm in his bedroom without a hole in the roof. Can an owl to Theo break the storm that seems to be following him? Title: Brighter Than The Sun Characters/Pairings: Pansy/Ron Summary: Ron Weasley has found the love of his life. All he needs to do is get the asking right and he’s sure Pansy Parkinson will agree to tie their lives together… if only the weather would cooperate. Title: Weathering The Storm Pairing: Ginny/Blaise Summary: Ginny’s invitation to her first quidditch match as a Harpie has Blaise a bit nervous. The storm brewing in the sky is almost as strong as the storm brewing in his heart. Can they both survive the match and its aftermath? Title: I want to feel the thunder (I want to scream) Pairing: George/Luna Summary: Sometimes things don’t need to be said, but they’re nice to hear anyway (especially when it stops your boyfriend from turning into a frog every time it rains). Title: How It Falls Pairing: Ron/Pansy Summary: Pansy Parkinson wants to live life her own way, but her mother has other ideas—specifically, she wants her to marry a certain type of wizard. Title: Corazón De Mi Alma Pairing: Harry/Hermione Summary: Harry and Hermione travel to Mexico for the repatriation of a cursed Mayan artifact. Title: Pathetic Fallacy Pairing: Hermione/Draco Summary: ‘I have an idea,’ he said quietly, ‘but I don’t think you’re going to like it.’ Title: Suddenly this rain, This defeat Characters/Pairings: Hermione/Draco Summary: A weeks long storm of mysterious origins brings more than just a headache for Hermione Granger. It also brings Draco Malfoy back into her life and her heart in a way she never expected. Title: Anchors In A Storm Pairing: Hermione/Draco Summary: Draco’s current mistake—well, it wasn’t simply one, but three—was a chain of seemingly unconnected events that, when spliced together just so, made one hell of a shit storm. Title: Queen of my heart (long may she rain) Pairing: Hermione/Draco Summary: Draco likes Granger./Granger likes books./This could be useful. Title: Make it Rain Pairing: Hermione/Draco Summary: It is raining the first time Draco Malfoy kisses Hermione Granger. Or more accurately, the first time she kisses him. Title: though she be but little Pairing: Hermione/Draco Summary: He wasn’t Shakespeare, painting pictures with his quill tip; just a boy with a festering mark on his arm and a storm in his head. Title: Shifting Sands Pairing: Hermione/Draco Summary: Hermione notices a discrepancy during an audit. Draco tries to convince her that nothing is amiss. Lightning strikes at least once. Title: Flaming Tears Pairing: Hermione/Draco Summary: He set fire to the rain and watched it pour as it touched her face.

[welcometothefrogparade]

The Alchemist Chronicle Update

Last Spring/Summer I posted the first part of my drarry fic, The Alchemist Chronicle. The first part, A Handful of Snakes, was received very well, which I’m super thankful for. It currently has over 7,000 hits and dozens of comments, which I still can’t wrap my head around. If you’re one of my readers, I just want to extend a big thank you to you! 

I hope you’ll join me as I keep updating the second part, The Lion Codex, over the Winter/Spring of 2021. Like the first part, it will consist of 25 chapters.

Here’s the link to find the Alchemist Chronicle on AO3! 

If you’re not familiar with this work, I’ll paste the introduction here so you may get a better idea of what it’s about. 

“This series is my Drarry canon - it explores in depth the character arch that I think Draco truly deserved. Harry, whose traumatic upbringing often goes ignored, also receives a more humane treatment from an author point of view. In the first part, A Handful of Snakes, we discover what happened to Harry Potter and many of his friends soon after the Battle of Hogwarts, and how he came to know Draco Malfoy and become close with him. Harry and Draco's relationship does not go unnoticed by Draco's family, and it seems he will be forced to cut ties with them for good. At the end of A Handful of Snakes it is revealed that the case of Draco's family feud is much more complex than either Harry or Draco knew to expect. The pair is forced out of their now settled-down life, and in the second part of the Alchemist Chronicle, The Lion Codex, they must embark on a mission to find out once and for all just how much they're willing to risk to stay together.

Notes:

This work is a fanfiction based on the characters and events of the Harry Potter series created by J.K.Rowling. It is mostly according to the currently available canon of the Harry Potter universe (excluding certain historical details about wizard hygiene that never should have never seen the light of day). With that being said, Nymphadora Tonks and Remus Lupin are also still alive in this work. (I simply believe another boy without parents in one series is a bit... overkill, you know?)”

The Alchemist Chronicle is rated M for mature content (smut), and no archive warnings apply. 

[skeptiquewrites]

Draco/Harry Fic Recs

Sometimes people ask me what my favourite all time Drarry is and it really, really depends on my mood but this is my top right now. I cannot maintain a masterlist to save my own life so anything else will show up under my fic rec tag eventually.

Away Childish Things by lettered

Rating: T Word Count: 153k Summary: Harry gets de-aged. Malfoy has to help him. My Pitch: My love letter to this fic is about the fact that I regularly think about it in the idle way the way other people presumably think about what they ate for dinner. I am completely weak for unintentional vulnerability and this trope really takes you there. There is so much restrained tenderness and intimacy. 

The Bucket List by GallaPlacidia

Rating: Not Rated  Word Count:  32k  Summary: Draco will die in six months if he can't get Harry Potter to fall in love with him. Since that's not going to happen, he might as well spend his last days working through his Bucket List. Tap-dancing lessons? Rock climbing? Poetry-writing? Threesomes? Cocaine? Getting to know his adorable cousin, Teddy Lupin? Draco will try them all!  My Pitch: You may ask, if this fic makes me sob uncontrollably why  do I re-read it regularly? 1. Sometimes you need a good cry 2. A reformed cast of Slytherins including my favourite Pansy of all time 3. I really love Draco’s characterization and how Harry reacts to it. Indignant, confused...drawn in? I relate, Harry. 

"Dad says" by GallaPlacidia 

Rating: Not Rated  Word Count: 39k Summary: Eleven-year-old Scorpius starts writing to Harry. Harry starts to fall in love with Draco through his portrayal in his son's letters. Featuring an extremely remorseful Draco living with muggles and working at a second-hand book shop, an isolated Harry, and a Scorpius who's dreading going to Hogwarts because he knows he'll be bullied there. My Pitch: I’m always looking for some complexity in answering the central question of a redemption arc. I love Draco’s Muggle friends, I love the gentle thawing of Andromeda, I love the unfinished business of the HP world post-war. And I’m saying all this conceptual shit but also their romance is beat-for-beat perfect.

Dwelling by aideomai

Rating: T Word Count: 83k Summary: Curses, James and Lily Potter ride again, several Ministry balls, a teenage Summer of Love, a grim young adult dystopian winter, a few different Draco Malfoys, secrets and the problems re: not having any, alternate lives, impossible lives, real lives, allusions to Dirty Dancing, and just because it's not called the Mirror of Erised doesn't mean you shouldn't know better. My Pitch: Another fic that lives rent-free in my head. There’s not much I can say without spoiling it but the atmosphere, the plot, the yearning mixed up with confusion. This fic also uses magic in a delightful, inventive way. 

Remember Me by Hupsoonheng

Rating: T Word Count: 31k Summary: On a chilly day in October, Draco kisses Harry goodbye before he goes on yet another dangerous, undercover mission with the Aurors. And then Harry doesn't come back. Only Draco believes that Harry isn't dead, and pours himself into finding his husband despite his friends' pleas to move on and grieve properly. What he finds at the end of that work, though, is not at all what he wanted. My Pitch: Again, this is THE memory loss fic for me. It could end after the first chapter and it’d be perfect and then you get Connemara and their reconciliation? All the atmosphere and the imperfection and this ENDING. 

Telling The Bees by Cibee  Rating: M Word Count: 31k  Summary: Scorpius’ body was found in Hogwarts one early morning. My Pitch: Grief gets dealt with really, really beautifully in this fic in a way that makes me feel like the writer peered directly into my heart. Because it’s not just sadness and love. Grief can be obsession, it is circling “what if”, it can be unrelenting nothingness and anger. It’s also about the way that love can mean steadfastness in the face of tragedy. 

What We Pretend We Can’t See by gyzym

Rating: M Word Count: 131k Summary: Seven years out from the war, Harry learns the hard truth of old history: it’s never quite as far behind you as you thought. My Pitch: A delicious slow burn fic. It’s familiar for me like sinking into a warm bath, but still gives me the sharpest, biting, funny dialogue every time I re-read, like a shock to the senses.

[vergoftowels]

Epicure - Hannigram Fic

I wrote a fic.  Also posted to AO3.  Set post-S3.

According to the philosophy of Epicurus, fear of death is at the root of human neuroses and one should strive for a life that is peaceful because of the freedom from fear.

Hannibal is struggling to keep his thoughts together after the fall, taking care of his incapacitated lover while slowly succumbing to the ravages of his own wounds. The surrounding silence of winter is full of imaginings he would rather put to rest.

------------------------------

Silverware polish spots the tabletop, soaking into the wood in places where the dark varnish is peeling.  Hannibal draws a fingernail along the wood grain and it comes up tacky.  He rubs the residue away between his fingertips, face impassive but inwardly frowning.  Seventeen spoons, lined up like fallen soldiers along the edge of the table, reflect back his profile in the dim light.  The polish hasn’t quite managed to take off all the patina, and each pitted and discolored silver round seems to say, “beggars can’t be choosers.”  Hannibal scrubs the last spoon with an oil-dirtied handkerchief.

It is close to 4 PM.  The windows in the cramped kitchen are smudged with age and rimed with frost.  The falling snow outside dims the setting winter sun into a pale silver coin, giving the old house a ghostly submarine glow.  In the downstairs hallway, the grandfather clock tick-tocks slightly out of time, sounding strangely muffled.  Hannibal pushes his thumb into the curve of the spoon.  His hands smell like polish now; the whole kitchen does.  The rest of him smells like sweat and blood and antiseptic, masking the unpleasantly sweet stink of infection.  He closes his eyes.  The spoons are part of one reality.  When he opens his eyes, he is part of another.

Florence.  Standing on the Ponte Vecchio, listening to the vendors hawk their art and jewelry, imagining the smell of the butcher shops that originally lined the bridge, stewing in the perfume and body odor of the tourists.  Closed in on either side by the storefronts, cold in a winter breeze, face lit warmly by reflected firelight from wrought-iron lanterns.  Looking out over the water at the graceful arches of the Ponte Santa Trinita.  Remembering a rough little dog waiting for handouts at his feet.  Remembering a craving for Chianina beef and human liver and fresh olive oil.  Imagining the feeling of slim and strong hands on his waist.  Imagining the taste in his throat of aftershave with a ship on the bottle.

Will cries out from the bedroom.  Hannibal rises from the table, folding the handkerchief.  Eighteen spoons on the table’s edge like uniformed corpses.  He hears Taps ringing in some other life as he walks away from them.

(cont.)

“Tutto bene,” Hannibal says in the bedroom, smoothing his hand along Will’s fevered brow, pushing his wet bangs away from his pale and beautiful face.  Saintlike in the firelight, Will rests with his head back, throat bared, eyelids flickering with nightmares.  So exquisite.  St. Francis of Assisi in ecstasy, or St. Sebastian.  He bears the wounds on his body grandly; they are red in the yellow light.  The hollows of his bones and his ruined cheek are heavily shadowed, Carravaggian, painted delicately with a thick brush.  Hannibal runs a hand over Will’s cheek, his jaw, that throat.  He closes his fingers around the pulse point and leans in close.  When he can’t find his English, he murmurs in Italian. Precious.  Mine.  Sometimes, you brought this on yourself.  But Hannibal can’t summon any anger.  He bathes his Will with cold water and meditates on the nature of love and how it’s taken almost everything from him.

Some days are better than others.

There’s no television in this house, but Hannibal has a radio.  He carries it around with him when he’s working.  He listens to NPR and staticky strains of opera as he changes the oil in the truck.  It has been many years since the last time he had to do this, but he hasn’t forgotten how.  He forgets very little, even the things that are better forgotten.  He sings along to E lucevan le stelle under his breath, perfectly pitched but voice cracking with disuse.  He was never a singer.  That doesn’t matter to his audience of air and snow.  He taps his fingers along the truck’s hood, pressing phantom harpsichord keys, until it’s too cold to stay outside.

Hannibal chops firewood with an axe half-dulled by weather, but the blows are rhythmic and soothing.  Not so long ago, he used an axe to fell a glorious red dragon.  What he’s doing now bears little resemblance to how he imagined the life of a knight triumphant, but he minds the spoons: beggars simply cannot be choosers.  He’s been through worse; he lived for three years in his mind, waiting for his foolish heart.  He bends to pick up the split logs and falls to a knee.  The pain is startling still, sometimes, and the twist of the gunshot wound in his stomach knocks the breath out of him.  He doesn’t make a sound.  He has been through much worse.

Mischa watches him from behind the wood pile with her big, dark eyes.  Her little hands rest like snowflakes wherever they fall.  The wide, open fields around Hannibal seem to close in on all sides, dizzyingly, like the rooms in Mischa’s dollhouse.  She smiles at him.  After a long moment, soaked with snow, he struggles to his feet and goes inside.  She isn’t real.

Will talks in his sleep frequently, making querulous pleas for succor or calling names that don’t mean anything to Hannibal.  He doesn’t share the bed anymore.  It’s hardly wide enough for one of them to begin with, and Hannibal doesn’t need another elbow to the stomach.  He almost killed Will for that – knife to that beautiful throat, shaking and sweating in a haze of pain and sleep.  What a waste that would have been.  He still feels sick remembering it now.

He stays in the chair at Will’s bedside and dozes.  He delegates himself to watching over.  Will requires a lot of attention.  They’re running out of medicine.  Hannibal starts breaking the painkillers in half, then he stops taking them himself altogether.  It’s better when Will sleeps through the night.

Hannibal doesn’t sleep much.  He walks the streets of Florence, visiting the Duomo in his mind, visiting the Pazzi family chapel, researching Dante and Sforza and Graham.  Other memories intrude.  He lets the fever find him in his weaker moments when his hands tremble from wiping pus away from his sutures.  A curious physical reaction for a surgeon; so his brain narrates to him as he looks through his cowardly fingers at the angry red lines.  They flicker in his vision like the dying fire in the grate.  He doesn’t ever look too long or he sees faces inside the flames, some he recognizes.

It starts to snow and it doesn’t stop for days.  The wet flakes gather quickly in drifts and make the world silent.  Hannibal keeps the doorways clear with a yellow plastic shovel as best he can, but if he stops and sleeps for an hour, then the snow starts to get too heavy to lift without seeing stars.  He washes Will’s body and feeds him broken pills and drinks a truly terrible bottle of wine that was left by the previous occupants of the house.  He swirls the liquid around and takes in the bouquet out of habit, but it doesn’t help.  Notes of vinegar, and they aren’t subtle.

A black dog comes on the third day of snow.  Hannibal sees it out of the corner of his eye from the attic window.  The shadowed lupine shape stands out against the fields like an inkblot devouring paper, an absence of light.  Blankets smelling of mothballs slip from Hannibal’s (coward) hands when he sees it.  Ice crowds his gullet.  “Perkūnas.”  It’s the name of an old, old god he remembers from childhood stories.  It’s the name of a black dog.  He goes downstairs to make sure that Will is still breathing.  He can’t tell if the howling he hears is coming from the dog, the wind, or himself.

Will stirs in his nightmares and gasps Hannibal’s name.  Hannibal kisses his forehead and holds his hand through the long night, fingers intertwined.

Oh, what would he say if his ever-rational father could see him now?

It doesn’t really matter now.  His father’s brains were eaten by wolves.  He dreams about them steaming in the snow on a night like tonight, jellylike and pink with blood, and the smell of burning metal and rubber, and the smell of gunpowder and death.  He is grateful, when he wakes, that the acrid taste of vomit banishes the imagined texture of grey matter on his tongue.  

Hannibal knows he’s seeing things.  He sees the wolves in the trees at twilight, disappearing between the pines, disguised by the heavy branches mounded with snow.  Ghosts in the long night.  He sees tracks at the doors, circling the house.  Each toeprint tipped by a claw mark.  And then there are the boot prints, too.  It varies from hour to hour whether he thinks they belong to the FBI or to the Hilfswillige.  The thought that either one has found them fills him with a desperate sense of purpose; he stands in front of Will’s bed with a knife in hand, watching the doorway for hours.  He knows no one is coming in.  Physician, heal thyself.  The shadows still feel like monsters even when he knows they cannot be.

He sees the black dog again.  Outside, it walks with Mischa, stalking her steps.  She moves with childish grace, plays like violins between the drifts.  The strings are dogged by French horns.  Petya i volk.  Notes spill from his mind into the waking world.  Hannibal wants to go to her, to lift her from the snow, to feel her tiny, star-shaped hands on his face.  Her hair is long and curling in her face.  Her smile is like the sun.  He reminds himself often that the pain in his arm is from his fall into the sea, not from reaching after her and having the barn door slammed closed on him.

She disappears when he rushes outside to her, stumbling without shoes.  Down to his knees again in the snow.  She isn’t real.  The sun is fading from the world.  Look inside the belly of the wolf and find it swallowed alive.

In the evening (some evening, what day is it) Hannibal runs hot water over his wound, looking into the ugly, puckering skin, shivering and sopping up the pus.  It’s very cold.  Has he brought in enough firewood?  Breathing is a labor and his mouth is dry, like he’s sucking on wool.  He reminds himself that he’s been through worse and lies back down on the floor.  (This is getting to be pretty bad.)

Maybe the dog is here for him?  

He never thinks about what comes after.  He thinks about his earliest memory and projects forward to what he imagines will be the moment of his death.  He didn’t imagine he would be dying of a septic gunshot wound, laid out on greying tile in a borrowed bathroom.  Something more glamorous would have suited him better.  An aneurysm at the height of a crescendo.  Being crushed to death under a crystal chandelier.  Or, indeed, falling from a cliff with his darkened and debauched lover in an unwitting murder-suicide.

But they lived.  They lived to decline.  Hannibal feels tears wetting his face.  He doesn’t want to go yet.  He finally has what he wants.  He closes his eyes.  Some time passes in darkness and the sound of surf, no, the sound of the river Arno washing against the Ponte Vecchio.  Prokofiev playing.  Salt smell of prosciutto, olive oil.  Someone is touching his cheek.

“Mischa?”

“Shh,” says Will.  “I’m here.”

---

Will is half-silhouetted against the bedroom window, hair long and falling into his face.  He’s very thin, swimming in a sweater pulled from one of the room’s dressers, but his eyes are clear.  His cheek isn’t healing very nicely, but at least it’s healing.  Hannibal tries to reach for Will, but his arm won’t move.  Broken by the barn door?  He’s struck by the thought that this is a dream, that all of this has been a dream he created in the white, geometric interior of his cell at Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane - maybe he’s finally, actually gone insane?  Then Will is there, gently freeing his hand from the heavy bedclothes and taking it between his palms.

“Hey,” Will says, attempting a smile.  The scar pulls at his lips.  The warmth in his gaze is genuine.  “You’re back.”

“Dove sono andato?” Hannibal asks, or thinks he asks.  Where did I go?  Will tilts his head, and after a moment Hannibal realizes he didn’t understand.  His mind roves over letters and words, picking them up and putting them down like seashells collected from a stormy shore.  By the time he finds the right ones, he’s forgotten what he wanted to say.  It doesn’t matter; Will has leaned down to kiss him softly.  Their mouths meet for the first time, and a feeling rises in Hannibal’s chest, a warmth, a pressure that settles in his throat.  He takes Will’s wrist in a tight grip.  “Non lasciarmi,” he says, curses his fumbling tongue, but the meaning this time seems clear.  Will rests their foreheads together.

"I’m staying, Hannibal.”  Will squeezes his hand.  “This time we’ll be together.”

Some days are better than others.

Hannibal doesn’t enjoy taking over the role of “the bedridden.” He doesn’t enjoy the weakness in his limbs or the ache of his unused muscles.  He sleeps, struggles, sleeps again.  He sicks up ill-gotten antibiotics and oversalted chicken broth patronizingly spoon-fed to him by a frustratingly patient Will.  There are long afternoons when he can do nothing but listen to the fire or the radio, alone.  He chafes in the emptiness, resents his dependence.  The Florence in his mind is full of unintended associations now, and he hides from them elsewhere, poring over medical texts in the Eisenhower Library at Johns Hopkins or listening to the Goldberg Variations playing endlessly on loop at the Bach House in Eisenach.  He dreams of Mischa often, but he doesn’t see her anymore, and this is a kindness.

He sees the black dog again.  After days of recumbency, missing Will, he’s pulls himself up, finally, from the confines of the bedroom and is determined to sit in the kitchen.  At least it will be a change of scenery.  He can take in the silver sunlight and polish the spoons.  He can advise Will on how to make a proper bowl of soup, with silkie, red dates, and goji berries; it will fall on deaf ears, he’s sure, and anyway, all the food they have is in cans.  Still, he can’t abide the idea of eating like this forever.  Will will have to learn to cook.  Hannibal crosses the den, one hand on the wall for support, tracing the faded flower pattern of the dated wallpaper.  And there’s the dog, sitting in the kitchen doorway, forelimbs stretched out before it like Tutankhamun’s Anubis Shrine.

Hannibal must make some sound (of fear, potentially, though he prefers to think dismay) because Will comes down the stairs at speed, somewhat dusty and trailing an extension cord.

“Hey, it’s okay,” he says, “It’s okay.”  He touches Hannibal’s shoulder, then goes to the dog, half-crouching, to take it by the scruff.  “I found her outside.  Good girl.  This is Hannibal.  See?  She’s really friendly!”  He half-smiles up at Hannibal with a note of pleading in his voice.  “I thought we could keep her.”  His eyes look very blue today in the silver winter light.

Hannibal swears under his breath in Russian like the stable hands used to.  They have no room for a dog in this house.  There might be space enough, but the corners are crowded with fears and doubt, the threat of capture lurks under the windows, the future flees through every crack.  They can barely feed themselves from what they have.  And every time Hannibal looks at the dog, he sees death waiting for them.  He doesn’t say that part out loud – cannot.  It’s the spiraling clamor of his dying mind; it’s a thought that should be discarded.  He looks at the dog and he looks away.

Will makes a show of listening very seriously to his concerns – the ones that make sense, the ones Hannibal can give voice to – his blue eyes wide and attentive.  He doesn’t say anything.  As Hannibal starts to wind down, tone going ever so slightly bitter, Will rests his chin on the dog’s head.  All innocence, all charm.  He will never belong fully to Hannibal.

“Her name is Sadie.”

Will, Hannibal, and the dog stay in the house until Hannibal can stay up for the whole day, carry a backpack, bear the close touch of a jacket over his stomach. Until there are no more instances of lost words or confusing nights when Hannibal forgets where he is and tells Will to bar the door against looters and worse.  They don’t talk about that.  Instead, they talk about leaving.  It turns out that Will has found an old computer in the attic, stashed away under a worn pile of clothes, and he’s been fixing it up in the between hours.  With a little bit of elbow grease and the unintended generosity of unknown neighbors with an unsecured wireless signal, they have internet access.

It feels strange to broach the outside world again.  The submarine atmosphere of the old house pops like a bubble full of smoke and spills them into the resumption of time.

News sites are still talking about them, some more vociferously than others.  They were tracked to the cliffside by dogs and crime scene analysis, but vanished altogether thereafter.  Freddie Lounds has pitched a daring helicopter escape to Cuba.  They’ll be going north, then.  Jack appears suddenly on CNN in a three-minute feature segment and scares them both, like a specter bursting suddenly from a darkened closet.  Jack doesn’t think they’re dead, and they’re not, and they shouldn’t linger.

“Time to go,” Will says, after they’ve packed up the truck.  The back seat is full of all their scavenged wealth: the blankets and clothes and cans and the last of the medicines, all they can fit and find use for.  Sadie sits in the footwell, resting her chin on the center console and slowly wagging her tail.  Will gets into the driver’s seat.  “Where to?”

The sun is setting and the trees are casting wide nets of shadow over the fields in front of them.  The interior of the cabin smells like cracked leather, old smoke, and the ghost of a pine-shaped air freshener.  Will smells like soap and healthy sweat and mothballs.  Hannibal kisses his jaw.  All they have is now.  All they have is each other, a truck, and an ominous black dog.  

“Wherever you want to go, beloved.”

[writsgrimmyblog]

Writcraft’s 2018 Fic List

Now that Erised reveals are up, I can finally post my fic list of 2018 and do one of those summary memes I’ve been dying to post. Better late than never! 

2018 was a year of faltering muses then writing in quick, intense bursts of inspiration. When I look back on 2018, although there are one or two works I’m not overly satisfied with, some of the things I’ve written are personal favourites when I reflect on the fanfic I’ve produced over the years. I’m going to answer some yearly evaluation questions, but here’s my list of 2018 fics and as a self-contained post. This list doesn’t include ficlets posted on Tumblr only.

Number of Fics Written in 2018: 36 if you count the 10 chapters of my Festive 500s that published in 2018. The final 10 of those are going up in the next few days too, I promise. 

Total 2018 Published Word Count: 341,000. Although 31,000 of that total includes a co-write, we edited each others words too and worked on the fic as a whole together. I have also underestimated how much I wrote on LLM this year and not counted some drabbles and tumblr ficlets, so I think this total is about right.

Most Written Pairing: 

Harry Potter Fandom: Harry Potter/Draco Malfoy 

R1 RPF / 1D: Nick Grimshaw/Louis Tomlinson

Fests (Moderator): Harry Potter Kinkfest, Harry Potter Horror Fest, Harry/Draco Big Bang, Grimmy Appreciation Fest

Fests (Participant): Secret Snarry Swap, HD Erised, HD Fan Fair, Sirius Black Fest, Harry/Draco Big Bang, HP Femslash Minis (November Challenge), Harry’s Birthday Mini Fest, Drarry Discord Rare Pair Challenge, Snarry-A-Thon, HP Goldenage, HP Horror Fest, HP Kinkfest, Tomlinshaw Exchange, Grimmy Appreciation Fest

The full list of the fics I published on AO3 are below the cut.

HARRY POTTER FANDOM

Harry Potter and The Bisexual Awakening written for @hd-erised

Harry Potter/Draco Malfoy | 23,186

Harry is perfectly content being single, heterosexual and living in Godric's Hollow with his very clingy rescue dog, Snitch. When Draco Malfoy turns up on Harry's doorstep demanding that Harry teach him how to drive, things quickly become a lot more complicated.

In The Palm of His Hand written for Secret Snarry Swap

Harry Potter/Severus Snape | 6,969

Harry has a thing for Snape’s hands. Snape indulges him.

Slice of Life written for @hd-fan-fair with art by @phoenixacid

Harry Potter/Draco Malfoy | 16,300

Luna and Ginny are worried about Harry, Greg is a very a fine baker, Snape’s portrait has a lot of opinions and Draco Malfoy is (probably) up to something. 

In which one man’s love for jam tarts blossoms into a different kind of love entirely.

Winter of ’79 written for @siriusblackfest | Little Compton Street Series

Sirius Black/James Potter | 17,000

Post-punk Britain is in the grip of another brutal winter, Thatcher is in power and Muggle gay bars keep getting raided for no reason at all. Sirius just wants to find somewhere to go drinking with the best mate he definitely doesn’t fancy. When they’re directed towards a tatty Soho sex shop during a night out, neither James or Sirius expect to find a magical street that will change their lives forever.

Little Compton Street (One Rainy Night in Soho) written for @harrydracobang with art by @llap115-reblogs | Little Compton Street Series

Harry Potter/Draco Malfoy | 65,500

Draco is lonely, Harry hates the press and it won’t stop raining in London. Harry discovers a magical street that’s close to disappearing forever and Draco realises he’s one rainy night in Soho away from finding everything he’s been searching for.

Independent Love Song written for @hpfemslash-minifest

Millicent Bulstrode/Ginny Weasley | 6,300

Millicent Bulstrode is a tailor and Ginny is losing her mind over a woman in a tweed blazer and burgundy brogues.

Dirty Talk

Harry Potter/Draco Malfoy | 3,000

Harry is rapidly becoming obsessed with Draco's mouth.

Sky Full of Song written for @harrybirthdayblog 

Harry Potter/Draco Malfoy | 2,000 (podfic by semperfiona here)

Draco turns up at Harry's birthday party unexpectedly and Harry takes a leap of faith.

Treading Water written for the Drarry Discord Rare Pair Challenge

James Potter/Sirius Black | 2,000

I’m sorry, Sirius wants to say. I’m sorry people in this stupid world made you think loving me could only ever be a joke.

Ten Points to Gryffindor written for the Drarry Discord Rare Pair Challenge

Harry Potter/Severus Snape | 2,000

Harry is of the opinion that using a desk solely to mark papers is a wasted opportunity. He decides to take up the matter with Severus.

Stone Butch Blues written for the Drarry Discord Rare Pair Challenge

Minerva McGonagall/Wilhelmina (Wil) Grubbly-Plank | 2,000

Wil and Min reminisce.

Potterzine written for Snarry-a-Thon

Harry Potter/Severus Snape | 11,000

When Severus Snape finds a fanzine with a picture of Professor Potter in a compromising position with Draco Malfoy on the cover, he confronts Potter about the offending literature. Severus probably should have looked inside, because it turns out some of Potterzine’s writers have a different suitor in mind.

Not Even A Little Bit

Harry Potter/Severus Snape | 2,000

Harry is asked to investigate Severus Snape. This isn't going to go badly at all.

Maybe Just A Midnight Rendezvous

Harry Potter/Draco Malfoy | 3,900

Harry's back in London and he's determined to show Draco how things have changed.

Life Has Just Begun written for HP Goldenage

Harry Potter/Severus Snape | 6,200

Harry has been carrying the weight of his secret desires for a long time. Severus is there when he’s finally ready to talk.

Dysphoria (poetry and art) written and drawn for Harry Potter Horror Fest

Teddy Lupin | 250 (please heed content tags)

Who is it here who can tell me who I am?

Take Him to the Stars (Cut to the Feeling) written for @hpkinkfest

Harry Potter/Scorpius Malfoy | 9,800

Scorpius has a thing for older men. For one older man in particular.

Bedroom Hymns

Harry Potter/Draco Malfoy | 11,200

Harry asks Draco for dinner out of the blue. Draco’s about to find out that dinner isn’t the only thing on Harry’s mind.

Lonely Without Him (Everything Changes But You)

Harry Potter/Severus Snape | 3,500

Severus hasn't celebrated his birthday for years. Harry decides it's time for that to change.

Don’t Stop Believing

Remus Lupin/Sirius Black, Implied Sirius/James Potter and Sirius/Remus/James | 1,800

Sirius looks up at Remus and he’s close enough that Remus could count every one of his eyelashes, if he wanted. He drinks in the glint in Sirius’s eyes, the lazy curve of his smile and the light shadows under his eyes.

RADIO ONE RPF / ONE DIRECTION FANDOM

Stuck In The Middle (Of Nowhere) With You written for @tomlinshawexchange

Nick Grimshaw/Louis Tomlinson | 10,500

Nick throws a party at Soho Farmhouse's new Yorkshire retreat, to celebrate his X-Factor victory.

He didn't anticipate getting trapped in the middle of nowhere with rival judge Louis Tomlinson, who's a terrible duvet thief and a surprisingly good kisser. Not that Nick's been thinking about that last part for the past three weeks. Much.

Nick and Harry’s Infinite Playlist written for @grimmyappreciation

Nick Grimshaw/Harry Styles | 13,400

At an indeterminate point in the future it happens, just when Nick least expects it.

Lost and Found co-authored with @shiftylinguini for @grimmyappreciation

Nick Grimshaw/Louis Tomlinson | 31,400

In a year when things are coming to an end for Nick, an unexpected chapter begins at the start of a long, hot summer. An accidental romance in Malta. Featuring Annie on the decks, Nick and Louis below deck, a handful of bad nautical puns and weather that's far too hot for trackies.

Knead You Now written for @silveredsound

Nick Grimshaw/Louis Tomlinson | 11,400

Harry used to be a baker, Louis definitely didn't and Nick just wants to know how the fuck they got into his kitchen.

Little Lion Man

Nick Grimshaw/Louis Tomlinson | 123,600

It’s his final year at Hogwarts, and Louis can’t wait to leave for good. He hates being in Gryffindor and he can’t even enjoy a smoke with the Slytherins now his best mate Zayn’s fucked off to Durmstrang. Louis would be completely miserable if not for WWN and Nick Grimshaw. As Louis tries to negotiate coming of age, homophobia in the wizarding world and his growing feelings for Nick, a new evil emerges which puts Louis and Nick in serious danger. Louis is about to learn exactly how brave he can be as he finds himself fighting for his life, his friends and everything he’s ever loved.

SUPERNATURAL FANDOM

Baby Love

Dean Winchester/Castiel | 3,000

Dean and Castiel share a moment in the Impala.

MULTI-FANDOM

Festive 500s (chapters published in 2018 only)

Chapter One: Introduction  Chapter Two:  His Wasted Heart (Albus Dumbledore/Gellert Grindelwald) Chapter Three: Vanilla (Harry Potter/Draco Malfoy) Chapter Four: Just Like A Movie (Nick Grimshaw/Harry Styles) Chapter Five: Festive Friendship (Severus Snape, Minerva McGonagall) Chapter Six: Beware of Gryffindors Bearing Gifts (Severus Snape/Harry Potter) Chapter Seven: Ways To Say ‘I Love You’ (Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter) Chapter Eight: Darling So It Goes (Minerva McGonagall/Wilhelmina Grubbly-Plank) Chapter Nine: Desperate (Harry Potter/Scorpius Malfoy) Chapter Ten: Phoenix (Harry Potter/Draco Malfoy)

[blitheringmcgonagall]

Chapters: 10/? Fandom: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling Rating: Not Rated Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: James Potter/Lily Evans Potter, Sirius Black/Remus Lupin Additional Tags: wolfstar, jily, Marauders Medical AU, jily fic - Freeform, wolfstar fic, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Minor Character Deaths, Angst, Fluff, jily au, Wolfstar AU, Snape is a pervert, fenrir is a psychopath, referenced violent relationship, cursing  Ended up posting two chapters cause one was too long!! Hope you enjoy...

James Potter was arrested for possession of drugs with intention to supply. What happens next?

t

                      Don’t Know How Much I Can Take

Morning before the arrest…

“I’ve been meaning to ask you for a long time. Why did you ignore me afterwards, the time we kissed at the Med Ball? I was so confused,” said Sirius.

He was lying in bed beside Remus, warm and exhausted and happy.

“oh, that,” said Remus, grimacing and falling back onto his pillow.

Remus sighed and glanced at his boyfriend. Sirius looked dishevelled, if not debauched, yet languidly relaxed. Unbelievably attractive.

“I don’t think even you realise just how gorgeous you are! I was mad about you. I guessed you were flirting with me for months, but I was too frightened after the whole…”

“Car thingy,” supplied Sirius immediately; he didn’t like seeing Remus’ face whenever he mentioned that traumatic episode.

“Yeah, car thingy,” smiled Remus, kissing Sirius’ hand lightly.

“And?” said Sirius eagerly.

“And then I couldn’t take my eyes off you that night, I didn’t think. Just acted,” shrugged Remus.

“You were beautiful, I still remember you in the starlight. Fucking beautiful,” said Sirius reverently.

Remus rolled his eyes. He was dreadful at accepting compliments.

“Avery had been threatening me for a few months at that stage, had somehow found out I was gay. I was anxious after kissing you in case he made good on his threats. When I went back to sit in my car to clear my head. Avery cornered me and told me if I didn’t leave you alone, he’d tell your parents and get you disowned. Or worse,” said Remus. “I wasn’t sure what to do. Then I overheard you talking to Snape and Rosier, denying you were gay. I thought maybe I didn’t mean anything to you.”

He looked at Sirius again.

“Fuck Avery!” said Sirius. “Shit! I feel so bad that you heard what I said to those two bastards! I panicked, I was terrified they’d tell my parents. I was scared of them, my parents, not those two idiots!”

“It’s alright, Sirius, I understand,” said Remus, placing his hand over Sirius’.

“I told them though, that morning, told them the truth,” said Sirius, his eyes filled with anger and hurt. “That was the last time I spoke to them, or saw them. They kicked me out. Disowned me.”

“They did what?” said Remus, horrified.

“I’m glad I told them, Remus,” said Sirius, holding on to his boyfriend’s hand. “It was eating me up inside. It was all a lie. I couldn’t have stayed there any longer. They are horrible people, Remus. Racists and bigots and homophobic and…”

He tried not to think about Reg, about what must have happened to him. But sometimes he couldn’t help himself.

“I didn’t know,” said Remus, his voice wavered. “I did it to protect you. All that time… I didn’t know. And then you disappeared, stopped attending college. I didn’t know the full story.”

“We can’t change the past,” said Sirius, sinking back onto the bed. “You’re here now. You make me so happy.”

“I know,” Remus’ lips twitched upwards.

“Is it too early to tell you I’m in love with you?” asked Sirius, staring up into Remus’ eyes.

“Probably,” said Remus smiling.

Sirius saw the look of amusement and joy on his boyfriend’s face, sheer joy, and marvelled at the change in him. He knew that was also due to therapy, over the last few months. Still…

“A short run of mad, passionate lovemaking with Dr. Sirius Black and you’re a new man!” he said playfully, running his index finger over Remus’ lower lip.

“It probably is too early, but I’ll say it anyway – I’m madly in love with you, Sirius,” said Remus, running his hands through Sirius’ straight, silky hair.

Sirius blinked twice.

“Managed to shut you up, for once, have I?” Remus said, with a gleam in his eyes.

Sirius’ grey eyes continued looking at him with confusion.

“Come here!” said Sirius, recovering from shock and pulling Remus down on top of him to kiss him hungrily.

“I love you, Remus Lupin!” Sirius whispered urgently, covering his boyfriend’s face, neck and chest with kisses.

“We’re supposed to be getting ready for work,” groaned Remus, doing nothing to stop Sirius’ ministrations.

“You can’t say things like that and expect to get away scot-free!” said Sirius, winking at Remus seductively. “Remember – mad, passionate love-making? You and me? In love?”

“I remember, we’ve literally just done that this morning,” muttered Remus, finding Sirius’ lips again.

“So? Nothing stopping us doing it again, is there?” said Sirius.

“Yes, I have to… oh screw that!” said Remus, losing control.

“I’m irresistible, say it!” said Sirius, arching into him.

“You’re irresponsible,” said Remus.

“Same difference,” said Sirius breathlessly.

……………………………

“Come on, Lily, stop being a lazy git and get out of bed!” Lily muttered to herself crossly.

She sat on the edge of her bed and groaned, as another wave of nausea hit her.

“Ugh!” she said, lying back down again immediately. “What is wrong with me!”

She was beginning to think that maybe her self-diagnosis of Winter Vomiting Bug was wrong. It should have cleared up by now. She thought last night she was better. Now she wasn’t sure if she could get up and drive into work without vomiting.

Leaning back into her pillow, looking at the sunlight streaming into the tiny cottage, she smiled absentmindedly, thinking about James, and their conversation in her house the previous night.

“I’ve been offered a job in the States, it’s a research post, in Boston,” she had said, biting her lip.

“I know,” said James smiling at her proudly. “I’m not surprised, you’re incredible! You deserve it.”

“Yeah, but…” she hesitated.

“Are you worried how it might affect us?” he asked, stroking her hair softly.

“Yeah,” she said, turning her head to look him in the eye. “I don’t want to ruin this… us…”

“I’ll wait for you,” he said soothingly. “I’m not letting you get away from me that easily, not after waiting so long! If that’s what you want?”

“Of course it’s what I want!” said Lily, staring into his warm, hazel eyes. “I’m wondering if I should go or not?”

“Don’t be daft,” he admonished, kissing the top of her head. “You’ve worked so hard for this. You shouldn’t sacrifice your career because of me! I could try to sit the USMLE exams and see if I could take a year or two off the scheme and move over with you.”

She sat up and turned towards him.

“James, that’s too much, trying to sit those awful American exams! You’re meant to be sitting the Membership exams as well. You just won’t have time for all that!” she said, brushing her fingertips over his chest.

“You forget that I’m frighteningly intelligent!” he grinned at her.

“I don’t forget!” she rolled her eyes fondly. “I’ll never forget Tom Suffolk reading out our exam results in Fourth Year and stopping with utter disbelief when you came second. Despite doing practically nothing all year!”

“I may have exaggerated the extent of my slacking!” he laughed good humouredly. “Trying to make myself look cool in front of a certain red-head I was desperately trying to impress!”

“What an eejit!” she said, leaning over and planting kisses on his chest and shoulders.

He winked at her.

“I’m very serious! I’m going to sit those damned exams and see what happens. If I pass them, excellent. If not, I’ll just have to save up and come over to annoy you as often as I can,” he said in a low voice.

In the back of his mind he was trying to reconcile his monthly earnings and the cost of travelling to the U.S.

“Hell yes!” she said, her large green eyes filled with longing. “I won’t be able to stand it if I can’t see you regularly. I don’t think I could stick it out. And I can’t have some beautiful Irish woman steal you away from me!”

She moved up and pressed her lips to his.

“This is the only Irish woman for me,” he said, kissing her back. “The only woman.”

“James Potter, stop saying things like that!” she said, feeling her heart rate pick up. “You’re driving me wild.”

“Make me stop,” he challenged.

She stared at the man underneath her.

“You’re unreal!” she laughed breathlessly.

“That’s how it’s always been with us, very competitive,” he said, raising his eyebrows.

He was perfect. In every way.

“Just watch me,” she said.

Sunday, Forty-eight hours after the arrest of Dr. James Potter…

“Dr. Potter, I think its only fair to point out that it’s not looking good, you know.”

James looked at the grey-haired woman in front of him and snorted.

“Really? I thought I was in with a reasonable chance,” he said dryly.

“Well, stwictly speaking, no,” the tight-lipped solicitor replied cautiously, her pronunciation difficulties accentuated by her anxiety. “I’m afwaid that the evidence against you is wather overwhelming-“

“I’m joking, Pince,” said James, giving a short humourless laugh. “I know what it looks like.”

Irma Pince cleared her throat and looked up over her reading glasses.

“I should pwobably point out that it would be pwudent to consider entewing a guilty plea. You’ll still get the mandatowy sentence but if you offer to coopewate with the Gardai, pwovide information on the cwiminal gang involved and-“

“Pince, there’s zero chance of me entering a guilty plea so you can scrap that idea immediately, alright?” said James, taking off his glasses and rubbing his eyes.

Keep reading:

Chapter 9: Don't Know How Much I Can Take

[juniper-and-lamplight]

Updated December 25, 2018

A collection of my yearly Holiday Fic Countdown recs, listed alphabetically by fandom & author and linked to the original recs (so you can click through if you want to read my lengthy notes). Recs below the cut, and happy holidays!

Brooklyn Nine-Nine as cuddly as a cactus, hardlygolden, 1k, General audiences "'There is an elf. On my shelf,' Captain Holt pronounces. It’s entirely possible he sounds more aggrieved than usual - Jake can never tell." Original rec.

Cabin Pressure Christmas in Helsinki, Lucyemers, 2.3k, General audiences “Ms. Knapp-Schappey?” “Yes?” “I’ve been sent to fetch you”, she responds, all smiles. “Don’t be ridiculous! Do you know what time it is?” She continues, ignoring her protests,“To Christmas in Helsinki.” Original rec.

Check, Please! Winner Bakes It All, akaparalian, 3k, Teen and up, Bitty/Jack "There are some truly, uniquely incredible smells coming from the Haus kitchen; in fact, more even than that, there are baking smells coming from the Haus kitchen. This, in and of itself, is far from unusual three semesters into one Eric Bittle's tenure as the unofficial bakemeister of Samwell Hockey. In fact, on such a lovely Sunday afternoon in early December, it might even be expected. Really, there's no cause for alarm. Except for the fact that Bitty's not here." Original rec.

From Me To You, IBoatedHere, 4.1k, General audiences, Jack/Bitty "Jack finds the book by accident. Knitting For The Absolute Beginner." Original rec.

Love And All The Other Intangibles, IBoatedHere, 4.8k, General audiences, Jack/Bitty "Eric Bittle's fraught and opaque relationship with Christmas." Original rec.

Only gift that I need, by Signe_chan, 2.7k, Teen and up, Ransom/Holster "Ransom had kind of been expecting something in the mail, but when he got home, his post box was empty. It was weird. It was the first night of Hanukkah and Holster normally loved Hanukkah." Original rec.

Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency Blood Is Thicker Than Water (But You Know What's Even Thicker? Cookie Dough. Tastes Better, Too.), DontOffendTheBees, 3k, Teen and up, Dirk/Todd "'Dirk… you know how to make cookies, right?' The detective glanced between Todd and the ingredients, brow furrowing. 'Actually, I was rather hoping you did…' Todd sighed. He was gonna need another beer. 'Let’s Google it.' In which Dirk and Todd ill-advisedly try to bake cheer-up cookies for Farah at 3am, and maybe confront some feelings in the process." Original rec. 

To Give Meaning, electricteatime, 2k, Teen and up, Dirk/Todd In which sometimes the meaning behind the gift is the most important thing of all, and sometimes Todd gets it all right (for a change.)"  Original rec.

all roads lead home, GabbyD, 3k, Gen "It’s the little things about Christmas that truly make it all feel like family. Or, how each character and group learns to cope with the events of the first season as they experience Christmas together for the first time." Original rec.

Baby, it's cold outside, HolisticPanda, 2k, Teen and up, Bart & Ken "Bart doesn't like the snow." Original rec.

Unimaginable (or, Six Different Flavors of Holiday-Themed Lip Balm), juniper_and_lamplight, 1.9k, M, Farah/Tina “She’s not the sort of person Farah would’ve expected to fall for, if she’d expected to fall for anyone, and just looking at her fills Farah's chest with a wild, buoyant tenderness, like her heart might actually be expanding. It’s the opposite of a panic attack, though it leaves her with the same dry mouth and racing pulse.” Am I reccing my own Christmas fic? YOU BET I AM.

If The Fates Allow, by lavellington, 6.9k, Teen and up, Dirk/Todd "Dirk was familiar with Christmas in theory but not practice. Todd and Farah were happy to go along for the ride." Original rec.

A Very Dirk Gently Christmas, thats_entirely_too_much_tuna, 20.5k, Teen and up, Dirk/Todd "'I’m going to teach you to love Christmas again, Todd,' Dirk informed him. 'I’ve decided.'" Original rec.

Mittens, yeaka, 1k, Teen and up, Panto/Silas "Silas attends the winter festival." Original rec.

Doctor Who & Torchwood The Education of Ianto Jones, Verasteine, 3k, Mature, Jack/Ianto  "Ianto Jones had grown up with a world view of straight couples. Now he knows different." Original rec.

Unsinkable, versaphile, 4k, Tenth Doctor/Jack "Post-Voyage of the Damned. The Doctor has nowhere to go, and ends up in Cardiff." Original rec.

Firefly Consecration, by fox1013, 3k, General audiences "We have done the impossible, and that makes us mighty." Original rec.

Gilmore Girls Suggestions (And Mallomars), Mosca, 3.3k, Teen and up, Rory/Paris "Identity, chocolate, mother-daughter relations, and the importance of voting: scenes from the first 90 days." Original rec.

Good Omens How Crowley Saved Christmas, such_heights, 1k, General audiences, Crowley & Aziraphale "It was 1842, and Aziraphale really didn’t want to do it." Original rec.

Harry Potter God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen, blamebrampton, 8k, General audiences, Harry/Draco   "Draco hasn't been seeking refuge in religion, just in London's most famous church. The fact that it's on the daily route of Britain's most famous Auror is total coincidence, he's really there for the music." Original rec.

Bitter Honey, Green Night, Faith Wood, 14k, Explicit, Harry/Draco "An inn, an Auror, a criminal, a mystery." Original rec.

As Souls from Bodies Steal, femmequixotic, 40k, Explicit, Harry/Draco “Hope may be found in the oddest of places, even in the bleakness of winter.” Original rec. 

Matchmaker, Matchmaker, firethesound, 12k, Mature, Harry/Draco "Sometimes Harry can't help but wonder why such strange shit always happens to him." Original rec.

All Our New Years, Frayach, 2k, Mature, Harry/Draco "It takes too many New Year's Eves without each other but eventually they get it right."  Original rec.

The Price We Pay for Wings, Frayach, read by raitala, 13k, 80min, Mature, Harry/Draco “Scorpius Draconis Eltanin Malfoy read the first book in the Alford Ocamy series over Christmas hols when he was eleven. Well, he didn’t so much “read” it as he devoured it.” Original rec.

Here’s the Pencil, Make It Work, ignatiustrout, 49k, Mature, Harry/Draco  "Harry thinks ‘Why is Malfoy working in a coffee shop in muggle London?’ is a much simpler question than, ‘Are you going to accept that auror offer and, if you don't, what will you do?'" Original rec.

An Act of Rebellion: Eight Nights of Hope, katmarajade, 1k, General audiences "During the Carrows' reign of terror, Anthony decides to bring his House together in a surprising way." Original rec.

Nine Regrettably Short Stories About Sirius Black and Things That Happened On or Around Christmas, librae, 3k, unrated, Remus/Sirius "The problem was, of course, that it was Christmastime. The problem, of course, being that Sirius had stolen them away in the night - or the daytime, if you wanted to be technical - all so they could have the inaugural Christmas feast in his flat, which was blaring white and freezing." Original rec.

Winter Like a Balm, Lomonaaeren, 2k, Teen and up, Ginny/Luna "The first winter after Fred's death, Ginny escapes into the Forbidden Forest with Luna and her unicorns." Original rec.

Let Nothing You Dismay, montparnasse, 19k, Mature, Remus/Sirius "There are a few things Sirius really didn't count on for Christmas of 1979. The extreme sexual confusion is one of them; Remus Lupin is approximately seventy-eight of the rest." Original rec.

Elucidation Practice, montparnasse, 21.3k, Mature, Remus/Sirius "Christmas, 1978. Remus, wrestling with the mighty problems of gift-giving on a budget, contemplates life, love, London in winter, and falling off the edge of the world with Sirius Black." Original rec. 

Christmas 1980, nightswatch, 4.9k, Teen and up, Remus/Sirius "Remus comes home from an Order mission on Christmas Eve. He's not so sure if Sirius actually wants to see him." Original rec.

Vector, by rageprufrock, 13k, Mature, Remus/Sirius "Mathematics: A quantity, such as velocity, completely specified by a magnitude and a direction. / 3. A force or influence." Original rec.

Six Christmases, thistle_verse, 4.8k, Mature, Harry/Draco "Care is a magic shaped by relation; it alters and winds its way through all spaces. It is always on the move, always changing its shape, and sometimes— it turned into love. Harry felt, finally, like all his various perspectives on Draco Malfoy over the years had clicked into place, simultaneous and one. He felt certain he could love this man through every view, from any side of before or after." Original rec.

Christmas at The Dog and Duck, writcraft, 9k, Explicit, Harry/Draco "Because life has a habit of conspiring against him, Harry finds himself on a weekend away with Malfoy. The fact he can’t forget that one, searing kiss is definitely going to be a problem." Original rec.

History Boys Driving Home For Christmas, surprisinglyOK,  6.4k, Teen and up, Scripps/Posner "This is just super fluffy romantic/family Christmas fun, in which David spends Christmas with the Scripps', and Don finally comes out to his parents." Original rec.

Marvel Maqqaba, Domenika Marzione, 1.8k, Gen "Chanukah in the SSR." Original rec.

Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries Last night you told me: tomorrow, lbmisscharlie, 2k, Explicit, Phryne/Mac/Jack "'Come on, darling,' she says, feeling daring. This is the edge of something, something that has been building since the first time Phryne stomped into the City South Police Station. Perhaps since Mac linked arms with her on the docks of the port, gleeful to be reunited with her friend after many years absence. Things will be different tomorrow." Original rec.

Sherlock (BBC) People Are Basically Fond, apliddell, read by lockedinjohnlock, 5.1k, 36 min., General audiences, John/Sherlock "John and Sherlock throw another Christmas party, with a little surprise for their guests." Original rec. from tender stem hath sprung, astudyinrose, 6.1k, Explicit, Sherlock/John "A few days before Christmas, a sprig of mistletoe appears in 221B." Original rec.

Snowlight, axemeaboutaxinomancy, 1k, Explicit, Sherlock/John "A snowy interlude, with daemons by the window and humans on the sofa." Original rec.

In the Bleak Midwinter (A Canticle for Advent), CaitlinFairchild, 3k, Mature, Sherlock/John "In the autumn of 2014, Mary Watson shot Sherlock Holmes. This is what happened after." Original rec.

A Winter Walk, cathedral_carver, 3k, Teen and up, Sherlock/John "Time is the longest distance between two places." Original rec.

Lab Book, copperbadge, 5k, Explicit, Sherlock/John "'The likelihood of finding a cab on Christmas Eve is fast approaching nil.' 'So was the likelihood of you kissing me in the middle of the pavement, and yet.'" Original rec.

On the Table (Eventually John Watson's Favorite Christmas Story), emmgrant01, art by numberthescars, 18k, Explicit, Sherlock/John "Set after The Reichenbach Fall. Someone's leaving John strange little gifts in the weeks before Christmas. But who could it be? (A bit of fluff, a touch of angst, a dash of smut, some holiday cheer – enjoy!)" Original rec.

The December War, igrockspock,4k, Teen, John/Sherlock "Sherlock's never been good at Christmas." Original rec.

Winters Delights, Kate_Lear, 21k, Explicit, Sherlock/John "Sherlock takes John home for Christmas to meet the extended Holmes family." Original rec. 

Resolution, by lifeonmars, 2k, Teen and up, Sherlock/John "'Maybe one resolution isn't a bad idea.' New Year’s-related unashamed fluff with a bit of case geekery on the side." Original rec.

Points, lifeonmars, read by Lockedinjohnlock, 54k, 7 hrs, Explicit, Sherlock/John "'The little things are infinitely the most important.' -- A Case of Identity, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. What if His Last Vow never happened? This fic picks up a few months after John and Mary's wedding, in an alternate universe where Magnussen doesn't exist, but Mary is still pregnant. Life continues -- just in a different direction. And slowly, Sherlock and John find their way to each other." Original rec.

Christmas Eve, 1939, lotherington, 2k, Explicit, Sherlock/John "They were in bed together, the Tiffany lamp alight in the corner, casting a gentle light across the room. The multicoloured pieces of glass that formed its shade glowed prettily in the dim and provided a welcome contrast from the pouring rain and darkness outside, concealed though it was by the blackout curtain. WWII AU. December, 1939. Sherlock and John share a lazy Christmas Eve at Baker Street in the midst of the 'Phoney War'." Original rec.

See Love Shine, Mazarin221b, 2k, Mature, Sherlock/John “The weight of time is pulling heavily on John’s heart of late. Short days and seemingly endless nights lend themselves to spending too much time pondering his future. Their future. John leans forward to press a kiss to Sherlock’s forehead. When Sherlock’s eyes blink open and he smiles sleepily, a half-formed idea that had been niggling at the back of John’s mind sharpens into a certainty.” Original rec. 

Goodness Gives Extras, mydwynter, 39k, Explicit, Sherlock/John "Christmas time. Tis the season to settle down with a drink, some food and a present or two, and to enjoy the quiet relaxation of the holiday. Instead, there's a case that drags them all over, missing presents,disappointed kids, angry parents, and a freak snowfall. On top of that John has to deal with Sherlock, who is being even more of a prat than usual. He really shouldn't have expected anything different." Original rec.

Entanglement, orphan_account, 3k, General audiences, Sherlock/John "On Christmas Eve, snow covers London, John visits Harry, and Sherlock and Mrs. Hudson untangle some knots." Original rec.

Ghost Stories, SwissMiss, 22k, Mature, Sherlock/John "Sherlock's parents think he and John are a couple. They might be onto something." Original rec.

First Night Out, verity-burns, read by the author, 3k, 22min, Mature, Sherlock/John "As John recovers from the effects of a brutal kidnapping, he and Sherlock attend the Yarders' Christmas Party. There are... developments on the dance floor..." Original rec.

Sherlock Holmes (Arthur Conan Doyle) Also when 'tis cold and drear, garonne, 26k, Teen and up, Holmes/Watson "In the first months of their acquaintance, Holmes and Watson study each other from a distance, watching and wondering... Contains lunatic aristocratic poets, Christmas dinner, plenty of fog and snow, and other such stuff."  Original rec.

In the Shadow of the Past, garonne, read by hardboiledbaby, 6k, 45min, Mature, Holmes/Watson "Holmes would rather have avoided returning with Watson to the Alps, even years after the events at Reichenbach--from which he's not sure Watson has ever really recovered." Original rec.

The Holly and the Ivy series, MirithGriffin, 20k, Teen through Explicit, Holmes/Watson "Translator’s note: In 2010, a strange manuscript was discovered in a private country house long used as a hotel in Surrey. While working on plans for renovations, contractors discovered a dilapidated strongbox in the attic. The box contained, among other things, twenty yellowing sheets of paper covered from top to bottom in dancing stick figures. Upon further examination, the stick figures were revealed to be a form of code. Here is what the manuscript said." Original rec.

Splendid Night, Katie Forsythe, read by Heuristic Device, 14k, 90 min, Teen and up, Holmes/Watson A Christmas fic, set during and around The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton, in which Watson gets ahold of the wrong end of the deductive stick and reacts in a histrionic and yet recognizably Watsonian fashion. Original rec.

Dwell Together Still, mistyzeo, 2k, Explicit, Holmes/Watson "Holmes and Watson celebrate the end of an important year." Original rec.

Glad With Our Carols, oldshrewsburyian, 1.6k, Gen, Holmes/Watson "Holmes loves music, Watson loves Holmes, and the author indulges her feelings about liturgical history and medieval music." Original rec.

Since First I Saw Your Face: First Christmas, Stavia_Scott_Grayson, 6k (this chapter), Mature, Holmes/Watson "During the Great Hiatus, Holmes, studying in Tibet, reflects on his first meeting with Dr John Watson." Original rec.

Waltzing & Wassailing, wordybirdy, 2k, Gen, Holmes/Watson "Should Holmes & Watson accept Mycroft's invitation to his New Year's Eve celebrations? What reservations could Holmes possibly have?" Original rec.

Star Wars Some Like It Hoth, fennecfawkes, 2k, Mature, Finn/Poe "Greetings from Hoth, where the climate isn't the kindest, but the company can't be beat." Original rec.

Supernatural Gone Away is the Bluebird, clockworkrobots, 1k, unrated, Dean/Castiel "'Well, perhaps I’ve been down here, with them, for too long,' Castiel admits to his sister as he drives. 'There’s seemingly nothing but chaos. But not all bad comes from it. Art. Hope. Love. Dreams.' 'But those are human things,' Hannah says, with unmasked confusion. She is not judging, just trying to understand. Castiel almost wants to smile. It's like looking in a mirror to the past. 'Yes.'" Original rec.

The Cold of Flesh and Stone, entangled_now, 9k, Explicit, Dean/Castiel "Maybe I'm sick of spending Christmas elbow deep inside something's intestines, or standing in a grave somewhere in the freezing cold waiting for bones to burn." Original rec.

Collateral Damage, komodobits, 7k, Explicit, Dean/Castiel "Castiel takes offense at being called awkward, and goes out of his way to prove Dean wrong." Original rec.

Softer and More Beautiful, by misslucyjane, 8k, Explicit, Dean/Castiel "Christmas is a human celebration, and Castiel is with a couple of humans." Original rec.

All the Neighbors Might Think, murron, 4k, Explicit, Dean/Castiel "It’s not like Dean needs company on Christmas Eve." Original rec.

One Cold Night, xylodemon, 16k, Explicit, Dean/Castiel "'Dean, are you all right?' 'Yeah. I'm just --' Dean shivers again. His teeth clack together. 'Jesus Christ, it's cold.'" Original rec.

The West Wing The DoD, by E.E. Beck, 2k, Teen and up "Sam had a plan. Sam had a secret plan. Takes place in the month following Noel." Original rec.

Fic bookmarks | Fic Recs Masterlist

[montpahrnah]

hp fic recs

sirius/remus, part iii

part i / part ii

The Survivor, by apolesen (145k)

1985. Four years after the death of his friends, Remus decides to break out of the pattern of his post-war life and try living among Muggles. In a sleepy town in southern England and the bustling city of London, he tries to build a new life for himself, piece by piece. The more he sees of the Muggle world, the more Remus wonders if that structure is as stable as he would like to think it is.

“The Survivor” is set in Thatcherite Britain, in the wake of the Falklands War and the onset of the British AIDS epidemic. It explores themes of disease, stigma, war trauma and grief, reflecting both on the historical context of the 1980s and Rowling’s characterisation of Remus Lupin.

Time, As a Symptom, by tigrrmilk (12k)

“Ah,” Remus had said, as dry as he could manage. “An aristocratic youth on his grand tour.”

Sirius knocked his arm. “Hey,” he said. “Grander than most, at least. You’ve got to give me that.”

Seven of them go to space. One stays there.

Light in August, by orestesfasting (21k)

Summer, 1977. With the full moon approaching, Sirius heads up to the Lupins’ countryside cottage to make himself useful. Or to make a complete and utter arse out of himself, because really, that’s all he can seem to do around Remus these days.

EXILE/RETURN, by zambla (5k)

Sirius makes a road trip down to the Gower peninsula. Non-magic AU. 1980s-1990s.

Orbital, by tevere, (3k)

The thing about orbiting is, see, that it’s not flying at all – it’s falling. It’s just that you’re going fast enough to match the curvature of the Earth: you’re falling round and round, and never getting any closer.

Anastasia & Spinning Jenny, by librae (8k)

Grimmauld Place is eating Sirius alive.

A Bright Particular Star, by torch (24k)

Remus and Sirius celebrate their last Christmas at Hogwarts.

A Late Frost, by kest (1k)

Remus and Sirius in the first war.

the summer you let your hair grow out, by ladymemebeth (20k)

an AU story in which sirius decides to go to remus’ house when he runs away, rather than james’. remus finds this situation to be trying in more ways than one. includes gratuitous references to twentieth-century cinema and music.

A Short Discourse on Cruelty, by imochan (1k)

So, friendship - it hurts, sometimes. Companion to A Short Discourse on Kindness.

A Short Discourse on Kindness, by imochan (1k)

Companion to A Short Discourse on Cruelty. Three verses.

The Rosary, by fluorescentgrey (31k)

On a Thursday in April 1943 Remus took the train from London to Birmingham, where a stately black car was waiting at the station to take him a short drive southwest to Hagley. In a wood on the estate of the Viscount Cobham of Hagley Hall four local boys hunting quail had found a woman’s skeleton in a wych elm tree.

These Young Lions, by enjambament (26k)

On Hallowe’en night, 1981, Sirius runs for his freedom and ends up as a dog on the doorstep of No. 11 Privet Drive. But that’s only the beginning. What comes next is a desperate hunt for the evidence to give Sirius his life back, and give Harry a home.

The Weather Inside, by earlybloomingparenthesis (43k)

Sirius rides a flying motorbike, and snogs strangers in pubs, and strikes moody poses Remus finds irritatingly attractive. But for Remus, who drinks milky tea and wears flannel pyjamas, there’s a chasm cracked right down the fault line between wanting and doing.

How he wants, though. How he wants.

Longsdune, by imochan (3k)

He supposes that this is what is expected of him, to sit here and listen to wetness sinking into the earth and remember how it felt when it was sunny, and there were four of them, and Sirius Black looked at him like he was a piece of the universe he wanted to understand so badly that he was willing to take Remus apart completely and then put him back together.

Tesserae (the Missing Pieces Remix), by glass_icarus (3k)

Post-PoA. Sirius is picking up the pieces, but putting them back together requires help.

When We Were Gone Astray, by shaggydogstail (4k)

A brief history of Christmastime with Sirius bringing up Harry.

it is our crooked aim, by misandrywitch (4k)

He’s been gone for three days, and he didn’t tell Sirius where he was going or how long he’d be gone. He has no idea where Sirius is, or when he’ll be back. That’s how it’s been for a while now. He makes himself tea and runs a bath and sits in the tub until the water is grey and chilly with sloughed-off dirt. Remus is twenty-one. He feels eighty.

This World Lies At The Bottom Of A Lake, by berhanes (7k)

Briefly he’d considered going to visit Remus, but Sirius has too many stacked up feelings about him to add any more, and he doesn’t trust himself not to ruin their carefully patched situation in the wake of the incident – it’s only been a year, after all, and there’s no better way to shatter a barely recovered friendship than by doing something stupid like throwing out a declaration of love in the middle of explaining the myriad ways in which your family is deranged and terrible. So instead Sirius had hailed the Knight Bus and requested Bowness-on-Windermere.

Postscript, by yeats (1k)

“All that anger — I don’t like how it feels anymore, having it inside me.”

What forgiveness might look like.

One That You Can Keep, by thistlerose (1k)

“Where all my journies end / If you can make a promise / if it’s one that you can keep / I vow to come for you…”

bright ambassadors, by librae (1k)

(PWP, basically)

The Years to Come, by toyhto (3k)

Remus is watching him closely and trying to weight their love, trying to decide if it’s real enough or not, and he knows he would be doing the same if he didn’t already know. It’s real. It always was. They were complete idiots.

Escape for Another Day, by veeagainst (2k)

A life and death experience brings Sirius and Remus together.

four thousand two hundred and sixty, by Kel (2k)

I think the only reason I never lost my mind is that I knew I was innocent. That wasn’t a happy thought, so the dementors couldn’t suck it out of me.

– Sirius Black, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

Atlantic Specimen, by ourmutualfriend (3k)

Opiate dream.

A Peripheral Vision, by carmine_ink (2k)

Set in Cambridge at the end of the century, Remus and Sirius struggle to exist in a society that refuses to accept them.

Hold On to Whatever You Find, by fallovermelikestars (10k)

“…he hadn’t planned to jump Sirius’ bones almost as soon as he walked through the door, had actually planned to fix him a square meal and then set about avoiding him for a few days – or forever – but he’d been marinating in whiskey for over an hour and Sirius had fucking smiled at him as he pushed the door closed behind him and that smile, it’s always been Remus’s undoing.”

Then I Would Come and Find You, by RuinsPlume (2k)

This is what saves them every time.

between towers, by tigrrmilk (8k)

Through the doorway at the end of the entrance hall, he could see a wide portion of the small quad ahead. Green and lush. It was early October, and the sun was shining, thank the lord. Or at least thank Merlin. It was Michaelmas. And Remus was taking up a place at Oxford to read English.

Argentum, by happiestwhen (1k)

Memories are only as permanent as you allow them to be.

Homeless Near a Thousand Homes, by lorax (3k)

“He went there because he wanted to remember, and he stayed because he had no other place to be.”

Our lives will run like / Sparks through the stubble, by zambla (13k)

1984. Remus J Lupin, post first wizarding war, is in Berlin. His father has just died. He goes back to his childhood homes, the places he passed through, and realizes that his memory is a map that is folded on itself.

Told in interwoven present and past times, concerning his relationship to his parents, himself, and the traitor, Sirius Black.

My homage to the film Blue (1993) by the great English filmmaker Derek Jarman.

Diamonds and Rust, by toyhto (6k)

“My heart would get broken,” he says roughly, “that’s why.“

Sirius draws his hand back. “I wonder how that feels.”

“I don’t.”

The Season of Love and Death, by mustntgetmy (2k)

A little love letter to autumn, Remus/Sirius style. From their first kisses at Hogwarts beneath the Forbidden Forest foliage, to sharing cups of cocoa in a London park near the end of the first war.

The Man Who Counts Waves, by Underlucius (1k)

If he stops counting he’ll remember who lives on the other side of that azure flood, and then he would walk into the sea and never return. So he counts the waves.

The Impossible Season, by coyotesuspect (21k)

Six months after falling through the Veil, Sirius comes back. As a seventeen-year-old.

Remus takes him in.

A Candle Put Out, by sopdetly (2k)

Now they hadn’t had sex in months, and Sirius knew he pulled away from Remus in his sleep, when they managed to sleep in bed together.

Lay Down, by taffetablue (1k)

After, they Apparate home, saturated with rain and blood, and the oily slide of dark magic skidding along Remus’s skin like unfamiliar hands.

Ghost of Winter, by earlybloomingparenthesis (3k)

Christmas is coming and the bite of winter is in the air, and way up north in the Highlands the mountains are big and bleak enough to hide even Azkaban’s most wanted from prying eyes. All Remus can imagine is being snowbound alone with Sirius. Unfortunately, there’s a ghost who has other plans.

Wandering, Gets You Down, by hiddendaze (5k)

AU premise: Remus is in Ravenclaw and doesn’t really know Peter, James and Sirius. Consequently, there is no Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs.

a country mile, by sea_schtick (1k)

The summer after Harry’s third year, and Sirius refuses to be alone.

To Fill A Gap, by berhanes (8k)

Sirius’ face is caught in a rectangle of late afternoon sun and Remus wants suddenly to reach across the three feet and fourteen years between them and touch him where the light hits. He lets himself imagine that he could, that in a moment he’ll just lean forward and trace the curve between Sirius’ neck and his jaw with his fingertips without it feeling like penitence. A different version of himself would’ve already done it. But then, a different version of himself wouldn’t be here in the first place.

Any Other Night, by mustntgetmy (6k)

In 1977, Remus and Sirius set about trying to kill the moon, and years later, in Azkaban, Sirius reflects on this and on his damaged relationship with Remus.

Of Monsters, by llassah (8k)

Sirius always expected to go into the Black family business. Said family business just happens to involve kneecappings, murder, and the most powerful criminals in London. When Sirius decides to leave home at nineteen with a briefcase full of money and a few other essentials, he has no idea that he will end up sharing a dosshouse with a lunatic in a tweed jacket with the reading habits of an Oxford don and staggering intermittent anger issues. Sad thing is, it’s probably the safest place for him right now. Until it isn’t.

stir the flame anew, by blanketed_in_stars (5k)

It’s a light tawny who sits patiently while he reads. Moony—send something back if it’s a bad time. Otherwise I’ll be there at noon. Cheers, Padfoot. There’s nothing more, as if it were the last note in a conversation they’d already been having, but Remus can’t recall anything of the sort. He’d remember if they’d talked about this. He’d remember, he thinks, watching the owl drink the water which he absentmindedly offers her, if they’d talked at all.

Two winters after the war, Remus receives an owl, and, shortly thereafter, an unexpected houseguest.

Souvenir, by sopdetly (3k)

Remus returns from another mission; Sirius has missed him.

Concomitant, by peccadilloes (1k)

Remus comes home and into the kitchen that evening with a soft blue book, and he sets it on the table.

“Some hipster hippie witch in Venice gave it to me,” he says. “Makes them.”

Sirius picks up the book and in his hands it changes, grows large and slim and harder bound. He rubs his thumb over its waxed thread, and its cover pools with longing.

a lie low in Los Angeles, oneiromancy

We’ll Both Forget the Breeze, by happiestwhen (1k)

In winter, time seems to trickle down with the melting snow.