xalandrix

[xalandrix]

Underworld boys cuddling in their spare time (again)

[xalandrix]

between the lines

“Oh no, we’ve broken up again,” Draco said, picking a Prophet off the top of a stack of papers outside King’s Cross station. On the cover: POTTER AND MALFOY HEADED FOR SPLIT? next to a picture of Draco giving Harry the two-fingered salute at the Quidditch World Cup. “It seems we were overheard getting into a, quote, ‘heated discussion,’ unquote, that has some people speculating that our relationship is, quote, ‘unlikely to make it to the cup finals,’ unquote.”

“You would think at this point they would realize all of our discussions are heated,” Harry said. “When we stop arguing, that’s when they need to be worried.”

Draco’s mouth pulled into a tight line, his I Disagree With You face, one of Harry’s most favorite Draco faces. “A break-up fight would put all of our other fights to shame. I’m starting with setting the ugly curtains in your study on fire.”

“I would let you. I would just apparate away and leave you to deal with the mess.”

“Apparate to where? Ron and Hermione’s?”

“No,” Harry said, even though yes, that’s where he had been thinking of apparating to in this scenario.

“You would apparate to Ron and Hermione’s and I would make enough of a racket outside of their house that Ron would send you outside to, quote, ‘deal with me,’ unquote, and then we would have a huge fight, in public, and The Prophet would run stories about it every day for at least a year.”

“I would stun you from the window the second you started to cause a scene. Then you would wake up in our house—or I guess it would be your house? Or my house? Who would get the house if we broke up?” Draco started to answer, but Harry waved him away. “It doesn’t matter. You would wake up in a house charmed to not let you leave for at least 48 hours. I’ll have taken your wand but made you a cup of tea. There’ll be a note on the table explaining that this is for your own good, since I know you would rather fight then process your emotions and I want you to have the chance to—”

“I’m immediately owling Rita Skeeter to do a tell-all,” Draco said. “The first insight into me and Harry Potter’s relationship? He likes to run away whenever there’s a hint of interpersonal conflict. If you want to keep him from doing something he regrets, you have to make him mad enough to actually confront the problem. That’s why I’m starting with setting the curtains on fire!”

Harry glared at him. “I hate how sweet that is.”

“You said you would make me a cup of tea!” Draco yelled.

The next day’s Prophet cover: CONFIRMED: POTTER AND MALFOY HEADED FOR SPLITSVILLE.

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for @drarrymicrofic prompt: slander | on ao3

[xalandrix]

writing is 10% storytelling and 90% rearranging three sentences for an hour like you're trying to solve an ancient curse

[xalandrix]

'i asked chatgpt' ok well i asked the trees that speak latin and they told me to tell you that you're a cunt

[xalandrix]

explain your gender in 10 words or less without using boring words like “male”, “female”, “nonbinary”, “masculine”, “feminine” or “androgynous”.

go!

[xalandrix]

I’m very curious cause I know most of tumblr uses ao3

Pls pretend 3 says read/write I can’t edit it

I tend to mostly write fics but i occasionally read them

Please reblog so more ppl can answer :)

[xalandrix]

What do you think of the double standard between How Regulus is treated vs Draco?

I saw a few who believe that it’s hypocritical and strange Rowling treated Regulus as redeemed even though he was technically worse than Draco.

Regulus Actually made a shrine to Voldemort while he was active, and neither of his parents were death eaters. Regulus seemed to actively seek him out and only defected because Voldemort was mean to Kreacher or he thought a Horcrux was too far.

While Draco only enjoyed the stories his parents told him while Voldemort was gone, his parents actually were death eaters and Voldemort was the one who went to him and ordered/threatened him into working for him. He defected because he actually felt bad about the evil actions that he didn’t know much about when he was younger.

Truly, the biggest sin Draco commits is surviving the book.

JKR has sort of a thing about death (and/or willingness to die) being inherently redemptive and noble. There is a reason the climax of Book 7 revolves around Harry "Master of Death" Potter martyring himself. Then the epilogue revolves around Harry's sons... named for a string of men who did some pretty not-great things... but y'know, they all had noble sacrificial deaths, so they're cool. According to JKR, Voldemort's main problem is that he doesn't want to die. In the Harry Potter books, death - and especially the right kind of death - purifies you.

So Regulus dies stealing a horcrux and protecting a house elf. And Draco... doesn't.

I've thought quite a bit about the scene in Malfoy Manor, because to be perfectly honest, the framing is so all over the place that I'm not sure how I'm supposed to read it. Because I would have said that Draco buying Harry time with "I can’t — I can’t be sure,” is an effective and brave example of passive resistance. You'd think it would represent some sort of turning point... except no, Draco spends the rest of the book with no agency, needing to be saved multiple times by Harry. He ends the book unimportant, and mildly pathetic (with his receding hairline.)

I think the intention was to have the Malfoy Manor scene read as a sort of symbolic castration. Draco loses his wand, just like his father - (and oh boy is Lucius' loss of a wand treated as a castration.) We learn later that Draco lost not only his wand, but the Elder wand as well, and then to top things off... Dobby shows up to free the prisoners for him, and Dobby's the one with the noble, heroic death.

It might even be a deliberate flip of what happened with Regulus. Regulus dies destroying horcruxes and sacrificing himself for a house elf. Draco survives preventing horcruxes from being destroyed (at least, he's letting the sword that destroys horcruxes be taken away from Harry.) And then he lets a house-elf die doing the job that (narratively) he was supposed to so. Freeing Harry & Friends, dying in the process.

When it comes to Regulus himself... @saintsenara has written this fantastic analysis, and specifically about how he functions as both a Draco parallel and a Snape parallel at different times, and I absolutely could not say it better.

[xalandrix]

lake wants to kill and gnash and gnash my bones I think

[xalandrix]

i feel so seen!!

(twitter thread)

[xalandrix]

[xalandrix]

my favorite thing about navigating fanfiction is finding a really good one and being all “oh boy this was good, I hope they have more!” and literally every other story they’ve ever written was for like Miami Vice 

[xalandrix]

Oh yeah! The vault!

[xalandrix]

Hey! I didn’t post anything for so long sorry! Here is Draco, wondering what’s happened and what he did wrong <3

[xalandrix]

it is so important to our well-being to get stoked over animals. like regular shit like squirrels & little parking lot birds & shit. or whatevers normal in your area. there are no boring animals. any animal sighting can be special if you love it and then every time you go outside or look out the window something sooo awesome will happen (see an incredible beast)

[xalandrix]

Every unhinged fic writer needs an equally unhinged friend who "yes ands" their ideas and encourages them to write all their most far fetched and insane stories.

[xalandrix]

This hit home, and I think it will resonate hard with all my creative friends, here. You are amazing and brilliant and I BEG YOU to keep creating!! ❤️❤️❤️