So, where's the good Harry Potter fic?
I just finished a re-read of the Harry Potter books.
It's interesting - these books really became known in the US my senior year of high school (around when book 3 came out) and, in a way, they were my second fandom (Star Trek always and forever being number one) - before I knew what fandom was, before I really had internet. My friends and I joked about forming a Quidditch team (I was, emphatically, a beater). One day we were in our calculus teacher's office asking homework questions and saw he had Dumbledore quotes on his wall and for the rest of the year, he was our Dumbledore. When I started college, one of the first things my roommate and I bonded over was Harry Potter - I think I still have a copy of the book of spells she gave me (meticulously gleaned from the books).
Anyway, point being, I had a brief, furious, love for Harry Potter but while I loyally read each book as it came out, and watched each movie, that faded pretty fast, replaced by intense fannish-ness for M*A*S*H and Band of Brothers and the Stargates (god, I still miss that fandom and I still want to finish those WiPs...)
And it's interesting and weird re-reading them now, at age 33, because they are such different books than when I was 18. At 18 the tasks/expectations/freedoms that Harry, Hermione, Ron and the others went through seemed exciting and reasonable. At 33 I kept thinking "what the hell are these grown-ups thinking? These kids should be traumatized as fuck!" Along with things like "Quidditch makes no sense" and "these school subjects don't make sense - shouldn't they still need basic reading/writing/math/science?" And I identified with the grown-ups more, this time, and less with the kids (even when I occasionally wanted to smack the grown-ups). And I really noticed Lupin this time - how...sad he is.
Anyway. My fierce love of Harry Potter coincided with a time I was unaware of fic, which means I've pretty much never read any (I know, I know). Only now, I really want some. I want the kind of well-written, chewy fic I'm sure must be out there about how they all recovered from all the shit they had to deal with. Not the flowery "everything is perfect" epilogue Rowling wrote, 19 years later at Kings Cross (I Laughed So Hard the first time I read that), but the stories about rebuilding Hogwarts (McGonagall!), about Harry coming through this entire traumatic event, finding himself godfather to an infant of parents who died protecting him, and getting pieced back together. I want Neville finally, post-snake killing, thriving in everyone else recognizing his abilities and becoming the best herbology professor Hogwarts ever had. I want Hermione continuing her studies where her classmates are serious and she doesn't have to do anyone else's homework. I want Draco trying to figure out how to emerge from the fuckup of a life his parents forced his first 17 years into - the struggle with who he is and what he believes now that he doesn't have parents/Snape/Voldemort/Bellatrix telling him. I want Luna, so happy to have friends, emerging from the shadows. I want George figuring out how to run the joke shop without Fred (or with ghost Fred?).
But the HP fandom is huge and I don't know where to start. Anybody got recs? (self recs a-okay) (I have no idea how I feel about shipping in this fandom - except I know any student/teacher will make me backbutton so had my keyboard might break - and I'm not a fan of "good sex heals everything" - and I might even be happier if the fic is canon except for Rowling's ridiculous epilogue (aka: I am not married to cannon relationships))
This entry was originally posted at dreamwidth
. Replies are welcome on either post.
It's interesting - these books really became known in the US my senior year of high school (around when book 3 came out) and, in a way, they were my second fandom (Star Trek always and forever being number one) - before I knew what fandom was, before I really had internet. My friends and I joked about forming a Quidditch team (I was, emphatically, a beater). One day we were in our calculus teacher's office asking homework questions and saw he had Dumbledore quotes on his wall and for the rest of the year, he was our Dumbledore. When I started college, one of the first things my roommate and I bonded over was Harry Potter - I think I still have a copy of the book of spells she gave me (meticulously gleaned from the books).
Anyway, point being, I had a brief, furious, love for Harry Potter but while I loyally read each book as it came out, and watched each movie, that faded pretty fast, replaced by intense fannish-ness for M*A*S*H and Band of Brothers and the Stargates (god, I still miss that fandom and I still want to finish those WiPs...)
And it's interesting and weird re-reading them now, at age 33, because they are such different books than when I was 18. At 18 the tasks/expectations/freedoms that Harry, Hermione, Ron and the others went through seemed exciting and reasonable. At 33 I kept thinking "what the hell are these grown-ups thinking? These kids should be traumatized as fuck!" Along with things like "Quidditch makes no sense" and "these school subjects don't make sense - shouldn't they still need basic reading/writing/math/science?" And I identified with the grown-ups more, this time, and less with the kids (even when I occasionally wanted to smack the grown-ups). And I really noticed Lupin this time - how...sad he is.
Anyway. My fierce love of Harry Potter coincided with a time I was unaware of fic, which means I've pretty much never read any (I know, I know). Only now, I really want some. I want the kind of well-written, chewy fic I'm sure must be out there about how they all recovered from all the shit they had to deal with. Not the flowery "everything is perfect" epilogue Rowling wrote, 19 years later at Kings Cross (I Laughed So Hard the first time I read that), but the stories about rebuilding Hogwarts (McGonagall!), about Harry coming through this entire traumatic event, finding himself godfather to an infant of parents who died protecting him, and getting pieced back together. I want Neville finally, post-snake killing, thriving in everyone else recognizing his abilities and becoming the best herbology professor Hogwarts ever had. I want Hermione continuing her studies where her classmates are serious and she doesn't have to do anyone else's homework. I want Draco trying to figure out how to emerge from the fuckup of a life his parents forced his first 17 years into - the struggle with who he is and what he believes now that he doesn't have parents/Snape/Voldemort/Bellatrix telling him. I want Luna, so happy to have friends, emerging from the shadows. I want George figuring out how to run the joke shop without Fred (or with ghost Fred?).
But the HP fandom is huge and I don't know where to start. Anybody got recs? (self recs a-okay) (I have no idea how I feel about shipping in this fandom - except I know any student/teacher will make me backbutton so had my keyboard might break - and I'm not a fan of "good sex heals everything" - and I might even be happier if the fic is canon except for Rowling's ridiculous epilogue (aka: I am not married to cannon relationships))
This entry was originally posted at dreamwidth
. Replies are welcome on either post.