"Correspondence." - Drarry, Part 1. HPslash.
Alright, so here's part one of my incomplete fanfiction, "Correspondence." At first this was going to be just one HUGE oneshot, but then I decided it might be better to break it down into parts, considering how lengthy it already is.
Universe : Harry Potter.
Genre : Romance/Drama.
Word count : Part One - 1,763.
Rating : K / G, eventually rating will go up.
Warnings : Written almost entirely in letters; none really in this part.
Challenge : None.
Status : Incomplete.
Disclaimer : I do not own Harry Potter or anything related to, or released beneath, the trademark.
Summary : Harry Potter recieves letters and, eventually, learns the benefits of misunderstandings. "Feb. 1997. I am restless, yearning - I dislike admitting it, but I do believe you have me tangled up tighter in your weave than I’d previously desired to admit."
Notes : When I started writing this fic, I planned for it to be...maybe ten pages of letter between Draco and Harry. I'm not sure how it evolved into what it has become, but I get a feeling it's gonna be a long 'un. Prepare for several chapters/parts. <3
the author. says: When I started writing this fic, I planned for it to be...maybe ten pages of letter between Draco and Harry. I'm not sure how it evolved into what it has become, but I get a feeling it's gonna be a long 'un. Prepare for several chapters/parts.
I know the format may be a little confusing for some, but it's written this way on purpose. I realized quite quickly into writing this fic that it was going to have to be different in order to stand out from the rest of the letter fics that have been written for this fandom.
The format I've chosen (five letters from Draco, and then Harry's five responses) I think makes for a more in depth reading experience, and I hope it makes people read everything more carefully. But whatever; the format will eventually be necessary for the story's suspense, so it can't be changed - sorry!
Comments are hugely appreciated!
- - - - - - - -
A CORRESPONDENCE
ONE - A Scene of Importance.
Parchment is scattered across the ground. This is, naturally, the first thing that Ron Weasley notices when he enters the boy's dormitory, because it's not just a couple sheets of parchment, it's loads and loads of parchment. There has to be at least three hundred separate pages lying strewn across the room he and the other seventh year Gryffindors share. The parchment is centered, he observes, around his best mate Harry's bed and desk. Upon closer inspection, Ron is able to see that each page is filled from top to bottom with beautiful cursive, handwritten and painstakingly neat. At the top of each page is a date. Unable to control his curiosity, the redheaded boy sits down on the edge of the bed and picks up the page that has been placed, or maybe just ended up, on Harry's pillow.
It is dated February 23rd of last year.
February 23rd, 1997
How have the holidays been treating you, Harry? Well I hope. My own holidays have been boring, filled with endless days and sleepless nights. I am restless, yearning - I dislike admitting it, but I do believe you have me tangled up tighter in your weave than I’d previously desired to admit.
Ron is unable to read the rest of the letter; great, dark slashes have been marked across the subsequent sentences, hiding whatever they’d once said from view. Hugely curious, he casts a tentative spell but nothing happens.
For a moment, he just sits and stares at the crumpled paper in his hands. He’d always known that Harry received letters from people. More often than not, he is the one granted the task of hand delivering them, but these letters look unfamiliar. They had not been passed from Ron’s hand to Harry’s.
Ron shuffles through a few more nearby letters. The writing, the parchment, the tone - all are the same, which means that all of these letters are from the same person. Surprise and curiosity has the redhead in their grips. It takes him twenty minutes to gather all the letters together and then organize them into chronological order. Fighting the invasive feeling pinching at his gut, Ron begins to read.
TWO - Original Letters 1 - 5.
(LATE SEPTEMBER ‘96 - EARLY OCTOBER ‘96)
September 22nd, 1996
You're looking a bit peaky lately, Harry Potter.
Summer was long, boring - like most summers, really. I saw you on the train. You looked exhausted, run down...you always look like that after a summer with your relatives.
Since first year, I've noticed the persistent exhaustion that seems to chase you down during those months that you aren't at school. It looked like it had finally caught up this time, Harry. Skin was drawn tightly across your face, mouth pursed, eyes sunken and surrounded by shadows. You were almost unrecognizable.
I wasn't sure then whether it was fortunate that I could never mistake your face, which reminds me of so much, or if it was a curse. I wished then, for the first time, that I didn't know you, that your sorry state (and it was sorry, Harry) didn't cause me such discomfort.
As the days pass, you become more and more revitalized, and the haunted shadows fade from your features, if only a little every day.
Even so, it is reassuring.
September 23rd, 1996
It's hard not to stare at you. Whether because I want to wring your bloody neck or simply hold you to me, I find myself bordering on obsession. If not already there. Your hair is always classically ruffled, such a deep shade of black that it would be almost insulting to call you brunette. Whenever you are concentrating especially hard, your eyes will squint behind those damnable glasses and you stick your tongue out from the corner of your mouth. You've no idea, of course, but it's completely and irrefutably seductive.
Class speeds by, and my time is occupied by staring and only staring. Luckily? unluckily? - I am discreet and you, being the oblivious boy you are, never notice. I doubt you ever will.
Don't bother to start looking for me now, because I've determined that I will stop being so obvious. Just in case I decide to send this after all.
The game has only just begun, and to have you win so easily - so soon - would ruin the fun.
September 25th, 1996
Oh, Potter, you can be so very dimwitted.
You looked anyway. Don't argue, either. I noticed you glancing about in class and even in the Great Hall. To no avail, Harry, to no avail.
You should learn to trust me. I wouldn't lie to you here, where it doesn't matter what you read, what you discover. Here, in this world of parchment and words and honesty, I can be a being similar to who I’d like to be, and nothing matters any more - choices are nonexistent; my mistakes, your childhood...they no longer tear away at what I have become. I don't have to think about what I can't say. I'm allowed to be me, to throw away the walls I've been forced to build.
I only expect you to listen. Just because I have decided to be brutally honest doesn't mean that you have to be the same, so don't act so nervous.
September 30th, 1996
Honesty makes you uncomfortable?
Too bad - deal with it. I'll continue with my letters, and you, being a curious being, if nothing else, will read them.
October 5th, 1996
Yes, that would be a waste of time.
Not to venture off-subject, but...I suppose it’s time I actually started asking the question I want to ask. They are almost entirely the reason I started writing you, anyway.
Do you mourn the loss of a normal childhood, Harry? I often find myself looking back on my years as a child and noticing few differences between those times and these. But things must have been substantially more difficult for you. A cupboard? I'm surprised you didn't turn out more twisted than you did. How did you survive the hours spent in such a small space? Did it make you bitter? Are you bitter still?
You do such a good job hiding your darker emotions. I have difficulty figuring out whether or not you are angry sometimes. In fact, most of the time, your face is blank, expressionless, and I wonder what dark memory you could possibly be reliving.
THREE - A Scene of Importance.
Harry lowered the sheet of parchment slowly, eyes still scanning the last few lines of the most recent letter. "'...and I wonder what dark memory you could possibly be reliving.'" He was unsure what to think of this...correspondence that had sprung up between himself and this mystery writer. Emotions that were usually kept under wraps - anger, discomfort, confusion, surprise - seemed to be harder to control after receiving another letter.
The first one had confused and surprised him. The observations stated therein had left him numb. Hardly anyone else had noticed his state of mental health when he arrived back at Hogwarts. Ron and Hermione had seen their friend's withdrawn attitude, but didn't approach him about it and it went unmentioned. But this person who seemed to be writing him whenever the notion hit them...they saw things Harry was sure they shouldn't.
The first time he'd responded, two days after receiving the third letter, it had been on a whim. What the writer had said about 'brutal honesty' had struck a chord deep within him, and he'd penned a short response, stating only that honesty was so sparse these days that it caused him discomfort. The response had struck an even deeper chord in that it caused him to laugh. Whoever the penman was, he certainly was different than most of the people Harry spoke with.
And that, alone, is what convinced him to write again...and again and again. Until these letters stopped coming, Harry would continue in his responses.
FOUR - Responses to Letters 1 - 5
(LATE SEPTEMBER ‘96 TO EARLY OCTOBER ‘96)
September 22nd, 1996
NO REPLY PENNED
September 23rd, 1996
NO REPLY PENNED
Written on September 26th, 1996 in response to September 25th, 1996
I don’t get much honesty from people. It makes me uncomfortable.
Written on October 1st, 1996 in response to September 30th, 1996
Yeah, I am curious. And yes, I do read every letter. And if more are sent, I'll read those too. I need something to distract me every once in a while, and you are doing an odd, if effective job, of succeeding there.
Would it be a waste of time if I asked who you are?
Written on October 6th, 1996 in response to October 5th, 1996
A normal childhood. Hm. You know, I've never really thought about it.
I guess I should mourn the loss of something that most everybody gets to have, but then again, not much else in my life is something a normal person would ever experience. If I were to get angry about missing out on being a kid, then I'd just have to admit that I'm angry about a bunch of other things, too. I prefer, instead, to just take everything in stride. Or at least, I try to do that. Things have never really been simple in my life. Either I am fighting off attempts on my life or I'm waiting to fight off attempts on my life.
I do, though, feel that I had to grow up much more quickly than I should have. If I’m sorry over losing anything, it's the experiences that accompany childhood, not the loss of a childhood itself.
What of you? You say that you didn't have much of a childhood either. Why is that? Do you feel robbed?
I'm not trying to be vain when I say that I've received a lot of letters while at Hogwarts. Letters of admiration, of thanks. But they always come signed and sealed in an envelope decorated with the family colors or coat of arms or a simply return address. Your letters come by owl, and the owl is an unremarkable one from the school's owlery, so I have no idea how I’m supposed to figure out who the bloody hell you are. It's unfair, leaving no trace of an identity.
But then again, I suppose it's kind of nice, talking to someone without having to worry about who they are or what sort of hidden agenda they might have.
You don’t have a hidden agenda, right?
END OF PART ONE; TO BE CONTINUED.
Universe : Harry Potter.
Genre : Romance/Drama.
Word count : Part One - 1,763.
Rating : K / G, eventually rating will go up.
Warnings : Written almost entirely in letters; none really in this part.
Challenge : None.
Status : Incomplete.
Disclaimer : I do not own Harry Potter or anything related to, or released beneath, the trademark.
Summary : Harry Potter recieves letters and, eventually, learns the benefits of misunderstandings. "Feb. 1997. I am restless, yearning - I dislike admitting it, but I do believe you have me tangled up tighter in your weave than I’d previously desired to admit."
Notes : When I started writing this fic, I planned for it to be...maybe ten pages of letter between Draco and Harry. I'm not sure how it evolved into what it has become, but I get a feeling it's gonna be a long 'un. Prepare for several chapters/parts. <3
the author. says: When I started writing this fic, I planned for it to be...maybe ten pages of letter between Draco and Harry. I'm not sure how it evolved into what it has become, but I get a feeling it's gonna be a long 'un. Prepare for several chapters/parts.
I know the format may be a little confusing for some, but it's written this way on purpose. I realized quite quickly into writing this fic that it was going to have to be different in order to stand out from the rest of the letter fics that have been written for this fandom.
The format I've chosen (five letters from Draco, and then Harry's five responses) I think makes for a more in depth reading experience, and I hope it makes people read everything more carefully. But whatever; the format will eventually be necessary for the story's suspense, so it can't be changed - sorry!
Comments are hugely appreciated!
- - - - - - - -
A CORRESPONDENCE
ONE - A Scene of Importance.
Parchment is scattered across the ground. This is, naturally, the first thing that Ron Weasley notices when he enters the boy's dormitory, because it's not just a couple sheets of parchment, it's loads and loads of parchment. There has to be at least three hundred separate pages lying strewn across the room he and the other seventh year Gryffindors share. The parchment is centered, he observes, around his best mate Harry's bed and desk. Upon closer inspection, Ron is able to see that each page is filled from top to bottom with beautiful cursive, handwritten and painstakingly neat. At the top of each page is a date. Unable to control his curiosity, the redheaded boy sits down on the edge of the bed and picks up the page that has been placed, or maybe just ended up, on Harry's pillow.
It is dated February 23rd of last year.
February 23rd, 1997
How have the holidays been treating you, Harry? Well I hope. My own holidays have been boring, filled with endless days and sleepless nights. I am restless, yearning - I dislike admitting it, but I do believe you have me tangled up tighter in your weave than I’d previously desired to admit.
Ron is unable to read the rest of the letter; great, dark slashes have been marked across the subsequent sentences, hiding whatever they’d once said from view. Hugely curious, he casts a tentative spell but nothing happens.
For a moment, he just sits and stares at the crumpled paper in his hands. He’d always known that Harry received letters from people. More often than not, he is the one granted the task of hand delivering them, but these letters look unfamiliar. They had not been passed from Ron’s hand to Harry’s.
Ron shuffles through a few more nearby letters. The writing, the parchment, the tone - all are the same, which means that all of these letters are from the same person. Surprise and curiosity has the redhead in their grips. It takes him twenty minutes to gather all the letters together and then organize them into chronological order. Fighting the invasive feeling pinching at his gut, Ron begins to read.
TWO - Original Letters 1 - 5.
(LATE SEPTEMBER ‘96 - EARLY OCTOBER ‘96)
September 22nd, 1996
You're looking a bit peaky lately, Harry Potter.
Summer was long, boring - like most summers, really. I saw you on the train. You looked exhausted, run down...you always look like that after a summer with your relatives.
Since first year, I've noticed the persistent exhaustion that seems to chase you down during those months that you aren't at school. It looked like it had finally caught up this time, Harry. Skin was drawn tightly across your face, mouth pursed, eyes sunken and surrounded by shadows. You were almost unrecognizable.
I wasn't sure then whether it was fortunate that I could never mistake your face, which reminds me of so much, or if it was a curse. I wished then, for the first time, that I didn't know you, that your sorry state (and it was sorry, Harry) didn't cause me such discomfort.
As the days pass, you become more and more revitalized, and the haunted shadows fade from your features, if only a little every day.
Even so, it is reassuring.
September 23rd, 1996
It's hard not to stare at you. Whether because I want to wring your bloody neck or simply hold you to me, I find myself bordering on obsession. If not already there. Your hair is always classically ruffled, such a deep shade of black that it would be almost insulting to call you brunette. Whenever you are concentrating especially hard, your eyes will squint behind those damnable glasses and you stick your tongue out from the corner of your mouth. You've no idea, of course, but it's completely and irrefutably seductive.
Class speeds by, and my time is occupied by staring and only staring. Luckily? unluckily? - I am discreet and you, being the oblivious boy you are, never notice. I doubt you ever will.
Don't bother to start looking for me now, because I've determined that I will stop being so obvious. Just in case I decide to send this after all.
The game has only just begun, and to have you win so easily - so soon - would ruin the fun.
September 25th, 1996
Oh, Potter, you can be so very dimwitted.
You looked anyway. Don't argue, either. I noticed you glancing about in class and even in the Great Hall. To no avail, Harry, to no avail.
You should learn to trust me. I wouldn't lie to you here, where it doesn't matter what you read, what you discover. Here, in this world of parchment and words and honesty, I can be a being similar to who I’d like to be, and nothing matters any more - choices are nonexistent; my mistakes, your childhood...they no longer tear away at what I have become. I don't have to think about what I can't say. I'm allowed to be me, to throw away the walls I've been forced to build.
I only expect you to listen. Just because I have decided to be brutally honest doesn't mean that you have to be the same, so don't act so nervous.
September 30th, 1996
Honesty makes you uncomfortable?
Too bad - deal with it. I'll continue with my letters, and you, being a curious being, if nothing else, will read them.
October 5th, 1996
Yes, that would be a waste of time.
Not to venture off-subject, but...I suppose it’s time I actually started asking the question I want to ask. They are almost entirely the reason I started writing you, anyway.
Do you mourn the loss of a normal childhood, Harry? I often find myself looking back on my years as a child and noticing few differences between those times and these. But things must have been substantially more difficult for you. A cupboard? I'm surprised you didn't turn out more twisted than you did. How did you survive the hours spent in such a small space? Did it make you bitter? Are you bitter still?
You do such a good job hiding your darker emotions. I have difficulty figuring out whether or not you are angry sometimes. In fact, most of the time, your face is blank, expressionless, and I wonder what dark memory you could possibly be reliving.
THREE - A Scene of Importance.
Harry lowered the sheet of parchment slowly, eyes still scanning the last few lines of the most recent letter. "'...and I wonder what dark memory you could possibly be reliving.'" He was unsure what to think of this...correspondence that had sprung up between himself and this mystery writer. Emotions that were usually kept under wraps - anger, discomfort, confusion, surprise - seemed to be harder to control after receiving another letter.
The first one had confused and surprised him. The observations stated therein had left him numb. Hardly anyone else had noticed his state of mental health when he arrived back at Hogwarts. Ron and Hermione had seen their friend's withdrawn attitude, but didn't approach him about it and it went unmentioned. But this person who seemed to be writing him whenever the notion hit them...they saw things Harry was sure they shouldn't.
The first time he'd responded, two days after receiving the third letter, it had been on a whim. What the writer had said about 'brutal honesty' had struck a chord deep within him, and he'd penned a short response, stating only that honesty was so sparse these days that it caused him discomfort. The response had struck an even deeper chord in that it caused him to laugh. Whoever the penman was, he certainly was different than most of the people Harry spoke with.
And that, alone, is what convinced him to write again...and again and again. Until these letters stopped coming, Harry would continue in his responses.
FOUR - Responses to Letters 1 - 5
(LATE SEPTEMBER ‘96 TO EARLY OCTOBER ‘96)
September 22nd, 1996
NO REPLY PENNED
September 23rd, 1996
NO REPLY PENNED
Written on September 26th, 1996 in response to September 25th, 1996
I don’t get much honesty from people. It makes me uncomfortable.
Written on October 1st, 1996 in response to September 30th, 1996
Yeah, I am curious. And yes, I do read every letter. And if more are sent, I'll read those too. I need something to distract me every once in a while, and you are doing an odd, if effective job, of succeeding there.
Would it be a waste of time if I asked who you are?
Written on October 6th, 1996 in response to October 5th, 1996
A normal childhood. Hm. You know, I've never really thought about it.
I guess I should mourn the loss of something that most everybody gets to have, but then again, not much else in my life is something a normal person would ever experience. If I were to get angry about missing out on being a kid, then I'd just have to admit that I'm angry about a bunch of other things, too. I prefer, instead, to just take everything in stride. Or at least, I try to do that. Things have never really been simple in my life. Either I am fighting off attempts on my life or I'm waiting to fight off attempts on my life.
I do, though, feel that I had to grow up much more quickly than I should have. If I’m sorry over losing anything, it's the experiences that accompany childhood, not the loss of a childhood itself.
What of you? You say that you didn't have much of a childhood either. Why is that? Do you feel robbed?
I'm not trying to be vain when I say that I've received a lot of letters while at Hogwarts. Letters of admiration, of thanks. But they always come signed and sealed in an envelope decorated with the family colors or coat of arms or a simply return address. Your letters come by owl, and the owl is an unremarkable one from the school's owlery, so I have no idea how I’m supposed to figure out who the bloody hell you are. It's unfair, leaving no trace of an identity.
But then again, I suppose it's kind of nice, talking to someone without having to worry about who they are or what sort of hidden agenda they might have.
You don’t have a hidden agenda, right?
END OF PART ONE; TO BE CONTINUED.