NaNoWriMo and a Meme
I've got just shy of 9,000 words on my NaNo and I'm pretty happy with what I've written so far. I thought I was going to write the HP Shakespearean Romp, but what I seem to actually be doing is working on Avengers short stories.
I'm not sure how that happened, but I just wrote 1600 words of Bucky POV stuff set during Captain America: The First ( Read more... )
I'm not sure how that happened, but I just wrote 1600 words of Bucky POV stuff set during Captain America: The First ( Read more... )
I was trying to make this sound British. "mum" and "curry take-away" were meant to add ambience. This apartment was also heavily influenced by an apartment I shared with a husband, a baby, and two room-mates. We were all of us slobs.
"Hermione, I'm-"
"Ron, don't you dare say you're sorry! I swear you two make me crazy! I'm tired of feeling like I'm Wendy living with the Lost Boys. Honestly!"
I love the idea that Harry and Hermione have a shared childhood identity (being raised as muggles) that Ron just doesn't have. Rowling doesn't touch on it much, but Harry and Hermione would have plenty of cultural references that Ron just wouldn't get. Also - in the apartment that theirs is based off of, I used to refer to myself as Wendy all the time.
"That's hardly fair Hermione. We're not that bad." Harry was starting to get annoyed. Okay, she had asked them to clean up the kitchen, sure - and they'd even said they'd do it, but it wasn't as if she was their mum. They'd clean it up when they got to it, wouldn't they?
He would have sworn Hermione growled. "Shut it, Pan. You're both fully grown men. I shouldn't have to nag you half to death to get you to pick up. This is your house! Do you actually like living like this?"
This entire fight may or may not have been taken directly from real life. How many times have I had some variation of this conversation with my husband? Also, if Harry is Peter who does that make Ron? Cubby?
Ron looked torn between confusion and irritation, which was not far off from how Harry was feeling, come to that. "Who's this Pan bloke?"
And this is where Ron gets to say "what the hell are you two talking about?"
"Oh never mind! We cannot keep living like this. We just-" her breath hitched and Harry realized that she had tears in her eyes.
Uh-oh. Mad Hermione they can handle. Have been doing so for years.
"Hermione. Sweetheart, why-?" Ron stepped forward, reaching towards her, but she waved him off.
"I just...I just wanted to be able to cook a nice dinner for once!" She was openly crying now.
They can't handle crying Hermione.
Harry exchanged a confused look with Ron. The three of them had been living together for nearly three years now, and while Hermione had mentioned (on more than one occasion) that she'd prefer it if they kept their flat cleaner, she'd never reacted by crying about it before.
I was a little worried that I over-did this - I really hate overwrought emotional nonsense… except I've been where Hermione is in this story, and yah, no this is pretty much true life.
"Hermi-" Harry tried one more time.
A little shout-out to the fanon convention of nicknaming her "Hermi."
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I do love the Wendy/Peter/Lost Boys connection here because I think the whole lot of the kids who fought in the war probably have some sort of Lost Boys connection with each other. Not that they don't want to grow up but they also had their childhoods sort of ruined and I can see them clinging, in some ways, to being children. And do we ever really grow up? I mean, really?
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This sort of thing, the Lost Boys concept, makes me invision this whole little world of all the kids (now adults) who never really stop being Dumbledore's Army. They may move further away but the group will always sort of define them. Even in healing, I don't think they could take that experience out of their history. It's too defining.
Your insight right there just made my brain start chugging away at that concept. I think it's brilliant! And I love that Ron doesn't get the reference but I love that he still asks what they're talking about even though I'm sure he's had plenty of other times when it's been over his head but he still desires to know everything they know.
Just a really, really brilliant story and I'm glad that I read it! It's the sort of story that makes me wish that we'd known each other in the heyday of the fandom!
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Thank you! That is such an awesome thing to say!
I was telling Koren the other day that I really wish I'd been writing more/more actively participating in fandom back in Harry Potter's hey-day. It's clearly not a dead fandom even now, but 5-10 years ago things were definitely more happening. I've been reading HP fic since the early 2000s, but have always been pretty much a lurker.
Anyway, I wish we'd known each other back then too -- and further, I wish I'd found (or that there had existed) an equivalent kind of community for HP as the Best Bar is for C/N.
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My bestest friend in all the world at that point was an early ficcer and was very well known as the predominant Ginny/Snape writer of the time so I basked in her glory for awhile. That was plenty for me!
I don't think there really is an HP equivalent of the bar. While I thought, at the time, that I had found something like that, it was still a very divisive place with a lot of backstabbing and general uneasiness about it. Feelings just seem to run very high in that fandom.
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