Fic: World Enough and Time (H/D, PG-13, 2700 words)

[lydiabennet]

Title: World enough and time
Author: lydiabennet
Pairing/rating: H/D with others mentioned; PG-13
Summary: Harry has a job to do, but wants more. Angsty.
Notes: Inspired by jamie2109 and nocturnali's AWDT challenge

Comments

[lapin_agile]

I like this very much. It is formal and restrained -- not least in its refusal to provide the romantic fulfillment it baits us with, nor even to offer a shred of hope at the end, though it hints at hope before yanking it away.

I was as hopeless caught as Harry in that summer scene, and the beauty of it is your restraint. You are quite as deliberately baiting your hook for your reader as Malfoy is presenting himself as bait to catch Harry, but you never overplay your hand. You never quite admit what you are up to:

Malfoy sprawled there, oblivious, reading one page of the letter and fanning himself with the other, his robes wide open at the neck and one leg dangling carelessly to rest on the floor. Light poured into the room, the summer light of hot dawns and endless days. It streaked Malfoy in shadow and burning gold . . . It crept along his body to nestle at the base of his throat and heat the exposed skin, making him sweat, making him flush warm and red and wet.

. . .

Malfoy stretched, arms raised above his head, elegant fingers flexing and curling as if he was trying to catch the light in his hands. Light toyed with him, teased him, rippled across his mussed robes as he moved, seeking out the shape of his long limbs, of his sinuous body twisting lazily beneath sun-soaked cloth.

You pull it off because you stay inside Harry's pov and Harry thinks the light is playing on Malfoy, heating him and showing him off to Harry, when, of course, it is Malfoy who is using the light to best advantage. And then you give the merest twitch of an authorial wink: "As if he was trying to catch the light," you say. And then jerk the line and I'm done for. Caught. Yours to reel in as you choose without so much as a wriggle to fight you off.

You made my afternoon. I've been whining about the lack of good, writerly fic, and then you Apparate on my flist with this. I can't quite believe my good fortune.

[lydiabennet]

[Sorry if you've recieved this more than once; LJ is giving me grief.]

Wow! Thank you for this wonderful and detailed feedback.

Sorry about the no hope business, but one of the reasons, I suppose, why wartime romances are so urgent is that they are haunted by the very real possibility of loss, loss that can happen at any time. I wanted to take that possibility seriously here.

You pull it off because you stay inside Harry's pov and Harry thinks the light is playing on Malfoy, heating him and showing him off to Harry, when, of course, it is Malfoy who is using the light to best advantage.

Ooooh, I'm so glad this came through for you! Yes, I think Draco is very aware of what he looks like; he may or may not be vain (Harry doesn't know him well enough here to be privy to that), but surely any Slytherin worth his salt would be ready to use the tools that came to hand, so to speak. And I'm very glad this came through without being said; over-explanation is my cardinal sin as a fiction writer and I'm desperately trying to squiggle out of that very bad habit.

Thank you again for your kind comment; it means a great deal to me. :)