FIC: When Father Was Away (Draco)

[spare_change]

Happy Birthday, Draco! Here's another never-posted fic from the archives.

Title: When Father Was Away (June 2003) (Web version)
Pairing: Draco gen. Harry/Draco if you squint.
Rating: R
Length: ~3,000 words
Warnings: None
Summary: Malfoy Manor, the summer after Fifth Year.
A/N: I wrote this the week after OOTP came out, but never finished it

Comments

[aquila_star]

Wow, I really loved the thread of Draco's summer in this, how everything conspired to push him where he needed to go. Brilliant.

[spare_change]

Thank you -- I'm so happy it worked for you! (And I love how you summed up my fic far more elegantly than I would ever be able to.) ♥

[shiny_crystal]

Here via mizbean's rec - truly excellent story. I love the Draco characterization, his reactions, everything, it just feels right to me. I mean, he's still really young in that summer and his father's imprisonment must have been a huge shock some way or the other. Wonderfully written as well.
This will find its way to my reclist as well ;)

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*jumps up and down*

Yay! Thanks so much! I'm really glad the characterization works for you. (And thanks for letting me know about mizbean's rec, too.)

[black_dog]

I remember this story when it was a fragment that you had posted, ages ago -- just the part about Draco’s return home. I loved the idea of the Manor, deeply spooky in the bright sunlight, quietly but decisively recognizing its new master. It was a stunning way to signal the scary change, the gravity and newness of Draco’s situation at the end of OOTP

[black_dog]

How weird that writing a review is a catalyst for further thinking. 10 minutes later (and with an assist from some of the other comments) the ending falls into place for me. I had entirely missed the sense that the Manor was signalling Draco in the snitch scene, the "assent" he feels from the Manor's magic when he touches the stone wall, and therefore what sort of help, precisely, he is asking from Harry. I had caught Draco's shift to rebellion against Lucius, but I think I had such a powerful response to the alienness of the Manor that I could at first only imagine Draco's flight, not a reconciliation and alliance against Lucius. How creepy, especially for Narcissa! :D

[spare_change]

Wow, thank you so much for your super-insightful comments! I can't thank you enough for taking the time to read and then giving me such a careful, thoughtful reading. I tend to be a very muse-driven writer -- I just write down what the characters tell me to -- so your comments really helped me to understand my own fic better. :D

And how flattered am I that you remembered back when I posted this as a fragment? ♥

Anyway, I really like your reading of the Manor ... to me it is sentient but not really conscious, if that makes any sense. It doesn't think, it just responds to whatever the natural magical order of things may be. So it recognizes Draco as the heir not because it decides to do so, but because it couldn't do otherwise.

I think. Hmmm. It's funny because this kind of magical dwelling is a fetish of mine (it pops up in some other fics I'm working on as well), and yet I've never thought it through to this extent. :D (BTW, you might also like the prequel to this Tie Me To the Length of That, because the Manor also plays

[black_dog]

It is fun to have your feedback to feedback, too! Though I promise I will not go on and on to absurdity. :) A treat, though, to have the chance to hear an author's own take on their story in a meta sense

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I think my tendencies to analysis, which serve me well in some areas, are one of the reasons my own fic attempts have not worked -- I am too quick with the pin and killing jar, my scenarios have felt dead on the page, right from the conception. I want to think about this more; it's very suggestive.I am, by nature, a very analytic thinker as well, and so it's a huge challenge for me to suspend that write straight from the unconscious. But Olympia M once said something very wise to me: "Your characters know more than you do." Which means I need to trust them to tell me what I need to know rather than try to figure it out for myself. It's a huge leap of faith for me, especially as I have a tendency to edit-as-I-go rather than just spit up a huge first draft and then edit down. Stephen King has a similar theory about writing as well, if you're curious about learning more. If I start getting theoretical too quickly, I have the same problem as you do -- the characters stop feeling like living, breathing creatures and turn flat

[spare_change]

Thank you so much for reading -- Scary!Lucius is a favorite of mine, and I'm really glad he worked for you! :D