I re-read this fic recently, it's so beautiful, I needed to have it on my shelf.
There is a river that plays an important part in the story, and I've been wanting to try out some different techniques AND I had the perfect paper to use, so I went with that for the cover. I created an inlay by cutting the design out of thinner bookboard and gluing that to a normal piece, then when I covered it with bookcloth, I squished it into all of the nooks and crannies. Then I cut the decorative paper into the same shape and glued that in.
The other notable feature of this bind is the black background on the "underlude" chapters. Just for funsies. I have lots of black toner. Why not?
I also sewed endbands on one of the copies, but I ran out of steam after the first copy. (I can't remember which set I kept and which I sent to the author. It's like, do I want to send imperfectly sewn endbands to the author? Or do I send perfect glued ones?)
I also love the font I used for the cover, chapter titles, and drop caps. It's called Canto and has so many lovely variations, plus glyphs like that sexy N on the cover.
More details:
Bookcloth: Black Brillianta from Colophon Book Arts
Endpapers/inset: Gold wavy marble from Paper Source
Body font: Corundum Text Light
hi, I know you're not writing for drarry anymore and that's understandable but I just wanted to say that I've just finished reading close behind and oh my god it was incredible, it was a beautiful piece of literature that combined my two favourite things, greek mythology and drarry, and continuously stabbed me in the heart and bled me out to dry but I feel like I've been healed. thank you for writing this, I love it so much. definitely going up to the top of my favourites list.
hope you're having a wonderful day ❤️
ahhh thank you so much!! this is so, so lovely to hear; close behind, for all its controversy (because of its controversy??) will always have a special place in my heart. i put a lot into it and i always appreciate hearing that it had an effect on readers. thank you, really, for letting me know, and i hope you're having a wonderful day too!! 💜
I know a lot of you have read this when it was being posted as a chapter fic, so I'm late to the game, but just in case you haven't...you should.
@oflights is masterful in the storytelling and pacing for all 134K words. There are switches of timelines, places, and POV for the various chapters. From the beginning, you know something bad happened to Harry and Draco in the past and you know an additional bad thing happened to Draco, which about crushed Harry. However, as you learn about what is going on in different timelines, you get so caught up in the storytelling of one timeline you forget that there's more and then the hammer comes down. We are told from the start that there is a happy ending. Keep that in mind...always.
It reminded me of when I first read Turn. There was the beginning with Harry upset with kids and life and then there was the whole alternate life with Draco. You got lost in it and loved it even though somewhere in the back of your mind you knew it would end.
Three of the big standouts in the story is the magical lore and the exploration of the underworld. Good grief, what a concept. And second is Scorpius. You will love him to pieces. Also there is this very cute strange little pup that you'll become very attached to.
I'm not telling much of the plot here because it has to be experienced. But Harry being Deputy Headmaster at Hogwarts is where it starts. Draco an expert Curse-breaker lives in Hogsmeade with Scorpius and Scorpius attends Hogwarts.
Read Close Behind on AO3
And give the author lots of love for this great piece of work.
allie i've been trying to gather the courage to reread close behind honestly ever since i first read it in march last year but i've been too. emotionally distraught to actually do so but! i've literally thought about it probably twice each week. and now i'm finally actually almost over my ex so i should just bite the bullet but im SCARED bc the last time i cried for 5 hours
like i literally remember 2 am on a weekday in literally -2 C weather and i sat on my balcony, wrapped in a blanket, chain smoking and reading at the same time, tears streaming down my face. all this to say i long for that catharsis but i'm. scared
omg. anon!! first of all it's probably weird how happy this kind of message makes me lol, like yay, i left you emotionally ravaged!!! mission accomplished!!
second of all: just remember the happy ending! read the last chapter first, and keep it in your mind as you read the rest!! think about everything that could come after it, too, like:
harry and draco's first awkward af date in hogsmeade. ron, daphne, their kids, and scorpius all follow them in various disguises courtesy of george and they are very obvious but harry and draco are too into each other to notice.
draco never wears black again. for every date with harry, he wears a different set of brightly-colored, over-the-top robes.
he steals harry's colorful fair isle sweaters all the time, too.
oh and he gets a weasley sweater like, day one of his renewed relationship with harry. molly had actually been knitting him a bunch over the years but held them back because she didn't want to make things weird or upset harry, so there's a backlog to get through. some have a little dragon stitched on them and ron is super jealous.
their first holiday at the burrow? emotional, life-changing, beautiful, cathartic. harry weeps at least five times. ginny punches him for old time's sake.
speaking of, headmaster harry who holds regular office hours for all hogwarts students in case they ever need to talk to him about something. even if they just want to talk about socks.
(headmaster harry who gets all embarrassed whenever anyone calls him "the youngest hogwarts headmaster in a century")
terrifying new DADA professor hermione granger, who is distressingly unpopular amongst the students because they're all too intimidated by her and it takes her a while to learn how to deal with kids.
until she skips out on a hogsmeade weekend to scandalously elope with a much younger former department of mysteries intern and then she's just incredibly cool to them.
and listen. scorpius locks himself in his room when he finds out about harry and draco's past. he asks draco if he'd ever loved astoria and makes draco cry. draco teaches him that the heart is a universe and he doesn't have any regrets and a wonderful future doesn't invalidate a past he was truly happy in.
and then!! there's stepdad harry. my favorite thing. scorpius asks harry how he knew he was gay. harry gives scorpius the invisibility cloak and asks him to help perfect his disillusionment charm in return. scorpius asks harry to rig the house cup for slytherin as his birthday gift. harry refuses, even though draco thinks it's only fair.
harry and draco date, get engaged, get married in their 40s. they go back and forth between hogwarts and the hogsmeade cottage (which includes ron and daphne's fam like 70% of the time too; harry loves summers spent as part of the extended weasley-greengrass-malfoy-potter family). draco eventually retires from curse-breaking and becomes a nepo hire charms professor after scorpius graduates.
they really do live happily ever after, after all that. promise. 😌
Close Behind, a Harry/Draco fic by oflights, now COMPLETE.
Summary: To rescue Draco from the Underworld, Harry has to look forward.
Unfortunately, Draco has to look back.
Featuring: a retelling of the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, angst (like...a lot of angst), a happy ending (i PROMISE), doomed lovers, memory loss, Harry as a Hogwarts Professor, Draco as a Curse-Breaker, alternating timelines and POVs, stressful therapy sessions, looking back, many rivers, a ghost dog who loves lima beans, a tiger snake with special powers, a thestral with ribbons in his mane, Bill Weasley being an Adult, Harry bonding with Scorpius, Draco making friends and enemies in the Underworld, growing up, and, I swear, I’ll say it again: a happy ending.
Word Count: ~134k
Notes: It’s finally done!! So excited to wrap up posting this! Thank you to everyone who read along and commented, and I’m so excited for people who might be new to this checking it out now! Please let me know what you think, and check out the playlist if you’d like!
