Fanfic Classics 📚 The theme for today's batch of covers: atmospheric Drarry fics with islands and/or fics that that deal with magic as an uncontrollable Entity. Also, these covers looked good together, so.
🏝️ The Isle of Ogygia by @citrusses
🛶 Beneath the Wave by @moonflower-rose
🏰 The Compact by astolat
🩸 In Our Blood by secretsalex
art credits below the cut!
Artwork used, in order:
"A lighthouse on fire at night" by Joseph Wright of Derby (1770)
"Isle of the Dead, 2nd Version" by Arnold Böcklin (1880)
"Bacchanal" by Franz Stuck (1905)
"Interior, Artificial Light" by Vilhelm Hammershøi (1909)
(classics covers are inspired by zeziliazink and bubu0h's works! i've been making more fic covers for my kindle here.)
“Harry.” Potter said, with a filthy grin. “I think if you’re going to put your cock in me, you should get used to calling me Harry all the time.” Draco stood up, and Potter’s eyes dropped down to his crotch. He grinned again. “Knew it. Massive erection.”
“Shut up and get moving, Harry.”
Quote from a stunning fic that bowled me over with it's loveliness, incredible worldbuilding with details that crawled into my heart and made a nest, and the best established relationship I have ever seen: Nothing Gold Can Stay by @moonflower-rose (Drarry, E, 40k)
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Carey ‘W’Recs Wednesday(｡•̀ᴗ-)✧ presents: Nothing Gold Can Stay
Moonflower_Rose @moonflower-rose
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter
Characters: Harry Potter, Draco Malfoy, Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger, Gawain Robards, Ginny Weasley
Additional Tags: Auror Draco Malfoy, Unspeakable Harry Potter, Auror Ron Weasley, Healer Hermione Granger, Magical Accidents, Parallel Universes, Mention of past Mpreg, Mention of potential future mpreg, Mention of Past Canon Torture, Mention of past non-canon torture, Mention of minor body image issues, Pining, Friendship, Friends to Lovers, Established Relationship, Brief Misunderstandings, Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional Support, Vulnerability, Getting Together, casual affection, First Time, Virgin Draco Malfoy, Mutual Masturbation, Oral Sex, Anal Sex, The London Aquarium, Magical creatures that probably shouldn't be pets, Bad Cooking, Drinking, Gratuitous Descriptions of Food and Eating, Best read after dinner or with a snack, Minor Hermione Granger/Ron Weasley, Past Harry Potter/Ginny Weasley, H/D Erised 2023, Mutual Pining, Domesticity
Summary:
One summer evening, Harry Potter vanished in the middle of dinner with his friends. Four days later he came back. Sort of.
Draco Malfoy is on the case.
(੭ˊ͈ ꒵ˋ͈)੭*⁺˚. * ･ ｡ﾟ☆
Excerpt under the cut due to possible spoiler...
Excerpt:
“We have three children, Draco and I.” Potter’s voice grew soft. “James, Al and Lily.”
Time seemed to slow, then, to a syrupy crawl. Draco couldn’t take his eyes from Potter. He felt like he might be making a gormless sort of face but caring about that was about as far from his thoughts as possible. Breathing was barely on the agenda.
“James is the eldest, named for my dad. We call him Jamie most of the time, but he’s about to go to Hogwarts so he’s working on a rebrand to make himself seem cooler. Wants us to call him ‘Ruby’.” Potter snorted softly. “His middle name is Rubeus, for Hagrid.”
Potter looked at Draco with a tiny smile. “I don’t know if he’s told you this here, but Hagrid saved us, really. He took me when I was a baby to my aunt and uncle, and he really didn’t want to leave me there, cried all over me, not that I remember it. Saw it in a Pensieve once. But he took me away from them too, right on the dot of midnight when I turned eleven. He was the one who told me I was magic, and told me the truth about my parents, and stood up to my shit family. Hagrid was there for me my whole life. So we named our boy James Rubeus. Hagrid cried all over me again after we told him.”
“I can only imagine the state of your shirt after that one,” Draco said mildly, and Potter huffed a small laugh.
“So. Everyone calls him Ruby at the moment, and Hagrid’s his godfather, and he’s got black hair like me, but he has your eyes.” Potter flinched, then corrected, “Draco’s eyes.”
Draco’s heart felt like it skipped several beats, then returned with a hard thump. “Who’s next?”
Potter smiled again. “Then there’s Al—that’s short for Alphard Alastor. The first bit is after an uncle of Sirius’ who left him money after his parents disowned him. I don’t know much about him but I always appreciated him for that. And the other bit. Erm. I don’t know if you remember Mad-Eye…”
Draco’s eyes widened. “Not the ferret guy.”
Potter bit his lips and rubbed his hand over his mouth, but there was nothing that could hide his smile. “Erm, yeah. I had a bit of a soft spot for him and he died while trying to protect me from Voldemort. I’m a bit sentimental about it. But that one was slightly more of an aggressive negotiation.”
“I fucking bet it was,” Draco said.
“You came around, though.”
“I’d love to know how you convinced me. Him.”
“I have my ways.” And that was so laden with innuendo that Draco felt himself go red, and he abruptly understood how his other self could have been persuaded to name his own son after someone who had turned him unwillingly into a rodent.
“Al is like a little clone of me unless he opens his mouth, and then he’s you to the bone. I’ve never been rinsed so hard by a child since I was at school with you.” It was said with such fondness that Draco almost wanted to cry, to grab Potter, to kiss him and make a fucking baby with him right there in the becrumbed sheets. But it wasn’t this Harry that he wanted to do those things with. Not really.
“And then there’s Lily. That’s mum’s name. Lily Arabella, we nearly made it Arabella Lily but then you quite rightly pointed out that Bella would be the natural diminutive and we both decided we didn’t need that reminder for the rest of our lives. She’s the baby, only two, or she will be soon. We call her Belly, because Al couldn’t say Lily and called her Billy at first and it was just too stupidly cute to correct him, and by the time she was learning her own name she would just scream Belly at the top of her lungs and it wasn’t worth the trouble to correct her when that was also extremely fucking cute. She’s got your hair and my eyes, and your pointy chin and all my sass. She’s so naughty, Draco, it's incredible. We have so much fun.” Potter’s face crumpled. “Fuck.”
“Oh,” Draco said, as Potter’s shoulders started to shake. “Oh, I…”
“What if I can’t get back, what if I never see them again—”
He didn’t let himself think, he just slid himself closer until his arms were around Potter again.
“I’ll find a way, I promise you. I promise you.” Draco’s voice was low, soothing, his hand in Potter’s hair. “I’ve got you. I’ll do everything I can to get you home, Harry.”
“Thank you.” He felt it more than heard it, and he held Potter tightly and murmured to him.
“Your children sound beautiful. Especially the ones who are just like me.” Potter laughed wetly. “Can’t help but notice the names are very Potter-coded. Nothing even remotely astrological. More evidence of your powers of persuasion, I suppose.”
“That was all your idea, actually,” Potter sniffed, and pulled a hankie from his pocket. “You said—Draco said—when they started at Hogwarts they could choose their own constellation if they wanted to and we’d make it official with the Ministry. No more ‘burdensome gothic nonsense’, I think your words were. Ruby is going in September and he’s picked Betelgeuse.”
“That’s not a constellation,” Draco said, scandalised. “Salazar’s manky—”
“That’s what my Draco said as well, but not to Ruby’s face. He’s sticking to this autonomy thing even if it gives him hives.”
“Any early preferences from the other two?” Betelgeuse! His father would roll in his grave.
“Al wants Leo, which is so funny to me because he seems a born Slytherin, but Draco said he told him at bathtime once that it’s because he wants his initials to sound the same as his name does if you said them together—AAL. Such a typically weird and Al thing to say.” Potter smiled, and his eyes were faraway. “Belly’s too young, but her favourite page in the astronomy book has always been Ursa Minor. She’s chewed nearly the whole corner off that page. She’s also a bit partial to Sirius and I haven’t discouraged her. I think that would be pretty cool, actually.”
They sat in companionable silence for a while, and Potter sipped his tea. Draco’s shirt was wet again, but it was about the last thing on his mind. He wanted to ask to see the photographs on Potter’s mobile. No doubt there would be photographs of the whole family, and his curiosity poked at the idea like a tongue prodding the socket of a lost tooth. He didn’t ask Potter to show him that, though. It had been hard enough when Potter had looked on his own. That wouldn’t be fair.
“I always thought,” Draco found the words spilling out without thought. “If I had a son, I’d call him—”
“Scorpius.” Potter smiled when Draco looked at him. “Yeah, I know. I’ve been working on you for just one more. I think you’re coming around.”
“Your Draco is,” Draco said gently. “Potter—”
“Could you please call me Harry?” Potter interrupted. “Please. I promise you I understand that you’re not him, I know I keep getting the words muddled up. It would just be a comfort to me, if you could call me Harry.”
“Of course I can,” Draco said, and his heart tore into ever more numerous pieces. “Harry.”
Life as a professional Quidditch player involves a strict routine, and more hydration than Harry could have imagined. He's happy to follow the rules, but he does keep one little strategy to himself, his secret to success on the pitch.
Unfortunately, that secret is about to be exposed to Draco Malfoy.
If you've not gathered from my reblogs and tags that I am abnormally fond of domestic scenes and fic, you can now safely assume the same.
This fic is more than anything I could have thought up even during my most creative day dreams of domestic drarry. The writing is extraordinary. Harry and Draco are obscenely in love and as you proceed through this story, you fall more and more in love with this ship and these boys. Their relationship is so wonderfully rich and you'd think that behaviour this sweet would rot your teeth but they stay so perfectly in character that you're just grinning and sighing and clutching your heart the whole time.
I am over and above grateful for this fic, @moonflower-rose . This is most overtly generous and never before have I felt so deeply connected to a gift fic before.
I’m so sorry to hear people are being buttholes to you! You’re fabulous and so is your art ❤️
😭❤️😭❤️😭 this coming from one of the most fabulous writers in fandom. Thank you so much!! I will be spending the evening drawing Christmassy things, and might wrap the evening up with one of your fics tbh ❤️
Do you like to travel? Where are your favourite places to go? What does the best holiday ever look like to you?
Hiii! Thanks for the ask. I love traveling but I get the bug to go on big trips intermittently rather than all the time. I’ve done quite a few big trips although there are still lots of places I haven’t seen (Japan is somewhere I really want to visit but haven’t had the opportunity yet) and in the last couple of years I’ve used holidays to explore more of the UK. I love walking on a beach on a cold day and staying somewhere I can hear the waves crashing at night and the seagulls in the morning. I had hoped to drive part of the Wild Atlantic Way in Ireland this year but for obvious reasons that hasn’t happened. Wild, windswept beach walking is one of my favourite things to do on holiday.
My other favourite kind of holiday is a city break. I always try to find a cocktail bar that looks interesting, because I hardly ever choose to order a cocktail if I’m out and having a fancy cocktail somewhere makes it feel like a holiday! One of my favourite cities to visit is New York and I wish I could get out more often as I have so many friends that live there (or close by). I love it when you go somewhere without feeling like you have to charge around doing touristy things and can just spend time catching up with people. Having lived in London for so long, I know that you tend to avoid the tourist spots due to cost and busyness, so I really like getting a friend that lives in a city to show me what they love about it. Paris is another one of my favourite cities, I love it there.
My dream holiday would probably be island hopping, something I’ve done in Greece and Croatia. Cruises aren’t really my thing, but places with lots of islands are pretty well set up for being able to travel between them fairly easily. I’d love to go back to Greece and do that again, checking out some of the islands I missed last time, as it’s been ages since I’ve had a holiday like that.
