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hd_holidays Recs!
Jan. 6th, 2011 11:59 pmSadly, still way behind. Reveals are Sunday. Hopefully, I can sneak in a few more by then ♥
hd_holidays
Promise Me - Harry/Draco [NC-17] by Mystery Author.
I kind of wish I could just cut and paste this whole fic and use it as my review, but that would be cheating horribly. This is just such a beautiful but brittle read. Two non linnear vignettes come together like the weaves and wefts on a loom. And it is perfect in that is it achingly conflicting. It is a rare and wonderful thing to wrench from me an emotion and its counterpoint once, but this fic manages to accomplish that several times. This is a wartime fic that situates Draco and his mother outside of the manor in hiding at a cottage. Draco is left with hefty indecisions and difficult promises to keep, and it kind of pains me to watch him cleave his heart in half to make peace with the two. There are so many beautiful passges in this that I have to quote at least these, my favourites;
He’d wanted to say no but found he couldn’t – not with those green eyes looking at him so intently “Give it to me,” he’d whispered, and Harry had got out of bed in search of some parchment and ink. He’d been naked still, and when he’d bent over to write, Draco counted the vertebrae in his spine the same way someone might count rosary beads.
Harry’s body welcomed his. His heart beat against Draco’s chest, and his cock hardened in Draco’s mouth. The narrow cot held them like water in cupped hands. The only boundaries they knew were the limit of arousal before it spilled over into an orgasm and the impossibility of sharing one single skin.
This is so exquisitely descriptive, too. I love when an author can stimulate my senses to such a degree that I feel like I'm there, seeing what the characters see and feeling what they feel. But I'm never left feeling overstimulated with too much. This fic just seems to sit somewhere in the comfortable middle with me. It's not happy. It's not sad. It's right where it needs to be.
Conquering the Dark - Harry/Draco, Ron/Hermione [NC-17] by Mystery Author.
I want to draw hearts around Healer Draco in every size, shape and colour imaginable, I swear ♥
Last year when I was writing my Hols fic, I pondered the plausibility of Healer Draco until I was blue in the face. Could he be that charitable? Would he be able to adhere to the Hippocratic Oath? Ultimately, my answer hinged on one final question; Could he mature past the petulance? The conclusion I drew was yes. And you see, this is a huge part of why I loved this fic. My boys grew up. But I'll get back to this in a bit. Brief, not-too-telling synopsis is love, yes?
So, as you might've gathered from my introduction, Draco is a Healer at St Mungos. For that matter, so is Harry. Each with their own specialised fields. Rowling gives us a fairly big sandbox with which to build castles in, but I love when authors take the initiative and come up with their own magics. Draco's speciality is Neuromagical disorders, and he's Hugh Laurie brilliant without the excess grump. Harry's speciality is paediatrics, and he's equally brilliant. *draws lots of hearts around Healer Harry, too*
When a peculiar, little girl causes mass chaos in the waiting room at St Mungos, Harry intervenes and is inadvertently injured in the neuromagically-induced maelstrom. After his recovery, he and Draco work jointly on the girl's treatment, aaaand this is where I'm shutting up. *G*
As I stated above, the boys have moved past the petty grudges and have matured admirably. There's not a lot of snarkery, but it's never too syrupy sweet either. Which, I must add, is a huge pet peeve of mine. Hello, how long have they hated one another? Ten years have passed, and there are far more greater concerns, and I love how this is prevalent throughout. Don't get me wrong, Draco's still smug as fuck, and Harry would be the first in line to tell him so. But they work well together, and more importantly, know this. The story runs at a believable pace, much to my delight. When I'm fully immersed in what I'm reading, I'd much prefer a walk and not a run to the finish line.
At this point, I should like to draw hearts around the author now for putting a lot of time and thought into this fic. I was quite impressed with how everything was handled, most especially hospital policy and procedure. It's so easy to become lax when intense research is required, and yeah, I get that we're working with a make-believe world, really I do. But I absolutely appreciated that the author insisted on balancing the scales of believability rather than tipping them. This was definitely a fest favourite of mine ♥
Enjoy all!
--P
hd_holidaysPromise Me - Harry/Draco [NC-17] by Mystery Author.
I kind of wish I could just cut and paste this whole fic and use it as my review, but that would be cheating horribly. This is just such a beautiful but brittle read. Two non linnear vignettes come together like the weaves and wefts on a loom. And it is perfect in that is it achingly conflicting. It is a rare and wonderful thing to wrench from me an emotion and its counterpoint once, but this fic manages to accomplish that several times. This is a wartime fic that situates Draco and his mother outside of the manor in hiding at a cottage. Draco is left with hefty indecisions and difficult promises to keep, and it kind of pains me to watch him cleave his heart in half to make peace with the two. There are so many beautiful passges in this that I have to quote at least these, my favourites;
He’d wanted to say no but found he couldn’t – not with those green eyes looking at him so intently “Give it to me,” he’d whispered, and Harry had got out of bed in search of some parchment and ink. He’d been naked still, and when he’d bent over to write, Draco counted the vertebrae in his spine the same way someone might count rosary beads.
Harry’s body welcomed his. His heart beat against Draco’s chest, and his cock hardened in Draco’s mouth. The narrow cot held them like water in cupped hands. The only boundaries they knew were the limit of arousal before it spilled over into an orgasm and the impossibility of sharing one single skin.
This is so exquisitely descriptive, too. I love when an author can stimulate my senses to such a degree that I feel like I'm there, seeing what the characters see and feeling what they feel. But I'm never left feeling overstimulated with too much. This fic just seems to sit somewhere in the comfortable middle with me. It's not happy. It's not sad. It's right where it needs to be.
Conquering the Dark - Harry/Draco, Ron/Hermione [NC-17] by Mystery Author.
I want to draw hearts around Healer Draco in every size, shape and colour imaginable, I swear ♥
Last year when I was writing my Hols fic, I pondered the plausibility of Healer Draco until I was blue in the face. Could he be that charitable? Would he be able to adhere to the Hippocratic Oath? Ultimately, my answer hinged on one final question; Could he mature past the petulance? The conclusion I drew was yes. And you see, this is a huge part of why I loved this fic. My boys grew up. But I'll get back to this in a bit. Brief, not-too-telling synopsis is love, yes?
So, as you might've gathered from my introduction, Draco is a Healer at St Mungos. For that matter, so is Harry. Each with their own specialised fields. Rowling gives us a fairly big sandbox with which to build castles in, but I love when authors take the initiative and come up with their own magics. Draco's speciality is Neuromagical disorders, and he's Hugh Laurie brilliant without the excess grump. Harry's speciality is paediatrics, and he's equally brilliant. *draws lots of hearts around Healer Harry, too*
When a peculiar, little girl causes mass chaos in the waiting room at St Mungos, Harry intervenes and is inadvertently injured in the neuromagically-induced maelstrom. After his recovery, he and Draco work jointly on the girl's treatment, aaaand this is where I'm shutting up. *G*
As I stated above, the boys have moved past the petty grudges and have matured admirably. There's not a lot of snarkery, but it's never too syrupy sweet either. Which, I must add, is a huge pet peeve of mine. Hello, how long have they hated one another? Ten years have passed, and there are far more greater concerns, and I love how this is prevalent throughout. Don't get me wrong, Draco's still smug as fuck, and Harry would be the first in line to tell him so. But they work well together, and more importantly, know this. The story runs at a believable pace, much to my delight. When I'm fully immersed in what I'm reading, I'd much prefer a walk and not a run to the finish line.
At this point, I should like to draw hearts around the author now for putting a lot of time and thought into this fic. I was quite impressed with how everything was handled, most especially hospital policy and procedure. It's so easy to become lax when intense research is required, and yeah, I get that we're working with a make-believe world, really I do. But I absolutely appreciated that the author insisted on balancing the scales of believability rather than tipping them. This was definitely a fest favourite of mine ♥
Enjoy all!
--P
