DM & The Hounds Of Love

Was thinking about this heartbreaking queer awakening from @leahrocky / @dracoandthehounds series rewrite again

Cw internalized homophobia derogatory use of word queer

Thank you so much for making this!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Absolute awe 😭😭😭🥰🥰🥰💕💕😬🥹🤟❤️

It is such a sad type of queer awakening :(((( very much one that had to be rushed into for Draco. Kind of like an anvil that had been held over his head for too long lmao.

(Textless image)

Heres the link to the fic

I LOVE the colors you used!!!! It’s exactly the sort of moody atmospheric way I imagine the slytherin common room 😭😭😭 and I AM DYING over the being right tally on the board!!!!!!!! It’s so perfect!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thank you so much for making this!!!!! And everyone go look at it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I love the way they’re sitting too :))) the casual / teenagery/ rebellious of it. So perfect for their characters.

amazing 😭😭😭😭😭 I love this so much. I love how u depicted Nell and Draco. It’s them so perfectly!! And omg the scene with Nell in Harry’s dresser!!!!!!!!! I love that moment so much I’m so honored that you brought it to life here 😭😭

Ch 21, ending scene

bonus drawing underneath

Look at this!!!!!!! I’m so sorry it took me so long to notice this I went so AWOL 😭

This is soooooo amazing!!!! I love the way u depicted Nell and Pansy!!! The panic!!! It’s exactly what I was going for in that scene!!

God I could stare at these forever! Thank you so much for drawing these and sharing them with the world 😭😭😭

Send me a number or emoji (+ optionally, a ship) for a fic rec!

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my wonky dmhol fanart *jazz hands*

Ahhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!! This is soooo beautiful!!!! I love this so much you have no idea omg 😭😭😭😭

I love the way you drew Nell’s emotions!!!!! It feels sooooooooo accurate to her 😭😭😭 and omg the tapes!!!!!!!!!!! So perfect!!!!! 😭😭😭

Thank you for drawing these. I literally don’t have words for how much it means to me 😭😭😭

Oooooh okay!!!

11. What do you like best about this fic?

I'd say... My favorite part of this fic/series is getting a chance to develop out complex characters that didn't get as much attention in the canon. Like developing Draco's motivations so he's less of like a Heel character. Or the plans I have for Pansy specifically feel really exciting. And, of course, Nell :) It means so much to me that people like her!!! Because she's entered a world of characters that people have known forever and cared about forever so it means a lot to me that people are liking her too :)))

And more specifically...... there are a handful of scenes coming up at the start of the next installment that I am very excited for. My hint is that these scenes will take place before Harry gets attacked by the dementors, and then after his move to the order headquarters but before his trial :)

12. What do you like least about this fic?

The fact that it won't write itself hahahaha lmao.

I'd say...... I like the least when I have to stick to certain canon moments in order for the plot to develop how I want it to. So, like, I wish I could find a way to exonerate Sirius in the books because I feel like his reintroduction to the wizarding world and how that sort of shakes things up could be sooooooo good but if I did that, then Harry wouldn't be at Privet Drive pre-OOTP, which would throw off the dementor & expulsion plot-lines which are really important to the story and things I *do* want to incorporate.

Oh and the other thing I like least is having to fix a lot of Rowling's plot-holes lol. Like... having characters be smart and come up with intelligent responses to their problems is something that is really important to me as a writer, so sometimes I come across things in the canon that just make no sense lol. (like, for example, in the second book--- why weren't the petrified students sent to St. Mungo's, and why couldn't Hogwarts idk order out for some Mandrakes??? Like why are they dependent on the mandrakes that the *second-year students* are growing??????

So I made up some casual mention by Ron about a wizarding flu that used up all the mandrakes in the series lol.

Like these things are probably things that don't matter to readers since it's just part of canon but I like... cannot move past them lol. It makes it hard to write if I feel like there's an inconsistency, especially since I'm writing in Nell's story to include stuff like Death Eaters and the Unforgiveable Curses since the first book, which don't actually appear until the fourth book in the original canon. So it's a lot to sort of keep up with in my head and to be prepared to have a logical explanation for certain things.

like.... here are some things that I have/will need to adjust bc their explanation doesn't really work in canon or i hate the way Rowling did it bc it was bigoted or stupid lmao:

why the trio didn't have food during the horcrux hunt

why harry can't move out of privet drive

the seven potters plan (okay this one just never made sense to me like i really feel like it could be fixed so much.......... but i have come up with a fix for it that i'm extremely excited about lmao. it's made my annoyance at this plot point go away.)

prev. mentioned mandrake issue

the time-turners

the goblet of fire (why can't harry just not try hard at the tasks....)

the house-elves

werewolves

giants

centaurs

veela

transfiguration of (for example) rats into goblets? / transfiguration in general.

whyyyyyyyyy tf they brought the literal most aggressive breed of dragon to be used in the first task????

the animagus ritual / why more characters don't do it

love potions (ughghhghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhghghhhh)

how harmful the memory-wiping charm is in actuality

fixing characters who are one-note ways for Rowling to hate on groups of people.... (i.e. the Dursleys are bad, and a large part of that is bc Vernon and Dudley are really fat????? wtf???) (or like.... Lockhart and Karkaroff are feminine men.... SURPRISE they're evil and creepy!!!! or Lavender Brown likes girly things.... she sucks. the best girls are Hermione and Ginny bc they are Not Like Other Girls. And Lupin who is a werewolf [as a metaphor for AIDS - explicitly stated by JKR] is 100% straight and now married to a woman nearly twenty years younger than him.... like Jo. You used the historically-used method for gay coding trope of lycanthropy and then got mad when people read it as gay...... so you hetero'd him off into a weird shoved together marriage???) sorry that's just my JKR rant lmao.

This is only some of the coolest stuff you do in the series! This is seriously one of my favourite parts of it!!! 😍

omg :'''''')))))) thank you SOOO much for this message. This is so so so sweet of you to send in.

Like, for one, the fact that you're rereading the story is just incredible in and of itself!!! I'm so glad you've enjoyed it enough to read it twice <3 genuinely.

And ahhhh I'm so glad you like how I write the girls!!! It's like 100% something that is *vital* to me. Like... I love queer stories so much, but I don't just want to write queer stories that are solely like m/m stories, ya know? bc I love girls lmao I love women. I want to represent them in my stories as well, and I want to give them as much depth and nuance as boy characters usually receive. I agree completely that like women characters can often be sidelined in favor of the men characters, and it's something I never wanted to do in my own writing, so it really means a lot that you've sent this!!!<3333

It was a big part of the reason why I chose to have Nell's mom be the Death Eater instead of her dad. Even though William's character is like very dear to me lol, I wanted to give the nuanced and complicated history to a woman (especially bc canonically, I think Bellatrix and Alecto Carrow are the only female death eaters??? which is nuts????) (Narcissa is never shown to be a Death Eater, just Lucius's wife, from what I recall).

But yeah. I wanted Nell to have a complicated relationship with her mother in particular as a way to represent the very real complicated relationships that daughters can have with their mothers in the real world. I also wanted to show like a nuanced portrayal of a mother that would always be in a perpetual state of moral grayness.

And like with Daphne--- a lot of her character was sort of my rebuff to how JKR writes feminine characters in the original series. Like the fact that the only girly characters are like Lavender Brown, Umbridge, and Fleur (and more I'm probably forgetting) --- and all of these characters are portrayed as silly and vapid... I wanted to contradict that directly with a character who is extremely girly, and also brave and complicated with her problems. Which was part of why I had Nell dismiss befriending her so quickly in the first installment, bc I wanted Nell to be wrong about Daphne to emphasize this sort of automatic dismissal that happens for girly characters. And then like show that there's more underneath the surface for Daphne, but that her femininity and softness *is* always there too.

nywayyyyyy all of this is to say that your message was so wonderful to receive so thank you so much for sending it. I agree completely about how unfortunate it is that women characters get sidelined so frequently, and it's something I hope to never do in my writing <3

2024.04 ~ Top 7 longest fics posted on AO3

1. He’s a good boy now by Basilface [M, 299k]

►Harry doesn’t know what to do with himself after the war. He pushes away his friends, seeking solitude until he stumbles upon a mysterious mosaic, made from one of the windows that had been shattered in the recent battle. The artist leads him on a wild goose chase to obscure their identity, unknowingly garnering the hero’s fixation.

2. Within the Hollow Crown by @into-the-midst [M, 114k]

►Lucius failed at the Ministry, and Draco is sent to Hogwarts with a cryptic warning that he will be tasked with an unknown mission. He expects to spend his sixth year on prefect rounds with Pansy and finally beating Potter on the Quidditch Pitch. He never expected his new roommate to be Voldemort himself, or that Voldemort’s obsession with trophies would apply to him.

3. Unknown / Nth by @heyjude19-writing [E, 107k]

►A life partly forgotten; a love story remembered out of order. Harry resents this past version, the one he can’t access on demand. The one who looks at home in Draco Malfoy’s arms.

4. this heaven of mud by @garagepaperback [E, 94k]

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6. Passing Stranger by @lettersbyelise [E, 53k]

►Five years after the war, Harry, listless and depressed, stumbles upon Draco Malfoy playing the violin in an underground bar in Muggle London. The catch? Draco lost his memories five years ago. Ignoring his friends’ advice, Harry befriends an unwitting Draco, overlooking the fact that their mutual attraction might not survive if Draco’s memories return.

7. cigarettes and full moons by organboner69 [T, 43k]

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