sia

Burnt Beyond Repair (proceed with caution 👀)

Remember to Forget by Tonks914 [Albus Severus/James Sirius, M, 17.5k] ♥ A story about falling in love with what you cannot have and struggling with your desires. Haunting and gorgeous with a bittersweet ending. The use of flashbacks throughout really weaves the story together. (Warnings: sibling incest)

A Rose, By Any Other Name by @gyzym [Lee/George, E, 9.9k] ♥ Fred is dead and George is trying to pick up the pieces. VERY angst with hopeful ending. All of the emotions are so real and so vibrant, grief and anger and desperation. Eventual getting together with Lee Jordan which the fic did a great job of framing their relationship. (Warnings: MCD, rape/non-con by MC)

By Thyself by @cannabalinc [Lily-focused, background Harry/Voldemort, T, 8.1k] ♥ AU where Harry is destined to be with the Dark Lord and Lily is not okay with it. Written through Lily's POV, it's an amazing fic showing her struggle as Minister of Magic and trying to keep the dark forces at bay when everyone else seems to be a puppet on strings. (Warnings: large age gap, grooming)

Dead Things by @shadow-of-the-eclipse [Harry-focused, T, 12.8k] ♥ This has got to be my ALL TIME FAV dark Harry fic. The writing and the descriptions are so creepy and dark and just overall fantastic. We get to see his spiral into insanity which is deliciously violent and somehow makes sense because in Harry's mind it does. (Warnings: MCD, violence, necromancy)

Note: And because I couldn't help myself 😅, here are my favorite fics that I wrote in 2021 (not included in the 21 count)

Self-Recs (by me @lumosatnight | lumosatnight)

Impervius, Not [Draco/Harry, T, 5.0k] ♥ Flirting, pining, friends to lovers, Auror partners! Harry and Draco bumble their way into getting together with the help of nosy friends, bickering, and some wet adventures. A fun and quick read told in drabbles!

7 Days of Halloween: I Don't Feel Like Myself Anymore [Sirius/Remus, E, 29.7k] ♥ Remus is acting weird and Sirius is going to get to the bottom of it. Idiots in love during Halloween! (See tags: Sirius has a big heart-boner for Remus, and an actual boner too). Mostly Marauders era fluff, with a dash of pining angst, and a spoonful of smut at the end. It's not Halloween anymore, but you know what, any day could be Halloween if you just believe hard enough.

Ron nodded his head in the direction he came from. “Right there in that room.”

Draco held his breath as he made his way to the room. If this wasn’t it, if this didn’t lead them in the right direction, they would stop the investigation. After almost two months with more dead ends than anything else, there wasn’t much point to keep searching.

“We don’t know for sure, though”, Ron continued. They were standing in the doorway, a few other Aurors searching the room for more evidence. “But it might have been him.”

“What —” Draco took a deep breath, “what makes you think it was him?”

Shrugging, Ron walked farther into the room, stopping next to the unconscious body on the ground. “The man’s been stupefied”, he said, “and it was quite a powerful stupefy.”

“That doesn’t mean —“

“He was also a Hunter.” Ron tapped with the tip of his shoe against a silver badge on the man’s chest. The symbol, a paw print of a wolf with the word Hunters underneath, was a far too familiar sight by now.

Honestly, they couldn’t have chosen a more original symbol? Even the Death Eaters had been more creative than that.

One of the other Aurors joined them, then. “The Hunter’s not a wizard”, he said, his wand moving to cast more spells around the room.

Ron and Draco shared a questioning look. “What do you mean he wasn’t a wizard?” Draco asked. “All the Hunters we’ve seen so far were wizards.”

“Yeah”, the Auror said distractedly, “but this one isn’t.”

“So then,” Ron said, “he’s a muggle?”

The Auror nodded. “Or a Squib. He didn’t have a wand and our spells revealed he didn’t have a magical core either.”

Draco frowned as he took in the information. It didn’t make sense. Why would they send a muggle to deal with… with a werewolf?

“He did have some kind of muggle weapon on him. I think it’s called a ‘gun’”, the Auror continued, pointing to an object on one of the tables in the room.

Ron walked over to the table, his eyebrows nearly disappearing into his ginger hair as he examined the weapon. “Yeah, that’s definitely a gun”, he said, picking up the object and turning it around in his hands.

“Be careful!” Draco warned, taking a step closer.

“Don’t worry,” the Auror said, “there are no bullets in there.”

Draco’s frown deepened. No bullets? Why wouldn’t there be any bullets? What was the point of having a gun then? Unless…

“Auror Weasley! Auror Malfoy!” One of the Junior Aurors came running into the room, their eyes wide and face pale. They pointed to somewhere outside in the corridor. “There — there’s something you might want to see.”

Not waiting for Ron to join him, Draco rushed out of the room, following the Junior Auror to a closed door at the end of the corridor.

Dark red stains coloured the floor in front of the door, the smudges disappearing underneath it.

Draco’s breath caught in his throat. “Is that…?”

The Junior Auror nodded, a grim expression on their face. “Yeah, we think it is.”

“Oh.” Suddenly, the ground seemed to disappear underneath Draco’s feet and he staggered backwards. A pair of hands grabbed him by the shoulders to steady him.

“Malfoy.”

But Draco couldn’t see or hear anything other than the rushing in his ears. This couldn’t be real, right? This couldn’t mean what he thought. Not after everything…

“Malfoy!” Someone was tapping his cheek, a patch of orange obscuring his view. “Malfoy, come on! We need you to be clear-headed right now.”

Slowly, the rushing in his ears quieted and his vision cleared to reveal Ron, standing in front of him, a worried expression on his freckled face.

Draco breathed in deeply, nodding his head. “I’m fine”, he said as Ron let go of his shoulders. “Thanks.”

“Of course.” Ron gave him a small smile before turning back to the Junior Auror, who had been watching the interaction with growing curiosity. Draco glared at them.

“Should we go in?” Another Auror, Draco thought his name was McGregor, asked.

The Junior Auror shrugged. “Maybe we should call for backup first? Make sure there are some healers present before we go in. It might be dangerous if we —”

“I’ll have you know,” Draco sneered as he stepped closer to the Junior Auror, pointing a threatening finger in their direction, “that my husband is not dangerous.”

A sturdy hand on his shoulder made him take a step back. “Mate, calm down”, Ron’s voice sounded in his right ear. “We don’t even know for sure if Harry is in that room.”

Draco whirled around, fixing his glare on Ron. “Who else would be in there? Those bloody Hunters have only been hunting him for the last two months, despite there being plenty of other werewolves around! So, of course, it’s him!”

“Yes, but even if he’s in there, we don’t know in what state he’ll be”, Ron said. “For all we know, he could have turned feral—”

A high-pitched whining sound came from inside the room.

Draco turned to face the door. His heart broke at the thought of Harry being in there all alone, possibly wounded. “I need to go in”, he said, his voice breaking at the end. He moved towards the door.

However, the Junior Auror stepped in his way, blocking the door. “I can’t let you go in there”, they said, a determined expression crossing their face.

Draco crossed his arms, raising an unimpressed eyebrow. “Please enlighten me as to why you think I shouldn’t go in there?”

“Because”, the Junior Auror said, waving their hands around exasperatedly, “there’s a possible werewolf in that room! Haven’t you learned werewolves are dangerous?”

“And haven’t I already told you my husband is not dangerous?” Draco’s voice dropped to a low growl.

“But he’s still a werewolf! All werewolves are dangerous!”

A long-suffering sigh came from behind Draco. “That’s enough, Gawley”, Ron said, a cautionary look in his blue eyes, “why don’t you go help Emerson, hm? I think she would appreciate some help with collecting the evidence.”

Giving Draco a venomous glare, the Junior Auror walked away, bumping their shoulder against Draco’s as they passed.

“Merlin!” Draco exclaimed when the Junior Auror had left, “I’d forgotten what a little shit they could be.”

Ron snorted. “You’re one to talk, Malfoy.”

“Shut it, Weasley”, Draco said, rolling his eyes as he turned back to the door. Another whine came from behind it, though it sounded more desperate now, more urgent.

“We need to go in there”, Ron said, now facing the door, too. “I don’t think those whining sounds mean anything good.”

Draco nodded distractedly. His mind was already wandering, imagining all the things that could go wrong. What if they didn’t make it in time? What if Harry was already dead by the time they reached him? What if Harry had really turned feral, his wolf taking over as it tried to heal him the best it could? He could be dangerous…

Ron stepped forward then, reaching for the door handle.

“Wait,” Draco said, grabbing hold of Ron’s wrist, “what are you doing?”

Furrowing his eyebrows, Ron gave him a questioning look. He glanced from the door to Draco and back. “I’m… opening the door?”

“You’re not coming with me.”

“What?” Ron asked, “you can’t go in there alone! We’re partners for a reason, Malfoy —”

Draco shook his head. “I don’t care, Weasley. Harry could be dangerous. We don’t know how he’ll react if there’s more than one person present.”

“But it can be dangerous to go in alone! If you get hurt —”

“I won’t.”

“Malfoy might be right”, McGregor said. He was standing in one of the doorways in the corridor, his wand held loosely in his hand. “A wounded werewolf can be very dangerous when it feels overwhelmed. So going in alone might be the best option we have.”

Ron sighed deeply, his shoulders sagging in defeat. “I won’t be able to convince you otherwise, will I?”

A dry chuckle escaped Draco’s throat. “You’re starting to know me well, Weasley.”

“Alright, then”, Ron agreed, though Draco could hear the reluctance in his voice, “but we’ll wait at the door. Just give a shout if you need anything, like anything at all, yeah?”

“We’ll call in reinforcements, too”, McGregor added. “Make sure there are healers present.”

Nodding, Draco took a deep breath, his hand closing around the door handle. “Okay,” he whispered more to himself than anyone else, “okay let’s do this.”

With a soft click, the door opened to reveal a staircase leading down into a dark room. Draco could hear shuffling coming from within the darkness, followed by a low growl and the sound of paws tapping against the floor.

“Ready?” Ron asked from next to Draco. He was peering into the darkness, his face wary.

“Yeah,” Draco nodded, “as ready as I’ll ever be.”

Squaring his shoulders and gripping his wand firmly in his fist, Draco started his way down the stairs. He cast a whispered Lumos, the white light of his wand only lighting a few feet in front of him. The darkness seemed almost impenetrable.

As he slowly made his way further down the stairs, the growling grew louder, two golden eyes glowing in the dark room. Could that be him?

Draco held his wand higher, trying - but failing - to light the room more. “Harry?” he asked in the darkness. He kept his voice as soft and as quiet as possible. The last thing he wanted was to frighten his husband - or what he thought was his husband - even more.

A muffled whine came from one of the corners of the room.

“Harry? Is that you?”

Another whine, followed by shuffling and a quiet, “Draco…”

Throwing caution to the wind, Draco ran to the corner of the room he thought Harry was in, the small orb of light coming from his wand revealing a body slumped against the wall, two golden eyes staring at him through broken glasses. One of Harry’s hands was lying on his stomach where a dark red stain had appeared through the cotton of his shirt. The same shirt he had been wearing when he disappeared two months ago.

“Oh, Harry…” Draco fell down on his knees, his wand clattering on the ground. “What in Merlin’s name happened to you?”

Harry breathed in deeply, his chest rattling as he did so. “Shot…”, he said quietly, his voice low and hoarse, “Hunter… had a gun… caught me off guard.” He coughed, a dribble of blood flowing down the corner of his mouth.

Panic rising in his chest at the sight of the blood, Draco yelled back up the stairs, “Weasley! McGregor! We could use some help over here!” He turned back to Harry. “Why aren’t you healing?” he asked. “You should be able to heal yourself.”

Shaking his head, Harry tried to sit up but winced loudly. “Can’t…” he breathed, his eyes closing momentarily, “silver bullet… filled with silver powder. It’s… it’s preventing the wound from healing.”

Draco’s blood ran cold at Harry’s words. A silver bullet? Filled with silver powder? That meant…

Footsteps could be heard running down the stairs, before the room was flooded with a blinding light. Draco squinted, only now noticing his blurry vision. Had he been crying all this time?

“Mr Potter, Mr Malfoy”, a healer greeted as she knelt down on the other side of Harry’s body. She turned her attention to Draco. “Can you, very briefly, tell me what happened?”

Nodding, Draco hurriedly told her about Harry being shot, about the bullet, about the powder…

The healer's face grew very grim. “We don’t have much time then, I suppose. Silver powder spreads around the body fast. If it reaches his heart… silver poisoning is very fatal to werewolves.” She turned away from them, calling out to some other healers.

“Fuck”, Draco whispered, new tears streaming steadily down his cheeks.

“Draco…”

“No, no. This can’t be true.” He rested his forehead against Harry’s, closing his eyes in an attempt to stop his tears.

“Draco…

“I’ve just got you back. I can’t lose you again!”

“Draco!” A hand came up to cup his face and Draco opened his eyes. He stared into Harry’s now golden eyes. “It’s going to be fine. I’m always fine.”

“No — no, it’s not fine, Harry! You’re not fine.” A sob ripped through Draco’s throat, Harry’s fingers wiping away the tears as they fell from his eyes.

“Darling,” another hand came up to cup his face, “darling, look at me.”

Draco did as he was told, meeting Harry’s tired eyes. He shook his head. “You’re dying.” The words burned their way through his throat, leaving a bitter taste on his tongue.

“I know, love.” Harry gave him an apologetic smile, though Draco swore he saw uncertainty and sadness flashing through his eyes. “I know. I’m sorry I didn’t try hard enough.”

“I don’t want you to die…”

“Alright, Mr Potter”, the healer interrupted gently as she knelt back down next to Harry’s body, “we’re ready to transport you.”

Harry nodded his head before turning his attention back on Draco, who was frozen still. “I’ll be fine, Draco”, he said softly, “I promise, I’ll be fine.”

Draco let out a shaky breath. “I love you”, he whispered, leaning closer and placing his lips briefly against Harry’s. With an aching heart, he hoped this wouldn’t be their last kiss.

“I love you, too. So much.”

“He’ll be in good hands, Mr Malfoy”, the healer said as Draco moved out of the way so the healers could transport Harry to St. Mungo’s. “You’re welcome to come to St. Mungo’s as soon as you can”, the healer continued, giving him a small, reassuring smile, “just ask for Healer Maltby. You should be fine.”

Slowly, as if in a trance, Draco nodded his head. The last thing he saw was the sickeningly pale face of his husband before it disappeared in the whirl of Apparition.

Read it on ao3

Prompt from 18th of June 2021

<< previous microfic

A second COVID wave has taken out the healthcare system. There are no more hospital beds. There's an oxygen shortage. There's a critical vaccine shortage. The Central Government has thrown its hands up and is passing the baton to the State Governments to do what they can.

There are over 16 million covid cases. A record 330,000 new cases reported yesterday - comparable to the US at its peak. 187,000 dead as of today.

There is no plan.

Mass cremations are taking place. The cremation grounds are running day and night and they are short on wood. People are watching their loved ones die while waiting for a hospital bed, and then they're unable to give them the proper burial rights.

Hospitals are overwhelmed. Patients are being confined, two to a bed. They're the lucky ones.

We are on the verge of people dying in the streets.

This is the second-most populous country in the world. The largest democracy. A country that encapsulates over 15,000 years of recorded human history and has endured everything from famine to invasion to colonisation.

We might be at the end. This might be the thing that does us in.

People are dying.

People are dying.

People are dying and there is no plan.

More good news? Variants are popping up. A double mutation strain has shown up. It is resistant to current vaccines. This will not go away. This is the devastation they warned of when the anti-maskers were out protesting the minor inconvenience of covering their face in public.

My country is on the verge of an emergency state. Our government has failed us. This is as dire a situation as it ever could be.

Look. I don't do much with my life. I write fics, some of you have read them and that's pretty much it. I spend my days with my head in the clouds because that's where I like to be.

But two days ago, my grandmother tested positive, had to be taken to hospital and the ambulance caught fire.

She barely made it to the urgent care she needs.

So, here I am, using whatever meager platform I have to cobble this request together. Because I have to do something.

If you can, donate.

Or spread the word.