#foundational text

THIS IS NOT A DRILL!

omg, this is a wonderful gift to any fan of animation, cartooning, design or mid-century!

Title (link): Turn Author (link): Saras_girl Podfic (link): read by Queenie_mab

Pairing: Drarry (side Ginny/Blaise, Hermione/Ron) Length: 306 708k Rating: Explicit Era: Post-war, Epilogue Compliant

Summary: One good turn always deserves another. Apparently. 

Thoughts: I started reading Turn in 2011, when it was still being published on livejournal (old school, I know). Before starting the new chapter, I’d reread the ones before, again and again. Since it’s been completed, I must have reread it every other year. So: 1) I know this story by heart, 2) I still love it as much as I did then.

Harry, a dissatisfied thirty something with three children and a wife he doesn’t love anymore, helps out an old man, who in return gives him a “glimpse” of what his life could have been if he had saved Draco, back after the bathroom drama. In that glimpse, he’s never married Ginny since Draco and he have been together for seventeen years.

“Fuck me,” Harry whispers, unable to hold the words in.

“I think Draco has that covered, don’t you?” Lucius says, reverting to his previous stiff posture and raising an eyebrow. “And I suspect ‘hello’ is the word you’re scrabbling for.”

“Is it?” Harry says faintly, feeling the heat of embarrassment prickling his skin.

Instead of being Head Auror, Harry is an artist. Well, glimpse!Harry is. Real!Harry is upset, and has to make a little table, and despite the help from the most adorable OC, Maura, Ginny and Blaise’s daughter, he’s a bit stunned at what this new life means.

“And Uncle Draco writes stories about bad people to tell everyone that they’re bad.”

“Yeah,” Harry mumbles, gazing at the lamp that his other self made and scrubbing distractedly at his hair. “And I’m a gay carpenter. Cheers, Boris.”

The whole story is Harry searching for what happiness means to him, figuring out he can’t go forever the way he has, and making the changes necessary to his life. The “Turn” is for his relationships, his sexuality, his fatherhood, his vocation. After six or so weeks in the Glimpse, he gets back to his real life, and it’s jarring how unhappy he has let himself become.

Some minutes later, he drags himself to his feet, flushes away the evidence of his loss of control, and shuffles across the cold tiled to the sink, where he splashes his face with water and stares in mute horror at his tired, haggard appearance. His hair is messy, but not in the deliberate, careful way to which he has become accustomed, the way that takes years from his face. It’s just everywhere, like he doesn’t give a fuck; he needs a shave badly and his eyes are heavy and shadowed.

He wonders if this is what he’s always looked like, and how he never noticed. Looks are from everything, he knows that, but the man staring back at him, as he sighs and grips the edge of the sink, looks sad.

I love the Glimpse. Moving back to real life after how happy Harry is in the Glimpse is as difficult for him as it is for the reader. But then it makes all the changes so much more satisfying. The author does such a great job at making two different versions of everyone, who in the end are still all the same fundamentally - it’s like reading two AUs for the price of one.

“So, how does this work? Is it like... accountant by day, private investigator by night?” Harry speculates, grinning and leaning forward until his face is only inches from Draco’s.

To Harry’s astonishment, Draco leans closer. Eyes fixed on Harry’s, he opens his mouth to speak.

“I am not an accountant.”

Harry grits his teeth and stares right back. “I know.”

“You are so many annoying things,” Draco murmurs, still far too close.

“Takes one to know one,” Harry shoots back childishly, pulling back before he does something he regrets.

If I had to nitpick: there are a few typos here and there (see how terribly deep I had to go to find a fault to this fic), and the way James is written is a bit... weird. The author writes all the other kids beautifully and then... James. Oh, well. My last bone would be with the penultimate chapter which took me about three hours to read (and I read fast). It wraps up all of the loose threads before the big finale. It feels a little bit on the nose, like the author was tired of the fic and needed it DONE, which, after 300k, you understand. 

Loves: Ron and Hermione’s relationship in the real timeline, Ginny and Blaise’s in the Glimpse, Maura Fedora and then everything Blaise related, all the bits of cleaning&moving which are always so satisfying. The writing is so funny at times, I still laugh despite it being my hundredth re-read. The podfic is absolutely amazing as well. 

If there was one fic to save in all of the HP fandom, it would be this one. If there is one storyline I had to pick for “what happens next,” it would be this one.