#selden

$295,000/studio/1 ba/451 sq ft

Selden, NY

[househunting on ig]

Selden on AO3

Picture Perfect [E, 29k]

Portraits across Wizarding Britain are being attacked ... from inside the frame. Can the Auror’s Sketch Department (sole employees Messrs Potter and Malfoy) figure out whodunnit, why, and whether or not to kiss already?

At the time, filled with a horrible scrabbling kind of anger, a kind of fear new to him since the war ended, in which the worst thing was not that there might be no future but that there might be a great deal of it, years and years bunched up on great fatty haunches, lying in wait, at the time he had thought that her polite little aphorisms meant nothing at all. // Potter’s childhood home had really told him nothing that you couldn’t work out just from being around Potter — who was really, when you thought about it, quite fucked up — for more than a day.

The Loathly Worm [E, 12k]

When Draco Malfoy is forced to go undercover among the remaining Death Eaters in the aftermath of the war, the last person he expects to find there is Harry Potter.

Four months, five days, and ten or so hours before the blowjob incident, Kingsley Shacklebolt had leaned back in his chair, steepled his fingers together, and told Draco that he was about to be of real service to the Wizarding World. “I am?” Draco had said. “Dear me, what a privilege.” Then he’d shut his mouth and tried hard to look as if he was being sincere. He’d been in a grey little cell in the Ministry for quite a while by then, and the light in the Minister’s office was hurting his eyes. // “That’s a really hurtful thing to say, Ernest,” said Septimus. “Exclusionary rhetoric and, uh, judging by mere appearances is the sign of a shallow individual, unable to stand up against the sickness in our broader society.” He paused, looking smugger than ever. // The Muggles’ dungeon was lit with a single candle, its flame stunted and pale as a beansprout growing in the dark.

Memory Lane [T, 31k]

When memories from the war start surfacing in unexpected places, Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy find themselves spending a surprising amount of time inside each other’s heads.

Malfoy stared at the tiny car. “Potter,” he said solicitously, “are you by any chance having what they call a crisis? Is a little trip to St. Mungo’s perhaps in order?” // “Can’t you knock Malfoy out again, Hermione?” Ron asked piteously. “I keep forgetting he’s here. Normally Harry does his most unfortunate stuff solo.” // “You’re Harry Potter,” he said, trying hard to sound as if he wasn’t even a little bit impressed. “Aren’t you?” The boy – Harry Potter – shrugged. “Yeah,” he said. “So?” “So, you’re almost as famous as Father,” Draco informed him. “And you’re very important, even if you did cause an Unfortunate Realignment in Political Realities.” // “It must be tedious, having a conscience.”

Selden is one of those writers who make you envy their experience of the world with the breadth of their imagination. Always gorgeously (and surprisingly) written, full of humor both sly and broad, wonderfully inventive, and psychologically complex, Selden's three Drarries are stories I can (and have) read again and again.

Art:

(1) Salvator Mundi (unfinished), Albrecht Dürer, c. 1505

(2) The Green Dragon, Arthur Rackham, 1910

After reading the original text, I believe that the localization ruined Selden´s last words to Shamspeare a little.

While the meaning in itself isn't much different, the original gives a stronger feeling of closeness and intimacy. He cares about Shamspeare and truly wants him to live a good life and even promises that they´ll be reunited in death.

The translation feels more nonchalant about their relationship. They might be friends, but it almost comes across as if Selden thinks more about what will become of his loot than of Shamspeare himself.

Their bond loses a lot of it´s meaning this way. It makes it easy to miss that Shamspeare did not simply watch his cellmate die, he lost his only friend that day, one he desperately wanted to save and whose last thoughts on his deathbed were with Shamspeare.

Nettle:

Veronica vestrit:

Althea :

Kafria:

Wintrow:

Selden: