#sodamnrad

ECDYSIS 🐍 | AO3

Slytherin!Hermione - Hogwarts Years 1-7 and beyond - No Voldemort AU - Dramione end-game

Nothing compared to being the Mudblood Slytherin girl. Too evil for another house, too dirty for the one I called home.

go on and fool me | AO3 | Wattpad

art/fic collab w @dara-art

“What do you say, Granger? Be my fake girlfriend this year and I’ll see that you win this competition. The Mastery of your dreams is right at your fingertips.”

thank you sweet @whimsymanaged for tagging me.

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

22

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

237,289

3. What fandoms do you write for?

HP

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Arctic Wolf

House Husband

Ecdysis

Lion in the Snake's Nest

The Vanishing Drawer

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

I always promised myself I would be the type of writer who would respond to every comment because I cherish them all. But I can barely answer my work emails these days and would rather reply to none than to only a select few and make others feel left out.

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

(un)seasonably numb -- happy holidays lol

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

They're all pretty happy tbh. If you want super cozy/warm vibes you can't go wrong with New Year's Resolution.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Rarely. And I feel very lucky for that. I used to write a lot on Wattpad when I was in my teens/early twenties and comments were pretty brutal back then. So I've become a bit jaded when it comes to dumb one-liners. Essay-sized mean comments? Get a life. lol.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

Have you read on-again, off-again, yet? It's my latest smutty installation.

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written?

Endless Night is inspired by Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist and that's probably the closest I've ever come to doing that.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Yes.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yes. Very grateful international readers are interested in reading and translating my work.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

I do artist-writer collabs but not with other writers.

14. What’s your all time favorite ship?

Dramione & Jurdan (but I'm happy with Holly Black's original and I don't try to rewrite perfection).

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

You wouldn't know because I have enough foresight not to publish it lol.

16. What are your writing strengths?

That's an awkward thing to answer about myself... But if I had to pick it would be: brevity, banter, first POV voice, and maybe specificity when it comes to description.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Action scenes. I also struggle with transitioning ideas between paragraphs seamlessly. Sentence structure variation (I'm working on it).

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

If you can do it correctly, why not?

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Dramione

20. Favorite fic you’ve written?

Ecdysis is my baby. Forever and ever, amen.

The Body Count was my first dramione fanfic and still holds a special place in my heart.

In one shots, it's probably at the coffee table. I'm really proud of how much I was able to cram into 3.7k words and it's still one of my favourites today.

Fuck.

Draco paced the room and tried to ignore the ghostly girl lying unconscious a few feet away.

Potter was the only person keeping Draco here and, if Granger died under his care, it was all over. The Order would blame him for her death.

“What am I meant to do with you now?” he mumbled, glaring at his patient.

He touched Granger’s pulse and felt it fading. Her skin was cold and clammy. Even her hair seemed deflated, giving up the good fight.

There was no other way.

“Don’t worry,” he murmured, feeling a flash of remorse for the fate he was bestowing on her. “I’ll make sure you don’t fall in love with me.”

--

The Order promoted Draco to main headquarters. He had his own room and went to bed with a full stomach every night. Sometimes, there was even beer.

But Draco would have slept in moth infested sheets again and eaten stale cereal for dinner every night if it meant staying away from her.

After her miraculous recovery, Granger visited him in the medical wing. Often.

The first time to thank him for saving her life. The second to borrow a book she spotted on his desk, swapping it for one of her own. The third to return his book and tell him about all the ways it had pissed her off. Before he knew it, she’d cajoled Draco into a war-time book club, reading all the books Granger bartered off other Order members.

She started confiding in him about odd things that were happening to her.

“It’s not my problem,” he cut her off, popping open his collar as the room grew three notches too hot.

“But you’re my healer.”

“I’m not your healer. I’m just a healer. A reluctant one. Your idiot friends won’t let me do much else.”

“Help me find out what’s wrong with me, and I’ll have them reassign you.”

“No.”

She was insufferably stubborn.

“See how I did that?” she asked one afternoon, squashing a fly with her palm and resuscitating it seconds later. “That’s odd.”

“That’s magic.” He feigned disinterest, swatting the irritating fly. “Couldn’t you have let it die?” Sometimes Draco wished he had.

“It’s like holding sand in my hands. I have a handful of seconds to decide whether to preserve its life or let it trickle out—Are you even listening to me?”

“I’m counting inventory.”

“Stuff your blasted inventory. This is serious!”

He made her concerns seem trivial, shooing her off and demanding she mind his office hours.

Yet she always came back, always wanted to hear his expert opinion on why Dark Magic was so easy now, why she was quicker than Harry at casting off Dementors, why she didn’t need her wand to perform magic anymore.

One evening she visited him, devastated. “Tell me why I can’t stand letting anyone touch me.”

Red mist filled Draco’s vision, noting her rumpled figure. The state of Granger’s hair was an old joke by now, but he could tell someone’s fingers had been raking through it. Her shirt was misbuttoned. She looked messy and fierce and unbearably debauched.

“It certainly looks like someone tried,” he mumbled, trying to choke down the emotion that rocked through his chest.

“Tell me, Malfoy.”

“How am I supposed to know?”

“Because you’re all I think about!” she exploded. Her face went crimson.

She cleared her throat. “I know my own body. You did something to me that night, didn’t you? When I was injured.”

She stormed forwards, poking him in the chest. “What did you do?”

He snatched her fingers in his fist. It was like he was pure whisky, and she an Incendio spell, set astray. “Fuck.” He dropped her hand at once.

Granger leapt away too, gasping. “Did that just…?”

“You almost died,” he said, physically restraining himself from reaching for her again. “I didn’t have a choice.”

“Malfoy?” Her voice was little more than a croak, her eyes too wide and innocent. Looking at him like-like—

He had to look away. “I split my magical core and gave you half.”

“Like a Horcrux?”

“It wasn’t my soul. But magic is binding in its own way.”

“What do you mean binding?”

“As in, you can tap into it now. It’s yours.”

“So I have my own magic and half of yours?”

He shrugged.

Granger’s mouth fell agape. “How do I return it to you?”

“It’s irrevocable.”

Realisation dawned on her face. “So, all of this,” she wagged a finger between them, “is because of your spell?”

“There’s no ‘this’.” He repeated the gesture. “It’s you and it’s me. Separate.”

She shook her head. “Don’t lie.”

“I’m not—”

“You looked like you wanted to commit murder when I walked in just then.”

He shifted his gaze, jaw clenching. “My magic recognizes itself in you. It’s… possessive.”

“And mine recognizes you,” she concluded. “It doesn’t like me being with anyone else. You knew this would happen?”

“Should I have let you die instead?”

“I don’t know,” she admitted, and Draco tried not to wince. “Is this it, then? We’re bound to each other for the rest of our lives?”

He couldn’t stand looking at her anymore. Remorsefully, he replied, “This is it.”

there are "hard" skills achieved with lovely execution (structure, word choice, characterization etc), but what makes Ecdysis so unique is the level of transportation achieved. even when weeks have lapsed by and the details grow fuzzy, i don't forget the way the story makes me feel. there's a warm, bittersweet, lingering charm about your story that most fics can't really achieve. literally makes me feel like a kid reading my very favorite books for the first time. all your work is lovely, but this is a special thank you for Ecdysis <3