![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif?v=92.2){kind=small}
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=92.2){kind=small}
spark_of_chaosRecipient:
alexis_sdTitle: Own Two Legs
Pairing(s): Harry/Draco, implied Harry/Ginny and Draco/spouse
Summary: Suddenly, he wants nothing more than to absorb her persistent ability to put one foot in front of the other and move forward. Not look back. He wants to be able, like her, to live.
Rating: NC-17
Disclaimer: All Harry Potter characters herein are the property of J.K. Rowling and Bloomsbury/Scholastic. No copyright infringement is intended.
Warning(s): Mentions of character death, structure, mild violence, graphic m/m obviously :g:
Deathly Hallows compliant? Fully DH compliant, epilogue and all, with the exception of a sole offending sentence. :g:
Word Count: ~30,000 words
Author's Notes: Many, many heartfelt thanks to my beta, who made this piece far more readable and smooth than it was to begin with, and who taught important lessons about commas and full stops. :) Dear reader, beware just a little bit: our heroes have common history, and each tells his own half of it to make up a whole – but have in mind that Harry's perspective moves backwards, and Draco's goes forwards. And finally: Alexis, may you have the happiest of all Christmases! Here’s my small contribution to the porny part of the holidays :g: I hope you enjoy!
( Own Two Legs )
← Ctrl← Alt
Ctrl →Alt →
Deleted comment
January 7 2008, 12:15:08 UTC 4 years ago
Thank you for the sweet first comment :)
December 22 2007, 21:44:22 UTC 4 years ago
After reading the entire saga, that particular line takes on so much meaning. The way the tale begins gives an even greater poignancy to the ending. Thirty years Harry and Draco have known each other. Thirty years has led them to that critical point.
Grey eyes staring back at him. I've always thought they were a watery blue, he wants to say.... AND The baby produces a tiny mewling sound and blinks up at him with big velvety eyes of slate blue. "They won't keep," Miriam tells him with utter confidence...
What an absolutely stunning story and world you've woven here. I can't imagine all the time and effort spent into getting the structure just right, so that the story flows as well as it does. I *adore* Miriam. She has become my favorite post-DH Malfoy wife - smart, career-minded, confident, secure, and loyal not only to the senior Malfoy, but to her son first and foremost. She's my kinda gal. And then there is the complex relationship between Harry and Draco. They both truly love their wives. They both have (relatively) happy home lives. And yet, there is this thing defying description that exists between them; lingers between them, connecting the two of them.
This story draws the reader in from the start and never lets up. How does Miriam know Draco is having an affair? Why does Ginny get pregnant knowing what happened the last time she went through the ordeal? Does Ginny somehow know that Harry is also having an affair? I love that Draco loses everything, that his family name is a hindrance to his wife's aspirations, yet somehow he manages to claw his way back towards some semblance of victory and respectability.
It doesn't seem as though there will be a romantic future for Harry and Draco. That last part indicates that they've never made love in their secret flat - that's an honor reserved for their other partners. It's only been sex. And yet, there's something more than sex going on towards the end. Harry needs Draco and Draco is there for him in a way that he's never been before. The fact that they do share the bed and don't have sex says a lot. INCREDIBLE job.
January 7 2008, 15:35:24 UTC 4 years ago
I loved your comment so, so much, because it's the sort of review that makes a writer sit back with a smile and bask in the knowledge that their fic has been read the way they have hoped for it to be read. It's a glorious feeling :)
I myself got easily tired by bland, appendage wives pretty early on after the DH release, and well - the fact that despite being all a Pureblood wife needs to Miriam is decidedly more than simply that only served to add to the complexity of the H/D relationship.
Draco suffers beautifully, especially in fanon portrayal, but oh, he is a survivor also, and a capable one at that :g:
Thank you for commenting! I am so pleased you liked the story.
December 22 2007, 23:24:34 UTC 4 years ago
(Though next time, I MUST read the authors note; I admit the tenses confused me a little. D'oh.)
January 7 2008, 15:38:25 UTC 4 years ago
Hope it doesn't sound rude if I say that I was pleased for having done so! :g:
(Well, I must admit I put the explanation last on purpose - loads of people just skip such fics, so... :g: A tiny bit of trickery.)
4 years ago
December 23 2007, 03:32:17 UTC 4 years ago
January 7 2008, 15:38:54 UTC 4 years ago
So glad that you liked the story! :)
December 23 2007, 03:43:43 UTC 4 years ago
January 7 2008, 15:41:27 UTC 4 years ago
Pleased you liked it! :)
December 23 2007, 05:11:21 UTC 4 years ago
January 7 2008, 15:43:33 UTC 4 years ago
Thank you! That is a comment that pretty much summarises the idea behind the fic, so what can I say! :g: (I love leather pants!Draco with as much fervour as ever, but not post-DH, I am afraid...)
Glad you liked it!
December 23 2007, 08:23:48 UTC 4 years ago
Just a few side notes. I adored Harry trying to speak to the wyvern. *g*
Miriam was wonderful. I really liked the idea that she was a sophisticated Weasley type of pure-blood and that both of their families (Draco's in theory) disapproved of the marriage.
Draco's initial reaction to Scorpius was lovely.
January 7 2008, 15:51:06 UTC 4 years ago
I am glad that you came back to read it, though, and that you picked just my very favourite moments to praise me for :g:
Thank you for commenting!
December 23 2007, 10:19:28 UTC 4 years ago
Comment - part 1/3
I loved this gift. I loved it to pieces. It was so real, so painful, so heart-wrenching that I can't explain how much I love it.I don't know who you are, I am crap at guessing, I barely guess the artist, but I'm clueless to the authors. I can't wait to know who you are, just to be able to find out who gave me this beautiful tale of life.
At first I had plans to quote my favourite lines, but a few parts into it I gave up and just wrote my thoughts along as I read. It is just that I can't quite it all and really it isn't so much the words that got to me, it is the feelings that stream from them, and that's something I can't quote. If I tried it would probably only distort it all.
I love you for making it completely DH-compliant. I loved every character there. Even those who appeared for brief moments – like Hermione, Ron, the kids were given personality, had stories told.
I loved the dialogues between Harry and Draco, those banter ones, that were more of a small reprieve than true dialogue, but it gave all the more meaning and flesh to the truly important ones.
I can't say more but I put my thoughts after that. I haven't edited them, so you'll see where I was wrong, and how I was prejudices and how I felt about different moments. Mostly though s it what I thought as I read you story.
1 & 2. Oh, dear writer, I am only at the beginning and I am already in love with Draco. And I've only read the first of his POVs.
Just the fact that he is so him, that it can be sensed in those first few paragraphs, makes me want to grab him and embrace him tightly and to tell him, that no matter what one loses, no matter how much it hurts, in the end life goes on, and one deals with it. That in the long run what no one will ever take away from him is the memory of all his life in the Manor.
And at the back of my mind I hope that one day Draco will get the Manor back. Maybe Harry will help? While this would probably diminish the significance of the loss, which is so great by its sheer symbolic meaning to all that is Malfoy, I still hope a bit that Draco would get it back. But I'd be happy if it doesn't happen either. One way my mushy part will be happy, the other – my pragmatic, realistic side gloats and cheers. I've never been able to choose between the two.
I wonder if in the '30 years later' timeline Harry and Draco cheat on their respective spouses or only, one of them, or neither. And what is the amount of guilt they have to carry. I guess I'll find out as I read further.
3. Oh, God, only a few lines in part 3 and I break to say something. First, it is obviously infidelity. Perfect.
I thought Ginny would say she knew Harry was cheating on her, and she tells him she's pregnant. Oh, I am so, so happy. It would make it horrible for poor Harry. I suppose he would be torn between pregnant!Ginny and his desire for Draco.
Oh, Harry, that was a real blunder. Though Ginny seems to be a bit self-involved and expecting to always be the one to win an argument. A marriage is a union where both parts need to compromise. From this brief glimpse into the Potter family, it seems Ginny is not very good at compromising. But I can understand a mother's unwillingness to abort her baby.
* * *
4. The brief flashes into Draco's childhood made his loss even more painful. I love him even more now. And I still want to give him my support.
* * *
6. The dialogue is made of win. I love Draco's sarcastic words. And this:
Potter demands with much more calm and dignity that Draco would expect, and that, oddly, feels like a betrayal – feels like Potter has changed and moved on, away from Draco's ability to bait him into a pique with a mere word.
For just a second, the shortest time needed to rein the urge in, he could swear Potter's growl of rage has begun as a snort of twisted amusement.
In his fights with Potter the only place for another is in the stands, and it has always been like that: the stage is fully occupied.
These thoughts you put in Draco's mind are so damn true, I think they kind of summarise H/D as whole.
The way Draco decided to marry is so funny. I can so see him do it like that.
December 23 2007, 10:20:33 UTC 4 years ago
Re: Comment - part 2/3
7. This is the fourth Harry POV and you've managed to show so many of his faces. We saw 'the husband', 'the lover', 'the public face' and now we get to see 'the father'.I feel for him in this case. The fear that something's happened with his son is driving him nuts. And Albus Severus is great. He's been 'on stage' for just a few lines but he has already gotten a presence, a character. And the brief comparison to Snape was so unexpected and such a fine touch.
8. You are so cruel to poor Draco. I love you.
The contrast between Harry's quite normal life and Draco's chain of painful experiences just makes me feel all the more for Draco.
And I love how you get them together under different circumstances and how believable their interaction is. And still it is obvious that both of them have grown up.
12. Draco's portrayal as a father, as someone who experiences fatherhood and how a baby feels, both physically and emotionally is truly beautiful.
And I love Miriam more with each scene where she's shown. How calmly she accepted Draco's first admission of love and how secure she sounded that it was ever present, even if not worded. The way she takes care of him, even if he himself doesn't realise he needs something.
13. This Ginny seems like someone that Harry can love, someone who actually knows that there're two in a marriage. I have to wander if Draco's part of the story will give some light as to why Ginny seemed so conceited and self-involved in the later years of their married life. Or maybe that was just a natural development after so many years together when people just tire of each other and become less and less bothered to care about their partner.
14. I love the fact that Draco, alone and lonely, thinks of Harry first.
This interaction held so much meaning in so few words that I am impressed. I still hope Draco'll get the Manor back. I want him to have it. Not for his, by now late father, but because of its significance to him.
And the chess idea, when Harry can't play all that well… It's a hand Harry extended. It is probably their beginning. I am so curious how this progresses.
16. Oh, the sex! My heart is about to explode with the intensity. I love how urgent, how desperate and needy they were.
And the sudden idea Draco had of Miriam's problem. It made it even more significant that he loves his wife, no matter what he feels for Harry.
17. The feelings are quite intense. I am not sure if they feel love for each other; it's not hatred any more but is it love? I wonder if maybe it is most of all need. Need for someone who's seen it all, been through it and come out – bruised, hurt, shattered and disillusioned, but alive and maybe just a bit triumphant despite it all.
22. Teacher Draco who cares for his students' performance and right after that the sharp contrast of Miriam's calm statement and threat.
I'll say that I love Miriam more and more. She has a life beyond that of a pureblood wife and mother. She is all that and more – she is a scientist, a friend and an individual too. I love how she stands up not for her marriage or for Draco's betrayal of his marriage vows, but for Scorpius and his illusions, she protects her son's life and family.
And I believe Draco loves Miriam. It is just that he needs Harry.
23. I appreciate the opportunity to see this scene through both POVs. The reasoning behind Harry's presence and what we know Draco feels, it all mixes into one complete experience.
[Random] I am starting fear that what is between Harry and Draco is about to crumble down in shards that would cut deep into more people than they could ever imagine in their worst nightmares. I hope I am wrong though. I would welcome a H/D happy-end and I'll love a moment of eventual healing that would allow them to go back to their respective families for good. But I just fear that in their desperate need for each other they'll end up in a bad way.
26. Their sons are in the same team and yet they are not team-mates. And there's another reason for their fathers to blow the steam off in a bout of angry, needy, desperate sex.
4 years ago
December 23 2007, 11:26:46 UTC 4 years ago
Very impressive and moving and mature. Non-linear narration made me work to keep up with it, but I think it worked wonderfully. Thank you!
January 7 2008, 15:52:13 UTC 4 years ago
Thank you for the great comment! :)
December 23 2007, 16:59:30 UTC 4 years ago
It's tough to make this sort of narrative flow properly, but it really worked here, even if it requires a little extra effort on the reader's part to keep track of what's happening when. One thing I really admired about this piece was the way both Harry and Draco really do love their wives, and the way both Miriam and Ginny are well developed, likeable characters. I can see why Harry would be attracted to Ginny's sunny optimism and sense of purpose, but also why he would need Draco in his life, someone who understands anger and regret. And Miriam was delightful.
Finally, the sex scenes were excellent, especially that first blow job -- so visceral and intimate. Really well done, the whole thing. :-)
January 10 2008, 10:40:14 UTC 4 years ago
I am sucker myself for a happy ending, and in my head it it - and I am pleased beyond words that most people see it as such, too. I was a tiny bit annoyed with the constant cheating-on-the-horrible-hag-of-a-wife routine, because really - is that the Harry we know? I'm happy you liked that :)
December 23 2007, 17:01:27 UTC 4 years ago
Thank you!
January 10 2008, 10:53:38 UTC 4 years ago
I am endlessly sad about the typos, but a clean version of the story is not posted on my LJ.
Thank you for reading and commenting! :)
December 23 2007, 21:09:09 UTC 4 years ago
There were lots of little things I loved about this fic. One was Harry's very poignant attempt to relearn Parseltongue. Another was the fact that there's never any talk of love between them, yet it's there, underneath everything and despite everything.
Well done!
January 10 2008, 10:55:51 UTC 4 years ago
I am very, very happy that you like and mention things I tried hard for and nuances I strove consciously towards :)
December 24 2007, 07:15:14 UTC 4 years ago
January 10 2008, 10:56:28 UTC 4 years ago
Thank you for reading and commenting!
December 24 2007, 07:17:09 UTC 4 years ago
January 10 2008, 10:56:45 UTC 4 years ago
Thank you!
December 25 2007, 09:04:10 UTC 4 years ago
WOW
I must admit that this story was hard to read. Not because of the non-linear narration (I thought that was excellent) but because there are a heap of typos. Including misspelled words, missing words and paragraphs that should clearly be separated but have been meshed together. I would have listed them but there were really too many. I understand how stressful it can be to meet deadlines in a fest and that it's way better to post something with typos then bow out at the last minute. However, I feel that you should get it betaed again before you repost after the reveal. I would love to reread a clean copy of this story.Please understand that this is just a constructive criticism and that despite typos, I thought that this story was deeply moving and very beautifully written, Mystery Author. The sex scenes were intense and not so smutty as to take away from the tone of the story. There were many observations made into their (H/D) lives that were just so profound. I appreciate the growth of both characters. They were so cannon and I really felt that this is what H/D would really be like that many years later.
You done a remarkable job and I can wait to reread this story. Thank you, for creating an excellent, epilogue compliant, post-war H/D fic.
January 10 2008, 11:07:02 UTC 4 years ago
Re: WOW
Imagine the near heart-attack your comment gave me. :) I had read the story one last time at 2am on Dec 10th, and send it with a relieved sigh to the mods, because RL was already choking hard. So upon reading this I rushed with omgomgwhathaveidone sort of tragic wails in my mind and re-read the fic.A clean version (I do hope to have caught them all little buggers) of the story is now posted on my LJ, I do hope you find it easier to read!
Thank you for reading and commenting, for turning my attention to that problem, and for finding such pretty things to say nevertheless. :G:
December 29 2007, 05:50:58 UTC 4 years ago
I can't point to the moment I fell in love with the story--it was confusing at first (due to my not having actually read the author's note), and by the time I stopped focusing on sorting out the logic of it all it had already happened. But Miriam's conversation with Draco in which she reveals she knows about his affair was flawlessly done. My heart stopped with his. The setting was perfect, and the words of the dialogue and description were all necessary and put together with crystalline precision.
Somewhat separately from that, Miriam's characterization became complete and so...Malfoy despite her outward breaks with their family's tradition with this paragraph: Five seconds of ringing silence. She talks with the tone of someone who's known of adultery before she has known of the birds and the bees, someone who's been expected to marry politically and has been brought up to fit the role and not resent the particularities, someone who's lived the pain as a child and now sets down the safeguard rules for her own.
And Harry's and Draco's similar sudden ways of deciding to marry Ginny and Miriam. The longing for a life in innocence and light and reaching out to grasp it through someone else, and in some ways finding their salvation through that other person but being broken in such similar ways that it never can be quite enough, but that what they have with each other doesn't diminish their other relationships really. Wonderful.
And then there's the sex. You write it so well, with specificity and variety and always, always a reason for what was happening that furthered the entire plot. I'm sorry, but I have to quote this back to you:
He is arching back, hands on Potter's shoulders, barely moving at all. Eyes closed, the feeling just builds in him, a tingle in his nipples and stomach and head, a tightness, a pressure, complete and encompassing and giddy freedom. Fucking Potter, making him say Draco's name without really meaning to, making himself wait until the very last second – it’s almost as good as letting Potter fuck him until there is nothing left for him to offer.
Draco's nails sink into Potter's skin, and Potter is not entirely successfully struggling underneath him. Neither of their sons will stop being who he is, and this is the first major fight they’re stupid enough to have in public. The boys will become better-versed at stealth as they grow, and Draco, maybe Potter too, can silently reassure himself that the two of them haven’t entirely changed. That the past – what part of it matters – isn’t lost in their present.
The windows rattle and a candle is lit; it's not Draco's doing. He shivers, silently, and comes undone.
All of it in there, the past, future, and present there in that room--their sons there and it's not strange at all, but evidence of how much a part of their lives this place is even as it's separate--and Harry's magic and the pacing of it all is just so much better than more mundane sex scenes in most stories.
And that you mentioned Hermione's parents and the reason she is so driven on this particular path. And that Miriam is the one to tell Draco about Ginny, and really about Harry...
December 29 2007, 05:52:02 UTC 4 years ago
part 2
Oh. And this:It's the first night Draco doesn’t just fall asleep totally exhausted, but consciously chooses to spend here, in this bed on which they have, over the years, possessed each other in innumerable ways. It's a bed they've never made love on, only sex: each of them has made love with another person, on another bed; each has built another life – one functioning and real, cherished and looking forward to the future. And each has known the past is there for him to fall back on, to scream at, to kick him back forwards, in an ordinary flat looking out to a park.
It consummated what I was thinking throughout the story. You used the structure of the piece so well, and the ending too--the watch, and Harry's time running backward toward the idyll of Ginny but also toward the trauma of the past (and you can just tell something terrible is going to happen as you feel him getting more and more distant from the present), and Draco's progressing on because that's what he does, even more than Harry, is move from death to living. Looking back, it's full of the death drive competing with the birth drive, not just literally through Ginny and their son but through Draco and Harry, the men and their wives, acceptance of trauma and light with family. Very interesting, all of it.
The story quickened me and stabbed me breathless and made me feel all the complex inextricable threads of life and death and past and present that you were going for with your structure, words and themes. And you placed it completely within the post-epilogue world, which I'm liking more and more these days. I can't wait to find out who you are and hope that you've written more!
December 29 2007, 07:13:17 UTC 4 years ago
January 10 2008, 11:07:55 UTC 4 years ago
December 29 2007, 11:52:59 UTC 4 years ago
January 10 2008, 11:08:55 UTC 4 years ago
I was worried the structure would be a pain to read, and being told otherwise is great :)
December 29 2007, 20:02:56 UTC 4 years ago
January 10 2008, 11:13:19 UTC 4 years ago
I must admit the thought hadn't even remotely appeared in my mind. But I'm glad you liked the story, and especially the structure, which was tricky to get okay.
Thank you for reading and commenting, and making me think :)
4 years ago
4 years ago
December 29 2007, 20:53:32 UTC 4 years ago
Own Two Legs
I read this yesterday, I couldn't get it out of my head. I'm, probably, older that most of your readers on this site, I found the passion and pain of a lifetime realistic and beautifully written. Congratulations on an excellent story.January 10 2008, 13:37:25 UTC 4 years ago
Re: Own Two Legs
I'd say about a third of the people on my flist are your age :g:I think this is one of the most flattering comments I've received. I am pleased beyond words that you found it satisfying and realistic!
Thank you so much for reading and commenting!
January 2 2008, 04:23:45 UTC 4 years ago
I cannot explain how well done this fic is. Just wow.
January 10 2008, 11:13:52 UTC 4 years ago
Pleased you enjoyed!
Thank you for reading and commenting!
January 2 2008, 05:00:02 UTC 4 years ago
January 10 2008, 11:14:27 UTC 4 years ago
Thank you for reading and commenting!
January 2 2008, 06:08:36 UTC 4 years ago
What a beautiful, moving piece of work. It felt as if that is exactly HOW they would have needed each other, as adults expected to move on but needing someone who could accept them, and understand them, and join them as damaged people who haven't moved on. It was wonderful how both of them knew each other so well that they knew the exact tone of voice to distract the other and push his buttons. In spite of you saying that they'd only had sex in that place up 'til the end, the two of them paid a LOT of attention to what the other felt, and needed. There was a lot of CARE there, right from the beginning. And I was so relieved that Draco could accept the change in what Harry needed at the end, even though I'd known he would.
And at the same time, I was thankful that they had Ginny and Miriam, women who were healthy, who loved them, and who they loved. And it didn't feel like a betrayal, which was a nice change. I know Draco felt terrible when he was found out, but what Harry and Draco had didn't ever seem to take from what they felt for their wives. And I'm glad it didn't turn into the wailing and hairpulling of that. (That's for other stories, which I love in their own right, but not for this one.) What they had felt like something that HELPED their sanity, so helped their other relationships.
I loved everyone in this story.
In some ways, Harry and Draco, up until the very end, have had it all.
The balance has now tipped, at the end, and I have no idea how it would work out, later. But I am sure that they have been so much to each other for so long that it wouldn't all come crashing down. Maybe it would build up.
Wonderful job. Definately something I will save and reread. LOL. I almost HAVE to reread it, just to completely process it all.
January 10 2008, 13:50:13 UTC 4 years ago
By the end of the story, I'd say their relationship - because it is one, even undefined - has moved well away from the mindless sex. I made efforts for it to show clearly through, even where they were persuading themselves otherwise. I am pleased that you liked it, and pointed out aspects of the story, which I wanted to be read just that way.
Thank you for reading and commenting!
January 2 2008, 06:33:27 UTC 4 years ago
January 10 2008, 13:52:00 UTC 4 years ago
Thank you for reading and commenting!
January 2 2008, 13:55:33 UTC 4 years ago
January 10 2008, 14:01:19 UTC 4 years ago
Thank you for reading and commenting!
← Ctrl← Alt
Ctrl →Alt →