- love for the elegantly homicidal -

It's funny to read two Harry-- er, and-- Draco fics dealing with the theme of spying and intrigue in the same night-- one angst, one fluff. One of them worked for me like a 4th of July firework, and that's cupiscent's `Firebrand', which is inventive, fast-paced, gritty and gripping. The thing is, it doesn't matter how far-fetched the scenario is if one develops one's core idea to the max, and Dee really does that with gorgeous rigor in a tight, effective short story.

I really love it when I read something different in H/D which avoids sacrificing characterization for ease of realization of the scenario and realistic character dynamics for romance, as well as having a fascinating plot. I can't help but love a story which features strong characters, less than nice characters-- and not ones who're 'nice' or 'not nice' divided along their roles in the story (i.e., the 'good guys' are nice while the 'bad guys' suck). It's just so tempting to make your favorite character into a beautiful misunderstood martyr, I know, but if you buck that impulse and write people as they honestly are, the result is often a thing of true beauty.

Dee's fic is vivid, unapologetic, fierce and meaty. It makes me happy to be a shipper-- someone who wants to see these two make it together because they need each other, against all odds, rather than is willing to believe in some easy fix-- much more than any shmoopy lovey-dovey romance with remorseful Draco and charitable Harry (who make sweet & passionate boylurve at first opportunity) ever could. Because while this scenario isn't necessarily any more likely than the one where Draco 'repents', one -could- project our boys as they are into it, without much need for a lobotomy. Always a good thing.

...Let's just say that the idea of Draco Malfoy in Vladivostok, wearing a grey sweater and holding an AK-47 isn't one I'll want to forget anytime soon. There's just something oddly fitting about renegade!Draco in Siberia. There is!! Also, this greeting by said sweater-wearing person--

"Hello, Potter," Draco Malfoy says. "Fancy meeting you here."

-- made me clap my hands in glee, which is a first. I just really love Draco sometimes. I just do. But especially when he's going for elegantly homicidal. <333 And I love them together, not even in a romantic sense, but in terms of bringing them into contact because they -matter- to each other-- whatever happens, whether they'd admit it or not, whether they realize it or not, they matter. This whole story is a vodka shot-- smooth and harsh and it burns all the way to your heart with seemingly effortless precision.

I do want to see 'what happens' later on, but I don't need to. The fic is more of an image-- a feeling-- a taste at the back of my tongue. Bitter, smooth, gleaming hard like steel and glitter-dry like dust in the sun.

EDIT - Incidentally, cupiscent's post on writing angstfic was rather helpful and inspiring, but I especially loved the bit about the writer not intending angst to make the reader cry but rather to strand them in helplessness or render them incapable of expressing an excess of seething emotion. That is rather what I've noticed about great tragedy, as well. Ahahaha, resolution is for wimps!! ;D