Progress Report 4/14

[lomonaaeren]

Time for another one of these.



I have 12,500 words on my hds_beltane fic, and that should be finished tomorrow.

I’ve decided that I’ll begin splitting up the Inter Vivos chapters into smaller chunks (so, say, parts 1 and 2 of chapter 28). One of the reasons my updates on that story have slowed is that they’re so long I dread working on them and half-killing myself every third day to get an 8000- or 10,000-word chapter up. Plus, RL is getting busier and I simply can’t write chapters that long in a single day anymore. Working in smaller chunks is much more comfortable for me.

Providence will have seven, eight, or nine more chapters; I haven’t decided yet.





“Draco’s Keeper”: After the war, Harry feels sorry for Draco, who’s a social outcast and has lost a lot of money in lawyers’ fees. So he makes small donations to his Gringotts accounts—never enough for Draco to feel suspicious—and “arranges” for him to receive good chances. Draco does eventually figure out that it’s Harry supporting him, of course, and gets deeply angry because he doesn’t want to be in anyone’s debt but can’t figure out how to pay Harry back. Harry, meanwhile, tries to persuade him that he doesn’t want anything, that it’s enough for him if Draco accepts the gifts and uses them to make his life better, but Draco won’t listen. The story is about trying to come to terms with people owing each other and those debts you’re never able to repay.

“Heraclitean Fire”: On his first “real” field mission as an Auror, Harry is hit with the Withering Curse, which will gradually shrivel parts of his body away, killing him in a long, agonizing process over months. There’s no cure for it except to murder another person in cold blood, and use the power of splitting one’s soul during the murder to dispel the curse. Needless to say, Harry refuses to do this. He has about two weeks before the first effects of the curse show up, so he makes his will—and helps Draco Malfoy, who is dealing with a house he inherited on his father’s death which turns out to be haunted by something other than ghosts. Harry thinks he might as well do this as anything else, have one last adventure. But the adventure turns unexpectedly ghastly, and drives Harry to acts of courage and strength that convince Draco he can’t allow him to die. Lucky for Harry that he has a Dark magical artifact that might provide the answer. Or perhaps not so lucky for Harry.

“Departure”: Harry and Draco have both returned to Hogwarts after an absence of five years, since Neville has become Headmaster and a lot of the older professors are retiring, and Neville wants experts in their fields among the new professors. Draco is still coping with the aftermath of the war. He notices that Harry seems to have got over it rather better than he has. In fact, Harry is very calm now, not impulsive, and very gentle with everyone else. As Draco watches him, he comes to the conclusion that the calm is a little too deep to be real. But the only clue he can find as to what’s going on is a calendar page for the coming August in Harry’s rooms.

“Vessel of Life”: This would be my mpreg story—or rather, since I don’t like mpreg, my razoring of it up one side and down the other. After Harry becomes pregnant, he notices that he’s become pretty much invisible to everyone around him; all they seem to see is the baby. Inspired by my extreme distaste for stories that turn a pregnant character into a container for the baby, or that assume that someone’s death in childbirth is a low price to pay for a child.

Comments

[nonajf.livejournal.com]

Those all sound really interesting. I'll admit to laughing over "Vessel of Life" as pregnant friend have complained of the same 'invisible' syndrome! ;-)

[lomonaaeren.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

And oh, good, I'm glad that I'm not just making it up!