hp look back: parvati and the cherry
Aug. 10th, 2011 01:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jlhThis is where Parvati comes in, and also this thing I keep doing where I revisit similar themes with different pairings.
With One Breath: Parvati Patil/Lavender Brown, NC-17, 9200 words. Parvati has a twin sister and a best friend. One knows her better than she knows herself. And the other doesn't know her at all.
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So in 2003 there was an HP femslash smut challenge, I think hosted by![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
hp_girlslash, and I signed up for Parvati/Lavender because coming out of EWFS I had Thoughts About Parvati. Hence the story started growing arms and legs and a head. I cut my losses temporarily, putting up just the smutty part for the challenge (I still missed the deadline by a bit) and a friend of mine said, "How interesting that this story happens while across the hallway Seamus and Dean are getting together." And that made me think about weaving Parvati's story in and out and around EWFS, not to mention canon, and here we are.
This is also the start of Parvati's close friendship with Dean--after all, it was Dean who said that Parvati was the prettiest witch at the school. And it is one of the very few fics I've written--possibly the only one--where the couple don't stay together at the end. I had other plans for Parvati, which you can tell from the end of the fic. More on that later.
One of the things that one writes about when one writes about teenagers is the whole first-time-loss-of-virginity business. I consider With One Breath to be that for Parvati, so I thought I'd also put the links to the fics for my other three main pairings. "If At First" and "Best Laid Plans" also take place "within" EWFS, over the Christmas holidays between chapters 14 & 15. "Potter 7" takes place some months later, at the very start of their 7th year. So thematically with these stories if chronologically slightly later. Both the Ginny/Draco and Harry/Hermione stories were written for challenges.
If At First: Draco Malfoy/Ginny Weasley, NC-17, 2500 words. Ginny was precisely the sort to have great romantic visions about losing her virginity. Oh well. Warning: Ginny is 15 here, Draco 16.
Livejournal | Dreamwidth | Archive of Our Own
Best Laid Plans: Seamus Finnigan/Dean Thomas, NC-17, 3400 words. Even though their first kiss was only ten days ago, Seamus always figured his first time would be with Dean, and has an idea of how that should happen. But Dean shows him that it's good to be flexible.
Livejournal | Dreamwidth | Archive of Our Own
Potter 7: Harry Potter/Hermione Granger, NC-17, 3100 words. Hermione wasn't really the sort to have great romantic visions of losing her virginity. Good thing.
Livejournal | Dreamwidth | Archive of Our Own
What I found interesting about virginity-fic was the difference between the idea that you might have in your head and what actually happens. However perfect and lovely and appropriate one's first time is, it never actually goes exactly the way you think it will. I liked playing around with that, for these characters that are in relationships where sex plays very different roles.
In the summary for EWFS, Harry and Hermione are the ones who need a bit of a push; for them sex is just an expression of a lot of other things which is sometimes love and sometimes lust but is wrapped up in how wrapped up they are in each other. So for them, it happens in this odd way where Hermione, after fooling around with Harry all summer, decides she's ready on her birthday. Just bam, she's ready, let's go, and Harry's like, okay? and is trying to be gentle but Hermione is like, "whatever! this is bound to be awkward! let's just do it!"
Draco and Ginny are the ones where it falls from a clear blue sky and I always wrote them as having primarily an intense physical connection that grows into more over time, so of course Ginny is going to take advantage of the first opportunity to "go all the way" with Draco. She's also a lady with very definite ideas, so she also wants to do it in her own bed in her own house, and not at Hogwarts or in some inn in Hogsmeade or whatever. She tries to fit them into a slot in her mind, and that doesn't quite work out. But when she just goes with who they are, it's great.
Seamus and Dean are the ones who are waiting for the other to let go, and for them it doesn't really matter that they only just got together, because they really have been together in their minds this entire time, since they first met. They were just being sort of silly about it. Seamus is also one for firm ideas but they're more capricious because they come to him from strange places, like a painting he sees in a museum, and Dean has to catch on to what he's doing and then remind Seamus that they are real people, and not someone in a book.
I'll say more when I do a whole pairings thing about why Ron and Padma (the ones where love sneaks up from behind) aren't in on all this somewhat-themed adjacent ficcing, but while I didn't write it they probably finally did it at some point just before the war, in that "what if I don't survive and I'll have never had sex" sort of way, and it wasn't awesome, but they comforted each other. And then afterward, they did it much more properly and with more mutual satisfaction, and that's the one Padma really counts.
And then of course Parvati loses hers to the girl she's in love with; she just doesn't realize it at the time. In the moment it kind of sucks but later, in retrospect, it's quite romantic.
With One Breath: Parvati Patil/Lavender Brown, NC-17, 9200 words. Parvati has a twin sister and a best friend. One knows her better than she knows herself. And the other doesn't know her at all.
So in 2003 there was an HP femslash smut challenge, I think hosted by
hp_girlslash, and I signed up for Parvati/Lavender because coming out of EWFS I had Thoughts About Parvati. Hence the story started growing arms and legs and a head. I cut my losses temporarily, putting up just the smutty part for the challenge (I still missed the deadline by a bit) and a friend of mine said, "How interesting that this story happens while across the hallway Seamus and Dean are getting together." And that made me think about weaving Parvati's story in and out and around EWFS, not to mention canon, and here we are.This is also the start of Parvati's close friendship with Dean--after all, it was Dean who said that Parvati was the prettiest witch at the school. And it is one of the very few fics I've written--possibly the only one--where the couple don't stay together at the end. I had other plans for Parvati, which you can tell from the end of the fic. More on that later.
One of the things that one writes about when one writes about teenagers is the whole first-time-loss-of-virginity business. I consider With One Breath to be that for Parvati, so I thought I'd also put the links to the fics for my other three main pairings. "If At First" and "Best Laid Plans" also take place "within" EWFS, over the Christmas holidays between chapters 14 & 15. "Potter 7" takes place some months later, at the very start of their 7th year. So thematically with these stories if chronologically slightly later. Both the Ginny/Draco and Harry/Hermione stories were written for challenges.
If At First: Draco Malfoy/Ginny Weasley, NC-17, 2500 words. Ginny was precisely the sort to have great romantic visions about losing her virginity. Oh well. Warning: Ginny is 15 here, Draco 16.
Best Laid Plans: Seamus Finnigan/Dean Thomas, NC-17, 3400 words. Even though their first kiss was only ten days ago, Seamus always figured his first time would be with Dean, and has an idea of how that should happen. But Dean shows him that it's good to be flexible.
Potter 7: Harry Potter/Hermione Granger, NC-17, 3100 words. Hermione wasn't really the sort to have great romantic visions of losing her virginity. Good thing.
What I found interesting about virginity-fic was the difference between the idea that you might have in your head and what actually happens. However perfect and lovely and appropriate one's first time is, it never actually goes exactly the way you think it will. I liked playing around with that, for these characters that are in relationships where sex plays very different roles.
In the summary for EWFS, Harry and Hermione are the ones who need a bit of a push; for them sex is just an expression of a lot of other things which is sometimes love and sometimes lust but is wrapped up in how wrapped up they are in each other. So for them, it happens in this odd way where Hermione, after fooling around with Harry all summer, decides she's ready on her birthday. Just bam, she's ready, let's go, and Harry's like, okay? and is trying to be gentle but Hermione is like, "whatever! this is bound to be awkward! let's just do it!"
Draco and Ginny are the ones where it falls from a clear blue sky and I always wrote them as having primarily an intense physical connection that grows into more over time, so of course Ginny is going to take advantage of the first opportunity to "go all the way" with Draco. She's also a lady with very definite ideas, so she also wants to do it in her own bed in her own house, and not at Hogwarts or in some inn in Hogsmeade or whatever. She tries to fit them into a slot in her mind, and that doesn't quite work out. But when she just goes with who they are, it's great.
Seamus and Dean are the ones who are waiting for the other to let go, and for them it doesn't really matter that they only just got together, because they really have been together in their minds this entire time, since they first met. They were just being sort of silly about it. Seamus is also one for firm ideas but they're more capricious because they come to him from strange places, like a painting he sees in a museum, and Dean has to catch on to what he's doing and then remind Seamus that they are real people, and not someone in a book.
I'll say more when I do a whole pairings thing about why Ron and Padma (the ones where love sneaks up from behind) aren't in on all this somewhat-themed adjacent ficcing, but while I didn't write it they probably finally did it at some point just before the war, in that "what if I don't survive and I'll have never had sex" sort of way, and it wasn't awesome, but they comforted each other. And then afterward, they did it much more properly and with more mutual satisfaction, and that's the one Padma really counts.
And then of course Parvati loses hers to the girl she's in love with; she just doesn't realize it at the time. In the moment it kind of sucks but later, in retrospect, it's quite romantic.
