Harry Potter and the Art of Falling in Love

I've been thinking about this.

When I started writing this current fic, which is <http://freewebz.com/ivyblossom/fiction.html">Origins, I thought I was telling the story of how Draco comes to fall in love with Harry. Some of the why, but mostly the how. Like, how he can be an asshole wrestling with this. Because even when I first wrote Haven, I knew when I wrote that kiss that this was just the climax of that. I knew it when I wrote about Draco perched on top of Harry with his lips against Harry's navel that this was not the first time it had occured to him. This was a dramatic moment for Draco, but it wasn't a moment of realization. I think, by that point, Draco is already aware that he loves Harry, whatever that's going to mean for him.

But Harry. This is all about realization for him. He's shocked. He's shocked to find himself kissing a boy and liking it; he's surprised to find himself kissing Malfoy and wanting to keep going. It's a kind of dawning realization for him. Cause there's no inbetween with Harry; either he wants you or he doesn't, he doesn't play this inbetween maybe maybe not game. He's just not like that.

But you know, I was wrong. But let me explain why I was also kind of right.

I was thinking about this. One of the things you come to realize as you get older is that you're not a kid anymore, right? But the fact is, you spend all your life to that point with the experiences of a kid, with the emotions of a kid. These are the rules you understand. You're a teenager, and you're pretty sure you know yourself. You've got it all figured out. But don't you find it insanely easy to spot kids with crushes, without knowing that they have crushes?

Attraction/lust/whatever you'd like to call it is really a difficult thing to recognize in yourself, if you're a kid with kid rules. Sure, there's dating, there's crushes and all that. But don't you find that teenage crushes fall into a whole other category? I see them in the fanfic world all the time. They're a little different than adult attraction, don't you think? Not more or less mature, not more or less intense, not more or less real. Just...different.

My thesis here is that learning how it feels to be attracted to someone is a process. And I think it's hard to learn.

For instance: my first girl hook up was very confusing. We talked late into the night. She cried, I comforted. She needed me, and I was more than willing to be useful. I was being maternal. I didn't understand why she was so upset, but she seemed to need me. Suddenly, after about two weeks, I just couldn't imagine life without her. The world looked so DIFFERENT when she was around. We communicated so well. She really KNEW me. I thought, wow, we must be the BEST FRIENDS EVER. We were just MEANT to be best friends.

Right. I was dumb. That was called 'attraction'. In my own kid rules mind, I was trying to fit this experience into something I understood, because didn't I understand it all? I didn't think there was anything about myself I didn't know. So this must be something easy to understand. I want to be with her all the time? We just have lots of common, we're best friends. That's how that works. Uh huh.

The second girl i was seriously involved with was basically courting me for a good two months before I realized that that's what it was. We were ostensibly dating, and I didn't see it. Friends do this, friends spend time together. I didn't examine whether I wanted her ass, I just wanted to be with her. I liked her attention. It made me feel good. I felt special. I thought that was something that fit into the logic of my world. I didn't think it had to herald something entirely new.

I realized as I wrote Origins 8 that Harry is not unaffected here. At first I kind of thought he would be, but he's not. He can even participate in something that looks remarkably like courting and not recognize it. I think, while what happens at the beginning of Haven is a kind of resolution for Draco and a realization for Harry. Harry is not just an object of Draco's affection...he's making some connections too.

I think, when Harry looks back on this, the moment he began to realize what was going on here, the moment he started to understand why the world looked a little different when Draco was in the room, why the hairs on the back of his neck go up when Draco speaks. Because when he walks away from this, after midnight, wet clothes, blood on his hand, what is on his mind is why he was so incredibly upset at the thought of killing Draco. Because it wasn't because he was afraid of getting expelled, or anything like that. And he wondered what kind of a hero he was, if he couldn't kill Death Eaters. He always expected that they would go mano e mano at some point. Wouldn't adult!Harry kill Death Eater!Draco? After this he can't be so sure. He's fretting that he's not really ready to be useful in the war. He will probably lull himself to sleep thinking about how he could have done it if Draco hadn't looked relatively innocent at the time. It was because it was an accident. He didn't wrap his arms around Draco because he's attracted; that hasn't occured to him. He did it because Draco was innocent at the time. This makes sense to him.

People like Harry believe in love at first sight. This is because it takes them a good long time to really see.

Review responses

tealish, a love shade and a wonderful, consistent reviewer, heart of my heart, wrote: fencing seems like the kind of things wizards would do - good thought. i really liked this chapter. draco is well suited as a fencer, especially as being good at it. and i liked the second half - draco challenging him in the locker rooms then and there, and harry wanting a second rematch. and harry's concern *sigh*... i have to love h/d *g*.

Yeah, I could see Draco as a fencer too. So elegant, and so historical. I still think it's funny to think of this incident from the point of view of the comfortable ending post-Belong:

"...you remember that time when you stabbed me?"

"I did NOT stab you."

"Well, you did, actually."

"Hmm."

"You remember?"

"Of course I remember."

"..."

"What about it? I felt awful about that."

"I really wanted to snog you right then."

"Oh yeah?"

"Mmmhmm."

"You didn't even try."

"What, you think i should have tried?"

"Why not? Could have been interesting."

Draco thwaps Harry with a newspaper. "Don't tease me."

Harry snorts. "Right."

Harry thinks for a moment. "Remember those 'Potter Stinks' badges?"

"Hmmm. Indeed I do. I think I still have a few of those around."

"You do not."

"Oh, I do."

"I really, really didn't want to snog you over those."

Draco laughs.

Bwaybaby79 wrote: Nice continuation from "Belong" with the fencing; it explains why Harry would know how to. So Draco kissed Harry as his birthday present? Yum. :D And sly boy that he is, he gets to have a wet half-naked Harry touching him.

Heehehehehhe. Yes, that was my thought, echoes of Belong. And yes, Draco kisses Harry as a birthday present to himself. Spoiled little brat. And he is sly. I don't think he was sly enought to plan the last bit. He just wishes he were that sly. He wants us to think he's that sly.

Gwen says: Great. Thanks, Ivy. It's people like you that keep Harry/Draco alive.

Hehehehehe. I'll keep breathing into that lifeless corpse. For a while, at least.

Thanks to everyone, I hope you don't mind my quoting. I'm glad you enjoyed it. I sure did.

More dialogue fun

"Draco."

"Hmmmph?"

"Are you awake?"

"Mmmmph."

"Wake up."

"Mmm MM Hmmmhmmmmmm."

"You remember the Aurora Borealis?"

".....mm?"

"At school."

"Mm hmm."

"Was it you?"

Draco turns and faces Harry, but says nothing. He sighs.

"If was you, wasn't it. Who kissed me."

Draco chuckles.

"Was it?"

Draco shifts, pins Harry's wrist behind his back, and kisses him.

"Hmmm. I tried to guess. I wasn't even close."

Draco releases Harry's wrist and snuggles into his neck. "No?"

"Nope."

"...."

"I assumed it was Ron."

"WHAT?"

Harry laughs. "I'm just kidding."

"You bastard."

website tweaking

I added back buttons and next buttons to all the parts of Origins. So that should be easier to navigate. Lib put a new pic on Veela Inc., I'm going to try to post it here, probably won't work...



Did that work? I look really hot in this picture. It doesn't look anything at all like me, weep weep. Ah well.

Question of the moment.

Alright.

So imagine that you're 18 and people expect you to be a Death Eater. Got it? Okay, so you're not opposed to the whole Death Eater thing. But what would it take to really seduce you into it?

I found as a kid that the careers that were the most appealing were the ones where the person I knew doing it were close enough to me in age that I could see the path from me to them.

Any thoughts? Really. What would it take to fire you up?

Draco. In Ivy's head.

Mostly I don't visualize my characters. But when I do think of Draco, sadly, I think of someone a little like this guy:



It's the eyes, I think. It's the eyes that do it. I keep forgetting that he's supposed to be a blonde in the first place. Nobody says no to those eyes. It's the intensity. This is a look that can change into a snarl in a second. Very guarded. Draco.