prillalar

[ I'm a bit backlogged with comment replies, but I hope to get caught up tomorrow. ]

My Woobies of Dessssssstiny fic is up! It's just on the Fest site for now, so I've linked it.

Title: Mast Year
Rating: PG13 for M/M stuff
Spoilers: OotP
Summary: Harry and Neville, sitting in a tree.
Disclaimer: Rowling, not me
Notes: Thanks to kestrelsan for beta.

For challenge 37: His Gran is injured (or falls ill) and Neville spends the summer with the Weasleys. Of course Harry joins them after he's put in his time with the Dursleys.

Feedback here or in email would be just lovely, thanks for asking. *g*

I found this inordinately difficult to write, I must admit. This is actually my third attempt. The first I never even got around to writing. I started outlining and had an interesting Ron subplot and some cool stuff with Mad Eye Moody staying with them and Hermione sending messages from Canada and all was very entertaining. I just didn't have a way to get Harry & Neville together.

The second attempt was fun and I did write out some of it (I won't go into detail, as I may get it out and work on it later) but it went all Neville/Ron on me, or at least Neville -> Ron.

And then this. Which works, I think, but it's not very deep or strong or interesting.

I can't quite remember why I signed up for this challenge. I think I thought it would be fun to try to set Harry and Neville up. Usually I really enjoy that sort of thing. I've done a lot of odd pairings in my time, some randomly assigned, some picked by me, and I pride myself on being able to make it work plausibly, or mostly so. I did the Lupin/Snape challenge to see if I could buy them together and I succeeded in that so thoroughly that I almost see them as the post-Sirius default couple. (Poor Kingsley!)

But Harry and Neville -- I'm still not convinced. I was talking about this with kestrelsan while we were working through the beta and we decided that they're just not that interesting together, not at this point in their lives. We could see them as a "happily ever after" couple, once the whole Voldemort thing is taken care of, but for now, I just don't find any *juice* to them together. No real conflict or passion or deep connection, just friendliness and niceness. Which actually could be really great for a real life relationship, but it's not so interesting to read about.

Maybe I'm just not trying hard enough.

Any thoughts on this topic generally or relating my fic? Please feel free to be critical, if you'd like. I'm not thin-skinned about that sort of thing.