Fallen Star (Sequel to Shooting Star) COMPLETE

Shooting Star and Fallen Star – An Author's Understanding of Stars by Slashpervert

This pair of stories, Shooting Star and Fallen Star written by myself and Aveeno_baby, was one of the most interesting, graphically violent, and surprisingly moving of the works I have written. It has certainly been the most controversial. Which, I suppose, is not surprising given the way it started. Taking a page from Ravenna_C_Tan, here are my author’s notes. These are a kind of behind the scenes look at the stories and my thoughts/ideas about them. They don’t speak for my co-author who may see things very differently.

In June of 2007, a controversy arose on livejournal.com when several fan journals were deleted by the site administrators for their content. Fans were understandably upset with this blatant censorship. I don’t intend to rehash the discussion which resulted, but it was in that climate of outrage that this fiction was written. I feel strongly about the dangers of censorship of information on the internet and of the freedom of content in fiction.

aveeno_baby and I were already working on several other fics and had never participated in any of the fiction fests or challenges. Then I saw a challenge for the Inappropriate Content - The Strikethrough '07 Ficathon at lj comm forbiddenfic. We sent a message to the moderator and were given the prompts: "Stains - Scars - Chains" and "serious Harry wuppage." We decided to challenge ourselves and our readers by writing a completely non-consensual scene with Draco as the perpetrator of the violence.

I usually write a “tragic but romantic” Draco who adores Harry. I had to go back to canon and think of what circumstances would lead Draco from the last glimpse of him on the tower (this was pre-release of DH) to a position where he would be allowed the “honour” by Voldemort of doing this to Harry. To do that I had to envision a Draco who had “overcome” his failure to please the Dark Lord and gone on to be a member of Voldemort’s inner circle. In many ways, this is the most canon of my Dracos (post HPB, pre-DH).

It has the label “Darkfic” because of extremely violent and graphic content. Yet, at the heart there is something incredibly optimistic about this story. It is a story of recovery and redemption. Its overall message is that no matter what has been done to you or, even worse in some ways, by you, that it is still possible to recover, to find a life worth living. It’s an almost Christian message – forgiveness, healing and redemption. It is hardly a dark message but one I found a surprising number of people unable to accept.

Chapter one, A Shooting Star, is essentially the one-shot we wrote for the ficathon. The title is drawn from the first line of the story where Harry, on his way to what he believes is his death, sees a shooting star and makes a wish for the comforts he has lost.

Although we had done what we set out to do with the one-shot, one of the reasons we ended up with the two novels is that we just couldn’t stand to leave it there. We wanted to know what would happen next. We had no idea where it would go when we began. That is why I end up writing novels instead of one-shots. I always want to know what happens next and how we find out is by writing it.

As is our usual policy, we divided up the characters as we wrote. My co-author writes Harry and I write Draco. (Which is one of the reasons I can give you more insight into Draco than Harry here.) One of the things we did this time was have me write all the “villains” – which, in Shooting Star, meant pretty much everyone besides Harry. The idea here is that my co-author's reactions as Harry would be authentic rendering complete surprise. She never knew what I would do next to her character. Since we were trying to make it a stretch, there were no limits to how violent it could get and we even debated Harry or both Harry and Draco getting caught and dying. Eventually, we decided that their escape was more powerful than their deaths.

Draco and Harry are nineteen (almost twenty) when the story begins on May 1st, 2000. What quickly emerged were two of the most “broken” versions of Harry and Draco. Harry was dispirited to the point of having given up. He had witnessed the deaths of Ron and Hermione. Just about everyone else he knew and cared for was dead and he was captured. He had lost his magic, though he didn’t know why. Then, when he thinks he is about to die, he is, instead, raped and enslaved. He really loses his way here. He has lost and he IS lost.

Draco’s situation is revealed slowly. We learn in a bit here and another bit there that he has also lost everyone he cares about – both of his parents, Snape, Pansy, and most of his friends. The only friends he has left are those who are also Death Eaters. He had continued as Snape’s apprentice in potions and when Snape dies (we don’t know how), he takes on the role as Potions Master for Voldemort. We learn that part of the reason he cultivates the role is that it protects him from front line fighting and keeps him safely in his lab most of the time. Over time we learn that it isn’t just death he is hiding from. He is hiding from the life expected of a Death Eater in Voldemort’s regime.

(One ironic bit is that we wrote Voldemort taking control of the Ministry and eventually all of the Wizarding World in Great Britain. DH had not been released and we were actually shocked when JKR did that as well. This could almost be read as what would have happened in DH if Harry had been captured rather than went on the run.)

Once at the Manor, we learn that Draco has an obsessive-compulsive personality disorder. He has managed to retain what is left of his sanity by creating an extremely ordered life. Unless interrupted by Voldemort, and now Harry, he follows the exact same pattern every day, including when and what he eats – which apparently is the minimum he can exist on. The psychology behind this is that his life has been so controlled by others that this is the way he creates a “safe space” for himself. His lab is the place no one else is allowed (not even the house-elves) and it is a strain and then later a sense of intimacy for him to allow Harry into that gleaming organised room that is his sanctuary.

Over the larger arch of the story, what emerges with Draco is a profile of someone who was extremely badly abused (probably from a young age) and traumatised and has completely buried any aspect of vulnerability in himself. He lives in horror of Voldemort and his followers, but has to work for them or die. He hates violence and has had to not only watch but participate in it. As he watches Fred die, we are given glimpses of the boy on the tower who couldn’t kill Dumbledore. This older Draco has learned to hide it but still hates it.

We learn that he is personally responsible for saving Harry’s life – that if Draco hadn’t requested Harry be given to him as his slave, our hero would have been tortured to death that very night. During the rapes in the study, we learn that he is reenacting his own rapes there and it makes him sick when he realises it. Yet, he is as locked into the Enslavement Spell as Harry is and even when they are away from Voldemort, admits he does not know how to remove the spell without killing Harry.

So what do we know about Draco here? We know the paddle in the drawer of Lucius’s desk was used on him. We know he was raped over both the desk and the chair in there. We know that when he was at Hogwarts, Lucius would beat him as punishment any time Hermione got better grades or Harry defeated Draco at Quidditch – or let his father’s ideals down in any way. We know he was forced to watch Narcissa’s death at the hands of Voldemort’s people. Initially he blames Harry for these things – which is actually a normal response for a young victim of such abuse who cannot blame the father he depends upon.

Shooting Star is nearly a classic study in what is called Stockholm Syndrome. Ironically, while some readers have pointed out that Harry’s love for Draco in this story is an example of that, they may not realise that Draco is also under the same type of psychological response. He is a perfect example of the abused child who comes to identify with and model his abuser. We can see canon Draco now in a new light. With Narcissa as the loving but powerless parent and Lucius as the controlling violent parent, it is the position of power that the young Draco emulates. This is classic psychology theory in action. The helpless child learns to want to be the one with power, not the one that suffers.

I can see Lucius trying to teach his son who had “too much” of the “softness” of his mother to harden himself. Lucius probably justified his abuse and rape of his own son as a “discipline” that was preparing him to be a Death Eater. One of the things I try to remember when I write is that every character, no matter how minor, believes they are the hero of their own story. Lucius wanted his only son to be strong enough to survive. I do not justify the behaviour but it makes sense.

Harry’s reactions to Draco are also very clearly Stockholm Syndrome. In a situation with multiple abusers – not just Draco but Voldemort and the other Death Eaters – Harry develops feelings for the one person who shows him any comfort, the person he literally needs to survive. This is actually a very adaptive response to such horror. It is not “premeditated” on Harry’s part. He is a young man who has lost everything. He says pretty clearly that he wants some comfort, some pleasure, before he dies. He needs Draco on multiple levels. It is enforced by the spell at first but it is later reinforced by what they go through to survive.

In the last chapter of Fallen Star, Draco confesses that he had never bottomed before except while being raped. So when we look back on those first “tender” sexual moments between Harry and Draco in Shooting Star, one can read it realising that this was the first consensual sex that either young man had ever had. It changes both of them in profound ways. It is no surprise then that Draco finds Harry’s desire for him intoxicating. Later, Draco repeatedly makes it clear that it is Harry’s “consent” that turns him on and the aspect of their relationship that troubles him the most is the fact that the Enslavement Spell makes that consent dubious at best. Throughout Fallen Star, much of Draco’s anxiety and jealousy is prompted by reminders of that and his belief that Harry would not really want him without the spell.

These are young men who have survived abusive childhoods and have lost everyone they care about. It is not surprising that they both turn to each other for the love they no longer have in their lives. Even knowing that allowing himself to care about Harry will get him killed, Draco can’t resist his own need to love and be loved by someone. We see the first hint of what Draco risks in helping Harry in his warning to Harry that he “will get them both killed” in Chapter one. Early on, Draco can’t understand why he had taken Potter and put himself in more contact with Voldemort by doing so. He knows it is dangerous but can’t seem to help himself.

When Harry turns rape into sex, offering affection to soothe Draco’s anger, something begins to shift. When this happens we see something emerge in Draco that he had clearly locked away inside himself for so long. If he modelled Lucius before, in love, we see him modelling Narcissa now. Publicly, he tries to remain the image of the “Ice Prince” that Lucius molded him to be. Privately, he is the indulgent lover that echoes the mother who tried to counter Lucius with indulgence (eventually even indulging Harry’s sexual curiosity with women and then with Mark).

Although it is never said directly in the story, it is implied that Narcissa paid the price of Draco’s failure to kill Dumbledore. He was forced to stand and watch as his mother was tortured and killed for “his failure.” I can imagine Narcissa begging Voldemort for her son’s life. Can you imagine barely seventeen-year-old Draco having to watch or suffer the same fate? Can we even understand the damage this would do to him? The guilt he must feel?

Draco himself is not even sure why he asks for Harry except that he repeatedly says that he just couldn’t stand by and watch Harry be killed. When we put this in perspective of both Naricssa’s death and all the other people he has been forced to watch die, this gives us a window into why he took the actions that he did. Harry is strangely enough a link to an older time – to the young Draco who met Harry in the robe shop before he started Hogwarts and before the Dark Lord returned. Harry is also a symbol of survival – the Boy Who Lived – and Draco can’t just let that die. This isn’t strategy; he doesn’t believe Harry will defeat Voldemort. It is an unconscious desperation for hope.

Their plan to escape reminds me of the film Lady Jane in which the two lovers plan to “flee” to a world not controlled by corrupt politics. In that story, they don’t succeed. In this, we, the audience, have an idea that it can’t last, that the Prophecy will eventually catch up with them. Draco is desperate to make this work, even if a part of him knows it is improbable. We see it in the way he watches the news and constantly worries about strangers or anything else that might expose them.

Yet, it is during this time in San Francisco that Draco begins to think about who he would choose to be. The pure-blood aristocratic son of a Death Eater has never had this choice before. It takes time, but as he begins to relax in this new life, he is recreating himself. The fact that Draco doesn’t allow himself to admit to Harry he loves him until he is “David” is a telling clue. “Draco” was chained to his past and unable to make choices. “David” is a Muggle who can make his own choices, including in love.

(Side note: Morgan means “morning” – a new beginning. David Morgan is the name of one of my first loves. We broke up over his controlling and jealous behaviour. I love the way fiction can give us “do-overs,” even when we don’t realise we are doing it at the time.)

I think it is telling that even in San Francisco, Harry remains in a kind of timeless sense of “now,” and doesn’t find a new direction other than as Draco’s lover. With the Prophecy in place, he never finds a new path in the Muggle world. For him, this is a time of rest and recovery. He tells us he lost his magic when Ron and Hermione died. We can suppose from this that Harry’s power is, as Dumbledore suggested, linked to his will and to love. When those he loved died, he lost the will to live and his magic with it. Both seem to recover during this time of rest, destined to reemerge when that love is threatened.

Both stories have essentially three “acts” or sections. In Shooting Star they fall into: Act I – Harry becomes Draco’s slave and they try to figure out what that means to them. Act II – They fall in love with each other and then have to figure out what that means and try to survive. Act III – They decide to escape and do so.

In Fallen Star they are: Act I – Harlan and David establish themselves in San Francisco. Harry and Draco are trying to escape their pasts both literally and psychologically by trying to be Harlan and David. Act II – The attack on Draco reawakens lost parts of Harry’s personality as well as his magic. Act III – Their past catches up with them and they must face it to move on.

Mark comes into the story as one of the first people they meet in their new lives. Oddly enough, we, the writers, did not know he would become an important character in the story when he first appeared. (We both took turns writing him.) He doesn’t emerge as more than a challenge to Draco’s jealousy until chapter eleven of Fallen Star. It is an indication that we didn’t know he would be important in that it wasn’t until we were writing Act II that we went back and gave Mark a last name. {Mark’s first name was chosen by aveeno_baby and his last name was chosen by our beta roonilwaz.)

When he saves and heals Draco, Harry’s magic not only returns but does so at a level far beyond what he had ever experienced before. If love is, as Dumbledore said, Harry’s power, his bond with Draco makes this possible. My view is that not only is it the “power of love” but, in a strange way, the direct magical connection of the Enslavement Spell between them which creates an exceptional situation for Harry to be able to draw upon the “empathy” of the link to fuel and focus wandless magic.

It becomes important that Mark was not only Harry’s first friend in the new life, but is a witness to the rebirth of Harry’s magic and learns who they really are. He is also able to see for the first time the depth of love that Draco and Harry have for each other. Instead of that making him turn away from them, all of these things make Mark feel more drawn to these two men. Although still intimidated by Draco, Mark begins to understand the blond’s devotion to Harry and realises Draco’s fears of losing him are not unfounded.

(Here, we authors used a kind of fiction “sleight of hand” to move him from minor character to the third primary character in the story. Point of view. In Act II, we introduce Mark’s perspective. Until chapter eleven, we only had Draco and Harry as point of view characters. One of the ways one creates empathy for a character in fiction is by letting the reader know what the person is feeling. I think the effectiveness of this strategy was demonstrated in fan reactions to chapters. Up until this point, most of them disliked Mark and saw him as a threat to Harry and Draco. A couple chapters after they began reading how Mark felt about things, most of them began to like him even if it confused them as to why. By the end of the serializing of the story, fans were begging us to let him live.)

Meanwhile, the re-emergence of Harry’s more canon personality gives the reader and Draco more confidence in his choices even as Harry’s choices become more unconventional. Harry shows interest in the two women flirting with them and Draco responds not with jealousy but by experimentation.

There are some important aspects to their comfort with Ally and Jesse: 1) The women are clearly a couple and not looking to break up Harry and Draco. They show a respect for the primary bond of the men and their own bond as a couple. 2) Even when they are having sex with the women, both Harry and Draco’s attention still remains on each other – even reaching out to touch each other during. 3) For Draco, his sense of control is left intact as all three of the others seem happy to let him direct the action. 4) Draco immediately “reclaims” Harry after the sex with the women, as if to reassure them both that they are still primary. As a first encounter with non-monogamy, this one went well. It gives them the confidence they need to explore without the threat of losing what they have.

(For those who might not realise it, I am polyamorous and live in a long term bi-triad with two other people. I obviously draw heavily from my own experiences on how it feels and what works for such things. I have seen both the worst and best of such relationships over the years. This one is meant to model when it does work.)

For both Harry and Draco, whose previous experiences with sex outside of their own relationship were all negative, this opens up a new kind of healing. They are so comfortable with the experience that they continue in a “friendship with benefits” with the two women who even attend Draco’s birthday party after they have already become a triad with Mark. And the relationship with Ally and Jesse is what paves the way for Harry to propose that he and Draco have sex with Mark.

Mark’s attraction to Harry was immediate and, as early as that first night drinking, it was clear that Harry was attracted to Mark but held back out of loyalty to Draco. Mark’s attraction to Draco was much more gradual and included that kind of tension that comes from being drawn to someone recognisably dangerous. Even before he knows they are wizards, Mark could sense how dangerous Draco can be. Later, he is as drawn to the chemistry between the other two as much, if not more than, he is to them individually. He draws pictures of them together in a way that captures that intensity. When he is finally included into that, how could he resist? Mark understands that he will only be included on Draco’s terms because Draco needs control to relax. He knows him well enough by now not to challenge it. His reward is Draco’s increasing level of comfort and trust.

Here, another element of the story is introduced. It is Ally and Jesse who take our boys to the movies where Harry becomes enamored of the love songs from the movie Moulin Rouge. “Come What May” is chosen as a kind of “theme song” for this story. Harry finds meaning in the lyrics which echo his feelings of wonder and hope about his relationship with Draco and how it captures the sense of not only surviving anything but building a life of love. Many of the phrases from this song were already in the story before the song came into play.

(As readers you are probably aware there are important lines used in the dialogue that are drawn from the song. It is Draco’s declaration “until my dying day” that prompts Harry’s “come what may,” signalling he is still alive. And the song lyrics are also the last lines of the story. I also used phrases from the lyrics in many of the chapter titles. Chapter 19 – To Give You Everything and Chapter 22 – A Perfect Place, are examples. In Act III, Chapter 25, the shift back to the conflict with Voldemort is entitled “When Stars Collide,” which draws not only from the title of the two stories, but from the song lyric “And stars may collide.” Chapter 28, the near deaths of our characters and Voldemort’s death is entitled “Until My Dying Day.” Chapter 30 – I Never Knew , Chapter 31 – Inside Your Kiss, and Chapter 32 – A Perfect Grace, all draw from the song as well.)

Our heroes had relaxed enough in their new lives that Draco doesn’t keep his “constant vigilance” against being caught. The Death Eaters may have initially tracked Harry and Draco to the U.S.A. but then lost track of them. One can imagine they may have gotten suspicious when the return of Harry’s magic may have been reported as an unidentified burst of wild magic to the local authorities. If Voldemort already had spies looking for them in the states, this may have helped them pinpoint the city. We know that Shelton was working there undercover with a Death Eater cell, but secretly reporting to M.A.N.A. through Davis.

(Someday I may return to write more about Norton’s Way and M.A.N.A. Fellow San Francisco Bay Area folk who have read this section of the story are always delighted by the number of very local references. For example, the resale shop that is the entrance to Norton’s Way is drawn in detail from a real place, including the neon palm tree lights, though the actual store is on Valencia not Haight Street. Haight Street, of course, is a famous landmark known for being colourful. Emperor Norton is an actual historical figure. “A Very Different Light” is a reference to the queer bookstore in the Castro district that is named “A Different Light.” Egg Shen was the name of the Chinese wizard in the cult film set in San Francisco, Big Trouble in Little China. And Shakespeare’s Garden where Draco takes Harry on a picnic in Golden Gate Park is real.)

So Act III of Book Two opens with the GLBT (Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgendered) art show for Pride month (a real event). Not realising how recognisable Harry and Draco would be nor the fact that Death Eaters have been watching San Francisco, Mark includes a drawing of his lovers in his entries to the show. This is the clue that Voldemort’s people needed to find them and it is only through the intervention of Shelton and Davis that Harry is not taken immediately.

In this painful section of the story, we see a reversal of roles for Draco and Harry. It was Harry who was tortured and Draco who rescued him in Book One. Now, through Draco’s faith in the reborn Harry, he is able to suffer knowing Harry will come for them and finally defeat the Dark Lord. The tortures are gruesome, showing how angry Voldemort and the Death Eaters were by Draco’s betrayal. Historically, powerful regimes have always punished traitors with much severe cruelty as a way of discouraging anyone else from defying them. Draco, having been one of Voldemort’s highest people, has to be taken down as low as they can take him or Voldemort himself loses esteem in all their eyes. It must have been quite a blow to his power when Draco and Harry escaped in the first place. Now he uses the punishment of Draco to also lure Harry to him, not realising that Harry has grown in power since last they met.

It is not the broken man led in chains that confronts Voldemort at last. This Harry is confident, powerful and angry. He has not come just to fulfill a Prophecy he never wanted or to take revenge for his lost family and friends. He has come to rescue the men he loves. His motivation – the source of his power – is love. In canon, his mother’s love saved his life. Here, his love of Draco and Mark saves all their lives. In canon, Harry’s wild magic regrows his hair and blows up his aunt. Here, his wild magic is channeled into focused wandless magic. In canon, he could throw off the Imperius Curse; now he throws off both the Cruciatus and the Killing Curse.

What happens in that moment echoes what we see in DH, but with some major differences. This is not a boy who walks to his death because his mentor has told him (manipulated) he has to do it. He is not there to sacrifice himself but to reclaim his life from a madman. He doesn’t call the creature in front of him “Lord Voldemort” but “Tom.” He brings the monster back down to the level of the twisted young man named Tom Riddle. I cried when my co-author wrote this part, feeling such pride in Harry that I was awestruck. He had come so far from the defeated boy chained to a post in the beginning of the story. He was a man ready to take charge of his own future now.

Meanwhile, Draco, thinking he had witnessed Harry’s death, is ready to die with him rather than lose him. And when Harry lets him know he is alive, Draco doesn’t question or hesitate to move when Harry tells him. He trusts Harry implicitly, turning his back on Voldemort and moving to save Mark from Nagini. The irony here is that Draco does not know about the Horcruxes. Harry never told him that part of the story. We, the reader, know that Harry had destroyed all of them but the snake and Voldemort. Draco’s instinct here is to save Mark, having watched Voldemort feed people to his pet before. He only wants to stop the snake from eating his lover. He doesn’t even know he is destroying part of Voldemort.

Harry and Draco both do their parts here as heroes. Mark is our third lover in this story and, in his own way, he too is courageous. He is understandably confused and terrified during their imprisonment and torture. Yet, he repeatedly resists the Death Eaters and tries to help Draco. Mark is a “normal guy” in this story, a young gay man who draws and works as a cook’s assistant in a restaurant. He happens to fall in love with our heroes. And, to his utter horror, the only way he can help here is to use a kitchen knife to hack up a lover’s body. (It is ironic, of course, that he is a man who is used to chopping vegetables with such a knife.) I don’t know if most of us would have the courage he shows in this, nor afterwards be able to face the people whose pasts brought him into this.

(The “pound of flesh” is, of course, a Shakespearean reference to a “debt” in The Merchant of Venice. As a Shakespeare lover, there are multiple references to his work in most of my fictions. In this case, though, it is also a tribute to Logan's Run, a novel by William F. Nolan and George Clayton Johnson, in which, at one point, the hero is forced to cut flesh from his female lover.)

The other “minor” hero of this part of the story is Ambrose Shelton who dies. Ambrose was a surprise for me in this story and, though necessary to the plot, I mourned his death. He was a man whose ideals led him to join Voldemort but then when he realised the mistake, did his best to correct it and atone for it. His story hasn’t been commented upon much by the fans but I consider it one of the most telling. He fought and died, not like Draco did for the love of a person, but for an ideal of what he felt the Wizarding World should be like.

Harry finally defeats Voldemort, fulfills the Prophecy and has rescued his lovers. Draco and Mark pass out from their injuries and Harry is exhausted. He sees relief come in, not only in the form of the resistance, but embodied in two familiar faces of friends he had thought dead – Nymphadora Tonks and Percy Weasley. He surrenders to their care and falls unconscious only to wake up later and find that a terrible mistake has been made.

In this part we learn that not only does the resistance not really understand what part Draco played in this story, seeing him still as the Death Eater, but that those who continued to fight the losing battle against Voldemort’s regime have become hardened to the point that they not only use Unforgivables, but execute prisoners. We see here the toll this war took not only in lost lives but in the hearts of those who believed that Harry was dead. Percy tells us the bodies of Order members tortured and killed by Voldemort’s followers were left on public display. What must it have been like to have seen Fred that way? Remus? The rest of the Weasleys? Tonks, Percy and those who have continued to fight have been greatly changed by the horrors they have witnessed and suffered.

So Harry must keep struggling, tired as he must be, to find his lovers and save Draco again. Here he even runs into trouble with the fact that he isn’t related by birth or recognised by marriage. (Marriage rights, or the lack of them, are a running theme in many of my fictions.) Tonks is Draco's only living relative.

(We also learn that in this story Draco's middle name is "Soren" which is Danish from the Latin for "the stern one" or "apart" and is related to the name Severus. My use of it references how Draco stepped into Severus Snape's role here both as Potions Master and in how severe he became. Canon doesn't give a middle name for Draco, so I give different versions of him different middle names. Each story mentions his middle name at some point.)

When he manages all of that only to find that Draco is dying, having lost too much blood and suffered too much physical damage, this moment in the story echoes the earlier rescue of Draco after the mugging. Can he do it again? Harry draws upon the memory of that success to do the impossible and make Draco whole again. We get a sense from Draco’s behaviour afterward that something much more profound than just tissue regeneration has happened here. Harry wakes up to a Draco who is more whole in spirit than we have ever seen him before. Is that something Harry’s magical connection with him wrought or is it that Voldemort is finally dead and they have survived. Maybe both.

After he is healed, Draco is finally free to express not only his love for Harry, but his love for Mark as well. They are made whole in a way that none of them were before. Mark, who was a normal but lonely man before they met, now finds himself included in that amazing relationship. Draco and Harry have their old identities back, the wealth that comes with that and the chance to make entirely new choices about what they will do with their lives.

One unresolved question in this story is whether or not the Enslavement Spell is still in effect. The three men make love with the belief that it is. Certainly, there is still some type of magical connection between Harry and Draco that they can still feel. I, personally, think the Enslavement Spell has been transformed by Harry's magic. He uses the empathetic link to heal Draco despite little training in healing. Yet, he also uses the magic to heal Mark. At this point, I do not think the pain would resurface if they miss their twenty-four hour deadline. Nor do I think that Harry would die if Draco did. I believe the magical strength that allowed Harry to throw off the Unforgivables would also allow him to resist those aspects of the original spell.

(The inclusion of the Enslavement Spell in this story was, from the beginning, a critique of stories written where binding spells are used to bring characters together but where the implications are never really considered. I do believe even the seemingly benign versions of these spells to be coercion. Here we make it clear it is a form of rape. I think, even at their best, these spells would be dubious consent since they remove free consent from at least one if not both parties.)

The last scene in this fiction is nearly a year after the death of Tom Riddle and the end of the Prophecy. Our remade trio have moved to Paris and started new lives. Draco has combined his love of cooking and potions. Mark continues his art. Harry has discovered the Healer in himself. And yet, there is still a major barrier; one last serious aspect of the past that Draco has not yet confessed and moved past. He has never told Harry or Mark why he doesn’t bottom – that rape had been his only experience of being entered before. It is his absolute love and trust in them that allows him to finally make the decision to let his lovers help him heal this, too. Here, thinking back on all Harry (and we readers) have learned about Draco, we see now the last piece of the puzzle fall into place. Harry understands and responds as both lover and Healer. It is with a promise of new possibilities that they end the story – sexual metaphors about different positions make the inference that it will reshape their lives into new positions with much more flexibility.

(I have to acknowledge here that the complexity and detail in this story is not just a product of myself and my co-author, aveeno_baby. We have a number of amazing people who beta -- editing and/or proofreading -- for us. In particular, roonilwaz was an editor through both books, not only catching spelling, British speech and canon mistakes, but also giving us invaluable feedback on character, plot and other aspects of the story. In the later part of Fallen Star, roonilwaz had some real life difficulties and LBaum stepped in to help us as well. LBaum's insights complemented roonilwaz well and together they helped us make a stronger, more believable and moving ending than it would have otherwise been.)

Will there be a sequel to this story? I don't know. Even months after the first drafts of this are complete, I still have dreams with Draco/Harry/Mark in them. So far they have all been sex scenes and pleasant scenes of their lives together. We won't write a sequel unless there is actually a plot -- unless the characters have more to tell us about their lives. In some ways, a sequel is usually a sad thing for the characters because it means they aren't leading peaceful lives. I want them to be happy but if there is more to tell, we will write it.

I am glad so many readers have been drawn into and followed this story. As you can probably see from this analysis, I believe the message of this story is one of the most important I have written. It has also been my most controversial. It has been banned on one Harry Potter fan fiction archive site and has generated a number of angry emails from people offended by a variety of aspects of the story including its graphic depiction of violence and sexual abuse. I found it disturbing that the inclusion of consensual non-monogamy generated just as much anger.

A couple of people in emails/reviews have said I would never depict the things I had written here if I knew what it was like to experience real violence and/or sexual assault. I found their assumption a bit shocking and, unfortunately, they are wrong. It is from my own feelings and experiences of violence and sexual abuse that this story originates. Psychology studies have shown that one of the effective ways of healing from such traumas is by “retelling” our stories to others. Fiction is one way to do that. By creating a story with violence even more profound than my own direct experiences and allowing for healing and redemption of these characters, I find hope.

One of the complaints is that this story does not depict a “healthy” relationship. It isn’t meant to be a model of how to be in a relationship. It is a story about the transformation and redemption of an abusive relationship, which you can't have unless you start with an abusive relationship. It is a story of people who survive things no one should ever have to experience -- yet, records from all over the world show us, some people do experience similar horrors. Yet, the miracle is that some of us manage to survive, rebuild our lives, and make them better than we thought they could be.

This story is dedicated to all those who never thought to feel their "heart sing" again -- those who have suffered violence and still managed to find the capacity to love.