paulamcg

HP Rare Pair Fest will finish posting soon. (Unlike at snapecase) I haven't managed to keep up, and there's a lot I'm still planning to read and comment on. This is my first time to take part in this fest also as a writer. Since the posting is not anonymous, I assume it's all right to mention my fic here now, immediately after it's appeared in the fest collection on AO3.


Title: Becoming What He Chooses
Author: PaulaMcG
Pairings and characters: Neville/Harry, Pomona, Remus
Summary: When Neville and Harry return to Hogwarts at the beginning of November 1996, having spent two weeks with Remus Lupin, their relationship and their understanding of magic and of what protects them have changed.
Word count: 6719
Rating: M
Warnings: Underage
Other Tags: Canon-Divergent After OotP, Developing Relationships, Friends to Lovers, Masturbation, Hand Jobs, Mentors, Wizarding Politics, Animagus
Notes: This was written for HP Rare Pair Fest 2022. Thank you for the inspiring prompt (no. 186), namara_ashina! Justtoarguewithyou, thank you for the beta!

Read here on AO3

The collection for this year's Festive Fun Fest is closing tomorrow, on the 1st of January. The Rare Pair Shorts Winter Exchange is still posting on DW and on LJ. I've barely managed to craft something for these two events. Unfortunately, because I worked on an unexpectedly long fic for the hprarepairfest until the 19th of December, a set of prompts remained my only contribution to mini_fest.

After ten days of no words of fiction written (but most of those days spent happily on reading at hoggywartyxmas), I finally came up with a little thing based on the first two random prompts I'd got from the Rare Pair Shorts mod. (I hope it's okay I used them although I'd already resorted to asking the mods to change my prompts.) This is the most festive thing I achieved. To be sure, the pairings are as rare as anyone can expect (and have no tags in the community yet), but they are all only implied and/or unrequited.

Title: Appreciate Being a Friend
Author: PaulaMcG
Pairing: Amelia/Tonks, Tonks/Tiberius, Arthur/Molly, Amelia/Molly
Summary: In mid-December 1995, after romance has eluded her once again, Amelia Bones must host a dreary Ministry function.
Word Count: 940
Rating: G

Read here on AO3
or right here:
( what bloody Fudge has come up with )

hp_halloween, for the first time on AO3, has exceeded all my expectations. There are a lot of extra treats, and also more generous commenting than I usually see at AO3 fests. I've now read almost all the double drabbles, and it's hard to choose which ones to rec in particular. The fun is in giving a chance to any character, any pairing, any writer.

You can find all the new Halloween-themed 200-word works in this AO3 collection.


I was lucky to have my wishes assigned to digthewriter, for whom I've enjoyed writing at other fests, and to receive this lovely Neville-pov piece:

Of hope and love by digthewriter

I was also lucky to get an inspiring assignment. Among walgesang's requests there were several that I could have chosen. (Why did I have to worry about other fest fics when I could have taken the time to write more for this fest!) But I was particularly tempted to write about some older witches.

Title: Keeping Company
Author: paulamcg
Pairing: Pomona & Rolanda, Pomona/Poppy
Summary: A few days after Halloween 1993, a neep lantern is not the only source of warmth and comfort at the edge of Pomona's root vegetable patch.
Word Count: 200
Rating: G
Notes: This was written for walgesang at HP Halloween, with these prompts and likes in mind: moonlight, signs that winter is coming, snuggling for warmth, friendship drabble, queer older characters, missing scenes, slice of life. Than you for the inspiration! Thank you, justtoarguewithyou, for the beta! Thank you, lovely mods and participants, for the fest!

Read here on AO3,
or right here:
( A silent incantation )

The wishgranting time at the Summer Wishlist Event on rarepair_shorts and rarepair_shorts is now over. And there are 32 gift works in this year's collection on AO3.

I've been thrilled to receive three fabulous gifts.

Floating by digthewriter (Cho/Luna)
A dazzling digital painting with all the light, movement and contrasts I could wish for in a portrayal of my favourite rare femslash pair in Harry's generation.

Interesting Mistakes (Remus/George) by kelly_chambliss
A wonderful second-person voice for post-canon Lupin, and a surprising and perfect pairing that makes me feel happy for my OTC.

"Okay, fine, it's harder than it looks." (Remus/James) by mywitch
A brilliant and humorous line drawing... which includes more and less skillfully-drawn portraits by the characters
.
Thank you so much again, my amazing, generous friends!

Myself I somehow finally succeeded in posting one little fic for the event. I chose to try and grant a wish made by someone who hadn't got a gift yet. The pairing is not very rare – but I was glad to pick one that a few other participants, too, had wished for.

Author: paulamcg
Recipient: evening12
Title: The Right Choice
Pairing: Ginny/Luna
Request/Prompt Used: I've paired the first two in the list of characters, and there's something related to these likes: friends to lovers, first date, post-Hogwarts, hobbies and careers, happy endings.
Rating: G
Word Count 500
Summary: In July 2007, at the end of a dinner party in the orchard, Ginny may start guiding Luna in a new direction.
Notes: The perspective is an outsider's, whose identity is ambiguous. This is an odd little piece, all I managed to write for the event this year, and I can only hope that the recipient (and others who've wished for the pairing) won't find my Ginny/Luna or the narrator here too jarring.

Read here on AO3
or right here: ( Watch the two of them )

The seventh and last Sunshine prompt, Zephyrus made me look for fics set in spring. I've written one which includes some literally flowery descriptions of details in nature, and this story is also a sweet portrayal of my Remus and Sirius in the springtime of life, both of them vulnerable but hopeful.

If Not Brothers

There are two alternating first-person voices and 7780 words. In the opening scene you'd meet the other two Marauders, too, and learn something about my takes on the Animagus and the map projects, but in case it's all too much, you can just look at some wonders of spring from each perspective in a short excerpt
( right here )

I haven't tried to plan any responses before seeing the description of each prompt at the Sunshine Challenge. Now I'm happy to realise that the fifth prompt, Pan gives me another chance to post about Remus Lupin and the Revolt of the Creatures.

I proudly present some original characters who are fauns! Yes, back in 2004, a few months after starting to share fanfic as WiP on a small Harry Potter forum, I (didn't know much about how other people wrote fanfic and) was proud to be creative enough to develop a lot of original characters, some of them part-human and non-human creatures, as well as original settings, also hidden areas inhabited by magical creatures beyond real places in Britain. I let my post-OotP Remus interact with goblins, half-goblins, half-giants, a half-veela, elves, hags etc. Even fauns and a half-faun! (And in some chapters, there are a lot of scenes where the only other canon character is Hedwig or Mundungus Fletcher).

Why not? I found it only natural to add fauns to the motley crowd of creatures from mythology and folklore that had been shown to us in the HP books by that time. My fauns were certainly not the first ones in stories written in English and set in the English landscape. I wonder if any other fauns have been spotted in this fandom, though.

The first excerpt is from a scene in which a theatre troupe takes Remus unawares by offering to join in his rebellion and asking him to join them in their performances. Here I introduce my least minor faun character, Peck, and his partner, half-faun Tumble.

The other two excerpts are from the chapter following the scene I shared for prompt three, the scene set in the werewolf village.

( a faun climbed onto the table )

I've been awfully slow to react at the Sunshine Challenge.

My own, late response to prompt three is limited to my fanwork, and I haven't even written anything new based on this one either. Of course, I immediately thought of the one among my original characters in the HP world whom I'd named Hecate. The scene in which she first appears and her role in it perhaps fit well enough the crossroads aspect of the prompt.

I've hesitated to post an excerpt to show my Hecate, because she belongs to the long chaptered Remus-centric fic which was started soon after OotP and edited only a bit upon completion in 2010. Now pauraque's fascinating thought that the writers of our old work are ghosts of ourselves has helped me almost make up my mind to finally start posting the fic as it is on AO3.

This excerpt, too, is a static snapshot of the best [I was] able to do ... at one particular time. These scenes were written in spring 2004 – at a time when we didn't know anything about Fenrir Greyback or Lyall and Hope Lupin. If I had heard that the letter J on Professor Lupin's briefcase should stand for John, I didn't care (and I still don't).

( Come here, Remus Jaws Lupin )

Title: Any Gift of True Caring
Author: paulamcg
Pairing: (Past) Remus/Sirius, Remus/OMC
Summary: In November 1985, when he has almost managed to forget those he's lost and himself as well, Remus can't help being rescued by someone who wants at least what's left of his body.
Word Count: 13 800
Rating: R
Warnings/Contains: Grief, PTSD, homelessness, angst, hurt/comfort, sex, artists, werewolf mates, dreams and nightmares, memories, music, healing.
Notes: (There are two alternating povs in this fic.) Like each of my fics, this story can be read separately, even though it belongs to a series and to the consistent whole formed by all my fanworks.

A Gift, a story set in Paris and four years after the fateful Halloween, and dealing with the beginning of Remus's healing, was my second short fic about him, and I first published it in autumn 2004. A year ago, when making an AO3 series of my stories about the Lost Years, I couldn't be satisfied with the style of that fic. Now I've finally finished the complete rewrite of this story, and justtoarguewithyou has checked the text. I'm grateful to her, and to those lovely readers who have given their love to my drifting Remus over the years, and those who want to meet him here now and perhaps let me know.


Read on AO3
or right here: ( Why still carry it along? )

The reveals are up at femmefest. I hadn't signed up, but in addition to this extra treat, I was happy to get one pinch hit to write. The two fics are stories about the same Luna and Cho, of course, because I'm unable to get motivated to write anything but what belongs to the same reality. They seem to have worked well separately, and no commentor mentioned that the other fic, too, could have been written by me.

I've sometimes wondered if it's all right that I submit to fests my fics, which perhaps don't qualify according to the rule that they should be completely independent and not sequels – that a fest fic must not be a part of an on-going series (such as a sequel or a prequel to an already existing fic) (The quote is from the guidelines of Remus Lupin Fest.)  Following that rule would mean that I wouldn't be able to take part in fests because I want my work to be a consistent whole. In a way, all my fics belong to one big series, and I've recently formed several sub-series on AO3. Of course, I add the fest fics to series only after the reveals. And I've always crafted each fic so that it can stand alone, too.

Here's a Femmefest treat, which, according to my timeline, is set in April 2002 and can be – and has been – enjoyed separately, but can be read also as a sequel to To Know What She's Seeking and Real and Romantic.

Title: A Swaying Route
Author: paulamcg
Rating: G
Pairing: Luna/Cho
Summary: When Luna loves Cho, she's willing and able to transform her own wants. She wants an adventure, and this weekend the two of them can share something like that.
Warnings: None
Word Count: 3150
Author's Notes: This was written as a treat to bluemermaid at Femmefest 2021. I'm grateful for the lovely, inspiring list of prompts and likes. Thank you for the beta, justtoarguewithyou!

Read here on AO3
or right here: ( past the swinging sign )

This is my 100th work on AO3. Yes! Yay! I've got one hundred works on AO3, after posting three today. The other two are Human Company (Sirius/Arabella) for hphet's Minifest, and To Go Waltzing, a little watercolour illustration for that fic. I'm not posting those two on my journals yet, because the fic appears in the community both on DW and LJ today.

This one's my fourth piece of fic for Sapphic Spring. And now I'm not saying only, after I've noticed here that about one third of the HP fics in the event so far are by me. That's why I also want to urge you my fellow HP (and other) writers to come and fill prompts with your femslash work, and to leave more prompts. At least I have liked the wordcount requirements, and enjoyed editing out unnecessary words while polishing fic without beta for a change, as I've preferred aiming at exactly 100 or 250 words. There are a lot of Any: Any/Any – prompts, and I've decided to always leave one such prompt, one HP: Any/Any - prompt, and one with a specific (and rare) HP pairing. Here's another rarepair fic, and this time the pairing wasn't my idea, but first gripped me in the prompt Harry Potter: Angelina/Cho – midnight flying.

Title: Like Her?
Author: paulamcg
Pairing: Cho/Angelina
Summary: The night in May 1996 right after Ravenclaw has been beaten by Gryffindor in Quidditch, both Cho and Angelina have reasons to stay awake and feel like flying.
Word Count: 250
Rating: G

Read on AO3
or right here: ( whoop )