ravenna_c_tan

A reader commented over at AO3 that apparently this fic had disappeared from the Internet. “The Hermit” was written for the 2009 HD Worldcup fest, and though the fest was held on Livejournal, the actual fics were hosted somewhere else. I guess that somewhere else no longer exists as the links go nowhere. So I have now re-posted the fic to AO3 (here!) and now I’ll put it here, too!

Title: The Hermit
Author: Ravenna C. Tan
Fest: Originally written for Team Canon in the 2009 HD Worldcup
Prompt: The Hermit
Word Count: 16,000
Warnings: Explicit sex
Rating: NC-17/Adult
Thanks to: My beta readers scrtkpr and clauclauclaudia! Thanks for such great, quick responses!

A few notes before the fic:

Card Interpretation: The Hermit is one of the few cards that has a mostly consistent meaning over the many Tarot decks I own and researched. To quote from Tarot of the Cat People: “A loner or person incapable of interacting with other people. Failure to face facts. Self-denial.” The Vertigo Tarot says this: “Withdrawal, acting alone, seeking wisdom. Difficulty connecting with the world or other people.” I see this side of Draco first emerging in sixth year, when he tries to act alone to save his family rather than reaching out to Snape or anyone else for help. The downward spiral that begins for him then, I have carried forward four years after the end of Deathly Hallows, trying to project as accurately as possible from the clues in the canon what might have transpired in Draco’s much-traumatised head.

Reversed, the card can carry some interesting meanings, too, especially as regards a person who is engaging or integrating with society. For me, this refers to Harry. JKR has said in interviews since the release of DH that Harry would have taken up an important part in reshaping the wizarding world. I don’t count interviews strictly as “canon,” but for me that means to write a canonically consistent story, I could not, for example, turn Harry into a recluse who fades into obscurity now that his destiny has been fulfilled. He is the Hermit Reversed, engaged in the world and an integral part of his society.

Canon notes: I chose Team Canon because I really try to get all those little details right. There are many fanon conventions that we’ve come to accept, and yet they do not appear in the books. For example, there is no potion in the books that bears the name “Dreamless Sleep.” At the end of Goblet of Fire, Madame Pomfrey brings Harry a purple potion, saying “You’ll need to drink all of this. Harry,” she said. “It’s a potion for dreamless sleep.” She doesn’t tell the name to Harry, nor is it named later in the books. Fans have named it “Dreamless Sleep” in countless fics, which is not wrong to do–obviously the potion has SOME name–but it has no name in the canon, and therefore has no name in my story. Another thing that I try to match to the canon is the capitalisation, but this is something that is not always consistent. I had to decide whether to capitalise the “Cursebreakers” who help Harry–Ministry positions like Auror and Obliviator tend to be capitalised–or if it should be “curse breaker” as in the description Molly gives in Prisoner of Azkaban of “our eldest son, Bill, [who] works as a curse breaker for Gringotts Wizarding Bank.” And you’ll note, no apostrophe in Gringotts!

*** AND NOW THE FIC ***

Archived at Ravenna's Quill.