The Draco Trilogy

Fanfiction
Title:	The Draco Trilogy (Draco Dormiens, Draco Sinister, Draco Veritas)
Author(s):	Cassandra Claire
Date(s):	2000-2006
Length:	~895,000 words (2900 pages)
Genre:	het romance, action/adventure, mystery
Fandom:	Harry Potter
External Links:	(offline) draco_trilogy (LiveJournal) Draco Trilogy Lovers! (Facebook) Draco Trilogy tag (Tumblr)
Click here for related articles on Fanlore.

The Draco Trilogy is a Draco-centric epic written and posted in installments by Cassandra Claire over a period of six years.

The series was very influential in the early days of Harry Potter fandom, but became controversial when it was found that parts of it were plagiarized.

In 2004, a fan said: "The Draco Trilogy did not invent fanon!Draco, but its tremendous fame popularized him and gave him his most recognizable traits--sex and snark. Here Draco is a redeemed figure whose relationship with Harry Potter is at times almost symbiotic. The story itself draws massive popularity from the underlying H/D subtext, despite its multiplicity of het pairings, and is probably singlehandedly responsible for the fact that most Draco fans are also H/D shippers."

Content

The series consists of three novel-length stories: Draco Dormiens, Draco Sinister, and Draco Veritas. Although the Draco Trilogy started as het, it was unusual in that it included plenty of intentional Harry/Draco subtext that straddled the divide between slash and het in the last part, Draco Veritas, even if the story "technically" never crossed that line.

The series begins with a love triangle where both Draco and Harry are interested in Hermione. By the end of the series, the resolution of the romantic entanglements confirms the pairings Draco/Ginny and Harry/Hermione.

Draco Dormiens, Draco Sinister, and Draco Veritas are, someone's calculated, almost one million words (or 207, 996, and 1697 pages) and the fics were many fans' first introduction to fanfiction. The trilogy is hailed by some as the "fanfiction of all Harry Potter fanfictions", but like all things that are hailed, others couldn't or didn't believe the hype.

Cover art Draco Dormiens by Taylor (anael).

Draco Dormiens

Main article: Draco Dormiens

Draco Dormiens, the first novel of the trilogy, was posted serially to FanFiction.Net in August 2000. It is the shortest novel in the series by far, totaling roughly 70,000 words. (Draco Veritas totals nearly 540,000 words.)

The story is now an AU, diverging from canon after Goblet of Fire. It is set during Harry's sixth year, and begins when unforeseen consequences with Polyjuice Potion in Potions class cause Harry and Draco to become indefinitely bodyswapped. The need to keep this a secret, the even greater need to find an antidote, and a love triangle where both Draco and Harry are interested in Hermione, power the plot of the novel.

Author's summary: "When an accident in Potions class turns Harry into Draco and Draco into Harry, each is trapped playing the part of the other. Romance, mistaken identities, Really Cunning Plans, evil bake sales, a love triangle, and snogs galore."

Draco Sinister

Main article: Draco Sinister

Claire began posting Draco Sinister on FanFiction.Net in late 2000. In June 2001, when the fic was one chapter away from completion, it was reported for plagiarism and Claire's works were deleted from the archive. (See also: The Cassandra Claire Plagiarism Debacle and Plagiarism Controversy, below.)

Draco Sinister and Draco Dormiens were uploaded to FictionAlley in July 2001, and Draco Sinister was completed on July 22.

Author's summary: "When Hermione is kidnapped, Harry and Draco must team up to rescue her from a thousand-year-old evil that threatens the entire wizarding world. Cursed demon swords, love potions, time travel, dementors, flying dragons, Draco wears leather, and everybody dies at least once. Except when they don't."

Draco Veritas

Main article: Draco Veritas

Draco Veritas was posted over a period of five years, from August 2001 to August 2006. It only appeared online in its entirety for about two weeks before Claire took down her fanfiction in order to embark on her profic career. (See Cassandra Claire: Fannish Retirement.)

Author's summary: "The sequel to Draco Sinister, featuring winter at Hogwarts, snogging, Quidditch, mysterious things and Rhysenn Malfoy."

The Series' Influence

The trilogy contributed to the popularization of Fanon Draco, called "Leather Pants Draco" after a famous scene in Draco Sinister where Draco ends up looking good in incredibly tight leather pants.

For many fans, these stories fed an intense desire for more Harry Potter as they endured the long waits between books.

Fans in 2001 described waiting for chapter 14 of Draco Sinister to be posted: "All this DS14 watching/waiting has been really amusing in a way. It's kind of spawned a great phenomenon, "PoU group popping" I know a lot of people were on, just doing stuff, and hoping, but LOTS of us were popping on and off, just hoping.I know, cause I did it. It made for a highly social night though, since everytime I did, I'd get a few "I am losing my mind, waiting!" type IMs. Plus the fun of watching people on your BL pop on and off, and know everyone's doing the same thing.Makes it seem like a cozy community, all this cohesive waiting, and comforting each other.Now, if we could only wipe the evening clean for reading later. ( I hope) ~Circe, grateful whenever DS14 appears"

Another fan described the wait for the next fiction installment: "This is hilarious! All these people waiting for DS14 when cassandra herself is probally asleep.... My friend spent the night and we stayed up all night waiting for DS14."

At least one fan speculated that Cassandra Claire's fiction, and the stories by madlori, were beginning to provide enough fanon, that fans would no longer be able to distinguish between JKR's books and the ideas and characters provided by "The Draco Trilogy" and "The Paradigm of Uncertainty" (madlori's story):

Perhaps it is just due to the fact that we have *so many* terrific, well-written, and thoroughly believable examples of fanfic here, but I'm beginning to get a little worried. I'm starting to worry that by the time JKR releases #5, we here in fanfic-land will have trouble distinguishing between JKR's Harry, Hermione, Ginny, et al. and Lori's/Cassie's. Especially difficult will be the readers' ability to see JKR's Draco the way JKR's Harry, Hermione and Ron see him - indisputably evil. We have already experienced Draco's transformation/redemption - will we be able to turn a blind eye to that? Or will we simply smirk knowingly?

Its Influence on the Fandom, Specifically Harry/Draco

In a 2012 interview, Aja had extensive remarks about "The Draco Trilogy," its popularity, and its influence on Harry Potter fandom, and Harry/Draco fanworks in particular:

Well, actually a lot of it had to do with Cassandra Claire... the Draco Trilogy, the Draco Dormiens, because she was writing it on Fanfiction.net back in 2001 when it was still on FF.net, before it got kicked out....

So in the first part, Draco Dormiens, which she started posting in 2000, and which was immediately super popular, Harry and Draco actually become best friends. So, yes you had all these hate tropes but you also had this sort of, you know, had a bunch of people reading Draco Dormiens and the two other fics in the series and going, Wow, maybe they could be friends and maybe they could more that friends, you know? Before I even got to the fandom, they—she actually had put, you know Rhysenn had started writing Irresistible Poison and Cassie and Rhysenn were friends and they shared a mailing list together. So even though Irresistible Poison was hugely popular — but a lot of that led over into the populate, the fan base for Draco Veritas, or the Draco Trilogy, because they shared a mailing list. So even though they weren't — like, Draco Dormiens wasn't a slash novel, there was this wink wink, nod nod type thing going on, because obviously she's on a mailing list with a Harry/Draco writer who's very popular.

Then, there is that sense that [Cassandra Claire] is catering to the subtext, and she actually—she actively did cater to the subtext in a lot of ways. But that was all before I came along. And when I came along, I think the immediate, I guess, impression that I had was just that the writing was amazing, because I had actually tried to get into slash before, like I told you. And then I got pointed to the one archive where all of these really, where all the quote unquote "best writers" of the fandom were archived, sort of this one, like, elite archive called Diagon Alley, and I was just really drawn to the quality of the writing.

Which now I look back, and I'm like, Oh. I mean everybody thinks that Irresistible Poison is sort of twee and it's very cliché and very shmoopy. And it was, back then, too—it was very obviously, very shmoopy, but it also seemed to tap into a kind of, I guess, emotional undercurrent and I think the... I think just politically, like the fact that all of these people were reading you know, the Draco trilogy and then reading Irresistible Poison right away, because like almost inevitably, when you ask somebody who came into the Harry Potter at that point in time what their first fan fic was, they will almost always say "Irresistible Poison." If you ask them what their first H/D fan fic was, you know that just seems to be the one that everyone remembers. And I remember reading all these fics together because it just sort of hit me all in one weekend. So Irresistible Poison was one of many that I that I sort of intook and actually probably the one that made the biggest impression on me was Shalott's Weather of the Heart which is very much the hate sex/rivalry type thing. But Shalott was also coming from a completely different, I guess, part of the fandom. She was, I mean she was sort of in line with the pop slashers and the western media writers. Whereas you know Cassie was, you know sci-fi fantasy, steeped in that whole literary tradition of fandom. And I think a lot of the people I had early conversations about Harry/Draco with were also sort of within the more literary side of it. They come to Harry/Draco as readers first, maybe, and fans second, I guess. Whereas I think a lot of the people who came to the, sort of, love/hate trope were sort of fans first, if that makes sense. So I think it depends on what you're looking to get out of it. But I definitely, definitely think that the hugeness of popularity of the Draco Trilogy had a big deal to do with it.

Its Origins

In 2006, Cassandra Claire talked extensively about "The Draco Trilogy."

The Draco Trilogy was the first fanfic Cassandra Claire had written. In July 2006, she was "bringing it to a close."

The below quotes are from Slashcast Insider Interview with Cassie Claire which was conducted in July 2006.

Claire said:

I was a writer of fanfiction because I'd actually been asked to do an article on the X-files fandom and so I was researching online and I came across Gossamer, which was the biggest X-files archive at that time and I spent, like, three weeks at work just reading all of these stories. And being like, "Wow, people like- people put a lot of work into this!" You know, this is amazing, they're offering all this, you know, amusement for free. And then I didn't think about it again for a long time and after I read the Harry Potter books my best friend was heading off to medical school and I asked her if there was anything I could do to amuse her while she was there being tortured by the professors, and she said she would like me to write her a story about Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy and how they switched places and that became the Draco Trilogy....which I wrote for her and then she said, "You should put it up somewhere online." So I did - it was like the first three or four chapters at that point.... I'd never interacted with any fan community, I didn't know anyone who wrote fanfiction... It was a complete mystery to me. I had found fanfiction.net by googling and I just put it there because I was trying to find a place that had an easy upload interface. And there were no Harry Potter archives at the time that I could find.

Claire said:

when I first started the Draco Trilogy, it was supposed to be a short little exercise. Harry and Draco, they switch places, how does that go for them and I finished the first installment, which was Draco Dormiens - I wrote it in about two weeks, I think. I had been a creative writing major in college and I had written all through high school and college and then after I got out of college I took a journalism job and I didn't really have any time for creative writing. And I sort of went without it for, you know, three years, something like that. And writing fanfiction reminded me how much I had enjoyed it. So when I was done with Draco Dormiens, I really didn't feel like I was done with that story and I wanted to write more, so I sketched out an outline for the next two installments, which was Draco Sinister and Draco Veritas, which were the next two and then I got into writing those. And it's taken me a long time because I've had a lot of other projects going on too. I've written other fanfic, work, and real life going on, and then I had started my original fiction about two years ago, so I think that my production of the Draco Trilogy has really slowed down, and that's probably why it's taken me so long, but I always wanted to finish it. I was always determined to finish it. I didn't want to leave it undone, so I should be wrapping it up in about August.

Claire said:

I'm an outliner. I actually wasn't when I started the Draco Trilogy, and that was one of the things that writing it taught me, is that I have to outline or I will get lost and wander around in the middle. So, I always know where I'm going to begin and I always know where I'm going to end, but I don't necessarily know everything that's going to happen in the middle. I try to outline pretty closely, on a chapter-to-chapter basis and I also use flashcards for each character that tell me what major incidents in the story are going to be for their character and how their character evolves and at what point the points of evolution come.... [The flash cards are] actually something that I created for myself. My friend Holly, she uses flashcards to tell her about just incidents in the plot, so I just started using them to tell me about different incidents for characterization and I found that kinda helpful. When I sold my book trilogy, I sold the first book and then you have to submit synopses of the second and third books. So I had to very closely outline them and I was happy to have already learned a little bit about doing that. The one thing you do have to keep in mind is that the middle of your book will change. Incidents will sort of morph, but you can still keep to your general plot and character arc even if certain plot incidents are changing.

Claire said:

I guess I would probably say the Draco Trilogy [is the best example of my writing] because it veers in style, pretty wildly, because I used it as sort of an experimental work to try out lot of different things. Like, I was like, here I'm going to try this kind of voice and I'm going to try this other kind of voice, so I mean, when I go back and read over it, I notice the style changing even within chapters, and evolving in some chapters are very dissimilar than other chapters, so I think, you know, it's a wild smorgasbord of all different kinds of styles I've employed is probably the best example.

Slash in the Draco Trilogy

Het fans and slashers don't always get along, especially in a fandom known for impressive shipwars, and the Draco Trilogy was a huge het flagship. The idea that this story might turn into slash (any slash, even a minor pairing) was not one all shippers felt comfortable with. Cassie Claire had already written Harry/Draco slash and she was friends with slashers, so it was always a possibility that was difficult to ignore.

Several alternate universe outtakes penned by Claire include slash. For example, "Twist", a ficlet based on DS9, includes Ron/Draco and implied Draco/Harry. "In Which Draco Realizes Why He Is So Fond of Green Umbrellas" diverges from the events of DV1 to become Harry/Draco slash. Claire also wrote a DV missing scene that included Draco kissing Harry to prove that Draco "could be gay, if [he] liked"—of which she said: "Feel free to consider it DV canon -- I do."

In the Trilogy itself, Claire included intentional H/D subtext, as well as a kiss between Harry and someone who had Polyjuiced into Draco. Additionally, she included a slash relationship with her OCs Ben and Gareth, ancestors and analogues of Harry and Draco, respectively.

Claire has said that she considers the Trilogy slash, in the sense that it has gay characters in it.

Fanart

The now-defunct fansite The Draco Trilogy Archives had a fanart section that linked to hundreds of Draco Trilogy-related art and organized the links by chapter and character. Though the website no longer exists, fanart for the Draco Trilogy still can be found all over the net.

• deviantArt search for Draco Dormiens. Static snapshots of the search results can be seen here, here and here (Date: April 5, 2013)
• deviantArt search for Draco Sinister. Static snapshots of the search results can be seen here and here (Date: April 29, 2023)
• deviantArt search for Draco Veritas. Static snapshots of the search results can be viewed here and here (Date: April 5, 2013)
• deviantArt search for Draco Trilogy. Static snapshots of these search results are here, here and here. (Date: April 5, 2013)

The PoU-Art Yahoo! group also hosts a large number of fanart for the Draco Trilogy.

After Draco

From Slashcast Insider Interview with Cassie Claire in July 2006, as "The Draco Trilogy" was wrapping up but before Mortal Instruments was published, Cassandra Claire said:

I'd love to make a living as a writer. I'd love to do it professional and have that be basically all I do. I know that that's really tough and very few people actually manage to do that; most people write and do something else too. But, really, what I want is to write books and have them be read and have people enjoy them, and be able to interact with people about what I write. I know there's going to be this period after I'm done with the Draco Trilogy and before my book comes out where I'm just going to be, you know, not interacting with anyone about what I've written, and I'm going to be like, "Oh, what am I doing?" ... In fandom, when I'm done with the Draco Trilogy, I'm going to take a break and, I mean, I might write some short, like, one shot things, but I doubt I'm going to start another really enormous project like the Draco Trilogy because it takes a huge amount of time and I don't have that kind of time to give to a project like that anymore.

These Stories in Context: Some Powerhouse Early 2000 Harry Potter Fics

In the early 2000s, Harry Potter fandom was still quite new, and fans were clustering and swarming in many ways that would define much of the fandom later. One of these gathering points were a group of highly admired stories by a group of well-known Harry Potter writers. These stories, posted as serials, had many fans at the edge of their seats waiting for installments.

A fan wrote in 2001:

... I went and read through the files and I found one that has all these posts that our Idols, the Goddesses Lori, Cassie, Penny, Carole and Queen Ebony wrote early in their FanFiction Careers. It was so cool. I've been feeling a bit inferior because I have major writer's block and I just read all this wonderful stuff by our pantheon so.... But Like it has a message that Cassie wrote about posting her first story and she was worried that it wasn't that good or something (never think that Cassie, you're wonderful) And I realized (sorry Goddesses) that they're all human too. I just had to laugh at some of the original ship preferences and ideas and the ideas that were born and then incorperated into their stories.

The Fics:

• The Paradigm of Uncertainty Trilogy by Lori Summers
  • Paradigm of Uncertainty (April 2000-September 2000)
  • The Show That Never Ends (October 2000-March 2002)
  • The Hero with a Thousand Faces (May 2002-May 2005, chapters 1-12, March 2008, summary for chapter 13)
• The Draco Trilogy by Cassandra Claire
  • Draco Dormiens (July–September 2000)
  • Draco Sinister (September 2000-July 2001)
  • Draco Veritas (August 2001- August 2006)
• The Trouble in Paradise Series by Ebony Thomas
  • Trouble in Paradise (December 2000-July 2001)
  • Paradise Lost (August 2001-August 2004)
  • ficlets and cookies: Eres Todo En Mí (December 2001), Indecision (August 2001), Rules Of Engagement(September 2001)
• The Sirius Stories
  • A Sirius Affair by Carole Estes and Penny Linsenmayer (July 2000-August 2002)
  • A Sirius Change by Carole Estes (February 2002-March 2004)

Plagiarism Controversy

See also: The Cassandra Claire Plagiarism Debacle

The story first became the subject of major controversy when one reader identified an extensive sequences of action, description and dialogue from Draco Sinister, Chapter 9 as having been lifted from The Hidden Land, an out-of-print fantasy novel by Pamela Dean. Though this was sufficient to get Claire banned from FanFiction.net, readers have identified other borrowed text as further evidence of Claire's plagiarism.

The series also incorporates an intricate web of dialogue pieces and text passages from popular genre television shows and books. Two characters might have a lengthy conversation which Buffy the Vampire Slayer fans will recognize as dialogue from the show, or Harry might answer a question with the words of a character from Babylon 5. The practice of hiding quotes from other media sources in the text of the story was well-known and accepted by some of Claire's readers,^{[citation needed]} and it was used as a way of engaging the fans on a mailing list the story was posted to. Readers would guess which parts were quoted and what the source was, they would suggest lines to include from different sources that would fit this or that character, and there were unofficial "quote-nabbing contests" with other fanfic writers. However, in spite of the relative candidness of these practices, they contained huge potential for trouble because they relied heavily on context to be understood.

Another major issue, related to the use of pop culture dialogue, was that Cassandra Claire reproduced concepts, rough scenes, descriptive phrases and dialogue from several fantasy novels. Such borrowings were often uncited (or cited in such a way as to make the amount of borrowed text appear far less extensive than it actually was).

The story and author were removed by Fanfiction.net admins in June 2001. For more information, see the comprehensive account of events by Avocado.

Removal from the Internet

"The Draco Trilogy," specifically chapter nine and allegations of the plagiarism in it, was one of the initial reasons for the success of FictionAlley; Cassandra Claire's ban from FanFiction.Net due to these allegations, combined with FFN's extensive downtime problems, caused many fans to flock to the newly opened site.

Since the launch of Cassandra Claire's profic career, and for other reasons, the stories have been taken down. It is possible to find them circulating by email and file sharing sites, and has even been reuploaded in the form of a blog.

Cover art for Draco Veritas by Bhanesidhe.

Around August 17 and 18, 2001, fans were perplexed by the chapters' disappearance off of ParadigmOfUncertainty, something that was related to issues with their removal from Fanfiction.net. See The Cassandra Claire Plagiarism Debacle. One fan provided a link to a site created by Heidi8 where the fic had been uploaded. Today, the site has this message: "We're sorry, but the Draco Trilogy and all related fanfiction has been removed at the request of the author and is no longer available online. If you do come across a copy online, it's unauthorized and probably not be the original version."

Fandom's Reaction to the Plagiarism Controversy

That could have been the end of it, but the emotional investment of Claire's fans caused tremendous upheaval in the wake of the decision.

Draco Dormiens and Draco Sinister happened to be among the most popular Harry Potter stories at Fanfiction.net. DS was posted as a WIP and the serial format invited readers to speculate about what might happen next, who might end up with whom, and they were looking forward to updates. When it was deleted, fans were cut off from their favorite fannish crack. Someone took it and they wanted it back! The same kind of impulse leads to "Bring Back My Show" campaigns, which makes it less of a surprise that people reacted in a similar way.

Many fans, including BNFs, pulled their fiction from Fanfiction.net in protest. One of them was Lori Summers, author of the extremely popular Paradigm of Uncertainty series. A list mod, Carole Estes, reposted the message Lori Summers had posted at Fanfiction.net to ParadigmOfUncertainty, the fic's mailing list:

Dear Readers, I regret that I feel I must pull my fiction from this site. I have enjoyed having my work posted here, and I didn't make this decision lightly.

It's not because of plagiarism, because legally there is none. It's not because of decisions made by the ff.net staff, because they have the right to run their site any way they choose. I am pulling my work because of the way people who have spoken their opinions have been treated. Also, I really don't want to be next to be blacklisted. Call it a preemptive strike.

I am hard at work on STNE chapter 10 and I hope to have it ready soon. I will be posting it to my mailing list, as I have always done in the past. Anyone is welcome to join, but you don't have to in order to read new chapters. They will be posted to the Files section of the list, which is accessible to members and non-members alike. That address is www.yahoogroups.com/groups/paradigmofuncertainty. There is a new HP fanfiction archive being constructed as we speak, moderated by some of us who have left this site. Look for it soon.

Sincerely, Lori Summers

To this day the conflict remains unresolved in many corners of fandom. Many fans are firmly of the opinion that Cassandra Claire is a plagiarist. On the other hand, many fans still enjoy the Draco Trilogy and her other works. Fittingly enough, the controversy had two major results: The wank surrounding the plagiarism accusation was so immense as to give Cassandra Claire the nickname "She Who Must Not Be Named" in the Cult-of-Meaner circles in Harry Potter fandom, in the belief that even mentioning her name was enough to derail any wank report into a discussion of whether or not what she had done was plagiarism. At the same time, it led to the creation of FictionAlley, a major Harry Potter archive that became the new home of the Draco Trilogy.

Comments About the Fiction Itself

2004

I had just discovered the Harry Potter fandom, and had been searching for good fics on FictionAlley. That day, I discovered the incredible Draco Trilogy. It starts out with a hokey premise, but the writing is so awesome. I spent the entire day reading Draco Dormiens. The next day, I started in on Draco Sinister, but I took it a bit more slowly. Now, I’m eagerly waiting for more of Draco Veritas, the nearly-completed end of the trilogy.... If you’re up for the commitment (it has super-long chapters), you must read it. You’ll never look at a bake sale the same way again.

2005

I've long been a fan of Barb Purdom's psychic serpent series, and a friend just recommended to me the cassandra's draco series. So I downloaded them all last Sunday and blasted through them in the space of a week. I'm just curious how many people on this board have read both fics, and what they think of them comparatively. As far as I can tell they are the two most popular Harry Potter fanfics. Anyway, I figured I'd give my impressions both as a first time reader and as a fan of the other series.

The first thing is of course that I could not put the stories down. I absolutely had to continue reading them until I finished them (I was the same for the Psychic serpent series and for the cannon books so no difference there). However, it was more a desperate desire to see what happened next rather than the fact that I was actually enjoying what I was reading so much. Several things made the draco series both somewhat tedious as well as riveting.

The first thing that became tedious very quickly are the ridiculously repetitive fancifull descriptions of the lighting conditions during serious moments. How the light pooled in this persons eyes, etc. After a while it became horrifyingly stilted, and worse it breaks up the flow of the conversations. Once in while shows talent. Every five seconds is contrived. The repetetive descriptions of clothes and hair also start to grate after a while.

While Cassandra's abitity to describe the way people look is far better than Barb's (or JKR's for that matter) her abititly to describe scenery is utterly awfull. In contrast to the vivid sharpness of both Barb's and JKR's scenes, Cassandra's scenes are muddy, vague, and unclear (I suspect this has as much to do with shoddy scene transitions as anything else). This would not matter if the events mostly took place at the school, which we are familiar with anyway, but they mostly stretch across unfamiliar landscapes (Malfoy Manor, Slytherin's Castle, All over Europe, Voldemort's castle). That said, her abitity to describe people is excellent, and her descriptions produce the most vivid and interesting visualizations of any HP series, fanfic or canon. Harry's familiarity, Draco's grace, Ginny's beauty, and Hermione's vitality all come across clearly and convincingly.

Where plot is concerned it is somewhat of a mix, both when it comes to relationships and as far as main story. Relationships are generally well examined once they are begun. Draco's relationship with Harry is by far the best non-romantic relationship I have ever read, well developed, intriguing, and real. In truth, it is the main point of the latter two stories. Harry's relationship with Hermione is done fairly well, and Draco's relationship with Ginny is suitably complex. However, the starting points of these relationship are rather vague and unbeleivable, especially Harry and Hermione. After all, they are supposed to be the main romantic relationship, and they are in love long before the story begans, with little or no explaination why (and what explanation there is blatantly contradicts everything in canon). Why they are in love, and how they came to be in love, is extremely confusing, especially from Harry's perspective. Draco and Ginny is a little easier to see the developement. The beginning of Harry and Draco's friendship is also a bit confusing. The physical aspects to the relationships (or lack thereoff) are handled well throughout. Truth be told, Barb does romantic relationships far better. All the relationships by the end feel extremely real and right, and the various developements pluck at the heartstrings in all the right ways. (Though the sex in Barb's series is a bit overdone in the first book). I challenge anyone to find a more moving relationship than Harry and Ginny in Time of Good Intentions (also, btw, the only book ever that has made me nearly cry).

As far as main story plot is concerned, it goes from conherent but simple (Draco Dormiens) to unneccarily twisted but nonetheless riveting and well done (Draco Sinister {There at least four story arcs that were completely irrelevant and should have been cut out}) to somewhat drawn out but nonetheless clear, well developed, and interesting (Draco Veritas). Certainly the what's gonna happen next effect is extremely well done, far more so than almost any other books ive ever read. The sixth month wait time must be killer, though I have just begun to experience it. Barb was a lot better at turning out material faster, but her cliffhangers tended to annoy the hell out of you during the wait. The one big plothole I noticed though is that how in the hell does everyone seem to know that harry is the one to kill voldemort? No prophecies are given, and no reason to suspect this either, yet everyone from dumbledore to harry himself seems to know that it's his job and his alone.

As far as characters are concerned, the developement and realism is generally excellent though often out of character. Draco is of course wildly out of character (despite all the fanfiction authors out there, Draco was clearly, even after only the fourth book, an git with no redeaming qualities whatsoever, with no chance of redemption or change, and with no complexity either, just a simple evil foil for Harry. People just took the mysterious bishounen thing/crush on Tom Felton and ran with it)). Nonetheless, both Barb and Cassandra have taken a simple character and made him their own, and Cassandra's version is extremely well developed and vivid (as he should be, being the main character). We feel is ups and downs, his confusion, his pain. A bit too angsty but nonetheless far more well done than JKR's fifth book Harry (whom by the end I wanted wring his whiny little neck) and Barb's Draco (who is also complex but a lot less developed). On the other hand though, I think Cassandra's Harry is the best character of all, managing to make him human and fallible and at the same time the character we all identify with. It is perhaps the most natural and real developement I've seen of JKR's fourth book Harry including JKR's own developement. His developement as a hero oddly enough makes him more real than ever, and if there was ever a character you wanted more to succeed, I haven't found him. Ginny is also well done, by far the most interesting female character in the series. Hermione is a bit out of character, she seems to have lost her bossy self by the beginning of DD, and never really comes into her own except that everyone seems to be in love with for reasons that are described (vitality etc.) but that she never seems to actually exhibit. Ron recedes to the backround and becomes nearly irrelevant, and the attempt to make him relevant at the end of DV is contrived. Dumbledore also seems to have become irrelevant and fades back as an imporant character. Same with Sirius and Lupin. The vilians are well done, Voldemort and Slytherin are both suitably evil though in satisfying different ways. The complete discarding of Voldemort in DS was a bit jarring though. On a side note, I'm glad she didn't succumb to the temptation to make Harry and Draco super muscular (ala Barb) but the Draco as a sex god thing is a bit annoying.

A last note as far as dialouge is concerned. Where it comes to wit her dialouge is untouchable, both in lines lifted form other places and her own quips. Her humor is subtly, wry, and clever. When it comes to serious dialouge it seams that she has two modes: clear, poignant and meaningfull, and the other as completely nonsensical. Some of the relationship turning dialouge is well done and memorable, but a lot of it makes no sense no matter how many times it's read over or even after having read the books.

Well that's all for now, and in final judgement I still have to say the nod goes to Barb's psychic serpent series, mostly because what she wrote comes together as a coherent whole, a true trilogy of three books. When you finish everything is clear yet complex, whereas the Draco series is a bit muddy and vague (and not in a good, complex literature way but in a poor writing kind of way) and I doubt finishing the series will change that. The draco series reads like a bunch of connected short stories squashed together, rather than a coherent whole. And Barb's writing style is far superior, and in the end that trumps the perhaps superior individual characteristics, because it helps define in what truly makes a better book: I just had more fun reading it. Sorry. I'd love to see what you guys think, and please other people read the pyschic serpent series, compare them, and tell me what you think.

Other Places to Read Comments and Reviews

• there are many at ParadigmOfUncertainty, a public mailing list located here
• fans and Claire have much discussion about "The Draco Trilogy" at cover art; questions; archive link for page 1 of 7, October 13, 2006
• Goodhreads, ^{Archived version}, Goodreads