Final Beholder Recs

[kelly_chambliss]

I still have two hp_beholder stories left to read, but my bed is beckoning, and I want to post a few last recs before the reveals. The fest offered us high-quality fics to the very end; I hate that we have to wait another whole year to have this much fun.

Recs:

Ode to Broken Things (Millicent Bulstrode/Viktor Krum) -- A wonderful story with grown-up characters and a fully-realized wizarding world. I love Millicent's voice and the believable decency of Viktor Krum. The author even manages to pull off the difficult feat of narrating (really hot) sex in first-person.

Steps to the Lightning-Struck Tower (Severus Snape/Sybill Trelawney) -- I know: did you ever think you'd see me rec a Sybill story? But such is the joy of Beholder that it offers believable pairings with the most unlikely people (although if you think this one is unlikely, wait till you see the next rec). The author does an excellent job of turning Sybill into a real person; I also believe this more-sinned-against-than-sinning Severus and Albus as the sinner.

'Sod Off' Means 'I Love You' (Millicent Bulstrode/Severus Snape/Dennis Creevey). Yep, you read the characters right. Again, such is the genius of HP_Beholder that you'll not only happily read this threesome, you'll also believe it. The writing is clever and laugh-aloud funny, but the story isn't crack!fic: there's pain and poignance under the pleasure. (And it's fun to compare this Millicent to the one in "Ode to Broken Things": they're very different, yet each is canonically believable. Millicent in "Ode" has convincingly-presented body-image issues; Millicent in "Sod Off" has none: she's fat and gloriously so. Yet each version rings true.)

Air Heart (Minerva/Hooch). From my perspective, this story has it all: politics, Minerva, history, wonderfully-realized characters, excellent writing.

Beholder has no guess-the-author poll, which is ironic for me, since it's the one fest where I think I actually have guessed several authors and virtually all of the artists. So I'm going to do my own poll. I think I know who wrote the following stories, and I swear blind that I'll report honestly how many I get right:

"Air Heart"
"The Conjugal State"
"Moments in Love"
"Ode to Broken Things"
"Sod Off"
"Zinnia and Honeysuckle"

~ ~ ~

My Beholder Fic Top Ten

And difficult though it is to limit myself to ten favorite stories from this fest, I'm a list-making fiend, so here (in no order after the first one) are my ten:

***An Interesting and Difficult Woman (Muriel Weasley/Mr Ollivander)
Clouds of White (Flitwick/Peter Pettigrew)
The Dog's Days of Summer (Muriel Weasley/Griphook the Goblin; Arthur Weasley/Arabella Figg)
Zinnia and Honeysuckle (Hooch/Sprout)
The Conjugal State (Snape/Filch)
Ode to Broken Things (Millicent/Viktor Krum)
Charming a Prince (Eileen Prince/Tobias Snape)
The Days & Nights & All the Hours (Minerva/Moody, Minerva/Hooch, Minerva/Snape)
Dogs of War (Alastor Moody/Rufus Scrimgeour)
But Can She Do Maths? (Minerva/Viktor Krum)

But these are by no means the only stories I loved. It sort of defeats the purpose of a rec list to cite more than half the stories, but I easily could. (I mean, I also loved that Slughorn/Fudge story and "Sod Off" and "The News Today" and all the Scrimgeour/Moodys and the Fenrir story and that fine Rufus/Augusta and Amelia A. H....) I'll stop here, though, before I just offer you the entire Master List. You'll find my other recs scattered throughout the past month's journal postings (art, too).

Comments

[sibyllevance]

Thank you for these, Air Heart was wonderful and I wouldn't have found it without you.