Objects of Lust

"Lust Over Pendle" is the fic which is quietly taking Harry Potter fandom -- and others -- by storm. It's a tale of tabloid journalists, paparazzi with souls, sweet romances and Muggles of various occupations and outlook.

It's about family, and how your relatives will, inevitably, drive you insane.

Oh, and there's a plot to destroy the world. But that's beside the point.

It's a mystery, a comedy, a romance and a bloody good read. "Lust Over Pendle" can be read at here.

The interview that follows contains spoilers of the massive variety. Don't say we didn't warn you.

How did you do it? That's an enormous question, but LOP is fantastically complicated, and I have trouble writing, well, any story that has a plot. Most fics are relatively simple, but LOP revels in its complications. How did it evolve? How much was it planned, and how much did you revise?

Lust Over Pendle started life as a short story that got the bit between its teeth and bolted for the hills. I was toying with the idea of a slash story where you never got to see the protagonists, only heard them discussed, and the idea of that happening by way of a newspaper expose seemed obvious.

Part of why I wanted to write a tabloid story is because of the bizarre (to me) prevalence of slash fics where (for example) Harry and Draco are waltzing round the floor at the Yule Ball or whatever in each other's arms and no-one raises an eyebrow; or everyone in the Gryffindor boys' dorm turns out to be in deeply committed pairings, and Oliver and Percy are around as a deeply committed older couple to give brotherly advice where needed. I happen to live in Manchester which has (after San Francisco and Sydney, I believe) the third highest gay population in the world and neither that concentration nor (unhappily) that tolerance is true even here, and even in 2002. To suggest it of being true in schools (heaven knows schoolkids are often some of the most socially reactionary people you ever meet) from 1991-1998 is, to me, more fantastic than the idea of Hogwarts itself. Still more so when people write Marauders era fic (the marauders are more-or-less my exact contemporaries) where similar things are happening. Male/male homesexuality was made legal in the UK between consenting male adults at all only in 1968 - that is, for people over 21, which is less than 10 years before the most sexually active years of Marauder-era fics. The 21 age of consent for male/male is also what was in force when Harry and co started school - I've lost track of precise dates when things changed but it only dropped to 18 in 1994 (the current point on the canonical timeline).

When I decided to have a gay relationship in the story I wanted to reflect the actual level of social tolerance, and real people's real problems given the era in which the fic is set. So obviously a tabloid like the Prophet would be interested in an outing story, and equally obviously the family fall-out would start from there. Hence chapter 1. But then I'd created Emily and Narcissa as they were, and it seemed a shame not to meet Draco and Neville after all that build up - so what were they all going to do?

I knew very early on Draco having financial problems was going to be a plot driver. One theme of LOP is people being driven back to their essence, and what do they find when they get there? Draco is defined in canon as: son of his father, trainee Death Eater, socially assured, jaw-droppingly rich, arrogant, hates mudbloods and muggles, silver blond. If you take every single one of those attributes and strip them away (the hair dye joke isn't just a running gag) what might be left? And might he himself be able to see it as an opportunity not a total annihilation? And there are very conscious parallels with Jane Austen's Persuasion in Chapter 2.

I also knew that irresponsible (to put it mildly) journalism would be a plot driver; that was inherent from the first chapter. And that the ripples from that action would carry on - and on. And I wanted to express the sense that tabloid journalists seem to have of being above the law - even when their actions are (for example) likely to mean that possible child murderers may be acquitted simply because the newspapers' selfish insistence on "the story" has made the trial impossible to hold. [Current British hot reference] The deprogramming came in very early, as a response of Neville's family to the newspaper story. It was only slightly later that I saw it as part of a coherent plot not merely random nastiness.

So really, I got the basic pillars of my plot together, did some long walks, had numerous hot baths, rearranged them a bit, and decided that if I put a roof on them, it would stand. And I bounced a few ideas off sympathetic friends on the way. Especially EH Smith, the beta's champion beta with an extra gold star for effort.

Draco and Neville. Are they the secret True Couple of the Potterverse, or did it just seem like a good idea at the time? (As my boyfriend said to me: "So ... is there a lot of Draco/Neville around?")

I don't know about secret true couple. A staggeringly large percentage of reviews and recs of LOP begin with: "Draco/Neville!!!! you say? And that's exactly what I thought -" But it certainly wasn't just an exercise to see if it could be done (that would be a Victor Krum/Arthur Weasley fic, I expect. Or a Molly Weasley/Lily fic. Or a Petunia/Snape. Out there in cyberspace, someone is surely working on it. Possibly JKR - that would explain why Book 5 is so late).

But they were both, individually, interesting characters. I mean, on the one hand you have a child from a pureblood family who are so fanatical about family members having Magical ability that they are forthrightly, and without shame, prepared to drown or otherwise arrange a convenient "accident" for any kid in the family who might possibly disgrace them by being a Squib. And then the Malfoy parents and their relations with their son are well worth exploring, as well.

I think we also have to touch on something I personally find rather unsavoury about JKR (whom normally I revere to the nth degree). That being: her association of certain physical characteristics with certain moral characteristics.

With no exceptions, blonds (or blondes) in JKR's works are bad news (rather interesting, actually, given she is one). Think Draco, Lucius, Narcissa [one brief glimpse, admittedly - in which we are told she had a nasty expression], Gilderoy Lockhart, Dudley Dursley, Petunia Dursley. Fleur Delacour is at best highly ambiguous, and the Veela (blonde to a woman) really have beaks (which reminds me of Lady Chatterley's Lover and Mellor's somewhat neurotic musings about what makes a woman a lesbian, come to think of it).

With one possible exception anyone who is at all plump in JKR's works is also bad news. Think Vernon Dursley, Dudley Dursley, Aunt Marge, Peter Pettigrew. The exception, of course is Neville (who is described, canonically as "fat little crybaby" [by Pansy], pudgy, round faced etc etc). I am aware that there is a fanfic school of thought which sees Neville as this generation's Wormtail. Almost certainly due to the negative associations with his physical type.

I don't particularly like that, as you can tell. But each of them is from a JKR pariah group, and it jolted me into thinking what else they might have in common, rather than their massively telegraphed differences. In canon, I then noticed, Draco actually interacts more interestingly with Neville than with practically anyone else. Unpleasantly, true, but that's the way he interacts with everyone. And Draco's "unpleasant" interaction with Neville - nicking the Remembrall (though that doesn't come off, because Harry gets it back - but what would have happened if no-one had responded to the challenge, Draco had left it up a tree, and Neville had had to work out what to do next?) and scaring him in the Forest are no worse - ordinary schoolboy behaviour, in fact - than anything Fred and George do to him. One of the outtakes from LOP, in fact, is a scene where Draco starts apologising for school

and Neville cuts him short.

"There's one thing about it."

"What?"

"Well - granted you behaved like a total little shit, you still had one thing going for you that no-one else in that bloody dump had."

"Being?"

"You were the only person - Staff, student, cat or ghost - who actually treated me in exactly the same way that they treated Harry".

But then, I loathe practical jokes - because someone always has to lose - and Fred and George somehow always make Neville the butt of their jokes, and he always laughs along politely with all the rest of the class. I do dislike the way the Gryffindors, in their own quiet way (Hermione being an obvious exception) let that niggling, day-by-day bullying happen and it's never pointed out as wrong in any way. And Neville never actually does anything about it, and I suspect, personally, that's because he knows that if he ever let his temper slip that would end in dead bodies. He doesn't trust himself, clearly, but I don't think that's because he doesn't have the power (although he might think he doesn't have it). It's because he has to be deeply calm because once his inner anger gets loose, he doesn't know where it might end, and that scares him more than anything else. And the relationship with Draco then makes perfect sense, because Draco can both recognise and not be scared or repelled by Neville's inner axe-murderer. One would be likely to have deep wells of anger in Neville's position, and the fact he never shows it is quite scary.

[Later, in email:]

One thing I think I did fail to bring out when I started rabbitting about Neville's inner axe murderer was his essential kindness and goodness also. The two aren't incompatible in my book. What I think I meant to say was that he has, canonically, the sort of background fanon Draco is often saddled with, to excuse his behaviour, but the readers don't expect Neville to go off and join the Death Eaters as a result, though he has (IMHO) every excuse to given the way he's treated by the Gryffindors and his family (my blood always boils at that pathetic bit at the start of term in GOBL where absolutely everyone else in the class has been to the World Cup, and Neville says something to the effect that his Gran thought it was a waste of money. I mean, talk about going out of her way to ensure he doesn't bond with his peers). But he's a good strategic thinker, in a quiet way (look at how he approaches the problem of a date for the Yule Ball in GOBL; much more sensible than Harry or Ron) so that's why I had him build his own support system outside of school and his family. Draco has no support system at all, which is, I think, part of the atraction between them: Neville understands the pain of isolation at a point when Draco is confronted with it in its starkest form.

Congratulations on creating really plausible, likable characters - OCs, canon and seen-but-never-explored supporters like Emily Longbottom and Narcissa. When Melanie appeared, I thought, 'Oh no, here's Mary-Sue to act as Draco and Neville's relationship counsellor.' But she never degenerated into that. How did you construct her, and your other characters?

Well, Melanie being a relationship counsellor is a bit like Saddam Hussein advising on world peace; she may know the theory, but her track record is bound to be held against her.

I was aware that the fandom automatically assumes any OC between 15 and 35 is an Mary Sue, and raises hackles accordingly, so she had to do something very un-Mary-Sue-like in a hurry as soon as she did appear. Rather rough, having to tell a character: "I'm sorry, but it's your duty in order to preserve my literary reputation to (1) make your opening appearance while commiting the fashion disaster of wearing trainers with a cotton dirndl skirt; and (2) lose your virginity to Dudley Dursley." But she rose womanfully to the occasion. Actually, if you run the classic Mary Sue tests (1. Does this character have special powers? 2.is this character a close relative of a protagonist? 3. Does this character use her special powers to save our heroes against all odds? 4. Does she have characteristics in common with the author? etc etc) I think Emily Longbottom's the real Mary Sue in LOP. Which shows how the whole concept can be misapplied, and deter fanfic writers from creating original characters who have a real role to play.

With all of the characters, I started from the idea: "What sort of real person could really get into that situation?" And if I couldn't think of one, I had to change the situation. Melanie, for example, has much in common with Hermione: she's a bright academic overachiever. What she does not have in common with Hermione is the supportive parents. We don't meet Melanie's mother, but Caitlin's assessment is fairly accurate. Although Melanie's mother hates men in theory, because of having been abandoned (she thinks) by Melanie's father, she also comes within the category of people described in Winifred Holby's The Crowded Street for whom the only success that matters is sex success. So she erodes Melanie's self confidence by constant digs about her weight, and her hair, and her fashion sense, and her lack of boyfriends, until Melanie effectively throws herself at the first man to take an interest. Who exploits her for her ability to write his assignments for him, as well as for sex, and then makes nasty remarks about her to his friends because she isn't a "status-enhancing" girlfriend. And however badly he treats her she hasn't got the nerve to chuck him, because that will reinforce her own sense of being a total failure. And her mother will be hellish about it. And she'd rather (she thinks) be wanted by someone than by no-one. The key to creating characters for me is knowing a lot more about them than the reader ever gets to see. Iceberg theory.

Your characterisation of Harry is rather out of the ordinary for HP future-fics - instead of the heroic uberwizard, the 007 of the magical world, he's a bit goofy, rather complacent, and worryingly, not a great friend to those outside of his immediate circle. I'm a wee bit of a Harry fan, so I'm inclined to feel bad for him. Especially after your epilogue ... is he irredeemably selfish, or do you have hope for the Boy Who Lived? How did your Harry evolve?

A lot of people haven't liked the Harry portrayal, which is fair enough, but the first thing I'd like to point out is that what I was trying to say wasn't that Harry was an idiot, or a particularly unpleasant character or irremediably selfish. One of the themes of LOP is partial knowledge. Everyone makes decisions based on partial knowledge. Part of growing up (or at least, it should be) is recognising where the sources of knowledge you relied on growing up were wrong, and getting into the habit of testing knowledge bases presented to you subsequently in case there are hidden agendas. Draco gets that lesson in rather a hurry, since though I suspect he'd known for some time that his father was a murderer, it never occurred to him that his father might try to murder him. He grows up rather rapidly once he had to re-evaluate the basic truth he always knew, namely that his father would never kill anyone who didn't deserve it.

Harry doesn't really get that message in such a brutal form, because he's much more in the right for an awful lot longer: he knows the Dursleys are awful people - and so they are. He trusts his own judgment about Voldemort in the teeth of official opposition - and saves the world. And he's only 19. And the recipient of huge public adulation. In the circumstances, he's actually coping rather well (Draco, in his position, would be an absolute horror). But he makes a number of mistakes (so -- he's human). One of the problems with mistakes is that some of them are irrevocable - even if innocently made. An apology will not do. At least - an apology is necessary but not sufficient in some circumstances. His mistakes nearly lead to Draco being killed and Neville driven mad, and though he didn't intend these outcomes, he did carry out the acts which made them possible or likely outcomes, without properly thinking those acts or their consequences through. In short, for a very brief period he falls (slightly) under the spell of his own reputation.

He makes his mistakes for the following reasons:

1. He fails to handle the revelation about Neville's sexuality. I think, partly, this is because he is instinctively homophobic - the Dursleys are, very (there is text-evidence - for example Vernon Dursley's response in Goblet of Fire to Dudley's exam results where he uses the term "swotty little nancy boy" to refer to people who do well) and I don't think one can be entirely impervious to childhood influences. But I also think he would make more of an effort to cope if it were any of his friends but Neville (his canonical behaviour towards Neville is, in my view, odd) and if the other party were anyone except Draco. In fact, he simply stops speaking to Neville - something Neville is prepared to brush off or assume is accidental, and something about which Draco gets indignant on Neville's behalf. Accordingly, when Harry knows he ought to ring Neville to check, the fact that he doesn't want to discuss why he hasn't rung earlier (if asked) and the risk of having to speak to Draco first cause him to bottle out: a very minor act of moral cowardice in the great scheme of things, but important in context.

2. He genuinely believes Draco is indeed plotting something. Which is hardly surprising, given that (1) he loathes him (2) Draco's background makes it not implausible and (3) the information that Draco is plotting comes from a trusted source - indeed, a father figure - Arthur Weasley.

3. He has very sentimental assumptions about wizard families as opposed to muggle ones. Again, excusable given his background.

4. Despite the adulation, he's actually rather modest. Accordingly, it simply does not occur to him that his name is one that unlocks doors. Eustace's plot is greatly assisted by being able to report independent evidence about Draco's actions from Harry Potter. This just does not occur to Harry as a way he might be being exploited.

Furthermore, at the time set in the Epilogue he also does not know what has really happened. Again, partial knowledge. It isn't fair for the reader to judge him on things the reader knows but he cannot. However, that illustrates (or is intended to) the very point about how the situation arose in the first place.

The duel is not intended to be a duel to the death, by the way (something Narcissa, actually, has appointed herself as second to make sure of) but only to first blood. But it is important for Neville's recovery from torture for him to force Harry to recognise that he is a person in his own right, able to make his own choices, and one whom Harry, however innocently, has very deeply hurt. Neville feels more betrayed by Harry than by any of the others, since he knows Eustace loathes him, but he has always seen Harry as a friend.

And this is where I root my portrayal firmly in canon. Harry treats Neville badly in canon, and no-one ever notices. Neville is supposed to be a friend. Nonetheless, Harry's first thought when on the run in Prisoner of Azkaban is to assume Neville's identity on boarding the Knight bus, irrespective of the potential consequences for Neville. Secondly, in Goblet of Fire we realise that despite being one of only five boys in the dormitory for the last four years, and despite him being (apparently) the only other orphan it has never occurred to Harry even to wonder what became of Neville's parents. That is, in my view, a frightening level of indifference. And it is that blind indifference I chose to build on in LOP. It is not intended to define his character, but to explore a particular aspect of it. And, even in the Epilogue, nothing too bad happens to him. But everything that does happen, in my view, comes about because in that particular area he makes some mistakes which it is in character for him to make, given the information he was working with.

I've been scouting the LJs, blogs and rec sites, and LOP has become an amazingly popular fic - one of those which truly deserves to be a Big Name Fic. Yet, oddly enough, the biggest fans aren't your regular Potterfic readers, but Smallville fans who've almost fallen into it by accident. Any thoughts on this, and the popularity of LOP in general?

I'm rather flabbergasted. And pleased, naturally.

I heard a rumour that there's a companion fic which crosses over with Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan novels. Is this true, or has someone just gotten their wires crossed with Erica Smith's trilogy? (And if it is true,when and where can I find it?)

No, it does exist, it was a birthday present for Erica, and will be shortly posted at schnoogle under the title "Time Shall Not Mend". Which is far from the only Kipling reference in it, as well as the Bujold. And of course, Ships That Pass, at www.thedarkarts.org is also a short prequel to the LOP world.

And speaking of Erica (and revealing just how much of a fic geek I really am), Snape mentions having to travel halfway across Britain on a Muggle train. Is this a nod to "Without Enchantment"? It wasn't in the author's notes, but I wondered.

Yes, of course. Erica and I beta for each other (she actually pointed out in beta reading that most of the time Snape wasn't in fact on the train, but I'm sure a little detail like that wouldn't have allowed him to spoil a good rant).

One of the LJs I read was casting LOP - Jude Law as Draco, Julia Sawalha as Hermione, etc. Do you cast your characters, and if so, who's in it? (We had trouble with Narcissa, but I'm pushing for Dame Judi Dench as Emily.)

Oh, all the time. The Kristen Scott Thomas idea for Narcissa was a good one, though that might give her problems passing herself off as Jude Law in Chapter Seven. She did a stunning chilling blonde in Gosford Park, though. Right on the money. I see Draco as looking like the Changes era Bowie, but that doesn't help on the acting front, and there's no doubt that Jude Law could carry that off. I wondered about Anthony Stewart Head for Martin - Richard E. Grant is an interesting idea, but mad in a rather different way to how I see Martin. Another Martin possible is Robert Lindsay. And I did rather like the idea of Stephen Fry as Eustace. Rupert Everett might be an interesting Lucius Malfoy. Or more conventionally, Christopher Walken or Charles Dance. I don't know about Dame Judi Dench - she probably could do Emily (what couldn't she?) but it isn't quite as I visualise her. Is Sian Phillips (I Claudius) still around? And Geraldine James (The Raj Quartet) for Caitlin. And any takers on John Cusack for Camilleri?

What question did you want me to ask?

Why did you call it "Lust Over Pendle"? Many people have described the title as "bizarre" and some have gone as far as "appalling".

And how would you have answered it?

It's a play on the title of a novel by Robert Neill about the Pendle Witches (who were real, by the way - I got rather disconcerted by one reader who believed I'd made the whole thing up. Actually, while I was researching it I discovered that of the Salmesbury Witches who were tried and acquitted at the same time as the Pendle Witches were condemned two shared my mother's maiden name.) In it, Jennet Device, who really did at the age of nine swear away the lives of her sister, brother, mother, grandmother and half the neighbours, is portrayed as a charming elfin child. At which point one realises that if a published author can get away with that one, rehabilitating Draco, whose only canonical crimes to date are making remarks in atrocious taste about Cedric Diggory, using bad language, and sneering in an unpleasant way, ought to be a shoo-in.

Could you share some recs, in any fandom?

All Potterverse:-

EH Smith's Marks and Scars, Without Enchantment and No Great Magic. Although I beta for her, I read and loved her stuff before I started doing so, so this isn't just mutual admiration stuff.

Tess's Love on The Quidditch Pitch.

And of course Rugi and Gwena's Tough Guide To Harry Potter - I roll over and over stuffing my sleeve into my mouth every time I muse upon the High Tragedy of people with three names dying, the subtle gradations of screams, and what exactly Nagini gets to eat when the Death Eaters have been consistently competent for a long period.

And I got a great deal of pleasure out of a fic who name I unfortunately totally forget, in which Draco manages to perform two separate sex acts using the same Belgian chocolate cherry, without the syrup running up his sleeve or making an awful mess of the sheets. Now that's what I call magic.

And lastly, what is a death watch beetle?

An unpleasant creature which chews its way destructively through roof beams, making an awful noise like a death rattle in the process. It is said to herald bad luck, and I'm sure anyone who's ever seen the estimates for repairing its depredations would say this is no mere superstition. Think mutant woodworm with attitude.

"Time Shall Not Mend" is now online. "Ships that Pass" can be found here.

Liz Barr has had half a Snape/Petunia on her hard drive for the last two months. But then, she's a bit tragic that way.