Delicate Sound of Thunder - Duinn Fionn - Prologue, part 1

[geoviki]

One year ago, and with no real expectations, I posted my first HP novel. I'm still amazed at how many readers loved A Thousand Beautiful Things, and I appreciate all of you who've told me so. Thank you! Oh, and anno_domino posted a gorgeous cover for ATBT today, in her LJ. So cool!

I never expected to have anything else to write in that universe. But I'd created some original characters in ATBT, and I started wondering what would happen if they met.... and wondering led to plotting, which led to writing. And here we are.

I started writing this sequel last September and had a first draft done by December. You'll notice that I've been revising it longer than I, er, vised it in the first place. That's because I have some of the world's best beta editors: isiscolo, ajhalluk, ravurian, and kattiya. They weren't letting me release it until it no longer sucked (although they phrased it more politely). I owe them a huge thank you (and also flowers and chocolate).

You may have noticed I'm not the world's fastest writer. I have to write and rewrite, add and delete, cut and paste. You'd be stunned to learn how many hundreds of hours went into this. The final story is about 60,000 words; I probably wrote 120,000 and snuffed half.

If it's been a while since you've read ATBT, you may want to revisit it, because, sequel, right? But rather than hack your way through all 108,001 words of it again (although I sure won't discourage you!), you can sneak by with the Cliff Notes version - a summary I wrote for accio_spoilers. It's just like being in college, only cheaper and exam-free.

In case you missed them, I also wrote two short stories in this universe: Autumn Can Really Hang You Up the Most, and Harry Potter and the Slytherin-Coloured Lamborghini.

I'm still working through the last few beta changes, and it'll take time to convert it to HTML, so I've decided to do something different to reward your patience. The prologue is entitled "Five Letters" (for reasons that aren't the least enigmatic). I plan to post one "letter" in my LJ every day or so (keep in mind I'm so far west my day probably starts much later than yours does). On the last day I'll post the entire story on Skyehawke. I wouldn't call these cookies, because they won't spoil your appetite. More like canapes, except you can't pick off the mysterious gray bits.



Title: Delicate Sound of Thunder
Author: Duinn Fionn (aka geoviki)
Pairing: HP/DM
Rating: R or M
Warnings: contains slash (male-male relationships), sexual content, original characters.

For Julia (painless_j), who showed me that distance is no barrier to friendship, and who has always shown enormous faith in me. I hope it was worth the wait, PJ.

Summary: Draco Malfoy has always known that happily ever after is only true for fairy tales. When someone threatens to expose his wartime past, he risks his life to protect his secrets, but learns he's not the only one with something to hide.

Delicate Sound of Thunder

Prologue - Five Letters

We all have a dark side, to say the least.

Dogs of War - Pink Floyd

Jerald Carr was a methodical man, one who never neglected to take good care of what was his. So even though he could feel his heart anxiously racing in a way that his doctor would lecture wasn't good for him these days, he turned his attention first to his owl, setting aside the letter she'd brought. She was expectantly eying the cage of mice he kept in his office particularly to reward her successful deliveries. Wand at the ready, he threw open the cage door. With a burst of racing feet, one nimble rodent broke loose and scarpered hell-bent for freedom. He aimed his wand with a deliberate flick and paralyzed the creature – although not completely; where was the sport in that? In an instant, his owl was silently airborne, feathery talons grasping the mouse before he'd even lowered his wand.

Carr, on the other hand, was stretching out his own reward with the deliberate pace of a man whose youthful recklessness – if he'd ever owned to such behavior – was far behind him.

The letter rested in the precise center of his desk, the only object on its spotless expanse. Unnatural, his partner never failed to mutter at the sight of such neatness. But the empty surface allowed him to wholly focus on the scraps and jots that came his way, and he'd often pull out tiny but crucial details that his younger, more impatient colleague often missed.

Carr finally sank down in his desk chair, which objected to his weight with an undignified squeak, and picked up the letter.

The paper was plain, unremarkable, with nothing written on the outside to betray its origins. A black seal held the flap shut, and the mark from the seal was annoyingly slapdash and off-center. He drew the dark seal closer, then snorted when it failed to come into focus. Damned business, this growing old, he thought with his usual irritation. Taking his reading glasses from the drawer, he shoved them on and took another look at the seal in his hand.

And there it was - the starkly outlined shield he hadn't let himself hope to see until this instant.

He closed his eyes and slowly raised the letter to his nose, sniffing it as if it were one of the fine cigars his doctor sternly forbade him from enjoying. Not that he expected much from the action, but sometimes - very rarely, but often enough so that he made it part of his habit - he could sense the lingering trace of the sender. A suggestion of cologne, perhaps, or a trace of wood smoke from a nearby fireplace. But he could detect nothing beyond the pervasive smell of warm feathers and dampness – the long journey over the Channel had erased any other scent.

Carr indulged in a long moment spent fingering the letter, feeling its weight and imagining the unseen connection to the hand that sealed it. Then, slipping a meaty finger beneath the seal, he broke open the letter. He was just about to unfold the parchment when he detected a tiny disturbance on the seal. Faint, almost invisible even through his reading glasses, it caught the light with an unexpected glimmer. He tilted the letter to better reflect the nearby window's light, until he abruptly identified what had been trapped in the hardened black wax by the careless writer. Curving gently against the seal, fine, pale, no longer than a quill tip, was a single hair.

Carr smiled.

~.~.~.~.~.~.~

Prologue part 2

Comments

[geoviki.livejournal.com]

Sadly, this is written from real life. You're right about the theory, but in practice what happens is that I instintively pull the thing closer. And of course it never works. I have reading glasses at every spot in the house where I'm likely to read. And for a couple of years now, both my husband and I end up buying wrong products because we can't read the details on the label. It's hugely annoying!