pink_mint | Art: Spare the Rod (R)

Title: Spare the Rod
Characters: Harry
Rating: R
Warning: blood, bruises, come
Created with: Painter X
Notes: This is This is fanart for

calanthe_fics's Spare the Rod, part three in the Mudhoney trilogy. Additional notes and an excerpt from Spare the Rod are below.
Additional notes: First, I have to say that I had residual inspiration from

calanthe_fic's trilogy that needed to come out, and this is the result! Plus, how could I not draw her Harry after doing Draco?

I wanted the two paintings to compliment each other in look and in intensity of emotion, and at first I had a tough time picking one emotion of Harry’s to show. The one of Draco was really obvious to me, but this one I had to think about. Then I remembered the Exanimus scene, which is nearly my favorite – it gives me chills.

Do correct me if I’m mistaken, Cal: in the picture of Draco, it was the moment that his fantasy and desire for Harry finally manifested. And in this picture of Harry, it’s the definitive scene for him personally. He realizes he wants to live.

Admittedly, I took some artistic liberties with this one. Cal, please forgive me if he’s a bit more bruised and bloodied than you wrote him. I also realize that these bruises are probably a lot further along than they realistically could be, given the time frame. ;)

Please let me know what you think. Once again, I'm a bundle of nerves!

A happy birthday to darling Harry Potter! So sorry I made you look terrible on your special day. ;)

Lastly, my companion piece to this, featuring Draco.

Excerpt:

“Finite Incantatem,” he annunciates, his low voice carrying clearly across the space between us.

My lungs spasm painfully and I hear myself drag in a ragged, bubbling breath that’s deep enough to curve my spine up off the table. I choke out the remaining jism from the back of my throat with unfettered relief. After that first breath in, the one that makes black blobs dance across my vision, I flop back onto the table and pant, drawing a shaking hand up to scrub at my face, wincing as the raw pain of an overstretched muscle in my shoulder protests.

Thank fuck! I’m alive! I experience a blinding moment of euphoria as my survival moves from fantasy to fact before my body starts to palsy and shake in shock. I put both hands over my face and try to breathe even though it’s hard. I’m alive.

I turn my head eventually, moving it painfully slowly to stop my focus blurring and breaking up.

He must have moved the moment I turned my head.

All I see is the flutter of a grey-trimmed black cloak disappearing round the doorframe and out of sight.

I lie there and watch the empty space for minutes, curling my toes and then flexing my limbs, testing to see what works and what hurts.

When I finally get up to dress, a changed person from the one who lay down, I consider life and death. I consider love and hate. I consider how fine the line between extremes can be.

I look down at the crumpled form of my Stupefied attacker and consider kicking him until his ribs break and his stomach is black with bruises. But I don’t do it. He’s broken enough without my interference, so I merely turn and walk away.

- from Spare the Rod by calanthe_fics

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I couldn't stomach how well adjusted and happy he was, and these fics were always going to show Harry broken down to bare bones of his personality, and remade into a particular image, albeit one that many readers would feel intensely uncomfortable with. Have you noticed how it's okay for fanfic to break Draco on a regular basis, but you cannot fuck with 'the people's' Harry? So, yeah - that's why Harry.

I will of course be reccing this. I'm thrilled to see the comment count on your Draco pic. You deserve every bit of worship coming your way. And I can guarantee it's coming in floods from me.

Love you!

You are welcome from the depths of my heart!

I cannot believe that I painted your Harry, the one you see in your mind. What a thrilling feeling! This is my Harry, so for it to be a perfect match with yours is just fantastic. God, I can’t even begin to describe how happy that makes me! I’ve never been able to draw the Harry I see in my mind, until now. Either I wasn’t good enough, or I just didn’t try at it enough, but this time I really got him.

All of your descriptions and thoughs about the painting have me melting over here. You’ve caught everything I wanted you to: the tiredness around his eyes, his skin looking ill, the pain showing through the way he holds his mouth, my wanting to capture the after-effects of being treated like he was, and everything else you mention. Like I was telling someone else, a couple of times I thought maybe I should make his furrowed brow a little more pronounced or have his teeth show a bit, but I didn’t because Harry wouldn’t let the pain show, he’d want to hold it in and suppress it.

I LOVED Draco, but I think I love this more. People just don't tend to pick the messed up things to paint - they pick the pretty, undamaged things, or they show the beauty in single dimension.

Yes, yes, yes. That's one of the reasons I was so nervous about posting this painting in particular because it shows something that isn't often shown.

Writing it from Harry's pov always meant that I understood his motivations better than Draco's, and in some ways that was my nod to canon, in which we have Draco and his intentions shrouded in a certain kind of mystery, because he's not the character we're intimate with.

Fuck. Did I subconciously know that or is it a coinsidence that I happened to paint a more mysterious Draco and then a very detailed, raw Harry? I could have easily done the opposite. I think that of the two paintings, you can read Draco’s emotions but you can really read Harry’s. I totally didn’t plan on that, but there it is, and it goes so well with the story and your thoughts on it that I’m shell shocked at the realization.

Your Harry is my Harry as much as mine is yours. I love your thoughts on the core of his personality - they are my thoughts mirrored. I think that’s why your stories have struck such a cord with me and why this painting strikes a cord with you, and this painting is as much a part of you as it is me, darling!

Have you noticed how it's okay for fanfic to break Draco on a regular basis, but you cannot fuck with 'the people's' Harry?

I have definitely noticed that, and I think that’s one of the reasons why I love this Harry so much, because he’s so realistic to how a person would be if all of that happened to them, and I just love the darkness there. People don’t write him this way nearly enough.

I hope these paintings have had more people discover the brilliance that is the Mudhoney trilogy! Both of them are recs as much as they are fanart, from me to the H/D fandom to go read it now, if they haven't already.

Love you right back!

Art: Spare the Rod (R)

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