Literatti: Fiction By Deslea

This one is positively tiny (800 words) but explores one of my pet theories about Voldemort - the damaging effects of his ability to read people's thoughts on his childhood development. Read it here

"I have a soft spot for longtime couples who are together in a survival situation, and Harry Potter's Lucius and Narcissa are no exception. They've dominated my writing on and off since 2011, although they have taken a back seat to Bella and Voldemort of late. I find their whole engagement with the Dark Lord's war very interesting because they're people you would expect to maintain the aristocratic status quo, and indeed Lucius did do this between the wars. I think the key is Lucius's statement that he has "kept to the old ways." This suggests that there is a quasi-religious angle to Death Eater ideology, and that's borne out in the god-beliefs surrounding Voldemort. At the same time, though, his loyalty and surrender is ultimately with Narcissa, as we see in the matters of Durmstrang, in the yielding of his wand, and ultimately in following her into the Battle of Hogwart's unarmed to find Draco. This is despite him being, by all other appearances, the sort of person whose bigotry could be expected to extend to misogyny."

Ratings are roughly equivalent to those used by the Motion Picture Association of America.

G: General audiences.
PG: Parental Guidance. Adult concepts and dilemmas, but without graphic detail.
M (or R): Mature audience. Adult concepts and dilemmas, anti-social attitudes, people doing the wrong thing and not necessarily feeling guilty about it. Also includes low-level sexual content (a few soft-focus paragraphs with little or no direct discussion of body parts). Most of my work is M.
NC-17: No children 17 or under. May contain explicit and extended descriptions of sexual activity, brief but graphic sexual descriptions, or graphic violence. A couple of my works contain rape scenes; these are graphic but not sexualised, and are appropriately marked with content warnings.
Trigger/Content Warnings: I take a conservative approach to triggers and will generally warn for anything that might trigger reader trauma to do with violence, self-harm, or grief. If the term "dark themes" is used, this may mean too many dark themes to mention, a dark theme that I don't want to reveal because it's a plot twist, or a vague dark feel that doesn't have a more precise description. Caveat lector.