There we go! OK. Let's see. I'm speechwriter, I'm 27, I live in Chicago, and I am batmansymbol on tumblr and rileyredgate on instagram. I write across ships (also a big Luna/Ginny person and have historically done both Tom/Hermione and Tom/Ron) and also write original fiction published under Riley Redgate. I am happy to answer questions about anything!!

Hi! Ah, fun question. It was all sort of a domino effect. One of the biggest changes from DH was that right off the bat, the Trio in DoDM already know that the sword of Gryffindor will destroy horcruxes. So, immediately they have the mission to go to Hogwarts and retrieve the sword, and from there, I knew I wanted them to find the diadem first - and for it to be more seductive than purely evil.

I also wanted to try and differentiate the horcruxes. In canon they're all interchangeable parts of the quest, with the exception being the locket's dampening effects on their mood. But I felt that the diadem's power, especially for Hermione, would be a great agent for character development. So I started thinking, okay, if I'm trying to emphasize the diadem as something that enhances intelligence, what if each of the horcruxes has a type of power and an individual backstory? Which led me to a cup of loyalty for Hufflepuff (although polluted by Voldemort) and an item of secrecy for Slytherin (though that's only lightly mentioned).

I definitely think the locket was hardest to deal with. In pretty much any AU/remix, the reader's patience will be shortest for what they already know, so I didn't want to dwell on the locket, which we see so much of in DH!

Thank you so much!! Hahah, the Azkaban plotline was a real pet favorite of mine with this project. So, as backstory, when I was first working through this concept, I didn't even know whether I wanted it to be a Drarry or Dramione story - I just knew it would centrally be about Draco's redemption. But I was kind of obsessed with the idea of cleaving as close to canon as humanly possible, within that framework. I wanted it to really feel like this Draco was moving through the same world, surrounded by the same characters, as the ones we get in books 1-6, to make the redemption feel like it was germane to the universe.

LONG WINDED intro but essentially, I was determined to treat the characters essentially as JKR might have treated them. And she sets out a pretty clear roadmap: Ron struggles, but redeems himself and is lovable. Dumbledore and Snape are grey and flawed, but we're ultimately supposed to feel positively toward them both (although many people don't). I used these as instructions when considering who would have what kind of arc.

Of course, this presents issues. Ron is really only missing for a couple of chapters in DH, but in order for the romance to blossom in Disappearances, I knew he needed to be gone for a longer time. I also have... a lot of personal feelings about the scope of Ron's heroism in DH; I feel like he needed to have an act of heroism that was entirely separate from Harry and his friends, to really grow his confidence. So, goal one was to give Ron something big, something exciting.

Goal two was to expand the worldbuilding. Every book of the HP series offers us new and vividly drawn locations. We hear about the Ministry in books 1-4 - then get to see it on the page in book 5. We hear about Ron's family situation throughout Book 1 - then get to see the Burrow in Book 2. I knew I wanted to visit Azkaban, so when I was considering what act of heroism Ron might have, it clicked into place - prison break.

Ahhaha I'm so sorry y'all, I'm so slow and long-winded - quick thing about Pansy, it really just fell into place. I hadn't originally planned elements of Ronsy, but after greying Pansy throughout the first half and making her sacrifice herself for Draco's secrecy, i was like huh, i am also quietly wanting a pansy redemption. and doing that secretly through Ron's eyes was a blast.

Also if anyone wants REAL long-windedness i have a whole mini-essay on the Ron/Azkaban stuff here: https://batmansymbol.tumblr.com/post/643785126885621760/omg-this-chapter-with-ron-and-you-posted-a

Okay oh my goodness, first of all, thank you for reading my actual books?!?!?! They're SO different from my fics that I never expect anyone to make the leap, hahah.

This is a great question. Before I got an agent/got into publishing, I used to kind of think of fanfic that way, as training wheels. But actually, after my first book came out, I began to realize that fanfic has distinct benefits to me. I've seen it described as a "sandbox" before and I think that's a great description. Because it's illegal to publish or sell fanfic, it feels uniquely low-stress to me; it's a place to play. If I'm free-writing a piece of original fiction, there's always, always something in the back of my mind going, "Okay, well, you'll need to work on this for 3 years and then polish it and then try to sell it. How's the market? Is this sellable? etc etc." With fanfic, that voice gets turned off. It's just for me, just for fun, and that's definitely why I came back to it in a major way during the pandemic. (Before COVID I was doing like, maybe one short fic a year.)

Thank you so much, I'm glad you liked it! Consistency is not traditionally my strong point. I did go on hiatus for about six months in the middle of the fic. But during my active posting periods, lockdown is responsible for consistency. I have ADHD and hyperfixate in really serious ways when I'm stressed out. Last year between March and I guess... July? I posted the first 20-odd chapters of this fic, and I did nearly nothing else. In terms of work, covid had delayed my edit letter for the book I was working on, so I had nothing to do except refresh my email and go crazy. So I poured all of that into drafting. I would sit down and just pour 9,000 words a day onto the page, I would dream of the fic, I would brush up while eating meals, no breaks, nothing else. Not healthy! But there are worse coping mechanisms.

When I came back after hiatus, I stuck to a biweekly schedule, alternating with another fic, and I was less hyperfixated. I'd draft Monday and Tuesday, then brush up over the course of the week. I already had my outline completed, so it was a bit more slow and steady (and healthy!).

Writer's block is a tough nut to crack, for sure. Different strokes for different folks, and all that, but for me, I always want writing to feel good, otherwise my brain will learn that it feels unpleasant to do and translate it into a chore or obligation. So, when I'm blocked on something, I really don't like to force my way through it - I like to bop over to a different project. I will say that this is sort of dangerous if you don't have confidence in completing the project; sometimes it really is just better to power through the bits that bore you and come back later to make them less bad.

I meeeean if you insist!! haha. This is a list of them on Bookshop.org (hands down best e-tailer for indie booksellers!!): https://bookshop.org/lists/my-books-1f08d1df-565a-49d7-9fad-6b412b161bec

Ron/Tom was a TRIP to write. Yes, that one was kind of tough. It started off as a joke/crackfic and then became steadily more serious and character-based and overlong which is just the story of my life, really. When writing romance I'm all about the Austen school of thought where it's about personality-based compatibility, but sometimes I can go too far with that and ... forget that physical attraction is also important!! That's why my stuff doesn't really have smut, but it also made it tough to write Tom/Ron, because I firmly believe Tom used his looks as an "Angle" when he was a Hot Youth, and we know from canon that Ron is pretty fixated on looks. Which means the original seed of the pairing there probably should have been sheer attraction on Ron's end... but I have a tough time writing that!!

I did find it pretty easy to pair them in terms of character compatibility. Ron is more ambitious than anyone gives him credit for and I think it'd be easy for Tom to tug those strings, haha.

I'm so happy you enjoyed those details!!! And you've really plucked out ideas that felt important to me! All of these moments appear in my outline. I like this idea of goals. If we're thinking that the main goal of the story is to show Draco's transformation, that must involve exposure to the Muggle world, and Hermione's house visit helps serve that goal. The goal of the ending is to show the impact of Harry's love and protection - and bringing Remus & Severus back after seeming to lose them serves that goal.

As for Draco's attention to the diadem effects on Hermione, and the way the diadem influences him - those things serve the goal of showing an innate personality compatibility between the pair: that Draco's emotional intuition is important to someone like Hermione, and that his canonical traits (of being a jackass all the time lol) stem from a larger well of personality that includes neutral and positive traits, too.

So when put like this, it all feels pretty mercenary, hehe! But I LOVE the feeling of intuitive writing and things popping up on the page just as I'm going along, too.

Hahahah "canon whore" i've found my people. This is a great question - since I knew it was going to be an enormous work, I definitely wanted a detailed outline!! I've never written a single story this long before, and knowing myself as a writer (maximalist, very little self-control) I knew that the ripple effects of seemingly small things might balloon out of hand. I think by having a big outline you can do some of that pacing management before you get the draft on the page, which helps a TON if you're writing/posting chapter by chapter. You can identify wonky ideas that won't help (some axed subplots: going to Durmstrang, Kingsley saying that Dumbledore's bequests were at Malfoy Manor, Bellatrix taking Gryffindor students hostage) and get rid of them before you get invested in writing them.

Purely in physical terms, my outline for DoDM took the shape of a crescendo. So, the first chapter outline is one sentence: "Dumbledore fakes Draco’s death and sends him to HQ." Whereas the outline for chapter 29, for instance, is 850 words. As I introduced each throughline, I tried to keep up with that throughline in the outline to make sure that each thread was getting revisited regularly and productively, then closed out in a satisfactory way. I spent a million years in that outline doc, and it wasn't hugely fun for me because I do like non-outlined/intuitive writing a lot. But it really helped in the back half of the book, especially after the Manor burning when we open up to half a dozen other POVs.

I will say that there are definitely still things I'd work on in pacing DoDM! If I were to edit, I'd try to tighten and streamline certain things. For instance, they plot for Draco to infiltrate the Death Eaters and create a fake ambush involving Harry. None of that pays off, but rather detours into the Bella subplot, so I'd try to trim that fakeout plot way back and focus on the character aspects of it a bit more.

At this point, writing Hermione is basically second nature to me. I really love her, and I love exploring different aspects of her in different fics. (In my recent Tomione she's cutthroat vindictive, in DoDM she's quite anxious and maybe a bit more sensitive/intuitive than is strictly canonical lmao).

But honestly, I think I like writing both Luna and Ginny even more. Luna is maybe one of the least archetypical characters in HP canon and I think pairing her with Ginny, who in many ways reads like a CoolGirlTM in canon, enriches both.

Least favorite ... honestly, this has less to do with the characters themselves and more to do with the fandom, but I have a tough time with Snape and Dumbledore because portrayals of them are so contentious. I'm aware that some fans loathe these characters so strongly that any fanwork that doesn't condemn them seems on the brink of amorality. I don't necessarily feel like I have to write to the expectations of those fans, but I do feel uncomfortably aware of potential reception when writing them.

I also wasn't aware until recently that some people also have those feelings about Molly Weasley?! that one really took me by surprise when i encountered it in the wild - I always loved her and thought she was a great (if flawed) mom doing her best...

I actually just this year got a desktop computer to put upon my writing desk and I'm OBSESSED with it! It's an HP (i also have an HP laptop and am an acolyte) and so now i write from the same place all the time!! Helps with work-life balance.

Although I do have a soft spot for writing on my laptop at my parents' house. (They live on the west coast of Ireland so I'll just stare out their window and be like, ah yes, people live like this in the beauty of nature, why do i live in a city.)

I'm kind of an omnivore! In both fics and books, I will read anything on the fluff to dark scale, and on the breezy commercial to slow literary scale. Right now I'm listening to The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo on audiobook (perfect, splashy commercial fiction), and in paperback reading Doris Lessing's totally megalithic The Golden Notebook (densely ideas-driven character novel). I am loving both. I'll also probably pick up Lori M Lee's middle grade fantasy Pahua and the Soul Stealer soon, and I expect to love that, too. So yes, genres all across the map!

Tropes are harder for me. I definitely have pet tropes that will hit me harder if i feel like they're executed to a T, enemies-to-lovers being the main example, as well as "obsessive artist nearly destroys themself" and "neurotic genius discovers that they have a heart." But I don't tend to seek out those tropes specifically, because I can be quite picky with how they're executed. Both in fic and in books I'm much more likely to read everything by one author I particularly love, rather than picking something up because it features a trope I've loved before.

To All the Tropes I've Loved Before: a memoir

Yessss multiship is the way to live a full life! I think harmony has really grown on me over the years. I've become a lot more appreciative of their innate affection for and (for the most part) understanding of one another.

Honestly, I'll probably enjoy literally any F/F pairing because I think while most of HP's female characters are well-drawn enough, they always benefit from more attention and exploration. Fleur/Tonks is one I've enjoyed a few times, especially with a trans/genderqueer Tonks. Any F/F involving Ginny, Pansy, or Luna has my immediate goodwill.

Oh, yeah, and Wolfstar, the most romantic pairing in canon despite not actually being a romantic pairing. Their reunion in the Shrieking Shack after years of separation and misunderstanding is quite honestly the stuff of epic romance. Wolfstar writers are also just on another level, I don't know what it is.

Haha, hi Maya!! Thanks for reading my stories! I do have some favorites. Wait and Hope is very famous so I'm sure you've heard of it, but that's definitely near the top of my list. I also love AccioMjolnir's Until the Ink Runs Dry (epistolary), Sometimes by raa, The Banality of Love by sandwich_tales, Bite Marks by provocative envy, and Brandy, Apricot, and Spice by lovesbitca8. Also, you can't go wrong with anything written by pacificrimbaud, whose writing is always jaw-dropping.