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The Draco Trilogy was an epic Harry Potter Fan Fic series written by the Fandom VIP Cassandra Claire.note  It used many of the same tropes found in The Mortal Instruments, and deviated wildly from Harry Potter Canon because it was begun before the fifth book was released. The series consisted of three novel-length fanfics: Draco Dormiens, Draco Sinister and Draco Veritas. It began with a standard "Freaky Friday" Flip plot and developed into a complicated tale involving all sorts of magical inheritance, the four founders of Hogwarts and more.

Notable for beginning the Draco in Leather Pants phenomenon, the story took Harry's rival Draco Malfoy and turned him into a sarcastic, leather-clad Anti-Hero best described as a combination of Corwin, Spike and Artemis Fowl. Became wildly popular in fandom to the point where some fans began to prefer the Draco Trilogy to the actual canon.

There was also a good deal of controversy in fandom when the author was blacklisted from FanFiction.Net for plagiarizing lengthy passages from a Pamela Dean series without attribution (and, apparently, lying about having permission to use the passages in her fanfiction, although she did sort of get permission after she was caught). This is often confused with the series using a large amount of quotes and scenes from TV series (including Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Blackadder) and several published works, which were (eventually) credited at the end of each chapter. Avocado, the person who first discovered and reported the Pamela Dean plagiarism, wrote here a recount of the plagiarism debacle.

The author removed her fanfiction from the internet when she became a published professional, but rumor has it the Draco Trilogy can still be found online if you know where to look... for example, here, here, and here!


The Draco Trilogy provided examples of:

  • Author Appeal: The female characters are always excited whenever they get to wear old-fashioned Pimped Out Dresses which are thoroughly described—sometimes enough to temporarily overshadow in their minds the life-threatening circumstances they are in. The girls also tend to think a lot about how the boys in their lives smell differently. Apparently this is important in weighing their relative attractiveness—and no, none of them seem to actually smell bad.
  • Be a Whore to Get Your Man: When Harry and Hermione's relationship hits a rut in Draco Veritas, Ginny suggests Hermione try this to get Harry's attention. Subverted in that Hermione tries it, but Harry hardly notices as he's naturally so busy angsting.
  • Bittersweet Ending: Voldemort's defeated, Narcissa and Sirius are married, Harry and Draco are off to travel the world — but the two official couples are (temporarily, at least) broken up.
  • Captain Oblivious: Harry. Dear God, Harry. He fails to notice Ron is having an affair, Hermione and he are having relationship problems, and that Draco (who he shares telepathy with) is dying. However, Draco and Snape are pretty much the only ones who seem to be paying enough attention to realize all these things.
  • Catch a Falling Star: The Weasleys rescue Harry in this manner at the end of Draco Dormiens.
  • Clingy Jealous Girl: Hermione, not just towards her boyfriend but towards all her guy friends. Lampshaded by various characters as they accuse her of not letting any girl (even Ginny, her friend) get close to 'her boys.'
  • Comically Missing the Point: In the third book, Lavender is asking Ginny which boys she prefers over others. She doesn't understand why asking her if she prefers Harry or Ron is "just sick" at first, but then remembers that Ginny used to have a crush on Harry.
  • Dances and Balls: Seem to happen a lot, including the usual and inexplicable re-staging of the Yule Ball, although this series may be the Trope Maker there (well, aside fom Goblet of Fire, obviously). The weirdest instance of this: a formal ball is thrown for Harry's seventeenth birthday party in Draco Sinister. Because Harry would have enjoyed that way more than the low-key seventeenth birthday party he later had with the Weasleys in Deathly Hallows. And whose idea was this? Sirius'! Because it's so in character for Sirius Black to throw a Jane Austen ball to usher his godson into wizarding adulthood.
  • Door Stopper: In terms of word count, the full trilogy is longer than the first six Harry Potter books. That's nearly twice the length of the original Russian version of War and Peace. Atlas Shrugged is less than two-thirds the length of The Draco Trilogy.
  • Functional Magic: Obviously present in (most) Harry Potter fanfics, but notable here due to the considerable liberties the fanwork took with how magic works in the Potterverse, such as Lucious Malfoy getting his power from actual demons. Most of this is because Cassie started writing the trilogy between Prisoner Of Azkaban and Goblet of Fire, before the rules of magic were clearly established.
  • Good Adultery, Bad Adultery: When Ron sleeps with Hermione, who's actually Pansy in disguise, under dark magic, then it's an unforgivable sin. When Hermione makes out with Draco and cuddles in bed with him for several nights, it's barely glossed over.
  • Heel–Face Turn: Draco's character arc in the first story. Yes, present-day Draco fanfic writers, this trilogy actually bothers to explain why Draco is on the good side, instead of just taking it for granted that we'll buy Draco hanging out with the Golden Trio.
  • Identical Grandson:
    • The plot of Draco Sinister focuses on certain characters that are descendants and/or possibly reincarnations of the Hogwarts founders.
    • Harry and Draco also look almost exactly like previous heirs Ben Gryffindor and Gareth Slytherin, to the point where Ron mistakes the latter for the former in his vision.
  • I Have You Now, My Pretty: Salazar Slytherin's rather squick-inducing efforts to drug Hermione with love potion.
  • Informed Ability: We're told that Draco can keep his emotions in check at all times, but he rarely does.
  • Jerkass: Godric Gryffindor, despite being (supposedly) a good person. When you're smugly happy that a sixteen-year-old is dead, you're kind of a bastard.
  • Kissing Cousins:
    • The romance between Sirius and Narcissa, who were hinted at and later shown to be cousins in the books but were not related in the Draco Trilogy. To be fair, though, virtually all the main characters end up being related.
    • An in-universe example: Ben and Gareth, who are heavily implied to be together despite being (second) cousins.
  • Kryptonite Factor: Something called "adamantine" is basically kryptonite for wizards. Mainly it's there to stop Harry and Draco from resolving every plot in two seconds after they become uber-powerful mega-wizards who don't need wimpy wands. Of course, even when adamantine isn't there, it's Lampshaded how thoroughly bad Harry and Draco are at being Magids, since they know very few spells and mostly have their wands anyway. In fact, Harry can barely do anything at all unless he's very, very angry.
  • Lost in Imitation: A kind of fanfic version with the character of Draco Malfoy. Not portraying Draco as a two-dimensional bully was actually a rather novel idea at the time and even after he turns good, doesn't stray too far (most of the time) from what a hypothetical redeemed version of the character might be like. Of course, only the positive aspects of her version of Draco were picked up on and years later fanfic!Draco had decayed from snarky anti-hero to misunderstood Woobie who wouldn't hurt a fly.
  • Love Triangle: several. Namely: Harry/Hermione/Draco, Ron/Hermione/Harry, Draco/Ginny/Seamus, Ginny/Draco/Blaise.....
  • Malevolent Architecture: It's practically impossible to enter Malfoy Manor without getting killed at least three times.
  • Missing Episode:
    • The author tried to invoke this trope with regards to the whole fic, but the Internet has proved a Worthy Opponent.
    • She seems to be winning, as of late. While Draco Dormiens is still fairly easy to find, the next two parts are becoming increasingly difficult to locate.
  • Not Listening to Me, Are You?: Sirius tells Harry he's changed his mind and decided to marry Remus instead of Narcissa. Harry, predictably, is too busy with his own problems to notice.
  • Only a Flesh Wound:
    • Characters constantly get wounds which could cause them to bleed to death in real life and having them completely shake it off.
    • Averted when Draco is badly hurt by an arrow to the shoulder, and nearly dies. Also, when Ron's hand is badly burned, he's out of it for a considerable time.
  • Shout-Out:
    • Draco Dormiens places Malfoy Manor near Chipping Sodbury, the birthplace of J. K. Rowling. The Canon later placed it in Wiltshire.
    • There's actually one to the Evil Overlord List. In Draco Sinister, Draco notices Salazar Slytherin's personal library includes a book called The Handbook for Evil Overlords, which "didn't look as if it had been read much."
  • Tuckerization: The character Rhysenn Malfoy is named after the author's friend, who wrote under the pen name of Rhysenn.
  • Unbuilt Trope: As noted, this story named and brought prominence to the Draco in Leather Pants trope. It also spent a good deal of time showing how Draco would go from bad guy to good guy and the challenges he would face along the way.

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