YMMV / The Draco Trilogy

• Audience-Coloring Adaptation: In fanfic communities, most common tropes in Harry Potter fanon cropped up here, to the point that quite a large swathe of fanfiction can look more like this story. In particular, its interpretation of Draco, for better or for worse, is better remembered in many of those communities than the Draco from Book 5 onward.
• Common Knowledge: Contrary to popular belief, Draco does not wear leather pants all throughout the story, he just borrows them from Charlie Weasley during a famous scene in Draco Sinister (his own trousers were wrecked, and Charlie's were made from dragonhide to be fire resistant). He actually bemoans having ever donned the trousers to begin with and bitterly proclaims that he'll never wear such things again.
• Crack Pairing: Draco/Ginny and Sirius/Narcissa. The members of the former couple have only one bit of interaction in canon (second book, to be specific), and the members of the latter couple are never seen interacting in canon at all and are cousins.
• Fandom-Specific Plot: The Yule Ball plot. In Goblet of Fire, the Yule Ball only happens during the Triwizard Tournament, takes place on Christmas day and is important enough to be attended by Ministry officials, with the most popular wizarding bands providing the music. In the Draco Trilogy, the Yule Ball is an annual event, takes place weeks before Christmas Break and is treated as little more than a high school prom. Seventh years actually regard the Yule Ball as beneath them, trumped by something called the Seventh Year Pub Crawl.
• Fanon: The source of quite a lot of it in the Harry Potter fandom.
• Fan-Preferred Couple: Officially, the fic has Draco/Ginny and Harry/Hermione as the main pairings. However, its portrayal of Draco as a troubled bad boy with much sexual tension with Harry was like a match on gasoline for the "Drarry" fandom, and may be one of its biggest legacies within shipping fandom as a whole.
• Funny Moments:
  • Upon seeing Harry naked, Draco says: "Well, would you look at that. Congratulations, Potter."
  • "I have been called many things in my life, Weasley, but never a vicious, cold-blooded piece of toast." (Though notably, this line, minus the 'Weasley', was cribbed from Buffy the Vampire Slayer)
• Hype Aversion: Newer fans can be turned off from this series due in part to the dedication of older fans. The fact that it takes several liberties with the real canon and the plagiarism accusations don't help either.
• Ho Yay:
  • Loads and loads of Harry/Draco subtext. About halfway through Draco Veritas, we get this little gem (paraphrased):
    Harry: I love you.
    Draco: Whaaaaat?
    (they get attacked by random mooks, are understandably distracted, and it is never mentioned again.)
  • There's even an in-universe kiss. Granted it wasn't really Draco, just a Polyjuice hooker but Harry didn't seem to be complaining.....
  • Also, Ben Gryffindor and Gareth Slytherin.
• I Knew It!: Cassie may well be the queen of this. She correctly predicted the name of Malfoy Manor, the positions Ginny and Ron would play on the Quidditch team, Fleur dating Bill, and possibly even Dumbledore's homosexuality. And, perhaps most impressively, that wizards are given watches on their seventeenth birthday.
• Shipping: Harry/Hermione, Draco/Ginny, Ron/Blaise, Sirius/Narcissa.
  • Although Harry/Hermione remains popular today, it peaked in the early 2000s, even after Goblet of Fire seemed to be hinting that Hermione was more interested in Ron. It wasn't until the release of Half-Blood Prince, which saw both Ron/Hermione and Harry/Ginny become canon, that the pairing began to decline in popularity (though many die-hards remained). Cassandra Claire and many in her Inner Circle at FictionAlley were strong advocates of the Harry/Hermione ship (in contrast to Ron/Hermione shippers, who tended to congregate at the rival SugarQuill.net), and most of her fics (which were not Troll Fic like the original Mortal Instruments) heavily featured this pairing.
  • Draco/Ginny was a very popular pairing at the time, due to the "Romeo and Juliet" aspect of the feuding between the Malfoy and Weasley families. It was also Ship Mates with Harry/Hermione, as Ginny obviously couldn't be paired with Ron, and it was a way to redeem Draco (as most Draco/Ginny fics involved a Draco who is a good guy).
  • At the time of writing, Blaise's gender (and race) were unknown, with fandom generally depicting the male Blaise as an aristocratic, dark-haired, olive-skinned Italian (given the Italian surname) and the female Blaise as a pale-skinned ginger (complected similarly to the Weasleys, in fact). Blaise was usually a girl, simply because there was a dearth of female characters prior to the release of the fifth book (which introduced Luna, Tonks, and Bellatrix).
  • Also at the time of writing, it was not yet known that Sirius and Narcissa were first cousins, though it was implied that all pureblood families were related to each other. (Sirius's own parents are second cousins.)
• Ships That Pass in the Night: Draco/Ginny and Sirius/Narcissa. The members of the former couple have only one bit of interaction in canon (second book, to be specific), and the members of the latter couple are never seen interacting in canon at all.
• Squick: Salazar Slytherin first confessed his love for Rowena Ravenclaw when he was fifteen and she was ten.

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