Fic: Saturdays Are For Football.. for ojuzu

[springmod]

Title: Saturdays Are For Football (The Rest of the Week is for Everything Else)
Author: pitry
Recipient: ojuzu
Character(s): Blaise Zabini, Dean Thomas
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: ~4200 words.
Warnings (if any): language, vague discussion of war crimes and racism.
Summary: Once a week, every week, Dean Thomas allowed himself to pretend nothing had ever happened

Comments

[igrockspock]

This is a really impressive examination of privilege and prejudice. I really liked how Blaise is sympathetic yet clearly naive, and the moment where Dean tells him not to apologize is incredible.

[pitry]

Oh, thank you! These are things that should be carefully examined, glad it worked for you!

[chthonya]

My brain doesn't cope well with figuring out family trees, and you brought it to a shuddering halt here. Is Dean's magical blood the Zabini family? At first I thought that Dean was Blaise's second cousin, Dean's mother being the Muggle Dean's great-uncle's squib son married. But if this is the great-uncle's wife's sister, then there's no blood relation there, is there?

After a few minutes of puzzling I decided to stop thinking about it and get on with reading. And I am in awe - not least because I know how quickly you wrote this amazing story.

I read once that forgiveness is not pretending that a hurt never happened, but rather refusing to let it get in the way of a relationship, and you've illustrated that perfectly here. Blaise's casual racism ('all Muggles look the same'), his obliviousness to his complicity in evil, his misunderstanding of Dean's subdued reaction, his incomprehension at anything being more important than money, his fury at having racism directed at him - all were most believable. As were the small details

[pitry]

Oh, thank you! I'm glad it worked - and yeah, Dean's anger is bubbling beneath the surface quite a bit.

And I'm sorry for breaking your brain like that... Yeah, you're right - they're not blood relatives at all. I wanted an excuse for Blaise to get there in some way, but it was important for me that Dean really is without blood connections to wizards here. I know what JKR said about his father, and it could be the basis of a fascinating story - just not this one.

[chthonya]

Ah, thanks - I'd sort of assumed you were tying it in to what JKR said, but it's been a while since I read that and couldn't remember it clearly. Had I been more familiar with JKR's head-canon I'd hopefully have recognised that it didn't apply here.

Poor brain is easily broken by things like this. :( I have no extended family where I live but a large one in another country so every few years I have to contend with who's a second cousin once removed and the like...

[lazy_neutrino]

I really enjoyed this. I empathise with Blaise about the football: it's an utter minefield as far as I can see. The way you used it to structure the story was wonderful - this safe space in the midst of so much horrific backstory Superb.

[pensnest]

This was recced at fancake on DW, and I can quite see why. You've done a perfect job of showing Blaise's unconscious privilege and lack of awareness of what the various behaviours have really meant. And I love your Dean.