The Draco Trilogy

The Draco Trilogy is a Draco-centric epic written and posted in installments by Cassandra Claire over a period of six years.
The series was very influential in the early days of Harry Potter fandom, but became controversial when it was found that parts of it were plagiarized.
In 2004, a fan said: "The Draco Trilogy did not invent fanon!Draco, but its tremendous fame popularized him and gave him his most recognizable traits--sex and snark. Here Draco is a redeemed figure whose relationship with Harry Potter is at times almost symbiotic. The story itself draws massive popularity from the underlying H/D subtext, despite its multiplicity of het pairings, and is probably singlehandedly responsible for the fact that most Draco fans are also H/D shippers." from Defining Draco Malfoy., endnotes] by Aja
==Content==
The series consists of three novel-length stories: Draco Dormiens, Draco Sinister, and Draco Veritas. Although the Draco Trilogy started as het, it was unusual in that it included plenty of intentional Harry/Draco subtext that straddled the divide between slash and het in the last part, Draco Veritas, even if the story "technically" never crossed that line.When a fan in 2000 commented on hpslash that she thought part of the story was "slashy," Claire responded in playful manner that the hand-holding between Draco and Harry, and Harry's tears when Draco broke his leg were of course, "not slashy." She teased saying "Yeah, I think it's *just* you. No slashy moments there. *giggles, skips away*" -- recollection by MPH of a November 29, 2000 post by Claire titled "patronus and animagus/Draco" on hpslash.
The series begins with a love triangle where both Draco and Harry are interested in Hermione. By the end of the series, the resolution of the romantic entanglements confirms the pairings Draco/Hermione and Harry/Ginny.
Draco Dormiens, Draco Sinister, and Draco Veritas are, someone's calculated, almost one million wordsAccording to The Longest Harry Potter Fanfics by pokey1984, posted 27 October 2006, the word total was 896,762. Retrieved 04 November 2008. amanuensis1. The Draco Trilogy by Cassandra Claire. Complete. 04 August 2006. Retrieved 27 December 2010. . (or 207, 996, and 1697 pages)The numbers refer to the illustrated PDF version of the stories that's available on the net if you search for it. and the fics were many fans' first introduction to fanfiction. The trilogy is hailed by some as the "fanfiction of all Harry Potter fanfictions",Clarriscent. What is Draco Trilogy?, 21 March 2010. Retrieved 27 December 2010. . Wayback Machine. but like all things that are hailed, others couldn't or didn't believe the hype.Yemi-Hikari, (2010). Classic Sues: The Draco Trilogy. Retrieved January 31, 2010. 
== Draco Dormiens ==
Draco Dormiens, the first novel of the trilogy, was posted serially to FanFiction.Net in August 2000. It is the shortest novel in the series by far, totaling roughly 70,000 words. (Draco Veritas totals nearly 540,000 words.)
The story is now an AU, diverging from canon after Goblet of Fire. It is set during Harry's sixth year, and begins when unforeseen consequences with Polyjuice Potion in Potions class cause Harry and Draco to become indefinitely bodyswapped. The need to keep this a secret, the even greater need to find an antidote, and a love triangle where both Draco and Harry are interested in Hermione, power the plot of the novel.
Author's summary: "When an accident in Potions class turns Harry into Draco and Draco into Harry, each is trapped playing the part of the other. Romance, mistaken identities, Really Cunning Plans, evil bake sales, a love triangle, and snogs galore."
== Draco Sinister ==
Claire began posting Draco Sinister on FanFiction.Net in late 2000. In June 2001, when the fic was one chapter away from completion, it was reported for plagiarism and Claire's works were deleted from the archive. (See also: The Cassandra Claire Plagiarism Debacle and Plagiarism Controversy, below.)
Draco Sinister and Draco Dormiens were uploaded to FictionAlley in July 2001, and Draco Sinister was completed on July 22.
Author's summary: "When Hermione is kidnapped, Harry and Draco must team up to rescue her from a thousand-year-old evil that threatens the entire wizarding world. Cursed demon swords, love potions, time travel, dementors, flying dragons, Draco wears leather, and everybody dies at least once. Except when they don't."
== Draco Veritas ==
Draco Veritas was posted over a period of five years, from August 2001 to August 2006. It only appeared online in its entirety for about two weeks before Claire took down her fanfiction in order to embark on her profic career. (See Cassandra Claire: Fannish Retirement.)
Author's summary: "The sequel to Draco Sinister, featuring winter at Hogwarts, snogging, Quidditch, mysterious things and Rhysenn Malfoy."
==The Series' Influence==
The trilogy contributed to the popularization of Fanon Draco, called "Leather Pants Draco"The phrase (also known as Draco in Leather Pants) has become a catchphrase for "tak[ing] a controversial or downright villainous character and downplay[ing] his flaws, turning him into an object of desire". TV Tropes Wiki. Draco In Leather Pants. Accessed 4 November 2008. after a famous scene in Draco Sinister where Draco ends up looking good in incredibly tight leather pants.
For many fans, these stories fed an intense desire for more Harry Potter as they endured the long waits between books."...it's making the wait for book 5 a little easier, and you are all very very good writers in your own right." -- no longer a fanfic virgin!, May 16, 2001
Fans in 2001 described waiting for chapter 14 of Draco Sinister to be posted: "All this DS14 watching/waiting has been really amusing in a way. It's kind of spawned a great phenomenon, "PoU group popping" I know a lot of people were on, just doing stuff, and hoping, but LOTS of us were popping on and off, just hoping.I know, cause I did it. It made for a highly social night though, since everytime I did, I'd get a few "I am losing my mind, waiting!" type IMs. Plus the fun of watching people on your BL pop on and off, and know everyone's doing the same thing.Makes it seem like a cozy community, all this cohesive waiting, and comforting each other.Now, if we could only wipe the evening clean for reading later. ( I hope) ~Circe, grateful whenever DS14 appears" Re: [ParadigmOfUncertainty] Digest Number 526, April 17, 2001
Another fan described the wait for the next fiction installment: "This is hilarious! All these people waiting for DS14 when cassandra herself is probally asleep.... My friend spent the night and we stayed up all night waiting for DS14." DS-sleep deprivation, April 17, 2001, comment at ParadigmOfUncertainty
At least one fan speculated that Cassandra Claire's fiction, and the stories by madlori, were beginning to provide enough fanon, that fans would no longer be able to distinguish between JKR's books and the ideas and characters provided by "The Draco Trilogy" and "The Paradigm of Uncertainty" (madlori's story): 
=== Its Influence on the Fandom, Specifically Harry/Draco===
In a 2012 interview, Aja had extensive remarks about "The Draco Trilogy," its popularity, and its influence on Harry Potter fandom, and Harry/Draco fanworks in particular:
==Its Origins==
In 2006, Cassandra Claire talked extensively about "The Draco Trilogy."
The Draco Trilogy was the first fanfic Cassandra Claire had written. In July 2006, she was "bringing it to a close." Slashcast Insider Interview with Cassie Claire
The below quotes are from Slashcast Insider Interview with Cassie Claire which was conducted in July 2006.
Claire said: 
Claire said: 
Claire said: 
Claire said: 
== Slash in the Draco Trilogy ==
Het fans and slashers don't always get along, especially in a fandom known for impressive shipwars, and the Draco Trilogy was a huge het flagship. The idea that this story might turn into slash (any slash, even a minor pairing) was not one all shippers felt comfortable with. Cassie Claire had already written Harry/Draco slash and she was friends with slashers, so it was always a possibility that was difficult to ignore.
Several alternate universe outtakes penned by Claire include slash. For example, "Twist", a ficlet based on DS9, includes Ron/Draco and implied Draco/Harry. "In Which Draco Realizes Why He Is So Fond of Green Umbrellas" diverges from the events of DV1 to become Harry/Draco slash. Claire also wrote a DV missing scene that included Draco kissing Harry to prove that Draco "could be gay, if [he] liked"—of which she said: "Feel free to consider it DV canon -- I do."Cassandra Claire on LiveJournal. ficlet. Posted 21 December 2002. (Archived 01 September 2003 by the Wayback Machine.)
In the Trilogy itself, Claire included intentional H/D subtext, as well as a kiss between Harry and someone who had Polyjuiced into Draco. Additionally, she included a slash relationship with her OCs Ben and Gareth, ancestors and analogues of Harry and Draco, respectively.
Claire has said that she considers the Trilogy slash, in the sense that it has gay characters in it.Cassandra Claire on LiveJournal. *gloom*. Posted 02 May 2003. (Archived 24 September 2003 by the Wayback Machine. WebCite)
== Fanart ==
The now-defunct fansite The Draco Trilogy Archives had a fanart section that linked to hundreds of Draco Trilogy-related art and organized the links by chapter and character. Though the website no longer exists, fanart for the Draco Trilogy still can be found all over the net.
* deviantArt search for Draco Dormiens. Static snapshots of the search results can be seen here, here and here (Date: April 5, 2013)
* deviantArt search for Draco Sinister. Static snapshots of the search results can be seen here and here (Date: April 29, 2023)
* deviantArt search for Draco Veritas. Static snapshots of the search results can be viewed here and here (Date: April 5, 2013)
* deviantArt search for Draco Trilogy. Static snapshots of these search results are here, here and here. (Date: April 5, 2013)
The PoU-Art Yahoo! group also hosts a large number of fanart for the Draco Trilogy.
==After Draco==
From Slashcast Insider Interview with Cassie Claire in July 2006, as "The Draco Trilogy" was wrapping up but before Mortal Instruments was published, Cassandra Claire said:
==These Stories in Context: Some Powerhouse Early 2000 Harry Potter Fics==
In the early 2000s, Harry Potter fandom was still quite new, and fans were clustering and swarming in many ways that would define much of the fandom later. One of these gathering points were a group of highly admired stories by a group of well-known Harry Potter writers. These stories, posted as serials, had many fans at the edge of their seats waiting for installments.
A fan wrote in 2001: 
The Fics:
* The Paradigm of Uncertainty Trilogy by Lori Summers
** Paradigm of Uncertainty (April 2000-September 2000)
** The Show That Never Ends (October 2000-March 2002)
** The Hero with a Thousand Faces (May 2002-May 2005, chapters 1-12, March 2008, summary for chapter 13)
* The Draco Trilogy by Cassandra Claire
** Draco Dormiens (July–September 2000)
** Draco Sinister (September 2000-July 2001)
** Draco Veritas (August 2001- August 2006)
* The Trouble in Paradise Series by Ebony Thomas
** Trouble in Paradise (December 2000-July 2001)
** Paradise Lost (August 2001-August 2004)
** ficlets and cookies: Eres Todo En Mí (December 2001), Indecision (August 2001), Rules Of Engagement(September 2001)
* The Sirius Stories
** A Sirius Affair by Carole Estes and Penny Linsenmayer (July 2000-August 2002)
** A Sirius Change by Carole Estes (February 2002-March 2004)
== Plagiarism Controversy ==
The story first became the subject of major controversy when one reader identified an extensive sequences of action, description and dialogue from Draco Sinister, Chapter 9 as having been lifted from The Hidden Land, an out-of-print fantasy novel by Pamela Dean. Though this was sufficient to get Claire banned from FanFiction.net, readers have identified other borrowed text as further evidence of Claire's plagiarism.
The series also incorporates an intricate web of dialogue pieces and text passages from popular genre television shows and books. Two characters might have a lengthy conversation which Buffy the Vampire Slayer fans will recognize as dialogue from the show, or Harry might answer a question with the words of a character from Babylon 5. The practice of hiding quotes from other media sources in the text of the story was well-known and accepted by some of Claire's readers, and it was used as a way of engaging the fans on a mailing list the story was posted to. Readers would guess which parts were quoted and what the source was, they would suggest lines to include from different sources that would fit this or that character, and there were unofficial "quote-nabbing contests" with other fanfic writers.See excerpts of mails posted to the mailing lists ParadigmOfUncertainty and cassie_and_rhysenn, reproduced here and here. Retrieved 07 November 2008. However, in spite of the relative candidness of these practices, they contained huge potential for trouble because they relied heavily on context to be understood.
Another major issue, related to the use of pop culture dialogue, was that Cassandra Claire reproduced concepts, rough scenes, descriptive phrases and dialogue from several fantasy novels. Such borrowings were often uncited (or cited in such a way as to make the amount of borrowed text appear far less extensive than it actually was).
The story and author were removed by Fanfiction.net admins in June 2001. For more information, see the comprehensive account of events by Avocado.The Cassandra Claire Plagiarism Debacle, posted to the journalfen community bad penny, 04 August 2006. . Retrieved 07 November 2008. 
==Removal from the Internet==
"The Draco Trilogy," specifically chapter nine and allegations of the plagiarism in it, was one of the initial reasons for the success of FictionAlley; Cassandra Claire's ban from FanFiction.Net due to these allegations, combined with FFN's extensive downtime problems, caused many fans to flock to the newly opened site.
Since the launch of Cassandra Claire's profic career, and for other reasons, the stories have been taken down. It is possible to find them circulating by email and file sharing sites, and has even been reuploaded in the form of a blog.Draco Trilogy blog, accessed 30 January 2013. Unavailable as of 23 April 2013; archived version here.
Around August 17 and 18, 2001, fans were perplexed by the chapters' disappearance off of ParadigmOfUncertainty, something that was related to issues with their removal from Fanfiction.net. See The Cassandra Claire Plagiarism Debacle. One fan provided a link to a site created by Heidi8 where the fic had been uploaded. Today, the site has this message: "We're sorry, but the Draco Trilogy and all related fanfiction has been removed at the request of the author and is no longer available online. If you do come across a copy online, it's unauthorized and probably not be the original version." The Draco Trilogy, accessed August 17, 2016
== Fandom's Reaction to the Plagiarism Controversy ==
That could have been the end of it, but the emotional investment of Claire's fans caused tremendous upheaval in the wake of the decision.
Draco Dormiens and Draco Sinister happened to be among the most popular Harry Potter stories at Fanfiction.net.According to the recollection of one reader, Draco Dormiens had more than 6,000 comments before it was removed. DS was posted as a WIP and the serial format invited readers to speculate about what might happen next, who might end up with whom, and they were looking forward to updates. When it was deleted, fans were cut off from their favorite fannish crack. Someone took it and they wanted it back! The same kind of impulse leads to "Bring Back My Show" campaigns, which makes it less of a surprise that people reacted in a similar way.
Many fans, including BNFs, pulled their fiction from Fanfiction.net in protest. One of them was Lori Summers, author of the extremely popular Paradigm of Uncertainty series. A list mod, Carole Estes, reposted the message Lori Summers had posted at Fanfiction.net to ParadigmOfUncertainty, the fic's mailing list: 
To this day the conflict remains unresolved in many corners of fandom. Many fans are firmly of the opinion that Cassandra Claire is a plagiarist. On the other hand, many fans still enjoy the Draco Trilogy and her other works. Fittingly enough, the controversy had two major results: The wank surrounding the plagiarism accusation was so immense as to give Cassandra Claire the nickname "She Who Must Not Be Named""I give you the Pottersues FAQ,". Retrieved 03 November 08. in the Cult-of-Meaner circles in Harry Potter fandom, in the belief that even mentioning her name was enough to derail any wank report into a discussion of whether or not what she had done was plagiarism. At the same time, it led to the creation of FictionAlley, a major Harry Potter archive that became the new home of the Draco Trilogy.According to Avocado's 2006 bad penny report, "The official story, cited by ignatius and Charlotte Lennox, is that the Fiction Alley archive was already underway at the time Cassandra Claire was blacklisted from FanFiction.Net, but that the deletion of her account accelerated the release of the archive." However, Avocado says that "It appears that, prior to her account deletion, individual fans had plans to develop their own fansites to host fanfiction. However, after her account was deleted, they decided to work together and create an archive with a much wider scope. Thus, the existence of Fiction Alley as a large collaborative archive resulted from the deletion of Cassandra Claire's account from FanFiction.Net. To my mind, this is not the same thing as the archive 'being in the works' and its release being accelerated." 
==Comments About the Fiction Itself==
===Early 2000s===
===2004===
===2005===
===Other Places to Read Comments and Reviews===
* there are many at ParadigmOfUncertainty, a public mailing list located here
* fans and Claire have much discussion about "The Draco Trilogy" at cover art; questions; archive link for page 1 of 7, October 13, 2006
* , Goodreads
== References ==
Category:2000s
Category:Het Fanfiction
Category:Scandals