I would be lying if I said the randomizer actually waited until the day 99 to give me this fandom, but it truly did wait until the last ten days! (and then I took the last ten days and put them in my own order, because the list was getting a bit thin.)

Harry Potter of course has no shortage of enemy ships (I used to ship Peter/Petunia, just because everybody had to pick a ship) but I couldn't not cover the good ship Guns 'n' Handcuffs. The Bang (and the Big) in "Big Bang". Going strong for 21+ years. (In fact, one of the first ever H/D authors just published a new H/D fic this week. Which I have not read yet.)

Harry Potter basically started as a crossover of a boys' school story and a fairy tale. And in the school story, you need a rival, like I mentioned in the Earthsea book. I feel like there must have been a lot of people (still are!) in Harry Potter fandom where that was the first book the school stories genre they had encountered - it was very unfashionable and had been for decades by the time the first Harry Potter book came out, for all that everyone from Jane Yolen to DWJ had already done wizardy versions of it - and so they were learning the conventions from HP, instead of nodding along to them. (I guess not everybody had pulled their grandma's old Grace Harlow books off the shelf in the back bedroom on boring summer afternoons.) But if you were familiar with the genre, you knew exactly what role Draco would play as soon as he showed up at the robe shop. And you started shipping it immediately.

I had a discussion elseweb recently about how you can see how some of what goes off in the later Harry Potter books is that JKR couldn't figure out how to transition from the school story/fairy tale pastiche into something else, when she got to the point in her story where she needed to, and you see that in Draco's storyline in particular. He needs and wants to be more than the stock genre antagonist but JKR never quite lets him, and that builds a character tension that is super useful for shipping, too.

Anyway, I have no idea how to come up with a set of three recs that in any way capture this pairing or my experience of it, so instead you get the first three fanfics I ever read for it that are still online (some of the first fanfics I ever read on an online fic archive.) Are they any good? I have no idea. Do I dare re-read them to find out? Nope. But here they are anyway!!

• Love Under Will by bookshop
  Chapters: 16/?
  Pairing: Harry/Draco
  
  Summary: I don't even remember at this point and the website doesn't have one. Harry and Draco fall in love? Under will? I suspect?



• Irresistable Poison by Rhysenn
  Chapters: 15/15
  Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
  Spoilers: All books
  Rating: PG-13
  
  Summary: I am 99% sure this fanfic is the first time I ever encountered the phrase "I want to be inside you". I believe it was uttered in the Astronomy Tower.



• Scholomance by astolat
  Fandom:Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
  Rating: Teen And Up Audiences, Explicit, Mature
  Warnings: Choose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
  Complete Series
  Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter, Hermione Granger/Ron Weasley
  Words: 37,392 Works: 6
  
  Summary: I have not seen anyone address the question of how much this series has in common with that other Scholomance series that just came out, so: I need to catch up on them both, but I just wish to remind everybody that this exists! Draco Malfoy walks into the Scholomance and walks out alive again!