Play Bys:
Young Alana: Kristen Kreuk
Adult Alana: Patricia Velasquez
Harry: Daniel Radcliffe
Draco: Tom Felton
James: HPSS-era Daniel Radcliffe (but with better hair)
Julian: HPSS-era Tom Felton (but with better hair)
Soundtrack:
(I listened to this mix during most of the process of writing this story. So blame that for the emo tone.)
Bittersweet, Within Temptation
Memories, Within Temptation
Broken, Seether feat. Amy Lee
What I've Done, Linkin Park
Desert Rose, Sting
I Wrote This Song, Making April
Everything, Lifehouse
Only Hope, Switchfoot
All I Need, Within Temptation
Never Alone, Barlow Girl
It's Not Over, Secondhand Serenade
Temper Temper, Envy on the Coast
Quiet Mind, Blue October
You Wanted More, Tonic
Broken, Lifehouse
Collide, Howie Day
Forgiven, Within Temptation
Fall For You, Secondhand Serenade
Here's to the Nights, Eve 6
Fun Facts:
- Originally, Darkness was going to be told linearly, from Ron and Hermione getting Alana out of Azkaban to Alana and Harry putting their life back together. I decided to change it because I got the idea of Alana keeping a diary of what had happened to her, and I wondered what would happen if Harry read that journal. Then I grew to really like the idea of jumping around in the timeline, matching up Alana's journal entries with Harry's present and bits and pieces of their separate and collective pasts. That idea eventually became the version of Darkness here today.
- Originally, Darkness was going to have a happy ending, and no sequel (that's the hallmark of my early writing; everything ends happily. Now, that doesn't happen quite as often, and when it does it's not until after a boatload of angst). And by happy ending, I mean Alana and Harry forgiving each other and falling back in love, getting married, and having another child while forging themselves and the boys into one big happy family. I changed it because (a) Julian Malfoy didn't quite fit into that happy family of Alana/Harry/James, and (b) as my concept of the story changed, I realized that there was way too much for Harry and Alana to work through to attempt to give them a happy ending in one story (much less be close enough [or close enough to each other when drunk] to have any sort of physical relationship). Which is how the idea of the sequel came to me. Will there be a happy ending in the sequel? We'll see...
- Originally, Alana was not a Wishgiver; she was called an Unnamed, so-called because certain magickal traditions state that to name a thing is to have power over it, and no one was supposed to be able to control this kind of witch. Originally, Alana's powers had nothing to do with granting wishes; she was just a conduit for raw energy and magic. She would let that power build, and then expell it all at once, like a bomb. Remnants of that idea can be seen in ch. 18, when Alana's magic lifts her off the ground and illuminates her like a lightbulb. When Alana was an Unnamed, the idea was supposed to be that she was feared not so much for who she was, but what she had the potential to do. I changed her powers around because the idea of twisting the use of wishing and turning it into a weapon was really intriguing to me.
- At one point, Draco was going to be alive throughout the entire plot, and locked in Azkaban. Meaning, originally Alana was going to have to choose between her childhood love and the one she wasn't meant to love. I changed that because as I've grown as an author, I've come to like tragedy and unhappiness. I rather fancy putting Draco in the spot of the tragic antihero.
- Alana's backstory used to play a much more integral part in the story. Early on in the plotting process, while Harry was reading the journal I was going to have him tracking down her history. Originally Alana was going to be a much shadier and more mysterious character. But I decided to use only those parts of her background that were important to the central idea of the story: why she betrayed Harry. And eventually I decided that I would tell Alana's backstory; but I would do it in a prequel, so I could give it all the attention it deserves.
- Originally, it was going to be Alana who betrayed Harry. Originally, she really did turn her back on him, and betrayed him to Voldemort in order to keep her standing among the Death Eaters. But I changed that for a few reasons: (a) I could never quite justify why Alana would do such a thing, because I always saw her as a rather noble character. (b) I knew that if Alana actually had betrayed Harry, none of my story would work at all. (c) I instantly fell in love with the idea that Alana became a victim of the war herself, that by falling for Harry she put herself in danger, and when that danger was exploited by a jealous third party (Cho) Alana lost everything and had to take the blame for something she didn't really do. Maybe it was a cop-out on my part, but I like the edit of that situation much better than how I originally saw it.
- I started writing this story a really long time ago- I believe it was either just prior to or just after the release of OotP (the book, not the movie). I had it all plotted out and everything... but then I lost interest, and moved on to other projects. I just happened to stumble across my notes for Darkness last year, and decided to sit down and write it out. So this was almost The Plot That Wasn't.
But Wait! There's More!
There's a Sequel!
Title: Lead Us to the Light
Characters: Alana Montblanc, Harry Potter, James Montblanc, Julian Montblanc Malfoy, Ron and Hermione Weasley, Kingsley Shacklebolt, Alastor Moody, Bellatrix Lestrange, Tisiphone Niger
Setting: France, England, Scotland, Spain
Premise: Harry and Alana are reunited just in time to watch a new age begin... a new age suspiciously like the last dark age. Has the Dark Lord left behind a legacy? Is the growing shadow a new wave of terror, or a continuation of the old? And will Harry Potter step up once again to defeat it... or will someone else be asked to make the sacrifice?
As If That Weren't Enough...
There's A Prequel!
Title: The Light in the Darkness
Characters: Lord Voldemort, Camilla Montblanc, Hugh and Lucretia Montblanc, Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy, Draco and Scorpius Malfoy, Alana Montblanc, Charlotte Sinclair
Setting: England, France
Premise: The Dark Lord engineered everything. He arranged a marriage in order to breed a weapon, a weapon that would ensure him victory in the growing war between good and evil, dark and light. But his weapon is not a thing of steel and wheels; it is a living, breathing little girl by the name of Alana. And by forgetting that the Dark Lord's Star is a human being, by plunging her into a dangerous world of greed, ambition, and evil, a world for which she is not prepared, they are threatening to destroy everything they've hoped to build.
So, if any of that sounds like your cup of tea, do please be patient with me as I struggle to get my Muse's rear in gear to write all this out!