amplificathon

TITLE: Trade
AUTHOR: Hackthis
READER: FayJay
FANDOM: Harry Potter/Alias (nonmagical AU)
RATING: NC17
PAIRINGS: Various (slash)
DURATION: 7 hours
FORMATS: mp3, m4a, audiobook
SOURCE TEXT: here


Yes, it's an AU crossover of two fandoms which aren't particlarly active any more - but I'm still tremendously fond of this story, and it was fun to finish off, and even if you don't realise that you need an HP/Alias AU crossover in your life, you may well be surprised by how much you actually DO.

See, back when I was watching Alias I was DELIGHTED by the introduction of Julian Sark. De. Ligh. Ted. Because he was awesome, and because he was basically Fanon!Draco, which was just entertaining as hell.

The delightful hackthis was not content to think: "OMFG, Fanon!Draco on my TV screen!" Nope, she followed this thought and concluded that there must be a Harry Potter/Alias crossover. It's a nonmagical AU in which the Malfoys...well, they run a very high class escort agency. I know - crack, right? Shiny AU Crossover Crackfic! It's a very satisfyingly tangled plot, with interesting relationships, great banter and saucy hot bits, but what makes it truly fabulous is (a) Hackthis knows London inside out, despite being back in the US these days, and she really creates a fantastic sense of place and time - London is almost a character in its own right; (b) OMFG, the clever clever way she ties these canons together, I can't even...

I think if you've never been into either Harry Potter or Alias, this story stands beautifully on its own two feet and doesn't require any knowledge of the source texts. If you're familiar with either of them, it's even more fun, with its brittle, cranky, camp, pragmatic, slightly broken and fabulously foul-mouthed Chelsea-fan fashion snob protagonist busy running a not-exactly-legal business, dealing with his fabulously functional (if far from nuclear) family and negotiating the perils of friendship, sex, lies, spies and newspaper scandals on the way to falling head over heels in love.

If you're a rabid Harry/Draco OTP-er, this possibly isn't the story for you. Draco's love life is complicated, but never dull. Oh! Also, the story was written back when we finally knew Blaise Zabini's gender, but had no idea what he looked like yet. Turns out canon made him HOTTER than fanon - how often does that happen? But this Blaise is entirely splendid in his own right.