Lady Darkness

Quick Facts about "Lady Darkness"

The original idea for "Lady Darkness" came from a fic meme Emcee posted in her Livejournal. The message read:

Leave a comment with a drabble request, pairing or character-based. Give me:
- a title
- one line of dialogue

rain replied with:

Fandom: Harry Potter
Title: "Lady Darkness"
Pairing: Riddle/Ginny
Line: "I have great plans for you."

Yeow. I think that one could spawn a much longer darkfic.

The original fic can be read HERE.

rain's other suggestions were for a Dobby/Winky story called "When I Think About You, I Touch My Elf" and a Molly and Percy story called "Prodigal Son".

The original draft of "Lady Darkness" featured many elements dropped from the final cut. As fun as they were, they just didn't fit the tone of the story.

Added elements included the affair between Lucius Malfoy and Severus Snape and the death of Luna's father.

The original draft of "Lady Darkness" was a spin-off of the Marauder-Era Role-Playing game Emcee and rain mod. Several elements from "First War" remain in the final draft.

The minor character of Yuki Higashiyama is another element culled from "First War". In that game, she is known as Yuki Maeda. The new surname was given to her to suggest to those familiar with the character that she had been married (and divorced) since leaving school. She was originally written out of "Lady Darkness", but was put back in to fill out the ranks of the Order, since several characters had been killed during Harry's sixth year. She also provided a neutral, detached point of view on the situation with Ginny.

Yuki Higashiyama later turned up in "Through the Veil", which has some similarities with "Lady Darkness". This game also included the aborted idea of James John, Sirius' son. Ironically, JJ would become Ginny's boyfriend.

The name of Tom and Ginny's snake, Apophis, is the Greek name for the Egyptian God Apep. He was known as "The Destroyer". He is the patron god of evil and darkness and is personified by a giant serpent or crocodile. Apophis/Apep was one of the few Gods who was never worshipped. In fact, the priests of Ra would burn an effigy of Apophis/Apep every year to keep evil at bay.

The prank invented by Fred and George, involving a person's knickers jumping a foot to the left is an homage to "Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Emcee has referenced this before on HP-RPG and in "A Story About Knickers".

The first song chosen for the soundtrack of "Lady Darkness" was "Won't Get Fooled Again" by the Who. It still has not appeared in a chapter title.

The model that is used to portray Ginny in all of the promotional material is Isla Fisher. All other characters use their movie counterpart. Isla Fisher was selected as it was deemed Bonnie Wright was too young to make a convincing dark lady.

The now infamous exchange of "Oh God!" "Leave him out of this." was not in the original draft of "Lady Darkness". It was taken from an unreleased fic set in the "Labyrinth of Illusion" universe. The original speakers of the lines were Gwendolyn Maclay and Severus Snape. When it came to write the love scene, Emcee remembered the exchange and thought it fit Ginny and Tom better. rain, who had written Severus/Tom's part of the exchange (and the famous line), had completely forgotten it.

Showing that Emcee can't help but reference her own work: Lucius' Romany maid Martja appears in "Eyes of the Chosen", despite the two stories taking place in different universes.

The band used most frequently in the chapter titles is The Beatles. While the story is not finished yet, considering Emcee and rain's love of The Beatles, this probably won't change.

To put speculation to rest: Yes, the idea of Ginny passing Basilisk poison through a kiss was a homage to Poison Ivy from "Batman".

To differentiate the novel-length "Lady Darkness" from the original quickfic, the official title is "The Lady Darkness Saga". This is an allusion to X-Men's "The Dark Phoenix Saga", another tale about a formerly good redhead who goes bad.

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