Welcome to the first in a series of blog posts highlighting the winners of this year’s Golden Ink Awards!

We begin with the fic that won Best Slow Burn Romance - and you know it’s a slow burn, because 27 chapters in, the two leads can still barely stand to be in the same room as one another (and it’s been a heck of a journey just getting them into the same room in the first place!) But we know they belong together because they were SO good together before.

I speak, of course, of Al Potter and an OC you can’t help but root for: Sunita Chandrakumar (or, as she’s now known, Sunita Kumar).

Witchful Thinking

by @PinsandKneazles

2024 Inkys Winner: Best Slow Burn Romance

Witchful is the sequel to the story in which we first met Sunny, and she first met Albus: No Wands, Please - We’re Muggles.

No Wands is an endearing, pun-filled, annoyance-to-lovers romp around Cambridge University as Sunny (a Muggle) and Al (pretending to be a Muggle) meet while studying medicine. They are perfectly adorable together, and so well suited, but Pins is diabolical.

Spoiler:

And then Pins wrote Witchful Thinking and made it all better we are still waiting on, um, pins and kneazles for this slow burn to turn the Sunny/Al dumpster fire into fireworks once again.

Comments from nominations of Witchful during this year’s (anonymous) Inky’s noms:

"I'm not sure I've ever wanted anything more than I want a happy conclusion for this fic, for these two MC's to get (back) together. So in that way, sure, it's a slow burn, but Pins makes it something even more than that, because there are stakes above and beyond the romance element. I'm so invested, and in constant anticipation of what Pins has in store."

"We continue to follow the love story of Sunita and Al as they navigate towards each other again, slowly and painfully because they are both a pair of idiots that we love."

See, the Sunny/Al split is complicated by a few things. First, Sunny and Al each blame one another for the breakup. That’s maybe not so atypical of a breakup in general, but let’s just say they each recall their breakup conversation very differently.

Second, there is the minor detail of one Priya Kumar. Sunny’s child. Who is also Al’s child. Whom he doesn’t know about. Sunny also still doesn’t know about Al’s magical background. Three guesses what Priya turns out to be!

Poor Sunny really can’t catch a break. Because Pins doesn’t just stop there. The stakes are high in Witchful. There’s a kidnapping. A disappearance. A Splinching. Another family laying claim to Priya as their own child. Between that and the mysterious circumstances of the breakup at the end of No Wands, it’s clear that someone else has been trying their damnedest to interfere with what Sunny wants.

Albus is delightfully infuriating. He’s smart, handsome, capable, and we know he has great capacity for love and playfulness - but being dumped by Sunny in No Wands did a number on his heart, and he can be every bit the cold, condescending ass Sunny once thought he was when they first met at Cambridge. Though now he also has a new fiancee (and we are trying very hard not to panic about this).

The Potter-Weasley family members are doing their level best to smack some sense back into him. Every appearance of theirs in Witchful is a joy. But the real MVP might be one auntie Padma Greengrass (née Patil), who loves Sunny to bits. You just know Padma must give the best hugs!

How does Padma figure into all of this? You’ll just have to read to find out! You won’t be disappointed. (But you might find yourself very impatient for updates!)

Links to Pinsandkneazles’s No Wands universe:

No Wands, Please - We’re Muggles - 33 chapters, completed

Another View from the ‘Bridge - 21 chapters, incomplete - a collection of fluffy Sunny/Al moments

After Al - 12 chapters, completed - a short story in which Sunny comes to terms with impending motherhood

Witchful Thinking - 27 chapters, incomplete - the universe throws Sunny and Al back together in the least expected way

Write-up and picspam by RonsGirlFriday