Alright, I've seen a lot of talk about people saying they can stomach Harry/Ginny if its good enough, just that there aren't any good enough. So this will be a thread that addresses the dirty seedy underbelly of a proper DLP'ers repertoire: decent Harry/Ginny fics.

Ones that succeed in spite of the titless, pale, freckled, freak girl. Stories that go above what you expect when you shackle a mans freedom and blind him with the power of true stalk... I mean love, that's it, love.

I know I'm not about to recommend any actual romance fics, because well, I do have some dignity, and taste, and restraint, and desire to never read romance as long as I live. But here's a few fics that are worth reading, if you can overlook Harry's brain disease, a derivative of Tourettes Syndrome that I shall call Weaslettes Syndrome.

Of course there are classics and big fics everyone knows about like Barb's trilogy (Psychic Serpent, Time of Good Intentions, and Triangle Prophecy) which end in Weaslettes Syndrome. Rosswrock's Power of Time has displayed symptoms of the disease in just the first 370K words. Sloth has a fantastic series that ends in Weaslettes as well. Ruskbyte's OotP and sequel Well of Shadows is well worth reading. Jeconais has a half dozen H/G fics that are all excellent, especially This Means War! which was inspired by Anya's hilarious and brilliant Naked Quidditch Match (another Weaslettes).

Probably my favorite action series of all fanfic is Joe6991's hero trilogy. I definitely recommend reading that one, if you haven't. There's like 10 parts action for every limited romance moment. The entire second book is an alternate world without the love interest Ginny at all. There's a diff Ginny in that world, but not the right one. Yes, she dies. Too many great action sequences to count in the series. Third book's still a WIP but the first two are done here (1-sword, 2-defiance, 3-soul): http://www.schnoogle.com/authorLinks/Joe6991/

Lord Dragon started a pretty dern spiffy action/romance but abandoned it sadly. Don't remember what reminded me of this one but I was re-reading it the other day. Great courtroom scene. One of the best. Still it is 10 chapters and 80K+ words of how a fic can work and have H/G. http://www.fanfiction.net/s/1921201/1/

sib-ff's The Awakening Power is over 200K words, finished 6th year fic with a few moments of romance that I turn my head and waited til they passed, but was otherwise a fantastic fic. Great action scenes. The best Harry vs. Dumbledore duel I've ever read (friendly sport). Some great Harry vs. Snape moments and a well done plot and Voldemort battle at the end. It needs a seventh year fic because it's not a final battle end of the series fic, but still... truly excellent. http://www.fanfiction.net/s/1709027/1/

Brent Braten's Heir of Gryffindor seems more than a tad cliched now, but back when it came out (almost 2 years ago now), I loved it. Another 6th year fic that needs to close the Voldemort storyline with a 7th year. But enough genuine super!Harry good ideas that it's worth checking out. http://www.fanfiction.net/s/1717016/1/

Bobmin had a couple that were fun in spite of the redheaded uber-cunt. Abraxan's fics I have trouble getting into, but others probably like. Semprini's intrigued me a bit, but overall I couldn't stomach them. Finished the first two, but I don't recommend them. Melindaleo has a pair of long finished fics that were a bit thick on the love for me, but I happily stole her disclaimer. So she's got that going for her. James Milamber's Mind Mage I'd imagine has been recommended or mentioned. Didn't do much for me. Read almost all of Ms Spider's Runespoor Shield. Just was way too much wussy-crying-bitch-boy-Harry and gave up. cts's Reign O'er Me is pretty decent, in spite of the uber-soul bond they must hold hands bits. And of course Harry's sister. But without the angst in what you'd expect of most wussy-Harry-loves-Ginny stories. Myth and Legend wrote a pair of fics, Shadows of Silence and Eternity Lost. Lots of emotion, liked them at the time. Now I doubt I could stomach them, but they're not too bad.

And I think I've rambled enough now on Weaslette's Syndrome. So all you others familiar with the disease, let's hear it for some H/G fics that are worth reading in spite of their obvious deficiency. I know you all have one or two H/G fics you like you're scared to mention. It's okay. There can be good fics with H/G. These things happen.

 

Rosswock's is a true classic, despite it being H/G

 

I just realized all the ones I linked to are practically years old. Guess I just don't give more recent fics a fair shot.

But if you want a current fic with H/G that I'm liking quite a bit, I'll recommend this one:

Learning to Breathe by onoM
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2559745/1/
Harry Potter is 16 years old. He already defeated Voldemort, with the help of his Godfather Sirius Black. Now he is in for the biggest challenge of his life: attending Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

It's super-soldier Harry trying to adapt to civilian life. Based off of Jeconais' abandoned fic idea "Aftermath." But this fic has some cool ass action sequences, and quirky humor (rapid contractions in his stomach when he looks at Ginny...thinks he's ill). Only 6 chapters and 36K words so far, but I'm enjoying it. Clever thinking on tracking down and killing the basilisk too.

 

Re: DLP unmentionables: H/G fics you may be able to stomach.

Highly recomended, especially part 2.

Unfortunatelly, it has one of the worst final battles and endings in the history of fanfiction. Book 3 was a big dissapointment for me.

As far as I remember, only like last 2-3 chapters are H/G. Not a big deal, considering that this story practically started the whole post-OOTP Independant!Harry sub-genre.

Harry gains supper powers on a silver platter and then shares half of them with that... that... bitch? Shit, I can still remember how pissed I was when I reached that chapter.

Up until that point, I was a mild H/G shipper and I was finding that story very good.

From that point onward, I started despising that pairing more and more, ending up hating it as I do today.

Thanks a lot Ruskbyte!

That's probably the only Jeconias' story I ever liked. The rest are too heavy on fluff and angst - Yes, "This Means War!" contains fluff, but it's the humor and Super!Harry parts that I liked (same as with Where in the world triology).

Long-standing member of my to-read list. Eh, I guess I just can't get over that god-awful Gryffindor/Slytherin duel.

(dark) Marked, thanks for the heads-up. I've had it on my HD for months, but it just got lost in the sea of others...

This is way better 6th book than JKR's pathetic attempt. Too bad the author gave up on writting a sequel.

Another downloaded and lost story. Thanks for the advice.

Dumbledore's Army and Harry Potter and the Spiritus Crystalus.

The funny thing is, HG wasn't my biggest pet-peevie with these two stories - it was BobMin's standard jumping between artificial angst and mushy crap, fueled with just enough cool scenes and ideas to keep you reading. I ended up so irritated by their angst-ridden artificial plot twists, that I never even had a chance to get properly pissed off by the whole H/G asapect.

Heh, that seems to be the secret of writting a good H/G story - throw in a bunch of other irritating stuff and no one will notice what ship you're sailing. I guess when you're eating shit, watering it with piss doesn't matter much...

One more story I've been dancing around for ages, but never managed to read it pass initial chapter.

Never heard of.

I liked "the Power of Emotion" when I first read it. But back then, I was prefering canon-like H/G epics, so I would probably hate it now.

I guess those who are new to the world of HP fanfiction will like it...

Never got desperate enough.

Oh, I liked this one. I could stand the whole wuss-deal coz it was usually that snake thing holding the little wimps hand while crying for god knows what. And the plot was excellent, one of the better time-travel ideas at the time.

I've been seing this around but never got to reading it.

Difficult to read, but I'd say rewarding in the end. People who like Fayr Warning-kind of angst should like this.

Sorry, but NO. Tried reading it and really couldn't stand it. And it had nothing to do with H/G.

The thing is, I really hate when the main character is clueless about something, especially something as big as... I guess everything.

I'd rather read a story about super-inteligent squib then another story about super!Harry who needs Hermione/Ginny to pull him by the dick and point him the right direction, so he could wiggle his little finger and kill a Death Eater army or two (and then cry about it later)...

 

Re: DLP unmentionables: H/G fics you may be able to stomach.

Never understood why so many love part 2. I despised it. This was the story that taught me to hate to really hate Snape and any sort of Snape-Mentor or Severitis fic. It took a bit more before I found myself gagging at friendly!Draco, but dad!Snape died before it ever got going. Thanks Barb.

Oooh. Then you really wouldn't like Mirengard's Council of Archmages. It's one of those way too similar to Russell's OotP but without the fun, the humor, and more Stalker!Whore!Sex. http://www.fanfiction.net/s/1459880/1/ if you're into pain.

Oh lord, especially in the first one, I simply could not understand how Ginny was the love interest. I honestly thought they were trying to write Ginny as a character we would hate. And I did hate her. There was nothing likeable or redeeming about her in the slightest. Up until near the end of DA, she got better and then barely bothered me in the second one. The phrases and shit that retired American army dude would say really cracked me up in these fics though. He was the best character in the series in my mind. I don't like OC. I especially don't like American OC. And American muggle/squib OC for the most part need to be shot. But this one killed me.

http://www.schnoogle.com/authorLinks/Semprini/
Veil of Mystery = 6th year, Ring of Reduction = 7th. When you think of the absolute worst cliched concept of "The Power of Love" that you can possibly imagine, you've pretty much nailed a big portion of the fics. If memory serves it's Harry/Ginny, Hermione/Neville, and Ron/Pansy, so aside from the worst pairing ever, interesting combos otherwise. But dear god, I was simply rooting for Voldemort to win by the end. That and there's a bit where Blaise turns out gay, and everyone other than Dumbledore thinks homosexuality is like this disease that they need out of the dorms ASAP before it spreads to other students. Being gay is apparently against the rules. That part shocked me more than anything considering the rest of the fic is so... emotion love crap-filled, that I wasn't expecting to be blindsided by hatemongering. Took me a few days before I decided to read the rest since I'd already wasted so much of my life reading the fics.

Yeah, it feels like H/G is like a bad phase you grow out of, once you've read enough. Most of the ones I like/recommend are from when I was less discerning in my tastes. Nowadays, the H/G is almost enough on its own for me to lose all interest.

See I read like the first 40 or so chapters. And then I read a few when it was updated. Some cool runespoor-ish ideas and stuff, but seriously it felt like more than half the chapters were about Harry crying and in pain, and wailing like a goddamn little pussy, and then Ginny coming to help him, and his scar, and then Harry crying some more. Not tears of love, though some of those, mainly tears of a wussy. Just couldn't take it. Think I might have left a less than pleasant review too.

You're not missing too much. This suffers from some of the same problems as many other good fics like Full Pensieve, Wishweaver, the-dreamer. It's like hundreds of thousands of words and we're in summer still. Every little detail is happening and described and the end of the story is not within any sort of imagination. At least last time I read a chapter it was that way. I think they were coming back from America having located the sister Potter. Harry and Ginny still must always remain in contact or else Voldie can nearly kill Harry through his scar. But Harry and Ginny having sex hurts Voldie. Or something. I think Harry might have blocked some anti-aircraft missile with a shield too. And Draco did them all a favor. Meh.

Yeah I can see that. This is by no means a socially capable Harry. He looks at Dobby and assesses his threat level before anything else. I mean he tries out for Quidditch and gets the job because they're all too scared to try out against him. When Sirius was trying to find out if Harry liked Ginny, Harry said "It’s ... strange, Sir. When she makes eye contact with me my abdomen contracts rapidly, my heart rate increases even though there is no visible or perceived threat in the area. It almost feels like my body treats her as a threat. I have never had problems like this before, perhaps I am losing my edge. I have not been sleeping recently, which might contribute to the effects, but I am positive that Miss Weasley has several strange effects on my person. I am unsure what exactly causes it, but I was hoping you had some experience in this matter."

Romance this sterile, I find funny. And the action sequences are the main reason. Him jumping through the halls or transmuting shite makes for great original (as far as HPfanfic I've read goes) scenes and sequences. Full Metal Panic I think is the manga people keep mentioning. I'm not familiar with it. It's just kinda nice to see how everyone at Hogwarts are just odd noncoms and "‘Mione’ was the only one of them that could effectively synthesize the information he provided."

 

I never minded that particular Snape-as-the-father twist. I simply didn't perceive THAT Snape as the same character from the canon. I liked how she made normal-universe Snape stay the same and not turn into that other guy.

As for why the second part is the best one, that would be for the AR part of that story, which is done great. That was the first AR I've ever read and probably one of the first times that idea had been used. I know this story will always remain one of my favourites (even with Slytherin!Harry acting as a stalker).

Yeah, I liked the old veteran twist, but they kinda overused him later in the story.

Too bad good tidbits like this one are only used to further prolong the agony that BobMin's stories are.

I agree.

It's like when a puppy tastes crap a few times when it's little, but then learns better and stops doing it. Still, every dog licks it's arse occasionally, but that's probably only for the sake of good ol days...

Yeah, you're right about that.

I guess that's the curse of all the female authors.

How hard is it for them to understand one thing - a guy could cry coz of injustice, could cry coz of grief, maybe even could shed a tear for love... BUT GUYS DON'T CRY IN PAIN!

Still, plot twists were rather good.

Yes, I agree it's original idea. But I'm still irritated by how clueless Harry is.

If it was done more like a comedy, then maybe I would like it (like Make a wish - at first I didn't like that story too).

But romance, action and just a bit of comedy... no thanks, I get too iritated by Harry's cluessness.

Didn't like this one coz of Harry's constant bitching and angsting.

You're powerful. You're pretty. You're rich. You're knowledgable. You know EVERYTHING that is gonna happen in the perceiveable future..... STOP WITH THE FUCKING ANGSTING AND QUESTIONING YOURSELF AND HAVE SOME FUN, GOD DAMNIT! AGGHHH!

I see I'm never gonna live that down, am I?

Ok, so I admit I was a little pissed off by that instant-love thing and dropped the fic at that point. And yes, the next chapter was really great.

But still, this is bound to turn into very mushy H/G story. Judging by Harry's initial reaction, I give him 3-4 more chapters before he gets completely whipped into a good little pansy-boy.

 

http://www.fanfiction.net/~dbzdragonlanceman

Harry Potter and the Year of Discovery
Harry's sixth year at school. New connection to Voldemort. A budding romance with Ginny Weasley. It will be an interesting year. Complete.
Complete - Harry Potter - Fiction Rated: T - English - Romance/Action/Adventure - Chapters: 30 - Words: 123460 - Reviews: 668 - Updated: 3-21-04 - Published: 1-12-04
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/1683936/1/

Harry Potter and the Spirit of Time
Sequel to Harry Potter and the Year of Discovery. Harry continues his quest to defeat Voldemort during his seventh year at Hogwarts.
Complete - Harry Potter - Fiction Rated: T - English - Romance/Action/Adventure - Chapters: 30 - Words: 122426 - Reviews: 1388 - Updated: 6-10-04 - Published: 3-23-04
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/1786492/1/

These two should be OK (I gave them 8/10 when I read them), but for the life of me I can't remember what they're all about...

 

I never read Barb's trilogy and never will knowing that she made Cho into a bloody fucking Death Eater. I don't buy into that shit at all. That's an even a bigger strike in the negatives than Harry/Ginny in my books.

 

Oh come on, you're taking that Cho thing too far.

I mean, I for instance like Manipulative!Dumbledore, but I can read the story where he is a good guy, if there are other cool things going on.

No offence, but it's just strange to get so attached to a fictional character - Cho is just a character from a book, not even a major one at that. She appears in total of 5-6 scenes (at least 2 of which describe her as a whiny bitch). Yes, I like how cool and mysterious she was in GOF, but why couldn't that mean that she's just a bitch underneath all that? Or a whiny dolt, like in OOTP?

So yes, it's OK to like a character, but I don't see what's the harm in playing with him or her a little. They are not real people, right? Why such a devotion?

 

In this case, because it's totally unrealistic. She is totally obsessed with Cedric's death in canon and basically becomes a shell of her old person due to it. She isn't going to kneel to and serve the guy that for all intents and purposes killed him. I don't mind messing with her character...Hell, I've morphed her into something that she was never even close to being in canon in my own story, but it has to be done within reason. Same goes for any other character. Change is okay when it works, but when it doesn't and it's negative it's just character bashing and therefore poor writing.

Besides, it's still a Harry/Ginny fic. It just looks better on paper to have more than one reason not to bother with it.

And if I can be completely obsessed with hating characters like Malfoy and Ginny, I can also be obsessed with liking Cho. So there. :wink:

At this point I'm not really attached to anything in the Potterverse. I'm so disgusted with what canon and the entire fandom have become that I've pretty much gone over to Naruto as my primary fandom. This site is about all that keeps me around HP at all.

 

Hm, there are lots of ways to turn Cho into a Death Eater after Cedric's death... One of them being that she beleives that Harry had killed Cedric and Dumbledore is covering for him (which is why she turns to their common enemy)...

But anyway, in this case it doesn't matter, coz this triology is post-GOF, so there is no OOTP interpretation of Cho's reaction to go by.

Besides, both Cho and heavy H/G kicks in only in book 3, which sucks anyway.

 

I can't remember any good ones. The only one I can think of is Nightmare of Future's Past, and it's been mentioned already. I used to read alot of them when I was new the the fandom, but they were all the same I can't think of any in particular that stood out in my mind.

I remember Runespoor shield, but Harry kept pissing me off to no ends. He never really did anything, I started to get bored, and then stopped reading altogether.

Oh, right: "HP and the Secret Sanctuary by Farfumsane" isn't that bad and that story "HP and Fates Debt" (don't remember by who, but the title is similar) could be entertaining at times too.

Really, the HP/GW stories don't seem all that bad until you've read ten or so of the same exact plots and cliches... Then it becomes impossible to even respect the pairing.

I agree with that. It's only a few of my updates and this site that keeps me tied to it. I'm rather bored, more than digusted, though. Nothing seems very interesting anymore. It's either Naruto or Inuyasha for me, these days.

 

I never really liked Harry/Ginny, probably because the first fic I read of them was instant love crap. But there are some good fics out there, most of them mentioned in this thread. sib-ff's is probably my favourite, joe's coming in second because it's getting a bit DBZish for me. Nightmares was the one Ginny regained her former lifes memories because of love? I stopped at that point. Harry/Ginny focuses too much on love, that's why I avoid it. Otherwise, it's pretty good.


Bleach is my favourite manga, but Naruto's pretty good. The fandom at least... I hate the anime right now, and the manga is annoying with Naruto obsessed with Sasuke. The fandom is pretty good, even if it's slash infested. I'd recommend the authors Kaara, BlackWindKaze, Kraken. They are Naruto/Ino shippers and the best at it.

MystikD109 writes pretty okay Dark!Naruto, and a bit evil and bloody... Naruto kills just about everyone in this.

Pride-Fall is pretty good as well, if you get past the first few chapters. It takes a while for Naruto to show his skills, but you won't be disappointed when he does.

And Geno Calmari or something. I hear his works are awesome, but I've never read it.

Sorry for getting off-topic. =X

 

I would second all Quack's recommendations. All good quality stories.

MystikD's fics are good, especially Bloody Whiskers. Though I have to admit that the whole training with the Ancient is starting to drag and he needs to get things back into the main plot soonish. I'm liking the Naruto fandom more because my story gets good quality feedback reviews rather than the deluge of "OMK UPDATE SOONER1!!!!1!!!" that I get in Dakaath.

*Waits for the inevitable topic split.*

 

Re: DLP unmentionables: H/G fics you may be able to stomach.

/me laughs at the mention of Barb's trilogy.

I actually spent an entire weekend reading that series.

It was one of those deals where something felt off somehow but you were strangely compelled to continue reading until the end...

And then I got to the end of the third book and I was flabergasted on just how badly she had ripped off the readers--- and instantly hated the whole series for a long time. I think it was two years or so ago this happened and this was back when I still had to go out to a cyber cafe for my internet. So what had happened is I had finished up with all my fics in the archives I had nabbed for the week and was bored out of my skull for something to read when I remembered that I had downloaded Barb's series some time ago but hadn't gotten around to actually reading it.

If I'd been able to hop online right at the ned of the last chapter for an update or author's note or something I'd had figured it out. Alas!

So Sometime last week I was tooling around some fanfic sites and noticed someone all in a tizzy over the fact that Barb had started a new series. (It's in her yaoo group) Out of curiousity I headed over and there I discovered how badly I'd been fooled. There were two or three chapters to book three of the PS series I'd never seen.

Apparently who ever it was (damn him\her) who made the PDFs I had downloaded had not put in the last three chapters of the story and I'd been left at the end of the chapter where Harry had just completed the spell and made his sacrifice. Of course I felt cheated thinking that was the end of the story.

Then again I'm hardly very happy with the way Barb actually left it so maybe ending it with such a pestimistic note would have been best?

--bornagainpenguin (who thought the best parts of Book two in that series were the scenes with the muggle-borns and actually liked the whole idea that was used there with regard to how the Light side for all the right reasons did the all the wrong things.)

 

This is the only h/g fic i woud keep reading...it burns me to say that but this fic got me intrested in independent harry which lead me to dark harry

 

Harry dieng a horrible death

or

Harry sacrificing his magic to save the fucking ferret and then going to live with the stalker as a pathetic little squib for the rest of his sad life.

Go figure wihich one is better.