I have a little annoyance at the moment at fanon, that I can lay the blame on canon actually instead of rabid fans.

Why in God's name would any author have Ron and Harry sharing a room, with Hermione/Ginny sharing another, when they go to the Headquarters. Number 12 Grimmauld Place is not the Weasley's hovel. It is the bloody ancestral home of the Blacks. I am 100% positive that the house has more than one guest bedroom.

Has anybody used that? Does anyone see any sense to it?

 

I've always just assumed that not all of the rooms were clean/habitable/not infested with shit-that-goes-bump-in-the-night

 

Oh for the win.

Yeh, I used this in one of my fics. Harry (evil!) decides that he'd be much better off having his own room than having to share with Ron, and thus guilt trips Sirius into it by playing the "poor childhood" card.

Basically, I figure making them share rooms was 1)laziness 2)Molly Wobbles not wanting to worry about the kids being all alone in a room in the big scary house. and most importantly 3) making sure you know where all the kids are so you don't have to worry so much about snoops at Order meetings.

 

I always imagined Grimmauld Place to be big, but canon doesn't exactly suggest that. We know it's got three floors (basement, ground and upstairs) but other than that, how many bedrooms are mentioned? There's only really the two guest bedrooms, Sirius' and Regulus' rooms, and the master bedroom (presumably uninhabitable since they kept the Hippogriff there). It all depends on how big you're going to make it in fanfiction - the majority of authors don't tend to think that far; they just assume that since that's how it happened in canon that's how it's going to happen when they deal with it in their fics.

 

That's definitely one of the reasons, at least the first time they stay there. Not only are most of the rooms filthy, but shit like boggarts and doxies are lurking everywhere. Who wants to sleep alone in a house where you might wake up to find a boggart-fueled worst nightmare looming over the bed, doxies shitting in your hair, Kreacher in his dead mistress's knickers, or even a friggin' lethifold or something?

Another reason may be that they are still at an age where a normal kid might have a sleepover with a friend (maybe the girls more than the guys, but still). In that case, they don't mind so much because they get to hang out with their closest friends (Well... sorry Hermione, you get stuck with Ginny). I can definitely see Mrs. Weasley ignoring the fact that they might have already grown out of that and saying, "You're sharing rooms! Won't that be so much fun! Now why don't you all go use the potty before your naps!"

It's a justifiably popular thing in fanon to have Molly willfully ignore/resist the fact that her children are growing up. There are plenty of canon clues to draw this from too. It's often speculated that Bill and Charlie both work outside of England, at least in part, to escape the long arm of mummy Weasley's smothering nature.

Another reason could very well be to keep them all as close together as possible so the adults have an easier time watching over them. With four separate rooms to keep an eye on, those kids could get up to no end of mischief. They could be up to no good, doing things like huffing glue, indulging in self-abuse (the real reason Remus has hairy palms) or *GASP* necking!

(Lord knows Harry's stress levels are probably through the roof. If anyone needs a wank in order to unwind, it's him. Give the poor kid his own room. Fuck, he slept in a cupboard for nearly nine years, why make him share now? If I had to deal with Harry's life, I'd have beaten myself to a bloody pulp by this time. The Power He Knows Not? Disproportionately massive muscles in my right arm.)