I like reading slice of life scenes. Especially romantic ones though only with a good characterization that avoids presenting the main characters as a generic couple.

 

Seriously, Matt's stuff is fucking awesome, all of it. Only Zombie stuff I've ever really dug is by him.

I seriously had trouble with this title, reminds me of Baby Harry (ask Lungs T_T )

 

Damn that was like the first crack idea I ever had. My first HP story was just a weird cracky bit on Harry making food.

 

Master of Death Harry. More awesome if you make it time-travelling or dimension-popping.

 

A well done Dumbledore/Voldemort always makes me giddy, and a smart Harry too. Add that to a story where the Wizarding world is developed beyond the books (new locations, buildings, etc: magical or mundane) with ocs who actually have purpose and you've got a very good fic for me. Which is why I like Silens/Shezza/etc's stuff.

 

Liberal use of fire. Fire always makes it better.

 

You phrased this like you meant the pairing, which made me go WTF for a moment. :|

As for me:

Harry in Slytherin is always, always a plus.

Beautiful prose, imagery, atmosphere. I may sometimes keep reading a fic with a premise I don't like simply to revel in the pretty words.

'Broken', messed up romances with at least one thing seriously wrong about them, which still manage to stay sexy and not wander too far into squick territory. (I.e. most slash doesn't pass that test.) The pairings tend to contain at least 1 practitioner of the Dark Arts.

Also, dynamic romances. Stuff must happen to the couples; no relationship stays the same forever. Maybe they fall apart, break up, go do some shit on their own and come back changed, resume their relationship and make it into something totally different from last time, or -- egads! -- maybe the writer could make it so that relationships don't happen in a bubble somewhere outside of the main plot, and have the pairing actually be of some consequence to the story.

No prophecy! I was like 10 when I read OotP; couldn't buy that then, sure as hell won't buy it now.

Suspense. One of the greatest successes of a fic is to get me to carefully avoid skipping a few paragraphs to see the outcome of the scene, for fear of missing some crucial moment in-between on which everything else hinges, and consequently ruining my pleasure as a reader.

Stories with a "heavy", mature feel to them; with depth and thought-provoking themes and that constant anticipation of the metaphorical incoming storm. The exact opposite of juvenile power fantasies / tween romances, literary masturbation, and Mary Sues. As you read it, you know that everything is in there for a purpose, the writer knows the characters inside out and only lets out hints of it, and there are layers of meaning to everything. The kind of story you can do literary analysis on with a straight face. Still the mythical unicorn of fanfiction, though; I don't think I can say this about any story I've read.

I love it when interactions between Harry and Voldemort have more to them than the mindless pursuit of mutual destruction. It's much better when authors take the time to flesh out all the subtleties and complexities of their meeting destinies: fear, fate, anticipation, some sort of morbid curiosity about the other, complexity in their drives and motivations, the genuine bafflement each of them feels about the other's worldview -- all these things are not given enough thought in stories, IMO.

 

Any example? It sounds interesting, I remember reading stories that attempted this, but usually it was unintended crack.

 

Sadly none so far in HP fanfiction, it's just something I know I love to read about. That's what I'm trying to do in my own fic, in fact that's sort of the only sort of ships I like to write (no boring-ass normal functional relationships for me, thanks -- there, Freudian can of worms opened ), but it'll be years before that one sees the light of the day. Chronic case of writer's block.

 

Love to read stories where the magic and magical system is explored in detail, for 'stupefy' and 'expelliarmus' can't be the only spells along with a few others.

A post DH Master of Death Harry done well.

A time-travelling story without Hinny shipping.

 

lolol, because nobody had the balls to admit to fapping to that. They felt guilty so they took their guilt out on the reply button.

Seriously, though.

I prefer the shadier side of Harry but done right. Silens springs to mind with his Harry/Asian chicky.

I struggle to read a fic that has a contrite Harry - it just sucks. I was reading a smutfic yesterday called Testing defenses. I fucking hated it.

So I guess, shit that is the very antithesis of that fic is my bitch.

 

Harry using the Killing Curse, especially if it is in a good fic.

 

Inequality.
I don't mean wealth/income inequality, that's not interesting.

I mean big differences in lifestyle and quality of life based on magical ability. JKR took the first step with wizards using magic for mundane purposes, but you can go much further with that concept. The most extreme example might be Taure's AU story with the best wizards actually being almost immortal.

I just want to see more examples of how to enjoy life more with magic, apart from getting tedious household chores done in a few seconds with a spell.

 

I will read almost any Groundhog Day inspired fic.

 

It's odd how one person's pet pleasure can be another's pet peeve. I hate, hate, hate this, to the point that it's enough to make me stop reading a fic.

Indeed, two of my pet pleasures (which are actually the only ones that come to mind at the moment) are essentially the exact opposite of this. Number one is showing that, while magic is wondrous and powerful, it is also limited and doesn't provide for a significantly better life than a Muggle. Number two is when wizards and Muggles are shown to be on a relatively even level, where one isn't significantly better than the other. Bonus points for actually making the two work together using their unique abilities (magic and science/technology) to do something that either couldn't do alone – this is one of the things I loved about the Stranger trilogy.

In essence, my pet pleasure is equality.

 

One of my biggest "pet pleasures" is when less than 1% of the focus of the story is on muggles. Fuck muggles. If I wanted to read about muggles, I wouldn't be reading a HP story. It's super lame when Harry or some other good guy recruits the muggle military or has conversations with the queen.

 

Related: I hate when Wizards are suddenly helpless against Muggles. Guys with "We shall arrange for the President to forget to call. He will telephone tomorrow night instead. Kindly respond immediately to Mr. Fudge." suddenly unable to deal with small group of people with guns? Sorry, but it makes no sense.

But I love where there is some sort of interaction between both worlds - "The Perils of Innocence", "The Havoc side of the Force" (this one is SW crossover), "Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality", "Turn Me Loose: A Harry Potter Adventure" or "Harry Potter and the Natural 20" (here is also world operating under D&D rules).

 

An understated, sophisticated writing style. There are some authors who like to write in dizzyingly complex sentences just for the sake of doing it. I like there to be some variance and complexity in the prose but not without purpose. Show us you can write well in context, not just that you can string multiple clauses and phrases together into a single "sentence."

A hard M/R rating or above. I like the kid gloves to come off.

New and creative spells. No more stunners, no more ropes; give your characters creative methods for the capture, alive or dead, of their enemies.

Corollary to the two above: subscription to the idea that "war is hell." Meaning, bad things happen to good people and "bad" people. There are things that happen in war which change those experiencing them for better or, more usually, worse.

I've read it referred to as "coming down with a case of the Jberns" (believe I read it in another thread on this site). I like when authors are not afraid to completely and utterly destroy characters in fiction if it is fitting within the context of the plot.

I can probably think of more, but that's all for now.

 

You know? You remind me of Syao's fic, and I had to read it again.

And because DLP's public is never stagnant: Burn, Baby, Burn!

 

The Sorting Hat's system is actually useful to the teachers. Especially Sorting by motivation: Gryffs want praise, Claws want to know, Puffs want friends, Slyths want to win.