What romance ideas do you have that don't conform to common fanfic tropes?

A couple examples:

- Harry/Slytherin girl romance where she tries to play "power games" with him and he just dumps her.

- Fic where Harry develops a huge crush on some super hot amazing girl, only to fail to woo her and settle for her plainer friend.

 

A super hot amazing girl develops a huge crush on Harry, only for Harry to reject her since she has no personality, has an unnatural obsession over weird American/Japanese shit from the future, and is mean to his friends.

 

Harry marries a driven and ambitious feminist and leaves his own job to support her and raise the kids, effectively becoming a stay-at-home dad.

 

^^^ Wouldn't call that 'unconventional', since it represents a good portion of Harmony [H/Hr] endgames.

Luna travels the world in search of the unknown, particularly magical creatures. When she (inevitably) gets into trouble, she is joined by her dedicated lifelong companion Rubeus Hagrid, as he finally can catch up to her when she gets stuck in these sticky wickets. After the rescue and a lovely dinner of the local cuisine, Luna uses a special potion to enable her to 'reward' Hagrid. In the morning, she has disappeared again and the chase is on once more.

 

On this note, I've always wanted to see a Harry/Marietta Fic that blossoms after Harry's failure to either get Cho as a Yule Ball date or after their fifth year debacle.

 

In a moment of desperation/weakness/binge drinking, Harry and [insert girl here] have a wild night of passion. In the morning, they agree to never speak of it again. It never gets brought up again and each happily marries someone else.

 

-Harry/Tonks fic where Tonks has to go undercover and Harry falls hopelessly in love with her undercover personality. When it is revealed, Harry refuses to ever speak to Tonks again over the deception.

-Fleur is impressed that Harry is resistant to her Veela charm and tries to get closer to him however Veela aren't at all attractive without their charm and Harry only wants to be friends.

 

Here you go (almost perfect match)

 

Harry dates various girls with varying degrees of seriousness during his time at Hogwarts, relationships lasting between 1 day/night and 2 years. Even if he eventually does marry one of them, it's only after dating other people from other places post-graduation.

You know, like an actual high schooler.

Edit: Alternatively, Whomping Willow/Anybody (bonus points if the knot that immobilizes it when pressed is involved somehow). I've seen giant squid (regrettably), but the Willow never gets any love. That's unconventional.

 

Harry is only interest in dating a girl for their ass or tits and deliberately ignores the nice girl because she is just above average instead of smoking.

 

When I saw "Unconventional romance ideas" I was imagining something more alternative like Harry/Moving Staircase.

 

Their fifth year debacle was largely because of Marietta. At least, Cho supporting Marietta over the DA was what finally ended things for them. It makes no sense to use that as a starting point for a Harry/Marietta romance.

 

I'd disagree. It stems more from Cho's lack of closure from Cedric's death, her jealousy of Hermione and Harry's own awkwardness.

 

Erotic wrote a smut-ficlet where one of the scenes was Harry/Marietta and she had been pressured into revealing the DA to Umbridge because her mom (I think) worked for/with Fudge. Marietta threw herself into trying to reverse Hermione's curse on her face and they both got locked into the library after hours.

Despite the fact that it was smut and Erotic needs one hell of a beta, I thought it was somewhat plausible (at least, as a starting point for a friendship/relationship). During Harry's sixth year and her NEWT year, all her friends, and her last boyfriend, had dropped her like a bad habit because she had supported Umbridge/shit on the Chosen One. Even Cho had stopped being her friend.

Harry, who knows what it feels like to be shunned by one's peers, decides Hermione shouldn't have permanently cursed someone and tries to convince her to help reverse it. Selflessly, without even wanting Marietta in that way, he gets Hermione to go to her and take it off (or at least start her on the way to it being removed) and, when Marietta grudgingly tells her thank you, Hermione sneers and lets it slip that she never would have willingly removed it. Marietta puts two and two together and realizes it was Harry who was responsible.

(A more unconventional romance would be Harry/Ginny with him seeing Marietta on the sly)

 

I was certainly expecting more "Our Love is Real"-style Hedwig action.

 

The relationship was doomed from the start, yes, but Marietta was the straw that broke the camel's back.

Spoiler

I don't think Harry ever spoke to Cho in the books after that incident. While the relationship probably wouldn't have worked anyway, Marietta was the catalyst for the break-up.

How is that plausible at all? For one, we know that Harry has a strong sense of justice, and he thought Marietta's disfigurement was appropriate punishment for her betrayal. He even took satisfaction from it (see quote above) and ended things with Cho over it.

Also, why the hell would Cho stop being Marietta's friend? She chose to support her over Harry in canon, and remained her friend afterwards. It makes no sense that she would break up with Harry over Marietta and stop being her friend afterwards.

Another thing to remember about Marietta is that she disliked Harry too, so the dislike is entirely mutual:

Spoiler

If you write a Harry/Marietta romance you cannot just handwave these things away and make them OOC to make things more convenient for you. Since those two quotes above are all we know about Marietta (she has no spoken lines, so we don't even have a character voice), you cannot ignore them. I dislike extremely unlikely romances as general rule, but if you're going to do it, at least do it right.

 

I've always wanted to read a story where Harry and Hermione have a long-standing affair that began during the horcrux hunt, and continued for several decades without anyone finding out.

Within the story, Harry would be married to Ginny, and Hermione would be married to Ron. And No Bashing would be involved, Ginny would be a faithful wife who genuinely loves her husband, and Ron would be a faithful husband who, has his flaws, but genuinely loves his wife.

No Bashing -- Abuse -- Marriage Contracts -- Love Potions

And most of all, No "I Love U's"

No, in this story, Harry and Hermione love each other as friends, and nothing more, but they enjoy the sexual relationship they have too much to end it. They explore each other's sexual fantasies, things they don't feel comfortable doing with their respective spouses, maybe a few threesomes, BDSM, etc.

You know, like most affairs are in real life.

 

I've always wanted to write a fic where a jaded, Moodyesque Harry finds out he has a marriage contract and proceeds to fall in love with his intended as they try to do each other more and more harm to each other to escape one of the clauses, and hence the contract. Unfortunately, I don't possess the writing calibre to portray the pure sexual tension that would carry some scenes, not to mention the emotional development Harry would go through as he regains his humanity through repeated attempts murder.

 

You have to completely smash apart the canon characters then, because as the two of them actually are, they wouldn't do that to their partners/spouses, and at that point you're just writing this for the smut, not romance.

 

I said nothing about even including sexual scenes. I would be more interested in a story that dealt with the psychological.

And no, you wouldn't have to "smash" their characters. The affair would begin during the horcrux hunt after Ron left. They were both teenagers who have been traumatized every year since the age of 11/12 and have come near death more than once in those years. They are both trauma victims, and they were most likely going to die. It would make total sense for them to begin a sexual relationship during that time.

And affairs are extremely common -- and having an affair doesn't make someone a bad person. And I've known many people in affairs who, were otherwise, good spouses and parents.