Lens of Sanity's An Old and New World. Very much a crackfic, but highly enjoyable with lots of over-the-top action and comedy.

 

Still going down everyone's recommendations, but holy crap Golden Age is actually pretty good. I mean, its deeply flawed, but interesting, believable (to some extent) and haunting.

 

The story's very first line is Harry with an utterly un-Harry-ish "I want to see some punishment!" Then we have uber match-making Molly, misunderstood and innocent Malfoys and a blatant case of Snape fangirlism (fanboyism?) in which Snape outsmarts both Dumbledore and Voldemort. And, of course, the story ends with Ron diddling someone his daughter's age behind Hermione's back. Why is it always Ron the one doing the diddling and never Hermione?

The Golden Age attempts to subvert canon. It might have done a better job of it had any of the characters actually resembled canon in the first place.

 

It's quite cliche, but I loved how Hermoine began looking up to her biological father. I really expected her to be screwing Percy behind Ron's back, but oh well.

The author is a well known Snape fan, I knew that going in and just ignored that entire arc.

The Malfoys are hardly innocent in this fanfic, just power hungry and not as stupid as the rest of the Wizarding world. It sticks in my craw that they didn't suffer the consequences, but its mostly believable.

Again, its deeply flawed, but so many elements are believable.

 

Not quite a guilty pleasure since the story is quite good I'll but I just happen to enjoy the angst in "A Cadmean Victory" a bit too much - and that's the "guilty pleasure" part of it. Even the title has this sense of poetic justice (or lack thereof)

 

I started with fanfiction on HPFF and was absolutely amazed by all the stories. I thought they were the best stories in the world. I recently went back to my favorite author and realized just how awful the stories are... but I still read them, no matter the cliches and 1st person and present tense writing. I'd be ashamed if anyone read the mediocre stuff I'm reading, so I'm calling that a guilty pleasure.

 

Loads of older stories come to mind. All of Master Eldryn's stuff, ksomm814's Unknown Relations series, some of Rorschach's stuff, Years of Rebellion, etc. I know I shouldn't like them as much as I do but nostalgia.

 

Unsung Hero. Problems, but has a special place in my thoughts.

 

"Unsung Hero" and "Harry Potter and The Elemental´s Power".

 

It's one of my faves because the writing gets quite a bit better as it goes on and it does some really awesome stuff in between the cliches and fluff. Dat backstory bruh. I'm disappointed it's been put on indefinite hiatus.

My guiltiest pleasure is the Elemental series by Raven Dragonclaw. So bad. So good.

 

Harry Potter and the Gift of Memories and its sequels.

 

Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality. It was my third fic and I knew nothing about the author until I finished it. Soooo, how will I be able to shed the "Excrement Extraordinaire" title that will surely be bestowed upon my hide?

 

Deprived by The Crimson Lord, author of Demon Among Devils. It's cringe in dozens of ways, with an animated suit of armor named Hate and a wrong BWL that hits all the worst cliches possible.

Despite all that, I enjoy the author's writing style and endured the plot and characterization in favor of the prose.

 

Any decent WBWL fanfiction, and also a totally insane Harry from time to time. They are all HORRIBLE, but for some reason I can't stop reading them.

 

I have to admit that my guilty pleasures are the stories I dubbed 'The TriWizard will set you free'. I mean the fanfics like Banking on Her, Knowledge is Power, Can't Have It Both Ways etc.

 

Anything from Nuhuh and "The Lesser Sadness" by Newcomb.

 

Probably the stories by Miranda Flairgold, the Second Chance at Life series. So many clichés, vampires, grammar mistakes, typos, no good characterization and static characters...but some of those ideas and world building were just so damn cool.

 

How are those guilty pleasures? Guilty pleasures are things you enjoy despite their objectively bad qualities when you normally know better or hold works to higher standard.

There's nothing to feel guilty for in enjoying either Nuhuh or Newcomb's work.

 

I feel guilty for reading those fics when I should be out doing something productive with myself.

To give you something along the lines your looking for:

Reading the books fics. "Discovering the legend by Rosedragonwitch"