So true Harry's own god damn mom is paired with him which is kinda of disgusting. And not my cup of tea.

 

Sorrows, I've recced this before and I'll rec it again, because I think it's tragic that this fic is so underappreciated:

The Universe is a Great and Beautiful Thing by attica

One of the greatest surprises in life is finding out how you're going to die, and the fact that nobody can ever spoil it for you. COMPLETE. DHr.

Link: https://m.fanfiction.net/s/4820712/1/The-Universe-is-a-Great-and-Beautiful-Thing

It's a beautifully written, cutting story. Attica...doesn't hold back when she goes for your heart. Post-Hogwarts.

Upon brief review: thoughts of suicide TW

 

For me, as long as the pairing is portrayed realistically within the confines of the story I don't have any particular preference. I find that I'm okay with any pairing so long as it follows reasonably from the premise and context of the story whether or not it's canon compliant or AU and I think that this is probably the case for most readers unless you have a particular guilty pleasure. Although I will agree that some pairings can be distasteful where there are large age gaps such as borderline pedophilia and/or incestuous relationships but that kind of content can be readily avoided.

 

Honestly, I can hardly remember the point in my life where I still cared about shit like pairings. I'm fairly sure it happened, but it feels like something that happened to someone else. At this point, I don't really care so long as the 'romance' is either a background element that doesn't distract from the story or is both well written and as important a part of the story as something like that merits. The people in it? Couldn't care much less, provided the author isn't butchering one of the few characters with an actual characterization for the sake of shipping. There are like five girls in the appropriate age range with enough lines to approach having a 'canon' personality, everyone else is either a cardboard cutout or nothing but a name; if someone wants to completely make up their own character but isn't secure enough to use an OC, they can go with Daphne Greengrass or Lisa Turpin or Sally-Anne Perks or one of the other tabula rasas.

EDIT: Also, the level of anger this post seems to have aroused - especially in regards to, say, Harry/Lily, Harry/Tonks, and Harry/Narcissa - on the first page or two is kind of hilarious, if only because of how much it says about the site's changing demographics. Sometimes it seems like this place hasn't changed at all, then stuff like this happens and it really shows how much of a difference seven years can make.

 

I have never cared about couples from Harry Potter. Ron & Hermoine were terrible to each other and everything indicates that Ron never grow up and never stopped to have issues with his self-esteem. However, I think Harry&Ginny is even worse. At least Ron & Hermione fans may choose to ignore Rowling’s interviews and the Cursed Child and believe that Ron did change. Harry&Ginny fans don’t have this luxury. This couple was so poorly-written in the books that I don’t see how it can be defended. Romance that consists of barely few scenes between characters and those few scenes are easily forgettable. We are basically just told they are apparently perfect for each other instead of being shown and in spite of Rowling’s late attempt to develop Ginny, she still doesn’t feel like a fully-fledged character at the end of the series. However, it was a mediocre attempt, so it is not surprising that at the end Ginny still feels more like a reward given to Harry than anything else.

 

I dunno why I missed this bit before:

I fully agree with all of this.

She's definitely a terrible, shitty person. Only interested in Harry because he's the Chosen One, she's willing to steal his free will to basically rape him.

All valid points.

But I still like Harry/Romilda.

In fanfiction, we can simply have a different turn of events thanks to which the love potion situation is avoided.

So she's into Harry because he's a famous hero, very good at Quidditch and Defense Against the Dark Arts, and possibly because he's rich. But why not have Harry just go along with it in fanfics?

After all, not all relationships in stories (or in real life) need to be based on actual love. Harry could be into her because of her looks, that's certainly a possibility.

Would that make Harry OOC? Definitely! But we're talking fanfiction here, perhaps this Harry has a different personality.

And we all know about Harry "Handling it" in Whatever Happened To Bromance.

What I'm saying is, in order for a pairing to work the two people don't need to actually love each other or be good people. All they need is to be interesting in a story.

 

I like Harry/Gryffindor chaser X (preferrably not Dean). Katie is my personal favorite because I thought she was cute when I first saw the movies, but any of the chasers Harry ends up playing with could really work in a story, because he actually spends time with them, as opposed to every other girl at Hogwarts apart from Hermione (Parvati/Lavender? Nah).

It's so easy to imagine young Harry having a crush on one of the cool older girls he plays with, and later on Harry could actually get to know Ginny or Demelza rather than just thinking someone's hot (Cho/Fleur). Of course, I'll read and enjoy anything as long as it's written halfway decent.

Does anyone have recs for Harry/chaser? Preferably not Harry/all the chasers? Only Drizzlewizzle's series comes to mind for Harry/Katie, and that was really more Harry/Ginny all along...

 

This thread is probably gonna get locked soon so I'll contribute my own two cents before that happens.

The only romances that have any basis in canon are Harry/Ginny, Harry/Cho and arguably Harry/Hermione.

I'm partial to the lastone myself but that's probably because I'm a big Percy Jackson fan and there are more than a few similarities between Harry/Hermione and Percy/Annabeth.

 

I'd argue that Harry/Luna has a lot of basis in canon as well. What with the Slug Club Party, and how he acts towards her in book 7.

And lol I forgot how many people loved Percy/Annabeth in the PJO fandom.

 

Yeah, there was some solid chemistry between the two and she was technically his date for the Slug Club party, even if they were both very clear that it was a strictly as friends thing.

Also, can't leave out Harry/Cho, seeing as they actually were a couple at one point.

 

I mean, Harry definitely treated it as a "strictly as friends" thing, but you could make an argument that perhaps Luna didn't see it that way. I mean, it's hard to tell what she's really thinking.

It's a shame because I think that Harry would've really given the relationship a try if peer pressure wasn't a thing.

Also, Agent didn't leave out Harry/Cho.

 

Agent might not have left out Harry/Cho, but my brain did when I read his post.

 

Will always be Harry /Hermione. Might be because of the way they were shown to interact in the movies buy I always firmly believed that they were supposed to end up together.

 

Harry/Fleur for me. I know it has almost no evidence for it in canon, but rowling is a) one of the worst romance writers I've ever seen and b) it's fanon. =D

 

Harry/Daphne; Harry/Fleur

But I guess it's mostly how the author makes the pairing work. You can come up with justifications and criticisms of all the pairings. The canon was never heavy on romance and that allows the fanfic authors to do as they please with pairings.

Harry/Ginny from the point of view of the canon actually works after the characters mature a little bit. I didn't like the way how JKR didn't let it develope but romance was never the focus of the books.

 

My favourite pairing is propably Harry/Hermione but mostly I like to read general stories without pairings.

 

Soo, Harry/anything basically?

 

Any pairing is interesting if the author is competent

 

I think that there is potential for Harry/Luna. Both at times are ostracized by their peers and I think that they could have chemistry if done correctly.