Uhh the twins bowing down to Harry or any of the Marauders, namely Sirius or Remus when they find out who they are and chanting 'We are not worthy!'. I saw it soooo many times...

 

I enjoy fics in which Harry travels through time back to his early Hogwarts years and gets a chance to relive them, but more often than not it seems that authors don't realize just what an impact this would have on him. Along with the physical issue of getting used to a body he hasn't had for years, he's going to have a hell of a difficult time adjusting to suddenly being a kid again.

Harry isn't going to be reliving events effortlessly. If he's trying to keep things relatively the same at first (such as making the same friends), it seems more likely than not he'll be constantly struggling to remember just how these events went the first time around-- which compartment on the Hogwarts Express was the one he met Ron on? What is he supposed to know already and what hasn't he learned yet? Just when and where did various chance encounters occur, and will he be able to be in the right place and the right time again?

On the other hand, there are also the fics where Harry changes too much too quickly and behaves in a manner completely unbelievable for an eleven year old. I've read a few fics that realistically showed Harry's struggle to act his supposed age, veering too young and too old in various situations, but too many others just have him as a mini adult and everyone else just attributing it to precociousness.

EDIT:

This reminds me of a fic I read once in which eight year old Harry receives training from a random Japanese martial arts master who just happens to live near Privet Drive. By the time he's nine or so he's apparently so good the 'master' can't teach him anything else, and he gives him a tattoo of a dragon or something similar as a symbol of his power.

It's been a while since I read it, but the rest of the fic was filled with similar gems.

 

I didn't mind the names in the first ten or so story's that I saw them in, it mainly bothers me when the author is writing a serious and important conversation and one of them pops up. That being said, they are no where near as annoying as the names used instead of Dumbledore and Voldemort. You don't need me to type them out, you know the ones I mean.

 

Pet Peeve: Remus Lupin being treated as an absolute bastard because he didn't check up on Harry.

Now, in my opinion, he had good reason for not checking up on Harry. He had, presumably, been told by Dumbledore that Harry was safe with Petunia, Lily's sister and I doubt that he had any reason to disbelieve that. I mean, he was James' friend, not Lily's, how was he to know of the acrimony between them?

There's also the fact that, if you read between the lines in canon, he had basically been cut off from James and Lily before their deaths because they suspected that he was passing information to Voldemort. If that's the case he may not even have known Harry that well. Lets not forget that he also just 21 and poor and discriminated against. He probably had bigger problems, like trying to feed himself, than checking up on a baby that he might not have known who Albus Dumbledore said was safe.

 

Why do so many stories pair Harry/Luna with a third member? Luna is damn good enough on her own, and even with her eccentricities, I doubt she's okay with someone else fucking her man.

Also, in the vein of Alive and Free's post, Harry telling Snape he hates his father because "he dislikes bullies" or some shit.

Harry, like most children, has an idyllic view of his parents. More so, because they're dead. I refuse to believe after seeing Snape bullied once he's going to arbitrarily change his mind and go "Gee, I fucking hate my Dad. He's such a dick."

 

To be fair, that's almost canon. He did start to doubt what everyone had said about his parents after he saw the memory of his father bullying Snape. He had to go and talk to Sirius and Remus before he would believe that his father hadn't forced his mother to marry him.

 

I just detest extremes. I can understand Harry become disillusioned with his Dad, like he did in canon, but not going to Snape and saying he's sorry for what his father did.

 

I'm just saying, it's wouldn't require an extreme change to make that believable. Have Snape be a bit less antagonistic towards Harry and take away Sirius to reassure Harry that his father was good.

 

I'd be fine with that, except the shit I'm talking about is from when I went on a binge of Snape mentor fics because I hate myself.

Plot boiled down to, 90% of the time:

"Potter your father was an idiot."

"ER MAH GERD SNAPE MY DAD IS TERRIBLEEEEE"

"We are now friends. Magic friends."

 

the fricking hell why fuck people stubbornly tries to shorten Hermione's name.

Are they fucking 6 years olds who can't say the full name or what?

Hermi my ass. Idiots.

 

'Mione is a great nickname, I always welcome that in a story. I went through seven books trying to convince myself that Harry and Ron don't feel awkward when they call Hermione by her full name. It'd be like Jonathans who don't fucking go by Jon, or Benjamins who don't go by Ben. Such people are usually lame.

Shit, I just realized even her name is awkward. Her name itself contributes to her characterization.

 

Given that a nickname is meant to be short and said quickly, 'Mione is something of a failure, as it still has more syllables than most peoples' whole names.

 

I don't understand why people think Hermione is such an awkward name in the first place. Why is so unbelievable that Harry and Ron could simply call her Hermione?

Maybe I just don't get the whole nicknames thing. I had a friend by the name of Elizabeth that everyone else called Liz. But I always used her full name. Never felt awkward to me...

 

It did to everyone else.

 

You called everyone Liz?

 

Only the women he takes home.


On topic, fics with toddlers/small children in them as a central focus. People either don't understand the level of vocabularly such people should have, or overdo it completely.

 

I'll only tolerate the use of 'Mione' in three specific situations:

• the Harry/Ron/Hermione dynamic has been drastically altered
  
• it's used as Ron's post-canon pet-name for his wife
  
• Mr/Mrs Granger are talking to Hermione directly

 

Newest Pet Peeve. . . .

Why is it that in every Harry vs. Voldemort story I've read lately, Harry has to

1. Be hit by the Killing Curse.

2. Then wake up in King's Cross Station (or a Quidditch Pitch).

3. Meet his parents there, who tell him how proud they are of him, and oh, that they are so happy that he's with ______ (with James making some kind of gesture or comment that gets him slapped playfully by his wife).

4. An explanation also ensures about the lump of flesh lying close by

5. He wakes up and rejoins the battle, becoming the hero.

Seriously, if you can't think of a different way to get rid of the Horcrux, then at the very least, create a different scene.

EDIT: 6. Somewhere after the scene, the clause, "The boy who lived, again," shows up.

 

...

Because most people on FFn lack originality?

 

Because the terrible secret of fanfiction is that most authors only want to change canon because A) their pairings are different and B) it wasn't romance-focused enough. So you get DH with James nodding approvingly at Harry's pick, which is really all the author ever wanted different.